Introduction
If you talk with enough Christians, you will eventually run into one who believes
that the Bible teaches "double-predestination." This is the teaching
that we do not have free will about whether or not we will believe in Christ.
Instead, God foreordains who will go to heaven and who will go to hell. The reason
why some believe in Christ is that God elected them and irresistibly drew them
to believe; the reason why others do not believe in Christ is that God has hardened
them so that they will never believe. Here are some examples of this teaching:
" . . . God
has appointed the elect to glory . . . The rest of mankind
God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of his own will, whereby
he extends or withholds mercy . . . to ordain them to dishonor
and wrath for their sin . . . "1
"God,
having made some for the day of evil . . . hated them before
they were born . . . (and) ordained them (beforehand) to condemnation."2
"There
are two kinds of predestination: election and rejection . . . God
hates (the reprobate) . . . This hatred is negative or privative,
because it denies election. But it has a positive content, for God has willed
that some should not have eternal life."3
If
you ask such a person why they believe in this teaching, they will probably point
you to the passage we will study this morning--Romans 9. Take a look at some of
Paul's language:
Read 9:10-13: Even as unborn fetuses, God had
already decided whom he loved and whom he hated. He had already elected Jacob
to salvation and Esau to damnation.
Don't say this is unfair. Read 9:14-16.
If God decides to do it this way, that's the way it is! Salvation is something
God decides completely apart from our choice.
Read 9:17,18. Double predestination
again! Poor Yul Brynner! He wanted to believe, but God prevented him from doing
so by hardening his heart.
Read 9:19,20. "But how can God hold us responsible
if he makes us do what he wants!" Paul's response: "Shut up! God can
do anything he wants to do, including making people for different eternal fates."
Read 9:22-24. Double predestination again! God has made some for "burning
logs" in hell, while he has predestined others to go to heaven.
I
guess that settles it--this is Paul signing off on double-predestination! Or is
he? This is a classic example of how easily you can misinterpret a passage unless
you follow sound interpretive principles. When we evaluate this passage in light
of the letter as a whole and the audience Paul was addressing, and when we study
the Old Testament passages he quotes, we discover that Paul is addressing a completely
different subject--God's national strategy.
The subject is Israel's present
status as a nation--not individual salvation.
As a matter of
fact, the subject in chapters 9-11 is not how individuals are saved, but
Israel's present status as a nation.
Paul has already addressed
the question of how individuals may be saved (read 3:22-24), and makes it crystal
clear that God offers right standing with him to anyone who wants to receive it
by faith in Christ. Having addressed this issue, he now goes on to the issue of
Israel's present status as a nation.
Jesus had warned the Jewish leaders
that if they rejected him as their Messiah, God would suspend their status as
his chosen people and give it to those who believe in him (read Mt. 21:43).
In other words, the Church (a multi-ethnic body of believers in Jesus) would temporarily
replace Israel as God's chosen people.
Not surprisingly, the Jewish community
in Rome didn’t like this teaching. Paul is evidently responding to their
charge that it contradicts the Old Testament. After affirming his love for his
Jewish countrymen and God's choice of them (9:1-6), he proves from the Old Testament
that God has the right to change Israel's status.
God chose
Israel because of his grace--not because of their merit (9:7-13).
What
was the basis upon which God chose Israel as his nation to begin with? This is
what Paul answers in 9:7-13.
Many rabbis of this day taught
that God chose them because of the merit of their predecessors. ". . . the
Torah was believed to have been offered to all men originally but that
Israel alone, among the nations of the world, accepted it. It was this fact that
constituted the children of Israel the 'Chosen People' of God."4
Paul
denies this. The Old Testament, he says, insists that God chose Israel because
of his grace--not because of their merit.
How did God decide
whether to make his nation from Ishmael or Isaac? Read 9:7-9. Not because of anything
they did, but simply on the basis of his gracious promise to Abraham and Sarah
that it would be the child of their union.
God made a further decision to
make his nation from Isaac's second son Jacob instead of from his first-born son
Esau. Did God do this because Jacob merited it through good works? Read 9:10-12.
No, because God announced his choice before they were born and therefore before
either one of them had any opportunity to "merit" it.
9:12
is a reference to the role that the two nations arising from Jacob and
Esau would play in history (see Gen. 25:23), not about Jacob and Esau personally
(Esau never served Jacob).
What about 9:13 (read)? Did God
really hate Esau? First of all, this is God's later reflection on the two nations
that descended from Jacob and Esau--Israel and Edom (see Mal. 1:2-5). God never
rejection Esau from being saved. Second of all, the phrase "loved/hated"
is a Hebrew figure of speech (e.g., "LEVEL-HEADED") meaning "favored
more/less than" (see Gen. 29:30,31; Mt. 10:37 compared to Lk. 14:26). God
is simply saying that he decided to favor Israel more than Edom by making them
his chosen nation.
SUMMARIZE: This is not about
individual salvation; it is about how God chose what nation he would work through
in a special way. Paul proves from the Old Testament that God made this choice
by grace and not because Israel merited it.
God dictates his national strategy--not
people (9:14-18).
Who dictates how God will work with nations--God or us?
This is the question Paul answers in 9:14-18.
Many rabbis believed
that God's national strategy, like his choice of nations, was dictated by human
merit. God had to work with Israel in a certain way because of the merit of some
of their predecessors. "According to one rabbi, the division of the sea at
the Exodus was the result of the merit of Joseph; according to Rabbi Nehemiah,
the redemption from Egypt was for the merit of Moses and Aaron; and a later rabbi,
Rabbi Nahman . . . explained the redemption from Egypt as
a result of the merit of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and Aaron."5
Paul
denies this. The Old Testament, he says, teaches that God alone dictates his
national strategy--not people or their merit. He proves his point by showing
that neither the "best" nor "worst" people of the Exodus could
dictate how God called the shots.
Read 9:15,16. This has nothing
to do with individual salvation. The context of the passage (see Ex. 33)
is how God should lead the nation of Israel through the wilderness to the Promised
Land. Moses thinks God should do this by personally revealing his glory to all
of the people. God refuses to do this because of their sinfulness. Instead, he
will show his glory to Moses and they will see a reflection of it on his face.
Moses says, "OK, show me your glory." God grants his request, but then
adds Ex. 33:19b--he will do this because he wants to, not because Moses told
him to!
Paul's point is that even the best man in Old Testament
could not dictate to God what his national strategy should be.
Read
9:17. Here Paul shows that even the worst man (Pharaoh) could not thwart God's
national strategy. Though Pharaoh tried to stop Israel from leaving, God still
brought them out and used Pharaoh's resistance for "free advertising"
to the rest of the area!!
What about 9:18? Did God really harden
Pharaoh's heart? The "hardening" here does not refer to God hardening
Pharaoh's heart against believing in him, but against his decision to let Israel
go. Even here, it doesn't mean that God overruled Pharaoh's decision to free them
(JIM CAREY IN "LIAR,LIAR"). Rather, God "strengthened" Pharaoh's
heart to keep refusing to let Israel go even after it was destroying his nation.
The word chazaq means to "strengthen/fortify." So God did not
violate Pharaoh's free will even here. Rather, he strengthened him to do what
he really wanted to do--and thus glorified himself even through Pharaoh's obstinance.
SUMMARIZE:
This has nothing to do with God sovereignly decreeing who will be saved; it is
about God sovereignly decreeing how he will execute his national strategy.
God
can change Israel's role according to how they respond to his instruction (9:19-24).
Is
God bound to bless Israel no matter how they respond to him? This is the question
Paul answers in 9:19-24.
Read 9:19-21. Here again, the issue
is not God fating different individuals for heaven or hell, but rather his right
to change Israel's role according to how they respond to his instruction.
The image of the potter and the pot comes from Jer. 18:1-17. The Jews of
Jeremiah's day were worshipping false gods (MOLECH SACRIFICES), but believed that
God would still protect them from their enemies because they were his chosen people.
God had Jeremiah watch a potter start to make a fancy pot, then when it was flawed,
start over again and make it into a different, common pot. The lesson? Even though
God has chosen Israel to be his exalted nation, if they don’t repent of their
idolatry God will allow them to be conquered like any other nation.
Paul
is paralleling this to Israel's attitude in his day. They were confident that
they would remain God's chosen nation, even though they had done something far
worse--rejected God's Messiah.
As a result, Paul says that
God has now divided the Jewish people into two "nations" depending on
their response to Jesus. Read 9:22-24.
Those who reject Jesus
he will form into a "pot" for common ("no honor") use. That
is, they will forfeit their former role. But he will patiently endure them even
though they are "vessels of wrath" in the sense that they "prepared
themselves" for destruction by rejecting Jesus.
Those who believe in
Jesus he will form into a "pot," along with believing Gentiles, for
honorable use. They will be the new "nation" through which God now works
in a unique way--the Church. They are his "vessels of mercy" in the
sense that they have received his forgiveness and glorify God for saving them
through Jesus.
SUMMARIZE: This has nothing to
do with God predestining some to heaven and others to hell; it has to do with
God having the right to change the role the Jewish nation plays after they rejected
his Messiah.
So what?
There
are many important factors of our lives about which we have no choice. They are
decided for us, by other people or by God (TIME, PLACE & FAMILY OF ORIGIN;
NATURAL TALENTS & LIMITATIONS; INFLUENCES--GOOD & BAD; OPPORTUNITIES--&
LACK OF). Like me, you'd probably like to have had a choice about these things--but
we don't. We have to play with the cards we've been dealt.
But
when it comes to the most important issue of your life--having a relationship
with God and having a role in his plan for human history--the Bible says you have
real freedom to choose.
You don’t have to wonder if God
really wants you to have this, because he has already told you he does. He wants
a relationship with you so much that he sent his Son to die for you (Jn. 3:16a).
You
don't have to wonder if you have a real choice in this matter, because he has
already told you that you do (Jn. 3:16b). God will not interfere with your
life in this matter. You have real freedom to choose, and real responsibility
for your choice.
Footnotes
1
The Westminster Confession, III, 6-7.
2
John Owen, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ (Carlisle, Pa.: The
Banner of Truth Trust, 1995), p. 115.
3
William Ames, The Marrow of Theology (Durham, N.C.: The Labyrinth Press,
1983), pp. 154,156.
4
Oasterley and Box, Religion of the Synagogue (Revised Ed. 1911), cited
in Forster and Marston, God's Strategy in Human History, (Minneapolis:
Bethany House Publishers, 1973), p. 220.
5
Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism, 1948, cited in Forster and Marston,
God's Strategy in Human History, p. 69.