Romans Week 30, April 30, 2023
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Introduction
Introduction
Review of last week
Review of last week
The Gospel is the intersection of sovereignty and our responsibility.
The Gospel is the intersection of sovereignty and our responsibility.
The Gospel has always been based on election.
The Gospel has always been based on election.
The Gospel has always been based on Justice and Mercy
The Gospel has always been based on Justice and Mercy
14 What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means!
15 For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
16 So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.
17 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.”
18 So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.
Justice and mercy. These are two ideas you cannot get away from with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And these are two ideas that have always been a part of God’s gospel of salvation.
Paul wants us to understand how God remains just while exercising his purpose and power of election. To put it another way Paul wants us to understand how God can still be just when he chooses to save one friend of yours and not another.
In order for us to get what Paul has to say about the justice of God, we need to understand that election is not a question of justice or injustice, election is about the mercy of God.
In this section, Paul will help us to see two different things about election or two different things about the mercy of God
First of all, he will help us see that God‘s mercy isn’t something that overrides or negates justice. God is still a just God.
But secondly, we will see that God’s mercy isn’t negated by choice .
Let’s unpack these two principles
God’s justice is not negated by His mercy.
God’s justice is not negated by His mercy.
14 What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means!
15 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, is God unjust?
So, is God unjust?
Ironically earlier in the book we see how God can be called unjust for condemning sinners
5 But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.)
Now God is accused of injustice for saving sinners?!
14 What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means!
The reality is that humankind has always resisted the idea of God exercising His choices as God for our judgement or our salvation. We want to think ourselves as pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps.
But we must remember
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
We cannot pull ourselves up if we have all fallen short. Paul has already made the case throughout Romans on how Humans fall short of God’s glory. We are not righteous.
God is just in condemning our sins. God shows mercy in forgiving our sins.
Remember the parable last week of the landowner hiring a variety of workers for different lengths of time. He was just in what he paid each worker.
Coming to grips with following the God of the universe means accepting that He has the power and right to do what He will. In the same way the landowner had a right to pay each man what He wanted, God has a right to choose people for salvation.
19 And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.
So, was it unjust for God to chose Moses rather than the generations of Jews before him. Or chose other nations.
No, God showed His mercy and compassion for Moses, the Israelites, and through them, the world
The Divinity of Mercy
The Divinity of Mercy
Humans exercise it occasionally.
Animals don’t practice mercy.
Satan doesn’t exercise mercy.
Yet, we are so fast to pursue justice…at least for ourselves.
Romans C. The Gospel Has Always Been Based on Justice and Mercy (9:14–18)
“Among the attributes of God, although they are all equal, mercy shines with even more brilliance than justice”
No one deserves to be chosen.
No one deserves to be chosen.
To be made holy
To be made holy
To be fit for God’s purposes.
To be fit for God’s purposes.
God’s purposes in election
God’s purposes in election
Are always an act of divine Mercy
Are always an act of divine Mercy
We’ve seen now that God’s mercy is negated by His Justice. Now we will see:
God’s mercy isn’t negated by choice .
God’s mercy isn’t negated by choice .
16 So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.
17 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.”
18 So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.
It’s tempting to look out on humanity and see their sins and think that God chose you and us because of our good qualities. It’s easy to see the efforts you are expending to follow God and think God chose you because He saw inherant good ness in you.
That, sadly, is simply not true.
16 So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.
God didn’t see that Isaac would be a hard worker and Ishmael would be lazy.
God didn’t see honesty in Jacob and deception in Esau. Quite the opposite in fact.
God doesn’t choose based on our actions, God chooses based on His purposes.
Romans C. The Gospel Has Always Been Based on Justice and Mercy (9:14–18)
“If [God] were compelled to be merciful by some cause outside himself, not only would his mercy be so much the less mercy, but he himself would be so much the less God”
But what about the other side of the coin?
What about hardening hearts?
What do we do with the passage that talks about God hardening the heart of Pharaoh?
Well let’s take a look at another passage that may help here:
2 not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come.
3 Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction,
4 who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.
5 Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things?
6 And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time.
7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way.
8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.
9 The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders,
10 and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.
11 Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false,
so the man of lawlessness in this passage is already lawless. God didn’t make Him so. Instead God is restraining the lawlessness of this man. When god removes his restraint, the man fully reveals his nature. His heart is hardened.
Pharaoh’s heart was already inclined against God. In hardening the heart of Pharaoh, God simply removed restraint.
Romans C. The Gospel Has Always Been Based on Justice and Mercy (9:14–18)
If mercy (election) is not giving people what they deserve, then the hardening of the heart is simply allowing what they deserve to run its full course
So in a sense, hardening Pharaoh’s heart is justice more than saving the Israelites.
With Pharaoh God is simply stepping aside.
As one commentator puts it.
Romans C. The Gospel Has Always Been Based on Justice and Mercy (9:14–18)
“Neither [in Pharaoh’s case] nor anywhere else is God said to harden anyone who had not first hardened himself”
Remember back in Romans 1. God gives them over to what they want. God gives them over to their sin to do what ought not be done. God doesn’t make them sin, He gives them over to their sin.
But still we have the bothersome choice.
Why does God show mercy to some and not others?
Why does God show mercy to some and not others?
Romans C. The Gospel Has Always Been Based on Justice and Mercy (9:14–18)
“God is holy and must punish sin; but God is loving and desires to save sinners. If everybody is saved, it would deny His holiness; but if everybody is lost, it would deny His love. The solution to the problem is God’s sovereign election” (Wiersbe, p. 104).
The Gospel has always involved God’s Sovereignty
The Gospel has always involved God’s Sovereignty
Here, Paul is going to answer some more objections against the sovereignty of God. Again people will ask the question shouldn't we be held blameless if God is sovereign? Paul answers this objection by pulling in some stories from the old testament.
19 You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?”
One objection is, how can you resist the will of God? If God's will is comparable, for example, to the Wabash river at flood stage, who could swim against that? Do you have to realize from the beginning of the book of Romans, not all those who are being swept away by their sin, actually want to swim against it. In fact, Paul, would argue there is none that seek God.
And we also have scriptures like this one, which seemed to indicate God wants everyone to seek him and to choose him.
9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
It's reasonable that, as humans, we like to humanize God. I want to think of God in this passage, like me trying to get Kristi to eat all her vegetables. I tell her to do it and then sit there hoping that she'll do it, but I can't guarantee that she'll eat her vegetables.
I have a good understanding of Kristina's nature, but I can't read her mind. I have a good deal of what might happen, but I can't predict everything that God can indicate.
It's entirely possible for God to desire that all turn to repentance, but know that some will not turn to repentance. God can act with the election, calling some to know him and not calling others, and still blaming everyone who chooses to live in their sin because we are still choosing to live in sin and not repent.
Think about it, people who choose not to repent, and live in sin, are choosing this sin. God is not forcing them to sin. It's just that, for some, God is not explicitly calling them to him.
Clay Illustration
20 But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?”
21 Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?
Isn't this a sobering metaphor here? A potter having a conversation with a lump of clay. What right does the clay have to object to how the potter creates it?
The fundamental logic of the Bible is simple. God is the creator, and we are the creation.
Remember: God is the Creator; we are the creation.
Remember: God is the Creator; we are the creation.
It is totally acceptable for God to be God. If Creation cannot comprehend the choices of its creator, it is not in the fault of the creator. It's simply illustrates the gap between gods mind and our mind.
There are a wealth of things my dog does not understand. I have to remember that every day when I tried to get her to understand that she should, or shouldn't do some thing. She simply doesn't understand and cannot understand so much.
The good thing is with my dog she's not inherently evil like most cats.😁😁
Some people in today's modern world object to this potter, and the clay metaphor. They like to imagine all lumps of Claire, sitting there, crying out for a more noble purpose. That all loaves of Claire begging to be made into something holy and noble.
The reality is, this is not true.
Men and women are not clamoring to worship God. They are dying to worship them selves. Men and women are not beaten down the doors of churches to get in to know, and be made like Jesus. They are serving themselves. People don't desperately desire to be made like their father in heaven. They simply want to fill the emptiness in their lives with stuff and experiences.
The reality is, it is a miracle of mercy for God to call anyone to worship him and experience the gospel of Jesus Christ and the forgiveness God offers.
It is out of bounds for anyone moulded by the potter to question the potter’s action.
22 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,
23 in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—
24 even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?
OK we have moved on from talking about how God as a Potter is totally within his roads to do what he wants with his clay. He can leave some clay as it is and call Other Clay to be something truly noble.
To get these next three verses, we need to think about the story of the pharaoh in the book of exodus. Remember that encounter? Or remember the many different times that Moses and Aaron talk to pharaoh? Time and time again they went to pharaoh and demanded that the Israelites to be released and pharaoh said no.
With the power that God demonstrated through Moses and Aaron God could have very easily struck pharaoh dead at the first encounter. God knew everything that would happen. It was within God's prerogative and God's power to strike pharaoh down at any point. And yet God endured with patience, pharaoh to show his power and mercy.
God endured pharaoh so that he could demonstrate his power through the plagues and set his people free and complete his purposes.
God has the potter, as the creator has the right, and the power to endure people who are living in sin, in whom he never expects to turn from their sin, to demonstrate his mercy and his power in dealing with them.
One thing you might ask in this passage, and in this whole conversation… If God knows every human being, who will not choose him wouldn't it be better for him to eradicate them from existence? If they're going to suffer in hell, or live a life rejecting God why does he bring them into this world in the first place. the reality is every human being whether they choose God or not are made in the image of God. And in that there is beauty and value God values every human life, because every human life is made in his image.
25 As indeed he says in Hosea, “Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’ and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’ ”
26 “And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’ ”
The book of Hosea is the story of God, calling the people who has rejected him. God is calling out to a people who is not his people anymore. God wants them to know he has adopted and called them back to him in his mercy.
Hosea is God restoring the nation of Israel and calling them to restoration
God has throughout history demonstrated mercy to call men and women to Him.
Paul is using this story to remind the readers how God acts in mercy calling Jews and Gentiles to HIm.
27 And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved,
28 for the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay.”
29 And as Isaiah predicted, “If the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring, we would have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah.”
To keep this simple, Paul reminds the Jews that they will be like the sand on the seashore but in God’s justice, only a remnant will be saved because of how they respond to HIm.
Remember what Paul wrote in
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
All deserved to die like soddom and gomorra. But God in his mercy has been faithful to His promises calling His people to Him and judging those who refuse Him.
to summarize the section, Paul wants us to see that you can't just inherit salvation, by virtue of whom you were born to. You have to choose to live in repentance. But, God acts with his power of election to choose whom he will choose. So gods election is mediated in a sense by his justice and his mercy. God, elects and God shows justice and God shows mercy.
So election, I'm not talking about politics. I'm talking about God choosing you for salvation. I would challenge you not to worry about whether God has elected you. Or worrying whether God has elected your friends and family. Ask yourself if God calls you to obey him and then act in compliance. Respond to God. Respond with gratitude and mercy to the great love of God.
Conclusion
Conclusion
so today we have seen from scripture that God interact with those with Justice, and mercy. And is justice and mercy don't negate each other. God is Justin condemning our sins and merciful in for giving them. Using the example of a Potter with clay, God has a right to make what he wants out of clay. God is a ride to elect and choose, and Cole, some for noble purposes, and not call others because he is the potter.
but God is also the one that values every human made in his image. Throughout history, God has demonstrated his mercy by calling Jews and gentiles to him. God calls us as believers to recognize his mercy and respond with gratitude.