The Amazing Truth About Romans 9

I would like to direct our attention this evening in the time we have before prayer to a text that is extremely difficult to believe, a text that is extremely difficult to believe. Turn with me please to Romans chapter 9, a text that is really hard to believe what's being said.

Most of us know this text, at least in our fellowship, there are a lot of folks who encounter this text, read through it and go, that sounds like something I don't believe, I'm going to move on from there.

But I would like to focus upon one part of this this evening and talk about how difficult it is to believe. But obviously to give the context I would like to look at what the text itself says and remind us of the context.

The Golden Chain of Redemption in Romans 8

We have just had in Romans chapter 8 the great golden chain of redemption. That is beginning in Romans age 28, that great promise that God causes all things to work together for the good of those who love God, those who are called according to his purpose.

Then we have the discussion of those who meet for new, that's a verb, that's not a noun, that doesn't mean God looked down the corridors of time and saw who was going to believe, it is a verb, it is something he does.

I enjoy asking folks who don't believe in the freedom of God and salvation, could you explain what it means to foreknow someone, not foreknow what someone will do, to foreknow someone. I'm always befuddled about that, it's amazing how many scholars themselves will just assume that that term is a noun, it's not, it's a verb, it's something God does.

And so he foreknows, he predestines, he calls, he justifies, he glorifies in the golden chain of redemption in this great hymn of praise who will bring a charge against God's elect and you have a son who intercedes perfectly and so on and so forth.

So this then leads into chapter 9. Now unfortunately a lot of folks think that chapter 9, 10, 11 just can be pulled out and given its own context and ignore the chain of thought and the argument that the apostle is presenting, but it flows directly from this.

Israel's Privileges and the Question of Unbelief

After announcing all these great benefits of salvation, then he has to answer a question, if all this is so good, all this is so wonderful, then Paul, why aren't more of your people believing? Why are so many of your people, your fellow countrymen, verse 3 of chapter 9, why are they unbelievers?

And Paul talks about the great sorrow, the unceasing anguish he has in his heart, verse 2, and he talks about how he could wish himself to be accursed, cut off from Christ for the sake of his people, his fellow countrymen who are the Israelites.

He talks about the benefits that are theirs, the adoption of sons, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, temple worship, the promises are theirs. To them belong the patriarchs, from them by human descent came the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever.

God even entered into his own creation through the Jewish people, the tremendous benefits that are theirs. But then we have the key text, the key verses that keep us from missing the point of what Paul is going to say in Romans chapter 9.

He says, it's not as though the word of God has failed. It's not as though the word of God has failed. That's what people were saying, that's what people were objecting, Paul, your whole system doesn't work.

The word of God has failed. If your gospel is true and your people aren't believing, then the promises have failed. He says, not all those who are descended from Israel, who are from Israel, are truly Israel.

Nor are all the children Abraham's true descendants, rather through Isaac will your seed, your descendants be counted. He begins to bring in the Old Testament to demonstrate that God's electing grace, his purposes in salvation cannot be argued by the Jews, because their own history demonstrates the fact that God has always exercised freedom in the matter of his blessings.

Not just national blessings, but in the very relationship that people would bear to himself. So, he says in verse 8, this means it is not the children of the flesh, or the children of God, rather the children of promise are counted as descendants.

Promise said before, about a year from now I'll return and Sarah will have a son. Not only that, but when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our father Isaac, even before they were born, even before they had done anything good or bad, so that God's purpose in election would stand, not by works, but by him who calls.

It was said to her, the older will serve the younger. So he's pointing out, he's proving that in their own history, in the lives of individuals in history, yes, yes, yes, I know, Jacob and Esau became nations, all quite true.

But the relationship of those nations was determined by what took place in the choosing of God and the freedom of God in dealing with the fathers of those nations. So even before they had done anything, the whole point was, God had the right to make a choice between Jacob and Esau that was not based upon merit in them.

That's the whole reason why he says that God has a purpose in election. It is not by works, it's not by their actions, but by his calling, by God's calling. So he contrasts these two things. He's making sure they see, even your own scriptures say these things.

And then he says in verse 13, just as it is written, Jacob I love, but Esau I hate. Now yes, that text comes from Malachi. People say, see, it just has to do with nations. But what was even that talking about?

What was talking about the relationship of Israel and the Edomites, what was that going back to? It was going back to the free choice of God in that original context of the relationship of Jacob and Esau.

God chose to bless Jacob. He chose that the promise would go through Jacob, not through Esau. That was a choice that he made and it was not based upon looking at these two and going, well, which one do I like better?

Because let's face it, from a human perspective, as far as I can tell from the description of Esau, he was Rambo before there was Rambo. I mean, this guy was a man's man. I mean, he was, Mr. Callahan I think would have liked Esau.

I mean, this guy, I'll bet you anything before they were 10 years old, Esau had dragged Jacob out in the field someplace and forced Jacob to put an apple on his head and then shot the arrow, dropped the apple off his head with an arrow.

That's probably why Jacob turned out the way he did. A little bit of a twitch and things like that. And Esau's out there hunting his game and I bet you he was the type of guy that jumped out of a tree on top of his game of the knife, did that type of thing.

He didn't have guns back then, but he wouldn't have wanted to use one anyways. From the human perspective, a man's man. But the whole point is, that's not the basis of God's choice. It was God's purpose in election, it would seem.

That's not based upon him learning what men are going to do and then reacting there too. So having proved this, then verse 14 says, what shall we say then? Is there injustice with God? Absolutely, positively not.

May it never be. For he says to Moses, there in Exodus 33, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. What is the assertion of the text? The freedom of God in the matter of mercy and compassion.

Mercy and compassion cannot be demanded. They are free in God's exercise thereof. And the apostolic interpretation that is given is, so then it does not depend on man's desire, it does not depend on man's willing, neither on his activities or his exertion, but instead we want to look for the basis, is on the mercying of God.

I've mentioned many times, you're probably all aware of this, we don't have a verbal form of mercy, but the original language does. And sometimes when we translate it this way, when it says it does not depend on man's actions or man's exertions, but on God who shows mercy, well when you show mercy, what does that mean?

You know, when one team's beating up on another team, they stop running up the score, it's showing mercy, is that what it's talking about? This is a verb. And it's contrasting the actions of men doing something and it's saying it's not that.

Instead it's the action of God, his mercying. That's what it depends on. Then he brings up another scripture to prove this. For the scripture says to Pharaoh, for this very purpose I raised you up that I might demonstrate my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.

I've suggested many times that if you don't hear verse 17 and you do not see the importance of God's name being proclaimed in all the earth, and I would suggest to you the vast majority of people who open this text and look at it, don't think that's important.

They can't even begin to understand why that would be relevant. Certainly our human rights are much more important than that, that you're never really going to understand this text because you're looking at it from the wrong side.

You've all heard the illustration so many times, you know, your wife takes up some type of needlework type thing and when you're watching from across the room it looks like a total mess and you just wonder what this woman's up to.

Has she gotten into some kind of abstract art? I don't want this thing laying around my house, you know, it looks terrible. And you come around the other side and see what she's actually working on, it's beautiful.

Well, when you look at Romans 9 from down here, looking upward at it, you're not going to see the beautiful design. And when people look at this and if you don't hear that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth, if that's not the highest priority, if you don't see the importance of that, if all you can go is go, oh, poor Pharaoh, man, that poor guy, he and his nice army and all the horses got drowned.

And we may chuckle a little bit, but that's, I hear that all the time. I hear that from religious leaders, from people who are supposed to be scholars. And you could not possibly misread a text more fully than to miss it on that level.

If you can't see that the argument here is, the name of God was proclaimed in all the earth by what God did in destroying the Egyptian army and Pharaoh. He demonstrated his power over the idols of that land.

A nation that had produced such disgusting false religion and had been displeasing in God's sight for generation after generation. He had allowed them to continue. He could have brought his judgment at any point in time.

He was just and righteous the way he did, but he decided to bring his wrath upon them in such a way as to demonstrate his name and his attributes. If we don't see that, we'll never understand the rest of this text.

What is the apostolic interpretation of that event? So then, and here again, we need to look at the verbs. So then, verse 18, whom he mercies, he mercies whom he chooses, who he wills, and he hardens whom he wills.

It's a direct parallel. And again, the verb is to mercy. He mercies whom he wills, he hardens whom he wills. It's right there. It's in the text. People may want to run around and try to avoid it on the camp, but it's right there.

And it's so clear that that is his intention to say that and that he is just in doing this because it's his purpose that must be established. God is doing something in this world. He hasn't just spun it up, and now it's up to us to determine what the ending is.

God has a goal in mind, and I'm awful glad these days, looking at the state of our world, that that's the truth. It's so obvious this is what he's saying because immediately you will say to me then, why does he still find fault for who has ever resisted his will?

But who indeed are you, oh man, a mere human being, to answer back to God, to talk back to God? Does what is molded save the molder? Why have you made me like this? Well, in postmodernism, they do. Has not the potter, right over the clay from the same lump to make one vessel for honorable use and another for ordinary or dishonorable use?

What if God, willing to demonstrate his wrath, as if anyone thought that was important anymore, willing to demonstrate his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the objects of wrath prepared for destruction?

Those are hard words. All the effort that people have put in to try to get around what's being said here, to break up the text into little pieces and say, well, you know, they just prepared themselves for destruction.

They weren't prepared for destruction. Even though, obviously, the parallel there is the potter making those vessels for dishonorable use, ordinary use, but we just don't want to see that because we won't accept a God like this.

Well, I'm not telling anybody here anything that you haven't already known, that you probably know this text pretty well. I don't know that I would necessarily suggest that if you've brought this up at every Christmas gathering for the past five years, if you do so again, you may not be invited by your family to come back.

But the fact of the matter is, most of us know this text. So which one did I start off by saying, this is a text and it's so hard to believe. It's so hard to believe. Well, it's verse 13. Verse 13. It is written, Jacob I love, but Esau I hate.

I can't tell you how many people I've had have told me, if that's the way God is, I'll never worship him. Never going to believe in a God like that. I remember a woman from Roman Catholic Keno Institute who was doing a master's degree in fundamentalism.

So she got out the phone book and found me somehow and wanted to come over and interview a fundamentalist. I sort of felt like I was in a cage. Had a light on, you know, a little bit of a freaky thing.

And so she came in and it didn't take long for us to get into the gospel. Started talking to her about God's sovereign grace and its purposes in this world. She looked like I had indeed just gotten done doing some snake handling and tongue talking.

She just, she was just shocked that there was anyone who could believe the stuff I believed. She made the statement to me, if that's how God is, I will never believe in that God. My response to her was, well, unless God has mercy upon you, you're exactly right.

You never will. She didn't expect that either. But that's not the only time. Over and over and over again, we hear this kind of objection and they go, Jacob I love, Esau I hate. I just can't believe anything like that.

But I didn't say this is a verse that a lot of people have trouble believing. I said, I have, I have trouble believing. What do I mean by that? Well, most of the time, when people talk about Romans 9, 13, they focus on one thing.

And I'm here this evening to tell you that how a person reads Romans 9, 13 will tell you a lot about what they understand about who God is and who man is. We can almost describe this, some of you may be doing some holiday cooking.

And I know I'm very thankful that again this year, we got to have my, my dad's turkey. My dad makes the greatest turkey on the planet. His, Warren, Warren will agree with me, he's had it. Uh, before, before Olivia came along, we adopted Warren.

And so we would, uh, you know, bring Warren over. And so he got some of my dad's turkey dressing. That, that dressing was just to die for. It is good stuff, but they got to know when that turkey's done.

So some of you might have one of those thermometer thingies that you stick in your turkey and it comes popping out when it's time for the turkey to be done. Well, this is sort of, if you want to find out where somebody is and their understanding of scripture, their understanding of the great themes of scripture, this text might be a good turkey popper.

It might be a good way to find out where someone's coming from. Ask them what they think about this. Ask them if there's something there that bothers them, that amazes them. Because here's why. If you have any kind of biblical understanding of the holiness of God and the wrath of God against sin, the only thing that should be difficult for you to believe about Romans 9, 13 is this phrase, Jacob I loved.

That should be the only thing that makes you go, how? You, you, you can't be serious. Jacob I loved? That's what's difficult to believe. But you see, for most people, when they read Romans 9, 13, they think we're all just so muddled.

We're all just so good. And God owes us so much that they look at this and they go, Esau, I hate him. What? How can this be? But what should amaze us, Jacob, was there something in him? No, nothing in him at all.

We know a lot about Jacob's character. He was not the most desirable person. He was deceptive. Yet Jacob I loved, unholy Jacob, sinner Jacob, under the wrath of God, Jacob I loved. Shouldn't amaze us that says Esau I hated?

If we even begin to understand what a defiling thing sin is, if we take seriously some of the statements in the Psalms, then we don't have any problem with Esau I hated. We understand that. Jacob I loved?

If you've gotten used to that, if that doesn't amaze you anymore, then I would suggest that we need to rethink this. Because really, that's taking us back. This is an illustration of what Paul had said back in chapter 8.

Because that's really what to know someone, to foreknow someone is all about. When Adam knew Eve, she conceived and bore a son. Before Jeremiah was born, God knew him. It wasn't just simply he filled out a Rolodex card.

He knew him. He chose him before he even existed. The tremendous assertion of Ephesians and Romans 8 is before we ever existed. Even though in God's absolute sovereignty and his foreknowledge, that's the noun part where he has perfect knowledge of all the events of time, because he created, and therefore he has that knowledge.

He didn't just throw the cosmic dice and then went, oh, hey, look, I won. Praise me. That's what so many people think. No, he's to be praised because what takes place in time is the result of his eternal decree.

Before we came into existence, God chose to enter into relationship with us, despite knowing your heart and your mind and how many times you have abused his gifts, trampled on his grace. He chose. That is amazing.

If we ever start taking that for granted, if we ever start thinking that God somehow owes us this, oh, well, God just loves everybody the same. I've never met anybody who refused to grant to God the ability to love the way we love and we discriminate in our love.

We discriminate in our love. We have the ability to love our wives differently than somebody else's wife. We recognize that love is something that's very important and as persons, we have different degrees and kinds of love for different degrees and kinds of things, but we recognize that some things are more important than other things.

We don't just have peanut butter love. Right now, my family is really having a grand old time because we got a new kitten, a feral kitten, a feral cat in the backyard, had a litter. We found one. We managed to grab it over the weekend.

And this is not only the most intelligent, loving cat I've ever met, this cat is just not only beautiful, it's just taken over all of us. We're all just sort of like wrapped around its little fingers.

It this morning woke me up by crawling under my neck and curling up in a ball and going to sleep. I mean, it has no fear of human beings whatsoever. We're loving it, but it's a cat. You don't love a cat in the same way that you love human beings or the truth of God.

We can differentiate, but people don't want that about God. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. God just has peanut butter love. Spread it all over the place. What they don't realize, I've never seen anybody who has that view of God's love.

Every single one of them has always had a defect in their understanding of God's wrath, God's justice, and God's holiness. They've never been able to be balanced because they don't accept the biblical view of what God's love is all about.

We need to allow all the word of God to speak, and it is a balanced, beautiful word. And as a result, we should be absolutely, positively amazed when we hear that despite the justice of God's wrath against every fallen son and daughter of Adam, he has chosen to love, not on the basis of what we've done, not on the basis of what we deserve, but freely out of his own good will.

An amazing thing. It's hard to believe, and yet it's the testimony of the scriptures. Beautiful text, but not because of what people normally think. They miss it because they're looking at the tapestry from the wrong end.

Instead of allowing the text to speak, it has drawn us up into the heavenly realms in chapter 8, and we descend too quickly, and we end up misjudging the argument of the apostles.