This little interlude has come about because a friend and brother of this author started a conversation about the proper framing for Romans 9, a contentious chapter if there ever was one. So, given that Scripture must be read in context, it becomes very worthwhile to come to an accurate and biblically necessitated understanding of the context.
If a Christian were to search for the frequency of the word ‘Spirit’ in Romans 8, she might be amazed to see just how central he is to this chapter. Paul can hardly finish a sentence without sneaking a ‘Spirit’ in there, the way some of us can’t get through a two-minute prayer without at least thirteen repetitions of ‘Father God’. We jest of course, but the point remains. Paul outlines the battle between the flesh and the Spirit in a regenerate Christian, and makes it clear that if you are indwelt by God’s Spirit, he will lead you away from sin, and his leading you will be your means of putting sin to death. (Side note, the most biblical use of the phrase ‘spirit-led’ is in relation to putting sin to death, not in relation to making life decisions or deciding whether or not to have a 6th go at the bridge before hitting the chorus and closing the song. Whoever needs to hear that, that one was for free.)
Paul establishes an important core truth when he says, “those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God” (Romans 8:14). This whole section has been about life in the Spirit and life led by the Spirit, but let us remember something basic here. A person becomes a son or daughter of God when he saves them by his grace, and gives them the faith to trust in him. Though this section is not talking about ‘how to get saved’ like we might see in Romans 10, a discussion around what life looks like for Christians is a discussion of what saved life looks like.
Verse 18 marks a shift to looking forward to the restoration of all things: not only do saved sinners struggle forward against sin, but all of creation groans, waiting for the day when it will be liberated and brought into its final, free and glorious state (18-21).
Paul makes a point on prayer, and the Spirit’s work in us and through us and keeps pointing his readers to the final restoration, deliverance, liberation of man and earth from sin.
Then we get a very famous section, Romans 8:28-30. Let us read it.
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
Romans 8:28-30
What a stunning passage! Such insight, and such clarity. Paul speaks with something akin to prophetic past tense when he finishes the ‘golden chain of redemption’, because the last phrase, ‘and those whom he justified he also glorified’ has not yet happened in time. However, it is so sure, so bound to happen, that Paul can speak of it as a settled certainty.
Notice the grammatical object of ‘foreknew’ in this passage, it is ‘those [whom]’. God foreknew people, not actions. (Side note: do not hear that as this author saying that God was unaware of any actions that he decreed a creature should make, that would be completely in error. However, it is not God’s knowledge of events that Paul writes of, but God’s personal knowledge of people.)
We make this grammatical observation because it is astoundingly common for Christians to import a tradition that says that God ‘foreknew their decision to trust in him’, as if that is what Paul speaks of. Plainly, it is not. This is not a matter of opinion, it is a matter of what the words on the page actually say.
The climactic section that follows is one of the most beautiful sections of salvation language that you will find. Paul’s tone is so victorious! He laughs in the face of the world, saying, ‘If God is for us, who could possibly be against us? What have you guys got? I’ve got God on my team. On top of that, there’s no one you could bring to court to make a judgement against me, because the only one who could lay a charge against me is actually the one defending me! It is GOD who justifies!’
Paul starts his shopping list of potential enemies. Could trouble, or hardship, or persecution cause a rift between us and God? No way Jose. What about famine or nakedness or danger or sword? Not a snowball’s chance in an Aussie summer. Before you jump in, thinking you’re so clever, because there is a situation not specifically found on Paul’s list, I think you get the point: there is nothing at all, whatsoever, anywhere, that will separate God from the people he saves.
It is at this point, with the greatness of God’s faithfulness in mind, that we arrive at the section of this letter that we call Chapter 9. The tone changes, and Paul has some explaining to do. If God’s people will not be lost or condemned, why were so many Jews in his day rejecting their Messiah?
That is the question that Paul goes on to answer. He begins by admitting just how central the people of Israel are to God’s salvation.
They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.
v4-5
Paul’s made his point. He’s not about to backtrack and say, ‘yeah, God was using the Jews for a bit, but I mean, they weren’t that big of a deal. I mean, so what if they reject him, there’s always the Egyptians and Babylonians to save’. So, what is Paul’s explanation? How can he say that all these things are true of Israel, and her special place, and yet maintain that God has been faithful to the elect people that he chose and will save?
But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.
v6-8
So this is Paul’s answer: he describes a distinction between those who ‘belong to Israel’ and those who are ‘descended from Israel’. He repeats it in other words, saying not all are ‘children of Abraham’ just because they are his (physical) ‘offspring’. This makes complete sense, and addresses the question perfectly. All throughout redemptive history, there has been a large group of people that God has identified with, but only a fraction of those people were truly alive at heart, truly worshippers of Yahweh. It was the same in Paul’s day: not all that physically descended from Abraham were truly ‘Israel’, that is, they would not be counted among the ‘many brothers’ over which Christ is the firstborn. They were not spiritually Israel, even if they were by blood. The distinction is an invisible one, though a very important one. God has chosen some out of the many to receive mercy. This is called predestination and election, it was what Paul just spoke of in Romans 8, and is what he will go on to talk about here in Romans 9.
For this is what the promise said: “About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.” And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls— she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
v9-13
When we see Paul’s words, we should be asking ‘what is the point he’s trying to make?’ not ‘how can I reconcile this with my viewpoint?’. He takes care to draw this comparison between the two brothers: they had the same father, so there was no possible preference based on paternity. They were not yet born, so there could be no preference based on their actions. No, it was not because of anything about them, but rather in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls, that God chose Jacob over Esau.
We see here in painstakingly clear detail how God’s election of one individual, and his passing over of the other individual to the sin they will love, is entirely based on God’s purposes and will, and not on anything about the person, or anything done by the person. Any exegete who would deny this must be a professional gymnast, for such contortion would be necessary to avoid this.
What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.
v14-18
Take a second to stop there. Why would Paul rhetorically ask, ‘Is there injustice on God’s part?’ What about what Paul just said might lead something to think God was dealing unjustly? The answer is plain: God is treating different people in different ways, and it is not because of anything they did or didn’t do. It is because God chose one, and passed over the other. At the end of the day, the human heart cannot stand that. By nature we cannot stand that it is up to God, and that the choice is freely and entirely his. We don’t get a say, we can’t earn our place on the list, and we can’t accuse him of being unfair for choosing some and not others. Paul cites Scripture, so there’s no room for argument there. It is God who has mercy on whom he wills, but not just that. God also hardens whomever he wills. So, the two camps we have been tracing so far (as far back as Romans 8) are the chosen group who are alive in the Spirit, predestined for adoption to sonship, they are the true Israel, real worshippers of God at heart and they were chosen by God before they could do anything to influence his decision; and the broader group, those who are governed by the flesh, who do not and cannot obey God, who also experience sin, but are not conquerors, who have no defendant before God, some of whom are descendants of Israel but there are no lights on inside, they are dead, and they do not worship Yahweh, they rightly deserve condemnation, and God is under no obligation to save them, nor to have elected them.
You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is moulded say to its moulder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honourable use and another for dishonourable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?
v19-24
Look at the implied reaction Paul anticipates. He expects the switched on listener to imply that man cannot be blamed here, because God’s will cannot be resisted, and would always come to pass. We will be frank here. There are entire denominations in Christendom today who would side with Paul’s imaginary counterpart here, and not Paul. If you read this chapter and start asking about ‘your free will’, then we dare say that the shoe fits, and you know what to do with it.
So what is Paul’s response? Does he engage in some lofty philosophical talk about man’s capacity for moral judgement and guilt and the necessary preconditions for responsibility, or something like that? No. How about ‘Who are you, O man, to answer back to God?’. Yeah, that’ll do it.
Paul continues the discussion, this time framing the distinct groups in terms of pottery. Just as earlier it did not rely on works, but the one who calls, and just as from the big lump of Israel, only some were truly Israel, God chooses to take from the same lump of clay to make some vessels for honourable use, and others for dishonourable use. He then continues, not changing the subject at all, but using new terminology, to refer to those same two groups as “vessels of wrath prepared for destruction” and “vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory”, the latter of which he then identifies as “us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but from the Gentiles”.
There is no space there to change what that binary represents. It has been consistent throughout the last chapter and a half. The subject hasn’t changed, and in walking through this passage we have had no need to appeal to outside sources. Romans 9 is about God’s freedom in election, to choose whomever he wills. The context of that passage is God’s faithfulness to his people that we see in Romans 8.
We will quote now some of the words of my interlocutor, my brother in the faith with a different reading.
[Paul’s] aim was to show that God had not gone back on his promises but rather the recipients of his promises were no longer automatically the Jews, but rather the new nation that had been created in those who had faith in Jesus. God had pre-ordained that whoever these people were would not be the chosen people, the receivers of the covenant. The pre-destination was that this new nation would be adopted to sonship, not the individuals who would or wouldn’t come to faith.
J.M.
This brother is essentially putting forth what would be called the ‘corporate’ reading of Romans 9, being that God chose an ‘umbrella category’, namely, ‘those who trust in Jesus’. If you would permit the metaphor, it is the difference between saying that God chose to save people and send them home on a train, or saying that God chose to save and send home anyone who would get on the train. In one example, God chooses people. In the other, he chooses a category. In the above terminology, this category is the ‘new nation’ created in those who trust in Jesus. As biblical as that terminology is (for truly, God has created such a new nation by his son’s work), we must reject this corporate reading, not only for the error of choosing categories rather than people, but also for the fact that it doesn’t work with the flow of the text.
Try, as many may, there is no getting around Paul’s point. God chooses some individuals, and not others. He does it because of his purposes and plans and good will, and not because of any ‘foreseen’ actions or qualities inherent to man. It is God who justifies.
Distilled Orthopraxy 