Category: Theology

Romans 9 – The Unstoppable Purpose of God in Unconditional Election

The following are notes from a Reformation Sunday sermon (MP3) I preached last year on Romans 9:1-23 at a church in Santaquin, UT. I predict that what I will promote here is, for most of you, completely foreign to the worldview that you were brought up with. I only ask that you make a valiant effort at understanding the text itself before approaching the issues using traditional philosophy.

I also want you to know that I have an emotional and spiritual connection with this text, for a number of reasons. You see, Romans 9 and I have a history together. It was a source of controversy in my college days. It was something I originally vehemently disagreed with. It was something that, once it clicked, was hard for me to handle with maturity. But it was also something that, in the long-run, explosively enlarged my view of God and catapulted me forward with a confidence that God was far bigger than I ever imagined. A big reason why I am in Utah today (and not closer to family on the East Coast) is that I believe that the God of Romans 9 can effectively call people to himself, including Mormons.

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D.A. Carson on Some Different Ways the Bible Speaks of the Love of God

Excerpt from D.A. Carson’s The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God, 16-21.

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(1) The peculiar love of the Father for the Son, and of the Son for the Father. John’s Gospel is especially rich in this theme. Twice we are told that the Father loves the Son, once with the verb ἀγαπάω (John 3:35), and once with φιλέω (John 5:20). Yet the evangelist also insists that the world must learn that Jesus loves the Father (John 14:31). This intra-Trinitarian love of God not only marks off Christian monotheism from all other monotheisms, but is bound up in surprising ways with revelation and redemption…

(2) God’s providential love over all that he has made. By and large the Bible veers away from using the word love in this connection, but the theme is not hard to find. God creates everything, and before there is a whiff of sin, he pronounces all that he has made to be “good” (Gen. 1). This is the product of a loving Creator. The Lord Jesus depicts a world in which God clothes the grass of the fields with the glory of wildflowers seen by no human being, perhaps, but seen by God. The lion roars and hauls down its prey, but it is God who feeds the animal. The birds of the air find food, but that is the result of God’s loving providence, and not a sparrow falls from the sky apart from the sanction of the Almighty (Matt. 6). If this were not a benevolent providence, a loving providence, then the moral lesson that Jesus drives home, viz. that this God can be trusted to provide for his own people, would be incoherent.

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Romans 9-11 as Varied Layers of Explanation for Israel’s Unbelief

Why did Israel fail to obtain righteousness?
Because they pursued righteousness as though it were by works, instead of by faith in the risen Jesus.

But didn’t they have a zeal for God?
Yes, but not according to knowledge.

What is so bad about righteousness that is based on a law of works?
People end up establishing their own righteousness instead of submitting to God’s righteousness.

What was the purpose of the law?
To point to Jesus.

Where is God’s righteousness found?
In Jesus.

Where can I find this Jesus?
The word of Jesus is near you, in your mouth and in your heart.

Why does that matter?
With the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

Had Israel even sufficiently heard the word of Jesus so as to believe in him?
Yes, they had a preacher sent to them from whom to hear the word of Christ.

Why did they reject the word of Christ?
Because God hardened their hearts; he gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that would not see, and ears that would not hear.

Have God’s promises to Israel failed?
No, he never promised salvation to all individual ethnic Israelites.

Is there proof he never promised salvation to all individual ethnic Israelites?
Yes, from the very beginning there was a winnowing among Israelites, such as with Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau.

What was that winnowing based on?
Not on anything good or bad they did, and not on human will or exertion, but on God calling people to himself in accordance with his purpose in election.

Doesn’t unconditional election make God unrighteous?
No, his righteousness was declared to Moses: he reveals his glory in dispensing and withholding mercy with sovereign, unconstrained freedom.

What proof do you have that God sovereignly withholds mercy from someone in order to reveal his glory?
We have the example of Pharaoh, whom God raised up by the hardening of his heart, so as to show his power and make his name known.

If God’s sovereign will is unstoppable, then can he still blame us?
Yes, God can still blame us.

How can he do that? That’s not fair.
You, Mr. Clay, have no right to level that kind of accusation against the Potter.

Why did God harden the hearts of the Israelites?
So that their obedience would lead to the gracious salvation of Gentiles.

Does Israel still have a privileged future?
Yes, the privileges are real, and the prophecies are still certain. Someday Israel’s sins will be taken away.

Why did God ordain that Gentiles be included?
So that in the end, the Jews would be angry and jealous at the Gentiles, and thus be aroused to faith and be saved.

Why did he design it all this way?
To show mercy to both Jews and Gentiles, and to maximize the display of his glory.

What about the glory of God is revealed?
The wideness of his mercy to anyone who would call upon his name, and the depth of his mercy by way of contrast.

What kind of contrast?
Vessels set aside for mercy and vessels set aside for destruction.

Why does God tolerate vessels set aside for destruction?
To make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy.

Was this God’s plan all along?
Yes. From him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.