(The thirty-seventh in a series of sermons on Paul's Letter to the Romans, preached November 29, 2009.)
Romans 9:14 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.
9:19 You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” 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? 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? 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.’”
9:27 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.”[i]
Romans 9 proclaims God’s sovereignty in salvation. In verses 6-13, we discover God predestined Isaac for salvation, and not Ishmael. Before either Jacob or Esau were born, before they had ever done anything good or bad, God chose to save Jacob and reject Esau. Does this mean God is unfair?
Before we examine today’s text, we need to consider another question: Do we want God to be fair with us? I think that’s the last thing we want. To demand fairness is to demand justice, and if we received strict justice from God, eternal condemnation and death would be ours. What we want is not God’s justice but his mercy.
Is God unjust? I find it fascinating that Paul defends God’s justice by proclaiming his mercy.[ii] “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.’” (Romans 9:14-15) Paul cites Exodus 33:19, and context is important. The children of Israel escaped Egypt, crossing the Red Sea and entering the wilderness. There they dreadfully defile themselves. They construct an idol, a golden calf, and worship it. God determines that he will longer accompany his people on their journey (Exodus 33:1-3), a thought Moses cannot bear. To proceed without the favor of God’s presence is unthinkable! Therefore, he intercedes with God, pleading with him to forgive Israel’s sin and to remain with them. God relents. He promises his presence as he moves forward. But there is nothing sappy and sentimental about his mercy – it is bestowed freely; God will not be coerced into granting it. He reminds Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
All of this seems very clear; why do we turn these verses into a battleground? Mercy, by its very nature, is undeserved and never owed; it is the gift of a compassionate God. Let me put it even more strongly: mercy is God’s saving compassion granted those who merit his wrath. Therefore, it is an incontestable point: if God chooses to have compassion on some and not on others, he is not being unjust. Here’s how John Stott puts it: “If we receive what we deserve (which is judgment), or if we receive what we do not deserve (which is mercy), in neither case is God unjust. If therefore anybody is lost, the blame is theirs, but if anybody is saved, the credit is God’s.”[iii] This passage sets before us God’s mercy and justice. His justice is not surprising. What’s surprising is his mercy to sinners!
Paul continues: “So then it [the promise of salvation] depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy” (Romans 9:16). In our arguments over the freedom of the human will, too often we miss the big picture: our salvation depends upon God’s will, upon his sovereign choice to grant or withhold mercy. Ultimately, God’s will – not our will – is decisive.
In the Biblical text, God and his mercy stand front and center. We find these verses perplexing only because we fail to find mercy astonishing. We’ve become so sloppy in our thinking, that God’s justice surprises us – but not his mercy. We behave as if God owes us his compassion, and act offended when he threatens justice. How confused! How wrong!
Paul sets the record straight. And isn’t this the corrective we need to stop the self-absorption that captures the very heart of worship? You know what I’m talking about, when our needs, our dreams, our desires are put center stage. These words by Fredrica Matthews-Green speak clearly regarding the nature of worship in American Christianity:
"Christianity is not about God doting over humans. It is about humans coming to God, paying attention to God, serving him in their lives. Worship is not being entertained, or being healed and refreshed for the week ahead, and not even about building bonds of fellowship. Worship is about adoring one who is holy and who is consuming fire. We lose our petty selves to him to be reborn as servants, not our own but bought with a price."[iv]
God’s mercy is free, undeserved and uncoerced. Grant that God is holy, and we are sinful, and the most shocking truth of the Bible becomes God’s mercy. Had he passed by all men, showing no mercy to any of us, he would have been righteous, he would have done the expected. What is unexpected is his mercy, and until we have this Biblical perspective we will never worship and praise as we ought. No one says it better than the Baptist teacher, Thomas Schreiner, who writes: “The saving of any is mercy! Those who grumble against a God who refuses to save all reveals that they believe God ‘should’ save all, and that salvation is not a merciful gift of God but a necessary part of God’s contractual obligations to human beings. In this theology praise will shrivel up, for no one is thankful when God merely gives what he should.” (emphasis mine)[v]
Paul moves to the example of Pharaoh. “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’” (Romans 9:17). Paul’s words take us back to Exodus, and the multiple verses that refer to God hardening Pharaoh’s heart.[vi] The idea is not that God locates a sweet, innocent and peace-loving leader on the tranquil shores of the Nile, who passes his days implementing wonderful work projects, like the pyramids, to give his adoring citizenry full employment with generous wages.
No, Pharaoh is a sinner, abusing men and women who bear God’s image, determined in his wickedness to stamp out God’s people and to eradicate God’s name from the land. But God does not immediately strike him in judgment. He is patient with Pharaoh, not in order to spare him, but to set the stage for a spectacular manifestation of both his mercy and justice. Therefore, he hardens him in his sin, and grants him room to increase the persecution his people, a work Pharaoh relishes to the very end. He senses victory when he finds Israel fleeing his army, with its back to the Red Sea, destruction only moments away.
Then God’s mercy strikes. He opens for the children of Israel a pathway through the Red Sea. And then God’s judgment strikes, the parted seas come together, covering and drowning Pharaoh and his army. God’s mercy comes at the very moment when God’s people are most helpless. God’s justice comes at the very moment when Pharaoh seems invincible. God displays his mercy and justice right at the time when he will get the most glory, and the glory of his name will be published throughout the world. Had not God told Pharaoh through the prophet Moses: “by now I could have put out my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth. But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth” (Exodus 9:15,16)?
And does not God say to us: “So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills” (Romans 9:18)? God glorifies his name in bestowing mercy on those who deserve his wrath. God glorifies his name by hardening and exercising judgment on those who deserve his wrath. But it is his mercy that stands out. That’s what startles, that’s what is unexpected.
But this leads to another question: if salvation is due to God’s will, which cannot ultimately be resisted, how can God hold us responsible? Look at verse 19: “You will say to me then, ‘Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?’” Paul refuses to enter in to a philosophical discussion on the relationship between human responsibility and God’s sovereignty. Instead, he fires back: “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?” (Romans 9:20-21) The answer is, “Yes, of course, the owner has the right to do with his clay what he wills. And God has the right to do with us as he wills.”
Look at these verses again. The honorable and dishonorable vessels represent those God chooses for salvation and those he destines for destruction. His mercy is displayed to the one, his wrath to the other. Both his mercy and justice are glorified. But again the striking news is God’s mercy: why, from the lump of sinful and rebellious humanity, does God choose to show mercy to even a single sinner?
But I’d like for us to take an even closer look at verses 22-23: “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.” This is a sobering verse: God is patient with vessels prepared for destruction so that he can reveal his glory to the vessels of his mercy. How? The example of Pharaoh is helpful: God withholds his wrath until that time in which Pharaoh’s downfall will obtain for him the most glory. So, God refrains from wrath for a time, finally exercising it when it will most impress his people with the glory of his mercy. Again Thomas Schreiner:
"When the vessels of mercy perceive the fearsome wrath of God upon the disobedient and reflect on the fact that they deserve the same, then they appreciate in a deeper way the riches of God’s glory . . . and the grace lavished upon them. The mercy of God is set forth in clarity against the backdrop of his wrath . . . Thereby God displays in the full range of his attributes: both his powerful wrath and the sunshine of his mercy. The mercy of God would not be impressed on the consciousness of human beings apart from the exercise of God’s wrath, just as one delights more richly in the warmth, beauty, and tenderness of spring after one has experienced the cold blast of winter. . . God’s glory is exhibited through both wrath and mercy, but especially through mercy."[vii]
Paul concludes this section of Romans 9 by providing two historical examples of God’s mercy – his mercy to Jews and Gentiles. Look at verse 24. Paul speaks to the Roman church as vessels of mercy prepared for before hand beforehand for glory, “whom [God] has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?”
He takes the Gentiles first. The fact that any rebellious Gentile receives mercy is stunning news. Certainly, Jews of Paul’s day felt that a few Gentiles would receive God’s mercy, while the vast majority of Israel would.[viii] But that expectation is reversed as multitudes of Gentiles hear the gospel. They believe. They stream into the church. Yet, much of Israel remains in unbelief. But the inclusion of the Gentiles in God’s saving plan fulfills the scripture passages Paul cites from the prophet Hosea: “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.’ ‘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.’” (Romans 9:25-26).
Then Paul turns his attention to his fellow Israelites, whose salvation he longs for (Romans 9:1-5). “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, for the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay.’ And as Isaiah predicted, ‘If the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring, we would have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah.’” (Romans 9:27-29) Yet another striking verse! Although God’s promise to Abraham included descendants as numerous as the sands of the sea, only a remnant of that number are saved. But even the salvation of that remnant was a miracle of grace. Without God’s saving intervention, without his preserving a remnant, the whole nation would have suffered the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah.[ix] Once more, not God’s judgment – but his mercy astounds.
And the surprising mercy of God is where I conclude this morning. Twenty-first century Christians still sing the hymns that celebrate God’s miracle of mercy. “Amazing grace! - how sweet the sound - that saved a wretch like me!” “Amazing love! How can it be, that thou, my God, shouldst for me.” But are we really amazed? I fear that we presume on God’s mercy, finding little about it that shocks or surprises. After all, he is in the mercy business, and why wouldn’t he show mercy to a wonderful person like me?
We minimize his fierce anger against sin. We condition our children to treat it lightly. Evangelicals use singing vegetables to communicate stories of God’s wrath – where’s the sense of God’s terrifying holiness? Or, as Lynne has pointed out, we take one of the most fearsome judgment scenes in the Bible – Noah’s flood – and sentimentalize it, putting the cute animals on the walls of our nursery. But don’t go looking for a nursery scene that depicts Sodom and Gomorrah. We trivialize God’s judgment.
There’s so little that commends God’s awe-creating holiness, our sinfulness, and the reality of God’s judgment. And without them, the power of mercy rests on us inconsequentially.
But Romans 9 sets us right. God is not to be trifled with. The surprising attribute of God is not his justice, but his mercy. This chapter reminds me of the story of the great 18th century evangelist George Whitefield. The crowds cheered as a condemned prisoner was led away for execution. But not Whitefield, who said solemnly: “There but for the grace of God go I.” Do you know the grace of God? Then praise him for his astonishing mercy!
God’s completely understandable judgment fell upon Ishmael, Esau, Pharaoh, and the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah. And why shouldn’t it have? No news here. What is news is that God has shown mercy to the likes of you and me. So, when we see stunning displays of God’s justice, our response must never be glee, but words of whispered reverence: “There but for the grace of God go I.”
Praise him for his stunning mercy to you in Jesus Christ our Lord.
[i] All Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
[ii] John Stott, Romans: God’s Good News for the World (InterVarsity: 1994), 268-269.
[iv] Fredrica Matthews-Green, source unknown.
[v] Thomas R. Schreiner, Romans (Baker: 1998), 530.
[vi] See Exodus 4:21, 7:3, 9:12, 10:1,20, 27, 11:10, 14:4,8,17.
John Bunyan was born November 28, 1628. Read John Piper's excellent biographical sketch of the author of The Pilgrim's Progress. (Dr. Piper marks November 30 as Bunyan's birth date; I suspect that this was the date John Bunyan was baptized, but I'm no expert in these matters). Bunyan suffered greatly for the gospel of Christ, and has much to say to suffering Christians of every age.
