God's Sovereignty and Man's Response-ability in Salvation - Part Two

The Summit of Our Salvation

Allen Snapp

Grace Community Church

Nov. 17, 2024

God’s Sovereignty and Man’s Response-ability in Salvation Part Two

Rom. 9. The average swimmer probably never dives deeper than 15 or 20 feet deep but free-divers with nothing but a breath and a line to hold onto, are able to dive as deep as 600 feet deep.

There is no way to look at Romans 9 without diving pretty deep into theology. These are verses that are difficult to understand. But let’s grab the line of God’s word and go a bit deeper than we normally go.

Paul is anguishing over his Jewish brethren’s rejection of Jesus as Messiah and he anticipates a question his readers might ask: if the Jews - who had all the advantages of the covenants, the law, the patriarchs, and the lineage from whom the Savior came – have rejected Jesus, did God’s word fail? Paul says no:

⁶ But it is not as though the word of God has failed. Vs 6

He goes on to say not all who were born of Abraham are Abraham’s spiritual children. Ishmael represented what man could do, Isaac represented the promise of what God could do. Esau despised God’s blessing, Jacob pursued God’s blessing (though in the wrong way). These examples are given to show that God’s purpose in election (choosing) stands.

God is sovereign in our salvation. The name Jesus means God is our salvation. God chose Jacob over Esau before either of them had been born, not because of anything good or bad they had done. God has mercy on whom He has mercy, not based on our good works or character or any special attribute. We are saved by grace through faith, not of works lest anyone should boast.

But in verse 14, Paul anticipates another question from his readers: if God chose Jacob and not Esau, Isaac and not Ishmael, is God unjust? Is God arbitrary in who He chooses?

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. 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. Rom. 9:14-18

Paul is quoting this from Exodus 33 when Moses asked Yahweh to show him His glory. As the Lord passed by showing Moses His goodness, God spoke these words: I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. God’s mercy and compassion is inextricably linked to His goodness and glory. But God isn’t obligated to show mercy. It depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy. We have no claim on God’s mercy, we can’t earn God’s mercy by social status or good works. God is free to show mercy where He will…and withhold mercy where He wants to.

Then Paul goes to the opposite of mercy: God raised Pharoah up to show His power and glorify His name in all the earth by destroying Pharoah and his armies. But what does it mean that God hardened Pharoah’s heart?

It doesn’t mean that Pharoah was a soft-hearted guy who left to himself would have let the Israelites go into the desert to worship God but God decided to harden his heart so He could show His power. The first glimpse we see of Pharoah’s heart is in Exodus 3

But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand. Exodus 3:19 

God says He knows the Pharoah won’t let them go unless He compels him. Pharoah’s heart was already hardened against the Jews. God didn’t change the direction of Pharoah’s heart from soft to hard, Pharoah’s heart was already hard, God simply hardened Pharoah’s resolve to go a little further in the direction he was already inclined to go in, so that God might glorify His name through His miracles on behalf of His people.

As we read through Exodus we find verses that say Pharoah hardened his heart and other verses that say the Lord hardened his heart. God is sovereign and not obligated to show mercy to anyone but He loves to show mercy and compassion to those who need it and want it, but those who harden their hearts against Him will glorify Him through their hardness and the destruction it inevitably leads to.

Let’s remind ourselves Paul’s point is God’s commitment to His elect, His people. As stubborn and rebellious as Israel was, God was ready to show them mercy and have compassion on them over and over. He won’t allow His people to be destroyed or oppressed by their enemies. His word never fails.

¹⁹ You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” 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? 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— ²⁴ even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? Romans 9:19-24

This might be the most difficult passage of them all. We are clay, God is the potter. We can’t say to God, “why’d you make me like this? It’s your fault I am the way I am God!” At a quick glance we might think it’s saying that God forms some for glory and some for destruction and that’s just the way it is. We have no say and no right to question it.

That is determinism – our fate is determined by God and we have no say in it. If God formed you for destruction there’s nothing you can do about it, you are “predestined” for destruction no matter what you do. But that’s not what this passage is saying.

In the illustration of the Potter, Paul isn’t giving the Jews a fatalistic pronouncement that God fashioned them for destruction and there’s nothing they can do about it. He’s drawing the Potter illustration from Jeremiah 18 and God’s word (warning) to Israel. Let’s read it:

18 This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: ² “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.” ³ So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. ⁴ But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.

⁵ Then the word of the Lord came to me. ⁶ He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the Lord. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel. ⁷ If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, ⁸ and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. ⁹ And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, ¹⁰ and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it.

¹¹ “Now therefore say to the people of Judah and those living in Jerusalem, ‘This is what the Lord says: Look! I am preparing a disaster for you and devising a plan against you. So turn from your evil ways, each one of you, and reform your ways and your actions.’ Jer. 18:1-11

The call isn’t to despair, it’s to repent! Change your ways! If you do, God says, I will relent of the destruction I had planned for you. And if a nation that I planned to bless does evil, I will also reconsider the good I had planned for it.

Notice that Paul differentiates between the vessels of glory and the vessels of destruction:

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— ²⁴ even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? 

Clearly God has prepared the clay vessels for glory, but it doesn’t say He prepared the vessels of wrath, but that He has endured them with much patience. He endures in order to give them time to repent and change their ways. Tim Keller writes:

God alone prepares any person for spiritual glory, but we alone prepare ourselves for spiritual destruction. ~ Tim Keller

Paul isn’t resigned, he is giving his life to call Jews and Gentiles to faith in Christ. God’s mercy isn’t arbitrary, it’s available to anyone who will call upon the Lord in faith. The repentance Paul is calling Israel (and us) to isn’t to be righteous by doing good works, but to be righteous by faith in Christ.

What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith; ³¹ but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness^[d] did not succeed in reaching that law. ³² Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, ³³ as it is written, “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” Rom. 9:30-33

God is sovereign over all and over our salvation. We were chosen before the foundation of the world, Eph. 1 says. Not based on any good we did or any good in our character or status in any way. But I find myself becoming convinced that when it comes to our response-ability (ability to respond) in salvation it is to respond with faith. I don’t believe we can do that apart from God’s giving us the gift of faith, but I have come to believe that we can respond to God’s gift of faith by receiving it or refusing it.

The one big objection to this that I’ve read and used to believe myself, is that if one person responds with faith to the gospel and another refuses the gospel, then there is something better in the person who responds with faith than the person who refuses salvation, and therefore we’re back to salvation being works related. If I responded to God’s call with faith and you didn’t, doesn’t that mean there’s something better in me (works righteousness) than in you?

It was Romans 3 that convinced me this is an unbiblical argument.

²¹ But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— ²² the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe…²⁷ Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. ²⁸ For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Rom. 3:21-22, 27-28

Our righteousness is the righteousness of God through faith in Christ and Paul asks, what becomes of our boasting? What do we have to brag about then? Nothing. Boasting is excluded by the law of faith. A law of works leaves us with something to boast about but Paul clearly says the law of faith excludes boasting. Faith isn’t a merit. It isn’t a quality we can brag about. Faith doesn’t say something about us, it says something about God. About Jesus.

If someone said to you, “what a beautiful sunset!” you wouldn’t say, “thank you” would you? You have nothing to do with the beauty of the sunset. If you responded, “it’s breathtaking” they wouldn’t say, “oh now you’re just bragging” would they? We have nothing to do with the sunset, but we can enjoy it and be ravished by its glory.

I believe it’s the same with responding to the gospel with faith. Responding to the gospel with faith isn’t a merit in us, it’s not a boast-able quality, it’s an acknowledgement that we are poor and needy and have no means of saving ourselves. Jesus, I need you! Jesus I believe in you! Jesus have mercy on me, a sinner! Faith excludes boasting.

No one brags about needing mercy. Beggars don’t brag about begging. But we do brag about the One who shows mercy when we ask. Who feeds us and clothes us and adopts us into His family based on nothing that we have done but only on what Christ has done.

I see faith at the center of every declaration of the gospel – and we are called to choose to believe. And we are commissioned to call others to believe. We can’t do it without God’s moving on our hearts and God opening our eyes to believe, but we do have the response-ability – the ability to respond – with faith.

Let’s pray. God is working on each of our hearts. If you’re a believer, He’s calling you to trust Him with your life. To obey Him and do His will, not to be His child but because you’re His child.

If you’re not a believer, God in His mercy is reaching out to you with the good news of His Son. Believe in him today! Receive him as your Savior. Trust in his death on the cross to have paid for your sins and to have power to reconcile you to God as your Father and friend.