Election Rom 9
The Doctrine of Election
(Romans 9.14-23)
Jason Procopio
I grew up in church, and became a Christian in my early twenties. In my Christian life there have been a few key moments in which I understood something that fundamentally changed the way I read the Bible, the way I saw God, the way I saw myself. Most of them were gradual and quiet (like my conversion); I don’t learn quickly, so most of the time it was a process, and I woke up realizing I had believed something for a long time.
But there was one subject—one doctrine—that I had never heard affirmed before, and when I heard it for the first time, it completely blew the hinges off my understanding of the entire Bible. For many people, I know now, it comes as a given—it’s just a reality like any other, like gravity. For me though—who had always heard the exact opposite of what Paul says in Romans 9—it changed everything.
Today we’re going to talk about that doctrine.
If you’re joining us for the first time today, I want to say I’m sorry right off the bat, because today I’m doing something a little unusual. Usually we preach through books of the Bible, and since September we’ve been going through the book of Romans. Occasionally during this book we’ve taken breaks to talk about subjects which showed up in our text the week earlier, which are not the main message Paul’s trying to send, but which are still so huge we feel the need to spend a little more time there.
That happened last week, as we went through Romans chapter 9.
I’m saying this just to let you know that I’m not in the habit of preaching sermons that try to be incendiary, and that’s not what I’m doing today. But Romans 9 does talk about a subject like this, and I know that many people will have a hard time reading Romans 9 without needing a bit of clarity on the subject, so that’s what I’m hoping to do today.
The subject in question is the doctrine of election.
Before we get started let me also say that if you disagree with us on this topic, that’s totally fine. (James Hely Hutchinson, the director of l’Institut biblique de Bruxelles, just came out with a great book on this subject of theological disagreements, called Sacrés désaccords.) There are plenty of faithful Christians who disagree about this topic. But we—as in, the elders of this church who have the responsibility to preach to you the whole counsel of God—believe this is true, and I simply know of no other way to speak honestly about the gospel without talking about it.
So here’s the plan today; like I said, it’s going to be kind of an unusual sermon.
I’m going to begin by trying to give a very quick definition of the doctrine of election, because some of you may not know what I’m talking about. Then we’ll review quickly what we saw last week before diving a little deeper into v. 14-23 of Romans 9, which are the most explicit on this subject. And lastly, I’m going to address some common questions people have around this doctrine.
The Doctrine of Election
Before we get to the text, let’s try to define the doctrine of election. Fred G. Zaspel gives this excellent definition:
“The doctrine of election states that God chose whom he would save, that God’s choice precedes any consideration of our faith… God’s eternal decree is all-encompassing, and salvation likewise is according to his own gracious purpose (Acts 13:48; Rom. 8:28-30; Eph. 1:11; 2Tim. 1:9). Those whom God saves are those whom he chose to save (Eph. 1:4; 1Thes. 1:4-5; 2Thes. 2:13-14, etc.). This, in brief, is the doctrine of election.”
So some of you may already be uncomfortable: the doctrine of election tells us that before the foundation of the world, God had already chosen whom he would save, not because of anything in them, but because of his good pleasure and grace.
I’m glad the author of this definition referenced so many other passages, but many of you know that Romans 9 is often THE go-to text to talk about this subject. Why is that?
I personally prefer Ephesians 1-2—those chapters give a much more complete picture of what’s going on in salvation (because in that case—contrary to Romans 9—what’s going on in salvation is completely Paul’s point). In our series “Distinctives”, when I preached on this subject, that was the text I preached from.
But I think many people love Romans 9 to talk about election—and I agree with them in this—because the language here is unbelievably clear. At least in terms of election, Romans 9 is mainly hard to understand because it’s hard to accept: we want to believe we’ve misunderstood Paul, when in fact we haven’t.
But if you still end up stuck on Romans 9, don’t stop there: these electing purposes of God are on display all throughout the Bible.
The question is, why does God want us to know this? He’s the one who inspired his Word, and he easily could have spared us this information, which he knew would be hard to accept. So why does he want us to know these things?
God is God (v. 14-16)
Go to Romans 9; we’ll start reading at v. 14. But before we do, just a quick reminder of what we saw last time.
In this chapter, Paul is trying to answer two main questions that the Christians in Rome would likely have after the first eight chapters: Is God faithful? and Is God righteous? Paul’s answer to both questions is an emphatic Yes.
The Christians in Rome might ask, Is God faithful? because God made promises to the people of Israel in the Old Testament, and those promises were fulfilled in Christ…but not all Israel are receiving the benefit of those promises, because they don’t all believe in Christ. And Paul takes time, in v. 6-13, to show that God has always said that his promises would be fulfilled through and for certain people and not others. He’s perfectly consistent, and doing what he said he would do.
And the Christians in Rome might ask, Is God righteous? because God’s deciding to save some and not others…doesn’t seem very fair. We touched on Paul’s answer last week, but we’re going to get deeper into it today.
Last week, I tried to keep us firmly rooted in the context of the church in Rome; that’s the only way we’ll truly see what Paul is trying to teach here. Paul’s main message in this chapter is not about us, but about God.
That is the message of Romans 9—it’s not mainly about us at all.
That said, it feels awfully personal.
So let’s look at it more closely.
In v. 6-13, if you remember, Paul has given us two main examples of God’s electing purposes in the Old Testament: his choosing Abraham, and his choosing Jacob. Following this, he anticipates a first objection.
V. 14:
14 What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! 15 For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” 16 So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.
We saw this last week, but we need to dig a little deeper.
God’s choosing to save certain people and not others—out of Israel, and out of the pagan nations—is not unrighteous because his authority to save whom he decides to save is part of who he is as God. It is righteous because God is righteous, and his plan is to show the world that he is God.
That might sound like a stretch, but it’s not: Paul is saying what he’s saying, and he’s giving the examples he’s giving, for a reason.
In v. 15, Paul quotes Exodus 33.19. Do you remember that part of the story? Moses is in the Tent of Meeting, and he’s talking to God, and he asks God, “Please show me your glory.”
How does God respond to Moses? Let’s read the original verse, Exodus 33.19. God says,
“I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.”
“The LORD” (with LORD in capital letters) is how translators in English usually translate the name “Yahweh”. This is the name God gave for himself the first time he spoke to Moses out of the burning bush in Exodus 3; first God calls himself “I AM WHO I AM”, then gives himself the proper name Yahweh, and uses the two—I AM and Yahweh—interchangeably. When God presents himself, he doesn’t give a family name, because all families derive their life from him; he calls himself “Yahweh”: I AM—in other words, God is the source of all life, the source of all being, the beginning and end of all creation.
When God attaches a description to that name, he’s saying, “This is who I AM”—this is at the root of what it means for God to be God.
What is the description God attaches to his name in Exodus 33.19, the verse that Paul quotes here? I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.
In other words, God’s authority, his wisdom, and his power to be gracious on whomever he decides, to show mercy to whomever he decides, is part of his identity and authority as God.
God Shows that He Is God (v. 17-18)
God is gracious to whom he is gracious, and he shows mercy on whom he shows mercy, because his authority and power to make that choice is part of what it means for God to be God.
But that’s not all we see in this passage.
The second thing we see is God’s intention to show that he is God. It’s not enough for God that Moses knows who he is; he wants the entire world to know and recognize who he is.
God’s plan, as we see throughout the Bible, is to show his glory to the world that he created, so that all of creation might know that he is God.
We like to think of that in very rosy terms—when we think of God revealing himself to the world, we think of his love and his compassion. That’s true; but that’s not all. Part of God’s glory, part of his righteousness, is his authority. His authority to give mercy to whom he will…and to withhold that mercy from whom he will.
V. 17 (Paul gives another example):
17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” 18 So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.
If you don’t remember the story of the Exodus, here’s a two-sentence refresher: the Hebrews have multiplied in Egypt and are forced into slavery, so God comes to Moses and tells him to go tell the Pharaoh to let the Hebrews go. God tells Moses everything that’s going to happen ahead of time: the Pharaoh refuses to let the people go, so God sends ten plagues against the land of Egypt until, at long last, the Pharaoh lets the people go.
In this story, God displays his glory in two major ways (and it is crystal clear in the text).
Firstly, he displays his glory by the mercy he shows to the Hebrews—by saving them from slavery in Egypt.
We like this. We get this. God comes to the rescue—that’s his love, that’s his compassion, on display. We’re totally on board with that.
But it’s unambiguous in the story of the Exodus that God also displays his glory by punishing the Egyptians enslaving the Hebrews.
The text tells us that multiple times, Pharaoh hardens his heart against God. This is how we see it described up until Exodus chapter 8. So we want to see God’s sending the ten plagues as a response to the Pharaoh’s own hard-heartedness.
But we don’t get off that easy. Starting in chapter 9, this is what we see (this is Exodus 9.12):
But the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not listen to them, as the Lord had spoken to Moses.
We see the same thing in Exodus 10.1; and in Exodus 10.20; and in Exodus 10.27; and in Exodus 11:10; and in Exodus 14.8. Starting in chapter 9, almost every time it talks about Pharaoh’s hard heart, it says the Lord hardened his heart.
Why? Paul tells us when he quotes Exodus 9.16. God tells Pharaoh,
“For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”
God hardens Pharaoh’s heart because he wants to show his power to the world (and news of the plagues in Egypt definitely traveled).
Here’s the point Paul is trying to make by referencing this story: this doesn’t apply just to Pharaoh. Even today, God’s glory is seen in multiple ways—including ways that seem contradictory.
God is glorified in his justice. His justice demands that sin be punished. Because God has compassion on his people, he places our sin on Christ, and punishes Christ in our place. This displays his justice; this act of compassion brings him glory.
At the same time, when God decides to punish sin directly, by punishing the sinner for his sin…that also displays his justice; that also displays his glory.
And this is what Paul gets at in the next chunk of verses—which, arguably, are the hardest part.
God’s Power on Display in his Wrath and his Mercy (v. 19-23)
We’ve just heard Paul say that God has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.
Paul’s a smart guy. He knows what most people’s objection to this will be. He knows the question that will be on our minds. So he asks that question for us. V. 19:
19 You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?”
His answer is extraordinary, because it’s not an answer at all; it’s a reminder of who we are; it’s a call to humility.
20 But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” 21 Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?
This is so hard for us to hear, but we have to hear it: God’s goal in creation was not to celebrate us. He wasn’t lonely; he wasn’t lacking anything. When he created man, he wasn’t trying to fill a void in himself.
He created all things because he so delighted in himself that he desired to display who he is to others. That sounds like petty pride, but in God’s case it’s anything but—he is the only being in existence who actually deserves to be celebrated like that; he is the only being who really is that powerful and glorious.
That was his goal: to show his power, to show his greatness. And if he wants to display the fullest possible vision of his glory and his power, he will show that glory and power from all its various angles, in all its various ways.
There are two main ways that Paul highlights in this text: two ways God shows his power. The first is by showing his wrath against sin; the second is by showing his mercy toward sinners. V. 22:
22 What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23 in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory…?
Simply put, when God allows a sinner to live, it’s for one of two reasons. The first is to show his wrath and make known his power, by punishing the sinner for their sin—that’s what we all deserve. The second is to make known the riches of his glory by showing us mercy—that’s what we’ve received if we have faith in Christ.
We prefer one to the other, obviously—we prefer it when God shows mercy. But both his mercy and his wrath display his glory.
Questions
Now of course, in this text Paul just lays out the truth and leaves it there, because the doctrine of election isn’t his main point. So after reading this text, we have a lot of very serious questions. I won’t hit them all, but here are a few.
How is this fair?
We talked about this last week. The question on the minds of most of the Jewish and Gentile Christians in Rome is, “Why doesn’t God save all of Israel?” And that’s the question we want to ask too; but it’s not the right question. The right question is rather, “Why did God save any of us?”
The simple fact is that no one deserves the grace and mercy of God. We are all sinners; we are all deserving of his punishment. This is why, for the first four hundred years of the church, the main question Christians were trying to answer was not, “Why doesn’t God save everyone?” For the first four hundred years of the church, the main question they were trying to answer was, “How could a just God save sinners?” That’s the right question.
So maybe we could say that election isn’t fair…but we can’t say it in the way we mean it. If election is unfair, it’s because no one deserves for God to choose to save them.
Alors peut-être qu’on pourrait dire que l’élection n’est pas juste…mais on ne peut pas le dire de la manière qu’on entend. Si l’élection est injuste, c’est que personne ne mérite que Dieu choisisse de le sauver.
Why is this good news?
The easy answer is what I just said: he chose to save us anyway, even though we don’t deserve it.
But I know why a lot of people ask this question—they’re thinking about people they know, people they love, who don’t know God. I hope that in reading Romans 9 last week, you could see that Paul shares that burden. He’s not saying these things lightly. And the truth of God’s justice, which we just saw, is the good news concerning those who reject him.
But it’s obviously good news for us too, and for a very simple reason: whatever God chooses, God accomplishes. Period. The psalmist put it this way (Psalm 115.3): Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.
We talked about this last week too. Because God is God, then every promise he makes will be fulfilled—faithfulness to his promises is part of what makes God God. This reality doesn’t just fuel our assurance; it fuels our worship, for we worship the God who is God, the great I AM, who really is big enough to carry the weight of the eternal worship of the whole earth, big enough to fulfill the most impossible-sounding promises.
Whatever God chooses, God accomplishes.
What about free will?
This is a big one, and we’ll have to take a little more time starting now, because we didn’t talk about these last week.
Some Christians will see these passages and fall into a dangerous kind of determinism, going so far as to attribute their sin to God: I sinned, because God didn’t decide that I would obey him.
That’s a dangerous place to be, which Paul warns against in this passage: what is molded will not say to the molder, “Why have you made me like this?” No one will stand before God on judgment day and say, “I rejected you because you didn’t let me accept you.”
No—the Bible affirms two things simultaneously: that God is absolutely sovereign over our salvation; and that we are absolutely responsible for the choices we make, and that we do indeed choose to follow Christ or to reject him.
A lot of people have spilled a lot of ink trying to figure out how those two things go together, and the framework I think comes closest to what we see in the Bible is called “theological compatibilism.” You don’t need to remember the term, but the concept is helpful.
To put it simply, we are free—but our freedom is limited. This isn’t just biblical; we all know this. I’m not free to fly like a bird, because I’m not a bird. I’m a man. We’re free to act in accordance with our nature.
This also applies to spiritual things. Within the confines of our nature, we really are free to do what we want. But Paul has told us clearly that natural man, left to himself, wants to sin. He doesn’t want to follow God. By ourselves, we are free to do what we want, but what we want is to sin, because that’s our nature.
But when God saves us, he gives us a new nature—a nature that desires to follow him. So when we choose to follow God, when we choose to obey him, God doesn’t need to force us; it’s what we want. We are free to obey him, because our new nature gives us that freedom.
Here’s the point: no one can stand before God, look at their sin, and say, “I didn’t want to do this.” Everyone who is saved will say to him, “I chose you because you opened my eyes, and when I saw you as you are, I wanted to choose you.” How could we not, when God causes us to see who he really is?
I know that may not feel entirely satisfying to you, but there’s something really important we need to keep in mind. The Bible never directly answers the question of human free will and how it works, because that’s not the Bible’s goal. We tend to come to the Bible with a load of questions we want answered, and we’re frustrated when the Bible doesn’t answer them. But the Bible isn’t trying to answer all of our questions; the Bible tells us what questions we should be asking.
So these last questions, in my opinion, are questions we should be asking.
What’s the use of praying if God decides whom he will save?
If God decided whom he would save before the foundation of the world…why do we pray for people to be saved?
This is a bit mysterious, but we see it all over the Bible, and it’s pure grace on God’s part. Sometimes God sovereignly intervenes in the affairs of this world, because he’s God. But the consistent pattern we see throughout the Bible is that God loves to execute his plans through the prayers of his people. He tells us what to pray, and he tells us how to pray…and he fulfills the plan he laid out before the foundation of the world in response to our prayers.
This is simply incredible, and God didn’t have to do it this way…but he does. That’s why Paul says at the beginning of chapter 10:
Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them [the people of Israel] is that they may be saved.
Does he know for sure they will? Of course not; he’s not God. But that’s not going to stop him from praying, because he knows that God fulfills his plan through the prayers of his people.
The next question is similar:
What’s the use of sharing the gospel if God decides whom he will save?
The answer is similar too. Occasionally God will save someone directly, through no outside help. He saved Paul on the road to Damascus by calling to him from a voice in the sky. There’s someone in our church, a former Muslim, who began seeking Christ because she had a dream about him. Sometimes God does this.
But most of the time, God saves his people through the public proclamation of the gospel. This is why, just after laying out this truth that God shows mercy on whom he will and hardens whom he will, Paul says (Romans 10.14):
How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?
In other words, God has chosen to save his people, and he knows who they are…but we don’t. This is why we preach. This is why we speak to our neighbors and colleagues and family members about the gospel. This is why we send out missionaries to countries in which Christ is not known. We are called to share the gospel whenever and wherever we can—like the sower throwing the seed out into the field—because we know that this is how God saves the people he chooses.
How do we relate to other Christians who don’t believe this doctrine?
This one might be the trickiest for some of you, because there are a lot of people who don’t agree with much of what I’ve said today. Discussion can often become heated; often our instinct is to take sides, and think our team is closer to God than the other.
I firmly believe that this doctrine is true; I see it clearly taught in Scripture, and I believe it is right. But we need to be very careful about what we base our own confidence on.
There’s a story I love about the 18th-century British evangelist George Whitefield.
Whitefield was a Calvinist—he firmly held to this doctrine I’ve been defending. But he had a friend, the famous theologian and evangelist John Wesley. John Wesley was most decidedly not a Calvinist; he strongly disagreed with Whitefield on this topic, and everyone knew it.
Whitefield was preaching at an event somewhere, and one of the people at the event asked him if he thought he would see John Wesley in heaven.
Whitefield thought for a moment, then responded, “No, I don’t think we will.”
Gasps followed, and a long pause.
Then Whitefield said, “Mr. Wesley will be so near the throne and I will be so far in the back that I won’t be able to see him.”
This is going to be directed more at some of you than others: this doctrine does not define our faith. The justice and mercy of God in Jesus Christ defines our faith. That is what makes us Christians. At this point in my life, I cannot understand how anyone can deny this doctrine is true, and I can’t understand how any Christian can be a happy Christian without believing this doctrine is true.
But I know plenty of very happy Christians, who love Christ with all their heart, who don’t believe this doctrine is true. I don’t get it, and it would be very difficult for us to work together in some areas… But do I love them? Absolutely. Will I see them in heaven? Absolutely.
How do I know? Because the doctrine of election tells me that my doctrine did not save me. Only God’s infinite grace and mercy saved me.
The last question is related.
Does this doctrine make Christians unloving?
One of the most frequent—and correct—criticisms leveled against those who hold to this doctrine is that they are unloving. Unfortunately, many Christians who believe this doctrine become calloused—they come to see the unbelievers around them as almost a different species, who might or might not be brought in to the club one day. They put so much emphasis in their minds on God’s sovereignty that they forget Paul’s love for the members of his people who may well be lost. They forget the “great sorrow and unceasing anguish” in his heart for the Jews who have rejected Christ.
This doctrine, of all others, should make us like that. Rather than making us calloused and unfeeling toward those who reject Christ, this truth should make us tender towards them. Why? Because this doctrine tells us that we are not Christians because we chose God; we are Christians because he chose us, and that choice had nothing to do with anything good in us. We didn’t do this. We’re not believers because we were so smart that we understood something everyone else missed. If we are saved, it is only by the grace of God.
Paul says in Ephesians 2.8-9 (a very famous passage):
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
If we believe in our heart that Christ is Lord and that God raised him from the dead, and if that belief causes us to become—slowly but surely—more like Christ, then that had nothing to do with us. It is only because of the grace and mercy of our God who chose to save us.
So of all the doctrines in the Christian faith, the doctrine of election should make us humble, and loving, and patient with those who are rejecting Christ today. Because it’s only by God’s grace we aren’t still rejecting him…and we don’t know who will come to Christ tomorrow.
