Romans 9, Predestination & Total Depravity

Continuing on into chapter 10, in verses 1-4 Paul is continuing to explain WHY Israel lost their position, why the Potter remade them. If Paul were teaching the position that Reform Theology says he is, this would be the perfect time to say something to the effect that Israel lost their position because they were predestined to do so by God’s immutable sovereign choice. But he never does. He states in verses 3 and 4 that it was because they pursued righteousness by works of the Law instead of by faith. Verses 5-13 reference Deuteronomy 30:11-14. This WHOLE text is CONDITIONAL. Two ways – obedience or disobedience. IF you obey, such-and-so will happen. IF you disobey, such-and-so will happen. Free choice is presupposed here – and also the foreknowledge (NOT predestination) of God is indicated.

 

IMPORTANT NOTE CONCERNING GOD’S FOREKNOWLEDGE: God foreknew what would happen, either way. This indicates that God’s foreknowledge concerns not only what will happen but also what could happen. I infer from this that He foreknows all possible multiple futures. This means His foreknowledge is not causative, since He foreknows things that won’t/don’t happen.

 

My grandfather once told me, after observing me playing outside barefoot, “If you don’t put your shoes on you’ll get stung by a bee.” I ignored his wisdom and continued my play. Sure enough, a few minutes later, a bee stung me. Being a small child, I was awe-struck by my grandfather’s “foreknowledge.” But I never made the illogical jump from “foreknowledge” to, “my grandfather caused that bee to sting me.” His statement was conditional. “IF you don’t put your shoes on…” He “foreknew” what would happen IF. Neither did he force me to put on my shoes. He let me suffer the consequences of my decision to disregard his wisdom. This is how God deals with nations. Well, now that I think about it, my grandfather didn’t reason and plead with me to put my shoes on. He was more taciturn than God is! (End of personal anecdote)

 

Back to Deuteronomy 30. Not so much as a hint that man is unable to obey or choose from his own will. The opposite is explicitly stated. Deut 30:11, “For this commandment I have set before you today is not too difficult for you, nor is it out of reach.” This explicitly states man’s ability to choose God. Paul, in speaking of the righteousness based on faith, reiterates and EMPHASIZES the conditional nature of this in Romans 10:6-8. The righteousness based on faith does NOT say, “Who will ascend into heaven” (that is to bring Christ down) or “Who will descend into the abyss”, (that is to bring Christ up from the dead). [The point being that both things are impossible to do. Calvinists say it is impossible for man to do anything to effect his salvation. Paul says that the righteousness based on faith does NOT speak that way!] But what does it say?” That is, what does the righteousness based on faith say? To answer this question, Paul quotes Deuteronomy 30:14 - “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart.” Romans 10:9ff - “IF you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved…” This is an if/then proposition. IF you believe and confess, THEN you will be saved. He did NOT say, “If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you have been saved…” – which is the Calvinist proposition, that is, regeneration precedes faith. Consider Acts 17:27ff. Paul, speaking to the HEATHEN men of Athens says, “…He made from one every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitations, [SO] THAT they would seek God, IF PERHAPS they MIGHT grope for Him and find Him, though HE IS NOT FAR FROM EACH ONE OF US; [the word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart] for in Him we live and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘for we also are His children.’ (Emphases mine) It’s very difficult to find Calvinist predestination in all this!

 

Verse 11, Paul again quotes Isaiah 28:16, which he did earlier and I have also pointed out that Peter made use of this passage as well. While we’re at it, let’s go there and read it in context. WHY is God speaking against Israel, to uproot it, to pull it down, to destroy it? Immutable sovereign decree in eternity past? No, the SCRIPTURE says in Isaiah 28:15, “BECAUSE you (Israel) have said…” Conditional! And, “WHOEVER believes in Him will not be disappointed.” Back to Romans 10:12,13. “For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him…[who are those who call on Him?]…for WHOEVER WILL call on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Not, “…whoever God wills to call on the name of the Lord…” but, “…whoever will…” The WILL is in the “whoever” – not in God.

 

Starting in verse 14, Paul establishes that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the preaching of those who are sent. He is speaking of the fact that Israel HAS heard but they did not all believe the glad tidings. (Verse 16) In verse 18 he then proposes (rhetorically) that they have never really heard. The implication is that if they never really heard then God is unjust in His rejection of them. Paul’s answer (from Psalm 19:4) is, yes they have all heard. Again in verse 18, he rephrases the question, “…surely Israel did not know, did they?” His answer references Deut 32:21. “I will make you jealous by that which is not a nation, by a nation without understanding I will anger you.” He also references Isaiah 65:1. “I was found by those who sought me not, I became manifest to those who did not ask for me.”

 

We see here that the Gentiles received mercy and compassion by the grace of God without doing anything to deserve it. Paul is being very consistent here. God shows mercy and compassion to whatever nation he chooses, it does not depend on he who wills or runs but on God who has mercy. Jacob, who Paul is using as an allegory of the Gentiles, was prophetically given mercy (which in this context means that the nation that descends from him would bring forth the Christ. It is NOT talking about Jacob’s individual eternal destiny) before he was born, before he had done anything good or bad, even as the Gentiles found God even though they didn’t seek Him. Verse 21 – “But as for Israel He (God) says, “All the day long I have stretched out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people.” Israel, like Esau, forfeited their birthright, that is, God’s mercy and compassion, through obstinacy and disobedience.

 

We also see that, while the Gentiles received mercy without doing anything to deserve it, God had His reasons. He wanted to make Israel jealous and angry (Deut 32:21). This is referenced later in Paul’s argument where he says, “But by their transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make them jealous.” (Rom 11:11)

 

If you go to Deut. 32, which Paul references in verse 19, and read it in context, you will find that verse 19 explicitly tells us WHY God is dealing with Israel as He is. “BECAUSE of the provocation of His sons and daughters.” The whole chapter details the nature of those provocations. Once again, conditional! Hebrews 3:15-19 – “…Do not harden your hearts, as when they provoked Me…” - this is a quote from Psalm 95:8. Read it for yourself and see the conditional nature of it. If you question that it’s conditional, just keep reading Hebrews 3:16-19 - “For who provoked Him when they had heard…and with whom was He angry for forty years? Was it not with THOSE WHO SINNED, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest BUT TO THOSE WHO WERE DISOBEDIENT. So we see that they were not able to enter BECAUSE OF UNBELIEF.” (Emphases mine) The scripture explicitly states the CAUSE (be-cause) as unbelief, NOT the immutable, predetermined, sovereign, monergistic will of God.

 

IMPORTANT NOTE ON GOD’S SOVEREIGNTy: According to Hebrews 3 (given above), man has the power to provoke God – to make God angry! That implies that man can do things that God doesn’t want him to do, in other words, men make choices and things happen that are NOT, REPEAT: NOT God’s will. This is illustrated scripturally by these few random examples out of many:

 

1) Jesus when he taught us to pray, “…thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven…” If God’s will is already being done on earth, why pray that it would be? Jesus taught us to pray AS IF God’s will was NOT being done on earth.

 

2) In I Kings 20:42 it says, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Because you have let go out of your hand the man I had devoted to destruction, therefore your life shall go for his life, and your people for his people.’” So we see that God’s will was thwarted by man’s decisions and behavior and that God’s destiny for a man was changed.

 

3) The same principle is illustrated concerning a nation (Aram) in II Kings 13:19. The destiny of Aram hinged on how many times Joash struck the ground. Elisha was angry that he only struck 3 times instead of 5 or 6. Apparently God wanted Aram destroyed, at least Elisha did, but Joash’s action ensured Aram’s survival.

 

4) Luke 7:30 says, “But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected God’s purpose for themselves, not having been baptized by John.” God had a purpose for the Pharisees and lawyers. God’s purpose for them was NOT what they wound up doing. It was a good purpose, but they rejected it, and so God’s purpose for them never came to pass.

 

5) I Sam 2:30: “…the God of Israel declares, ‘I promised that your house and the house of your father should go in and out before Me forever’; but now the Lord declares; ‘Far be it from Me; for those who honor Me I will honor, and those who despise Me shall be lightly esteemed.’” The Lord then goes on to negate His original promise by promising the exact opposite. Is this because the Lord is arbitrary in His promises? No, it’s because God’s relationship with man in general is conditional, and depends on man’s behavior.

 

If we follow Paul’s lead and dig into the context of Isaiah 65:2ff, we will see that the NATION of Israel is “…following their OWN thoughts…” NOT the predetermined thoughts that an absolutely sovereign God has decreed for them. They continually “provoke” God. WHY is God going to repay? What does the SCRIPTURE say? Verse 7, “BECAUSE they have burned incense on the mountains and scorned Me on the hills…” Verse 12, “…you did evil in my sight and chose that in which I did not delight.” Conditional! Every single OT reference is NATIONAL and CONDITIONAL.

 

Why would Paul be SO concerned about establishing the idea that Israel stumbled BECAUSE of unbelief and obstinacy and disobedience (WHICH IS WHAT THE OT SCRIPTURES HE REFERS TO ESTABLISH) if God’s hardening and wrath is something that has been established in eternity past before anything good or bad has been done? Wouldn’t it be easier to just say, “Israel rejected Christ because that is what God predetermined them to do” and then give OT scriptures that illustrate THAT? But he doesn’t do that, does he? Instead, he goes to great lengths to establish that Israel’s “hardening” is the result of their actions, not God’s predetermined purpose. There are more “comparisons” given in Romans 9, 10 and 11 than any other text I can think of and all the “comparisons” militate AGAINST the Reformed concept of individual double predestination.

 

God’s mercy and compassion, on the other hand, is given not to the nation who wills or runs but to whom God graciously shows mercy, i.e. Jacob and Isaac, who are allegories of the Gentiles. It is consequently retained by obedience. Obedience is man’s responsibility, not God’s, and man is capable of obedience, which is to believe in Christ. All other obedience follows from that. God’s mercy and compassion are not immutable, (Rom 11:22) and, once received, can be lost. Case in point, Ishmael/Esau/Israel. Another case in point, Jeremiah 18.

 

In ALL the OT scriptures that Paul gives here in chapter 10, there is no hint of sovereign, immutable, predeterministic decrees made in eternity past. The most that can be implied from some of them is that God has foreknowledge – but God’s foreknowledge is not causative - it’s passive, not active, because God foreknows things that don’t happen. Concerning His mercy, which is given to that nation that God sovereignly and graciously chooses - there is no hint of immutable decrees made in eternity past. There are, however, explicitly conditional decrees, that are pronounced at specific times. In the case of God’s mercy to Israel, Israel was chosen because of Abraham’s obedience (Gen 26:4,5). In the case of the Gentiles, they received mercy because Israel forfeited the mercy given to her through disobedience and so it was given to another. Concerning God’s wrath, the contexts of all the scriptures Paul uses give specific reasons for God’s hardening or judgments or discipline or whatever you want to call it. Those explicit, specific reasons that the scriptures give all originate with man, not with God. God’s hardening is based on how man reacts to God’s decrees. It has been that way from man’s beginning in the garden. All of chapter 10, both Paul’s reasoning as well as the OT contexts he references, is ENTIRELY and explicitly consistent with my exegesis of chapter 9. No problems whatsoever.

 

NEXT: Romans 11 - My Understanding