There are times in a study of Paul’s writings when it seems that the apostle has lost track of his argument. It is because his thought is so rich and because he has the habit of moving on quickly from one connected thought to another, We have found this in chapters 5 through 8 of this letter, and we see it in Paul’s other writings too. That seems to be the case in the verses we have been studying from Romans 9. Has Paul lost track of his argument? We are wrong if we think so. For at the very end of this section, in verse 24, Paul in a masterful way comes back to the point from which he started out, stating that salvation is for those whom God has chosen and called, “not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles.”

Verse 24 is not only a return to the point at which Paul began, it is also a wrap-up of his first main argument showing why God has not been unfaithful to Israel or, to use the language he himself uses, why the Word or purposes of God have not failed. That means that verse 25, to which we come now, is beginning a new section of the argument. There are four quotations in verses 25-29, two from the minor prophet Hosea and two from the major prophet Isaiah. The passages from Hosea show the acceptability of the Gentiles. The passages from Isaiah show that the call to salvation has never included all Israel.

The Beatles once recorded a song called “Nowhere Man.” It grew out of a casual, dismissive remark one of them had made about somebody they’d just met. It was met as a scornful put-down, and if the person they were referring to had heard it, it would have hurt. The prophets knew all about giving people names and particularly about giving Israel names, names which reflected what God was thinking about them. The first two chapters of the prophet Hosea are full of this kind of thing, and Paul draws on two key promises from that passage. He quotes them in reverse order, beginning with Hosea 2:23, where the prophet declares to the Israelites that God will receive them back again after rejecting them. Then he quotes the earlier passage, Hosea 1:10.

What is Paul saying with these somewhat obscure, though clearly dramatic, quotations? Paul is continuing to tell the story of Israel, the story of Abraham and the other patriarchs, which continued through the Exodus, and which now reaches the period of the prophets. Paul’s point, made here in poetic fashion, is in essence quite simple: the prophets themselves promised that God would make Israel pass through a period of judgment in order then to come out into salvation. First Israel had to hear, and bear, the name “not My people,” before they could again be called “My people.”

Paul’s point, yet once more, is that God has indeed been faithful to His promises. He has not gone back on His Word. He said He would have to whittle Israel down to a remnant, and that’s what He has done. To imagine that Israel could be vindicated as it stood – that all Jews would automatically be classified as true “children of Abraham” – would be to ignore what Israel’s own Scriptures had been saying all along. The problem of Jewish unbelief is not, then, the problem of God failing to keep His Word, but the problem of Israel not hearing what that Word had been saying. All of this makes Paul’s chief point, namely, that God’s rejection of Israel as Israel and His election of the Gentiles should have taken nobody by surprise, particularly the Jews, since it was prophesied clearly in the Jewish Scriptures.

The point of the Hosea quotations is that God had announced in advance that He would save Gentiles. The point of the Isaiah quotations is that He had likewise announced that not all Jews, but only a remnant of Israel, would be converted. There is an interesting tie-in between Isaiah 10:22-23, the first of Paul’s quotations from Isaiah (v. 27), and Hosea 1:10, the second of his two quotations from Hosea, which was just given (v. 26). In chapter 1 of Hosea, verse 10 begins with the words “Yet the Israelites will be like the sand of the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted.” Paul does not quote those words in Romans 9:26, though he quotes the second half of the verse, because the words are about Israel explicitly and Paul wants to use the verse as a promise of God’s future blessing on the Gentiles. Those words remind Paul of the verse from Isaiah, which he cites next: “Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea, only the remnant will be saved.” Do you see what this Isaiah verse is saying? Leaving the unbelief of the Gentiles aside for a moment, isn’t it true that Isaiah 10:22 describe the generally poor results and great difficulties of Jewish evangelism?

In Romans 9:27 the words “the remnant,” refer to the remnant of God’s electing choice, who will be saved. As for the rest, “The Lord will carry out His sentence on earth with speed and finality” (v. 28). That is, the rest will perish in God’s final judgments. Verse 29, the second of Paul’s two quotations from Isaiah, picks up from the second half of the first quotation, also referring to judgment. But this is a different kind of reference. The first quotation describes what is surely going to happen. This verse describes what is sometimes called “a condition contrary to fact.” It teaches that unless the Lord had left a remnant, the people would have been like those of Sodom and Gomorrah, that is, entirely wiped out. They would have ceased to exist. Yet this is not the case. If fact, God has left a remnant, which, as Paul is going to say in Romans 11, God has, “chosen by grace” (v. 5). Apart from the grace of God there will be destruction, fire from heaven! The only thing that keeps this from happening to all of us is the mercy and kindness of God. It is only because of the explicable grace of God that any of us are spared the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Romans 9:25-29 Reflection Questions:

How do verses 25-29 also emphasize Paul’s point that God is faithful to His promises to Israel?

How do these verses respond to the charge that God is not just?

God has to reshape Israel because of their failure to live out the purpose to which they had been called, just as a potter molds a lump of clay for his own ends. The church has also been called to a purpose in the world. What is that purpose and how well is the church living this out?

What needs to happen for your Christian community to live out its purpose more strongly?

Romans 9:22-24 speak of five of God’s attributes: wrath, power, patience, glory, and mercy. Two of these have just been mentioned: power in verse16 and mercy in verses 15, 16, and 18. Two others, wrath and glory, were introduced earlier in the letter. The new and unexpected attribute in these verses is patience, which Paul declares has been shown to “the objects of His wrath – prepared for destruction.” The verses teach that God’s treatment of the wicked is neither arbitrary nor meaningless, but is intended rather to make His wrath, power, and patience known, just as, on the other hand, His treatment of those who are chosen to be saved displays His mercy. In both cases the glory of God is achieved by God’s exercising or making known these attributes.

God’s chief end is to glorify God. Therefore, since God is all-powerful, this end will certainly be achieved. It will be achieved in every detail of history and in the destiny of every individual. Every person who has ever lived or will ever live must glorify God, either actively or passively, either willingly or unwillingly, either in heaven or in hell. Your will glorify God. Either you will glorify Him as the object of His mercy and glory, which will be seen in you. Or you will glorify Him in your rebellion and unbelief by being made the object of His wrath and power at the final judgment. In fact, if you are rebelling, you are glorifying Him even now, because even now His patience is displayed in you by His enduring your sin for a time, rather than sending you to hell immediately, which you deserve. These verses teach that the patience of God is seen in His toleration of the wicked for a time.

We might think that God shows patience to the wicked only to allow the sins of such persons to accumulate so that He might more fully display His wrath and power in judging them at last. True, that is one purpose. It is what has been said of Pharaoh. God raised him up (even hardened his heart) so that the full measure of the divine power might be displayed in him and God’s name might be proclaimed in all the earth. But that is not the only purpose. The patience of God is also displayed so that those whom God is calling to faith might have space to repent. Both purposes are good. The second purpose is gracious.

There is another text that needs to be drawn into this composite picture of God’s patience as discussed in Paul’s writings, and that is 1 Timothy 1:15-16, in which Paul speaks in a very moving way of God’s unlimited patience to himself. He calls it a trustworthy saying. “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display His unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on Him and receive eternal life.” What Paul is giving in these verses is a personal illustration of what he discusses doctrinally in Romans. Paul was aware that he had been chosen by God in Christ from before the foundation of the world. But he also remembered with sadness how he had been allowed to go his own self-righteous and wicked way for years until God called him.

Yet God was patient with Paul. Instead of striking him down, God suffered him to march along his own self-righteous path, heaping sin upon sin, until at last God called him to faith in the Jesus he was persecuting. God did it so the horror of Paul’s earlier conduct might form a more striking contrast to the grace, mercy, and glory of God that he afterward received. This isn’t just Paul’s story of course. It is the story of believers throughout history. How patient God was with Adam and Eve! Surely God was not willing for our first parents to perish but rather that they might come to repentance and find eternal life. In the New Testament, think of the believing thief who died on a cross at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion. The man was a murderer as well as a thief. But God was patient with him, sparing him throughout a very long life of sin so that in the very last hours of his life he might demonstrate that grace can come even to the worst of men and in their final moments. Surely, “our Lord’s patience means salvation” (2 Pet. 3:15), and “God’s kindness leads you toward repentance” (Rom. 2:4).

Has it led you toward repentance? Is it doing so now? Let us look at this matter through by these observations: (1) God is patient for a reason. If you are not in hell today, which you are not though you deserve to be, it is because God has been patient with you, and the purpose of His patience is to lead you to repentance. God’s patience is a great thing. We have explored some of its greatness in this study. But you must not abuse it. It is meant to do you good. The day of God’s patience is the day of His grace. (2) God will not be patient forever. Although God’s patience is great, it is not eternal. We are warned in Scripture that God’s wrath has been withheld by His patience, but that it is building up like waters behind a great dam and that it will one day be poured forth. God’s patience leads to repentance, but you must still repent. You must believe on Jesus. If you do not, you will face God’s judgment in the end, however much you may scoff at it now. (3) Because God is patient, we should be patient. The word patience is found in reference to God only three times. But here is the interesting thing: It is found as a virtue to be cultivated by Christians six times, that is twice as often as in reference to God. It is a fruit of the Spirit, and it is commended as a virtue in the Christian ministry. If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, perhaps this is the application for you. We tend to be impatient with other people, especially with those we are trying to win to Christ. But God is patient, and we should be also.

There are four other attributes of God in verses 22-24. Wrath is one, but we are not called upon to show wrath. “It is mine to avenge; I will repay, says the Lord” (Rom. 12:19). Power is another, but God and not ourselves who must show power. Even glory is not for us to demonstrate. But we can show mercy. We are to be merciful people, remembering how God has been merciful to us. And above all, we can be patient. It is not easy to be patient, but let us try to be. And the God who is Himself patient may use our patience to draw many hurting people to the Savior.

Romans 9:22-24 Reflection Questions:

When was the last time you shared your personal testimony about God’s patience in your life?

What are some examples from the Old Testament and the New Testament of God’s patience?

Is there any way that God could have revealed the riches of His mercy and glory, exercised His sovereign choice in all this, and still leaves each of us responsible for his own decisions (free will) regarding God?  Explain how man’s free will and God’s predestination could work together.

The human heart is a deceitful but very resourceful thing, and two ways it expresses these characteristics are by dismissing God, on the one hand, or blaming Him, on the other.

This is the kind of thinking Paul is dealing with in Romans 9:19-21, as he continues to teach about the sovereignty of God in salvation. In the first half of the chapter, he has been arguing that the matter of salvation God operates by the principles of election and reprobation, and he has answered the question: Is God just in so operating? He has shown that God is just, since God owes mankind nothing, salvation is by grace, and God rightly demonstrates all aspects of His glory, including His wrath and power as well as His mercy and grace, by so doing. But now the wicked resourcefulness of the human heart comes in. For, if a person cannot deny God’s sovereignty over human affairs and human destinies or even God’s right to save some and pass by others, as God does, the person will at least try to deny his or her own responsibility in the matter. So a new question arises: “Then why does God still blame us? For who resists His will?” (v. 19).

This of course, is a major theological question: the relationship between the sovereignty of God and free will. It is a question that can be answered and has been, particularly by Jonathan Edwards in his treatise on “The Freedom of the Will.” But Paul doesn’t answer the question here, at least not directly. And the reason he doesn’t answer it is that he already has.

For this objection to have weight, the person making it must assume that God determines to condemn some persons without reference to what they are or do as sinners. It assumes that He creates some people only to damn them, to send them to hell, and that they are passive in the matter. But that is not what Paul has been saying. Reprobation means “passing by” or “choosing not to save.” And those whom God passes by chooses not to save are not innocent persons but sinners who are in rebellion against Him. God does not condemn innocent people. He condemns sinners only. But God does have the right to save or not to save sinners, as He chooses.

So the question is really an objection to God’s right to do what He does, which is what has been under consideration all along and which is why I have said that Paul has already answered it. Paul knows that the objection really rises out of the rebellion of the heart against God’s sovereignty. In fact, the very question is rebellion. For the query “Who resists His will?” is itself resistance. Human beings are sinners, are guilty, and they prove it even by the way they ask their questions. Therefore, Paul answers by reiterating once more that God has a right to do with His (sinful) creatures as He will.

We have already looked at the question. The answer (v. 20) and the illustration (v. 21) provide contrasts that are intended to put the question in its proper perspective and ourselves in our proper place. There are three of them: (1) Man and God. You and I are mere men and women set over against the God who made not only us but all things. It is ludicrous for creatures as small, ignorant, impotent, and sinful as we are to question the propriety of God’s moral acts. We may not understand what God is doing in any particular case, in fact most of the time we will not (see Isa. 55:8). For us to suggest that He is wrong in what He does is patently absurd. (2) What is formed and He who formed it. The contrast between man and God, the first, stresses the insignificance of one and the greatness of the other. This second contrast brings in another matter, namely, that we are mere creatures – God is the Creator – and therefore everything we are and have comes from Him, including even our ability to ask such questions. (3) The clay and the potter. Each of these three contrasts says the same thing. But each also adds a new element, and the new element here is the authority of the Old Testament, since the illustration of the potter and clay is drawn from the Old Testament and shows that the principle involved is a point of revelation (Isa. 29:16, 45:9, 64:8; Jer. 18:1-11).

Paul doesn’t seem to be quoting specifically from any one of these texts. But the points in Romans are exactly what these verses in the Old Testament also say: (1) It is absurd for a mere man or woman to fault God. (2) God has absolute sovereignty over His creatures, saving whom He will and condemning whom He will. (3) This is not an arbitrary selection, since His judgments are based on His justice in condemning sin. (4) Therefore, “turn from your evil ways…and reform your ways and your actions.” Instead of objecting to God’s actions, we should fear them and allow our fear of judgment to drive us to the repentance we need.

God’s purpose is not solely to condemn. The demonstration of His power and justice in judging sinners is a true part of what God is doing in human history, but it is not the whole thing. God is also making known the riches of His glory in the salvation of some, as these verses, particularly the next verses, show. Why should you not be among those who are saved?

If all God wanted to do was send people to hell, He would not have needed to tell us these things or anything else. There would have been no need for a Bible, no need for preachers to preach or messengers to explain and teach it, no need for a Savior to be held forth as the heart of the Bible’s message. If all God wanted to do was let us go to hell, all He would have needed to have done is nothing. We are capable of rushing off to hell entirely by ourselves. But God has not done that. He has provided a Savior. He has given us a Bible. You cannot bring God under obligation to save you by anything you might do, and indeed you have not done anything significant. But the way He saves people is by the preaching and teaching of His Word, which is what you have just received, and by the power of His Spirit working through it.

If what you have heard has made sense to you, if you know that God does not owe you anything, that you have actually spurned what good He has shown you, and that all you actually deserve from Him is judgment, then God is already using His Word to bring about the needed transformation of your heart. Now, instead of trying to tell Him that what He does is unjust, you will wisely and rationally seek His mercy through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, where alone it may be found.

Romans 9:19-21 Reflection Questions:

Paul recalls the image of a potter and clay from Isaiah 29:16, 45:9 and Jeremiah 18:1-6, which tells of a stage in Israel’s history when God was struggling with rebellious Israel. How is the image of a potter and clay helpful in understanding God’s attitude toward sinful Israel and the purpose He had for it to be a means of blessing to others?

In what ways has the teaching of today’s study encouraged you to be able to answer any questions that may arise when you are sharing the gospel with others?

Again, we are examining the most difficult portion of the entire Bible. Not only because it deals with election, which troubles many, but even more because it deals with reprobation, the doctrine that God rejects or repudiates some persons to eternal condemnation in a way parallel but opposite to the way He ordains others to salvation. Reprobation is the teaching we come to specifically in Romans 9:13-18, which makes these verses an excessively difficult passage for many, if not most, people.

The doctrine is brought into our text by two Old Testament quotations; Malachi 1:2-3, and Exodus 9:16. Paul summarizes the teaching in these texts by concluding, “Therefore God has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy, and He hardens whom He wants to harden” (v. 18). In the view of many people, the doctrine these verses express turns God into an indifferent deity who sits in heaven arbitrarily assigning human destinies, saying, as it were, “This one to heaven, and I don’t care. This one to hell, and I don’t care.”

This is a caricature, of course. But it is something we must deal with, since no one can seriously attempt to study or teach the Bible, as I am doing, without confronting it. More to the point, it is impossible to study election without also dealing with its negative counterpart. We can’t have the positive side of election which is predestination, without reprobation, which is the negative side. John Calvin recognized this, as have many others in the course of church history. He wrote, “Election [cannot] stand except as set over against reprobation.”* It is easy to distort this doctrine, of course, as the caricature shows. We must proceed slowly and humbly, recognizing our own limited understanding. Still we must try to see what the Bible does teach about reprobation, since the subject cannot be avoided.

The place to begin is with the fact of reprobation, is taught in the Bible, regardless of the questions we may have. In other words, we must follow the same procedure with reprobation as we followed in the last study with its positive counterpart, election. There are many texts that teach reprobation. Here are a few: Proverbs 16:4, John 12:39-40, John 13:18, John 17:12, 1 Peter 2:7-8, and Jude 4. There are many other texts along these lines, but the clearest are those in Romans 9, which we are studying, since they use the word “hate” of Esau and “harden” of Pharaoh. In fact, verses 1-29 are the most forceful statement of double predestination in the Bible.

There are two important distinctions between election and reprobation. The question we must ask is this: Does God determine the destinies of individuals in exactly the same way so that, without any consideration of what they do or might do, He assigns one to heaven and the other to hell? We know He does in the case of those who are being saved, because we have been told that election has no basis in any good seen or foreseen in those who are elected. In fact, we are told in Romans, for Paul’s point is that salvation is due entirely to God’s mercy and not to any good that could be imagined to reside in us. The question is whether this can be said of the reprobate, too, that God has consigned them to hell apart from anything they have done, apart from their deserving it.

Here, there is an important distinction to be made between election and reprobation, which has been the view of the majority of Reformed thinkers and is the teaching embodied in the great Reformed creeds like the Westminster Confession of Faith. The confession teaches that both election and reprobation flow from the eternal counsels or will of God, rather than the will of man and both are for the end of making the glory of God known. But there are two important points of difference.

First, the confession speaks of the reprobate being “passed by.” Some will argue that in its ultimate effect there is no difference between passing by and actively ordaining and individual to condemnation. But while that is true of the ultimate effect, there is nevertheless a major difference in the cause. The reason why some believe the gospel and are saved by it is that God intervenes in their lives to bring them to faith. He does it by the new birth or regeneration. But those who are lost are not made to disbelieve by God. They do that by themselves. To ordain their end, God needs only withhold the special grace of regeneration.

Second, the confession speaks of God ordaining the lost “to dishonor and wrath for their sin.” That is a very important observation, for it makes reprobation the exact opposite of an arbitrary action. The lost are not lost because God willy-nilly consigns them to it, but rather as a just judgment upon them for their sins. In these two respects election and reprobation are dissimilar.

Some at this point may be wondering, “If the doctrine of reprobation is as difficult as it seems to be, why we should speak about it at all?” The first answer to that is that the Bible itself does. It’s part of the revelation given to us. This is also the primary answer to a person who says, “I could never love a God like that.” Fair enough, we may say, but that is nevertheless the God with whom you have to deal. Nothing is to be gained by opposing reprobation. But this is not a very satisfying answer, and there are satisfying and meaningful things to say about reprobation. It’s a doctrine that, like all other parts of Scripture, has its “useful” aspects (2 Tim. 3:16).

(1) Reprobation assures us that God’s purpose has not failed. The first benefit of this doctrine is the very thing Paul is teaching in Romans 9, namely, that God’s Word has not failed (v. 6). “But am I one of the elect?” you ask. It is easy to know the answer to that question: Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and begin to obey Him. Those who do are the elect. That is how we determine who those persons are. (2) Reprobation helps us deal with apostasy. We all know people who have seemed to believe at one time, but who have then fallen away. Does this mean that God has failed them? No. It means that if they continue in their unbelieving state, they are not among God’s elect people. Apostasy does not show that the plan of God has failed. Reprobation helps us understand it. (3) Reprobation keeps before us the important truth that salvation is entirely of grace and that no works of man contribute to it. If none were lost, we would assume that all are being saved because somehow God owes us salvation, that He must save us either because of who we are or because of who He is. This is not the situation. All are not saved. Therefore, the salvation of the elect is due to divine mercy only. We must never forget that. (4) Reprobation glorifies God. As soon as we begin to think that God owes us something or that God must do something, we limit Him and reduce His glory. Election and its twin, reprobation, glorify God, for they remind us that God is absolutely free and sovereign. We have no power over Him. On the contrary, “God has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy, and He hardens whom He wants to harden” (v. 18). God does as He wants in His universe.

When we understand that we are in the hands of a just and holy God and that we are without any hope of salvation apart from His free and utterly sovereign intervention, we will call out for mercy, which is the only right response. “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy,” says the Almighty. If we believe that, our cry will be the cry of the tax collector: “God have mercy on me, a sinner” (Luke 18:15). And who can fault that doctrine?

*John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2 vols., ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1960), p. 947.

Romans 9:13-18 Reflection Questions:

Paul is making the case that all the physical descendants of Abraham never automatically shared equally in the calling of Abraham. From the beginning that promise was narrowed down to the line of just one of two of Abraham’s sons (Isaac). The promise further narrowed to just one of two sons of Isaac (Jacob). This narrowing process is nothing new. It’s the way God has always worked, Paul says. Indeed in light of the overall failure of Israel, God has seen fit to continue this process by having the ultimate fulfillment narrowed down to just one descendant of Abraham – Jesus, the Messiah – through whom God’s promise to bless all nations would be accomplished. How does this make Paul’s case that God hasn’t changed His mind (or broken His Word) about the Jews but that, from the beginning, He has treated them (and His promise to them) the same way as always?

In verses 14-18 Paul continues his review of the whole history of Israel. He began in verses 6-13 with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Now he references Mosses’ encounter with Pharaoh some four hundred years later and Israel’s exodus from Egypt. The story in Exodus 33 is where God declares to Moses that He will proceed with His plan for the exodus even though the people have made the golden calf, amounting to a declaration of independence from the true God. This is the setting for verse 15 in particular. Why is this story in Exodus significant to Paul’s argument in chapter 9?

What is your feeling on reprobation?

To the human eye there may be a time when some of the true children of God are almost indistinguishable from people who are merely behaving as believers or are circulating among believers. But the difference is there nevertheless. It has been put there by God. And in the end, since some of these people have the life of God within them and some do not, these who possess that life will show it by their spiritual growth. The distinction between those who seem to be spiritual children and those who actually are is critical to understanding the next section of Romans.

Paul is dealing with a troublesome problem faced by himself and the other early preachers of the gospel. The original Christians were Jews. Thus they naturally began obeying the Great Commission by witnessing to their Jewish family members, friends, and neighbors. Since the promises of the Messiah were to Israel and since Jesus of Nazareth was that Messiah, according to their belief and understanding, Israel should have been willing to embrace Jesus. But Israel as a whole did not, and as time went on the people who were becoming Christians and the largest number of emerging Christian churches were overwhelmingly Gentile.

This was a severe disappointment to the early evangelists, even a great sorrow, as Paul’s opening paragraph in Romans 9 makes clear. But even more than this, it was a theological dilemma. The promises of God were to Israel, and yet Israel as a whole was unresponsive. Did this mean that God’s promises to Israel had failed, that is, that God had Himself failed? That God was impotent in the face of unbelief? Or did it mean that the promises of God could not be trusted? That in the matter of salvation God was simply free to change His mind? This is the problem Paul wrestles with in the middle section of Romans, chapters 9 through 11. The first of these introduced in Romans 9:6, is that the promises of God were not made to all the physical descendants of Abraham, but only to those whom God had elected to salvation and in whom He had therefore implanted or was implanting life.

Paul states this by saying, “It is not as though God’s Word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.” A little later and a similar way, he contrasts those who are Abraham’s “descendants” with those who are His true “children” (v. 7). At first glance this argument may seem to be merely a novel idea, perhaps even an “argument from desperation,” as some would have it. But it is nothing of the sort. That not all Israel was true Israel was already and Old Testament perception. Every Jew was aware of the contrast made by the prophets between the nation as a whole and the remnant. It was increasingly obvious that the nation as a whole was apostate and that only a few Jews gave any indication of being among God’s genuine people. It was the same at the coming of Christ. The nation as a whole was going about business with little true faith at all, just as most people, both Jew and Gentile, do today.

We come now to the doctrine of election. We begin exactly where the apostle begins in Romans, namely, with the fact of election itself. The reasons are obvious. First, there is no sense arguing over the justice of God in electing some to salvation and passing over others unless we are convinced that He does. If we do not believe this, we will not waste our time puzzling over it. Second, if we are convinced that God elects to salvation, as Paul is going to insist He does, we will approach even the theodicy question differently. We will approach it to find understanding, rather than arrogantly trying to prove that God cannot do what the Bible clearly teaches. To seek understanding is one thing. God encourages it. But to demand that God conform to our limited insights into what is just or right is another matter entirely. So let me begin by saying that as long as we believe that God exercises any control over history or the lives of His people, then we must come to terms with election one way or another. It is inescapable. Election is an inescapable fact of human history.

What Paul does is go back to the earliest moments in the history of the Jewish people, to the stories of the patriarchs – Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – and show that election operated there. We remember, of course, that the apostle is trying to explain why not all Israel has been saved and why the fact that they have not been saved does not mean that God’s purpose or promises have failed. In the case of these three fathers of the nation, Paul is going to show that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob became what they were by election and that others were not granted this privilege.

The biblical doctrine of election does not exclude the choice of nations for specific purposes in history, the doctrine does nevertheless also and more fundamentally refer to the choice of individuals – and that it is on this basis alone, not on any supposed right of birth or by doing of works, that a person is brought into the covenant of salvation.

How could it be otherwise, if the condition of fallen humanity is as bad as the Bible declares it to be? When we were studying chapter three of Romans we saw that Paul’s summary of the fall was expressed in these words: “There is no on righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God” (Rom. 3:10-11). This is an expression that is referred to as total or radical depravity. It means that there is not a portion of our being that has not been ruined by sin. Sin pervades all our actions and darkens all our natural understanding, with the result that, rather than fleeing to God, who is our only reasonable object of worship and our only hope of blessing, we flee from Him.

How could a creature as depraved as that possibly come to God unless God should first set His saving choice upon him, regenerate him, and then call him to faith? How could a sinner like that believe the gospel unless God should first determine that he or she should believe it and then actually enable him or her to believe?

Of course, that is exactly what God does. In fact, we have already seen this action explained at length in Romans 8, where Paul spoke of a five-step process involving foreknowledge (or election), predestination, calling, justification, and glorification. Those five terms describe the very essence of salvation, and the significant thing is that God is the author of each one. It is He who foreknows, He who predestines, He who calls, He who justifies, and He who glorifies. The only thing Paul is adding in Romans 9 is that this is entirely apart from any supposed right of birth or good works. It is due entirely to the will and mercy of the sovereign God. Election means that salvation is of God. It is His idea and His work, and therefore it is as solid as God Himself is.

If salvation were up to me, I would blow it. Even if I could choose God savingly, which I can’t, I would soon unchoose Him and so fall away and be lost. But because God chooses me, I can know that I am secure because of His eternal and sovereign determination. God began this good work. And “He who began [this] good work…will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 1:6).

Romans 9:6-12 Reflection Questions:

How can we be sure we are Christians? There are a number of specific questions to be answered that pertain to the matter. Do I believe on Christ? Have I been touched by knowledge of Jesus’ death for me, and have I committed myself to Him? Am I serious about following after Jesus, obeying His commands, and pleasing Him?

Ask yourself: Has my life been redirected? Is there anything I am doing now that I did not do before or would not be doing were I not committed to Jesus? And are there things I have stopped doing? Is Jesus my very own Lord and Savior? Do you testify of Jesus?

Am I learning about Christ? I know people who claim to be Christians who never go to a Bible study, never take notes of a sermon and never study the Bible on their own. If you are one of them how can you think of yourself as a Christian when you have no interest in learning about the One who gave Himself for you? How can you consider yourself a believer when you really don’t care about Jesus?

What is your feeling about the doctrine of election?