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You'd be forgiven for thinking, when you read
the first few chapters of Romans, that Paul has it in for
the Jews. He goes to such great pains to point out that
all their religious systems, all their efforts to be
right with God are doomed. He accuses them of condemning
others for failing to obey God yet being guilty of
exactly the same failings. He shows that Jews are no
better than Gentiles as far as righteousness is
concerned. But even as he points out their failure, he
realises that he is still one of them. It isn't that he's
standing over against them and pointing out that they've
got it wrong and he's got it right. Rather, he identifies
with them as one of their own. He too was a Pharisee. He
grew up with the revelation of God as it was known by the
Jews. In fact, he says, what he's proclaiming now isn't
that far removed from what he knew before. 'To the Jews
belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving
of the law, the worship, and the promises; 5to
them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to
the flesh, comes the Messiah, who is over all, God
blessed forever.' There's nothing new in Christianity
that wasn't declared beforehand to the Jews. Even the
Messiah. They already had the gospel. They just didn't
recognise him when he appeared. So he's taking his place
as a member of the Jewish race, sympathising with those
who have turned away from the Messiah, yet aware that
even as they've turned away from him, he is still their
Messiah. |
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So he asks the inevitable question, what's going
on? Has God's promise to Abraham failed? |
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No, he says. It's just that those who ask that
question have stopped thinking theologically. You see,
God's promise was to Abram's descendants. But when you
think about it, not all of his descendants became part of
the chosen people. Only those descended through Isaac. |
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So what matters first of all is God's choice.
God's promise was that it was the son of Sarah who would
inherit the promise, not the son of Hagar. And in fact we
see the same thing with the choice of Jacob over Esau.
What matters with Jacob and Esau isn't their suitability
or worthiness. It's God's right to choose, God's
sovereignty. Now this is a very difficult concept to cope
with in a democratic, egalitarian culture like ours. I
mean how are we going to understand the sovereignty of
God when we live in a culture where even parents question
their right to discipline their own children. But we need
to come to grips with this: with a God who has the right
to choose what happens to his creatures. |
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Let's stop and think about who it is we're
discussing. Who is God? Let me read you a short excerpt
from Karl Barth's commentary on this chapter. |
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"God, the pure and absolute boundary and
beginning of all that we are and have and do; God, who is
distinguished qualitatively from men and from everything
human, and must never be identified with anything which
we name, or experience, or conceive, or worship, as God;
God, who confronts all human disturbance with an
unconditional command 'Halt', and all human rest with an
equally unconditional command 'Advance', God, the 'Yes'
in our 'No' and the 'No' in our 'Yes', the First and the
Last, and, consequently, the Unknown, who is never a
known thing in the midst of other known things; God, the
Lord, the Creator, the Redeemer: this is the Living God.
In the Gospel, in the Message of Salvation of Jesus
Christ, this Hidden, Living, God has revealed Himself, as
He is. Above and beyond the apparently infinite series of
possibilities and visibilities in this world there breaks
forth, like a flash of lightning, impossibility and
invisibility, not as some separate, second, other thing,
but as the Truth of God which is now hidden, as the
Primal Origin to which all things are related, as the
dissolution of all relativity, and therefore as the
reality of all relative realities." (Barth, The
Epistle to the Romans, 1933 p330f.) |
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Now, if you had trouble getting your mind around
that then I've achieved my purpose, because this God
about whom we're thinking is so far beyond our finite
minds that we could never even come close to
comprehending him or his purposes. Yet as we think about
this salvation that he gives to some and not others, we
feel compelled to ask the question don't we, "Is God
unjust in choosing one and not another?" |
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Here's where it becomes important that we
understand the difference between us and God. We ask the
question, but God gives the answer: "No", not
as far as He is concerned. God chooses Jacob to
demonstrate to us quite clearly that his is the authority
in this world. Look at vs 11 & 12: "Even before
they had been born or had done anything good or bad (so
that God's purpose of election might continue, 12not
by works but by his call) she was told, "The elder
shall serve the younger." God wants it to be
absolutely clear that the decision to choose Jacob is his
and his alone. He wants us to understand that our
salvation doesn't depend on our effort or desire but on
God's mercy. It's not how hard we work for our salvation
that will get us through. It's not how deserving we are.
In fact if you look at Jacob, his character left a lot to
be desired. But it was God's right to show him mercy if
he chose to. |
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And there's no inconsistency here. God said the
same thing to Moses in Exod 33. This was just after the
people had made a golden calf and had bowed down and
worshipped it and God told them that he had had enough.
They could go on and enter the promised land but he
wouldn't go with them in case they did something like
this again and his anger burned against them and he
destroyed them. But Moses pleads with him to go with them
and God relents. He says that because he's pleased with
Moses he'll go with them. Then Moses makes an
outrageously audacious request. He asks to see God's
glory. God says he'll show him all his goodness and
proclaim his name to him. Then he explains why he's
relented. It's because he chooses to show mercy to whom
he chooses. It isn't in fact because of Moses
righteousness, but simply because he chooses to show him
mercy. |
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But then when he declares his name to Moses
listen to what he says: (Exo 34:6-7 NRSV) "The LORD
passed before him, and proclaimed, "The LORD, the
LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and
abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7keeping
steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving
iniquity and transgression and sin, yet by no means
clearing the guilty, but visiting the iniquity of the
parents upon the children and the children's children, to
the third and the fourth generation."" |
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Now the reason I remind you of that is that it
reflects on our question: Is God unjust in choosing one
person over another? |
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We need to remember that God's motive in all
this is love and mercy, and the demonstration of his
glory. So let's think for a moment about the nature of
mercy. Mercy is something that's shown to someone who
doesn't deserve it. It's shown by a judge who reduces a
sentence for the sake of the guilty party, not because
they deserve it, what they deserve is the full sentence,
but because in his or her mercy they see that some better
end may be served by a shorter sentence. |
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Now it seems to me that we need to clear a bit
of ground on this issue, because the question that
inevitably arises in people's minds is why does God
condemn some people while saving others. We need to
remember that in the first 3 chapters of Romans Paul has
gone to great lengths to describe the plight of every
human being. We are all creatures who have fallen short
of the glory of God. We all stand under God's judgement,
under the sentence of death. If God chooses to show his
glory by choosing some to be saved by his grace, isn't
that his right? Isn't he able to show mercy to anyone he
chooses? And if he chooses to punish those who have
disobeyed, he's totally just in doing so, isn't he? |
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Paul takes the example of a potter. Doesn't the
potter have a right to choose whether he makes the clay
into a beautiful ornament, say a vase, or into a mere
utilitarian article like a mixing bowl or even a chamber
pot? Of course he does. And even that analogy fails to
truly express the issue. The potter is working with
something that he obtained from another part of creation.
In God's case he's working with something that he made in
the first place. |
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You see we need to understand the situation
clearly so we avoid category errors. We're not talking
here about something like our government throwing asylum
seekers into detention centres because they're an
inconvenience. This is not the case of one creature
mistreating another. This is the case of the creator
choosing how to deal with his creatures. And the way he
deals with them is both with justice and with mercy.
Again, those people who leap from God being sovereign to
God being responsible when people disobey have
misunderstood the reality of the situation. When God
hardens Pharaoh's heart, it doesn't mean that God makes
Pharaoh sinful. Pharaoh was always sinful, just like you
and me. Pharaoh always deserved God's wrath. God simply
removed any constraints that might have made him listen
to the pleas of Moses to let his people go. And the
reason he did it was to show to everyone at the time,
through the various plagues that fell on the land, that
God was sovereign. It was to make it plain to them that
if they wanted salvation then they'd better join up with
the people of God. God's motive in all this was love and
mercy, and the demonstration of his glory. The fact that
such a demonstration of power was ignored by the
Egyptians simply shows that they were rebellious
creatures, not willing to listen to their creator. Had
they listened, they too could have left to go to the
promised land. |
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And that's always the way it will be. The only
ones to experience God's wrath are those who are objects
of wrath - i.e. sinners - people destined for
destruction; like you and me. |
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And we mustn't forget that the reason that
rebellious people are still around, is that God has been
putting up with us for the sake of those to whom he chose
to show mercy. In fact Peter, when he's talking about the
delay in Christ's return says: "The Lord is not slow
about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is
patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to
come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:9) So it isn't that
God is unjust. Rather in his mercy he's long-suffering
and patient beyond anything we could possibly expect. |
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But getting back to this question of the Jews'
place in God's plan, even in the days of the Old
Testament, those God promised to show mercy to weren't
just the Jews, but the Gentiles also. The book of Hosea,
that Paul quotes here, tells in poignant fashion of God's
great love for a people who are totally unfaithful to
him. And then as the book comes to an end we get this
glimpse of the extent of God's love as he declares that
"Those who were not my people I will call 'my
people,' and her who was not beloved I will call
'beloved.' 26And ... 'there they shall be
called children of the living God.'" Here we see the
choosing of Jacob over Esau coming full circle, because
now those who are outside the line of Jacob find
themselves drawn in once again. Now God has brought about
a miracle of grace that takes in not just those he chose
through Jacob but also the rejected descendants of Esau,
along with everyone else who's outside the people of
Israel. In fact, as he concludes in v29, if it weren't
for the grace of God, even Jacob's descendants would have
perished. So, far from God failing in his promise to
Abraham, God has now brought blessing to both Abraham's
descendants and to all the nations on earth, just as he
promised. |
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In fact, he says, the whole OT picture is one of
Israel being doomed for its unfaithfulness with, in the
end, only a remnant being saved, and that through God's
mercy. |
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Well, this isn't really a good place to stop.
There's much more to be said about the Jews. He goes on
in the next few chapters to think more about the future
hope of the Jews. He concludes that there is hope for
them, but only if they'll turn to Christ as their
Messiah, their Saviour. |
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But before we finish we need to think about what
this has to do with us? Why not stop at the end of ch8
and jump to ch12 as so many preachers seem to do? Let me
suggest that it's important that we look at these
chapters because when Paul approaches the question of
Israel, he's also raising the question of the church. |
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You see, just as Israel was the possessor of
God's promise so now that promise has been passed on to
the church, and the church suffers from all the same
temptations that Israel faced. As members of the church,
particularly as evangelicals we can be tempted to think
that we have it all sewn up. We know what we have
believed and are persuaded that we have it right. But in
the end we can be in the same position as Israel who
thought that because they had the law they were OK.
Rather we need to remind ourselves that we stand under
the judgement of God. That if God dealt with us justly,
we'd be consigned to an eternity outside his presence.
That all our present knowledge of God is like sand that
slips through our fingers before we can properly grasp
hold of it. That our membership of the church even if
it's the best church we can find, will no more save us
than circumcision would have saved Paul. |
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Yet at the same time, the church, like Israel,
is the holder of the truth of the Gospel, even if at
times it's failed to understand that truth. But even in
its failure we see God at work, saving those whom he
chooses. That's because the promise of God doesn't fail
simply because Israel fails or the church fails. No, God
continues to call out those whom he chooses, not because
of any merit of their own, but simply because he chooses
to use them to show his glory. |
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Well we need to stop, so let's think what we've
discovered today. |
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God's promises have not been forgotten. |
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God has the right to choose because he is the
sovereign Lord and Creator. |
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God's motive is love and mercy, and the
demonstration of his glory. |
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So then, as Christians, as the members of a
fallen Church, we, like Paul and the Jews, need to be
aware of our own limitations, our own failings, so that
we turn to God again and again asking him in his mercy to
save us despite our failings, despite our inability to
please him on our own, knowing that his mercy has
guaranteed us a place with him in eternity. |
