Sovereign Mercy and a Righteous God (Rom. 9:14-18)

 

Moses and Pharaoh, by Abraham van den Hecken 

In order to have a true and lasting hope in God, it helps not only to know that God is true to his word but also how God is true to his word.  The apostle Paul communicates both these things in Romans 9.  We’ve already seen that the thesis statement of chapters 9-11 is verse 6: “Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect.”   God has not and will not allow his word to fall to the ground or become ineffective.  Here we have the statement of the fact.  But we also see how this is true, and the next part of verse 6 sums up that part of the argument which he will work out in the following verses: “For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel.”  In those words, Paul is teaching us that the promises of God by which he guarantees salvation to Israel do not depend on physical descent from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but rather upon something else.  That something else is God’s unconditional election of persons to eternal life.  There is the election of the whole nation; that does not guarantee salvation to anyone.  But then there is an election within the election, an Israel within Israel, and it is this election of God that saves.  The way that Paul unpacks the meaning of that election shows us that the foundation of all our hope rests in the fact that the means by which God’s saving promises are fulfilled is an unconditional choice on God’s part, from sheer mercy and grace.  And that’s not only a hope-giving reality, but a hope-sustaining one too.

Why is Paul doing this?  What is the thing that has led him to state the what and the how of God’s faithfulness to his word?  Well, let me remind you of the context here.  In verses 1-2, Paul tells us that he is grieving over his kinsmen because they are lost, unsaved, and under the curse and wrath of God, anathema.  And what made their lostness so terribly sad was that they had all these privileges, privileges which Paul outlines for us in verses 3-5.  These privileges can be summed up in terms of God setting apart the nation of Israel from all the other nations of the world, the national election of Israel by God.  But that created a problem in the mind of some people, for the fact is that God had chosen this nation and given them promises like Isa. 45:25, promises that seemed to guarantee the salvation of the whole nation.  However, Paul has just said that many of his fellow Israelites are not saved, and this is what makes it look like God has gone back on his word.  Of course, that cannot be.

Paul’s answer, again, is that God’s promise of salvation does not come through the national election of Israel but though God’s sovereign promise of mercy which is given to those whom God has chosen and called apart from works of any kind. The promise of salvation goes to the Israel within Israel, an Israel which is the remnant according to the election of grace, as Paul will put it in 11:5.  This is obviously not the election of the nation as a whole, but the election of individuals in the nation, an election of grace unto salvation which is not conditioned on works.

I was talking to Mark last Sunday and he helpfully pointed out that what Paul is saying here is very similar to the promise God gave to Adam and Eve all the way back in Genesis 3, when God tells the serpent that he will put a distinction between his seed and the woman’s seed: “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Gen. 3:15).  The interesting thing here is that the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman are both descended from Eve.  The seed of the woman does not refer to all of humanity, but to those who are united to the Seed, who is Christ.  Just as “the seed of the woman” doesn’t refer to all humanity, so “the seed of Israel” doesn’t refer to all who are physically descended from Israel.  It refers to those who are chosen in Christ and saved by a sovereign choice on God’s part.

As we pointed out last time, many people want to get around this – that in Romans 9, the apostle is teaching the doctrine of unconditional election of persons to salvation – by saying that what Paul is arguing for is the election of nations in verses 6-13.  But that doesn’t make sense, for it is the election of the nation of Israel which has created the problem that Paul is trying to solve.  No, Paul’s answer is that the election of nations doesn’t save; rather it is God’s eternal and gracious election of persons unto salvation that saves, and these two elections are not the same, for they are not all Israel which are of Israel.  

Others will say that  though Paul is not teaching the election of nations here, he is teaching the election of individuals to historical tasks (rather than to salvation).  But this again flies in the face of the context.  Paul is not grieving because his kinsmen had failed to reach their maximum potential in life, or because they had failed to accomplish some task in life that God had given them.  Rather, Paul is grieving because they are lost, unsaved, and yet under the judgment of God.  Saying that God appoints people to historical tasks does not explain why the lostness of Israelites doesn’t call God’s saving promise into question.  On the other hand, the doctrine that God chooses people to salvation, not on the basis of birth but on the basis of grace, does provide such an explanation.

Let me put this as plainly as I can.  What Paul is teaching here is that the decisive reason why anyone is saved is not because of anything they have done or will do but because God has chosen to save them before the foundation of the world in Christ.  It is on this basis that he effectually calls them by grace to repent of their sins and believe in Christ and receive the forgiveness of sins.  God has not chosen all men; he has chosen some out of the fallen race of Adam to be saved.  That is the teaching of Paul in these verses.

Now one of the reasons I know I’m on the right track here is that when you say this, someone will invariably say, “But that’s unfair!  That makes God unrighteous!”  And what do we read when we reach verse 14?  “What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.”  The apostle is now going to deal with this objection.  He must do this, and so must we, because it’s going to be hard to hope in a God who is unrighteous.  In fact, we cannot.  And Paul denies that God is unrighteous, and he states this, as he has done so multiple times already in this letter, as emphatically as he can: “May it never be!”  Why must it never be?  Paul is going to give us an argument.  He does so by anchoring his argument on two OT passages and by drawing the appropriate deductions from them.  

This morning, I want us to see the doctrine that Paul is teaching and then I want to consider how this doctrine should change our lives.  First, I want us to see that God is righteous in the sovereign donation and in the sovereign denial of mercy.  Then I want us to think about how we can show that God is righteous as the recipients of this sovereign mercy.

See that God is righteous in the sovereign donation of mercy

Paul begins by showing that God is righteous by quoting God’s words to Moses on Mount Sinai, in response to Moses’ request to see God’s glory: “For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion” (quoting Exod. 33:19).  Now at first glance, this looks like circular reasoning, because the thing that brings God’s righteousness into question in the first place is his sovereign giving of mercy to whom he pleases.  As in, “Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated,” a disposition that is not rooted in Jacob or Esau’s life choices but in God’s sovereign choice (verses 11-13).  The objection is that it is unfair for God to do this.  And Paul’s answer is that, no, it’s not unfair for God to sovereignly bestow mercy to whom he pleases because he tells Moses that he sovereignly bestows mercy on whomever he pleases!  How is that an answer?

It’s an answer in two ways.  First, it’s an answer insofar as Paul is appealing to Scripture as the authority for his claim here.  The apostle is grounding his denial that God is unrighteous in bestowing mercy to whom he pleases by showing from Scripture that this is what God is like.  And Scripture is also the ground for believing that God is righteous.  In other words, the Bible teaches that God chooses whom he wills and the Bible teaches that God is perfectly and always just and holy.  We also know from God’s word that God is true and never lies.  So both these statements must be true.  The word of God which reveals that God is righteous is also the word that reveals that God is sovereign in giving salvation to whomever he pleases.

This is a very apropos verse because the context is that Moses is asking God, in light of their recent idolatry with the golden calf, he is asking him not to destroy the nation, and Moses is asking God to spare the whole nation.  But God’s response is, “No, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.”  And we see that many of those Israelites did in fact perish in the wilderness.  

The passage in Exodus also very appropriate because when God says this to Moses, he is promising to give Moses his request to show him his glory.  He does this in the next chapter.  Listen to how God does this: “And the Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.  And Moses made haste, and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshipped” (Exod. 34:5-8).  In this self-disclosure God reveals that he is clearly both a righteous God and a merciful God.  They go together, as Paul is arguing.  You cannot separate them in God’s character.  Thus, God’s declaration that he shows mercy and compassion to whomever he pleases cannot be inconsistent with his declaration that he is just and righteous.  

If we cannot see how these two things go together, that’s okay.  We should believe God’s word over our ability to see and understand, shouldn’t we?  God says that he chooses to save whom he pleases, quite apart from our works or anything in us.  We should believe that.  God also says that he is holy and just and righteous.  We should believe that.  And we should believe that God doesn’t stop being one when he does the other.

But it’s also an answer in another way.  Notice that God’s election is an act of mercy and compassion.  What does that imply?  The objects of God’s election are not innocent creatures.  They are not worthy of God’s favor or God’s gifts.  The fact that this is couched in the language of mercy assumes that the objects of God’s choice are sinners.  Sinners are people who have broken God’s law and deserve God’s wrath.  That’s all of us!  In other words, God did look down through the annals of time, but what did he see?  People ready and willing to choose him?  People lining up to do God’s will?  No!  He saw sinners, rebels, and enemies.  Christ died for his enemies and the Father chose his enemies.  It is not unjust for God to show mercy to whomever he wills because no one deserves anything.  If God were simply and only motivated by factors of justice we would all go to hell.  

Now at the same time, we can ask how God can be righteous in bestowing mercy on sinners in another way.  How can God forgive any sin?  How can God be merciful and compassionate to anyone?  How can God let those off who have belittled his name?  How can God go against his own glory? For sin is falling short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23).   Well, God does not go against his own glory, and the reason he doesn’t is because his Son, Jesus Christ, satisfied all the demands of divine justice on the cross.  In fact, because Jesus kept God’s law perfectly in our place and suffered the punishment that sinners deserve in their place, God can be both righteous and merciful in forgiving the sins of all who are united to Jesus Christ by faith.  And these, by the way, are also all the ones whom God has chosen before the foundation of the world.  Jesus died for those whom the Father chose.  We know this because our Lord said that his mission on the earth was to give eternal life to all whom the Father gave him.  Who are those whom the Father gave the Son?  They are the elect, those who are chosen in Christ, as Paul puts it in Eph. 1:4.

Note Paul’s conclusion and deduction from Exod. 33: “So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.”  The “it” in that verse is God’s electing one instead of another, his choice of Isaac over Ishmael, his choice of Jacob over Esau, and his choice that distinguishes between all those who are saved and those who are not.  God’s election to salvation is not of him that runs or of him that wills but of God that shows mercy.  It’s important to hear what Paul is saying there. This is a blow at the claims of all who want to say that election is based upon foreseen this or that.  Running and willing is a comprehensive way of talking about all that we do as humans.  This is a comprehensive statement of human effort and human choice.  Paul categorically denies that this has any impact on God’s choice of any person to salvation.  Rather, God’s election is based on “God that showeth mercy.”  It is God’s mercy, sovereign mercy, that is at the bottom of his choosing anyone to be saved, rather than any response on our part to his commandments or even the gospel.

Now don’t get me wrong.  I’m not a Hyper-Calvinist.  I do believe that faith in Christ and repentance of sins are necessary for salvation. Why do I believe that?  Because the Bible teaches it.  So I’m not saying what the Bible doesn’t say: that because election to salvation is not based on faith or repentance, that therefore faith and repentance don’t matter.  There are people who say that.  But that’s not what the Bible says.  In fact, I would say the opposite: God chooses us to believe and therefore faith is necessary because of election, not despite it!  Isn’t this the implication of Acts 13:48?  There we read: “And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.”  God not only ordains the end, but he also ordains the means: we are chosen through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth (2 Thess 2:13).  What God ordains will surely come to pass, because what the Lord pleases he does in heaven and in earth.

Nor am I claiming that the gospel is somehow superfluous, as if election means that evangelism is not necessary.  That’s not what the Bible teaches.  Paul will teach the exact opposite just in the next chapter.  Election doesn’t make evangelism unnecessary; rather it provides a ground for us to do evangelism!  It’s what Paul says: “Therefore I endure all things for the elect's sakes, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory” (2 Tim. 2:10).

What we are saying is that our salvation decisively depends upon the sovereign mercy and compassion of God.  And that is hope-giving and hope-sustaining because it means that our entire salvation rests upon God alone, and not in anything in us. So we need to see that God is sovereign in the bestowing of mercy to whomever he pleases. 

See that God is sovereign in the denial of mercy. 

But that’s not all that Paul says.  He not only says that God is sovereign and just in the donation of mercy but also in the denial of it.  Here he quotes another passage in Exodus, this time in Exod. 9:16: “For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth” (Rom. 9:17).   From this Paul concludes: “Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth” (18).  

In other words, Paul is pointing us back to the fact that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart.  To harden a person’s heart in this context is to make them insensitive and unresponsive to the demands of God upon them.  God told Pharaoh through Moses to let his people go, but Pharaoh refused God’s demand.  This hardening is the opposite of showing mercy. 

Now it is true that the OT text tells us that Pharaoh hardened his own heart.  Both things did happen.  Pharaoh hardened his heart and God hardened his heart.  But you will notice where the emphasis falls here in Romans 9.  Paul does not even refer to Pharaoh’s self-hardening.  He only refers to God hardening the heart of the king, and the fact that the decisive factor in this was the will of God.  He hardens whom he pleases.  In fact, before Pharaoh ever hardened his own heart, God told Moses that he was going to harden Pharaoh’s heart: “And the Lord said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go” (Exod. 4:21).  It’s important for us to see this because it seems to me that some people are so focused on human freedom and men not being robots that as a result they almost treat God like one!  As if he is somehow dependent on our choices and must respond to them, almost as a puppet on a string.  We’re so afraid of men being puppets manipulated by God that we’ve turned God into one manipulated by men.  God has lost his freedom!  But this is not how the Scriptures represent God.  He is free, utterly free, in both the granting of grace and in the withholding of mercy. 

However, as in the case of God showing mercy, the objects of hardening are sinners.  Pharaoh didn’t become a sinner because God hardened him.  He was already a sinner.  He was a man who did not know the Lord.  God does not cause people to sin.  He does not force people to rebel against him.  He does not infuse evil into the human heart.  It would be impossible for God to do this, since he is holy.  Rather, it is a reference to the fact that God sovereignly leaves a person in their sin, and does not interpose to turn them from it.  I think it is similar to what Paul talks about in Romans 1, when he says that God gave people up to their own vile affections.  When God withholds his mercy from sinners, the result is the hardening of the heart and the sinner’s persistence in evil.  When you withdraw heat from water, it freezes.  And when God withdraws his grace and mercy, men harden.

At this point, we might ask how this relates to the statement of verse 13: “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.”  It relates in this way: Jacob is an instance of God’s mercy and compassion, whereas Esau is an instance of God’s hardening.  This is what it means for God to hate Esau.  We shouldn’t think it means that God is like some man whose passions are out of control, who is spiteful and bitter, and hates in that sense.  No, God’s hatred is as perfect and holy as his love. God’s hatred is hatred in the sense that he hates every vessel of evil and justly punishes them for their sin.

Both the showing of mercy and the hardening of hearts are righteous for God to do because in both cases God is showing his glory.  In the first case, the glory of God’s sovereign mercy is shown in the salvation of sinners, and in the second case, the glory of God’s wrath in punishing those who resist him.  This was the case with Pharaoh.  God hardened Pharaoh’s heart to show and to exalt his name in all the earth.  It is a good thing when sin is punished and when divine justice is done.  And it is a good and righteous thing when this is seen and celebrated.  That is exactly what happened with Pharaoh.  Whether for mercy or judgment, God does what he does for the glory of his name (17, 22-23).  This is his righteousness – so that his name is declared in all the earth!  “The heavens declare his righteousness, and all the people see his glory” (Ps. 97:6).

So we need to see that God is sovereign in the denial of mercy, as well as in the giving of it.

Show that God is righteous as those who are the recipients of the sovereign mercy of God.

How then should we live?  The doctrine of election is not given to us in the NT as a subject to be debated, but as motivation to live the Christian life.  If we really believe this, it’s not going to make us good debaters but good Christians.  There are a number of things that this doctrine should inspire in us.

First, if we believe that the bottom of our salvation rests upon the free and sovereign mercy and grace of God in election, then that ought to make us humble people.  This is because the doctrine of election unto salvation teaches us that we are not ultimately the ones responsible for our salvation; God is.  If I am saved, all the glory has to go to God.  As Paul put it to the Corinthians who were always glorying in their own gifts and abilities: “For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?” (1 Cor. 4:7).  Why am I saved?  You might answer, “Because I repented of my sin and put my faith in Christ.”  So far, so good.  But why were you converted?  You might answer, “Because I was convinced of my need of a Savior.”  But why did you see your need when others didn’t?  Because you were smarter?  Because you were better?  No!  It is because God is the one who made us to differ.  We don’t glory as if we were the ones ultimately responsible.  God is the one responsible and he gets the glory.

Second, if we believe in the doctrine of election, then it ought to create in us a heart of love to God.  We love him because he first loved us, and knowing this, knowing that God’s everlasting love and kindness drew us to himself and keeps us there ought to cause us to love him more.  God chose us that we should be holy and without blame before him in love (Eph. 1:4).  God’s love to us ought to beget love to him.

Third, if we believe in the doctrine of election to salvation, it ought to create in us a spirit of thanksgiving and praise to God.  Note how Paul opens his letter to the Ephesians: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love” (Eph. 1:3-4).  Knowing that we have been blessed by God in this way, and knowing that every other salvific gift comes from this as water from a fountain, ought to make us love him for it and to bless his name.

Fourth, if we believe this, it ought to us to be steadfast in our trust in God.  This doctrine teaches us that our hold of God depends upon God’s hold of us.  It teaches us that we can be courageous in the face of trials because no matter what happens to us, God is working all things for our good.  Note Paul’s reasoning to Timothy who was struggling in the midst of trials and opposition: “Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God; Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel: Whereunto I am appointed a preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles. For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day” (2 Tim. 1:8-12).  We can endure affliction because God has saved us according to this eternal purpose of grace, and that it is because of this that we can be persuaded that he is able to keep what we’ve committed to him – our souls, our all – against that day.

Finally, it ought to make us holy people.  Listen to how Paul motivates holiness in the lives of the Colossian believers: “Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness” (Col. 3:12-14).  Those who say that election tends to neglect of personal holiness do not appreciate the NT teaching.  If we are in fact people who love God, trust in him, are humble before him, and are animated by a thankful heart to him are going to be holy people, people who embrace the virtues that Paul exhorts us to here.  And since we are chosen to be holy, we cannot use election as an excuse for going on in our sins, or to use this doctrine as a sort of security blanket while we remain unrepentant in our sins.

So, brothers and sisters, let’s see the righteousness of God in the bestowal of sovereign mercy, and let’s show the righteousness of God as those who are the recipients of it.  The outcome of all this ought to be, not argument but adoration, not being right but being reverent.  It ought to lead us to say, with the apostle at the end of this section: “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen” (Rom. 11:33-36).