Romans 9 & Predestination? Romans 9 - Part 2 of 3 - David Bercot

Well, good morning.

Good morning. We're still in Romans 9, and okay.

It's got to be—Romans is a difficult book, and Romans 9 has got to be the hardest chapter of it. And, yeah, I wish we had more time. We'll kind of just have to go through it fairly fast this morning. I thought we would maybe leave next week for questions because we're not going to be able to answer them all today. And I can't imagine that you wouldn't have questions.

Like I say, I've wrestled with this enough. One of the things that sheds the light on Romans 9 is when you read Paul's conclusion, when you're reading all of the premises and that that he makes, wow, it just sounds like the teaching predestination. Then at the end of the chapter—of course, he didn't write in chapters, but this block kind of goes together—then he explains what the point is that he's driving, but you got to wait to get to the end. So I thought it might make sense to just skip to the end and read what he's giving as his application. Then we go back and look at the middle part. So I'm not going to try to explain these last verses, but let's just read them.

This is his application of what he's pointing to, okay? He says, "So that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy whom he had prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom he has called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles, as he said also in Hosea, 'I will call them my people who were not my people, and her beloved who was not beloved.' And it will come to pass that in the place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,' there they will be called sons of the living God."

We're going to go just a little bit further, but you can see at this point he's talking about his application is the Israel of God, and of course, in contrast, the fleshly Israel. That's the point that he's making, even though when you're in the middle of Romans 9, it doesn't necessarily look like that's his point.

Isaiah also cries concerning Israel. He's talking about fleshly Israel here. "Though the number of the children of Israel is as the sand of the sea, a remnant will be saved." Not all of them, but only a remnant. "For he will finish his word and cut it short in righteousness because the Lord will make a short word upon the earth."

And as Isaiah said before, "Unless the Lord of Sabbath had left us a seed, we would have been a Sodom and have been made like Gomorrah." What will we say then? That the Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness that is of faith. But Israel who pursued the law of righteousness, talking about the Mosaic law, has not attained to the law of righteousness. So one wasn't seeking it and they obtained it. One was, but through the wrong channel.

Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. "But for they stumbled at the stone of stumbling, as it is written, 'Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, and whoever believes on him will not be ashamed.'" So the fleshly Israel had stumbled over their Messiah, had not recognized him, ended up fighting against him, ended up many in the nation even having him crucified.

And then when you go into the next chapter, he continues, "Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is for their salvation, for I testify of them that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.

For being ignorant of God's righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness, they have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes." So again, nothing very complicated in his conclusion. The Gentiles came by faith. They embraced the Messiah. Not all the Gentiles, not most of them, but a good number of them. And fleshly Israel stuck to the law. "No, we're not going to believe the law of Moses, and we're going to be made righteous through the law of Moses," and totally stumbled over the Messiah. So they were trying to get righteousness their own way instead of the way that God had given us the channel, and nope, we're going to do it our way.

So that's his conclusion. Now, when you're in the middle of Romans, it doesn't necessarily look like this is where he's headed. But so it's important that we recognize this is the point that he's making in Romans, all right? Now, we're going to go back and look at those middle verses, but I thought maybe it's more helpful when we can see his point, when he sums it all up, then we go back and look at what he says earlier.

Okay, so everything in chapter 9 is building towards this conclusion. There are two nations, fleshly Israel and spiritual Israel. Spiritual Israel is primarily made up of Jews, I mean, of Gentiles, but it's equally open to Jews and Gentiles. I mean, Gentiles have no inherent advantage. In fact, as Paul begins chapter 9, he points out all the privileges the Jews have. I mean, so theoretically, they should have a big head start over us, but it hasn't worked that way.

Spiritual Israel has received God's mercy. This has not been arbitrary mercy, but because they have responded in faith to his offer of grace. In contrast, fleshly Israel, and we're talking about as a nation, not every individual, has stubbornly clung to the Mosaic law and rejected their own Messiah. So they've experienced God's condemnation as a result.

Okay, like I say, his conclusions are not hard. Now, in the verses that precede this final passage, and we're fixing to go and look at them in detail, Paul is answering the Jewish objector who is claiming that God is unfair in all this. Now, how many of you remember the Jewish objector? Okay, a goodly number. If you didn't raise your hand, don't feel bad because it's something we discussed over the past year in some of the sermons. So many of you weren't even here then, and of course, if you're visiting today, you would not have heard it. But it's not everywhere in Romans, but he goes back and forth in different chapters of Romans of having this dialogue with this Jewish objector who's saying, "God isn't fair," is saying this, and he's saying that, and Paul is continually discussing with him.

The objector feels it's unfair for God to have mercy on the Gentiles. We mentioned this last week that the Gentiles were out there worshiping idols when the Jews were worshiping the one true God. The Gentiles were living abominable lives. The Jews, at least many of them, were trying to live by the teachings of God. And so to them, it felt so unfair that, "What? The Gentiles are just going to come in? They don't have to become Jews first? They don't have to come under the law? You're just going to take them in?" And they stumbled over that, how God had dealt mercifully with the Gentiles, and they could never accept that, and really to this day have still not.

Okay, back in verse 14, Paul sets forth this objector's complaints and his excuses. He gives us what the objector is saying, and then he answers them. So we're going to go back and let's see what he has to say. Now, the problem when we're going to fixing to read this is we all want to start saying, "Yeah, but I mean, this can't be."

And we have to let Paul finish his argument. He finishes it at the end of the chapter that what we just read. That's the end of his argument. But when you're in the middle of it, it's like you're not expecting him to be going there. It sounds like he's off on some other branch.

It made me think of a discussion Deborah and I had this week. We were talking about the plans for this weekend, and she was telling me, "Well, okay, we're going to blah, blah, blah." And I said, "Well, wait a minute, that's not going to work. Let me finish." And then she started going more, "But wait, no, that's not going to work. Let me finish." And then she went on again, "Deb, that's not going to work. Let me finish." And I finally said, "We're doing what Paul does." I mean, he throws this stuff out and you're like, "This doesn't make sense. Let him finish." And it makes sense in the end. So like I say, when you just jump in the middle and take those verses out of context, you're really going to come up with some very warped theology.

You're going to end up with a very warped God. Like this is a God who just, "Man, I'm going to just pick and choose whoever based on nothing except my own whims." And some are going to burn forever in hell, and some are going to have eternal life, and it's just me picking and choosing randomly. I mean, that's horrible. I mean, no one can imagine that to be a loving God.

Okay, so Romans 9, start with verse 14. The Jewish objector is the one starting off. "What then shall we say? There is injustice with God." Now, most modern translations, they put this as being Paul talking, and it works out the same. And instead of it saying, "There is injustice with God," most translations will say, "Is there injustice with God?" We talked about this, I don't know what, back in February. In Greek, there's no question marks. There's no way to construct a question like there is in English. So you've got to look at it, and you've got to make a judgment call. Is this a question, or is this a statement? Because there's no absolute answer.

I mean, I don't know what they did. I guess when they were speaking, it was the tone of their voice you could tell. But when you're just reading it, it's next to impossible to know. You have to make a judgment call. The early Christians were all understanding this to be a statement because they're understanding this is the objector saying this. God is unjust. And Paul responds, "God forbid." Now, Paul gives three different arguments to demonstrate that God is not unjust in his dealings with the Jews. He's not unjust in showing mercy to the Gentiles because the objector is saying, "God isn't fair. He's being unjust to us Jews." And it's like Paul says, "No." And he gives three examples.

Now, the problem is these examples have, over the centuries, confused Christians rather than making it clear. But that was the point Paul was trying to make. So let's look at these. And if we remember, like I say, keeping in mind, he's talking about two nations, Israel of God, the spiritual Israel, and fleshly Israel. You got to keep that in mind. He's talking about two nations. He's not giving an essay on personal salvation. Now, maybe if we have time next week, we can see how we can apply this to personal salvation, but that's not his main point, okay?

He starts off, "For he said to Moses, 'I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.'" Now, his application is the Jews and the Gentiles. The Jew is saying, "This isn't fair." And he's saying, like Paul, I mean, God said to Moses, "I'll have compassion on whom I'll have compassion and mercy on whom I'll have mercy." That's God's business who he wants to be merciful to. We don't have any right to say, "It's not fair you're being merciful to him." Well, that's not for us to talk about. That's his own business. He can be merciful to whoever he wants to be. But he doesn't say that his mercy and his compassion are arbitrary.

Paul doesn't say that. He just says he's merciful to whom he wants, and he shows compassion to whom he wants. Now, we know through the rest of the Bible, he shows mercy and compassion on those who believe. So he has a basis. He doesn't just do it on a whim, but it's still, it's his business, not ours. It's like the parable of the workers in the vineyard. We were just talking about it at lunch yesterday.

However, the ones who came late yesterday morning, they got the same lunch as those who got here really early and worked all morning. We all got the same lunch. And in the parable, when the workers who had worked all day said, "Well, this isn't fair," Jesus said, "If I want to be generous with my money, that's my business. You agreed to work for one denarius, and that was a fair wage, and you got it. So what are you complaining about? Because I give one denarius to someone who didn't work all day, that's my business. I'm just being generous." But yeah, it kind of sticks, and it doesn't feel fair. It's like, "Wait a minute, even though I agreed for this, and even though it's fair, you're being nice to this person.

I don't like it," is what it amounts to. And this is what was happening with the Jews. "It's not fair. You're being nice to the Gentiles. You're giving them a free pass." Well, God can have mercy on who he wants. Now, his context when he said this, he wasn't talking about personal salvation. It was the Israelites who had just terribly sinned by worshiping the golden calf. Now, God could have had every right to just wipe them all out. I mean, they had become as wicked as the Egyptians. I mean, here they saw the same miracles that Pharaoh had seen. We know that Pharaoh was hard-hearted and wicked. They had seen all those miracles, plus the crossing of the Red Sea, plus all the miracles on Mount Sinai, the trumpets, and I mean, all these heavenly wonders.

And what do they do? They go and worship a golden calf. I mean, God could have just slayed all of them, and he would have been perfectly justified. But he didn't. The Levites slayed 3,000. The rest he allowed to live. Now, most of them, only a couple made it to the promised land.

But that was his decision. "If I want to have mercy on some, I have that right to have mercy on them. I can have compassion." That's what he told Moses. Moses was saying, "Forgive them all." He said, "I'll have mercy on whom I choose to have mercy." And the 3,000 that were slain, God may have known something in their hearts. Maybe they were a little extra wicked, a little bit more inclined towards idol worship, or maybe God did it so that this example would save the others. We don't know. He doesn't have to explain to us. I think it's one of the messages all throughout the Bible. God owes us no explanations. He gives us a lot of explanations, but he doesn't owe it to us.

Okay, now Paul sums up God's entire plan of salvation for mankind, particularly in regard to creating this spiritual Israel. And he makes this comment. And we'll talk more on this next week because this has become one of the proof texts of the Calvinists. So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.

Now, Paul is not saying, "So there's nothing you can do to be saved because it doesn't matter what you do. It's whether God wants to show mercy to you or not." But that doesn't fit because we just saw in the end, he's saying, "Israel did not obtain it." Why? He said, "Because they went about it their own way. Instead of seeking God's righteousness, they decided, 'Hey, we're going to do it our way. We're going to follow the law of Moses.'" That's where salvation is. And so they missed salvation. So if it didn't matter, if it's just all arbitrary, then what difference did it make whether they pursued it through the Mosaic law or through faith?

You're lost anyway, or you're saved anyway. It doesn't matter what you do if that's what Paul is saying. But obviously, he's not, or otherwise his conclusion wouldn't fit. But what he's saying is this whole arrangement of his calling the Gentiles and the Jews, this is all of his mercy. I mean, none of us deserve this. None of us can save ourselves. None of us can do anything for God that would put him in our debt. That, "Oh, okay, I owe this to David because he's done this or that." It's never that way.

God is never in our debt for anything. No matter what we do for him, we've only done what we should have as imperfect humans. It doesn't entitle us to anything beyond that. So yeah, the whole arrangement is of God's mercy.

And this is what the Jews were stumbling over. They wanted to make it through the law. And if you follow all of these regulations of the law, and faith doesn't play that important of a part, it's following the minutiae of regulations. He says, "No, it doesn't work that way. It is all on God's mercy."

In other words, the Gentiles haven't saved themselves. God has opened the way through grace. But he does require a response. We either accept that grace, "Thank you, Father. Thank you. I'm truly grateful. I not only believe, but I am now yours. I give my life to you." Or we can be unthankful. And it's like, "Oh, big deal. Jesus died on the cross. He's resurrected. So what? What does that have to do with me?" If that's our response, we're not going to get any compassion shown us. We don't deserve it, and God's not going to give it to us.

All right, so that's his first example, the quotation from Exodus. "I'll have mercy on whom I will have mercy. I'll show compassion to whom I want." Okay? Is everyone with me? Does this—okay, I know this isn't, like I say, the easiest part of scripture. All right, then his next one. And like I say, each one of these is a proof text for the Calvinists. "For the scripture said to Pharaoh, 'Even for this very purpose, I have raised you up that I might demonstrate my power in you and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.'" Now, that sounds like he's saying, "Okay, I created Pharaoh just for no other purpose so that I could condemn him and see I get glory.

And that's how I operate. I'll just bring someone in existence so I can punish him, and that brings me glory." And of course, that doesn't give God any glory in the eyes of most people. And that's not how God works. He wants to show his power through his love, but sometimes he will show it through obstinate people. He didn't say he created Pharaoh for that purpose, but he raised him up. In other words, he wouldn't necessarily have become Pharaoh. He could have just been another high-ranking Egyptian. God allowed him to reach that position because he foreknew how Pharaoh was going to operate. And he formed a plan that through this man's obstinance, I'm going to show my power.

And as a result of it, there's going to be hundreds of thousands of Egyptians who will come to faith in me. And that's what happened.

Therefore, he has mercy on whom he wills, and he hardens whom he wills. Again, what's missing that the Calvinists want to stick in this verse is he has mercy on whom he arbitrarily wills, and he hardens whom he arbitrarily wills. It's not in there, but that's how they interpret it. It's just arbitrary.

I'm going to harden Justin. That's it. Boom. Genie gets a break. You get hardened. Can't do anything about it. I made that decision. It's not because I don't like you and I like her. It's just I just picked numbers out of a hat.

Your number fell wrong, Justin. So I'm going to harden you. It's not how it works with God. He has a reason for doing things.

Pharaoh was given every opportunity to repent and free the Israelites. I contrast Pharaoh with the king of Nineveh. Now, here is Nineveh, steeped in idol worship, steeped in cruelty, all kinds of things. And here comes a Jewish prophet from another nation, a nation the Assyrians had conquered, much mightier. And he says, "God's going to destroy this city." And everyone repents. The king repents. That's all it took. They didn't see a single miracle. All they had was this foreign prophet come and preach to them, and they repented. Pharaoh, I mean, he saw nothing but miracles. Miracle after miracle after miracle, still rejected it all. So he hardened his own heart. When you're reading the account in Exodus, it first says, "Pharaoh hardened his heart.

Pharaoh hardened his heart." And then towards the end, it says, "God hardened his heart." At some point, God will give people up to judicial hardening. In other words, you've demonstrated it doesn't matter what I do for you from God's perspective.

You're still going to harden your heart against me. And God says, "Okay, I'm going to just harden you in that. I'm going to set you in that. Since you're not going to change, and I can tell you're not, then okay, I'm going to give you up to that hardening." And this is what happened to the nation of Israel, that because of their hardening themselves, rejecting their own Messiah, and then persecuting God's people, the Christians, then God gave them up to this hardening. But we're talking as a nation, not as individuals. I mean, on the day of Pentecost, as far as we know, every single one of those people were Jews. Some of them may have been Gentiles who converted to Judaism.

But as far as we know, every single one was a Jew. I think we can be virtually 100% certain of that. All 12 of the apostles were Jews, plus Paul. So yeah, I mean, God didn't harden. He didn't do something to harden them. He gave the Jews all this advantage. They hardened their own hearts. And at some point, God gave them up to judicial hardening. Okay, you've made yourself hard. Now, when we get to chapter 11, we're going to see we won't get there, unfortunately. But go home and read it. You'll see this isn't going to last forever, that at some point, this hardening will end, that there will be a conversion of the Jews.

We don't know exactly how that's going to happen, but there is a happy time ahead.

Okay, I think we've covered that slide. All right. All right, so his third example, the potter and the clay. He says, "Now this is the objector." He says, "You will then say to me, 'Why does he still find fault for who has resisted his will?'" So the Jew is saying, "Oh, it's not our fault. I mean, who can resist God? So if we're hardened, that's because God's hardened us. And what can we do about it? We're innocent. It's not our fault." And Paul says, "No, O man, but who are you to answer back to God?" And that would apply to a lot of us and a lot of people today who think they can answer back to God.

And they do it, and they mock God. And they're going to find at some point, he's not someone to be mocked. But the unbelieving Jew, this Jewish objector, he's criticizing how God has dealt with the Gentiles. Now, Calvinists want to imagine, even though there's nothing in the context, that, "Oh, this is an argument between an Armenian, excuse me, and a Calvinist," and the Armenian saying, "Well, this and that." And the Calvinist is saying, "No, no, it's not this way."

And that's not even anywhere in there. The context is about these two nations, fleshly Israel and spiritual Israel.

Okay, I think we've covered that. Then Romans 9:20 through 11, "Will the thing formed, say to him who formed it, 'Why have you made me like this?' Does not the potter have power over the clay out of the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?" Again, he's talking about these two nations. Fleshly Israel has now become a vessel of dishonor, and spiritual Israel is a vessel of honor.

Is the point that he's getting at. Now, I wish this passage were in Romans because it would clarify this verse a lot, but it's in 2 Timothy, but it's still Paul. So Paul makes it in a later letter clear what he's talking about here.

So if someone ever quotes this to you, if a Calvinist quotes this to you and says, "Well, see, we're just like clay. God does with us what he wants. And he chose who was going to be elect a long time ago based on his own arbitrary will, and there's nothing anyone can do about it."

He makes some into unclean vessels or vessels of honor, some vessels of dishonor. And it would seem to say that I'd have to say, "Well, that's not an unreasonable interpretation," except who bears the responsibility of being a vessel of dishonor? He didn't say that God, again, arbitrarily did that.

Let's look at 2 Timothy 2:20 and 21. I noticed, I think every single early Christian who discusses this passage in Romans 9 about the potter and the clay, they all go to 2 Timothy 2 and say, "Well, Paul explains here what he means."

He says, "In a great house, there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honor and some for dishonor. Therefore, if anyone—" Now, this is the part. Listen to this. "Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from the latter, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful for the master, prepared for every good work." Now, who does the cleansing, does he say?

Yeah, he says we do. Now, we know from the rest of scripture, we're not on our own. I mean, God's probably doing the most of it, but we're having to take an active part in that. And Paul just says, "If anyone cleanses himself." Okay? So in other words, if you're a vessel of honor or a vessel of dishonor, it's not something arbitrary. It's whether have you cleansed yourself and made yourself available as a vessel of honor, or have you made yourself a vessel of dishonor? So yeah, when you're reading Romans 9, think about this verse here. He uses the exact same expression of vessels of honor and that. And he shows, "No, we play the key role on which one we're going to be."

It's not God being arbitrary. That's in the personal application. But again, Paul is talking about the two nations of fleshly Israel and spiritual Israel. So he says, "What if God, willing to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much long suffering the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction, and so that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, whom he had prepared beforehand for glory?" And this is where we started this afternoon or this morning. "So that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, whom he had prepared beforehand for glory, even us, whom he has called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles."

So his whole point on these vessels of honor and all of that, he says at the end, "Okay, the vessels of honor, that's us, we Christians, Jew or Gentile alike, we're the vessels of honor if we truly are believers and are walking with Christ.

On the other hand, the vessels of dishonor would be the unbelievers, whether they're Jew or whether there's Gentiles." As Paul said at the beginning of Romans, there is no partiality with God. So Jew or Gentile, you're going to be judged on the same basis on whether you have believed in Christ and given your life to him. And it won't help you if you're a Jew, and it's not going to give you a disadvantage if you're a Gentile. And neither side has an advantage from God because the way is open equally to both.

Okay, maybe we have time. Does anyone have one question? And the rest we'll put off till next week.

Yes, Mike. Well, I just wanted to make a comment. It would have never occurred to me to jump to the end to kind of get that down first. But it reminds me of the saying, "Begin with the end in mind." Like if you have a goal or something you're trying to achieve, start there and work your way back. And it just never really occurred to me before to do that with this and maybe other really tough passages. So that was really helpful. I appreciate it.

Well, it helped me when I realized that what they taught us in public speaking is start off telling people what you're going to say, and then say it, and then conclude by explaining what you just said or summing it up.

And it would have been helpful if Paul had done that. But of course, that's not how they were teaching public speaking or writing back in his day. They had a little different idea of how to do it. But he doesn't just leave us hanging. Like I say, he brings us to that conclusion. But I think it was after that discussion with Deborah this week, I thought, you know, because we go through this all the time. I always say, "So what's the point you're getting to?" "Just wait. Let me finish." "Yeah, but what is it you're driving at?" I'm just, whatever, overly eager. I want to hear the conclusion. And then, okay, I can fit in everything you're saying.

But she thinks more like Paul. It's like, "Just wait. You're going to get it." So I mean, you'll get the conclusion. That's what I mean. So yeah, that's how Paul writes. He says this, and then he sums it up. And yeah, I think if we read it in the reverse order, at least for me, it helped me when I read that way. It's like, "Okay, you've explained it all here. Now I get the points you're making." Thank you for being a part of the Sound Faith Channel as we expand the kingdom of God, seizing territory from Satan with every broadcast. This channel is made possible because of all of your generous gifts and donations. If you would like to partner with the Sound Faith Channel in our battle to usher in the kingdom of God, you can make a one-time donation or give monthly on our website.

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