SERIES: The Book of Romans
Let God Be God!
Introduction: Romans, chapter 9, is the graveyard of many a well-intentioned Bible scholar and pastor. There are verses in this chapter which are among the most difficult in the Bible. Christians have choked on them for centuries, and otherwise capable expositors have performed interpretive abortions on them in a vain attempt to get them to say something other than what they say.
In all honesty, I don’t think Romans 9 is all that difficult for those who are willing to “Let God Be God.” If you want God to be a glorified human being or a celestial Santa Claus or a finite Father, then Romans 9 will surely stick in your throat. But if you are willing to let Him be what the Scriptures claim that He is from start to finish—infinite, eternal, unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth—then Romans 9 teaches exactly what you’d expect.
Our passage today is perhaps the key passage in the Bible on the subject of predestination and election. While those doctrines are red flags to a lot of professing Christians, they don’t need to be. In fact, I’m not going to even use those terms much today—I’m going to substitute a simple English word that means the same thing but doesn’t carry nearly so much baggage—it’s the word “choose.” When theologians say God “elects” individuals or “predestines” them, it is simply saying that God chooses them before they choose Him.
Now let me offer you a little quiz with just one question: “At what point did your salvation begin?” If you have a pen, I’d really like for you to write the answer on your sermon outline: “At what point did your salvation begin?” Pause. Now I rather suspect some of you have probably answered that question by saying, “My salvation began on February 2, 1969 when I put my faith in Jesus Christ.” If that was your answer, then you need this sermon.
Others may have said, “My salvation began 2,000 years ago when the Son of God died on Calvary.” That answer is better, but you still need this sermon. A few may have written, “I’m not sure I even have salvation.” If that’s what you wrote, I’m not sure how much this sermon will help you, but I’d love to have the opportunity to share the plan of salvation with you personally after the service.
But I hope at least someone wrote, “My salvation began in eternity past when God in His sovereign decree chose me in Christ before the foundation of the world and in love predestined me to adoption through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will.” That’s essentially what Ephesians 1 says, and if that was your answer, or something like it, you probably don’t need this sermon. But I invite you to stay anyway, because a reminder of what you already know never hurts.
Of course, there’s a sense in which the first two answers are OK. The conversion aspect of your salvation did begin when you trusted Christ, and the basis of your salvation was established 2,000 years ago on Calvary. But when one thinks of the plan of salvation as a whole, it began for you when God chose you in eternity past. How else is it possible to explain a verse like Acts 13:48? Turn to that passage with me because if you don’t actually see this verse, some of you are going to think I made it up.
Let’s start reading in verse 46, where Paul and Barnabas are speaking to some antagonistic Jews in Pisidian Antioch:
Then Paul and Barnabas answered them boldly: “We had to speak the word of God to you first. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles. For this is what the Lord has commanded us: ‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’” (Now here’s the key verse I want you to focus on.): When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honored the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed.
Now if your salvation was initiated by you when you received Christ, then what does that last sentence mean: “and all who were appointed for eternal life believed”? There’s no way I know to water it down so that it says something else. In fact, the KJV reads “ordained to eternal life.” F.F. Bruce translates it, “all who had been enrolled for eternal life in the records of heaven, believed.” This verse is in your Bible and you have to do something with it.
Of course, if you believe that God initiated your salvation by His merciful and loving choice before the foundation of the world, then Acts 13:48 is no problem. Nor is Romans 9. Well, I guess I’ve got your attention now, so let’s read our Scripture text for today, Romans 9:6-26:
It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. {7} Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children. On the contrary, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” {8} In other words, it is not the natural children who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring. {9} For this was how the promise was stated: “At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son.”
{10} Not only that, but Rebekah’s children had one and the same father, our father Isaac. {11} Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: {12} not by works but by him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” {13} Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
{14} What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! {15} For he
says to Moses,
“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
{16} It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. {17} For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” {18} Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
{19} One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?” {20} But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?'” {21} Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?
{22} What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? {23} What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— {24} even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? {25} As he says in Hosea:
“I will call them ‘my people’ who are not my people;
and I will call her ‘my loved one’ who is not my loved one,”
{26} and,
“It will happen that in the very place where it was said to them,
‘You are not my people,’
they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’”
The principle of divine choice is introduced.
One more comment by way of introduction. Some of you are not going to like this sermon. In fact, some of you may even get downright angry this morning. Before you do, I make two appeals. First, consider this sermon within the context of ten years of preaching. For over a decade I have preached the Word to you week in and week out. I have never intentionally misled you, and 98% of the time I point your nose into the Word so that you can see that what I am preaching are not my ideas but God’s truth. Today, too, I simply ask you to look at the Word. If it isn’t saying what I say it’s saying, then you follow it, not me. But if it is saying what I say it’s saying, even if you don’t like what it’s saying, take it up with God.
The second appeal I make to you is to come back next Sunday. If you cannot, then please get a copy of next week’s sermon on tape, because these two messages stand or fall together. Next week in chapter 10 Paul will be focusing our attention on the responsibility of man in salvation. But today it is all God. Both are needed for balance, but I simply don’t have time to do both on one Sunday.
To understand today’s text we need a bit of review concerning last week’s message. We noted that chapters 9-11 are a sort of parenthesis in the book of Romans (although certainly not an extraneous one), in which the Apostle Paul takes up “the Jewish problem.” That problem, simply stated, is this: how can believers be secure in God’s love (as was strongly claimed in chapter 8), if the very chosen people of God, the Jews, have seen their promised blessings taken away and given to the Gentiles instead? There must be something wrong with the promises of God. Furthermore, our security as believers must, therefore, be suspect! Right? Wrong. Verse 6: “It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.”
The real problem, Paul says, is our failure to understand that God has always operated on a principle of selectivity. God never promised or guaranteed that the people He chose nationally would all become His children spiritually. There were some racial Jews who weren’t spiritual Jews, and there were some sons of Abraham who weren’t sons of God. And why was that? Because some did not believe? Yes, because of that, and they have no one to blame but themselves. But one can also go back beyond that reason to a more ultimate reason in the sovereign choices of God. And that’s what Paul does here.
It’s time for some illustrations, says Paul.
The principle of divine choice is illustrated. (7-13)
Isaac is chosen over Ishmael. (7-9) I’m sure most of you are familiar with the fact that Abraham had two sons—Ishmael and Isaac. Ishmael was a child of the flesh in the sense that he was the product of Sarah’s carnal effort to help God out. See, God had made a promise that Sarah would have a son. But it didn’t happen within Sarah’s allotted timetable, so she gave her handmaid to her husband and the handmaid bore a son. Thirteen years later, of course, Sarah herself had a son, a son of Promise, a supernatural son, and God said, “Through Isaac, not through Ishmael, your descendants will be named.” God made the choice.
“Well,” you say, “I can understand why God made that choice: Isaac was the only legitimate son of Abraham and Sarah.” “OK,” says Paul, “let me give you another illustration of God’s divine choosing.”
Jacob is chosen over Esau. (10-13) Look at verse 10:
Not only that, but Rebekah’s children had one and the same father, our father Isaac. Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
Now here we have two sons both with the same mother and same father; in fact, they are twins. God also made a choice between them, namely that “the older of the twins would serve the younger.” But this choice was made not after the fact, but rather before the sons were even born; i.e., before they had done anything good or bad. And God’s choice was contrary to human choice in that the culture of that day required that the older son be given priority. And why did God choose Jacob over Esau? To prove that His purposes stand, not because of human works but because of God’s choices. What more effective illustration could possibly be conceived to prove that no one can earn his salvation, nor even initiate it? Salvation is of the Lord.
Now verse 13 could have been left out of the Bible and it wouldn’t have hurt my feelings, but it wasn’t, so let’s look at it. The prophet Malachi is quoted here, “Jacob I loved but Esau I hated.” Wow! Some of you are probably saying, “I’ve accepted everything so far, but I just can’t accept that God would hate someone, especially before they were even born.” Well, I have a hard time with it too. I suggest that part of the problem is that we use the word “hate” almost exclusively as an active emotion. It means to despise, abhor, loathe, and treat with contempt. But in the Bible the word “hate” sometimes refers to a passive withholding of special affection. A perfect example is found in Luke 14:26: “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.”
Christ isn’t really asking us to hate our families but to love Him more than we love them, to withhold affection from them which rightly belongs to Him. I don’t believe God hated Esau in the normal sense of that term; He did, however, love Jacob more. It’s not entirely unlike your love for your child as opposed to your attitude toward your neighbor’s child. You don’t hate your neighbor’s kid (at least not normally), but your love for your own child is so much greater that it may seem that you are apathetic at best toward your neighbor’s child.
But even recognizing the true meaning of the word “hate” here doesn’t totally solve our problem. We still want to ask, “Why did God love Jacob more than Esau?” Frankly, I’m not sure the question can be answered satisfactorily, but I would say that we too readily choke on God’s hating of Esau. What we really ought to choke on is God’s love of Jacob. Why in the world would God choose a scheming, conniving, lying cheat like Jacob to love?
And while we’re asking hard questions, we might ask another one—why did He choose me and love me? Why did He send His son to die for me while I was a sinner and His enemy? Frankly, the age-old problem of why the heathen are lost pales into insignificance when compared to the question of why any are saved? There’s plenty of reason for God to hate every one of us, and really no reason at all I can think of as to why He should love any of us, choose any of us, or save any of us. Yet He chose us freely, just because.
Some of you are probably still saying to yourselves, “But it just doesn’t seem fair. God has given us free choice and He ought not to interfere with that choice in any way.” Do you know what you’re really asking for when you ask God not to interfere? You’re asking that all people be condemned to Hell, yourself included, for the Scripture has already told us here in Romans that there is none righteous, not even one, there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God.
If you believe in total depravity as taught in Romans 3, you must believe in divine choice as taught in Romans 9, or none would be saved. So much for the doctrine of divine choice introduced and illustrated. Beginning in verse 14 and continuing through verse 29 we find the doctrine defended.
The principle of divine choice is defended. (14-29)
Paul entertains two major objections to divine choice. One charge is directed at God—it claims that divine choice makes Him unjust. The other concerns people—it claims that divine choice negates the freedom and responsibility of the individual. First Paul defends …
Against the charge that God is unjust. “What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all!” No way! What a ghastly thought! Well, if there’s no injustice on the part of God, why does divine choice seem so unfair? To answer that Paul starts with another principle:
God acts in accord with His sovereign will. (15) This principle comes in the form of a quotation from Ex. 33:19: “For God says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.’” In the context of Ex. 33 Moses is demanding of God various proofs and evidence of His presence. He even asks to see God face to face. God declines to grant that impossible privilege, but He does use the occasion as an opportunity to teach Moses about His sovereignty. In effect the message is that God does what He wants, and He doesn’t bother to ask for our opinion about it. He is a sovereign God.
Paul next offers us an inference from this principle:
God’s choices are irrespective of human desires or efforts. (16) Verse 16: “It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.” What is the antecedent of “it?” Clearly, it seems to me, “it” refers to the subject of this entire paragraph, namely God’s act of choosing, but ultimately “it” actually refers to salvation. Neither divine choice nor salvation itself depends on the one who desires or the one who puts forth great effort, but on God who has mercy. In other words, no one ever got to Heaven on his own. NEVER. The only way any person ever received eternal life is that God reached out to him first. And isn’t that what Jesus said in John 6:44: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him”?
God’s choices extend even to those who oppose Him. (17) What God decides to do with men is up to His sovereign good pleasure, and that applies to believers and unbelievers alike. Take Pharaoh, for example. Just before the 7th great plague God told him (verse 17), “I raised you up for this very purpose that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” God is not limited in the exercise of His sovereignty to believers only. He is in absolute control, period. This is Paul’s conclusion to this first objection: “Therefore, God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.”
Wow! Paul hasn’t softened his doctrine one whit in the face of this challenge to God’s fairness! If anything, he’s made it even stronger. Here we find God not just loving Esau less, but actively hardening the heart of Pharaoh. Paul doesn’t even feel compelled to point out what Exodus 8 & 9 tells us three times—that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. That fact seems to help us keep things balanced, but Paul is so convinced of God’s sovereign right to choose that to him it’s almost irrelevant what Pharaoh did.
In essence Paul’s answer to this first objection is this: how can you question the justice of a sovereign God? By definition He does what He wants and what He wants is right. Then a second challenge is raised in verses 19-29:
The principle of divine choice is defended against the charge that it negates the freedom and responsibility of man. (19-29) In a real sense the entire 10th chapter of Romans is the Apostle’s response to this particular objection, as he goes to great lengths there to show that man is a responsible moral agent. But here in chapter 9 Paul is intent upon one thing—letting God be God! Here’s how the charge is levied: (verse 19): “One of you will say to me: ‘Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?’” In other words, how can God blame us for anything since He’s in charge of everything? If I don’t believe, I can’t help it because I’m not one of the elect! Ever heard anyone say that? I have.
Will you notice that Paul doesn’t attempt a reasoned response to this challenge, for he senses in the objector more of an attitude problem than an intellectual problem.
The objection is ruled out of order. (20,21) Look at verse 20, as I read again from Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase, The Message: “Who in the world do you think you are to second-guess God? Do you for one moment suppose any of us knows enough to call God into question? Clay doesn’t talk back to the fingers that mold it, saying, ‘Why did you shape me like this?’ Isn’t it obvious that a potter has a perfect right to shape one lump of clay into a vase for holding flowers and another into a pot for cooking beans?” The real question raised here is this: Is God the Creator and are we His creatures? If you answer “yes” to both questions, then there can be no legitimate challenge to Him. He has unquestionable rights to His sovereignty.
But there’s something about that response that grates against us. It’s kind of like when a child persistently asks his father a “why” question and the father responds, “Never mind, just do what you’re told!” When that happens, we get the idea that the real problem is that the father doesn’t havean answer, so he appeals to his authority instead, and we don’t like it. But we must resist the tendency to see Romans 9:20 in that light. The child and the father differ in knowledge only in degree. Mankind and God differ in knowledge also in kind. Our knowledge is partial, finite, and subjective. His is total, infinite, and objective. Thus it is perfectly permissible and appropriate for God to challenge our credentials when we attempt to challenge His sovereignty. Nor is this the first time in Scripture when God responds in this fashion. Revisit Job 38, for example, or Isaiah 40, and you will find even stronger denunciations of man’s tendency to challenge God.
Having ruled the objection out of order, however, Paul doesn’t just leave us hanging—he tells us that God exercises His absolute sovereignty with grace and mercy. If that doesn’t eliminate the problem with human freedom and responsibility, it at least softens it. If we’re dealing with an absolutely sovereign God, at least He’s a benevolent despot, not a tyrant!
God exercises His sovereignty with grace and mercy. (22-24) I want to read verses 22-24 from the new Contemporary English Version, which hasn’t even been published yet but will be soon. I think it grasps Paul’s intent here well:
God wanted to show his anger and reveal his power against everyone who deserved to be destroyed. But instead, he patiently put up with them. He did this by showing how glorious he is when he has mercy on the people he has chosen to share in his glory. Whether Jews or Gentiles, we are those chosen ones.
In other words, God is in the saving business, not in the condemning business. He is more interested in demonstrating His glory than in demonstrating His wrath. He delights Himself more in His mercy than in His power. Then follow, in verses 25-29, four quotations from the Old Testament, in which the same theme is sounded, namely that it is because of God’s grace and mercy that any are saved, and those He has saved are not saved because they belong to a certain race or class, but simply because God chose them and loved them.
So the bottom line is that we can trust our God with sovereignty. If He were any other kind of God, sovereignty, or absolute authority, would be dangerous. But a God who is characterized by grace and mercy can be trusted even with election and predestination.
Concluding insights:
Divine choice (or election) doesn’t call into question God’s justice; rather it demonstrates His mercy. Let us never demand justice from God. I don’t want anything to do with the justice of God. If all of us received justice, every one of us would be condemned for all eternity. The fact that some are not condemned is of no credit to them but is due solely to the fact that God reached out to them in mercy, grace, and love.
If I had a million dollars and decided that I would give $50,000 each to ten people just because I wanted to, would there be any basis at all for someone who didn’t get $50,000 to accuse me of injustice? Of course not. I didn’t owe the money to anyone. That I gave any of it away at all was a matter of my own choice. The only thing I could legitimately be accused of is selective mercy, and God apparently doesn’t mind being accused of that.
Now had I given money only to good-looking white males with college degrees, I still couldn’t be accused of injustice, though my goodness might be questioned. But God hasn’t limited His mercy to any group, not even to the group He called as His chosen nation. He has shown mercy to some of every tribe, tongue, people, nation, class, age level, and gender. Divine choice doesn’t call into question God’s justice; rather it demonstrates His mercy.
Divine Choice is beautifully balanced with the fact of human responsibility. If someone said to me today, “I didn’t like your sermon because I don’t think it tells the whole story,” I would respond, “I absolutely agree.” But I’m not trying to preach the whole counsel of God in one sermon. I’m preaching Romans 9. Next week in Romans 10 we will find words like this: “Whoevercalls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.” And I’ll preach that as every bit as true.
This balance between God’s sovereignty in salvation and man’s responsibility to believe can be seen all through Scripture. Charles Spurgeon was once asked, “How do you reconcile the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man?” He responded, “I never try. Why reconcile friends?” Paul saw no contradiction between Rom. 9 & 10. He accepted the fact that God makes sovereign choices, without which no man could be saved. And he believed that whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. Period.
Let me appeal once more to Charles H. Spurgeon, the Prince of Preachers:
Well now, I believe the doctrine of election. I thank God I do. It is a precious doctrine, and let me tell you, dear friend, that the doctrine of election shuts nobody out, though it shuts a great many in. “But I cannot come and trust Christ.” How do you know? God says you can, and He tells you you must; in fact, He says, “He that believes not is condemned already, because he has not believed,” thus making it a sin not to believe. So you really have such a right to believe that it becomes even your duty. Whatever the doctrine of election may be, or may be meant to be, we will not talk of that just at present, for it is quite certain that it cannot contradict any plain practical teaching of Scripture. Here is a plain text, which no one can deny: “Whoever believes in Jesus is not condemned.” If, then you believe on Him, you will not perish, election or no election. But let me tell you, if you believe in Christ you are one of His elect, and it is because He chose you that you come to believe in Him.[i]
The wise person will do as A. W. Tozer advised when it comes to election and predestination—he will “leave room for mystery.” But through that mystery it is at least possible to see that divine choice is beautifully balanced with human freedom and responsibility.
Divine choice is a “background” doctrine and was never intended to “control” our ministries. Now what do I mean by that? Simply this, God has revealed to us that divine choice is a fact, but He has not revealed to us who the chosen ones are. Therefore, election cannot be used to determine to whom I witness or whether or not I pray for someone. Election has no right to override any of the plain commands of Scripture, like “pray without ceasing,” “go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature,” or “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.”
There’s another way in which this doctrine can unfortunately control a ministry and that is by becoming a hobbyhorse. The doctrine of election is important, but people don’t need to hear it every week, as seems to happen in some churches. A good rule of thumb is to mention it whenever the Scripture does as one is working his way through the Scriptures. We shouldn’t avoid it, but we shouldn’t exploit it either by overemphasis.
About a year ago I shared my concept of skeletal doctrines, and it’s probably worth mentioning again. Some truths are like skeletons. A skeleton is very important; if you didn’t have one you’d be in pretty bad shape. But you don’t constantly show a skeleton off. In fact, skeletons are generally used in only two ways: to scare people on Halloween or to train doctors. The rest of the time we’re generally satisfied to keep them in the background. The doctrines of election and predestination scare a lot of people. They need to be studied by the doctors of theology, but it’s sufficient for most people just to know they are there. I’ve told you today that they are there, and I’ve tried to explain why, but we will not make a hobbyhorse out of them.
What, then, is the fundamental value of knowing and believing in divine election?
Election undermines self-sufficiency and elicits praise. When a person finally comes to the point of understanding that he would never be saved if it were not for the fact that God chose him, loved him, wooed him, convicted him, and finally saved him when he believed, then for the first time he really understands that salvation is of the Lord, and he can take no credit for it at all. That, in turn, causes him to praise God all the more for His salvation.
Wonderful grace of Jesus,
Greater than all my sin.
How shall my tongue describe it?
Where shall its praise begin?
There may be someone here today who has never trusted Christ. Your concern should not be, “Have I been chosen?”, but rather, “Have I believed?” It is a terrible and eternally unforgivable sin to turn your back on the one who died to forgive your sins.
DATE: May 28, 1995
Tags:
Election
Sovereignty
Responsibility
Grace
Mercy
Justice
[i] Charles Haddon Spurgeon, from Spurgeon’s Sermons, Vol. 13, 153-154, quoted by John R. Rice, Predestined to Hell? NO!, 89, words slightly altered.