McDonald’s basement, April 16, 2008
14 What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be!
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 does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.
17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this reason I raised you up, to demonstrate my power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.”
18 So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.
Romans 9:14-18
What I am aiming for tonight is a realization that God’s utter freedom (particularly in election) is a huge part of what makes Him God and what makes Him glorious. And that when He acts according His free nature to uphold His glory in this way, He is righteous.
In the end, I want us to realize these things so that we will live our lives on our faces in joyful, humble worship.
Is there Unrighteousness with God?
Last week we addressed this question: How is the word of God to Israel being fulfilled? Paul’s answer was that there is a physical Israel based on lineage and a spiritual Israel based on God’s free election. The spiritual Israel is the true Israel. And God has never failed in His promises to them. “They are not all Israel who are descended from Israel” (v.6).
Paul referenced two Old Testament stories to support his point–the story of Isaac and Ishmael, and the story of Jacob and Esau. In both of these stories there are two brothers who are legitimate descendents of Abraham and should have received the promises. Yet in both cases, because of nothing other than His own desire, God chose one child and not the other. Isaac, not Ishmael. Jacob, not Esau.
And Paul knows what you are thinking. “That’s not fair! God can’t just arbitrarily choose to save one person and reject another one. You yourself said, Paul, that there is no partiality with God. That seems like partiality to me. It is not fair, not just, and therefore it is unrighteous.”
So Paul faces the problem. “What shall we say then? There is no injustice [probably better translated "unrighteousness"] with God, is there” (v. 14)?
“I Will Have Mercy on Whom I Have Mercy”
The first part of the answer comes in verse 15. “May it never be! For He says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion’” (v. 15).
That is a strange answer. It does not seem like an answer at all. It seems like a repetition of the problem. Surfacely, Paul sounds like he is saying, “God is not unrighteous in having mercy on whom He will have mercy because He has mercy on whom He will have mercy”–and that is not an answer, it’s a cop-out.
I struggled all week to get behind this. We know that Paul is giving a defense for why God is not unrighteous because he says “for” or “because” at the beginning of it. Yet it does not look like a defense at all. It looks like a simple reiteration of the facts that made us ask the question in the first place. What is going on here?
I believe the missing link can be found in the Old Testament context of the words God spoke to Moses. What Paul says here is not the product of a quick flip through the Bible to find a place where God affirms His freedom. It is the product of long, thorough meditation on the Old Testament passage and its context. So let’s go to Exodus 33 and find part of the reason verse 15 is a real defense of God’s righteousness and not just a cop-out.
God’s Glory and the Freedom of Mercy
In Exodus 33, God is fed up with Israel because of their idolatry with the golden calf, and He decides to remove His presence from them. But Moses pleads with Him on their behalf and God relents. Then Moses says, “I pray You, show me Your glory” (v. 18)! And God answers, “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the LORD before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show compassion on whom I will show compassion” (v. 19, quoted in Romans).
Where did that last part come from? What does “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious” have to do with the goodness and name of the Lord? I think the connection is this: the absolute freedom of God is a huge part of the glory and the name of God. No one created God, and no one tells God how to be God. He is not bound by anything. He is infinitely and eternally self-existing. That is His name and His glory.
In other words, God is telling Moses, “Do you want to know My name? I will proclaim it to you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
There is another place that makes this possibly even clearer. Moses is standing in front of the burning bush and God commands him to go deliver Israel from the Egyptian. But Moses says, “The Israelites will ask me who sent me. They will ask me, ‘what is His name?’” And God’s answer is amazing: “I AM WHO I AM.” The utter freedom of God is the name of God. It is His glory.
God’s Righteousness Stands: He Is Upholding His Glory
The freedom of God is a huge part of the glory of God. That is the first link to understanding Paul’s defense of God’s righteousness. The other link is something that has been assumed all through Romans: the nature of true righteousness is conformity to the character of God and upholding the glory of God. Mankind is unrighteous because they “have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (3:23). Therefore true righteousness is conforming to and upholding the glory of God.
We can now see Paul defense of God’s righteousness. God is righteous in His free election because He is acting out of His nature and upholding His glory. That is the essence of righteousness. For that reason, rather than causing the righteousness of God to totter on the edge of a cliff, unconditional election sets it in bedrock. I AM WHO I AM. That is God’s glory, and, by unconditional election, He upholds it. Therefore He is purely righteous.
So Paul draws the inevitable conclusion. “So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy” (v. 16).
God’s Glory and the Freedom of Rejection
But what about unconditional rejection and hardening? Is God unrighteous in it? Again Paul’s answer is no. And he supports it in verse 17. “For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, ‘For this reason I raised you up, to demonstrate my power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.’”
Again, this is a very strange way of defending God’s righteousness. How does quoting this passage answer the objection?
It answers the objection because it gets at the reason for and result of God’s hardening and rejection of Pharaoh–His own glory. This is very similar to verse 15. Paul is saying that both God’s unconditional mercy and His free rejection sustain, uphold, and proclaim the glory of God. And since true righteousness finds it essence in those very things, when God acts this way He is righteous.
The righteousness of God in free election stands: He is acting for His glory. “So then God has mercy on whom He desires, and hardens whom He desires” (v. 18).
Worship
Love and protect the unconditional freedom of God. It is the essence of His glory. If you take it away, you take away His glory. So many people try to limit it and tie it to human decision or works. By doing that, they think they are protecting God’s glory and righteousness. “He wouldn’t do that!” they say. “It would not be righteous and it would not be glorious.” And unknowingly, they have removed the heart of His glory and righteousness.
So love and protect it. But most of all, worship God because of it. Have you ever tried to get on the edge of what you can understand about God? I recommend it. Push the limits. Contemplate the infinity, eternality, and absolute independent self-sufficiency of God. You will utterly fail, and that’s half the point. It will develop in you an attitude of quiet worship.
I AM WHO I AM. Love it, contemplate it, and get on your face and humbly, joyfully worship.
Bryan Elliff © 2008 www.bryanelliff.wordpress.com
