ISRAEL’S PLACE IN GOD’S PLAN OF REDEMPTION PART 2A – GOD’S PERSON DOES NOT CHANGE BECAUSE OF ISRAEL’S UNBELIEF (Romans 9:14-24)
As we begin our third message in Romans 9 in which Paul is explaining for us Israel’s place in God’s plan of redemption, he has been showing us in this chapter that Israel’s unbelief is consistent with God’s plan. This morning we will see that her unbelief does not change God’s person, nor does it belittle or bring down God’s person in any way, particularly His sovereignty and justice. Paul responds to two questions that he knows will be asked by his readers, these two questions are often asked about God’s election of some for salvation but not all. I know that there are differing views on this doctrine of election and as we go through this passage this morning and look at Paul’s responses to these two questions I will seek to explain to you what I understand and believe about this controversial doctrine that has been debated for many years. Again I must remind you as we get into this passage that God is sovereign and has infinite wisdom and knowledge and we cannot with our finite minds ever hope in this life to fully understand God’s wisdom and knowledge and because of this at all times we must allow God to be God as He is revealed to us in the Scriptures and in the person of Jesus Christ. Let’s pray and then read our passage for this morning.
SCRIPTURE:
Turn in your Bibles to Romans 9:14-24, our passage for this morning. Please follow along as I read the passage aloud.
Romans 9:14-24,
“What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! For He says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.’ So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, ‘For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.’ So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires. You will say to me then, ‘Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?’ On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, ‘Why did you make me like this,’ will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles.” (Romans 9:14–24, NASB95)[1]
Paul opens this passage with the question that he knows will be asked and when we boil this question down it is a question that is asking if God is unfair in choosing some to be heirs of promise and not others. Let’s be truthful, this seems in our minds to be unfair, and some will come right out and say that God is being unfair. Remember that Paul had just told his readers in the previous verses before this passage that God had sovereignly chosen Isaac over Ishmael and He had sovereignly chosen Jacob over his twin brother Esau and this was done before Isaac was born and before the twins were born. They were not chosen based on who they were or who they would be, nor were they chosen based on what they had done or would do. Verse 11 of this chapter tells us that they were chosen, “…so that God’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls,” (Romans 9:11b, NASB95)[2] In other words, God’s choice was solely based on His sovereign will. He sovereignly chose Isaac and Jacob to be the children of promise, Ishmael and Esau were not. In this same way, when we speak of spiritual salvation, God has chosen by His sovereign will some to believe.
Paul knew this would bring about the question he poses in verse 14, he knew that the justice of God would be brought into question, how can God be just when He seemingly at random choses one over the other before either has the opportunity to trust or reject Him or to obey or disobey? So, Paul in this first verse is asking if we have the right to question God’s justice. As I said earlier this is a question that has been raised throughout the history of the church whenever the doctrine of God’s election and predestination comes up. As humans, especially those who live in a democratic society and consider all people as equal before the law, this idea that God would choose some, but not others, rubs us the wrong way, this cannot truly be the way of God because it shows that He is not truly just and righteous, doesn’t it?
Paul immediately answers this question of there being injustice with God with a very emphatic no, defending God’s person. Paul has used this Greek negative before in this letter and before the end of Romans he will have used it ten times. It is the strongest negative in the Greek language and is translated “May it never be!” or as in the KJV, “God forbid!” Paul is saying that God is perfectly righteous and just and to say otherwise is blasphemy. God’s standard of righteousness and justice is Himself and because of this He has no room for unrighteousness or injustice. The very character of God is revealed in His grace, His compassion, His mercy, and His love and all of these point to the fact that He is righteous and just. God Himself affirms that He is perfectly righteous and just, listen to the words of God through the pen of the prophet Jeremiah in Jeremiah 9:23-24, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,’ declares the Lord.” (Jeremiah 9:23–24, NASB95)[3] The Lord delights in being righteous and just.
WHAT DOES SCRIPTURE SAY?
Paul will now turn to the Scriptures to respond to this accusation that God’s sovereign election is unjust or unfair. Turning his Jewish readers back to the Old Testament and to their own history, he uses God’s Word to illustrate God’s sovereign right to elect and that it in no way demeans or throws into question God’s person or character.
Paul uses Exodus 33:19 as his first illustration, he writes, “For He says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.’” (Romans 9:15, NASB95)[4] Paul’s Jewish readers would have understood the history surrounding this verse. Moses had just come through an exceedingly difficult time. He had been on the mountain with God receiving the two tablets of the law and while there the people of Israel grew impatient waiting for his return and they committed a grievous sin by melting down their gold jewelry and fashioning the gold into an idol in the shape of a calf and they began worshipping it. The result of this sin was that 3000 of them were killed and Moses interceded with God that He would not kill them all. God spared the people and sent Moses to again lead them and God would continue to guide and protect them which was a reflection of His mercy and grace. He has every right to condemn and destroy or to save as He sees fit. This verse was spoken in assurance to Moses as God passed all of His goodness past Moses proclaiming His name and that He will have mercy on whom He has mercy and He will have compassion on whom He has compassion. This is God’s sovereign right and because we all are sinful and deserve God’s condemnation and judgment, no person is being treated unjustly or unfairly if he is condemned by God. That is the justice that we each deserve, God’s mercy towards any person is purely by His grace. Paul goes on to clarify that salvation is not based on a man’s will, man does not choose God, nor does it depend on man’s pursuit of God, man will not pursue God of his own initiative, but it is God who initiates His mercy for the sinner. Salvation is never initiated by human choice or merited by human effort, it always begins in God’s sovereign will initiated by the act of mercy received completely and only by His grace. Ishmael desired the blessing, but did not receive it, Esau pursued the blessing, but did not receive it. Why? Because of God’s sovereign choice He extended His mercy to Isaac and Jacob and they affirmed that mercy by faith.
Paul goes on to give another illustration, again from the Old Testament, again a period of history that Paul’s Jewish readers would be familiar with. Paul uses Exodus 9:16 as his example, Paul writes, “For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, ‘For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.’” (Romans 9:17, NASB95)[5] This was the Pharaoh during the time of the Jews exodus from Egypt, this is the Pharaoh who experienced the plagues because of His refusal to let the children of Israel go. This man was an absolute monarch, a self-proclaimed god among his people, a man who when Moses came the first time and asked for the release of the children of Israel, he said, “Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice?” Here was a man who assumed that everything he said and did was by his own free choice to serve his own human purposes. But the Lord through His servant Moses made clear that God had raised up this Pharaoh to serve God’s own purpose, a purpose for which this Pharaoh was not even aware. God’s purpose in raising up this Pharaoh at this time was so that God could demonstrate His own great power in Pharaoh by bring all the plagues on this Pharaoh and bringing a mighty deliverance of His people, so that God’s name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth. This Pharaoh thought he had great power as possibly one of the greatest rulers on the earth at that time, but he was put into that position of authority so that God could demonstrate His far greater power and authority that would bring Him glory in all the earth.
This statement was made to Pharaoh at the end of the sixth plague, his nation was already reeling from God’s great power demonstrated on his nation. Just four plagues remained that would bring Egypt to her knees. The seventh plague of hail destroyed the agriculture of the land, the eighth plague of locust destroyed anything that was left and then the ninth plague of darkness covered the land and each time when the plague was lifted Pharaoh would refuse to let the people go. Finally, the tenth and final plague which demonstrated God’s redemptive power, a plague that is commemorated every year by Jews from that time to the present day, the Passover is remembering the Lord’s deliverance from the oppressive hand of Pharaoh. This feast which commemorates the physical deliverance or the redemption of Israel from human bondage; foreshadowed the even greater spiritual deliverance of men from sin’s spiritual bondage, accomplished by the greater Passover lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Lord used Pharaoh’s own pride and arrogance to demonstrate that His power was far greater than any miracles that Pharaoh’s magicians could conjure up by Satan’s power. They admitted early on that the plagues were brought about by the finger of God. In a miracle of great deliverance the Lord then made a path through the Red Sea to safely deliver His people to the other side and then made that same sea come crashing down on Pharaoh and his army utterly destroying every one of them. In Exodus 15:1-18 the Israelites sing a song of praise celebrating God’s gracious and powerful deliverance. As the Lord said, this demonstration of power, this great deliverance would cause His name to be proclaimed throughout the whole earth. He became known across the known world as the awesome and fearsome God who delivered Israel from Egypt. Just one example of that is the testimony of Rahab when the spies came to her home in Jericho just before Israel crossed the Jordan and began the conquest of the land. She said to the spies in Joshua 2:9-11, “I know that the Lord has given you the land, and that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land have melted away before you. For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. When we heard it, our hearts melted and no courage remained in any man any longer because of you; for the Lord your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath.” (Joshua 2:9–11, NASB95)[6]
Paul goes on to explain that God has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires. Only God’s desire which is bound up in His infinite knowledge and wisdom determines which it will be.
Understand that Moses was a Jew and Pharaoh was a Gentile, but both of them were sinners. Both were murderers and both had witnessed God’s miracles with vastly different responses. Even though they were both sinners, Moses was redeemed, Pharaoh was not. The Lord had raised up Pharaoh for a purpose, to reveal His own power and glory, but God had mercy on Moses for the purpose of using him to deliver the children of Israel. Moses received God’s mercy and compassion because that was God’s will for him. Pharaoh did not because God had a different purpose for him, because the Lord is sovereign, what He does is His sovereign right and He acts entirely according to His own will to accomplish His own purposes. The point that Paul is making is that the issue is not the rights of either men, both deserved condemnation, the issue is the sovereign will of God.
The word translated “hardens” is a word that literally means to make hard. It was used in Greek figuratively to refer to making stubborn or obstinate. Ten times in the Exodus narrative it is stated that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart and several times it says that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. Understand that this hardening does not mean that God actively created some unbelief or some other evil in Pharaoh’s heart, the unbelief and evil were already there because Pharaoh was a sinner like everyone else. What it means is that God withdrew all His divine influences that ordinarily acts as a restraint to sin and God withdrew these and allowed Pharaoh’s wicked, sinful heart to pursue its sin without restraint. God in withdrawing His influence hardened Pharaoh’s heart, but Pharaoh chose to follow and pursue his sin and unbelief. Pharaoh is responsible for his own unbelief and sin, just as every sinner is responsible for his own sin and unbelief unless he has received mercy and God has forgiven him through his faith in Jesus Christ.
Jesus while on this earth made it clear that God always chooses men, women, and children before they choose Him. In John 6:44 Jesus speaking to a group of unbelieving Israelites said, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.” (John 6:44, NASB95)[7] Jesus told His disciples in John 15:16, “You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.” (John 15:16, NASB95)[8] But He also showed them that they are responsible for their own sin and unbelief, Jesus told another group of unbelievers in John 8:24, “Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.” (John 8:24, NASB95)[9] In the conversation that Jesus had with Nicodemus who had come to see Him one night, Jesus said in John 3:18, “He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” (John 3:18, NASB95)[10] Because of our natural and willing unbelief, God is just in condemning those who already deserve it. This is the tension that exists between the sovereign will of God and man’s will. We will never, on this side of heaven, be able to reconcile this tension, but by faith we can praise God that in His justice He does not condemn us all to hell but that He will have mercy on whom He has mercy and He will have compassion on whom He has compassion.
CONCLUSION:
I am going to stop here this morning. We will pick this up again next week and finish this passage and look at the second anticipated question that Paul will respond to. This morning we looked at the question, “There is no injustice with God, is there?” (Romans 9:14b, NASB95)[11] This question asked after Paul in the previous passage had spoken of Isaac and Jacob being chosen to be the children of the promise and Ishmael and Esau not chosen. The question asks if God is unfair. The answer is absolutely not because God is perfectly righteous and just, but we must understand that He is absolutely sovereign as well and His electing some and not others does not make Him unfair, but it makes Him God. So, the unbelief of some Jews does not change God’s person because He chose some to believe and the rest He left in their unbelief. All people, Jews or Gentiles, are sinners from birth, Paul had already declared this truth in Romans 3:23 when he wrote, “…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” (Romans 3:23, NASB95)[12] He said the same thing to the Ephesians in Ephesians 2:1-3, “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.” (Ephesians 2:1–3, NASB95)[13] Because we are all sinners, dead in our trespasses and sins, children of wrath, we are condemned already, if we want God to be fair or just, then we would all die in our sins and go into the eternal punishment of the second death, the lake of fire, forever separated from God and all that is good. But as Paul pointed out that God is merciful, and He has mercy on whom He has mercy and He has compassion on whom He has compassion. God in His sovereignty and His mercy chooses some from among all the unbelievers to receive His grace and forgiveness and to be brought into His family by faith in Jesus Christ, to be redeemed by the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the purpose is for His glory. Paul continued in Ephesians 2:4-7 speaking of God’s mercy, we were dead in our sin, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,” (Ephesians 2:4–6, NASB95)[14]
As believers we can rejoice that we are those to whom God has poured out His mercy and compassion on. If you are listening this morning and you have never in faith turned to Jesus Christ, you can experience the mercy and compassion of God this morning by agreeing with Him that you are a sinner in need of salvation and you believe that Jesus Christ purchased your salvation through His death on the cross, through His burial, and through His resurrection. Believing this you are saved; your sins are forgiven and you are now a child of God for all eternity.
[1]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[2]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[3]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[4]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[5]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[6]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[7]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[8]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[9]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[10]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[11]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[12]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[13]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[14]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.