Romans is Paul’s fullest explanation of his gospel. He is not ashamed of this gospel, because it is God’s power to all who believe, whether Jew or Greek.
From chapter 1:18 to chapter 3:20, Paul outlines the need for the gospel. There is no one righteous, not even one (Romans 3:10).
But then from chapter 3 verse 21 and into chapter 4, Paul talks how a person can be righteous, simply by trusting in Christ, and in his death on the cross and resurrection. By the cross, God is still just in forgiving us, because he took our punishment: the punishment that brought us peace was on him (Isaiah 53:4-6). By his resurrection, Christ brought our justification, for just as he was vindicated by his indestructible life, so we share in his justification before the world at his resurrection (Isaiah 53:10-12). And in Romans chapter 5, God demonstrated his love for us in Christ's death (Romans 5:6-9), and vindicated Christ in his resurrection (Romans 5:10-11, 18) so that his whole course of obedience (Romans 5:19), which meant death could not hold him down, justifies us (vv. 18-19).
In chapters 6 to 8, Paul outlines some of the consequences of this new righteousness. We died to sin when Christ died and now we live for God (Romans 6:1-14). We are now dead to sin and slaves to God (Romans 6:15-23). We now struggle with the sin in us (Romans 7:7-25) and we will one day be set free (vv. 24-25). But for now, there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus, because what the law couldn't do, Christ, by his life, death and resurrection, did on our behalf (Romans 8:1-4). Moreover, the indwelling Spirit brings us new life and enables us to put to death the misdeeds of the stubborn flesh that still resides in us (Romans 8:8-13).
The high point of the work of the Son and the Spirit in and for us is in chapter 8 verse 39. Nothing will separate us from God’s love in Christ. But for Paul, the joy of salvation is tinged with sadness. For though he soars in the last part of chapter 8 (vv. 28-39), in chapter 9 verse 1, he comes down to earth with a crashing halt.
Paul goes from declaring that nothing will be able to separate believers from the love of God in Christ, to wishing himself cut off and cursed from Christ. That is the bi-polar movement of Paul: in the space of 4 verses, nothing will separate us from God’s love in Christ, to I wish I was cut off from Christ.
Now the question is, why? Why is Paul speaking like this? What explains Paul’s strange twist in thinking.
Do you have family or friends that don’t trust in Christ? How does it feel? You read the bible, and your realise the wonderful promises God has in store for his people: forgiveness, a new life now, the Holy Spirit, eternal life forever with Jesus Christ. But you also know that Jesus says, "No one comes to the Father but by me" or "whoever believes in the Son has life, but whoever does not believe in the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him". And you remember your family who think you are a fool: your brother, your father, your mother consider Christ and his gospel folly, and you worry for them.
Do you have family who don’t know Christ? Do you grieve for them? Well, Paul knew what it was to have loved ones outside of Christ. Paul knew the pain and anguish of having loved ones rejecting his Lord. For he had many brothers and sisters to grieve over. And his family was a big one: Israel. Verses 1 to 3:
1I speak the truth in Christ – I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit – 2I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3For I could wish [literally, pray[1]] that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ [praying I myself be Anathema from Christ] for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race […]
Here is, in the words of the Diocesan Mission, prayerful and self sacrificial compassion for the lost. It is prayerful in this, that Paul prays (if it were permissible), that he might be cut off from Christ: a prayer he knows God will never answer and that God does not require. But his wish is in the form of a prayer. Paul knows God always refuses to grant this because it was asked of God in the past. In Exodus 32:32, Moses prayed something similar in response to the Golden Calf: "But now, please forgive their sin – but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written.” And the LORD replied “Whoever has sinned against me I will blot out of my book”. God refused the prayer.
It is self-sacrificial in this: like Moses before him, Paul asks God to blot him out and remember his people. He wishes that he might be a type of sacrifice for them. But God will never answer that prayer, as Paul knows. For God has already given his own son as a Sacrifice (Rom 3:21-26). No other substitutionary sacrifice is acceptable.
All through this section, in Romans chapters 9 to 11, Paul uses a different vocabulary to speak of the nation God chose. He doesn’t use ‘Jew’ and ‘Jewish’, in the main, as he has done in chapters 1-8. In verse 4, Paul speaks of "the people of Israel". Literally, they are "Israelites", a title that reminds us of God’s promises to his Old Testament people.[2] And he lists the privileges of the Israelites. Verses 4 and 5:
4Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. 5Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestory of Christ, who is God over all, for ever praised! Amen.[3]
Paul has already spoken of the benefits of Israel in chapter 3 verses 1-4. The Jews had many benefits, chiefly, the oracles of God. And Paul’s list here starts with the adoption of the nation Israel as God’s Son (v. 4).[4] It is different from the adoption of Christians, those who have the Spirit of Sonship, who are led by the Spirit (Rom 8:14-17). Israel as a nation is God’s son, in a similar but not identical way that each Christian, with the Spirit of Sonship, who individually is God’s son. He finishes with the privilege of sharing the same family tree as the Messiah. These are great privileges.
Indeed, they become greater as Paul considers who Christ is. The last part of verse 5: "Christ, who is God over all, for ever praised."[5] While some modern translations punctuate this verse differently, in this sentence Paul is calling Christ "God over all". The Messiah, the Christ, is God. In the words of the Apostle John, "The Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word became Flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:1, 14). And he came to his own, and his own did not receive him.
And that is Paul’s problem. Israel has rejected her Christ. The nation has not received Christ. Most individuals have not received Christ. Neither have they accepted him as Messiah That is the bald fact facing Paul. What is the explanation for this? What are the possibilities?
What about blaming God? Maybe God has not kept his word regarding Israel? Paul raises this only to rule it out at the very beginning. Verses 6 and the first part of verse 7:
It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children.
Here, Paul is arguing that God never promised that every Israelite was a member of the true spiritual Israel. God never said that every descendant of Israel is a true Israelite and will be saved. In fact, the Old Testament consistently shows the very opposite. Not everybody in Abraham’s family tree is his spiritual child and heir of salvation. Paul finds this principle in the Old Testament.
In Chapter 11, Paul will talk about a remnant, a chosen group within the chosen nation (v. 5). Here, he talks about an Israel within Israel, and Abraham’s true children.
Paul uses two examples from Abraham’s family to show he is not making this up. First is Abraham’s own children, Isaac and Ishmael (vv. 7-10). And then he turns to Abraham’s grandchildren, Jacob and Esau (vv. 10-13).
Abraham’s oldest son was Ishmael. His mother was the slave-woman, Hagar. His second son, as we know, was Isaac, born to Sarah in their old age, as God had promised. Ishmael came from Abraham’s body, just as much as Isaac. Ishmael shared just as much of Abraham’s DNA as Isaac. But God thinks of Ishmael differently to Isaac.
Paul goes back to Genesis 21:11-13. There, Abraham was troubled over whether he should listen to his wife. Should he send away Ishmael and his mother? But God said to him:
Do not be so distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned. I will make the son of the maidservant into a nation also, because he is your offspring. (NIV)
As far as God is concerned, Ishmael is and isn’t Abraham’s offspring. Ishmael is Abraham’s offspring physically. Indeed, he will be blessed as a result. But for the purpose of the promise, he is not to be considered as Abraham’s offspring. Notice in verse 8, even more starkly, that being a child of the promise is a matter of being a child of God. Paul, you see, is implying that Ishmael is not a ‘child of God’ because he is not a child of the promise. God does not consider Ishmael Abraham’s offspring for the purpose of the promise. Neither then is he a child of God. Not everyone descended from Israel is Israel.
The second example, Abraham's grandchildren, is even more stark. Isaac himself had two sons. They were twins. Not only did they have the same father, as did Ishmael and Isaac, but they had the same mother also. Furthermore, the original literally means that their mother Rebekah conceived them in the one and the same act of intercourse with Isaac (v. 10).[6] Now, Genesis tells us that these two babies fought even in the womb. And as in the womb, so it was in their life after birth! And before their birth the LORD said, "the older will serve the younger" (Gen 25:23). This is what Paul says in verses 11-13:
11Yet before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad – in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: 12not by works but by him who calls – she was told, “the older will serve the younger.” 13Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”[7]
Now, we need to remember that Paul is answering the question why some of his own countrymen reject Christ and therefore are facing God’s wrath and condemnation. And he brings forward the example of two descendants of Abraham, conceived at the same time by the same Father by the same act of sex. And Paul here points to a choice of God between the two. He points to God’s election of one of the brothers, the younger one as leader, and God’s decision that the other be servant. Neither Jacob nor Esau have done anything either good or bad. They are chosen not because one had a naturally religious disposition and the other was profane, or not because one accepted Christ and the other didn't, not even because one had faith and the other didn’t. As Augustine said:
God does not choose us because we believe, but that we may believe. (Predestination of the Saints 17:34, cited in Moo, Romans, 588)
No, the twins have not even been born when the divine decision and declaration has been made, so it could not be by any of these works. But the election depends soley on God’s purpose. The election is described literally as "not originating from works but from the one calling" (v. 12). God is the one calling. And here Paul is talking about a calling that is effectual. Paul has already spoken about the effectual calling of individuals to salvation. That was in Romans 8:28-30. This is what Paul has said there:
28And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
The calling is root. The love towards God is fruit. The calling is cause. The love is evidence.
Here we see what has been called a ‘golden chain’. God foreknows them: not that God foresees their faith and so ‘chooses’ them because they have the disposition to choose him, but that God actually knows them beforehand, before they are born, in fact, before the foundation of the world, as Paul says in Ephesians 1:4. This is the peculiar Old Testament use of ‘know’.
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you (Jeremiah 1:5)
I have chosen (literally, known) him [Abraham] (Genesis 18:19)[8]
In the mind of God, a relationship exists between God and his chosen ones before the beginning of time and before they exist. And so because of this relationship before the foundation of the world, God predestines them. And then he calls them: this is not the general call, but a specific call that is answered. Then by their subjective response to the call, by their faith, they are justified. And then they are glorified. They persevere, and are conformed to the image of he Son of God by the hardships God sends them, and they then make it to heaven in glory. There is no leakage, no drop out rate, no loss along the way, no slippage, no seepage. Everyone foreknown is glorified. It is a "golden chain" in which none are lost. So the call is what we might call an effectual call. For the elect, they hear the general invitation to follow Christ, and do so, all the way to heaven. So in Romans 9 verse 12, we see the call is effectual: "not by works but by him who calls". The person called heeds the call, and perseveres to the end.
Indeed, Paul puts the matter in an even more stark fashion. For the Old Testament God in Malachi says these words: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated" (Malachi 1:2-3). Now it is true that in the Old Testament, the names 'Esau' and 'Jacob' came to refer to the nations of Israel and Edom, which originated from the twins respectively. But Paul is applying this Old Testament quote to the individuals from whom these two nations sprang.[9] God is saying, "I loved Jacob. I bestowed privileges upon him. He is the twin that will inherit the blessings of Abraham. But I hate Esau. In other words, I reject him. I pass over him. He will not receive the blessings I promised the children of Abraham."
So here is the paradox that we must wrestle with. God indeed loves the whole world. Yet, here God says, there is a sense that I withold love from one. I do not love some in the same way as I love others. I reject Esau, I love Jacob. And the word used to describe the rejection by God, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad is ‘hate’.
Now, the question that this begs is "How can this be fair?" How is God just, to hate one and love the other, to elect one and reject the other? As a parent, it is unthinkable for you to say of your children, "I love my younger one, but I hate the older one". It is one of the common accusations made by children against and to their parents: "You love him more than me! You have favourites!" There is nothing that gets parents more angry, or teachers.
I remember in 4th class that my teacher put me and three others on the ‘naughty boys’ table. I remember the anger, and refusing to sit at the accursed table, blurting out teary eyed. “You have favorites in this class!” Now these were the days that teachers could still smack kids. And I had never seen a teacher lose it so much as I stood there in my defiance. None of my previous naughtiness provoked the same level anger as my belligerent accusation, "You have favourites. You love some, you hate others." So Paul raises the objection:
What then shall we say? Is God unjust?
So what is God going to say for himself here? How will Paul whitewash God’s character? Is Paul going to deny that God has favourites? God could say that, through his apostle Paul. God could say, "Look, I give everyone a chance. They could have faith, if they wanted, and trust in Christ. I was not unfair with Esau." God could simply say, "Look, Jacob had faith, and Esau didn’t. Look how godless and immoral Esau was." (Heb 12:16-17)
But that is not the answer Paul gives on God’s behalf. He simply denies the charge of injustice as an impossibility for God. He recoils from the suggestion: "Not at all!" or more literally, "May it never be!" And then even more strongly Paul reasserts God’s freedom to act as he wishes. God says that he is free to act mercifully to whoever he wants, and he is free to harden who he wants.
This is such a hard passage and such a hard teaching that some people have called it immoral. So much so that as early as Origen, there were attempts to read this passage so as not to impinge on human free will (see https://sites.google.com/site/mattolliffe/articles/is-faith-gods-gift-ephesians-28-9-jerome). Others, somewhat bolder, reject Paul here. But it is not just Paul they reject, for Paul is an apostle of Christ, so they reject the Christ who sent him. Others think it couldn’t be Paul saying it. Someone else must have stuck this bit it in the letter, despite the complete lack of evidence for such an interpolation. But we must listen to Paul, through whom God speaks to us.
He asserts two facts, two realities we must understand, if we are to understand God. First, all God’s ways are just, that is a fact, else the Bible means nothing (cf. Rom 3:3-4). We are not permitted to question God on that score. And second, God is free to do as he pleases. God can do what he likes. That is the privilege of being God.
So in verse 15, Paul quotes God’s words about himself from Exodus 33:19, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." And in verse 18 in addition Paul states the opposite principle, that "God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden." There is the flip-side of God’s freedom. God is free to choose some people, but he is also free not to choose others. He has mercy on some. He hardens others, and all according to his will. Friends, we must let God be God. He is God, he chooses, he elects, he doesn’t choose, he passes over, he rejects.
So in verse 16, Paul concludes that salvation is not a matter of human will. Salvation is ultimately not the result of the human desire to be saved, though when a person is saved, he or she receives that good will as God’s good gift. Likewise, they receive faith as a gift (cf. Eph 2:8-10). Nor is it a matter of humans running a race, that is, human effort. Neither human desire nor human action can procure God’s grace, nor does God’s grace originate from humans. Rather, God’s grace and compassion springs from his own desire and will, and therefore salvation is a matter of God’s mercy and compassion and ultimately his grace.
Article 10 of the 39 articles picks up Paul’s thinking here. In the Article of ‘Free Will’, it asserts essentially that man doesn’t have free will to have faith without God working in him first. That is, God must work in a person first to give them faith in Jesus. This is what the article says:
The condition of Man after the fall of Adam is such, that he cannot turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength and good works to faith, and calling upon God: Wherefore we have no power to do good works pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us (i.e. going before and enabling us), that we may have a good will, and working with us, when we have that good will. (Article X)
There is a question that follows this. If God must go before, and enable humans to have a good will, and if God must give faith, the human response to the gospel he requires, why does he still hold us responsible? No-one resists God’s will. In God’s hand is the heart of the King, and indeed, the hearts of all people are controlled by the omnipotent God. That is what omnipotence means. He can harden, he can soften. He could make everybody Christian, if he wanted to. So why does God hold humans responsible for rejecting him?
Notice that Paul doesn’t answer this question? He simply says, "You are in no position to challenge the righteousness of God" It is not your place, human being, to ask this question. We cannot answer back to God. We are created, he is the creator. We are the pottery, he is the potter.
Friends, Paul doesn’t really explain here how God holds us responsible. He simply states that God is free to act this way as the creator. And he says that we cannot question him.
Perhaps you are frustrated with God here. Perhaps you are frustrated with the Bible. It is human to want to know more. How is it that God does hold those responsible who don’t trust in Christ, if he could enable everyone to trust in Jesus?
Here, God has exercised his right not to explain how these two things fit together. God leaves human responsibility as a mystery, a secret God has decided not to reveal. There is no Freedom Of Information legislation with God. We cannot demand he answer us. We cannot call him to account. The secret things belong to him, but the things he has revealed belong to us and our children.
Sometimes I keep things secret from my children. One child might be getting a blue light sabre for Christmas: it’s all wrapped up, he knows what he is getting because he was there when we bought it. But he doesn’t know where it is. But he trusts us, that we have it, and will give it to him in 4 sleeps time.
Friends in this we need to trust God. He will satisfy our legitimate needs for understanding this paradox, but not now, not immediately. For now, we have to simply remember that he is God, and he is good, and let him be both.
22What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath – prepared for destruction. 23What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory – even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles… (NIV)
Apart from Jesus, every person in the history of humanity deserves God’s wrath. At the day of judgment, everyone deserves hell, because we are all sinners. So here is the great mass of sinful humanity, deserving punishment and hell.
Now, what if God decided that some who have rebelled against him will experience his anger. They are, therefore, prepared for and heading for destruction. And at the final judgment they experience justice, hell. We cannot say God is unjust.
And what if God did this to show how merciful and kind he has been to you, the object of his mercy. All deserve punishment. Some experience justice, which they deserve. You experience mercy, which you don’t deserve.
So the picture, the Apostle says, might be this. That in heaven, as the saints look out towards hell, and they see the smoke rising from the abyss, they know that they deserved to be over there in the place of weeping and gnashing of teeth, and the only difference between them and those who suffer God’s righteous judgment in hell, is this, that God went beyond justice to mercy as far as they were concerned, though for others God stopped at justice, and did not go on to mercy.
If this is the case, none of us can accuse God of injustice. God has been just to some, and merciful to others.
Friends, you can see why these issues have caused great problems for Christians. All through church history, people have reacted against this. Pelagius and Augustine drew battle lines over it. Friends have been divided. Wesley and Whitfield went separate ways over this. And it is still the case. Almost every time this teaching is preached, people leave the church.
So why is it important? Why teach it? Why risk division?
First, because we are bible based. We learn about salvation by faith from the bible. We are happy to take the good. Why not also the difficult? Anyway, it comes from the conviction that everything the bible says is true. And true is good for us.
Second, because predestination safeguards God’s freedom and grace in salvation. It takes away me ever saying I contributed anything to my salvation, except my sin. Predestination allows us to say, "Salvation is all from God, from first to last".
Third, predestination presents God as all powerful and sovereignly working in the world. He is not an impotent onlooker. With him all things are possible.
Fourth, this makes evangelism possible. I know that God is calling out his elect through the gospel. I also know that not everyone will receive the gospel. That God chooses people means some will receive the good news about Jesus and persevere, even when others fall away. I don’t know who they are. It’s not written on their foreheads. But all I need to do is preach the gospel while it is daytime, and at night I can sleep, knowing that God is working to draw to himself those he has chosen.
Perhaps today, I have presented a different God, which radically overturns your thinking about God. My challenge dear friend is this: Let God be God. This is the God I find in Scripture. And so I present him to you.
[1] Cf. Moo, Romans, 558.
[2] See Moo, Romans, 561.
[3] A literal translation is "They are Israelites, whose [is] the adoption and the glory and the covenants and the law-giving and the worship and the promises, whose [is] the fathers, and out of whom [is] the Christ, the one according to flesh, the one being upon all, God blessed forever, Amen."
[4] Moo, Romans, 562.
[5] Again, "and out of whom [is] the Christ, the one [ntr sing] according to flesh, the one [masc sing] being over all God blessed forever, Amen."
[6] See Moo, Romans, 570.
[7] Literally "For not yet being born, neither practising anything good or foul, so that the purpose according to [the] election of God might remain – not from works but from the one calling."
[8] Moo, Romans, 532.
[9] Moo, Romans, 585.