faith for faith

Our Bible study last night on Romans 9, as always, generated a lot of good discussion in our group, the chief of which centered on our attempts to grasp with faith the justice of God in Romans 9:19-24. We admitted that when we look at this passage from our lowly position it confounds us terribly, and it breaks down all the bounds of our finite understanding. In our moments of wickedness, we find that we are tempted to turn the spotlight on God so that he might answer to us for his works and his notions of fairness and justice.

Yet, we find no relief for our curiosity in this passage concerning this topic, nor do we find it elsewhere in Scripture. Instead we are given an answer that pierces the very core of our Rebellion, “Who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will that which is made say to its Maker, why have you made me thus?” The designed effects of these questions of the apostle are obvious—to humble us and to silence us. Yet, we cannot be silent. The moment we hear these words penned by the apostle, we are frustrated, and we are frustrated to our own demise.

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As we have discussed earlier, there are many who do not care for the content of these passages and therefore stamp “Israel Only” across its pages and skip ahead to the more palatable Romans 12, excepting some verses that they enjoy in Romans 10. We have already seen the folly of this in our study on God’s dealings with the Pharaoh, a Gentile, and have concluded that, despite the ridiculous objections of some, this passage is a declaration of God’s dealings with men universally (cf. Rom. 9:16).

But if Paul’s illustration utilizing the Pharaoh was not enough to convince us of the universality of this text, the apostle makes this point crystal clear at the end of his most difficult passage concerning the sovereignty of God, viz. vv. 9:19-23, writing, “What if God [did these things] … to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?” (vv. 9:22-24). Paul demonstrates in these verses that not only are the Gentiles included in his election, but that God had deemed it that some Gentiles, just like some Jews, would be vessels of mercy and some would be vessels of wrath beforehand, i.e. before the foundation of the world (cf. Eph. 1:4).

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Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory? (Romans 9:21-23).

Before we begin, we must realize that it is only once we have laid ourselves out before the Creator in proper humility that we can begin to grasp the weight and purpose of this text. Yet, some who would understand this text come to it arrogantly and, instead of making themselves students, place themselves in the seat of the Judge and walk away declaring, “It cannot be; I will not accept it.” Others (with whom I must admit my former association), come to this text and leave it arrogantly, having comprehended the truths therein that others have refused and use it as a propagation for their own “superior” understanding. Then there are the holy ones, who by the power of the Holy Spirit understand the truths of this text and cry out, “Lord, thou art the Potter; I am but an earthen vessel manipulated by thine hand.” It is only by these that the truths of this text have been properly understood.

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You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? (Romans 9:19-21)

You have heard it said, “There is no such thing as a stupid question,” and that may well be true insofar as our human relationships go, but when we as humans come to God the Creator with our questions, we must have a different approach and do so by understanding who we are and who God is.

Our chief problem as a race is our original problem—we desire to ascend and place ourselves where God is, and we desire to make God as ourselves. Eve saw that the fruit was good to eat, but it was not till the serpent hissed, “You will be like God,” that she took she took the fruit and ate it. We have not deviated from this course since our first parents charted it, and as Voltaire rightly said, “God made man in his image, and man has ever since returned him the favor.”

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I have told our Bible study a number of times in the past couple of weeks that my preferred method of going through Romans 9 would have been to cover the entire chapter in one session. However, since our group does not typically have eight good hours left in them on a Friday night, we have had to break the chapter down into its natural paragraphs. This method, in retrospect, has proven quite helpful, because studying each individual section has helped to highlight the progression of the apostle’s argument.

In our first study on vv. 9:6-13, the apostle focused on God’s sovereign choice of and through whom the Promise would be fulfilled. This paragraph by its nature focused on Abraham and his immediate descendents and how God defied all human laws of primogeniture and chose Isaac and Jacob in order that his purpose of election might be demonstrated (v. 9:11). The section also included the quotation from Malachi 1, which read, “Jacob I have loved, and Esau I have hated.” We saw that this hate in its original context was not merely temporal, but it was eternal, for the prophet writes, “[Edom] may build, but I will tear down; and men will call them the wicked territory, and the people toward whom the Lord is indignant forever.”

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The wife and I were bad and attended two Sunday School classes yesterday, one of which was a newly formed, newlywed / no children as of yet class and the other was the young adult class that we had been attending for some time. In the first class, we went over the text in 1 Thessalonians 4 concerning the Return of Christ, and it brought out some good discussion, the best of which I believe was our admitting that we, at least sometimes, do not find ourselves eagerly awaiting the return of Christ. We confessed that we sometimes find ourselves clinging to our earthly treasures, desires, and plans and that we want the Lord “to hold off” for just a few more decades while we experience these good things.

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My blog here at blog.xpistou.com is fairly young, and I find it somewhat funny that my blog writing days were resurrected while our Friday Night Bible Study group was going through Romans 8 and is presently in Romans 9. I have since been fairly committed to writing on what I have been teaching through in Bible study, and I can imagine that there are some readers who do not know me (maybe even some who do) who are saying, “There is another one of those Calvinists who cannot get their heads out of Romans 9.” This is certainly not true of me and my writings, but I do not feel the need to convince anyone otherwise at this point.

That said, we had an excellent discussion last night in our Bible study on Romans 9:14-18. Of the ten or so people that we had, we found that we were pretty much of one accord with regards to the doctrine of this text, and we briefly discussed how we each arrived to such conclusions in different ways. What we found is, though we came to our present commonality at different times, that most of us came to our present convictions in a similar progression. I would think that this progression is similar in most who have come to the same conclusions about God’s sovereignty over the destiny of souls.

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We have, for the most part, up to this point viewed what some might call the positive aspects of Romans 9:14-18, i.e. the sovereign mercy of God. We have, with the apostle, looked as God’s declaration to Moses: “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,” and we have concluded with him that the mercy and salvation of God does not depend on the wills of men or on their works, but it depends solely on God who gives mercy. No man can commend himself to God on his deeds and his inclinations to worship the supernatural, for apart from God’s willing and sovereign intervention there is no right worship. For the prophet declares, “We all like sheep have gone astray; we all have turned, every one to his own way” (Is. 53:6).

It is with this knowledge that we come to our present text concerning the Pharaoh of the Exodus. Paul writes:

For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills (Romans 9:17, 18).

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Paul’s interpretation of God’s declaration to Moses: “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy,” is possibly one of the most direct statements on a controversial topic in all of Scripture. He writes, “So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy” (v. 9:16). Another version translates the text this way: “So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy” (NASB).

Before we come to any conclusions concerning this statement by the apostle, it would be beneficial for us to understand the context in which it is spoken. We have just finished studying God’s sovereign will over the selection of the Israel’s forefathers according to the Promise, which we have concluded from its context and from the fulfillment of the Promise in Christ that the apostle is speaking of the Eternal & Spiritual Israel, i.e. the children of God, not the physical Israel and its physical, covenant promises (cf. v. 9:8). The mercy of God of which the Apostle speaks is therefore not a mercy that affords physical prosperity for a particular nation and ethnic group but it is mercy unto eternal blessing.

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In our study on God’s dealings with the children of Abraham and his sovereignty over them, we primarily addressed the lineage of the Promise. We looked at how God chose Isaac over the firstborn Ishmael to be the bearer of the Promise and how God chose Jacob over the firstborn Esau, before either of them were born and had done nothing good or evil, to demonstrate his purpose of election (cf. Rom. 9:11). We saw also that God’s choice brought with it eternal blessing to one and eternal ruin to the other (cf. Mal. 1:2, etc., Rom. 9:13).

It is at this point that many interpreters of Romans 9 who do not like the doctrine of Divine Election point out that vv. 1-13 have dealt solely with God and the people of Israel. In spite of Paul’s design in using the examples of Isaac and Jacob to explain God’s Purpose in Election and thereby explain why God has not broken his promise to Israel though they were not believing in Jesus Christ and are therefore condemned, many interpreters see, “God’s dealing with Israel” stamped over the text and skip ahead to Romans 12. They argue, “This text does not deal with the Church, so let us move on.”

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