The Vindication of God (Rom. 9:19-24)

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Imagine that you are evangelizing a Jewish man.  You tell him that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, that he fulfills the promises of the Old Testament, of Isaiah 53, that he is the fulfillment of all the sacrifices of the Mosaic Covenant, the true Passover, the true High Priest and the one who brings real atonement of all our sins.  And you tell him that the promise of the gospel is that all who put their trust in him and turn from their sins will be saved, will be justified and have all their sins forgiven.  And you tell him that all who are truly saved will never be lost.

Now suppose that your Jewish interlocutor asks you what will happen to him if he does not put his faith in Jesus as Lord and Christ.  And you tell him, quoting Jesus himself, “If you don’t believe that Jesus is the Christ, you will die in your sins; that is, you will enter into eternity unforgiven and under the judgment of God” (cf. Jn. 8:24).  And he responds by saying, “But I am a member of the family of Abraham, of the nation of Israel, and God has already promised to save us.  So if you say that I will not be saved because I don’t believe your gospel, then God is not true to his word.  And if God is not true to his word to us, then how can you be sure that he will be true to his word to you?”

What do you say to that?  Suppose you said, “Well, God elects nations, so that’s how we know God will keep his word to us.”  How does that even make sense?  How is that a response?  It’s not an answer at all.  It doesn’t make sense.  In fact, the Jewish man could respond by saying that this is exactly his point: God elected the nation of Israel and he’s a part of that nation.  No, you wouldn’t answer his objection by saying that God elects nations.

Or suppose that you responded by saying, “Well, God elects individuals to important historical tasks.”  Again, how is that a sensible response?  It’s not.  The question here has nothing to do with reaching our potential in this world at all.  The question has to do with the eternal salvation of the soul.  The problem is that if Jews who are part of God’s elect nation of Israel are lost because they remain in unbelief, then this calls into question God’s saving promises to them.

The apostle Paul is giving an answer this very objection here.  But he doesn’t give the silly answers that many of his interpreters try to make him say.   Rather, Paul says that the election of the nation, as important as it was, and as privileged as it made every son or daughter of Abraham, did not guarantee the eternal salvation of any Israelite.  But there is another election that is saving.  This is an election by God of individuals to salvation that constitutes an Israel within Israel (Rom. 9:6).  And this explains why some Israelites can be lost and yet God be true to his word.  The election of the nation was not a promise to save the nation as such.  Rather, the apostle argues that God’s election to eternal life is an election that does not depend on physical descent from Abraham at all.  It is an unconditional election that is of individual persons to eternal life based solely on the purpose and free grace of God (11-13).  It was this election that differentiated between the offspring of Abraham from the very beginning, choosing Isaac over Ishmael, and choosing Jacob over Esau.

I cannot emphasize enough the unconditional nature of this election.  Remember what Paul says in verse 16: “So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.”  The it of that verse is God’s election, God’s choice to save Isaac instead of Ishmael, of Jacob instead of Esau.  This verse shows clearly that this election is not based on foreseen faith or repentance, but upon the will of God himself, upon the unconditional mercy of God.  If election were based on faith or repentance, then it would be of him that willeth and it would be based on him that runneth.  But it’s not; Paul expressly denies that.  It is solely dependent upon God who shows mercy.

Now we saw last time that people object to this, and the objection is that this makes God unfair.  If God chooses us before we’re born, before we’ve had the chance to do anything (11), then God is not righteous.  That’s the objection.  Paul responds in verses 14-18 basically saying that the Bible is clear here: God is the God who shows mercy on whom he chooses to show mercy to, and the one who hardens whom he chooses to harden (18).  And if this is the way the Bible portrays God, if this is the way God reveals himself to us, then we cannot say this is unrighteous.  Because God is preeminently the Righteous One.

However, Paul is not content to leave it at that.  In fact, he anticipates another objection, an objection which is still insistent that this whole matter of God showing mercy to whom he wills makes him unfair and unjust.  The objection, as it comes in verse 19, is this: “Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?”

Before we look at Paul’s answer, I want to point out that the objector here correctly understands Paul to be saying that God’s will, not man’s, is what is ultimate when it comes to receiving mercy or being hardened.  This is the assumption behind the question, “For who hath resisted his will?” And the answer is that no one can do that.  God’s will is ultimate because it can’t be resisted in this matter of showing mercy or hardening hearts.  God’s will is sovereign.  And so that being the case, “Why does he yet find fault?”  In other words, “How can God hold anyone responsible for their sins if God hardens whom he pleases?”  

Here we have the whole problem of the relationship between the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man.  That is, how can God hold mankind responsible for their choices, especially when it comes to matters of eternal salvation, when it’s not man’s choice but God’s that is ultimately determinative?  This is the question and the conundrum that the apostle addresses in verses 20-24, and which we want to look at together this morning. 

It’s not an easy question and philosophers and theologians have spent centuries trying to figure it out.  I’m going to say here at the outset that I don’t think this is an issue that we can completely fathom or “figure out.”  Those who think they have figured it out always run afoul of the Bible at some point.  So I’m not here to untangle the whole mystery of God’s sovereignty and human accountability.  I’m not going to take the sword of philosophy and cut the Gordian knot.  Rather, I want all of us to be willing to humbly submit to what the Bible says and to gladly embrace it whether we can understand it or not.  

Nevertheless, it is a subject that we must face on some level, and the apostle does that here.  As he does so, he is doing what some call theodicy, that is, he is giving a justification for the ways of God.  He doesn’t just say it is a mystery, but goes at least a little bit down the road of an explanation for why and how God chooses whom he wills and hardens whom he wills.  Now this is not a complete answer to the mystery, but it does help us and gives us a Biblical way of thinking about this issue.  And there are at least three things in this text that I want to point you to, three pillars upon which we can rest our thinking upon when it comes to God’s sovereignty and human responsibility.  These three things are: (1) God’s rights in verses 20-21, (2) Man’s wrongs, in verses 21-22, and (3) God’s glory in verses 22-24.

God’s rights

The apostle begins his response with, “Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?”  Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor?” (20-21). 

The apostle Paul begins like this, because in all questions like this, we must never forget who we are.  One of our problems in theological discussions and debates is that we can begin to act as if God is on trial and we are his judges.  We must never do this.  God is not a ball to batted about between philosophers and theologians.  We must always remember the fact that there is an infinite distance between us and God.  Hear the way Paul drives this very point home: “Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God?”  In the Greek text this is even more emphatic.  The words “O man” are put at the very front of Paul’s response, and then the word “you” is also put in an emphatic position, as if Paul were saying, “You, who are you to respond to God this way?”

As I say, we must never forget this!  The problem of the sovereignty of God as it relates to human responsibility is a question about the interaction between the Creator and the creature, the Potter and the clay, the Infinite One and the finites ones.  There is inevitably going to be mystery here.  And though I would never say that we should embrace irrational statements, yet it should not surprise us that there are things that are going to be beyond our reach or ability to grasp intellectually.  God is able to do things that we cannot.  What is impossible with man is possible with God.

First and foremost, we simply must not assume that God is like us in every way.  He most definitely is not.  As God through the prophet Isaiah reminds us: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa. 55:8-9).  Over and over again, God reminds us of this fact: “To whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him?” (40:18; see verse 25).  The implied answer to the question is that you simply can’t compare God to anyone or anything.

I think part of our problem is that we think God can only interact with us in the same way that we would interact with other people.  Hence, you may think that because you can’t impose your will on another person without taking their freedom away, that therefore assume that God can’t impose his will upon you without taking your freedom and responsibility away.  But this is to fall into the trap of assuming that God is like us or limited in ways that we are limited.  He most definitely is not.  God can turn the hearts of the king in any direction he pleases without taking away his freedom as a moral agent or his responsibility before God for his actions.

Brothers and sisters, we need to have the attitude of humbled Job.  All throughout the book of Job, he is wanting to bring his case before God.  But what he is really wanting God to do is to justify himself. Then God grants his wish and shows up: “Moreover the Lord answered Job, and said, Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct him? he that reproveth God, let him answer it. Then Job answered the Lord, and said, Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth. Once have I spoken; but I will not answer: yea, twice; but I will proceed no further” (Job 40:1-5).  This is what Paul is telling us to do here when we want to contend with the Almighty: speak no more and close our mouths!

But this is not all Paul is getting at.  It is not just the distance and difference that exists between God and man is impossibly great, but that the authority of God to do with his own what he wills is unchangeably real.  We are often so focused on our own rights that we forget that God has rights.  And his rights are ultimate.  What are we to God?  We are just the thing formed – in Greek, plasma.  God is the one who fashions.  God is the Maker, the Creator.  He is the Potter and we are clay, and he has decisive rights to do with the clay what he pleases.  If it pleases him to choose Jacob and not Esau, then he has that right.  If it pleases him to draw Moses to himself while hardening Pharaoh, he has that right.  Who are we to reply and argue with God?  We are God’s stuff!  We are not independent of God.  We belong to him the way the clay belongs to the potter.  He can do with us whatever pleases him and it is perfectly just for him to do so.

Man’s wrongs

The apostle doesn’t just focus our attention upon God’s rights, but also upon man’s wrongs.  Here we must pay close attention to the way Paul puts this.  He talks about the lump and the clay and vessels of wrath fitted to destruction.  As we think about this, we need to recognize that there is another doctrine in the background that we must appreciate in order to properly understand the doctrine of unconditional election.  It is the doctrine of total depravity.  You won’t really understand or appreciate the doctrine of unconditional election if you don’t understand and appreciate the doctrine of total depravity.

What do we mean by “total depravity”?  We don’t mean the people are as bad as they can possibly be.  We simply mean that because of the fall of mankind in Adam into sin, we are all born in a state of alienation from God, and therefore corrupt in heart, soul, and mind from the day that we are born.  As the apostle Paul puts it to the Ephesians, we are all dead in trespasses and in sins (Eph. 2:1) and we are this way by nature (3).  A consequence of this is that by nature we do not desire to trust in God or to obey him.  We are “in the flesh” and unable to submit to God’s law or to love what God loves (Rom. 8:7-8).  So unless God in his grace draws us to himself through Christ, we will never come (Jn. 6:44).  The natural man – those who are not born again – do not receive the things of the Spirit of God – the gospel, God’s law, his word (1 Cor. 2:14).  In our flesh we are incapable of taking one step toward God.  

This is not because we are physically incapably of doing so.  What do you need to believe and repent?  You need a mind, affections, and a will.  The unsaved have all that.  So the incapacity to believe and repent does not come from a lack of the faculties needed to believe and repent.  Where does the incapacity lie?  It lies in a heart that is bent in on itself,  that loves the darkness and hates the light.  Our Lord put it this way to the people in his day: “And ye will not [do not desire to] come to me that ye might have life” (Jn. 5:40).  The inability is not a physical inability; it is a moral inability, and far from taking away our responsibility for sin, it only aggravates it.  But it is still a real inability.  We are totally depraved means that we are totally unable on our own to trust in Jesus Christ or truly repent of our sins.

Now why is it important to see this?  It’s important because it means that no one deserves to be saved and that no one would be saved unless God acts decisively and effectually to save them.  Election is not God taking morally neutral people and deciding to save some but not others.  No, it is God choosing to save some sinners and choosing not to save other sinners.  He has that right and there is nothing in this that speaks against the justice of God.

This is the “lump” out of which God chooses one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor (21).  The “lump” is the lump of sinful humanity, of totally depraved humanity, of a humanity so turned in on itself that it won’t and therefore can’t come to God.  This is not humanity as it came from the hand of God on the sixth day of creation.  This is humanity in the shadow of Adam’s fall.  These are sinners.  God chooses sinners and he hardens sinners.  What are these vessels to dishonor?  They are “vessels of wrath fitted to destruction” which God has had to endure “with much longsuffering” (22).  

So is it unjust for God to choose one and refuse another?  The fact that God choses some but not all means that he has passed over others.  It not only means that he chooses Jacob but hates Esau (13).  Is this fair?  Yes it is.  Why?  Because election doesn’t make anyone into a sinner.  We are already saw that.  All election does is to save some sinners who deserve to go to hell from hell.  Election is God freely and unchangeably choosing to rescue some from the destruction for which they have been prepared by God because of their sins.

God didn’t have to save anyone.  He could have let every one of us enter into eternity under his wrath.  But God didn’t do that.  He is saving a multitude that no one can number, at immeasurably great cost to himself.  For God in the person of the Son took on a human nature and a human body and came and lived among us, all in order to pay the penalty for sins that we deserve to pay.  He did this when he was crucified and nailed to a cross.  The mission of Jesus is a mission that is rooted in God’s free and sovereign and gracious election of sinners.  This is how we need to understand his language when he talks about those whom the Father gave him to save.  Who are those whom the Father gave him?  They are the elect. These are the ones for whom he died: “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day” (Jn. 6:37-40).

The objects of election are sinners.  Those who are saved are sinners who need to be saved.  They need mercy, not justice!  And those who are hardened are sinners who deserve to be hardened and destroyed.  There is nothing unjust about what God is doing here.  Instead, we should be amazed at the mercy and grace of God that saves anyone at all.

God’s glory

The ultimate end for which anything exists is the glory of God.  And not just this or that aspect of the glory of God, but the full display of all his glorious attributes.  The world exists not only to magnify God mercy but also God’s justice, not only God’s patience but also God’s power.  

And so we see here that the reason why God is showing mercy to some is to manifest the greatness of his mercy.  And the reason why he is hardening some is to manifest the greatness of his power and judgment.  Listen to the purpose clauses that Paul uses here.  Here we come the closest to a Biblical answer to why God elects some and hardens others: “What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?” (22-24).

Here we see the purposes of God behind showing mercy and hardening hearts.  Paul begins in verse 22 with the purpose of God behind the hardening of hearts.  God does this to show his wrath and to make his power known.  Since Paul has just mentioned Pharaoh (17), no doubt he is thinking of the plagues and the Exodus as a preeminent example of this.  In the ten plagues, God judged the nation and the gods of Egypt, showing his wrath against idolatry and his power in the overthrow of his enemies.  It is right and good for God to show this.  

Again, we must remember that God did not make Pharaoh into a sinner.  For God to harden Pharaoh’s heart means that he simply left Pharaoh to pursue his own will and his own choices, and to leave Pharaoh to do what he wanted.  This is why the Exodus narrative also talks about Pharaoh hardening his own heart.  He is not without blame.  He and the Egyptians who had so terribly persecuted the people of God, even throwing their babies into the Nile in order to keep their population down, were justly judged by God.  This was not an inglorious thing for God to do.  It was a demonstration of the glory of God, a way by which God’s glorious name would be proclaimed among the nations (17).  This is not a bad thing.  This is not something for which to blame God.  It is something to praise God for and worship him for.

God did this even though he had to endure with much longsuffering the sins of Pharaoh.  God does not giggle or snicker over the sins of men.  He has to endure them.  God hates sin.  The sin itself is not glorious.  It is the victory of God over his and our enemies that is glorious.  God’s purpose in the hardening of Pharaoh and of every other sinner in this world does not mean that the hardening itself is good in itself or worthy of praise.  It is not.  It is terrible, but God is able to bring good even out of this for the glory of his name and the good of his people. 

However, election is not just or even mainly about the destruction of the enemies of the people of God.  It is mainly about God making known “the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles” (23-24).  While God endures with the wicked until they are punished, God delights in the making known the riches of glory on the vessels of mercy.  

“The riches of glory on the vessels of mercy.”  What are these riches?  They include everything that brings a sinner who deserves nothing but punishment into the fulness of redemption and salvation.  They include “all things that pertain to life and godliness” (2 Pet. 1:3).  They include “all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” (Eph. 1:3).  They include the love of God, the grace of God, the blessings of God, the faithfulness of God, the protection of God, the leading of God.  God is not a miser with his people.  Sometimes we forget just how generous God is, and our prayers often reflect our warped sense of God’s goodness.  We come to him as if we were coming to a miserly uncle, as if we have to use a crow-bar to pry blessings out of the hand of God.  But God is our Shepherd and in him we shall not want.  He doesn’t just give us glory but “the riches of glory.”  

But just think of that word: glory!  Think about the condition of the saint in this world.  So often it is so far from being glorious that it is the exact opposite.  But my friends, if you belong to Christ, glory is your future.  You may not be glorious now, but one day you will be.  Why then would we trade the eternal glory of the people of God for the temporary pleasures of sin?  Should we not do the opposite, like Moses, who chose “rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward” (Heb. 11:25-26)?  Glory!  This is the way our Lord put it: “so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.” (Mt. 13:40-43).  Shining like the sun: that is glory!

“On the vessels of mercy.”  We must never forget this.  We are vessels of mercy.  God does not pour his riches into vessels that in themselves are worthy of them.  We are miserable in ourselves.  We are sinners, who have fallen infinitely short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23).  But God, who is rich in mercy, out of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses and sins, made us alive with Christ, raised us up to heaven with him, seats us with him in the heavenly places, so that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:4-7).

And who is this for?  It is for “even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles” (24).  God’s election that saves sinners is not just for Jews but for Gentiles also.  Praise God for that!  When Paul preached the gospel to the Gentiles in Antioch, we read that “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” (Acts 13:48).

It is an election that brings us into an estate of salvation by calling us to himself, causing us to see our sin and our need of a Savior, and to repent and to come to Jesus Christ, trusting in him as Lord and Savior.  God’s election is an election that calls.  Whom he predestines he calls, and whom he calls he justifies, and whom he justifies he glorifies (Rom. 8:29-30).  It is an election that does not leave men unsaved and uncalled but calls them effectually into a state of salvation in Christ.  God is glorified, not by leaving men in their sins but by saving them out of it.  

Paul illustrates this in that remarkable autobiographical note in his letter to the Galatians: “For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it: and profited in the Jews' religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers. But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood” (Gal. 1:13-16).  When it pleased God, who according to his eternal purpose had already chosen Paul, he called him by his grace and brought him to faith in Christ by a remarkable conversion.  Can we not say it has been the same with us?  

Let’s end on that note.  The doctrine of election is about the mercy of God being what saves us.  Don’t let all the difficulties with the doctrine keep you from seeing that.  It means that my salvation rests finally in God, and in nothing in myself.  My goodness and faithfulness didn’t move God to choose me; it was his own love, his unchangeable love, that chose me and called me.  And that love will steadfastly keep me in a state of grace and salvation.  Nothing can separate us from that love.  This is what the doctrine of election means.  It means that we have a sure hope.  It means that we can have the assurance of our salvation.  If our salvation really depended on us, then all bets are off.  But if our salvation is entirely of the Lord, then we have hope, and that what election guarantees.

How can you know that you are embraced in this plan of God?  How do you know if you are elect?  There is one simple test.  It is this: do you believe on the name of the Son of God?  You cannot know the election part if you do not believe in him and follow him.  You don’t wait for confirmation of election in order to believe: you believe and then you will know that you are one of God’s elect!  Here is how Jesus put it: “But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand” (Jn. 10:26-29).  Are you one of Christ’s sheep?  Are you one for whom he laid down his life for the redemption of your sins?  Well them, have you heard his voice, and do you follow him?

What does it mean to hear Christ’s voice?  It doesn’t mean that you literally hear him speaking to you.  It means that in the preaching of his word, empowered by the Spirit, you hear his call, like when he says, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest” (Mt. 11:28).  Paul tells the Ephesians that they had heard Christ (Eph. 4:20-21).  Where?  When?  Not physically but spiritually, through the preaching of his word.  On the authority of that word we come to Christ, and coming to him, we are saved.  We beseech you and call upon you to do that today!

And coming to him, profess him openly, confess him with your mouths and be baptized.  If you are a believer and have not yet professed Christ in this way, you should.  You must if you are to really be a follower of Jesus.  He does not call on us to be secret disciples, but men and women who profess him openly, who are glad to wear his name in the waters of baptism.   May the Lord call you this day to himself, is my prayer.