Christian’s, by and large, get election wrong. The reason why there is so much anger and frustration vented towards election, is that we have failed to grasp the true state in which we exist and what is entailed in God’s grace towards us.
I do not mean this article to be a detailed exposition on Romans 9, but rather a practical application of the teaching found therein. I have found the themes of Romans 9 immensely helpful in pursuing the call to preach freely and passionately the gospel of Jesus Christ to lost souls.
Let me spend the bulk of the article drawing out the teaching of Romans 9 and then at the end revealing its power for gospel preaching.
I. What is Romans 9 Doing in My Bible?
This is the question any pastor (with perhaps the exception of pastors in homogenously reformed churches) has posed to them whenever they teach Romans 9.
We love Romans 8. Our hearts are thrilled to hear the soaring promises and triumphant themes of that chapter.
‘There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!’ (8:1)
‘The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.’ (8:16-17)
‘For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.’ (8:18)
‘And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.’ (8:28)
‘…in all these things [see list of awful things in 8:35] we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ (8:37-39)
At this point, most Christians are ready to jump to their feet and start praising God or sink to their knees with gratitude and worship! How deep and wide and rich are the promises of God in Christ to those who love him! This may be the most triumphant chapter in the Bible! So why did Paul have to add chapter 9?
If Romans 8 is the most loved chapter of Romans, I submit that Romans 9 is the most hated. But the two have a symbiotic relationship!
Let’s begin here: Romans 9 is not in your Bible to teach ‘Unconditional Election’. It does teach ‘Unconditional Election’ but that isn’t its primary purpose. It’s primary purpose is to undergird the promises declared in Romans 8!
Don’t take my word for it – look it up in your Bible, turn to Romans 9 and read the first 5 verses. What do you see? Lament, sorrow, grief – why? Because the Jews, as a corporate people, have failed to believe the gospel. Paul has seen this with his own eyes – his body carries the welts, stripes and bruises inflicted by his own people who have hated the gospel with such vehemence that they have tried to destroy the messengers. Keep in mind, that it was Paul’s usual practice to begin preaching in the Synagogue when he came to a new city. (This, I am certain, is because he was preaching the gospel from the Word of God – the 39 books that precede Matthew – that is where Paul and Peter found the gospel and set out to preach what we now have in the 27 books that follow Malachi.) With his own eyes Paul has seen the gospel fail to convert the Jews as a nation – but he has seen entire cities of gentiles show up to hear it preached.
This creates a dilemma. Has God’s promise to the Jews come to nothing? Has his promise and covenant with Abraham failed so that he must now introduce plan ‘B’ through Jesus? Romans 9 is written to sound a booming NO to that suggestion. The gospel is NOT plan ‘B’ – it has been God’s plan from the start. The failure of the Jews to believe the gospel is not evidence that God’s promise has failed, it is, instead, the exposure of God’s ELECTING PURPOSE which has been woven like a golden thread throughout the Old Testament, and is finally made clear in the inclusion of the Gentiles.
Here is the key text for all of Romans 9: But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but ‘Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.’ (Rom 9:6-7) This is the case that Paul sets forth in Romans 9, the case that he now opens the Old Testament to reveal.
a. Isaac and Ishmael
An in-depth analysis of this chapter would require a book – and a number of good ones have already been written. To keep this to an article length – Let me touch briefly on how each of these arguments supports Paul’s central argument, that God’s promises have not failed, because not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.
We are probably more familiar with the story of Abraham and Isaac than the other stories Paul points to, but consider the case from a biological perspective. Is not Ishmael as much a son of Abraham as Isaac? Does Ishmael not have as much genetic contribution from his father as Isaac? If, then, the promise is some how linked to genetics, to ethnicity, to familial relations – then Ishmael is just as much a child of Abraham as Isaac, and, logically, all of the descendants of Ishmael are also included in the covenant. Most Christians have no issue casting this argument aside and claiming that Isaac is the child of promise. Why is that? Is it because he had a miraculous birth?
No, says Paul, that isn’t the primary reason that Isaac is the child of promise – the primary reason is found in the will of God. Isaac is the child of promise, because God has set his electing purpose upon him, God has chosen him, and God has not chosen Ishmael. The choice is unconditional – but some might protest that the choice is conditioned: isn’t Ishmael rejected because he is the child Abraham produced by his father’s will? Or, perhaps it is because his mother is not a Jew?
This leads directly to Paul’s next point about Jacob and Esau.
b. Jacob and Esau
Be honest, what is the question that naturally comes to your mind when you read this verse: As it is written, ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.’ (Rom 9:13)
I asked two different Bible Study groups this question, they both produced the same answer… they both produced the WRONG question.
Here is the WRONG question to this text: ‘What did Esau do to deserve the hatred of God?’ I’ll get to why that is the wrong question in a moment, but just because it is a wrong question doesn’t mean that it doesn’t deserve an answer.
What did Esau do to deserve God’s hatred?
He despised his own birthright, selling it for a meal.
He hated his brother and sought to kill him. (Doesn’t matter WHY he wanted to kill him, there is no justification for murder, God hates it and condemns it.)
He took foreign wives to torment his parents.
He worshipped false idols.
His descendants became the enemies of Israel.
When Jerusalem fell, Esau’s descendents, the Edomites cheered the Babylonians on and mocked, ridiculed and even enslaved their brother Israelites. (See the book of Amos and Malachi.)
All of these things are sin. God hates sin. Looking upon the wickedness of Esau, God is able to say, ‘Esau I have hated.’ (You’ll actually discover that Paul is quoting from Malachi 1:3, when God looks back over generations of wickedness.)
So what is the RIGHT question? ‘What did Jacob do to deserve to be loved.’
Sunday school curriculums are constantly flummoxed by this issue. They forget or reject UNCONDITIONAL ELECTION and try to find someway to portray the simpering, lying, cheating sneak named Jacob as ‘virtuous’ and deserving of God’s love. He’s not! Not by a long shot! He’s just as wretched as his wretched brother.
Consider:
He offers to buy his brothers birthright for a meal – can we argue that Jacob places any more value on the birthright than his brother? Both seem to think it is worth a pot of stew!
He cheats his brother out of his inheritance (which leads to the ‘I’m going to kill you moment.’
He makes his fortune by lying and cheating to his lying cheating uncle Laban.
He marries a wife who worships foreign idols.
He treats the promise of God with disregard.
Some will suggest that all this changed at Bethel as he fled from his brother and was shown the stairway to heaven and heard God’s covenant offered to him. But I contend that no change took place in Isaac’s heart at that point. He spends the next couple decades thinking only of himself, his desires and his prosperity. Search the scriptures and consider how rarely Jacob demonstrates anything resembling faith until Peniel where God comes down himself and cripples Jacob for life.
After Peniel, that is where we see a converted Jacob. There is the man who worships while leaning on his staff (Heb 11:21). There is the man who is no longer called ‘Heel-grabber’ but rather ‘Israel’. There you will find a man who is constantly fixed on his Lord.
Back to Paul’s point: The question to be asked is not ‘Why was Esau hated, but why was Jacob loved.’ The only acceptable answer is found in the unconditional election of God. God loved Jacob for his own purpose, or to use Paul’s line: ‘…in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls…’ (Rom 9:11).
c. Pharaoh
Answer this question – does an innocent man need mercy? If a police officer pulls me over while I am driving 5 km UNDER the speed limit and informs me that he is NOT going to write me a ticket – that is not merciful – I don’t deserve the ticket and so I don’t need to hope for mercy. However, if I am pulled over travelling 20 km ABOVE the speed limit – I have no reason to hope for mercy, nor do I have any claim to it or power by which I can compel the police officer to show mercy – I am, quite literally, at his mercy. If he decides to turn me loose, it is not because I deserved it.
When God declares to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” It is clear that God’s will is determinative as to who will receive mercy and who will, instead, receive justice. (Not: Mercy is NEVER deserved and is only given in the case of one for whom Christ has satisfied the laws demands.)
So Paul takes up the case of Pharaoh and demonstrates that God did not grant mercy to Pharaoh, instead he hardened Pharaoh. But Pharaoh hardened himself first… right??? The apostle Paul would call that a ridiculous statement for it seems to presuppose that the human heart is naturally soft and inclined to obedience. The opposite is in fact true: the human hard is hard and inclined to rebellion. The suggestion that Pharaoh hardened himself before God hardened him seems to suggest that Pharaoh could have chosen against his own nature, to soften himself and submit to God. The point, however, that Paul drives at, is that God’s will is ultimately determinative in all things, that Pharaoh was hardened because God hardens whom He will. Why?
The Holy Spirit does something here both in Exodus 9:16 where God speaks to Pharaoh through Moses and in Romans 9:17 where he speaks to the church through the Apostle Paul – in both cases he shows his cards, he lifts a corner of the curtain on the secret will and purpose of God. Most often God never tells us why we face certain situations – Job is never told why; Daniel doesn’t receive a missive from God on why he went to the Lion’s Den; Joseph spends years without understanding God’s secret counsel in his regard. But God tells Pharaoh why he has been hardened: 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.
Had Pharaoh resisted lightly and then relented, the Israelites would have gone free all the same. But God hardened Pharaoh to the extent that God had to bring 10 plagues, wipe out the first born sons and then destroy the Egyptian army in the Red Sea in order for Israel to go free. Forty years later, Moses is dead and buried, Joshua is in command and the children of Israel come upon the fortress of Jericho – and discover that the people of Jericho are terrified at the approach of an unarmed mass of people who have been eating bread in the desert for 40 years – why? Because they have heard of this God – his name has been proclaimed in all the earth. In fact, almost 4000 years after the fact, the Exodus is general knowledge to most people in the world.
God did that. It was according to his own purpose and plan. It was for the glory of his name and in order that his purpose in election might stand! (You’ll recall that out of Jericho was saved Rahab through whom the line of the Messiah passes.)
If we resist the idea that God hardens whomever he will, we also are forced to reject the idea that God has freedom to show mercy to whomever he wills. The two ideas are given equal weight in Romans 9:18.
d. The Potter and the Clay
Paul anticipates the complaint that comes from every person that looks at this from a purely human perspective. ‘You will say to me then, ‘Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?’
Paul’s answer: ‘Who do you think you are to ask such a question?’
Romans 9, rightly understood, should free you from any sense that you had any role or part in salvation. If it hasn’t done so yet – this passage on the potter and the clay should leave no doubt. I am what I am because God has made me so.
The wrong declaration at this point is to state that it isn’t fair that God should make a person who will not repent – the right declaration is to state that it is a wonder of grace that God should pour out the riches of his glory on those who had no reason to expect mercy and could make no claim upon it.
And this, of course brings the whole argument back to Paul’s point. Has God’s promise failed? No! God has saved all that he elected to salvation. Not a single person that God has saved has ever been lost.
The final point in Paul’s argument is to point to the words of Isaiah as evidence that it was always God’s intent to save the Gentiles and also to save a remnant from the Jews.
Of course, from the human side of the equation, we see this as salvation by faith. God is so merciful to us that he we are often unaware of how this works – and it isn’t a pre-requisite of salvation that we understand the mystery of God’s will and purpose before we can believe. The call is simply to believe and the promise is made that ‘all who will, may come.’
Conclusion:
I believe that most people understand Romans 9 backwards or inside out.
Most people – when they rightly apprehend Paul’s argument begin to be persuaded that this is the most HOPELESS chapter in the Bible. They identify their various friends and loved ones who have, thus far, rejected the gospel, and decide that, if Romans 9 is true, these children, parents, spouses, siblings, are not among the elect, and God has created them for wrath. This, naturally, leads people to feel a great deal of angst and even anger towards Romans 9, the apostle Paul and even God.
I believe, however, that this is the most HOPEFUL chapter in the Bible. It is the only hope I have when I get into the pulpit especially at funerals, but also on any Sunday morning. Rightly understood the entire human will is rebellious towards grace and blind to the glory of the gospel revealed in Christ (more on this in a moment). If I have to hope that there are words persuasive enough, or arguments potent enough to break the rock hard heart of an unbeliever – then that means that the full weight of conversion rests with the preacher and his abilities. That weight would crush me to dust! But Romans 9, rightly understood, tells me that unless God intervenes there is no hope – but that God, according to his own purpose and IN MERCY regularly DOES intervene, and when he does, the result is conversion! Unconditional election, rightly understood, means that even the brother, husband, daughter or mother who seems the most unlikely to repent can be saved – and there is every reason to take the gospel to them again with the prayer that God might overcome their resistance, break their heart and bring them to the cross.
This was the case for the apostle Paul, who was converted even while breathing out murderous threats against the church! This was the case for a thief on the cross, who had done nothing ‘meritorious’ and up until a few hours before his death had never considered the offer of God.
So when I step into a funeral pulpit, as I did a couple of weeks ago, and look out at a sea of fairly hostile faces – my confidence does not rest on my ability or sermon notes – but on the promise of Romans 9 – that somewhere in that group of flint-like hearts are those, who, though they deserve nothing better than the wrath of God, will be given mercy. So I declare the gospel – I preach it with love, with passion, I make it as simple, as clear, as beautiful and as demanding as it is! I do not concern myself with the fact that there are those who ‘humph’ at the gospel – and glare at me as if I have no business telling them that they are sinners and that God hates sin to hell – but has sent his only Son to bear the penalty that love might triumph and that they might go free.
Where is such boldness found? Romans 9!
Thanks be to God;
Marc Bertrand