ROMANS 9:1-5 * August 15, 1999 * Pentecost 12 * Prof. Mark Braun, WLC

I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit— 2 I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, 4 the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. 5 Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen. - Romans 9:1-5, The New International Version, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House) 1984.

You fill in the blank: "One of the ways people's thinking has really changed is __________.
Wow! If there are 150 of you here, you probably have at least 151 answers.
How about this? "One of the ways people's thinking has really changed is that they no longer believe in hell."

Listen:

Oh, some people keep the old values. Evangelist Jimmy Swaggert started making news when he brought hell back. "We teach that the fire of hell is literal and the human soul and spirit cannot be burned up. Even when the body is reunited with the soul and spirit in the second resurrection of damnation, the body itself cannot be destroyed. Pain and punishment are literal, real, and eternal." . . .

One of the great events in modern Roman Catholic history is the decline of purgatory and hell. A senior generation of readers can recall how their Catholic friends were obedient because they feared years in the moderate and cleansing flames of purgatory. Fear of hell kept them from eating meat on Friday or breaking church rules. . . . [But now] Catholics joined other Christian not in repealing doctrines of eternal damnation but by ceasing to make much of them. They were shocked to hear what their parents were taught and, so far as we can tell, believed. Yet fudging occurred already before Vatican II. A Catholic Digest poll in 1952 found that 42 percent of the American public, including Catholics, did not believe in hell. . . . "Hell is a place reserved for others, criminals like Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin." [Here, today, I suppose, some would add Jeffrey Dahmer.] . . .

What about Lutherans? Data are hard to come by. The surveys tend to show them blending into the general population. While many of them believe there is some sort of hell, they do not believe it is a threat for them. . . . The passing of hell from modern consciousness . . . is one of the major if still undocumented modern trends" [Martin E. Marty, "Whatever Happened to Hell?" The Lutheran 24:7 (April 2, 1986), 14-17].

I'm not here this morning to describe in gruesome detail what hell is like. That's another sermon. The best reason we have for believing there is a hell is that Jesus clearly believed and taught us that. You and I confess we believe that too. Do we really? I don't just mean, Do we agree, intellectually, interpretationally, theologically, there's a hell? Do we act on it? Do we live as if it's true? Do you think about people you've known and cared for, who gave every evidence during their lives that they did not believe in Jesus, and now they've died– do you ever think about them being in hell right now? If you do, how does that make you feel?

Jesus clearly believed it, and so did Paul, and this second lesson this morning shows us that the thought of unbelievers– his own friends and countrymen and maybe members of his own family– broke his heart. This is a question we must ask ourselves:


HOW MUCH DO UNBELIEVERS BREAK YOUR HEART?


I. Think of everything God's done for them.

II. Is there anything you'd give up for them?



I

By the time Paul wrote this letter to the Romans he'd spent almost a dozen years bringing the good news about Jesus to non-Jews. It had probably been more than 20 years since Jesus called him on the road to Damascus, and said: "This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings" (Acts 9:15). Jesus also said, "I will show him how much he must suffer for my name" (Acts 9:16)– and much of what he suffered came from his own countrymen. His typical procedure was to bring this good news to the synagogue, first to the Jews, and only after they would reject it and would stir up trouble for him and his companions would he say, "Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles" (Acts 13:48).

What Paul could not have known when he wrote this letter, but what we know because we live on the other side of history, is that shortly after he wrote this letter he went to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover, where he was arrested– by fellow Jews– and spent four long years arrested because his countrymen thought he was giving away their faith too freely to Gentiles– to people like us.

Clarence Darrow, the lawyer, said once, "I never wished anyone dead, but there have been several obituaries I've read with great pleasure." We could understand, if we could not excuse Paul, after all the grief his fellow Jews cost him, if he had might have looked back over this decade of near total rejection by the very same sorts of folks he used to be one of, shrugged a shoulder and said, "Well, let them to go hell. They asked for it!"

We don't hear Paul talking that way. Clearly this had been a terribly painful, personal question for him during these years. Now, in this most complete, most organized, most thoughtful presentation of Christian teaching, his letter to the Romans, Paul laid bare his soul: his fellow countrymen were unbelievers; they were going to hell; and it was breaking his heart: I speak the truth in Christ-- I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit-- I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.

What a great tragedy that is, that will be, because think of everything God's done for them. He goes through a list: they are the people of Israel: Since Jacob had wrestled with the LORD, and the LORD called him Israel, that name marked them as special recipients of God's grace. Theirs is the adoption as sons: A product of God's action, not their own. Theirs the divine glory: What other nation had seen the blazing glory of God, leading them through the wilderness in cloud and fire? The covenants: to Abraham, to David, at Sinai, "I will be your God and you will be My People." The receiving of the law: not simply commands from God, commandments, but the complete revealing of His will, Torah. The temple worship and the promises: theirs was not a self-chosen worship, but was designed by God, and the worship itself pictured God's promises to them. The patriarchs: not just that they had a body of stories about their heroes from the distant past, but that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, carried in their bodies the seed of the Messiah. From them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all: the seed finally became flesh in Christ, God-and-man in one.

We could compose a similar list of the things God has done for us, by paging through this letter: Nno one will be declared righteous in [God's] sight by observing the law. . . . Another righteousness . . . from God . . . through faith in Christ Jesus. . . . Not only to those who are of the law but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham. . . . Just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many were made righteousness. . . . We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death. . . . There is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

II

Maybe it's too hard for us to visualize this in the abstract. A week or so ago on Nightline I watched a report from India about a train crash– two trains were on the same track, ran into each other– but showed the terrible crowding, people hanging onto the trains, huddled together on the roofs of the cars under a blazing sun. But the agonizing question the newsmen were asking was: "A news story involving the shooting deaths of schoolchildren in Littleton, Colorado, loomed so much larger and lingered so much longer. . . When two trains collided head-on the other day killing hundreds of people . . . it got very little attention here . . . because the trains collided a few hundred miles from Calcutta and to the best of our knowledge there were no Americans on board" ["Death Toll Rising," Nightline transcript, August 3, 1999].

Maybe Josef Stalin was right: "The death of one person is a tragedy; the death of a million people is a statistic." And maybe it's hard for us to visualize millions from a very different culture, thousands of miles away. So can we personalize this? Is there someone you know, someone you work with, someone you care about? When you think of everything God's done for them, ask yourself, Is there anything you would give up for them so they would believe what you do?

Paul had thought about that: I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race. If it would work that way, he'd have been willing to go to hell so his countrymen could go to heaven. I don't know if I would say something like that; I'm not sure we should. Paul's going to hell, or my going to hell, isn't going to save anybody else, no matter how much he or you or I might want it or wish it so. Paul knew that. Paul knew his death could save no one. Paul knew There is one God, and one mediator, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all [people] (1 Timothy 2:6).

But the point here is what Paul was willing to give up. We know what he would have given up because we know what he did give up. He talked about it: I have worked harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day on the open sea. I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from the Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. I have labored and toiled and often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn? (2 Corinthians 11:16-31)

People broke Paul's heart– believers when they endangered what the Holy Spirit had given them, unbelievers for everything they stood to lose. Would you or I ever say what Paul said? I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers"? What might we say that's more useful? What might we give that would in fact make a difference?

Listen to a Lutheran Witness article, which began about the same place we did.


"Do we really believe in hell?" If we do:
bulletWe will do all we can to spread the saving Gospel of Christ into a world that so critically needs Him;
bulletWe will pray more for the billions who are perishing in their sins.
bulletWe will intensify our witnessing to friends, relatives, neighbors, and others that salvation for time and eternity can only be found in Jesus Christ (Acts 4:12);
bulletWe will make missions and evangelism high priorities in our personal and congregational life;
bulletWe will prayerfully support the cause of world missions with our offerings so that missionaries can go and preach the Gospel to every creature (Mark 16:15); and,
bulletWe will more seriously take to heart and daily live the Great Commission of our Lord: "Go and make disciples of all nations" (Matt. 28:19). . . .
bulletOut of love for our Savior and for our fellow human beings, let every one of us consecrate himself anew to proclaim to the world that there is forgiveness in Christ. Let us all rededicate ourselves to both the responsibility and privilege that God has placed on all Christians: to go and tell all people the story of Jesus and His love [Andrews Simcak, Jr., "Do We Really Believe in Hell?" Lutheran Witness (April 1992), 6-7].

That's as well as it can be said. Because, if there really is a hell, what else can we do?

Amen.