God's Sovereign Choice

So before we get into our text of Romans chapter 10, um a little astronomy lesson.

Romans 10 · chapter mention

Until the 1500s, the prevailing view of the universe was what they called terracentric.

Terra meaning meaning earth, like terrestrial, um, or territory.

And basically the thing was that the earth, because to the naked eyes, you looked up into the heavens and see the sun, the stars, planets, all these lights up there, they really couldn't identify at the time with these the telescopes.

They thought that the earth was at the center of it.

Terracentric, and everything else revolved around the earth.

We were sort of at the center of creation.

But it wasn't until 1543 that a man named Nicholas Copernicus came along and he told us of something called heliocentrism, or that we're revolving around the sun, and this sort of blew everyone's minds, and it took even scientists a long time to actually accept this fact.

But even Nicholas Copernicus had things a little bit wrong because as we developed more powerful telescopes, we realized that it wasn't the universe revolving around our sun.

We realized that it was just one solar system revolving around the sun in our solar system.

And these days, scientists with their powerful telescopes tell us that there are some 10 million solar systems in our galaxies.

And guess how many galaxies there are in the known universe?

Some two trillion known galaxies in is this even on?

Really?

Is this just not working?

Okay.

Alright, he's not here.

How about you just do this?

This is gonna be here.

Technical difficulties.

There we go.

Jesus never had to deal with any of this.

Unbiblical technology.

Alright, so where were we?

We were in in space.

Okay.

Um so yeah, let's think about this.

For so long, people assumed that everything revolved around the earth only to find out it revolved around the sun.

No, only to find out that there are 10 million solar systems in our galaxy and there are two trillion galaxies in our uh known universe.

That is what we can tell so far based on our telescopes.

It's safe to say that people were just a little bit wrong about thinking everything revolved around the earth.

Just a little bit wrong.

This was called later the Copernican Revolution in cosmology.

And I want to use it as an illustration this morning.

Thanks, brother.

In illustration this morning, to think how that often in our theology we can make a similar mistake.

Where we really think that everything in history, in salvation, in providence, in all parts of life really revolves around us.

Revolves around humans, revolves around our preferences, our rights, at the center of the universe, that is our known universe, is us.

When we open the pages of scripture, we find that that's not at all the case.

And the deeper we look into the space that is what God has revealed about Himself, the less and less we realize that is the case, and the more it revolves around God.

The Greek philosopher Protagoras famously asserted that man is the measure of all things.

He was sort of the first postmodernist, long before modernism even came along, that not God or the gods determine what's really true and meaningful, but but because we can't really know truth absolutely, we are the measure of what is true for us.

And I think it's very tempting today when we open the pages of Scripture to use that as our blueprint, that our interpretation, our feelings, even as we approach difficult passages of scripture, is that if we don't like it, it can't be true, or we want to reinterpret it to be something more palatable.

And I'm with you because I am the same exact way if you identify with that at all.

And so this morning I really pray that we can humble ourselves before God's word in what we would call a very difficult passage of scripture.

Few chapters in all of Scripture sort of blindside this notion of a human-centered and anthropocentric view of theology or a terracentric view of our world as compared to Romans chapter nine.

And few doctrines in all of theology, especially reformed theology, seem to be as scorned or as rejected or even misunderstood as the doctrine of unconditional election as taught in Romans chapter 9.

Romans 9 · chapter mention

Is this my kaput, or can I use my my uh handheld?

Do I have to do handheld?

Okay.

It's gonna be half as effective this morning.

So, to be sure, this is a heavy doctrine.

And for some of you who are thinking, wait, you said unconditional what?

Like I didn't even get that.

Maybe you've never heard of that.

I want to be sensitive to kind of where everyone is this morning and not assume that everyone's worked through these things and spent a lot of time thinking about it.

So I want to sort of uh speak to everyone.

Um, so initially, what are we talking about when we say unconditional election?

This is a doctrine that is taken from Romans chapter 9 and many other places scripture, but this is sort of where uh one of the main places we go to understand this doctrine.

Romans 9 · chapter mention

We might define it as this it is the unconditional election is the fact that God from all eternity past has chosen specific human beings out of their fallenness to save them in and through Jesus Christ.

And he's chosen them not based on anything good or bad he's seen in them, only out of his own sovereign freedom.

That's where the unconditional part comes in.

The election part's pretty simple.

God chooses people to salvation.

The unconditional part is that he doesn't do it based on anything he sees in you, good or bad.

It's a heavy doctrine.

In fact, the Apostle Paul, at the end of chapter Romans chapter 8, he goes from the highest of highs to Romans chapter 9, which brought him to the lowest of lows.

Romans 8 · chapter mention Romans 9 · chapter mention

In Romans chapter 9 and verse 3, as we'll read in just a few minutes, he calls himself given over to sorrow and unceasing anguish at what's some of the implications of unconditional election and what that means for some of his unsaved Jewish countrymen.

Romans 9 · chapter mention

And so I'm gonna follow the Apostle Paul's example this morning.

I don't want to be contentious, we want to be friends at the end of the day, and that we want to, more than anything, more than any preferences, more than any personal experiences with this doctrine, we want to honor God's word and be honest with it as we unpack what it says.

So the context of this whole chapter.

We find that in Romans chapter 8, let's say starting in verse 28, that he started making some profound and amazing claims about God's purposes towards his chosen people.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

We read in Romans chapter 8 and verse 28 that all things work together for good to those who love God.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

And who are those who love God?

Well, those who are called according to God's purpose.

So here we have this introduction, this idea that God's got a plan going on.

He's weaving together like a master weaver everything in the lives of his elect to make them turn out for good.

And verse 29 defines that good.

It's being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.

And there he says, for those whom he foreknew, we're told in other places of scripture that that was before time began, those whom he foreknew, he then predestined to be conformed to Christ's image.

He he determined and appointed their destiny before it even got started.

And those whom he foreknew and predestined, he then called to himself.

As 1 Corinthians 1 9 says, he called us into fellowship with his son.

It's an effectual calling.

And those whom he called, he then justified, because those who he calls believe in Jesus Christ, and justification is by faith, therefore they're justified.

And those whom he justifies, he eventually glorifies.

And he says it in the past tense.

So this is this is a perfect system, a perfect system which those whom he foreknows, he predestines, he calls, he justifies, and he glorifies without the loss of one.

That's a huge claim.

That God's purposes are so particular that not one person he chose is going to be lost.

And then he goes on to say some of the implications of this.

What should we say then?

If God before us, those whom he has foreknown and predestined and called and justified and glorified, what can possibly be against us?

He goes further and says, Who will lay anything to the charge of God's elect?

There's that word.

It's God that has declared us righteous.

And then he goes on to talk about how inseparable we are from God's saving, loving purposes towards us, that nothing present, nothing absent, nothing future, nothing past, not we ourselves, not angels or demons or humans or anything can separate us from God's love in Christ Jesus.

And so at the end of Romans chapter 8, you can just imagine the readers kind of reeling and the Apostle Paul wiping some sweat off his brow and just this moment of glory, glorious ecstasy.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

But then in Romans chapter 9, verse 1, he begins to elaborate on a response to all these wonderful promises God has made to his elect.

Romans 9:1

Because his Jewish readers would would hear the Apostle Paul, and one thing would come to mind.

Them, as Jewish readers, would hear it as Jews, and they would say, Paul, you're begging the question a little bit.

If all these things are true, that not one person will perish, all those forenown, which was actually a word brought up in the Old Testament, God had foreknown the nation of Israel.

Out of all the other nations of the world, he says, Only you have I known?

That's what the Jewish mind thought of when they heard foreknew.

He's talking about the Jews.

And so they say, Paul, if all these things are true, then why is our most Jews in our day rejecting Jesus Christ?

If not one of them is going to perish, then why is the system seemingly very broken?

And what are we going to do about it?

The question is begged.

If God's saving purposes for his chosen people are unstoppable, are 100% successful, then why are so many Jews in our day rejecting and opposing the gospel?

The question is this Were God's promises failing?

Was God's word failing?

And was God not doing what he had said?

And this actually triggers the mind back to what Moses had said in the Old Testament, that not one word that all of God has said will fall to the ground.

Paul's gonna use a lot of Jewish terminology and things that would mean a lot to his original readers, and this is one of them.

Has the word of God failed?

Was Moses wrong when he said not one word that God has said has fallen to the ground?

And so we might call this the problem.

The problem we're gonna see is in verses one through five, namely that God's chosen people, Israel, were rejecting the Messiah.

So Paul himself, who is a Jew, spends the next five verses introducing the problem.

And in so doing, he expresses his love for his countrymen, his reverence for them as a people that God had chosen under the old covenant through Moses, and his sorrow towards them who were remaining in unbelief.

So let's read together Romans chapter 9, verses 1 through 5.

Romans 9:1–5

I am speaking the truth in Christ.

I'm not lying.

My conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.

Just think about that.

The Paul who had just been lifted up on the highest heights of the mountaintops immediately says, But there's something that causes me great grief.

What is this grief, Paul?

Here it is.

For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.

They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption.

God had adopted them as a nation.

The glory God had revealed himself in glorious ways to Israel alone.

The covenants God had initiated a covenant through Moses to them, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises.

To them belong the patriarchs.

And from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever.

Amen.

Can you imagine a better resume of qualifications?

A better resume of opportunities to receive Messiah when he comes?

There's a lot here, but the gist is that Israel was so privileged historically, they had every reason to receive Jesus Christ when he came into the world.

And by and large, they didn't.

They were some of Paul's most fierce antagonists.

And for this reason, Paul was brokenhearted.

In Romans chapter 10 and verse 3, he says, he sort of touches the point of exactly what was going wrong with them, and he says this that they, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, were seeking to establish their own righteousness.

Romans 10 · chapter mention

And so they were not submitting to the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ.

They were still committed to works-based righteousness, and thus they were not saved, because only Jesus Christ can save us before God and be our righteousness.

It's interesting to me that Paul was brokenhearted, that he would be willing to give up his seat in heaven, as it were, for his friends, for his brothers and sisters according to the flesh.

And this too is a throwback to Moses, because in Exodus chapter 32, just a couple months after the mighty Exodus from Egypt, they were in the desert.

Exodus 32 · chapter mention

Moses goes up into Sinai, receives the Ten Commandments, and he comes down from the mountain.

He can't wait to re-engage the people of God and to show them how God is going to govern them.

And guess what they're doing?

They're worshiping a golden calf.

We're talking a couple months after the ten plagues, after the mighty deliverance through the Red Sea that crushed Pharaoh's army, and they're worshiping a golden calf, and their leaders are saying, Behold, Israel, the God who saved you out of Egypt, this golden calf.

Moses breaks the Ten Commandments, he rebukes them, and then he goes back up in the mountain and he says, This in Exodus 32, verse 30, he says, Alas, O God, this people has sinned a great sin.

Exodus 32:30

They have made for themselves gods of gold.

But now, if you will forgive their sin, but if not, please blot me out of the book which you have written.

And God says, No, I'm going to punish them for their sin.

You cannot be a substitute for them, and God judge them.

So we see that Moses, or that Paul here is sort of saying, Hey, I'm in the same boat as Moses.

I love these people.

I would be willing to give up my own place in glory for them if that were possible.

So that's the problem.

But then we see the solution in verse 6.

Paul is going to answer this problem of the fact that God's chosen people were not coming to faith, so it would seem.

And he's going to blow some, blow some of his Jewish friends' minds with this.

The solution in verse 6 is that not all ethnic Israelites were chosen to be spiritual Israelites.

So in verse 6, we find Paul's solution.

It's the main point, it's the thesis of the chapter that not all those that were ethnic Israelites that were born in the lineage of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob were among those God was talking about in Romans chapter 8, when he says he foreknew them and predestined and called and justified and glorified, and nothing could separate them from God's love.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

He was talking about sort of an Israel within Israel.

An Israel that was based on God's choice, not based on natural lineage, as so go on to explain.

So let's look in verse 6.

Paul says, But it is not as though the word of God has failed.

For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel.

In other words, there's two types of Israel going on here.

There's the natural Israel, there's a physical, ethnic Israel, to whom God made real promises.

But the promises of the new covenant in Christ Jesus that we read in Romans chapter 8 and other places in Romans, they were reserved for another Israel, a spiritual Israel, a smaller group of Israelites.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

And then he's going to tell us actually a whole world of Gentiles, but he hasn't brought that up yet.

He's still talking about the Jews.

That not all the ethnic Jews were part of this spiritual Israel.

And so therefore God's word has not failed.

Every single one of those whom God had chosen in Christ Jesus before the world began to be saved were coming to faith and salvation, and the rest were not chosen.

This was a hard saying.

Now the Apostle Paul isn't getting into something that he hasn't already really talked about some in our text, because we read in Romans chapter 2, he already defined for us what a real Jew was.

Romans 2 · chapter mention

A real Jew is not someone who is born of the natural descendancy of Abraham, been circumcised, keeps all the rules, etc.

A real Jew, he tells us, is one who is not merely one outwardly, nor circumcision outward and physical, but a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart by the Spirit, not by the letter.

And his praise is not from man but from God.

That's how Paul defined a real Jew.

These are the people that are chosen in Christ Jesus.

Because of their being chosen in Christ, the Holy Spirit comes in and changes their hearts.

Or in Paul's uh terminology he uses elsewhere, he circumcises the heart, which sort of sort of tips the hat to the Jewish tradition of circumcision.

It says, actually, real salvation is much more than physical, it's God changing the heart.

That's a true Jew.

So this is something Paul's already really been talking about, but they hadn't probably gotten.

It reminds us also of an interaction the uh John the Baptist had when he came on the scene before Jesus was was uh displayed to be Messiah.

And John the Baptist was preaching, he was preaching a baptism of repentance, and he was rebuking sin and he was just he was not very seeker-friendly.

Well, the Pharisees and the Sadducees came up to John and they had some questions for him, and he says this to them in Matthew chapter 7, you brood of vipers.

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

Who warned you to flee the wrath to come?

Now, this week I Googled brood of vipers, because I was like, what is a brood of vipers?

And all the pictures were just of a big pile of snakes that were just kind of slithering around each other.

Not a very pretty picture.

It's just a collection of snakes that is sort of in the in the in the side of a cave or something.

And he says, You bunch of vipers, who has warned you to flee the wrath to come?

Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

And this and listen to this, and do not presume to say to yourselves, We have Abraham as our father.

For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.

And in the new covenant, it's exactly what God does.

He takes hearts of stones, whether they're Jews or Gentiles or whatever, people that have been chosen in Christ, and he makes them into children of Abraham.

He does that very thing.

So there's a difference between natural Israel, ethnic Israel, and a spiritual Israel.

Now, because this is such a sweeping claim to say that all the Jews that aren't trusting in Jesus are evidencing the fact that either they haven't yet believed or they're never gonna believe because they weren't chosen, he's gonna bolster the rest of the chapter with numerous arguments, uh, argument after argument, and he's gonna make some uh all these arguments are gonna come from Jewish history, from the Old Testament scriptures, because that's what the people he was writing to knew and what they trusted in.

And he's gonna show that this is a thoroughly, thoroughly biblical truth.

And so we find in verses 7 through 9 the first illustrating argument the Apostle Paul will leave us with.

And the upshot of that argument is that God chose Isaac but not Ishmael.

God chose Isaac, but not Ishmael.

Now, Isaac and Ishmael were two sons of Abraham.

If you remember right, when um God had promised Abraham and his wife Sarah they were gonna have a child in their old age.

They were infertile.

But God said, Abraham, not only are you gonna have a child in your old age, which is a miracle, but through that child, through the lineage of that child, all the nations of the earth are gonna be blessed.

I'm gonna bless everyone through you and your descendant.

So they called this the son of promise.

Well, around about 85 years old, Sarah, uh, her husband was 85 years old.

She looks at Abraham and she says, You're not getting any younger, you're getting old.

And he looked at her and said, You are too, honey.

That was the first argument I'm just kidding.

85 years old, she says, You know what?

God has promised this a long time ago.

I guess it was at least 10 years before that.

God had promised uh them a son, and he was getting older and older and older, and every year they're like, it's just not happening.

And she says, You know what?

We need to help God out.

I've got this handmaid, she's her name is Hagar, despite her interesting name, she's actually really nice.

And I think God is going to use her as a surrogate mother to bring this child on the world.

She gave to her husband, and he conceived a child with Hagar, outside of God's blessing, but thinking they were doing a good thing.

The child's born, they name him Ishmael, and they're thinking, We have our son.

And God says, That's not the son whom I've chosen.

I have chosen a son who's gonna come through Sarah.

And so we have here in this historical precedent that as these Jews are listening to Paul and saying, Wait, you're saying that not all ethnic Jews are actually chosen by God?

And he's like, Yeah, this is the same thing that happened with Abraham and his two sons, Ishmael and Isaac.

They were both natural descendants of Abraham.

You couldn't get more natural descendant than having Abraham as your actual biological father, but one was rejected and one was chosen.

And so we read in verses 7 through 9 that very thing.

And not all children of Abraham, because they are his offspring, not all are children of Abraham because they're his offspring, but through Isaac shall your offspring be named.

And it has quotes there.

God rejected Ishmael and chose Isaac.

This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.

For this is what the promise said, and he quotes About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.

So the seed wasn't going to be Abraham and Hagar, but Abraham and Sarah.

God clearly rejected their efforts in Ishmael to be the chosen seed, and he chose Isaac.

Okay, so far so good.

Sort of makes sense.

We're listening.

But then he says there's another example in our in our Jewish heritage of this very thing.

In verses 10 through 13, we have his second illustrating argument that God chose Jacob.

Jacob and he passed over or rejected or didn't choose Esau.

So when Abraham had his son named Isaac, Isaac grew up and married a woman named Rebekah.

They would have twins, twin sons.

And those twins would be born, and the firstborn would be Esau, and because it means red, apparently he had red hair.

And the second son was Jacob.

And his name means supplanter or heel grabber.

Because literally, as they were born, Esau was born first, and Jacob reached out and grabbed his brother's heel, as it was, as it were, tripping him up, which turns out to be exactly how their stories would play out.

Both of these sons were not very good boys.

They were very different.

One was a mama's boy, one was a daddy's boy.

Esau was this strapping outdoorsman who loved to um uh hunt and everything, but he was also a man who was a slave to his passions.

In fact, he was so enslaved to his earthly passions, he was so hungry one day, he came in to his brother and he says, If you'll make me something to eat, I will give you my birthright.

I will basically trade with you for some kind of pottage or something made out of venison or something, and I will give you uh this precious birthright that is mine because I'm firstborn.

And Jacob, who was a supplanter, saw his opportunity and said, instead of saying, No, I'll just make you something to eat, he says, Okay.

And so Jacob takes his birthright later on, because not only was the birthright necessary, but the blessing, Jacob connives with his mother that he's gonna steal the blessing.

And so Jacob puts on some animal skins and he puts on some of his brother's clothes, so he smelled like dirt, and he goes to his father and he says, Father, uh, this is your son uh Esau.

Give me your blessing.

And his father Isaac was so old and he was blind that he couldn't even see, he just reached out and he felt the hair, the he felt the hairiness, which his brother Esau apparently was very hairy.

Very hairy, in fact.

If um you mistake animal skin for your son, but and so Isaac was blind, but he wasn't dumb, and he's like, wait a minute, um, your voice is Jacob, but you smell and you feel like Esau.

What's going on here?

And Jacob swore to his father, I am Esau.

What a conniving, manipulative person.

Well, Esau wasn't that much better because as soon as he found out he had stolen his blessing, he swore to kill his brother.

Not a very nice guy.

And then he went on, we're told, to marry a couple pagan women that his parents didn't like.

And again, he was a man enslaved to his passions.

But in God's providence, because God had chosen Jacob and not Esau, one day God would sort of catch up with Jacob and would stop him, would actually give him a limp.

He would wrestle with God and he would have a limp the rest of his life so he could no longer run from God.

And he would ask, and he would say, Um, what is your name?

And his name was Jacob.

Almost as if it were recalling the mind to the last time he had been asked, Who is this?

And he said, I'm Esau.

God had finally caught up with this one who'd been chosen.

And he changed his heart and he changed his name from supplanter, from heel catcher to Israel, which means Prince of God.

So let's read the text in verses 10 to 13.

And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not born, this is the kids, though these sons had not been yet born and done nothing good or bad, in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works, but because of him who calls, namely God.

She was told, and he quotes the Old Testament scriptures, the older will serve the younger.

And then he quotes Malachi talking about the situation.

Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.

And it'd be tempting to say, well, if God loved Jacob and he hated Esau, if he chose Jacob and he rejected Esau, it must be because you know Jacob was more lovable.

But if you know the story of Jacob, that wasn't the case.

Well, well, Esau must have done something so terrible.

No, they really weren't different, humanly speaking.

In fact, before they were even born, he says, I'm choosing Jacob and not Esau.

In other words, here's yet another example of in Jewish history how God had chosen one and rejected the other, even in their own Jewish lineage.

Things maybe they had conveniently forgot.

So you can imagine, because this is still so unpopular to think, wait, God, you're saying that God would show this kind of favoritism, that he would choose one and not the other.

This sounds very unjust.

And so we're gonna read in verses 14 to 29, there are gonna be two objections, and then Paul's responses to these objections in turn.

Now I'm gonna ask you this morning, how would you respond?

Whether you believe this as I'm talking or not, whether it's something familiar with you is not or not, when you hear this idea that God chooses one and not the other, and it's not based on who they are, what they can offer God, anything he sees in them, good or bad, what is your response to that?

You can you can shout it out.

What's the obvious response to unconditional election?

It's unfair.

This is unfair.

Well, the fact is that is exactly the objection raised in verse 14 that Paul's gonna answer, which lets us know we're on the right track.

If you have a view of Romans 9 where you're sort of like adding stuff to the text to sort of make it a little more palatable, and it doesn't result in people saying that's unfair, you're probably getting Paul very wrong.

I think so far we're understanding Paul because that's exactly our response.

This sounds unjust, unfair, unrighteous.

How could a good God do this?

And so the objection is in verse 14, the first part, he says, the question is this Wouldn't choosing only some make God unjust?

That's my reaction.

Wait a minute.

How can a really nice, kind God choose some and then choose to not choose others?

Well, he's gonna answer this objection.

It's interesting that this objection to unconditional election, as Paul is teaching here, is sort of based on God's character, right?

They're saying God would be unjust.

You're blaspheming God, Paul.

You're ascribing to God some kind of uh ill will.

You're saying that God would be unrighteous, unjust.

And so they're appealing to God's nature to rebut Paul's arguments.

And so what Paul's gonna do is appeal to God's nature.

Not God's, not how we perceive God's nature, how it should be, but how God has revealed his nature to actually be.

And so he's gonna do this in verses 14.

Um, in verses uh 14 and through 18.

And here's his response to this objection based on God's character.

He says, God is free to choose whomever he wills.

God is free to choose whomever he wills.

You know, when it comes to unconditional election, many would, all of us, I think, as we think about this, I'm not picking on anybody, we all would naturally respond with, what about human freedom?

What about free will?

I thought salvation was based on whosoever will choose God.

That God sort of sort of casts a wide net and it's up to us whether we're going to swim into the net.

What about human freedom?

Does not God choosing one and not the other, doesn't that remove human freedom?

And now we're just a bunch of robots?

It's a pretty good impression, isn't it?

I was predestined to do that.

The story is told of a group of people who got together to talk about, you know, salvation and things in scripture, and and uh they they they got to the topic of free will and election and predestination, and and they became so contentious that they ended up splitting the group up, and the free will people went over to one side of the room, and the election and predestination people went to the other side of the room, and there was one person who was sort of stuck, and he's like, I'm not sure which is correct, I don't know which group to go into, but he's like, you know, the election people make a lot of sense, so I'm gonna go over there.

So he goes over there, and and as soon as he sits down, they look at him and they say, Who sent you here?

He says, Well, no one sent me here, I came on my own free will.

He said, Free will, you don't belong in this group, get out of here.

And so they kick him out of their election group, and so he goes to the other group, and as soon as he sits down with them, they look at him and they say, Um, why did you decide to join us?

He says, Well, actually, this wasn't my choice.

I was sent over here.

This wasn't your choice, you don't belong in this group, get out of here.

And so he went out and he he founded Alcoholics Anonymous.

Not really, but maybe you can identify with the consternation of thinking, how do we wrap our minds around what God is doing and what humans are responsible for?

And this free will idea might uh hinder some progress here.

So let's pursue this idea for just a moment about free will.

But we're gonna turn it around.

Many of us will assert that if God were to do anything to infringe upon human freedom, that would be wrong, it would turn us into robots, right?

Well, let me ask you, is God's will free?

Is God's will free?

Or do we infringe upon God's will and turn him into a robot?

A God who cannot any longer choose whom he will love, choose what he will do, whom he will save, but a God who is bound by our preferences and our freedom, in fact, a God who is less free than us.

Spurgeon said along these lines, it always seems inexplicable to me that those who claim free will so very boldly for man will not allow some free will to God.

Why should Jesus Christ not have the right to choose his own bride?

He would say.

So when we think about free will, you need to first ask, well, whose will is more free, God's or man's?

Is the creator more free to do what he wishes, or humans more free to do?

And if there's a conflict, whose will wins?

Paul gives an illustrating argument to answer this objection that, hey, this is unjust.

God would be unrighteous to do this.

And so he's going to show in verses 14b through 16 that God's freedom to show mercy is basic to his nature.

There's a mouthful.

God's freedom to show mercy is basic to his nature.

Namely, this.

We're talking about divine freedom here.

They appealed to God's righteousness and said, I think they didn't quote any scripture.

They just said, it seems like God would be unrighteous to choose one and not the other.

And he says, Well, let me tell you not about what you think, but what God has said about himself.

God is free to choose.

And in fact, this freedom is essential, is basic, is integral to what it means for God to be God.

And so in verses 14 to 16, let's read this.

Paul responds, By no means is God unrighteous, for he says to Moses, this is God talking to Moses, quote, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.

And then Paul concludes, so then it depends, it, the mercy, the showing of mercy and compassion, it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.

This is an appeal to God's nature, nature, namely his freedom as God.

And what's interesting to me is that if we look behind this quote from Moses, we find that it comes from Exodus chapter 33.

Exodus 33 · chapter mention

And when God tells Moses this, it's rather interesting.

Moses, who had already seen the burning bush, who had seen the ten plagues upon Egypt, who had seen the sea part and Israel walk through on dry ground, who had seen the sea come back down at the bidding of God and consume all the hosts of Pharaoh, the same Moses who had seen God's glory in the pillar of cloud by day and the fire by night, here in Exodus 33, pleads with God to show him his glory.

Moses knew that he had only begun to scratch the surface of who God was, of the power and the might and the glory of this God.

And Moses, very interestingly, pleads with God, show me your glory.

And here's God's response to him.

I will make all my goodness pass before you, Moses.

And get this: I will proclaim before you my name, the Lord.

And then he says this, and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.

The text that Paul quotes to prove God's freedom isn't just a random text about God, something God may have said indirectly.

This is God in the act of declaring who he is in his nature when he says, I'm a sovereign God, I am a free God, I do what I please.

Wow, think about this.

God reveals himself to Moses, and divine freedom is at the heart of what it is for God to be God.

A second illustrating argument, if that wasn't enough.

Not just what God had said to Moses, who was one of the spiritual elect of God, but what God said to Pharaoh, who was one of the non-elect.

Verses, uh well, verses 17 to 18, it illustrates that God's freedom, God has freedom to harden sinners, and it is basic to his nature.

So again, I'm not saying that hardening sinners is basic to God's nature or showing mercy.

God would be God if he never showed mercy or if he always showed mercy to everyone.

What I'm saying is the freedom to do so is basic to his nature.

And here Paul says the same thing.

God's freedom to harden sinners is also basic to his nature.

He has the right to harden.

Verses 17 and 18.

For this 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, Paul concludes from this interaction with God and Pharaoh, God has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.

There's a lot here.

Let's see if we can point out a couple of main things.

Did you notice how that in both the Moses context, the Moses quote and the Pharaoh quote, in both contexts, God is proclaiming his name.

That's remarkable.

I quoted Exodus 33, and God says, I'm going to proclaim my name to you.

I do what I want.

And now, directly to Pharaoh, God says, I will proclaim my name and I will proclaim it by destroying you, essentially, by judging you for your sin.

And the conclusion is God has mercy on whom he wills and he hardens whom he wills.

This is a hard concept.

If you remember the story of Pharaoh, it says in Exodus chapter 1, I think verse 8, that there arose a Pharaoh in Egypt who didn't know Joseph, didn't know the God of Joseph, and he became oppressive, and the two million people that were called Israelites there were enslaved in Egyptian bondage.

Exodus 1 · chapter mention

They had just been living there outside of Egypt in a land of Goshen, and they were sort of coexisting.

But when this Pharaoh arose, it says passively in Exodus, he enslaved Israel.

But we learn it wasn't passive at all.

God providentially brought this man into power.

Pharaoh, for this purpose I raised you up that I might show my power in you.

Pharaoh would go on, and being greedy and enslaved to his own sins, he would say, I'm not gonna let your people go.

And Moses came to him and said, Hey, uh the God of the Jews says, You gotta let us go.

I know we're your whole infrastructure, this whole Egyptian dynasty, the most powerful dynasty in the world, is sort of built on our slave labor, but God says you gotta let us go.

And Pharaoh says, I will not let you go.

And Exodus tells us that Pharaoh hardened his own heart.

That is, he went deeper in this can this commitment to not doing what God said.

And then later on, it says, whenever he was gonna let him go, it says that God hardens his heart.

That's either four or six times.

I can't remember how many times it says that Pharaoh hardens his heart, and then God hardened his heart, and then Pharaoh hardens his heart, and then God tells Moses, I'm gonna harden Pharaoh's heart, so he won't let you go, so then I'm gonna send plagues and show my power and my victory over the gods of Egypt.

The point is this God did not choose Pharaoh for salvation, he chose him to display his wrath and power.

That's what God told Pharaoh he had raised him up for.

This is a hard saying.

But I want to interject something here because it's it's easy for us to hear that and say, you know, he's quoting the Old Testament.

Isn't the God of the Old Testament kind of an ogre, anyways?

We can have this dichotomy, the God of the Old Testament is severe, mean, and everything, but then in Jesus we have sort of the nice side of God, and Jesus comes in, and Jesus would have nothing to do with election, right?

And yet he does.

Matthew chapter 11, verses 25 to 27, Jesus says this, where he praises the Father for election.

Matthew 11:25–27

At that time, Jesus declared, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children.

Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.

God chose to hide things from certain people and to reveal them to other people.

And there's so much here we could quote from Jesus' ministry, but I but there's one more verse I want to get.

Jesus continues, All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

Jesus is involved in election.

Jesus, in fact, would tell his apostles, You're privileged, blessed are your ears, because you hear and your eyes for you see.

And he would expound to them the parables.

He would tell them that I speak to the rest of the people in parables so that they will not understand.

This is getting deep.

But to those he had chosen, he elaborated his parables so they could understand the mysteries of the kingdom.

Jesus believed in unconditional election.

Well, all this brings up, this mention of hardening, it again brings up this fierce antagonism in Paul's readers, in some of them.

And when he says harden, and he likens sort of the unbelieving Jews of Paul's day to Pharaoh?

Well, he really got their ire up then.

Well, you're saying that that there are many Jews who are actually no better off than Pharaoh?

And so the objection comes in verse 19.

How could God blame those hardened or the non-elect for their sin, for their unbelief?

How can God blame someone he's hardened for their unbelief?

In verse 19, we read the actual quote: You will say to me then, why does he still find fault?

For who can resist God's will?

If God hardened Pharaoh, how can God judge Pharaoh when he doesn't let his people go?

Right?

That's a pretty good objection.

Maybe you thought of that when you were sitting here thinking, wait a minute.

How's God going to punish Pharaoh for something that resulted from him being hardened by God?

There is a good answer.

But it's a good question, right?

If God hardens the non-elect, how are they still responsible for their sins?

This gets back to human freedom and human responsibility and how it relates to God's sovereignty.

Now, before I get into Paul's answer, um I hope I'm not doing Paul injustice by this because he doesn't answer it this way, but I am gonna answer the way Paul answered it, and we're gonna talk about that.

But because this is such a difficult issue for all of us to really wrap our minds around, I do want to think through a little bit about how this can work.

So there's a lot of theology and philosophy that's that's developed through the years, and sort of answering this question is how does human freedom relate to being hardened by God and God being sovereign, and yet people remaining responsible and God's will being done and all these complex things.

I think it's very helpful to realize that although God does not choose anybody for salvation based on who they are, based on their actions, based on their faith, or anything he sees in them good or bad, his act of hardening the non-elect does appear to be consistent with and in cooperation with the non-elect's sinful nature as fallen rebellious human beings.

Some what theologians would call this the ace the asymmetry of election and reprobation, the idea that God does not relate to the elect and the non-elect in the same way, sort of neutral, chooses one, not the other.

Because the fact is, when he chooses someone to be saved, he's rescuing them out of what would have happened to them had they lived and died and been judged by God.

But when he leaves the non-elect in their sins, he's not making them sin, he's not forcing them, he's not making them more sinful, he's leaving them to themselves, and the result is condemnation, which they worked really hard for.

And so when God chooses an elect, he does so contrary to their unworthiness.

When he hardens someone, he does so in accordance with their sin.

I know this is a little complex, but here's another way.

I'm gonna tell you what, I'm gonna call up R.

C.

Sproul right now.

R.C., all right.

I'm gonna dictate to you what he has.

Here's what R.C.

Sproul said in his book, Chosen by God.

R.C.

Sproul died a few years ago.

We're still really close.

Here's what R.C.

Sproul says.

There are only two ways God could have hardened Pharaoh's heart, either actively or passively.

Active hardening would hardening would involve God's direct intervention within the inner chambers of Pharaoh's heart.

God would intrude into Pharaoh's heart, he would create fresh evil, and this would make God the author of sin.

If God were actively hardening Pharaoh.

Pharaoh is doing pretty good.

I'm not a good guy, but I'm non-elect, and I'm I'm bad, but I'm not that bad.

And God says, I'm gonna make you worse.

No?

That would be active hardening.

Sproul says there's something else.

There's something called passive hardening, or how we can think about hardening.

Passive hardening is a totally different story, he says.

Passive hardening involves a divine judgment upon his sin that is already present.

Pharaoh was a greedy, wicked, bloodthirsty man without any hardening.

And so God's judgment, his hardening was divine judgment upon the sin that was already present.

All that God needs to do to harden the heart of a person whose heart is already desperately wicked is to give them over to more of their sin.

We see this in Romans chapter 1, where those who Who didn't weren't thankful, didn't like to keep God in thoughts, but really wanted to change God, the glory of God, and start worshiping earthly things.

Romans 1 · chapter mention

What does it say God does to them?

Gives them over.

And then twice after that, he says he gives them up.

He gives them up, he gives them over.

Three times it says that God, He relaxes his restraining grip upon them and they sink deeper into their sins.

And so Sprohl closes out like this All God has to do to harden people's hearts is to remove the restraints.

He gives them a longer leash.

And this is crucial.

Rather than restricting their human freedom, he increases it.

So if you're saying, you know what?

God hardening Pharaoh, that contradicts Pharaoh's free will.

He can no longer be responsible.

God is unjust.

Paul says, no, hardening is God releasing the common grace grip on Pharaoh, allowing him to be more and more evil, consistent with his fallen heart, and thus he's actually increasing his freedom and increasing his condemnation.

God lets people have their own way when he hardens them.

And just think about how crazy the world would be if God had no restraint.

If God exercised no restraint, if everyone who wanted to kill the other person could do it.

Think about all the things that God prevents from happening.

We really don't want a fully free human will.

God says, hands off, it's all you.

When that happens, hardening happens.

Thank God that God does exercise restraint and keep evil from being as evil as it could be.

Now that's how some theologians talk about hardening.

What's really interesting to me, Paul doesn't say any of that.

In fact, Paul doesn't answer the question directly.

He doesn't target the mind in his response to this objection.

How can God hold people responsible if he hardens them?

He doesn't speak to the mind, he speaks to the heart.

The heart behind this question was questioning whether God has the freedom and the right to do as seems good to him in his infinite goodness, wisdom, and power.

And so Paul is not going to argue like Sprawl did.

I think Sprawl is correct.

I think it fits with Romans 1, it fits with a lot of other passages, but Paul is going to target our hearts when we in our hearts want to rebel against the sovereignty of God and deprive God his right.

In fact, the same rights we would want to keep for ourselves.

So the response is in verses 20 through 29, and it's sort of three parts.

Namely, that God is God, election is good, and without election, no one would be saved.

That's sort of how Paul's going to respond.

He's not going to get into the philosophical underpinnings of hardening.

He's just going to reassert, he's going to double down on everything he's been saying so far.

And so we see in verses 20 through 21 that God is God and humans are not.

He's going to remind those who are asking this question, you're not in a position to judge what God does because you're not God.

Someone has said really well, don't judge what God does unless you know what God knows.

If you're not God, you're not in a position to judge what God does.

And this is basically what Paul says in verses 20 through 21.

But who are you, O man, to answer back to God?

Will what is molded say to the 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?

Now this analogy, consistent with everything Paul's done so far, is going to remind his readers of Old Testament Scripture.

This analogy was given in Jeremiah chapter 18, where God himself, speaking it through Jeremiah to Israel, calls himself the potter and Israel the clay.

Jeremiah 18 · chapter mention

Well, here we are in the New Testament.

Some of the Jews aren't chosen, some of them are.

What right has God to do that?

God says, I have the same right I did back then.

I'm still the potter, they're still the clay.

It's a rebuke and a call to rightful humility before God.

Now there's one phrase in here I really want to notice before we move on.

Notice how he says the potter has the right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use, another for dishonorable use.

Some would say, yeah, election, that's that's a, you know, I get that.

My understanding of election is that God basically looks through the corridors of time and sees who's gonna receive Jesus, who's gonna exercise faith when they're given the opportunity to believe in the gospel.

He's gonna look through time and he sees that Pharaoh is gonna be a bad guy, so he rejects him.

But he sees that Moses and Israel are gonna be good, so he accepts them.

The problem is, as Paul says here in other places, it's of the same lump that God makes this divine determination.

He doesn't see two lumps.

One's a lump that, you know, it's um, it's clay that's got really good consistency, it's gonna make a really good vessel, and I'm gonna, out of this lump of better clay, I'm gonna make vessels unto honor.

But out of this kind of like it's kind of dried and parched, and it's got some pieces of grass in it.

I'm gonna make just some uh some basic things that no one's gonna really see.

No, out of the same exact lump.

That's what we call it unconditional election.

It's God's choice of people to glory through Jesus Christ, not based on anything good or bad he saw in them.

It's unconditional.

Now we're gonna see his argument, the second argument in verses 22 through 24, his second response to this charge.

Namely, this that unconditional election, it magnifies God's wrath, power, and glory.

This is exciting to me because so often in scripture we don't know why God does what he does.

So often what God doesn't provide that explanation.

Lord, why did you let this into so-and-so's life, or why did this happen to me, or why did you do this this way?

But here actually Paul pulls back the curtains just a little bit and tells us a couple of God's motives in why God unconditionally elects some and not others.

And so we read the passage in verse 22.

What if God, desiring to show his wrath, there's motive, God is desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction.

In order that, here's another purpose statement, in order that, 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.

This is the first mention of the Gentiles so far.

This is why we as reformed folks at Sacred Mission understand this election passage, not just about the nation of Israel and God choosing some and not others.

This extends to the rest of the world.

This is why Paul would write to the Gentile Christians in Ephesus and say, Blessed be the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ who chose you before the foundation of the world, and a chosen and predestined you to be adopted into Jesus Christ for the good pleasure of his own will.

It's Jews and Gentiles included in this election.

But there's a couple things I want to notice.

This motive of God desiring to show his wrath and to show his power, and this is don't want to get into the weeds of grammar, but him showing his wrath and power is subordinate.

It serves the ultimate purpose of making known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy.

Here's that asymmetry again.

God doesn't relate to the non-elect and the elect in the same way.

The Old Testament says God does not delight in the death of the wicked.

You and I sometimes delight in the death of the wicked.

God doesn't.

And yet, here it says that God has chosen some to be vessels of wrath to augment the glory of what it means for God to show mercy to undeserving people through Jesus Christ.

A quick grammar lesson from our text.

We'll notice the difference in the phrases vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and then the phrase, vessels of mercy which God has prepared beforehand.

In the Greek, prepared right there, the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, it's a past participle, or it could be translated having been fitted or prepared.

It's passive.

That's interesting.

But then the phrase regarding the vessels of mercy, it says it makes God the actor God has prepared beforehand.

That's in the Greek as well.

So the vessels of wrath are fitted, passive, and the vessels of mercy are prepared, active.

What's the significance of this?

Well, again, that asymmetry and how God relates to it, but it's it's this.

It's evident that the way God fits the non-elect for wrath and destruction is sort of the same way He hardens them.

He gives them over to themselves, and they fit themselves for wrath.

God doesn't force anyone to sin.

In fact, James would tell us that there's not a shadow of turning in God, and God does not tempt people to do evil.

But all God does is he releases his restraining grip on them, and they fit themselves for destruction.

But vessels of mercy, if God were to leave us to ourselves, if God were to use that same logic on us and restrain and loose his restraint on us and let us do what we want of our own free will, how many of us would choose Jesus?

How many of us would end up getting glorified and be inheritors of God's mercy, not a one?

And so this, I think the Greek here is very important to think the non-elect fit themselves for destruction, but God fits those who deserve destruction.

He fits them for glory.

Now there's two closing arguments we're gonna go through quickly and then we'll wrap things up.

In verses 25 to 26, his positive closing argument is namely that unconditional election is the only reason anybody is saved.

That's a big statement.

Unconditional election is the only reason anybody is saved.

And we see this in verses 25 and 26, quoting Hosea in the Old Testament.

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.

You see what's going on here?

God is going to step in and he's gonna intervene.

That's what un that's what unconditional election is.

God stepping into salvation history and intervening in the fallen course of humans who are gonna be deserving of hell.

The very same place that they were called not my people, by nature we're not God's children, we're not his people, we're not his beloved.

God says, I'm gonna choose them in such a way that they will then be called my people, my beloved, my children, sons of the living God.

There's an unfortunate misunderstanding that election keeps people out of heaven that that uh that wanted to go, right?

Kicking and screaming, going to hell because they wanted to go to heaven, but God didn't choose them.

That's not the way it works.

God intervenes in our hell-bent direction, and his election saves us from it.

It doesn't keep anyone out of heaven who wants to go, and it doesn't put anyone in hell who wanted to go to heaven.

And so he quotes there Hey, God is the one that makes the difference.

Those who weren't the beloved, they didn't make the difference.

Those who weren't sons of the living God, they didn't make some choice, they didn't better themselves and make themselves more appealing to God for me to adopt them.

I will adopt them, I will call them my beloved, and I will make them something they were not by nature.

And then in verses 27 to 29, he looks at the flip side of this.

So I call it a negative closing argument, quoting Isaiah 1.9.

If election were conditional, nobody would be saved.

So if if it's because of unconditional election that anyone is saved, but here he says, if election were conditional, nobody would be saved.

Could Paul create a tighter argument than this?

He's sitting from all angles.

Verse 27.

And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel.

Though the number of the sons of Israel, and here he's talking about the nation of Israel, the ethnic Israel, be as the sand of the sea.

There were a lot of them.

Only a remnant of them will be saved.

For the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth.

What is a sentence?

We know what a sentence is.

When you go to court and the judge hands down a sentence, that's not a very happy thing.

That's called justice.

Isaiah says in his day, because injustice, because uh wickedness was so rampant, you had people in Israel, according to the prophets, who were sacrificing their children, who were oppressing the poor, who were cheating.

You had wealthy people who were um hiring people then not paying them.

You had men who are sort of empowered in that day, who were marrying a woman, keeping her for a couple years, putting her away because she didn't find uh she didn't find pleasure in my sight.

And you put her away, and then she would be disenfranchised.

She couldn't, who wanted to marry her again in the Jewish culture?

They she was sort of a marked person at that time.

And this was happening over and over again.

And so the prophets would say, You men who are divorcing your wives without cause, God hates divorce.

All these things were happening, and Isaiah looks around and he says, Because God is handing out the sentence of judgment, all of us would be destroyed if God had not saved a remnant.

And we continue.

As Isaiah predicted, if the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring, we would have been like Sodom and Gomorrah.

Remember the story of Sodom and Gomorrah?

God purposes to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.

It was a wicked, two wicked cities, twin cities there in a valley, a fertile valley there.

And Abraham hears about it.

He's got a nephew there named Lot.

And Abraham hears that God's gonna destroy these two cities, and think about all the people there is gonna be destroyed.

And God says, Yeah, I'm gonna destroy them justly for their sin.

Their um the stench of their sin has reached heaven, so to speak.

And Moses bargains, excuse me, Abraham bargains with God and he says, Wait, if there's 50 righteous people there, will you spare the city?

God says, okay, if there's 50 righteous people, I'll spare the city.

But God says, there's not 50 righteous people there.

And then he says, Well, what if there's 40 righteous people?

God says 40, we'll do it.

But there's not 40 people.

30, 20, 10.

Finally, God says, There's not 10 righteous people in those huge metropolitan centers in the ancient world.

And so God just sends two angels to go down and rescue Lot and his wife and his two daughters and get them out of there before fire and brimstone fell.

Isaiah quotes scripture regarding Sodom and Gomorrah to describe what would have happened to Israel had God not left them a remnant of people.

How does God leave a remnant of people?

Romans chapter 11, verse 5 says it's called a remnant according to God's election of grace.

Romans 11:5

In other words, God chose a remnant to spare, otherwise, they all would have been destroyed.

His argument is pretty clear.

If election were conditional, nobody would be saved.

We need to close.

As we respond to this doctrine of God's sovereignty, I just want to close with another Spurgeon quote, the Apostle Spurgeon.

And he says this I believe the doctrine of election because I am quite sure that if God had not chosen me, I should never have chosen him.

And I am sure that he chose me before I was born, or else he never would have chosen me afterwards.

And he must have elected me for reasons unknown to me, for I never could find any reason in myself why he should have looked upon me with special love.

May that be our attack today as we wrestle with this scripture, as we take what Paul has plainly revealed about God's own nature, about his freedom, and may we submit ourselves to God and say, God, I don't know what you know.

And therefore I'm not going to judge what you do.

I pray that we will, as those who do know and love and trust in Jesus, will find, as was part of God's motive in doing all this, we'll find our joy in Jesus.

And we'll find our joy in the riches of the demonstration of God's grace in vessels of mercy, which if you love Jesus, you're a vessel of mercy.

That we'll find this text to have augmented it and heightened it all the more for us as we now respond with worship.

Let's pray.