Romans 9:30 - Meaning and Application

The apostle now gives the real reason why the Gentiles were received and the Jews were rejected. The difference was in the way they sought, and that explains the different result, though it was still God’s free grace that made the difference. He closes like a skilled speaker: What shall we say then? What is the outcome of the whole matter?

About the Gentiles, notice first how far they had been from righteousness. They did not pursue it, because they did not know their guilt and misery, and so they had no real concern to find a cure. In their conversion, God’s preparing grace was greatly shown. God was found by those who were not looking for him (Isaiah 65:1). There was nothing in them that made them fit for such mercy, except what free grace itself worked in them. In this way, God delights to give grace as he chooses, in his own wisdom and authority.

Notice also how they received righteousness anyway, and that was by faith. They did not get it by becoming Jews and taking on the ceremonial law. They got it by receiving Christ, believing in Christ, and submitting to the gospel. They reached what the Jews had long tried in vain to find, and they reached it through the simple way of sincere trust in Christ.

About the Jews, notice first how they missed their goal. They pursued the law of righteousness (Romans 9:31). They spoke much about being right with God and being holy. They seemed eager to be God’s people and the special ones of heaven. Yet they did not reach it. That is, the great majority did not. Those who clung to their old Jewish ideas and ceremonies, and kept chasing peace with God through those practices, held on to shadows after the reality had come. They were not accepted by God, were not counted as his people, and did not go home justified, that is, declared right with God.

Notice also how they took the wrong path, and that is why they missed the goal (Romans 9:32, Romans 9:33). They did seek, but not in the right way, not in the humble way, and not in the way God had appointed. They did not seek by faith, meaning by receiving Christ, trusting his merit, and submitting to the gospel. They sought by the works of the law, as if people could be made right with God by keeping the commands and ceremonies of Moses’ law.

This was the stumbling stone over which they fell. They could not let go of the false idea they had accepted, that the law was given only so that they could be justified before God by obeying it. Because of that, they could not accept Christ’s teaching, which turned them away from that path and taught them to look for justification through another’s merit and sacrifice. Christ himself is, for some, a stone that makes them stumble, as Isaiah said (Isaiah 8:14; Isaiah 28:16). It is sorrowful that Christ should be set for anyone’s fall, and yet it is so (Luke 2:34). It is sad that poison should be drawn from the balm of Gilead, or that the cornerstone should become a stone of stumbling, and the rock of salvation a rock of offense.

That was true of many unbelieving Jews, who rejected him because he ended the ceremonial law. Yet there is still a remnant, a small remaining group, who do believe in him, and they will not be put to shame. Their hope of being made right with God through him will not fail, unlike the hope of those who look for it through the law. So, in the end, the unbelieving Jews have no reason to blame God for rejecting them. They were clearly offered righteousness, life, and salvation on gospel terms, but they did not like those terms and would not accept them. If they perish, they must blame themselves, for their blood is on their own heads.