GOD IS MERCIFUL
There was a variety of reactions to last Sunday’s sermon on God’s election. Those reactions ranged from confusion to deep gratitude, from frustration about the destiny of loved ones to assurance about God’s calling.
It’s not surprising since Romans 9 has been called the most controversial chapter in the NT. Churches have split over it and misunderstandings of its teaching have led some to a life of sin with the false notion that they were not destined to be saved anyways.
God’s purpose in election may seem unfair. We could push it aside and deal with it in a theology classroom. Why bring election into the preaching of the church? One reason: because it’s there. We can’t avoid it. Verse 11 talks about God’s purpose in election. We have to talk about it because it is a part of who God is.
If we say, “God couldn’t be like that,” what do we mean? If we say that our years of Bible study have led us to a view of God that is incompatible with this doctrine, we can dialogue with that. We can come to an understanding.
But if we mean that this simply doesn’t fit my idea of what God is like, we have to ask, where did we get that idea of God? Is it a picture drawn from culture or from a popular conception of God? If this is the case, can such a perception stand against the authority of Scripture? Can we really challenge the Bible with our own picture of God?
Time and again in the Bible God reveals his hand in electing some for specific purposes. How this works is a mystery to us. God elects us by and for his will.
Charles Spurgeon strongly believed in election and applied it to himself. He said, “I believe the doctrine of election, because I am quite sure that if God had not chosen me I should never have chosen him; and I am sure he chose me before I was born, or else he never would have chosen me afterwards; and he must have elected me for reasons unknown to me, for I never could find any reason in myself why he should have looked upon me with special love. So I am forced to accept that doctrine.”
As we continue this study of Romans 9 and the questions concerning God’s election, I would ask that you take the sermons together and not alone. The teaching of these truths must be taken as part of the larger story. Let’s follow Paul’s argument for God’s fairness in chapter 9.
1. Is God unjust in his election?
We asked ourselves last Sunday whether God was fair when it came to some being saved and others not. His concern was for the Jews who, with all the advantages they had, still did not believe in Jesus as the Messiah.
Paul’s treatment of the question moves on to God’s justice or fairness as it relates to mercy. Paul writes, “What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all!” (9:14).
This is a question asked by those with faith and submission to God’s ways. It accepts the justice of God but seeks an explanation that would assure the seeker that grace is involved in election. Is God unjust?
The answer comes from the experience of Moses in Exodus 33. As an affirmation of Moses’ leadership and the presence of God in that leadership, Moses asks to see the glory of God. The LORD places Moses in the cleft of a rock and covers him with the shadow of his hand. Then the LORD passes by allowing Moses to see his back and hear these words, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion” (Ex 33:19).
From this we get the idea that mercy and compassion are connected with God’s name. Note that God does not say, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy and show cruelty to whom I will show cruelty.” At the heart of God’s nature is mercy and compassion.[i]
What Paul is pointing to here is that no one can stake a claim on God’s mercy. He gives it freely where he chooses to according to who he is, not according to our merit, works or worthiness or even our unworthiness.
“It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy,” Paul says (9:16). If we could in any way imagine that our capacities could draw God’s mercy for ourselves, this verse denies it. God will show his mercy according to his plan. So if the Jews do not believe in Jesus as Messiah, or make no effort and show no desire, God’s purposes will carry on. God will reconcile humankind to himself through Jesus whether or not the Jews accept or reject Jesus. It doesn’t stop God.
God even uses the hardness of people’s hearts to accomplish his will. Paul refers to Pharaoh in the Exodus story to prove his point. God had put Pharaoh in power to oppose the Israelites, subjugate and persecute them, and enslaving them, so that God could show his power to deliver. Now Paul punctuates this example saying, “Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden” (9:18).
A theological question pops up in this example: Did God harden Pharaoh’s heart or was his heart already hardened? Some might say that God does not harden anyone’s heart who had not first hardened himself. So God’s hardening of Pharaoh’s heart was just in that God was abandoning him to his own stubbornness. Remember Romans 1 where God “gave them over”?[ii]
The only problem with this view is that the LORD told Moses before he even went to see Pharaoh that God would harden his heart (Ex 4:21). So Moses was an object of divine mercy and Pharaoh was object of divine wrath according to the will of God. Both were intended to display the glory of God through their roles.
Does God elect some to salvation and harden others in their unbelief? If he does is God unjust? Or is that what their sin deserves? We can equally ask whether God is unjust in showing mercy since we really don’t deserve that either. The wonder is not that some are saved and others are not, but that anybody is saved at all. For we deserve nothing but judgment.[iii]
2. “There is a God but you’re not him”
This next question is asked, not from a place of faith, but from unbelief and rebellion. It challenges the justice of God as to his decisions: “One of you will say to me: ‘Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?” (9:19).
Questioning God is not a problem. We can ask out of our confusion for the Lord to clarify an issue. What we find in this question is a tone of quarreling with God, talking back to God. There is a refusal in this tone to let God be God and to remember one’s place. It is sort of like Job in the OT who wanted to have a face-to-face with God and tell him off.
Here’s the essence of the question: If Pharaoh, and later Israel, are just playing the role God has for them in the plan of God, why should God judge them for resisting his will? If I was meant to do bad or harden my heart, can God blame me and judge me?
Paul’s answer is a classic OT image: God as the potter and we as the clay. “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?” (20b-21).
As an artist, whether you draw, paint or sculpt, do you not have the right to crumple your work and throw it away if it is not turning out the way you imagine? You have that right.
However, that is not the illustration. God as the potter takes some clay and makes a vase for decoration in a fancy home, and some other clay to be a common pot for watering plants. God has the right as the Creator to do what he wants with either pot. He even has the right to destroy the pot if he chose to, doesn’t he?
This is what God says in the Jeremiah passage describing God as the potter: (Jeremiah 18:6-10). So if God hardens some hearts, it’s for his glory; and if he shows mercy to others it is for his glory; for whatever God does, it’s for his glory, to show that God is God.
If your God has been put in a box that doesn’t allow for God to be God then get a different God. Our God does not fit in a box anyways. But we want God to be all nice and tidy and to fit into a clean little structure so we can keep an eye on him and figure him out. We can’t do that; God is sovereign and he reigns over us, not us over him.
A newcomer to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting was approached by a crotchety veteran who had been to several meetings. He said to the newcomer, “The first thing you need to learn about this program is that there is a God and you’re not him.”[iv]
You may have noticed that Paul didn’t answer the question from verse 19. Instead, he took the route of God’s sovereignty and right to do as only God can do. In effect, Paul calls the questioner a hypocrite. For don’t we all want to “be like God” making our own decisions and practicing sovereignty over our own lives.
God is the maker and redeemer. He can take a pot and use it for whatever purpose he chooses. He can take us and use us however he pleases. Therefore we can trust him because, not only is he our Creator, Redeemer and Lord, he is also merciful and loves to show mercy to those who seek it.
There was a hint of his mercy in Jeremiah and we will see more of his mercy as we go on.
3. God’s power displayed in mercy
On this foundation of God’s sovereign right to elect, Paul now shows us God’s mercy. Two questions of the “What if” variety are posed:
“What if God choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath – prepared for destruction?” (9:22).
Back in Romans 1 we were introduced to the gospel, the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes, and to the wrath of God being revealed against sinners. Here again we see his wrath and power simultaneously highlighted. This is what the question points to in regards to objects of wrath.
What are the objects of wrath? In biblical language, an object of wrath is an object deserving of wrath. The objects of wrath are people who haven’t yet experienced God’s saving power through Jesus Christ. Everybody who has lived or will ever live is an object of God’s wrath until they trust in Jesus Christ. So let’s not miss this very crucial detail: Someone who is an object of wrath does not need to remain an object of wrath.[v]
That’s the impression we get from the letter to the Ephesians where Paul said, “Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath” (Eph 2:3b). This letter was written to Christians and they are reminded that they too were as morally bankrupt as the pagans around them. And only one thing transformed them from objects of wrath: “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ when we were dead in our transgressions…” (2:4-5a). The mercy of God…
But the phrase “prepared for destruction” makes it sound like those people are destined for annihilation. Is that true? Not exactly. The language again suggests that it is not God preparing it for destruction so much as it is preparing itself for destruction. So God is showing incredible patience of those objects of wrath, people who do not believe giving them time to repent and experience God’s saving power, or giving them time to heap up more judgment for themselves. Even while people are rebelling against God and his love, God shows great patience and gives every opportunity for repentance.
The second “what if” question focuses on the objects of God’s mercy: “What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory – even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?” (9:23-24).
Paul answers this with two examples.
The first is from Hosea. If you know the story of Hosea in the OT you remember that he is the prophet God told to marry a prostitute. In doing this, Hosea was a metaphor of how God loved Israel even though they went after other gods. Israel was “married” to God but they had committed adultery with idolatry. Even still, God showed them love and wanted them to turn to him.
Out of this book Paul takes a quote and uses it to reveal how God elected to show mercy to the Gentiles. “I will call them ‘my people’ who are not my people; and I will call her ‘my loved one’ who is not my loved one,” (9:25). In this way he made the Gentiles, objects of wrath, into objects of mercy by including them in those that could be saved.
On the other hand, Israel, objects of God’s mercy, were making themselves objects of God’s wrath by disobeying God. From Isaiah, Paul quotes two passages that speak of only a remnant of Israel being saved. They rejected the Messiah despite all their ability and advantages to recognize the Christ. So God declares that only a portion of the number of Jews will be saved from his wrath.
This too is mercy. Oddly enough, in this rejection of Israel as God’s people, we are included in God’s mercy. And later we will hear that our acceptance is God’s way of making the Jews jealous for what we have and they should have had all along. Mercy!
Conclusion
We have talked about election.
We have talked about God’s sovereignty.
We have talked about his right to accept and reject.
Some who are listening might conclude that either God has chosen to save me, or to reject me. It really doesn’t matter what I do then if God has already decided for me.
If you think like this and put the responsibility squarely on God for your condemnation, then you are responding the way the rebel did in verse 19. The offer of salvation is plainly given through Jesus. Those who receive Christ will be saved. Those who reject Christ will be condemned.
God is Sovereign – yes. When we speak of election it sounds like everything has been decided. But God is merciful. Bob Deffinbaugh discovered something very significant in the NT: No one who called upon our Lord for mercy was ever turned away.[vi] Think about it – no one ever came to Jesus and asked for mercy received a cold response: “No you are not my elect – go away!” Everyone who asked Jesus for mercy received it.
There is one instance where mercy was refused. In Luke 16:19-31, a rich man and a poor man named Lazarus died at the same time. Lazarus went to Abraham’s side in Hades, the place of the dead, and the rich man was far away. The rich man was in torment and cried out to Abraham, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.” The response is not pretty – it was too late for mercy.
But in this life there is a unique paradox. God is sovereign and we are responsible. God is so great that he can be in control and at the same time allow people to make choices. We are responsible for our choices. God is sovereign and we are responsible to choose Jesus and his mercy.
If we are like the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable we do not see our need for mercy. We look at the man addicted to pornography with indignation; we are perplexed by the woman with abandonment issues; we can’t fathom the inability of some to succeed and keep a job; we observe the couple in marital difficulty and suggest that more prayer would have helped their situation. And we thank God that we are not like them.
However, if we are like the tax collector in the same parable, we realize that we are exactly like those people. We are in need. We are broken. We are poor, foolish mortals who keep getting drunk on the material prosperity of capitalism and fail to recognize true blessings. We are poor, pitiful, blind and naked – so spiritually naked. And then we cry out, “God, have mercy on me a sinner.”
At the mercy seat of Jesus, we find rest for our weary souls when we cry out, “God, have mercy on me a sinner.”
AMEN
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