Romans 9:14-18, What’s the Key?, Dr. John Carpenter

Romans 9:14-18 and the Question of God’s Justice

Romans chapter 9 chapter 14 to 18 hear the word of the Lord. What should we say then is there injustice on God's part? By no means. For he says to Moses I will have mercy on whom I have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.

So that it depends not on human will or exertion but on God who has mercy. For the scripture says to Pharaoh for this very purpose I've raised you up that I might show my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.

So then he has mercy on whomever he wills and he hardens. Whomever he wills. May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his Holy Word. Well, what's the key to. Whatever you want. Of course that depends on whatever it is.

Finding the Key to Success in Ordinary Life

You want do you want to make money? Everyone's needs to make a little money got to pay the rent and get food. Well if so. The key is to provide a service or a product that people are willing to pay for.

What do people want and can you provide it finding that there's actually two things I guess is. The key people want to eat. That's a key factor. You can count on everyone having you're looking about how can I make money?

It's best to find it something that a lot of people want and eating is something that everybody wants if. You can provide them something they want to eat at a price. They'll pay you'll do pretty well.

The key the critical factor then is that you have to beat the customers needs now something everybody needs. Some keys you can count on everyone having. You're looking for the decisive the critical thing that you could do then if everyone needs it.

The missing ingredient that you can then provide. To tap into that demand now, there's a lot of ways that you can do that besides feeding people. But the key remains the same find what people need and what you can do.

To tap into that. People need a place to live. That's also one of these things that everyone needs. And so you you can count on a high demand for it so you can go into construction or into real estate.

People everyone's gonna need eventually sometime or another their health attended to. So you can tap into that by being a doctor or nurse physical therapist or people are gonna need an education. Especially for their kids so you can be a teacher.

The point is that the key is to find what people need and what you can do to meet it. Some things everyone needs they're universal. The question then is what you have. To provide for one of those universal needs to provide that missing ingredient that allows you to take advantage of that.

Universal need that then is the key to your success now. There's other keys to success qualities you need to really do. Well now gurus will tell you the keys to success things like me. You make a plan prepare for the unexpected.

I'm never sure how you do that. It's unexpected I guess. Have insurance or an emergency fund. Develop good habits. They say learn from your mistakes. Take smart risk. Of course, you got to know what the smart ones are.

And learn from the experts like those who tell you about the keys to success. So it's nice that they make themselves essential to success now. Those are the keys to success but often there's one critical decisive factor you need.

You could have a lot going for you. You're gonna have a good education. But if you miss some of those keys to success, you still not do. Well, you got a shop in a good location but you know if you're just too lazy to get up and go to work and Do the things that need to do for a restaurant you won't succeed.

Like a line of dominoes falling. You've seen those stunts they do put a lot of dominoes together. Some of those thousands or maybe more and. One after another causes a chain reaction. You can like that have all the right dominoes all the right ingredients.

Except you're missing one key thing one ultimate decisive. Something to start the chain reaction. Right in the in the dominoes. There's got to be one decisive someone or something. Pushing over that first domino to start the chain reaction without it.

The dominoes don't fall in. Athletics are really two keys to success. You got of an ironed will. Determination that you're gonna work at your sport day in day out. If it's running you're gonna run no matter what if it's 100 degrees and 100 humidity outside.

Well, you're gonna be out there sweating if it's zero degrees and a howling wind. Oh, you'll put on a ski mask and sweatpants and you'll go. The second key is talent. You need the skill. You miss either one.

You won't succeed. A key is a critical decisive ingredient. That's absolutely necessary to get what you want. It opens the door without it. It doesn't matter how much you you want your goal. You have a great desire for your goal.

But if you don't have one of the keys to success, you still won't succeed no matter how hard you work. You still without the key. You're not gonna you're not gonna achieve what what what you work for?

I don't know if an athlete could have worked harder than me in college. But I didn't have the talent to go further. I didn't have the key to the Olympics. Now what's the key to being right with God? To have a good relationship with him.

What's just the key to being one of his children? That's the question that we're now finally brought to in Romans here at the heart of Romans chapter 9. That key is provided in five parts in five verses one part per verse first the question then the compassion.

Then the condition forth the proclamation and finally the conclusion. First there's the question in verse 14. Paul has just answered the question as to why Jacob was chosen and Esau wasn't and Jacob there is a type of God's Children of God's child.

He is representative of all of All of God's children of those who are saved. Just of the kind of person who gets all these great blessings that he just talked about in Romans chapter 8. Jacob is the one.

Who gets those? Along with everyone who's like him. Esau is the type of not God's children of those who are not saved. Why are some people saved and others are not? Paul's answer in verse 11 is so that God's purpose in election might be the key election rumors.

God choosing. God has a purpose and his choosing and That's gonna be the key. In other words the decisive factor that makes Jacob God's child and makes Esau not God's child is not anything about what they did.

Indeed Paul points out that God chose Jacob before they were even born. Before they had done anything good or bad and that's not just as we saw last week. Remember, it's not just in time because some people kind of play along with that with some and say something like, you know God's not bound by time.

So he could look forward into the future and see that Jacob would have faith and so God chose him. By looking forward to Jacob's faith. And so really there it's Jacob's faith. That's the key and not God's choice.

No, the key is not anything Jacob or you or me did or chose the key difference the key decisive factor. That is the thing that's critical is that God loved Jacob and not Esau. Why did he love Jacob and not Esau?

Not because of anything about Jacob or Esau but simply because of God's purpose in Election and that provokes the question that well, what should we say? That sounds very unfair. What do you say about it being purely based on God electing and choosing in verse 14?

Is there injustice on God's part? That's the key question it being one of the elect being one of God's people the elected member in chapter 8. Who could bring any accusation against God's elect? They can't be accused being one of the people for whom there is no condemnation.

There is no accusation a child of God save if that's based purely on God's choice and not on what someone does. There's what someone chooses. Isn't that unjust? Is that that not right? Shouldn't God reward good people and punish the bad ones.

Shouldn't he shouldn't God be useful in upholding our morality helping us. Helping us keep the kids in line, you know, if you behave if you don't behave kids you're going to hell. Right. He's good for that.

Isn't he shouldn't he if his choice of people is based on nothing in them. What someone call happenstance? Isn't that unjust? I Was at a church where an elderly man Rejected what is the doctrine taught here unconditional election saying that it made salvation based on happenstance.

This happenstance. It's random. In other words. Oh if it's based on our choices now that we understand. If it rewards us for making the right decisions, even if it's the decision is just saying we believe in Jesus.

Responding responding to an invitation that kind of thing that makes sense to us because then we have the key. We're the ones opening The way into the kingdom of God into heaven by our decisions by our choice.

It all depends on us. Those who make the right decisions get the reward they get freedom from God's judgment that is from wrath. In other words, they get out of hell if they make the right choice. It makes God appear to bolster our sense of justice of right and wrong.

It makes him socially useful to us. And so we want. Many times we want people to believe. That they have the key to God. They have the key to blessing so that they use those keys. That is they'll make the right decisions.

They'll be good moral people that make good neighbors. They'll be religious people who say what we want them to say but to say that he chooses people to be his children based on. Nothing at all about us purely on his on God's purpose and election his sovereign love his unearned Unpredictable decision to love one and not the other that strikes us as Happenstance.

And so we say is there injustice on God's part? Justice is getting what you deserve. Now if you're speeding. You deserve a speeding ticket. That's justice. If you work an hour, you deserve an hour's pay.

Injustice is either not getting something you good that you deserve. You know hours paid you deserve it. Or you get something bad that you didn't deserve you get a speeding ticket even though you weren't speeding now here the critic is saying that there's injustice in God giving salvation to someone like Jacob who didn't deserve it or God is not giving salvation to someone like Esau who apparently deserves it.

Does that really make sense? But we don't call the first one. You know Jacob's case in our case injustice. If you're speeding down the road. You're going 80 in a 55 zone and the police pull you over and they have proof right there on the radar gun.

That you were speeding you deserve a ticket. You have to pay a fine, but the officer looks at you. And he decides he's not gonna give you the penalty you deserve. He's just gonna let you off you can go.

Maybe with a warning, but that's so it you don't call that injustice. We call it compassion or Mercy, you know, no one after being let go without a penalty. No one goes home and complains. You wouldn't believe the injustice I'd suffered today.

I was speeding down that road at 80 miles per hour and the police pulled me over and the guy let me off. Justice was giving me a ticket. No, you know. You don't argue about that. You say I got mercy. You're grateful for that.

So that's not what he's complaining about. Is it is there injustice on God's part? That's the question. It's not because of Jacob he's talking about Esau as for Esau he didn't get injustice did he. The unsaved get justice justice is precisely what they are not saved from understand.

Salvation it means that there's God's just wrath and you don't get it. So if you don't get salvation you get justice again. The question is is there injustice on God's part? Well, not for Jacob. He gets mercy not for Esau because he gets justice.

But the unsaved don't deserve God's saving love and so they don't get it. It's it's Jacob the saved who get who get what they don't deserve they get mercy. Is there injustice on God's part. Paul's answer that same emphatic?

Denunciation that we saw twice in chapter 6 once in chapter 7 at least by no means. No way. Absolutely. Not. It's not unjust. Why? Because of the compassion in verse 15. What's the key to being right with God?

Second in verse 15. Compassion. There's absolutely no injustice on God's part because. For here's the reason why God selects some to be his children and not others purely because of his purpose in election.

And that is not unjust God says to Moses. I will have mercy on whom I have mercy and I'll have compassion on whom I have compassion. The answer to the question Why is it it unjust is because God the standard of what is just?

Will do it. I will he says. Anything God does is not unjust. Simply because God does it it was not a higher standard of justice. Beyond God that you can measure him by not something. You can compare God to and say he well, you didn't meet that standard God.

You can't put God's actions up against justice. Like using a level to see if something is crooked or not and say hmm. You were unjust here. God, you know use a level and think hmm. That level is crooked I can tell.

No, you realize what you think is is wrong. You can't say God is unjust. God is the level. He is the standard. I Will have mercy. I will have compassion. It's up to me. God says God has mercy and compassion on whomever he wants.

We don't get what mercy by doing the right thing living a moral life or doing religious acts like going to church or getting baptized. Lord supper is though somehow by doing those things you get mercy and compassion.

Now a lot of religion depends on the Promise that the key to being right with God is doing the things they tell you to do. That they have the key to the kingdom of God and they'll unlock it for you. If you do what they say, I Do their rituals to give them money do what they say and they'll unlock the door for you and they'll let you in To the kingdom of God.

It's like the key to a car. They think they can they have the key to turn on God's mercy. With the right religion, but here God says I will have mercy a compassion only he holds the key to his compassion.

You know here he answers the question that some try to use to get around. What this is saying some will say that Jacob and Esau are just two groups of people. Of the saved and the lost and what God here is promising is that that he's going to create the two groups one group of people who get compassion and the other group who.

Who don't get it and whether you individually belong to one group of the other. That depends on you. You hold the key to which one of the two groups you get to go into. But here in verse 15 God says I will have mercy on whom.

Singular on particular individuals here Jacob a particular individual. I Will have mercy. And in Greek whom? Can be singular or plural and here it is singular so about a specific individual specific People not about a group an abstract group.

Of course some will say that well He has mercy his compassion on all people that he loves all people and the Lord Jesus did say in Matthew chapter 5 verse 45 that he makes the Sun rise on the evil and on the good and he sends rain.

Which is a blessing in a semi-arid land of mostly farmers. He says rain and so blessings on the just and on the unjust. So God does send gifts blessings on on evil people. And so he does have a kind of compassion on all people.

For which they're not grateful. And so then heap up even more sin for them to be judged for and this is what theologians call common grace. It's common and that is for all people all the blessings of life the food the clothes the house the friends the family all the things that we're supposed to use Thanksgiving to thank God for our expressions of God's grace, but here in Romans 9 Paul is talking specifically about saving grace.

That's the other tactic some used to get around what he's saying here claiming that this isn't about salvation. It's about something else. That is it's about who are the natural people who's what is the chosen ethnic group or it's about serving God.

It's about service and not salvation as though you can be saved but not Serve him the the problem with that of course is that he's been talking about the gospel saving grace justification. Salvation all the way from chapter 1 but they say that he Paul suddenly changes subjects at the beginning of chapter 9.

Taught now he's talking about a natural ethnic group here. And what in this is again what they would say is a parentheses and aside. But the but that question about Israel in the first five verses of this chapter is why they're not saved.

It is about salvation in verse 3 specifically. He says that if he could be Cursed if he could be as a way to allow Israel to be saved. That he would do that if it was possible, of course, it's not possible.

But they aren't all saved. Israel isn't all because of verse 6 while they may be from Israel. They aren't Israel not the true one that God loves. This is all about the salvation of particular Individuals about which singular people get God's compassion to save them.

Of course many will object that God loves everyone and wants all to be safe. We don't have time to go in passages that they say Say that but when they say that some other passage clearly teaches God's universal saving love for every individual.

That God's love is the key, but he's given that key to everyone, you know, it's kind of like everyone wants to eat. Everyone has God's saving love. They say and so the only missing key now the only missing ingredient now is the sinners and agreement its human free will.

That's the thing that needs to activate it for the verses that they say say that We have the scripture here in verse 13. It says God hates Esau. However, someone I'm going to soften it. They want to water it down.

Whatever they say. Well, it just means he prefers him last. Well, whatever the the fact is that it means that Esau is not saved and He's not saved because God did not choose him. God did choose Jacob because he loved him.

God had mercy and compassion on that particular Individual and that's the key. How do you get it? How do you get that mercy that saves not everyone is saved. Esau is it so there's some. There's some condition That separates the safe from the unsaved the elect from the non elect.

God's child from not God's child. There's some condition that makes them different. Like from Jacob like from Esau. What is it? What's the condition verse 16? tells us that. Now I consider myself an Armenian even after I graduated from seminary with my master's I I remember walking the streets of Singapore telling Mary I'm Armenian with the strong sense of the sovereignty of God.

She wasn't impressed and Armenian from the founding theologian of the 17th century called Jacob Arminius Armenian believes that God has given the key of his saving mercy. To everyone. It's like it's like me indeed.

Everyone has it. You can count on everyone you need you can count on everyone having God's saving mercy. And so the final decisive ingredient that you or any sinner needs to get salvation the final key is.

Your choice is an act of your free will. The last key that is necessary now. Is your decision? It's up to you. And that's probably what most American Christians now believe although that might be changing and it's what I believe even after completing my master Of divinity now, I got a degree and I got the job at a Bible College teaching at a Bible College in Singapore.

Where the first class I was assigned to teach was on Romans and Galatians. And so I taught through Romans verse by verse like we're doing and then I come to Romans 9. And I'm looking for all the excuses.

Some of all being reviewed that you can use to dodge it. And I realized they don't work. And then I come specifically to verse 16. Now all we Protestants know. That we're not saved by works. We know that we should know that the condition of our salvation is not our religious deeds like in verse 11 not because of works but we still Sometimes think if you're at least if you're Armenian you think that you can be saved by your will by our making the right choice.

Even though that's actually a work. You know if it comes ultimately from us if we are the source of it. Well, that's a work but most people aren't thinking so clearly. We here in sermon illustrations Salvation compared to something like a like a check.

Salvation is a signed check. It's all made out. God gives it to you. But it's still up to you to catch it. Right. Never heard that or like you're drowning and the lifeguard throws out a life preserver.

There it is, but it's still up to you. To grab hold of it the decisive factor in these illustrations. The point is according to them the only remaining key we're told is our will our decision. It's like that line of dominoes.

What is required to start the chain reaction? They say it's our choice. We have to push over that first domino. That's what I believe when I started teaching through Romans and then I come to Romans chapter 9 verse 16.

And there it was. It's directly addressing the key issue. What does salvation? Depend on ultimately what's the first cause what's the condition? What is the decisive key to unlock it verse 16 begins? So then?

In other words, this is the conclusion of the lesson we take from that quote in Exodus where God's Said I will have mercy on whom the individuals I will have mercy that means verse 16 tells us then. So then this is the conclusion of that it that is receiving mercy and compassion salvation.

That's what the it is in verse 16. It's the receiving of mercy to be being saved it Depends or it could be it is there's actually no verb here. Salvation is not Right it is not. So he's now telling us what is not the key to being saved.

Tell us that first. No, let's tell us what it is. What is not the key? What is not the decisive factor in receiving God's mercy. What being right with God is not from. On what being a child of God does not depend on.

It does not depend on he says willing. There it is that one word. Blew my mind challenged the heart of what I believed and It forced me to make a life-changing decision. The verse also says it does not depend on working or exertion.

Literally the word there is running. The most strenuous work your body can do is to run. So he's saying it doesn't matter how hard you work. You can't earn God's mercy. Now, of course, we know that already we know it doesn't been on works.

What we don't know is that we can't get it by the right decision by our free will. I didn't know that. You know, I thought first looking at it the English translation. Well, maybe the word will or the NIV desire.

It's not depend on man's desire. Maybe it means a particular kind. I'm a I could go look at the Greek and find out the root word is some particular Narrow kind of willing that it doesn't depend on or desiring that is a depend on and so it wasn't excluding some kind of other.

Willing there was still the key. It's still somehow find my way around this. But then I looked at it in Greek and I didn't remember I didn't even have to look the word up in a dictionary. I knew the word already.

This is the common word for wish or choose or desire. It's like I'm saying I want to have lunch. It's gonna all Desire all choices. It's a common general word for will or for one. It means that salvation does not depend on our Wanting our willing our decision and I looked at that word and I knew That now I had to make a decision.

There's no playing around with us anymore no dodging it no pretending that it doesn't say what it obviously does. And so either I accept it and change my theology or I have to stop saying I believe the Bible.

And I made my choice. That evening I told Mary we've been married about a month at the time. Now I'm a Calvinist and she said makes a lot more sense, doesn't it? So yeah. Now my class had a teacher who started teaching Romans as an Armenian and was a Calvinist by chapter 9.

The Proclamation of God’s Power in Pharaoh

What's the condition of salvation the essential key. The God who has mercy fourth verse 17 the proclamation. Begins for or because this so this is giving the proof. This is giving evidence for what he's just said right, it does not depend on man's desire or our effort, but on God's mercy because it.

This is true so far this passage everything has been about mercy or compassion. At least in this narrow passage in these five verses mercy compassion salvation about who gets it now. Some could say well, everybody gets it whether they know what or not.

Now obviously here in chapter 9 Esau does it? But now he looks at the flip side. Because that's what's really causing the offense. That's what's really causing that question who we started with. Isn't God being unjust in this the the shock that it can't be all based on our our will.

No Excuse me on God's will we often do think it's based on our will. They can't all be based on God's will. Or that means that some people Can't be saved. The implication that we're so helpless. That it takes God's mercy to even want God's mercy.

What Offends many people today is the idea that someone could be saved simply Because God chose them. And on the flip side even more offensive is that someone is not saved because God did not choose them.

They were never given the key to God's mercy. Now what we so often forget is that such people like Esau here or Pharaoh now get what they deserve. It's not as though anyone never gets. Gets what it had to put it.

It's not as though someone gets punishment. They don't deserve. It's also without God intervening. That they would have that they would have freely chosen to love and obey God. There's no such person not personally not here.

Esau would not have chosen to love his birthright. From the story of Esau is this birthright that birthrights fulfilled in the gospel. So what he has in this birthright is the gospel and he doesn't care.

He'd better he'll exchange it for stew. It's not as though Esau would have kept his birthright. It would have valued his birthright more than a bowl of stew. If God had made him disbelieve that make sense.

Now look, it's not as though left to himself Esau would have chosen the birthright chosen the gospel. No, Esau just didn't love God. He was an unbeliever. Already from the start Pharaoh would not have chosen to let Israel go.

You know if not for God's intervention not so God intervened and made him keep the Israelites. It wasn't as though Pharaoh was leaning toward letting his Israelite slaves go free that that's what he would have done.

But then God reached into his heart and petrified it against his will. No Esau was faithless and so didn't care about the promises of God and Pharaoh was hard-hearted and so they got what they deserved.

The heart and favor his heart. God doesn't have to do a miracle. He can just let him be himself. Hand him over to his natural condition. Back in the second half of chapter 1 where three times God hands over people to what they want.

That's most severest judgment is letting people go their natural way. So there's no injustice when they are condemned. It's not hardening. That's the miracle. That's just letting nature take its course.

The miracle is the mercy. But still the question the controversy is why does it God then well, why does he have mercy on everyone? Why does he give that miracle to everybody even to Pharaoh the key ingredient that separates the Jacob's?

From the Esau's and the Pharaoh's is God's mercy that why not give that key to everyone? So everyone is saved. Why not do the same miracle of mercy that God did for Jacob on Esau and Pharaoh. Because of the proclamation the fifth point in verse 17.

There God says to Pharaoh I raised you up. With God's saying I made you king of Egypt. I made you head of the one of the most powerful empires and that day on earth. Notice by the way, God does it. I did it.

The politics of Egypt was in God's control. The dynasty was arranged by God. And God says I raised you up for this very purpose and now he's answering the question why Pharaoh doesn't get mercy and Why everyone who isn't saved?

Doesn't get saving mercy. Why? What's the purpose of it? Why does it God give everyone saving mercy that I might display my power in you? And then saying the same thing in a different way. That my name might be proclaimed.

The proclamation of the name of Jesus in all the earth the ten plagues on Egypt the exodus to the Red Sea that then collapses on the Egyptian army was all for the purpose of God showing how powerful he is.

He's able to crush the greatest empires. Pharaoh doesn't get mercy. Esau isn't loved. Unsaved people today are handed over to their own desires so that people can see the difference between those God has mercy on and those he doesn't and then glorify God we will see how great is our God and Proclaim the name of Jesus to all the kinds of people on earth.

God is so committed to the proclamation of his glory that he's ordained judgment for some. So we'll see the lavishness of his mercy on others. What's the conclusion? Fifth part in verse 18. So then it begins so then the conclusion of God's purpose and election of answering the questioning of God's justice of having compassion on whom he will have compassion of Salvation not based on the condition of our will or running but of God's mercy of God's ultimate commitment to his own glory.

Which we are to proclaim the conclusion in verse 18. So then He God has mercy on whomever he wills. Same words of verse 16 for our will. Doesn't depend on our will. It does on his and he hardens whomever he.

Same word again wills. Both God's mercy and his judgment are out of our control. He holds the key. What's the key what's the decisive factor the ingredient that nothing works without God's will. Now something if that's the case.

Then why should we why should we bother you know thinking or choosing or desiring or? Seeking or praying going to church. Why should we bother with any of this stuff? Okay Sarah Sarah. Whatever will be will be.

God has mercy on whoever he wills and they're saved and he leaves the others up to the hardness of their heart and handing them Over to their own desires and they get harder and harder. So why do anything why bother?

There's nothing we do changes anything. It doesn't depend on us. That's the way many people think. They think evangelism or worship discipleship, whatever all this proclaiming the name of Jesus to all the kinds of people it's only needed is only worthwhile.

They think if it depends on us. We assume that if our will our choice isn't the ultimate isn't the key then it's not needed at all. That has no part. Well that really doesn't make any sense. It's not as though people don't choose.

We're not saying people don't choose. Our choice our will is it the condition is it is not the key for salvation, but it's not absent either. We do choose. We have we use our will we do have a will and we use it.

God has mercy and that results in us choosing. Our will is like one of the dominoes in the chain that falls. It's not the cause. It's not the ultimate decisive factor. It's not the key. We don't push over to the first domino by an act of our will.

God does in our choosing to believe him. Is the result it's one of the dominoes. We choose because we were first chosen if God Doesn't push over that first domino. He doesn't give us mercy then we're left in our natural condition a hard-hearted sinner getting harder.

Ch Spurgeon summed up the conclusion quote him. I Remember when I was coming to the Lord, I thought I was doing it all myself. And though I sought the Lord earnestly. I had no idea the Lord was seeking me.

I Do not think the young convert is at first aware of him. One day when I was sitting in the house of God the thought struck me. How did you come to be a Christian? I Sought the Lord, but how did you come to seek the Lord?

The thought flashed across my mind at a moment. I should not have sought him unless there had been some previous influence in my mind to make me seek him. I Ascribe my change wholly to God. What's the conclusion?

Ascribe your change wholly to God. God has mercy. He Holds the key.