God Chooses

Come along with me for a “tour” through Paul’s epistle to the Romans, chapters 9 – 11. This will not be a detailed study of everything that is written. I want to provide an overall understanding of this important section of Scripture – a tour highlighting the main features throughout then arriving at the critical statement that reveals the meaning of the entire passage. Picture it like touring a multi-storied castle.

The heading included in the 1984 New International Version of the Bible at the beginning of chapter 9 is “God’s Sovereign Choice.” (2011 edition has it before verse 6.) Of course Paul did not write that. He didn’t even use chapter and verse designations. But that NIV heading is a fairly good summary of what the passage teaches – the name of this castle we are touring. It’s about God choosing – choosing whom he works with for his purposes and choosing who receives mercy for salvation and inclusion in his Kingdom.

Enter the first floor of the castle: Romans 9:2. Paul expresses his personal “great sorrow and unceasing anguish” because the people of Israel, his people, had rejected their Messiah, even with all God had provided to them (Romans 9:4-5). That was not God’s failure (Romans 9:6). He explains that not all physical descendants of Abraham are the children God promised (Genesis 12:2-3; 15:5; 17:3-8). God chose Isaac not Ishmael, followed by Jacob (renamed Israel) not Esau. It was God’s free choice of whom he used to accomplish the plan he set forth for the “blessing” of the world, a choice that was made by mercy, not by “man’s desire or effort” (Romans 9:14-16).

At Romans 9:19, Paul explains that God is the potter making the vessels he desires for accomplishing his purposes. God can call whomever he chooses, like the Egyptian pharaoh. He includes Gentiles as well as Jews (Romans 9:22-28).

This first floor of the castle (Romans 9:1-28) shows God choosing different people to work with and through in different ways in order to accomplish his purposes. They are not about choosing who is saved and who is not. They show that God can choose anything the way he wants. He is sovereign. He is free and autonomous to make his choices.

In Romans 9:29 (heading up the stairway to the second floor), Paul points out that God’s mercy is essential; anyone not chosen by his mercy faces only destruction like that of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19).

Now on the second floor of the castle, at Romans 9:30, the apostle begins talking about Israel’s response to Jesus (that’s really the subject all the way through chapter 11). While many Gentiles “obtained…a righteousness that is by faith” even though they weren’t seeking it – it was God’s gift – most of the Jews sought to be righteous “not by faith” in Jesus (Romans 9:32). So they did not attain righteousness and so they were not saved.

Romans 10:1-13 explains how anyone becomes righteous: by faith in Jesus the Messiah. That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved (Romans 10:9-10). This is the way of salvation for everyone, Jews and Gentiles (Romans 10:12-13).

Romans 10:14-21 goes on to declare that this is the message, the gospel, that was preached (by the first Christians sent by Jesus). Not all the Jews accepted it (Romans 10:16) when they heard it (Romans 10:18). In words first written by Isaiah (Isaiah 65:2) God says about Israel: “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people” (Romans10:21). For the most part, the Jews were rebellious and stubbornly refused the Messiah whom God sent.

In Romans 11:1 Paul asks if Israel’s failure to believe in her Messiah means that God rejected them? Is that why they didn’t believe? He answers: no way! He offers himself as evidence. Then he points out more evidence, Romans 11:5 – “At the present time (the time when Paul was living and writing) there is a remnant chosen by grace.” There were some Jews who had faith in Jesus and were saved. So no one can say that God rejected the Jews of that time from being saved.

So what was happening in these events of the gospel being preached and the Jews rejecting their own Messiah? Romans 11:7 explains: “What Israel sought so earnestly it did not obtain.” Remember Romans 10:3 – “Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.” What they were earnestly seeking was their own righteousness attained by their own abilities and choices and preferences, not the righteousness God gives through his Son. It may look like God rejected them but in fact they rejected God. What was happening was salvation coming to the Gentiles (Romans 11:11). The early years of the church, the time after the ascension of Jesus, saw a great influx of Gentiles to the Messiah, and eventually the church became more Gentile than Jewish. Paul explains that the Gentiles were like wild olive tree branches being grafted into a domesticated tree (Romans 11:13-21) – they were chosen to come to the Messiah because of God’s mercy; they entered God’s kingdom from the outside because of his kindness. Their righteousness was from God, not themselves. They had no reason to think they were better than the Jews.

In fact, the Jews who did not believe in Jesus, were like branches that had been lopped off that olive tree, and “God is able to graft them in again” (11:23). Then in Romans 11:26 he declares, “And so all Israel will be saved…” A couple things about that statement. First, remember Romans 9:6 – “For not all who are descended from Israel [that’s Jacob] are Israel.” He’s not saying that all the physical descendants of Jacob will be saved. Second, see Romans 11:23 – “And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in…” The Jews who will be saved are those who do not continue to reject Jesus, who put their faith in Jesus of Nazareth as their Messiah, Lord, and Savior.

Now we move to the third floor of the castle we are touring. We are entering the main room of the castle, the reason it was built. Paul writes, Romans 11:30-31: Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience, so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God’s mercy to you.

It is only by God’s mercy that Gentiles (the “you” in verse 30) and Jews (“they”) can be saved. No one can attain their own righteousness that will bring them into God’s Kingdom. God says. “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion” (Romans 9:15). And Romans 9:18, Paul explains, “Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.” God chooses who receives his mercy, and therefore who does not. Just as he chose Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and even Pharaoh to work through in order to accomplish his purposes, he chooses who receives his mercy for salvation.

Now we come to the 32^nd verse of Romans 11. This is the key statement for understanding “God’s sovereign choice.” This is the culmination of chapters 9, 10, and 11. Everything said in those 3 chapters must be interpreted in light of this statement. This is the clear declaration of exactly who God chooses to receive his mercy for salvation. Will it be Gentile, will it be Jew? Will it be me, will it be you? Romans 11:32 – “For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.”

God has bound all people – all Jews and all Gentiles – over to disobedience. The New American Standard version says, “God has shut up all in disobedience…” This is another way of saying Romans 1:28-29 – “Therefore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity.” It’s another way of saying Romans 3:22-23 – “There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…” It’s another way of saying Galatians 3:22 – “But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin…” All are guilty. God sees all people for who we are; he is not biased for or against anyone; his analysis of our condition is perfectly fair to us all. All of us are disobedient. All of us need God’s mercy for salvation.

Then the dazzling, mind-blowing revelation: “so that he may have mercy on them all.” That’s so clear. God sovereignly chooses to have mercy on all people. No one is left out. No one is preferred over any one else – not Jew over Gentile or Gentile over Jew. No one is not chosen. Every person is a recipient of God’s mercy.

Does that mean every person will be saved? Not according to what has already been taught in Romans 2:5 – “But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed.” Some will experience wrathful judgment. So “have mercy on them all” cannot mean universal salvation.

God’s mercy for all is him doing for all people what they cannot do for themselves. It is his action, his work, that no one else could do, which accomplishes the way for salvation that everyone needs. God’s mercy for all IS Jesus dying on the cross and rising from the dead for everyone. 1 John 4:10 – “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” 1 John 2:2 – “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” God has chosen to have mercy and compassion for every person in every place at every time by Jesus taking all our sin upon himself, suffering its consequences in death, and conquering it in resurrection. He invites all of us to faith in Jesus, and it is our choice whether we accept the invitation or not.

Look at it this way. God shuts everyone in a room as the result of everyone being disobedient, rebellious, guilty, and under judgment. There is no escape. No one is able to get themselves out. No one is good enough to be selected to be taken out. There is no exit. We might say that everyone is “predestined” to be in that room because everyone is guilty. Into the room comes Jesus. He is on a cross. Everyone’s guilt gets pulled onto him. He dies. God resurrects him. An exit appears where risen Jesus is. He invites everyone to follow him out: mercy for all. Everyone is “predestined” to have mercy. Each person in the room must choose whether or not to take the exit created by God’s mercy.

God has freely and autonomously chosen to pour out his mercy on everyone.

Now let’s join Paul up in the tower of this castle (Romans 11:33-36):

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!
“Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?”
“Who has ever given to God,
that God should repay them?”
For from him and through him and for him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.