Is Election Fair? – Part 2
Romans 9:1-33 (14-33)
June 25, 2017
As you know we are in the middle of our study called “500 Years of Reformation”
And as such we are looking at those 5 pillars that came out of the reformation.
• Sola Scriptura
• Sola Gratia
• Sola Fide
• Solus Christus
• Soli Deo Gloria
And we are currently looking at what it means
To say that we are saved “By Grace Alone”
We are not saved by “Grace A lot”, but by Grace Alone.
And through our study of the word of God,
We have seen WHY true salvation is in fact by grace alone.
And so we are looking at these doctrines of grace.
We started by examining Man’s Absolute Inability,
• Namely that in Adam we were all condemned and thus spiritually dead (Ephesians 2) and incapable of coming to God on our own (John 6:44).
• In fact, we learned that it’s not just as though man is a cripple in need of assistance, man is a corpse in need of total divine resurrection.
• And since that is the case then salvation is a monergistic effort, (the sole and total work of God). God must do it.
And that then has opened the door for us to this doctrine
Which has been called Unconditional Election, or Sovereign Election,
Or even predestination.
Now we also noted that this is a VERY CONTESTED DOCTRINE.
And the main reason is because it seems to
Somehow infringe upon our sense of FAIRNESS.
So that is what we’ve been looking at.
IS ELECTION FAIR?
And in order to deal with that issue we are looking at the 9th chapter of Romans where Paul has just revealed that Israel is lost.
They are lost of course because they have rejected every form of revelation which God has ever given them. (From their original adoption all the way down to the coming of the Christ)
And so, we learned quickly that Israel is lost,
But you most certainly cannot blame their lostness on God.
It is as we have learned in that parable of the vineyard from Isaiah 5.
Isaiah 5:1-4 “Let me sing now for my well-beloved A song of my beloved concerning His vineyard. My well-beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill. He dug it all around, removed its stones, And planted it with the choicest vine. And He built a tower in the middle of it And also hewed out a wine vat in it; Then He expected it to produce good grapes, But it produced only worthless ones. “And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, Judge between Me and My vineyard. “What more was there to do for My vineyard that I have not done in it? Why, when I expected it to produce good grapes did it produce worthless ones?”
We can all see that the vineyard is worthless,
But we can also see that it is not the fault of the vineyard owner.
This idea is the same concept behind that Parable Of The Sower which Jesus gave us in Matthew 13.
• The farmer was fine,
• The seed was fine,
• The problem was the soil.
And so it is with Israel.
They are lost, but you certainly can’t blame it on God.
Now, that brought about A QUESTION that Paul felt the need to answer.
(6) “But it is not as though the word of God has failed.”
See, Jews believed they were all saved
As a result of that promise God made to Abraham.
Genesis 17:7 “I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you.”
And Jews took that as proof that so long as they could prove their genealogy back to Abraham, then they were good to go.
And yet, Paul is now saying that in spite of that promise, Israel is lost.
How? Why?
It is because that promise God made
Had nothing to do with a physical lineage.
God’s salvation is not a genetic salvation.
You aren’t physically born into it.
John 1:11-13 “He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”
Another great passage about God’s sovereign election.
People aren’t physically born into the kingdom, they must be born of God.
And this is the very essence of what Paul is talking about here.
SO PAUL EXPLAINS GOD’S SALVATION.
(saw this last week)
1) IT IS A SPECIFIC SALVATION – not universal
(vs. 7) “nor are they all children because they are Abraham’s descendants, but: “THROUGH ISAAC YOUR DESCENDANTS WILL BE NAMED.”
2) IT IS A SUPERNATURAL SALVATION – not something man can attain
(vs. 8) “That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants.”
3) IT IS A SOVEREIGN SALVATION – salvation is totally up to God.
(10-13) “And not only this, but there was Rebekah also, when she had conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac; for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls, it was said to her, “THE OLDER WILL SERVE THE YOUNGER.” Just as it is written, “JACOB I LOVED, BUT ESAU I HATED.”
That verse forces us to see
THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD in salvation
The boys hadn’t even been born yet, and already God had determined, according to His sovereign will how their lives would play out.
So we saw again that God is absolutely sovereign over salvation.
He does in fact elect, He does in fact choose,
And that is all done according to His sovereign prerogative.
It is all done according to God’s Free Will.
We call that grace because we recognize that apart from God’s intervention, neither of those boys would have been saved.
(Not Abraham, Not Isaac, Not Jacob)
It is not as though Jacob received justice and Esau was shafted.
On the contrary, Esau received justice, and Jacob received grace.
AND YET, AS WE HAVE SAID:
That flies in the face of what we humans continually try to believe.
We like to paint salvation as TOTALLY UP TO MAN
As though the offer is always on the table,
And the only issue is can we persuade men to accept our God.
We as humans still like to believe that somehow, someway,
We still have control of our destiny.
And when someone paints a picture of God as sovereign like Paul did,
IT IS BOUND TO START A FIGHT.
How can God say, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated”?
And immediately A SELF-CENTERED WORLD
Raises their fists in the air and says:
“That’s not fair.” “God shouldn’t have done that.”
AND IN DOING SO, THIS SINFUL FALLEN WORLD
ACTUALLY SITS IN JUDGMENT OF THE TRUE AND HOLY GOD.
You will notice that Paul expected this argument,
He knew people don’t like to think that God can choose
In regard to salvation.
(14) “What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be!”
Selfish men may cry out in rebellion and say:
“That’s not fair! God shouldn’t have done that to poor old Esau.”
Remember Job’s wife?
Job 2:9 “Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die!”
She thought God was wrong and deserved to be cursed.
Well Job knew better.
Job 2:10 “But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.”
Job knew that God was never unjust.
And that is what Paul wants to know.
Was God wrong? Was God acting unfairly? Was God being unjust?
“There is no injustice with God, is there?”
“May it never be!”
Of course there is no injustice with God.
Psalms 119:137 “Righteous are You, O LORD, And upright are Your judgments.”
Psalms 119:142 “Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, And Your law is truth.”
Psalms 89:14 “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne; Lovingkindness and truth go before You.”
Psalms 97:2 “Clouds and thick darkness surround Him; Righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne.”
Psalms 71:19 “For Your righteousness, O God, reaches to the heavens, You who have done great things; O God, who is like You?”
Isaiah 45:21 “Declare and set forth your case; Indeed, let them consult together. Who has announced this from of old? Who has long since declared it? Is it not I, the LORD? And there is no other God besides Me, A righteous God and a Savior; There is none except Me.”
Revelation 15:3 “And they sang the song of Moses, the bond-servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, “Great and marvelous are Your works, O Lord God, the Almighty; Righteous and true are Your ways, King of the nations!”
Time and time again the appraisal of God comes back the same.
In fact, when one enters the most intimate presence of God,
THERE IS BUT ONE RESPONSE.
Isaiah 6:3 “And one called out to another and said, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory.”
We are NOT HERE TO DEBATE the righteousness of God.
He is holy, He is righteous, He is just.
Psalms 92:15 “… the LORD is upright; He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.”
This is precisely the premise that Paul stands upon this morning.
What God does according to His sovereign will
Does not mean that He is in any way unjust.
To make his point,
Paul is going to give us two illustrations.
One is an example of what happens to a pagan life
When God determines to be merciful.
The other is an example of what happens to a pagan life
When God determines to judge.
But neither reveals that God is unjust,
And that is precisely what Paul wants you to see this morning.
#1 CONSIDER HIS MERCY TO ISRAEL
Romans 9:15-16
Notice he begins with the “For”
He is giving you a reason why you can know that God is not unjust.
“For He says to Moses, “I WILL HAVE MERCY ON WHOM I HAVE MERCY, AND I WILL HAVE COMPASSION ON WHOM I HAVE COMPASSION.”
Paul is quoting from Exodus 33:19
When Moses went up on Mt. Sinai to receive the Law,
You know what happened.
“the people sat down to eat and to drink and rose up to play”
AND GOD WAS INFURIATED WITH THE PEOPLE
Exodus 32:7-9 “Then the LORD spoke to Moses, “Go down at once, for your people, whom you brought up from the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. “They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them. They have made for themselves a molten calf, and have worshiped it and have sacrificed to it and said, ‘ This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!'” The LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, they are an obstinate people.”
At this point, you and I understand justice.
Not 40 days after physically hearing God say: “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.”
Justice is easy to find. Justice equals that they all die.
BUT MOSES INTERCEDES AND BEGS FOR MERCY
And part of God’s answer to Moses is:
Exodus 33:19 “And He said, “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the LORD before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.”
LIKE HE DID WITH JACOB, God chose to be merciful and compassionate.
It is not what the people deserved.
But God CHOSE to be merciful and be compassionate.
And to that Paul responds
(16) “So then it does not depend upon the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.”
In other words.
It doesn’t matter how hard you work for mercy…
It doesn’t matter how bad you want mercy…
It doesn’t even matter how hard Moses prayed for mercy…
MERCY WAS STILL UP TO GOD’S WILL.
ONLY GOD HAD THE RIGHT TO GIVE IT OR NOT.
No man could claim it… No man deserved it…
But God gave it according to His will.
And what Paul wants to know is this:
IS GOD WITHIN HIS RIGHT TO DO THAT?
Does God have the right to be merciful?
Man I hope so.
Of course the answer is yes. There is no injustice in this.
First the Mercy to Israel
#2 CONSIDER HIS HARDENING OF PHARAOH
Romans 9:17-18
Now notice the word “For” again.
Paul is giving you a second scenario
By which you can evaluate the justice of God.
“for the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “FOR THIS VERY PURPOSE I RAISED YOU UP, TO DEMONSTRATE MY POWER IN YOU, AND THAT MY NAME MIGHT BE PROCLAIMED THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE EARTH.”
We all know who Pharaoh was.
He was a pagan worshiper who held God’s people in bondage.
PHARAOH DESERVED JUDGMENT.
BUT LOOK AT HOW GOD USES HIM.
Exodus 7:1-4 “Then the LORD said to Moses, “See, I make you as God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet. “You shall speak all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall speak to Pharaoh that he let the sons of Israel go out of his land. “But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart that I may multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt. “When Pharaoh does not listen to you, then I will lay My hand on Egypt and bring out My hosts, My people the sons of Israel, from the land of Egypt by great judgments.”
God determined it and it happened.
After every plague, the result was a hardened heart.
Sometimes Scripture says that Pharaoh hardened his heart
Sometimes Scripture says that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart
But that really doesn’t matter,
Because God had already decreed that it would happen.
And notice why God was hardening Pharaoh’s heart
Exodus 10:1-2 “Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may perform these signs of Mine among them, and that you may tell in the hearing of your son, and of your grandson, how I made a mockery of the Egyptians and how I performed My signs among them, that you may know that I am the LORD.”
God hardened Pharaoh’s heart for His own purposes.
Even to the point that God had so hardened Pharaoh’s heart,
That he would rush after Israel into the midst of the Red Sea.
Pharaoh was an unrepentant Gentile who afflicted His people,
And by all accounts God could have totally judged him at any point.
However, God had a sovereign purpose
In not immediately judging Pharaoh.
WHAT WAS THAT PURPOSE?
Exodus 9:15-16 “For if by now I had put forth My hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, you would then have been cut off from the earth. “But, indeed, for this reason I have allowed you to remain, in order to show you My power and in order to proclaim My name through all the earth.”
And that is the verse Paul quotes here:
“FOR THIS VERY PURPOSE I RAISED YOU UP, TO DEMONSTRATE MY POWER IN YOU, AND THAT MY NAME MIGHT BE PROCLAIMED THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE EARTH.”
Paul says God hardened Pharaoh because that was His will
In order to glorify Himself in the whole earth.
It was God’s will to harden Pharaoh so that:
God could give the plagues…
God could deliver by the Red Sea…
God could put the fear of Him in the Canaanites…
God destroyed a man who deserved to be destroyed,
He merely destroyed him at a time and in a way
In which He could demonstrate His own power.
AND TO SUMMARIZE THOSE TWO ILLUSTRATIONS PAUL SAYS:
(18) “So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.”
AND HERE IS WHERE PEOPLE LOSE THEIR MINDS
IS GOD WITHIN HIS RIGHT TO DO THAT?
They cry out, “THAT’S NOT FAIR!”
Well, boy is Paul ready for you!
(19) “You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?”
Lest you miss the point.
This is not a person who is mourning over their sinful state,
And desperately desiring repentance.
This is a person who loves their sin,
And wishes to justify it, but condemning God.
The Movie: “Ever After
“If you suffer your people to be ill-educated and then punish them for those very crimes which their infancy first disposed them; what is to be concluded but that “You first make thieves and then punish them.””
Now that sounds good doesn’t it.
That is the precise argument that these people are taking to Paul.
They are accusing Gods justice by saying:
“God can’t make sinners and then punish them.”
“Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?”
How could God punish poor old Pharaoh,
Since God is the one who hardened Pharaoh?
(It is back to the whole, “That would make God a monster” argument)
So look at how Paul answers:
(9:20-21) “On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?”
Now please pay special attention to how Paul starts.
“On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God?”
Paul doesn’t correct their theology, He reprimands their disrespect.
That is arrogance beyond degree.
And notice the choice of words.
He says, “who are you, O man, who answers back to God?”
The insinuation is that no creature
Has even the slightest right to question the Creator.
Paul says, before you go accusing God of being unfair in His election,
You’d better realize who you’re talking to and shut your mouth.
Remember when Job finally questioned God just a little?
Job 38:1-3 “Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, “Who is this that darkens counsel By words without knowledge? “Now gird up your loins like a man, And I will ask you, and you instruct Me!”
Paul’s attitude is the same.
So God hardens whom He desires, what of it?
He is God, and who are you to question Him?
“The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it?
I mean, the audacity here is unbelievable.
Where do humans think they get the right to question whether or not God is fair in the exercise of His own sovereign prerogative?
That’s what we talked about last time.
The obvious problem is that as humans,
We don’t know who we are and we don’t know who God is.
Have you ever heard of such a thing as a human questioning whether or not God has the right to do what He pleases?
Paul uses a good illustration.
Have you ever seen a clay pot that threw a fit on the potter’s wheel?
And that even applies to human beings who are also created,
And created from the same basic substance as clay.
But yet these people in their arrogance
Accuse God of doing something wrong.
So Paul continues.
(21) “Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another vessel for common use?”
Can’t the potter do anything he wants with the clay?
Has anyone ever spanked their children
For making something ugly out of play-dough?
This is the idea we looked at to begin last time.
Jeremiah 18:1-6 “The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD saying, “Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will announce My words to you.” Then I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something on the wheel. But the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter; so he remade it into another vessel, as it pleased the potter to make. Then the word of the LORD came to me saying, “Can I not, O house of Israel, deal with you as this potter does?” declares the LORD. “Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.”
Isaiah 29:16 “Shall the potter be considered as equal with the clay, That what is made would say to its maker, “He did not make me”; Or what is formed say to him who formed it, “He has no understanding”?”
Isaiah 45:9-10 “Woe to the one who quarrels with his Maker — An earthenware vessel among the vessels of earth! Will the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you doing?’ Or the thing you are making say, ‘He has no hands’? “Woe to him who says to a father, ‘What are you begetting?’ Or to a woman, ‘To what are you giving birth?'”
The potter can do whatever he wants with the clay
Because he is the potter.
And Paul even gets a little specific.
“to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?”
Notice Paul says “same lump”.
He is reminding that the difference is not found in the quality of the clay,
But in the choice of the Master.
And can’t He make “one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?”
The fact of the matter is, houses need all sorts of vessels.
Some clay was made into pans to cook gourmet meals…
Some clay was made into pitchers to pour the finest wines…
Some clay was made into platters to serve the finest fruits…
And some clay was made into chamber pots, some into ash
trays, and some into containers to hold old grease.
THE REASON?
1) The Potter chose to make them that way
2) The Potter needed all these vessels
THE POINT IS GOD CAN DO WHATEVER HE WANTS
BUT THEY HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO RIGHT TO QUESTION IT
BECAUSE THE WILL OF THE CREATOR IS INFINITELY HIGHER THAN THE INTELLECT OF THE CREATION.
God’s will is Preeminent.
And really, that right there should stop all of this “fairness” stuff
Right in its tracks.
NOW LISTEN CAREFULLY:
God’s election does not make Him a monster.
• We already saw last week how His sovereign election actually makes Him
gracious.
• After all, if He didn’t sovereignly choose some, then none would be saved.
Sovereign election DOES NOT make Him a monster.
BUT EVEN IF IT DID…
Who do you think you are to deny it on those grounds?
Would you really be the one human who would dare waggle his finger in the face of God and tell Him He ought not do what He is doing?
And yet that is what people do.
They don’t like a God who sovereignly chooses,
And so they seek to put God on their own potter’s wheel
And reform Him into something more palatable for sinners,
And it is disgraceful!
Martin Luther said in his book “The Bondage of the Will” (which was his counter argument to Erasmus assertion that man has free will)
“God is a Being whose will acknowledges no cause: neither is it for us to prescribe rules to His sovereign pleasure, or call Him to account for what He does. He has neither superior nor equal, and His will is the rule of all things. He did not therefore will such and such things because they were right and He was bound to will them, but they are therefore equitable and right because He wills them. The will of men can indeed be influenced and moved but God’s will never can. To assert the contrary is to undeify Him”
It doesn’t matter if it’s FAIR, it doesn’t matter if it’s JUST,
It doesn’t matter if it’s POPULAR.
THE GOD OF THE UNIVERSE WILL NEVER ANSWER TO YOU.
Man have we forgotten who it is we stand before.
“Who are you, o man..?”
So first and foremost before you tell God, “That’s not fair”,
You ought to stop and rip your tongue out of your mouth
So that you don’t overstep your bounds.
BUT BEYOND THAT…
Could it be that the reason you question the fairness of election is because perhaps you don’t understand it?
Do you think it’s possible that maybe, just maybe,
God is doing something that is beyond your comprehension?
Isaiah 55:8-9 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts.”
I’d say there is a pretty good chance you don’t get it.
In fact, when Paul finally finishes up this 3-chapter segment, he will attest that God’s wisdom far exceeds ours in every way.
Romans 11:33-36 “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, OR WHO BECAME HIS COUNSELOR? Or WHO HAS FIRST GIVEN TO HIM THAT IT MIGHT BE PAID BACK TO HIM AGAIN? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.”
So, let’s just consider for a moment that
The reason you don’t think election is fair is not because God is unjust, but because you are too limited to comprehend it.
There’s a humbling thought.
And that is what Paul capitalizes on next.
He gives us a hypothetical.
(Paul is not saying that he understands all that God is doing, he merely gives you a hypothetical of what He might be doing, in order to prove that just because you think something is unfair, maybe you just don’t know everything you should.)
Notice the “What if..?”
This is the hypothetical.
(22-24) “What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles.”
Ever think of that?
What if God’s election is not about condemning the innocent, but rather patiently enduring the wicked so that He can prove to the elect how much He loves them?
There’s a question for you to ponder this week.
And we’ll have to come back to it next time.
