Romans 9:14-29

Vindication of God's Righteousness

In the previous verses of ch. 9, the Apostle Paul sets out his defense for the faithfulness of God to Israel.  The concern of Jewish Christians is that many of their brethren according to the flesh were not coming to faith in Jesus Christ.  Rather, it seemed that God had forgotten the His people and had rather given the promise to the Gentiles instead.

Is God faithful to His Word?  Can His Word be trusted?  Has God forsaken Israel?  And if God has forsaken Israel, what hope do the Gentiles have that God won't forsake them?

Paul's answer to their question was very simple:  God is indeed faithful to His Word because those to whom His promise were made were chosen from within Israel and they are in fact coming to faith in Jesus their Messiah.  The problem lies not in God's faithfulness but in Israel's misunderstanding of who Israel was.  Israel, to whom the promise was given, is not simply Israel in the flesh, or those who descended from Abraham through natural generation.  Birthright was never the bases for reception of God's promise.  Rather, the promise went forward only to those whom God had chosen. 

God's sovereign, election, not birthright, was the basis of eternal salvation.

In fact, that sovereign election was not based on anything at all seen in man.  God did not look down through the corridors of time to see who would believe in Him and who wouldn't and then base his decision on the foreknowledge of belief.  Rather, the reason for His decision was not based on anything in man, but rather that His sovereign plan according to election might be fulfilled.  In theology, this is know as the doctrine of "unconditional election."

Now the Apostle knows that his insistence that God freely and unconditionally chooses who will be saved unto eternal life and who will be rejected unto eternal condemnation will be met with questions and objections:  if God chooses who will be saved and who will not be saved apart from anything in the human being, how can God still be "righteous" and how can he blame and punish people if they reject Him?  The inevitable human response to God's sovereignty is to question God's righteousness:  How can God be righteous by choosing some and rejecting others?  And if God rejects some, how can He still punish them for doing exactly what He decided?

When we come to Paul's answer, we expect him to compromise at this point.  We expect him to retreat to free choice and to argue that it is not simply God who chooses and rejects but it is MAN who freely chooses or rejects God.  The human, sinful heart expects salvation to be granted on MAN'S terms.  If MAN wants it, he gets it.  If MAN doesn't want it, he doesn't have to have it.  Either way, MAN determines his own destiny. 

But Paul, rather than compromising or retreating to the fallen intellect of man, reasserts God's sovereignty in even stronger terms.  God, not only has mercy on whomever He wants, He also hardens whomever He wants.  God is free to act in any way He chooses, because He alone is the Creator and man is the creature.

The problem with man's questioning God's righteousness in what God freely chooses to do, is because man thinks of himself as the standard of right and wrong by which God must measure up.  But does God have to measure up to man's standards of right and wrong?  Does God have to measure up to man's canons of logic?

No!  the only standard by which God must be judged is nothing less and nothing more than God Himself.  No man has the right to question the actions or motives of God.  As King Nebuchadnezzar proclaimed:

For (the LORD'S) dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom is from generation to generation.  All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing; He does according to His will in the army of Heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth.  No one can restrain His hand or say to Him, "What have You done?" (Dan. 4:34b-35). 

Let us now look in more detail to the Apostle's answers to man's sinful objections:

v. 14 Question:  Is God fair, Is He partial, Is He being unrighteous?

The problem here, once again, is not with God, but with the fact that man is even asking such a thing.  Does man really think that he is able to question whether something God does is right or wrong?

Without giving one inch to his objector, Paul provides two answers: the first, positive and the second, negative and both preceded by a verse from the OT.

1.  God's reason for showing mercy is not found in man, but in God alone (16).

Quote from OT:  Ex. 33:19 -- Moses wanting to see God's glory.  God tells Moses that his wanting is not the reason for God's mercy, but God's own pleasure alone (15).

2.  God's reason for hardening is not found in man, but in God alone (18).

Quote from OT:  Ex. 9:16 -- (13-16) -- Pharaoh was raised up and destroyed so that God's power would be known throughout all the land.

v. 19:  Question:  Why does God therefore punish someone if God was the one who hardened him unto condemnation?

1.  Who is man to even think of questioning what God does? (20)

*Potter/clay image >> Creator/creature distinction >> Vase >> Maker

2.  God has the right to do whatever He chooses with His creation (21)

From one lump of clay (mass of humanity)

a.  the potter can make a vessel of honor

b.  the potter can make a vessel of dishonor

God wants to demonstrate Himself >> Display His character and being:

On the one hand, Wrath & Power; on the other hand, Glory & Mercy

1.  Wrath & Power -- demonstrate for the world to see

endures with much longsuffering >>

vessels of wrath prepared (by God) for destruction

2.  Riches of His glory & Mercy -- demonstrate

vessels of mercy prepared by God for glory

Because God alone is the Creator, He has supreme right over His creation to do with it whatever He so chooses.  Therefore, Israel has no right to object to God's choosing one and rejecting the other, because God (as the potter) has the right to do with the clay whatever He wants.

Also Paul's point is that much of national, physical Israel has failed to embrace the gospel because God has so willed it:  as with Pharaoh, God has hardened them and they are now vessels which are prepared for destruction.

Paul then comes to his Second reason for why God's Word has not failed:  God has always planned on incorporating the Gentiles into His people along with a small remnant of Israelites (24-29).  This was God's plan from the beginning.  So when the Jews see many Gentiles coming to accept Jesus along with only a small remnant of Israelites it is because this is what God had planned.   Therefore, Paul answer is being refined:  Not only does physical descent from Abraham NOT guarantee inclusion into the true people of God, but it is not even necessary.  Once again, God is absolutely free to give his mercy on whom he chooses and to harden whom he chooses.  He is free to give His mercy to a few elect Jews and elect Gentiles as well as harden those Jews and Gentiles who have been prepared for destruction.

Therefore, Israel as well as the whole world, has no basis whatsoever for questioning the faithfulness of God to His Word.  It has always been God's plan from the beginning to save only a chosen remnant within Israel, along with elect Gentiles, who form the New Israel of God predestined to eternal glory. 

Therefore, has God's Word failed?  Certainly NOT!  May it never be!

In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.  Amen!  +SDG+