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Romans Part 9: Choice or Chosen?
In chapter 8 of Romans, we saw that though we have struggles in this life, the Lord will walk with us as we walk with Him. Nothing can separate us from Him against our wills and wrench us from his grasp. Now as we move into chapter 9, Paul picks up on the notion that our works can somehow save us and uses his nation, Israel, as an example of how this isn't so.
First, Paul expresses his heart for his "kinsmen":
I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple service and the promises, whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen. (Romans 9:1-5, NASB)
Paul demonstrates his heart as a heart for Christ and a heart after Christ's own; that he would take damnation for them if (it were possible) so that they could be saved. Through this heart, the Lord expresses His love for man: Paul is echoing Christ's desire that none would perish and that all would come to repentance. But the Lord uses this to segue way into the reason why they are not saved:
But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel; nor are they all children because they are Abraham’s descendants, but: “THROUGH ISAAC YOUR DESCENDANTS WILL BE NAMED.” That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants. For this is the word of promise: “AT THIS TIME I WILL COME, AND SARAH SHALL HAVE A SON.” And not only this, but there was Rebekah also, when she had conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac; for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls, it was said to her, “THE OLDER WILL SERVE THE YOUNGER.” Just as it is written, “JACOB I LOVED, BUT ESAU I HATED.” (Romans 9:6-13, NASB, emphasis mine)
This would make it seem like the Lord is choosing arbitrarily who will be saved; but we need to read on:
"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." (Romans 9:14-17, NASB ,emphasis mine)
It is too easy to place the emphasis on "it is God who wills, and read it as "it's up to God to decide who will be saved", but that is not the case at all here. What scripture is telling us in this is that it is because the Lord wanted to show mercy, and not because Israel (or any other group or individual) merited salvation. But then we hit this verse:
"So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires." (Romans 9:18, NASB)
Many point and say "AHA!! That PROVES that God picks people to be saved and damned!!!" But then we read this passage:
"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 9:19-24, NASB, emphasis mine)
If God simply chose whom would be saved and damned, why would he "endure with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction"? Why would the Lord hold off on His wrath and making His power known if they were to simply be damned without any choice in the matter? The answer that follows tells us that He did so to make his riches known amongst the "vessels of mercy which He prepared beforehand for glory".
What does this mean?
First, let's deal with Pharaoh, as mentioned in the preceding passage: God decides who reigns over what nations, and scripture tells us that He raises up and throws down kings and rulers:
"For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities-- all things have been created through Him and for Him." (Colossians 1:16, NASB)
Since Pharaoh's heart was already hard against God and His people (he kept them in captivity and despised them, so that in itself is evidence), the Lord simply used Pharaoh's hardheartedness. All his life, Pharaoh was hardhearted and the Lord allowed Him to come to the Throne so that hardheartedness would come to its' full expression. Pharaoh was the ultimate expression of "a god on earth" and since this "god's" heart was so hard, the TRUE God would demonstrate His power against this so-called "god".
Now as to verse 19: man does NOT deserve mercy. Not one bit. What man deserves is the flames of hell for his arrogance, insolence, and outright wicked rebellion. And when we read this verse, we read that God hardens whom he wants to harden. But we have to ask: what would make God want to harden someone?
We forget God is righteous and sovereign, and we forget what "righteous and sovereign" means.
Righteous means one is justified in their actions and morally correct, and sovereign means able to act on one's own without question. But these two things cannot be made mutually exclusive in God; they MUST work in unison. If the Lord chooses to harden someone, it is for a reason and that reason MUST be in accordance with what God has already said.
And the Lord has said:
"But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:9, NASB, emphasis mine)
Now, if the Lord was not willing that any should perish and that all should come to repentance, how could that be true if God simply chose whom to harden and thereby ****? That would construct a contradiction in the Lord would make Him out as a liar, and that would give Satan a victory as he could then rightfully claim that God was NOT the truth, as stated in John 14:6:
"Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me" (John 14:6, NASB, emphasis mine)
The answer is here, in Romans chapter 1:
"Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error." (Romans 1:19-27, NASB, emphasis mine)
The Lord hardens by giving an individual over to what they have already chosen: for Pharaoh, God simply continued what Pharaoh started in himself. And in that manner, the Lord does harden whom He wishes to harden; but what we see here is that God seeks to harden those whom have already decided not to follow Him. We reel in horror at the phrase "harden whom he desires" without considering WHY the Lord would desire that, or why He would do so!!! The answer is in what God has said already, and is consistent with His character:
"Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes stubble And dry grass collapses into the flame, So their root will become like rot and their blossom blow away as dust; For they have rejected the law of the LORD of hosts And despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. On this account the anger of the LORD has burned against His people, And He has stretched out His hand against them and struck them down. And the mountains quaked, and their corpses lay like refuse in the middle of the streets. For all this His anger is not spent, But His hand is still stretched out." (Isaiah 5:24-25, NASB, emphasis mine)
Here, scripture clearly states that man has chosen to reject the Lord, therefore the Lord rejected him. In this case, it was God's own people; now, if man had no choice in his salvation, then once god chose Israel, Israel would have been saved no matter what they did! But instead, the lord would take a remnant for Himself:
As He says also in Hosea, “I WILL CALL THOSE WHO WERE NOT MY PEOPLE, ‘MY PEOPLE,’ AND HER WHO WAS NOT BELOVED, ‘BELOVED.’” AND IT SHALL BE THAT IN THE PLACE WHERE IT WAS SAID TO THEM, ‘YOU ARE NOT MY PEOPLE,’ THERE THEY SHALL BE CALLED SONS OF THE LIVING GOD.” Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, “THOUGH THE NUMBER OF THE SONS OF ISRAEL BE LIKE THE SAND OF THE SEA, IT IS THE REMNANT THAT WILL BE SAVED; FOR THE LORD WILL EXECUTE HIS WORD ON THE EARTH, THOROUGHLY AND QUICKLY.” And just as Isaiah foretold, “UNLESS THE LORD OF SABAOTH HAD LEFT TO US A POSTERITY, WE WOULD HAVE BECOME LIKE SODOM, AND WOULD HAVE RESEMBLED GOMORRAH.” (Romans 9:28-29, NASB)
He would draw for Himself a people from not just the Jews, but from the Gentiles as well. And once again, the Lord affirms that it is not by merit, but by grace that he saves:
"What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith; but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone, just as it is written, “BEHOLD, I LAY IN ZION A STONE OF STUMBLING AND A ROCK OF OFFENSE, AND HE WHO BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED.” (Romans 9:30-33, NASB, emphasis mine)
And the Lord here sums up the whole point of this chapter: it is not by works that a man can be saved, but by the grace of the Lord God. But this chapter is often mistakenly pointed to as proof that God alone chooses who will be saved, and that considering the character of God and what His word has already said, that cannot be correct. God did not save mankind for man's sake, but for God's own sake; we don't deserve salvation, but he died so that we may have it. And for the Lord to arbitrarily pick and choose whom would be saved and whom would not would deny the Lord of what is rightfully His...
...the creation made in His own image.
Jesus Christ is eternally worthy, eternally deserving and eternally righteous. As such, He deserves under each of those qualities all of Mankind, but the Lord instead permits free will by allowing rebellious man to be damned if he does not want to repent.
On that note, this needs to be said: to simply **** or save a person on anything other than whether they choose to take his gift not only goes against scripture, but goes against the nature God has demonstrated in scripture as well as makes pointless the instructions He has given to Christians on how to live. Many fear that if God doesn't ordain that we are saved, then it would be up to us to cling to the Lord and we would be lost because no human in their own power can cling to the Lord. But we would do best to keep one thing in mind: no one single sin that a person can commit damns them; it is SIN itself that is the reason we go to hell. The "blasphemy of the Holy Spirit" represents the whole sin nature and one's refusal to turn from it, and is the utter rejection of the Lord and the Gospel. God is NOT waiting to kick us out of salvation on a whim; if we mess up, He is not going to revoke our salvation up until we rush to Him. But if we keep walking away, we are demonstrating that we are not serious about it.
When we continue in Part 10 of the Romans study, we'll examine how faith in the Lord's death and resurrection brings salvation.
I bid you all peace.
YBIC,
-Robert
Originally Posted by Chris
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