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August 19/20, 2017
Jason Meyer | Romans 9:14-23
What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means! 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 depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. 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.
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? 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 9:14–23
Introduction
Three weeks ago we walked through the second sandwich in the Gospel of Mark. A sandwich is a literary technique in which an author begins with one story and then ends with that same story, but something else is “sandwiched” in between them. Here Mark begins with the parable of the sower (4:1–9) and ends with the parable of the sower (4:13–20). The meat of the sandwich is Jesus’ teaching on the purpose of parables (4:10–12).
Verses 10–12 show that Jesus used parables to create a division between insiders and outsiders. Insiders are those who are true followers of Christ. They receive his word and bear fruit that lasts. Why? They have changed hearts. Where did the changed heart come from? Jesus’ call has changed their hearts. His powerful word changed opened their hearts so they could receive his word.
The clear, unmistakable, unavoidable truth is that Jesus intended to create this division. There are two evidences for intentionality. First, the conjunction “so that” (Mark 4:12). It communicates purpose, not merely result. Second, there is another purpose statement (a different word) at the end of verse 12 that is a negative purpose statement. It is usually translated “lest” or “in order that not.” Here, the ESV translates it “lest they turn and be forgiven.” This time the purpose statement is stated in negative terms. We do this all the time. I am not going to speed, lest I get a speeding ticket. I am going to put on sunscreen, lest I get a sunburn. But those two examples say we are doing something in order to avoid a result that would be bad (speeding ticket, sunburn). Mark 4:12 says, “I am speaking in parables lest these people on the outside turn and be forgiven.” Wait a minute. The intentionality is clear, but it raises a mammoth question! I know why someone would want to prevent a sunburn or a speeding ticket. But why would God want to prevent turning and being forgiven? Why wouldn’t God want people to turn and be forgiven?
Answer: He has chosen to hand some over to judgment.
Isaiah 6:9–10 shows up at least four other times the New Testament with this same sense (Matthew 13:14–15; Luke 8:10; John 12:39–40; Acts 28:26–27). That is why the context of Isaiah 6 is so important. God declares judgment upon Israel for their idolatry. Why the reference to ears and eyes that don’t hear or see? God is communicating that this is poetic justice. They have become as blind and deaf and mute as the idols they worship (Isaiah 44:18–20). The Psalmist’s give the same warning in Psalm 115:4–8.
Their idols are silver and gold,
the work of human hands.
They have mouths, but do not speak;
eyes, but do not see.
They have ears, but do not hear;
noses, but do not smell …
Those who make them become like them;
so do all who trust in them.
The Lord has handed them over to this: “They know not, nor do they discern, for he has shut their eyes, so that they cannot see, and their hearts, so that they cannot understand” (Isaiah 48:18; cf. Isaiah 29:10). We then saw the same devastating point from Romans 1 and Romans 11.
We are not talking about a parent who tells a child who loves them and wants to be with them to leave the house. It is like a child who comes to you every day of his life for 18 years and says, “I hate you, I don’t want you as a parent, and I want to leave.” When he turns 18, he comes to you for the 6,206th time and asks again. This time you say, “Ok, you can have it your way.”
That is a five-minute summary of the last sermon. The most frequent question I received after that sermon was this: We have all done that. We all have sinned. We all were rebellious. We all asked to have nothing to do with God. I understand why he let some go. But why would he choose to save me and let someone else go? Why did he intervene for me? Why should I receive such grace and not someone else?
So I am going to take this sermon and answer that question. Last week was an expository sermon on Mark 4:1–20 and this is a topical sermon answering the question that last week’s text raises but does not fully answer. The fullest answer to that question is found in Romans 9:1–23. We are going to cover many different texts, but then we will turn to Romans 9:1–23 because it gives the fullest answer to the question that Mark 4:1–20 raised.
Outline
Let’s get personal for a moment. After I was called into ministry, I became a member of a Wesleyan church (because that was the church I was in when the call came). I started studying doctrine for the first time. This Wesleyan church taught that God gives everyone the ability to choose him or reject him (we determine whether we are saved or not). I was introduced there to another view. A view that said God determines who would be saved or not. I hated that view. I thought to myself, Who could ever believe that? God cannot be like that. The difference between me and an unbeliever is that I chose to believe and they did not.
So I set out to disprove it. I did an independent study my sophomore year of college on this debate about God’s sovereignty in salvation. I read Luther and Calvin and Wesley and even this guy named John Piper (The Justification of God—a study of Romans 9:1–23—I didn’t read much of it because there was so much Greek and I didn’t know Greek yet). But those guys did not really matter in the end. What I did was read and re-read and re-read Romans until I had much of it memorized without even trying.
Here I was trying to disprove “predestination” and I was stunned to find out that the word was all over the Bible. Whoa—I need to find some way to explain this away. This can’t be right. But then all of my resistance ran into the brick wall of Romans 9:1–23.
Removing Any Loopholes: Isaac, not Ishmael (not ethnicity); Jacob, not Esau (not works). Some in Paul’s day could say that Isaac was chosen, not Ishmael because Isaac had two Jewish parents (Abraham & Sarah), while Ishmael had only one (Abraham and an Egyptian mother, Hagar). Paul brings up Jacob and Esau to close that loophole. They were twins and had the same parents. Yet God chose the younger (Jacob), not the older (Esau). The Jews of Paul’s day had an answer for that. They would say that God chose Jacob because he was better than Esau. God looked ahead and saw that Esau would despise his birthright and marry foreign wives. But Paul also closes that loophole.
Though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."—Romans 9:11–13
That is why we call this doctrine “unconditional election.” It was not based on meeting conditions (like a certain ethnicity or morality). God chose before they born—before they had done anything good or bad. Rebekah was told the older will serve the younger so that God’s purpose of election would continue (not by human works but by God’s sovereign call).
This verse jolted me out of my seat, and a response came roaring out of my heart. Shockingly, I read the next verse and saw that the Bible raised my response and then responded to it.
Three Questions or Responses
What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! 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 depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.—Romans 9:14–16
Paul says that God is free to show mercy or compassion any time to anyone. He quotes Scripture to prove it (Exodus 33:19). My point about that not being fair was way off the mark because I was looking at the wrong mark. What standard or transcendent rule is God breaking? God is the ultimate standard—there is no compulsion that comes upon him from the outside, but from within based on his own perfect being. I had started with man’s freedom, not God’s freedom. It does not depend upon our performance—what we choose and what we do (God responds to us)—it depends upon what he chooses and what he does (mercy). But then what about the rest—those who are not chosen?
The next verse addresses that question. They are raised up to fulfill a different purpose.
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 9:16–18
Paul gives the example of Pharaoh. The Bible says that Pharaoh hardened his heart—his heart was hardened, or God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. This was incredibly helpful for me because I imagined God taking someone good and then working evil in them so that they would rebel against God. But like we saw three weeks ago, there are two ways to talk about this (active and passive). God can take people who are bent on rebellion and actively hand them over to it—or you can talk about God removing his restraints (passive). Exodus can talk about Pharaoh actively doing it (because God removed his restraints) or it can talk about God doing it (because God is handing over Pharaoh to the sinful desires of Pharaoh’s heart).
Contrast that with another Pharaoh in the book of Genesis. Abimelech had taken Abraham’s wife as his own wife because he thought she was Abraham’s sister. God came to him in a dream and said, “Behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man’s wife” (Genesis 20:3). But Abimelech had not approached her yet and so he pleaded with the Lord that he was innocent. He was tricked by Abraham who said, “She is my sister,” and Sarah who said, “He is my brother” (Genesis 20:4–5). Then he said, “In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands I have done this” (Genesis 20:5). Now listen to verse six and the ultimate explanation: “Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know that you have done this in the integrity of your heart, and it was I who kept you from sinning against me. Therefore I did not let you touch her” (Genesis 20:6).
Pharaoah and Abimelech are pictures of Proverbs 21:1. “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will.
But why? Why did he not restrain the evil of Pharaoh in Exodus like he did in Genesis? Exodus says God raised Pharaoh up so that God’s power could be shown and his name could be proclaimed. He multiplied his signs and wonders and plagues because Pharaoh kept refusing to let the people of Israel go. And that is exactly what God chose to do:
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 9:16–18
So all of that raised a big problem for me—a big question mark! To my shock, the next verse put my response into words and then responded to my response! We don’t just read the Bible—it reads us.
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
I saw once again that each time I had started with humanity and our rights and our will. But who made me God? What gives me the right to say that God does not have the right to choose? Does the potter have no authority over the clay?
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 9:22–23
God prepared vessels of wrath for destruction (and endured them with great patience)
God prepared vessels of mercy for glory—and he prepared them ahead of time.
Why? To show his wrath and power (vessels of wrath) in order to make known the riches of his glory. Mercy will shine out against the black backdrop of justice. It will not be assumed and fade into the background and be taken for granted. It will stand out. You must come to grips with this mercy.
It is like a painting. There are dark colors in the backdrop in order to have bright colors stand out in the foreground. God wanted to put all of his attributes on display—his justice and mercy. The terrors of his wrath and the riches of his grace.
So why did anyone receive mercy? It was nothing we did. Nothing we earned. It was all God. He loved us and chose us and changed us. What happened is that I gave up in stages. First, I said. “Ok, that is in the Bible, but I don’t have to believe that other doctrine.” Then, I said, “Oh no, that is there too. Ok, but I don’t have to like it.” Finally, sovereignty suddenly became sweet. God broke out of the box that I put him in. Here I was always emphasizing my freedom. Now I was savoring God’s freedom to be God and show mercy to whomever he chose. That remains to this day the most humbling moment of my life. I did nothing. He did all. I cannot boast about any of it. I give him the glory for all of it. Amazing grace.
I will never forget what happened next. I thought that someone had rewritten my Bible because I began to see these things everywhere. I will give you three examples of pictures of salvation and you can see what I mean.
2. Pictures of Salvation
For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.—Ephesians 5:8
How does that happen? Jesus is the light of the world, and we must receive him. The problem here is not merely that we are darkness, but that we don’t want the light—we hate it.
And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.—John 3:19–20
If we are darkness and we love it and hate the light and refuse to come to the light, how do we ever come to the light?
And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts TO GIVE the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.—2 Corinthians 4:3–6
They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.—1 Peter 2:8–9
2. From Death to Life
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, 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, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.—Ephesians 2:1–7
2. From Bondage to Liberty
And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.—2 Timothy 2:24–26
Here is the issue. We must believe in order to be saved. Anyone who comes to God will not be cast out. But if someone is dark, dead in sin, and enslaved to sin, then how does anyone ever believe? God intervenes in the hearts of those appointed for salvation.
And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.—Acts 13:48
Notice the order. Not those who believed were appointed to eternal life. As many as were appointed to eternal life—they and only they believed.
But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.—John 6:36–37
Jesus answered them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.—John 6:43–44
But you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.—John 10:26–27
Conclusion: The Pursuit of God’s Glory in Salvation
This was the point of the Reformation—the pursuit of God’s glory in salvation. Luther put it this way: “The love of God does not find, but creates, that which is pleasing to it. The love of man comes into being through that which is pleasing to it” (Luther’s Works, 31:41).
Luther loved contrasts. Here the contrast is between divine love and human love. Human love is a reaction to beauty it finds, but divine love is a creation. Human love is a reaction of attraction. The order matters: Something is lovely and that creates the response of love. In other words, human love loves that which is already lovely. That is the order: loveliness then love.
Divine love is gloriously different. It is not loveliness then love; it is love then loveliness. Divine love does not look for moral beauty among the mass of sinful humanity. Moral beauty does not call the love of God into existence. He sets his love on the unlovely and the result is definitive. When he sets his love on the unlovely, the unlovely are loved.
Here is another way to say it. Christ did not marry us for our looks. He died for the ungodly—the morally ugly. He loved us and gave himself for us. Then and only then does Paul say that he gave himself to sanctify his bride and cleanse her with the washing of the word so as to become holy and without blemish (Ephesians 5:25–27).
Theologians often express God’s sovereignty and predestination in somewhat abstract terms. Here, Luther articulates a doctrine of God’s love that provides a framework for both with accents on the personal” (Carl Trueman, Luther on the Christian Life, p. 67).
I am so sick of people talking about the sovereignty of God in a cerebral way that separates the choosing will of God from the loving heart of God. Before you choose something, you have to have your heart set on something. The choice and the will come from the heart.
2. The Sovereign Love of God and the Glory of God
(Don’t Separate the Will of God from the Heart of God)
This was the cardinal issue of the Reformation. That is exactly what Luther himself told Erasmus in a book Luther wrote called The Bondage of the Will. This book was published in 1525 as an answer to Erasmus’ book, The Freedom of the Will. He regarded The Bondage of the Will as his “best theological book, and the only one in that class worthy of publication.”[1] Luther commended Erasmus among all of his opponents as the one who went right to the heart of the real debate. He called it the “cardinal issue between us.”
Therefore, it is not irreverent, inquisitive, or superfluous, but essentially salutary and necessary for a Christian, to find out whether the will does anything or nothing in matters pertaining to eternal salvation. Indeed, as you should know, this is the cardinal issue between us, the point on which everything in this controversy turns. For what we are doing is to inquire what free choice can do, what it has done to it, and what is its relation to the grace of God. If we do not know these things, we shall know nothing at all of things Christian, and shall be worse than any heathen. Let anyone who does not feel this confess that he is no Christian, while anyone who disparages or scorns it should know that he is the greatest enemy of Christians. For if I am ignorant of what, how far, and how much I can and may do in relation to God, it will be equally uncertain and unknown to me, what, how far, and how much God can and may do in me, although it is God who works everything in everyone (1 Corinthians12:6). But when the works and power of God are unknown, I do not know God himself, and when God is unknown, I cannot worship, praise, thank, and serve God, since I do not know how much I ought to attribute to myself and how much to God. It therefore behooves us to be very certain about the distinction between God’s power and our own, God’s work and our own, if we want to live a godly life.[2]
The whole of Reformation hangs upon how you answer the question about human ability. The Reformation is about the powerlessness of people to save themselves, not first and foremost about the Pope or purgatory or indulgences.
Luther fiercely objected to Erasmus’ exaltation of the human will. He made it seem like one of those bodybuilder competitions where the bodybuilders try to impress the judges with their displays of strength. Erasmus spoke of the will as if humanity had muscles to flex before God: “Watch the way I can overcome sin and set myself free from the chains of sin!”
Flaunting and flexing the muscles of human freedom sets up a competition with God—a full frontal attack on the freedom of God's grace in the gospel. Listen to Luther:
I condemn and reject as nothing but error all doctrines which exalt our "free will" as being directly opposed to this mediation and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. For since, apart from Christ, sin and death are our masters and the devil is our god and prince, there can be no strength or power, no wit or wisdom, by which we can fit or fashion ourselves for righteousness and life. On the contrary, blinded and captivated, we are bound to be the subjects of Satan and sin, doing and thinking what pleases him and is opposed to God and His commandments.[3]
God’s glorious grace is at stake in this debate. Free will theology has fallen sinners brazenly break into the throne room of heaven, steal glory from God, and smuggle it back to earth in order to start passing it out to other fallen sinners.
The Reformation is a gospel movement in which Luther and the Reformers are on a mission to take that stolen glory and give it back to God. Luther says the same in his commentaries. His commentary on Galatians is probably my favorite. Listen to his comments on Galatians 1:1–12 (deserting the gospel of God’s grace and distorting it) …
I recall that at the beginning of my cause Dr. Staupitz ... said to me: It pleases me that the doctrine which you preach ascribes the glory and everything to God alone and nothing to man; for to God (that is clearer than the sun) one cannot ascribe too much glory, goodness, etc. This word comforted and strengthened me greatly at the time. And it is true that the doctrine of the gospel takes all glory, wisdom, righteousness, etc., from men and ascribes them to the Creator alone, who makes everything out of nothing. [4]
Therefore, when you think of a Reformation passage of Scripture, where do you go in your mind? Start in the Old Testament. Don’t just think Genesis 15:6 (Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness) or Psalm 32:2 (blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity). Don’t just think about texts about how God counts, but texts about how and why God chooses (Love!) What about Deuteronomy 7:7? …
It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt (my emphasis).—Deuteronomy 7:7–8
He set his love on you and chose you because he loves you, not because you were lovely.
When you think of a New Testament Reformation text, don’t just think of Romans 1:16–17 (The righteous will live by faith). Think also of Ephesians 1:5–6.
In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.—Ephesians 1:5–6.
He did not choose the lovely—in love, he chose. His love came first, long before our loveliness. What about Ephesians 2:4–7?
But God, being rich in mercy, BECAUSE OF THE GREAT LOVE WITH WHICH HE LOVED US, even when we were dead in our trespasses, 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, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.—Ephesians 2:4–7
We are not the bride of Christ because of our moral attractiveness. Christ did not marry you for your looks. You were a moral, spiritual corpse. Stone cold dead at the bottom of the lake called the children of wrath. Why are you alive? Why do you have spiritual breath in your lungs and a song in your mouth? Sovereign love—great love with which he loved you—so you live.
[1] John Dillenberger, ed. Martin Luther: Selections From His Writings, p. 167.
[2] Luther, M. Luther’s Works, Vol. 33: Career of the Reformer III (J. J. Pelikan, H.C. Oswald & H. T. Lehmann, Ed.).
[3] What Luther Says: An Anthology, Vol. 3, p. 1376–1377.
[4] What Luther Says, Vol. 3, p. 1374.