Objections Answered
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Where we are in letter: Changed gears, but not ready for application
Instead, Israel, kinsmen
Despite Gentile inclusion, Paul’s heart still for Israel
God started with them—does God’s focus on Gentiles now mean He’s cast them off?
Israel w/in Israel, based on God’s sovereign choice of some and not others
Explicitly ruled out that choice being based on anything in those chosen or rejected, but purely on God’s electing purposes
Teaching, very explicitly, that salvation of individuals is based on God’s choice, not anything about them
Admittedly, difficult doctrine. As I said, Paul’s going to deal w/ those difficulties here
Read
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.”
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.
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 molded say to its molder, “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 honorable use and another for dishonorable 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?
Objection 1: Is God Unjust?
Objection 1: Is God Unjust?
Not first time Paul’s headed off an objection
Most of them, when he raises you say, yeah, I can see where someone might ask that
None of them as obvious as this one
As soon as you say, God chose one and not the other, on the basis of His own will and not on the basis of anything in them,
Every human being who has ever lived will say with one voice: “That’s not fair!”
Now, I’ve had plenty of time to wrestle w/ this doctrine, and plenty of interactions w/ people who disagree
If you were to raise this objection to me, I’d probably try to soften my reaction a bit, empathize
Paul doesn’t seem to do that:
What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part?
Uses that word we’ve seen before, strongest “no” in Gk, “absolutely not, God forbid, by no means” Then
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.
Wait—sounds like you answered the objection w/ the objection
You’re right, that’s exactly what he did
So how’s that an answer?
He’s not answering the question of whether God is unjust—he’s answering whether it’s just for us to question whether there might be injustice on God’s part
Our natural response is to say, if God chose one son over the other without considering anything about what they had done or will do, God’s being arbitrary and unjust
So Paul asks: do you have a right to accuse God of being unjust?
Whatever God does is just by definition, because God did it
Where does justice come from? God. God does something—is it just? See the first answer
There is no external standard of justice to which God must measure up—He Himself is the standard
So it is not just to question His justice—in fact, blasphemy
Want to point out difference: Paul is not saying you can never have a legitimate question about God or His ways. But whether your question is legitimate or not depends on the assumptions on which you ask
Imagine this: what if, instead of saying “That’s not fair,” we said this
I know God is just, and that all His ways are absolutely right
When I see that He chose one son over the other, something in me reacts negatively to that
I know the problem can’t be with God, so it must be either with my understanding of what God’s word says, or else the problem is in me
So, Lord, search me, open my eyes, help me to understand what you tell me so I can worship you properly
Do you see the diff. b/w that and “is there injustice on God’s part?” One comm:
The Epistle to the Romans 2. Objections Answered: The Freedom and Purpose of God (9:14–23)
Paul is not here denying the validity of that kind of questioning of God which arises from sincere desire to understand God’s ways and an honest willingness to accept whatever answer God might give.
The Epistle to the Romans 2. Objections Answered: The Freedom and Purpose of God (9:14–23)
It is the attitude of the creature presuming to judge the ways of the creator—to “answer back”—that Paul implicitly rebukes.
Paul kind of helps us answer both of those sincere questions: is the problem with my understanding? Paul says, nope,
So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.
Goes on to give an example:
For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up
Pharaoh was chosen by God—chosen to be an example of how the proud will be humbled by Him
Why did God do this? What good can come out of Pharaoh being hardened, as he says in v 18?
“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.”
Pharaoh got to serve the greatest purpose that there is: glorifying God
This is the problem with that thing inside us that says, that’s not fair
Fundamentally, we have trouble thinking that we’re not ultimate. But we’re not. God is. The greatest thing that can happen is that God be glorified. God accomplished that end, in Pharaoh’s case, by hardening him
So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.
I told you Paul would deal with our objections. I didn’t say he’d be sympathetic. As one comm said,
The Epistle to the Romans 2. Objections Answered: The Freedom and Purpose of God (9:14–23)
In the face of the accusation that his stress on the initiative of God in determining who would be his people turns God into an unjust tyrant, Paul retreats not one step.
The Epistle to the Romans 2. Objections Answered: The Freedom and Purpose of God (9:14–23)
On the contrary, he goes on the offensive and strengthens his teaching about the unconstrained freedom of God in making choices that determine people’s lives.
May I suggest: that’s where we’ve got to be
If we want to object to this doctrine, we’ve got to do it in an attitude of humility, where we say, I am willing to believe whatever God tells me to believe
It may be hard to accept, I may not like it at first, but I will submit
And I will wrestle with the text of Scripture, and let it wrestle with me, until I am utterly convinced that I have let it speak, not made it fit to what I want it to say. And whatever it says, I believe
We don’t get to say, I reject the doctrine of election because it would make God unfair
We don’t. If the Scripture teaches it, then God does it, and it cannot be unfair, because there cannot be injustice with God, because He’s God, and God is the definition of justice
We can wrestle with whether the Bible teaches this doctrine, but we cannot wrestle with the doctrine on the basis of our presuppositions about what would be just. Paul just take that one away from us
Now there’s another objection that naturally arises from what he’s teaching
Okay, Paul, I know you’re talking about all of this in the context of individual salvation: Isaac chosen, Ishmael rejected
Jacob loved, Esau hated
Individuals, that made up the Israel within Israel
The whole context of Paul’s argument is, physical descent didn’t get you in the kingdom, God’s choice did, for each individual
And so Paul, you say God says
“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
and you say
So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.
So apparently, in your final analysis, salvation depends on God’s choice, not man’s
And then, Paul, you use the negative example, Pharaoh. And you say
So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.
So it’s obvious, if you’re following the argument, what the next objection will be:
Objection 2: How Could Man Be Accountable?
Objection 2: How Could Man Be Accountable?
You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?”
Now, again, if someone raised this objection with me, I’d want to be sympathetic—hey, I understand how what I’m teaching could make it seem that way
And I’d want to go on to emphasize human accountability. Like, yes, teaching sovereignty, but that doesn’t cancel out human accountability
But if you thought Paul was less than sympathetic w/ last one, look at this answer
It’s like, w/ last question that came up in the face of Paul’s teaching about divine sovereignty in choosing some for salvation, instead of smoothing things over, he doubled down
And now, in the face of this question, he triples down:
But who are you, O man, to answer back to God?
You might expect Paul to relent a little. Like, yes, God is sovereign—but remember ch 3 & 4 — He still requires the free exercise of faith, so it’s not like human agency is out of the picture
But Paul doesn’t do that. He’s not raising a good-faith question here, like, help me understand, but he’s dealing with someone who digs in their heels and says, I don’t like this teaching
It’s like he asks, did you not read the first 3 chapters of this letter? Don’t you know that God is good and deserves our complete allegiance? Don’t you know that not honoring God as God is the first sin? Don’t you know that you’re as guilty as anyone else, Jew or Gentile?
So who do you think you are, questioning God’s right to choose some and not others?
Who are you to question what God does with what God has made?
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?
Again, remember the context:
He brought up the issue of national election—what about Israel, and God’s promises to the nation?
And his answer has been dealing with the fact that, even in the case of the chosen nation, it was always individuals within the nation who were individually chosen to salvation—Isaac and not Ishmael, Jacob and not Esau
Israel was a nation for honorable use. But within that nation, there was a remnant for honorable use, and the rest were for dishonorable use
What’s the dishonorable 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,
The dishonorable use is the display of God’s wrath and power. Just like Pharaoh
Was God honored when He put Pharaoh in his place and judged him, in the plagues and at the Red Sea? He was
And so it is with all vessels of wrath
Their destruction will bring God glory by displaying His righteous wrath against sin
Interestingly, “prepared” is passive voice. This isn’t a matter of God taking a neutral lump of clay and actively fashioning some vessels for dishonorable use
Who fashions vessels for dishonorable use? Adam did, all of us, as we learned in ch 5. And we do, by our own sinful choices, as we learned in ch 1–3
The place they’re going, the lake of fire, God didn’t even prepare for them—he originally prepared it for the devil and his angels (Matt 25:41). They’re headed there of their own free will
Paul teaches two things, then, about sinners: God hardens whomever He chooses, and human beings, because of their sin, are responsible for their own condemnation
So having mercy and hardening are not the same kind of acts on God’s part: hardening happens to those who already earned condemnation, but mercy is given to those who do not deserve it
Because God doesn’t save everyone. And the ones He doesn’t save, the text says He endures
Think of it: If you were in the place of God in the garden, and your little clay vessels participated in rank rebellion like Adam did, and tried to kick you off your throne and rule over you, what would you have done?
You probably would have ended the whole experiment right there. Lights out, game over, maybe we’ll make a new batch tomorrow
But you’re not God, and that’s not what God did
He would have been absolutely just to carry out a sentence of condemnation on the whole human race right after the fall
The only reason He didn’t was because of His patient mercy, so He could finish His loving plan to save some of them
So He endured. He endured Cain’s murder of Abel. He endured the mountains of sin that led to the flood. He endured another attempted coup in the Tower of Babel. He endured sin after sin after sin, until the day comes when He will finally judge it all perfectly
Why does God put up with all that sin? He doesn’t have to. Here’s why: God
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—
He endures the wicked for the sake of the elect
He hasn’t ended everything today because He still has the elect He will call tomorrow
And He will call them, and He will justify them, and then He will glorify them all
And all His glorified ones will spend eternity saying God was absolutely right to judge, and He was incredibly, undeservedly merciful to save me
And now we’re back full circle to the issue of Gentiles being included:
even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?
The apostle no doubt had heard every objection to his gospel, including all the objections to his teaching of God’s sovereign choice to save some and not others
And he’s dealt with two of them here
If God decides, apart from anything in the person, whom he will choose and whom He will reject, then how can He still be righteous?
Is there injustice with God? God forbid. He’s the creator, it’s His choice, and whatever He does is right
And if God decides, apart from anything in the person, whom he will choose and whom He will reject, how can He blame those who reject Him?
Who are you, o man, to answer back to God? All of the blame lies on the one who will not bow to His creator
Martin Luther was debating this issue with Erasmus, and he said this:
Romans: The MacArthur New Testament Commentary The Second Anticipated Question Answered
Mere human reason can never comprehend how God is good and merciful; and therefore you make to yourself a god of your own fancy, who hardens nobody, condemns nobody, pities everybody.
Romans: The MacArthur New Testament Commentary The Second Anticipated Question Answered
You cannot comprehend how a just God can condemn those who are born in sin, and cannot help themselves, but must, by a necessity of their natural constitution, continue in sin, and remain children of wrath.
Romans: The MacArthur New Testament Commentary The Second Anticipated Question Answered
The answer is, God is incomprehensible throughout, and therefore His justice, as well as His other attributes, must be incomprehensible.
Then he quotes from the end of Paul’s argument in this section, ch 11, says
Romans: The MacArthur New Testament Commentary The Second Anticipated Question Answered
It is on this very ground that St. Paul exclaims, “O the depth of the riches of the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!”
Romans: The MacArthur New Testament Commentary The Second Anticipated Question Answered
Now, His judgments would not be past finding out, if we could always perceive them to be just.
It’s not our place to question God’s judgment, but to believe what God tells us
What has God told you? The soul that sins, it shall die. But the one who comes to me in faith, I will certainly not cast out
Paul told you early in the letter: If you will put your faith in Christ, you will be saved
There is some tension between that fact and the fact that God chooses some for salvation and not others
And Paul doesn’t give you a nice logical solution to that tension, here or anywhere else in His letters
He expects you to believe both, and to obey God and submit in faith
Don’t find fault with God’s choices. Choose to bend your knee and trust in Him today
Pray
Invitation
If you would be right with God, you must know:
You are a sinner (Rom 3:23), and the wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23)
But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom 6:23)
Today is the day of salvation (Heb 4:6–7)
If you don't know Jesus as your Savior, don't leave today without talking to one of us about how you can be made right with God through Christ
