Paul’s question about God being unjust is the theme of Romans 9-11. His answer “Certainly not!” rings loud and clear. If God is unjust then He cannot be God, for God is perfect justice in and of Himself.

God is absolutely sovereign and is doing what He wills to do. He may choose or not choose. He may bless or not bless.  He is God. God’s mercy is not in response to man’s will. Nor is God’s mercy a response to man’s effort. God is free to show mercy to whomever He wills, independently of what they do.

In extreme Jewish thought the fact of election to be the chosen people was tantamount to an eternal guarantee of blessedness, and the corresponding choice of God not to make the Gentiles the chosen people was a guarantee of their inevitable rejection. For the Jews, therefore, to be told by Paul that Gentiles were being accepted while Jews were being rejected because of attitudes to Christ, was totally unacceptable. In the first place, it was a national insult and, in the second, it attributed to God a freedom the Jews did not believe was appropriate—the freedom to reject Jews and accept Gentiles. To attribute this freedom to God was in their eyes to make God the perpetrator of a deeply unrighteous act.

The dramatic story of God’s dealings with Pharaoh through Moses is replete with references to “hardening.” Over and over again, Pharaoh is moved by the momentous events that overtake him, only to revert, once the effects wear off, to his arrogant attitude of resistance to Jehovah’s demands. Repeatedly, he hardens his heart until finally God hardens it for him. The history of Pharaoh’s heart-hardening should be noted carefully, as should the Lord’s explanation of His actions. God claims to have “raised up” this man in order that His power might be made known.

The mighty act of God in freeing Israel from the hand of Pharaoh demonstrated two corollary truths. Both Moses and Pharaoh were wicked sinners, even murderers, and were equally worthy of God’s wrath and eternal punishment. But Moses received mercy while Pharaoh received God’s judgment, because that was God’s sovereign will.

It would appear in Pharaoh’s case that God placed this man in his position of international visibility so that when his own hard-heartedness came into conflict with God’s purpose he would become an international illustration of the futility of arrogantly opposing the purposes of God. If Pharaoh, with the same natural, sinful, egotistical attitude, had been born in a cabin and lived in seclusion, his sin would have been neither lesser nor greater. But in God’s economy He placed this arrogant man in a position where his adamant refusal to accede to God’s will would not only lead to his own downfall but also to as broad a demonstration of divine power as possible. The freedom to do this is incontrovertibly God’s.

If God, says the apostle, is prepared to go on tolerating the attitudes and actions of the Pharaohs of this world so that through their own hardness in the end they have come to the place of being hardened by God into “vessels of wrath,” that is unquestionably well within God’s rights. And if Israel goes on behaving toward the gospel in much the same way that Pharaoh behaved toward the people of Israel, then they must be prepared to accept the fact that if it was right for Pharaoh, it is right for them too. By the same token, God is free to take those who respond to His message and make them “vessels of mercy” even though they come from the ranks of the despised Gentiles.

God hardened Pharaoh’s heart after Pharaoh hardened his own heart. God’s hardening always presupposes sin and can be part of the punishment of sin according to John 12:40. God can freely extend His mercy or withhold it. All deserve judgment. The question is never “Why did He not save that one?”; the question must always be “Why did He save any?”

Using the familiar Old Testament analogy of the potter, Paul argues that it is as irrational, and far more arrogant, for men to question God’s choice of certain sinners for salvation, as for a piece of pottery to question the purposes of the potter. Israel is in Paul’s mind in the illustration in Romans 9:20-21. The potter, God, has the right over the clay, Israel, to do as He wishes. The most natural way to look at the God/man relationship is from the human perspective, but the most necessary is from the divine. Paul proceeds in the following verses to do this so exclusively that he leaves out completely the balancing aspects of human response and responsibility. This is because his objective is to deal with the nature of God’s dealings with mankind rather than the nature of man’s involvement in such dealings.

It would be a mistake to apply all the qualities of clay to mankind in this context, as can be clearly seen from the fact that Paul speaks of clay that talks! He is not saying that man is a powerless lump of clay that God can mold whichever way He pleases, for to say that would contradict what he has outlined in the early portions of the epistle, namely, that man is responsible. He is stating the unquestioned sovereignty of God to take a rebellious Egyptian and make him Pharaoh and to let Pharaoh live with the consequences of his own arrogance and be a warning not only to his contemporaries but to all posterity.

God is always consistent with His nature and revelation. The sinner chooses his sin and God may leave him to it. Vessels of wrath have prepared themselves for destruction and vessels of mercy have been prepared by God for glory. All deserve condemnation, but by His grace, salvation is offered to all. He will display the riches of His glory in those who believe. The vessels of mercy God has prepared beforehand for glory are both Jews and Gentiles. It is God who does the choosing.

Hosea 1:10 and Hosea 2:23 demonstrate God’s pursuit of the Gentiles, whom He included in His plan. Paul moves from the inclusion of the Gentiles in Hosea to the exclusion of the Jews in Isaiah 1:9 and Isaiah 10:23. All these questions about God’s integrity were fully recorded as prophetic statements in the Old Testament. Today there is a faithful remnant of Jewish people who know the Messiah.

Paul quotes at length from the prophet Hosea, showing God’s ancient commitment to make those who were “not My people” to be accepted. From Isaiah he substantiates the fact that God has previously turned away from His rebellious people but has always left Himself a “remnant” or a “seed” by way of promise that brighter times lie ahead.

God’s plan provided righteousness to the Gentiles, who were not looking for it, and the Jews, who were looking for it and missed it. May believers never be so caught up in the trappings of Christianity that they miss an opportunity to give God glory. If God were to choose some people for salvation and pass over others apart from their merits or actions, that would make God arbitrary and unfair. God blesses people with His grace and mercy, not because they deserve it but because it is God’s nature to give grace and mercy. Neither grace nor mercy can be demanded; they can only be gratefully accepted.

The Jews could not obtain righteousness by the works of the law. Their rejection of the Messiah was clearly prophesied in Psalm 118:22 and Isaiah 28:16-19. Because Israel was committed to righteousness out of their works, they stumbled at the stumbling stone and fell over the offer of righteousness through faith in the finished work of Christ.

Paul concludes the lesson on God’s divine choice by reminding his readers that although God chooses some to receive His mercy, those who receive His judgment do so not because of something God has done to them, but because of their own unwillingness to believe the gospel. Sinners are condemned for their personal sins, the supreme one being rejection of God and Christ.

It is plain to see that the apostle in this passage, far from capitulating to the criticisms of his gospel, shows how, in fact, it is a thoroughly consistent extension of all that God has been doing through the ages. As a result, God is seen to be superbly sovereign in His dealings with man in ways that wonderfully preserve His control and retain the dignity with which God invested man when He created him in His own image.

(An audio version of this post can be found by clicking this link: Romans 9 verses 14-33 God’s Divine Choice)

Bibliography

1. Jeremiah, David: The Jeremiah Study Bible: New King James Version (Brentwood, TN: Worthy Publishing; 2013: pp. 1557-1558)
2. Briscoe, D.S., & Ogilvie, L.J.: The Preacher’s Commentary Series, Vol. 29: Romans (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson inc.; 1982)
3. Stanley, C.F.: The Charles F. Stanley Life Principles Bible: New King James Version (Nashville, TN: Nelson Bbiles; 2005)
4. MacArthur, J.F., Jr. The MacArthur Study Bible: New American Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers; 2006)