Transcript

Recently, a young Orthodox friend of mine found herself in a debate with a Calvinist. She
enlisted my help in responding to a passage of Scripture to which those of the Reformed
persuasion commonly turn to defend the doctrine of unconditional election, that is, that
God sovereignly decides before He creates the world which human beings he will save
and which he will not. The passage is Romans 9:14-21.
What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not. For he says to
Moses, I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on
whomever I will have compassion. So then, it is not of him who wills, nor of him who
runs, but of God who shows mercy. For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, for this very
purpose I have raised you up, that I may show my power in you and that my name may
be declared in all the earth. Therefore, he has mercy on whom he wills and whom he
wills, he hardens. You will say to me then, why does he still find fault, for who has
resisted his will? But indeed, oh man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing
formed say to him who formed it, why have you made me like this? Does not the potter
have power over the clay from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another
for dishonor?
For many folks, those words undeniably prove that God predestines that some receive
saving grace and the rest reap retribution. He even, in fact - some poor souls like Pharaoh
with a particularly vehement and stubborn hatred toward him so that he might drown
them in his wrath and thereby manifest his complete domination over all flesh. For what
God ultimately wants from us human beings is that we acknowledge with utter
resignation that his power over our destinies is absolute.
On the face of it, one might construe these verses to imply such notions. It makes a good
proof text if one assumes that what the apostle is presenting here is a teaching on
unconditional election, but theres the rub, as Shakespeare would say. To assert these
verses as a proof for predestination commits two cardinal sins of biblical interpretation:
taking a passage out of context and failing to understand the verses in the comprehensive
light of the Scriptures.
Id like to spend the next couple of podcasts looking at these verses within the content
and framework of the whole chapter and within the overall teaching of the epistle to the
Romans. When we do that, we see that St. Pauls words here do not serve as evidence for
a doctrine of unconditional election. To establish the context of the passage in question,
lets look at the first verses of chapter 9.
I tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience also bearing me witness in the
Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart. For I could wish that
I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen according to the
flesh, who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the
giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises; of whom are the fathers and from

whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God.
Amen.
Thats Romans 9:1-5. What is on St. Pauls mind as he pens this chapter? To accurately
follow the apostles train of thought, we must discern that, and clearly, his concern is the
spiritual state of his countrymen according to the flesh: the nation of Israel. Israel was the
chosen people of God. They had been adopted by God, crowned with his glory, honored
and blessed by his covenants. Now, they had rejected the Christ whose coming into the
world was the reason for their existence. The question St. Paul is pondering here is: how
could those whom God had prepared to receive his Son fail to embrace him? Did that
failure make Israels unique calling, its election, if you will, meaningless, purposeless,
and empty? The apostles answer is no. He continues:
But it is not that the word of God has taken no effect. For they are not all Israel who are
of Israel, nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham; but, In Isaac
your seed shall be called. That is, those who are the children of the flesh, these are not
the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted as the seed. For this is
the word of promise: At this time I will come and Sarah shall have a son. (Romans
9:6-9)
St. Paul concludes that Israels failure as a people to accept the Christ did not imply that
God had made a mistake in choosing them nor did it mean that Gods gifts to them were a
sham. His singular blessings to Israel had not been devalued by its inability as a nation to
prove worthy of them. Why? Because St. Paul says they are not all Israel who are
Israel. Or perhaps, it would be better to say that there are really two Israels. On the one
hand, there is the Israel of the flesh, those who are merely the physical progeny of
Abraham, Israelites in a purely ethnic sense, but according to St. Paul, these are not these
chosen nation of God. Only those who are children of the promise can claim to be the
true Israel. What is the promise of which the apostle speaks? It is the assurance of
reconciliation with God. It is the promise of oneness with the divine, of direct
participation in the life of God. This is the joy Abraham sought. It was the living hope of
Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, and the prophets. Through the legacy of Israel that hope
came to life in the incarnate son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
But how is the promise fulfilled? How do we receive the gift? St. Pauls point here in the
beginning of the chapter is that the promise has nothing to do with ones genetic identity.
Ethnic heritage is not, and never was, the basis for Gods gift of redemption, not even in
the case of the chosen people of Israel. So, what made some of the Hebrews Israel of the
flesh and others Israel of the promise? Was it some arbitrary pre-eternal, predestining
choice of God? Weve begun to establish the context of this passage, but to answer this
question, we now must apply ourselves to the second rule I mentioned. Rather than
interpret this text in a vacuum or through the eyes of doctrinal presuppositions, we must
let the rest of the Scriptures illuminate.
As the word of the invariable God, the Bible is an invariable, unified whole. One cannot
embrace the texts that say what one wishes them to say and ignore the ones that

contradict ones favorite interpretation. There is only one truth in the Scriptures, and it
cannot be understood by pitting texts against each other. They must be allowed to speak
together. So, when it comes to how one becomes a child of the promise, what does the
Bible say? John 1:11-12 tell us that Christ came to His own, and His own did not receive
Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God,
to those who believe in His name. In Ephesians 1:13, the Apostle Paul declares In Him
you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom
also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.
Listen to the verbs in those two short passages. In both cases, what God does is
conditional upon what we do. To those who make the decision to receive him, St. John
says, Christ consequently gives the right to become children of God. St. Paul tells us that
those who believe and trust are consequently sealed with the Spirit. Heres the problem. If
salvation and damnation are predestined by God, then what both of those passages say
must be false. To put it in logical terms, both the apostles have their antecedents and
consequence mixed up. To be logically consistent with the doctrine of predestination,
these passages would have to be restated. St. John would have to say those to whom
Christ gave the right to become children of God were consequently able to receive him.
St. Paul would have to assert that those who were sealed with the Spirit, consequently,
trusted and believed in Christ. In fact, if salvation is predestined then concepts like
receive, trust, and believe lose all import. For all the weight that St. John and St. Paul put
on them in the texts we just read, these acts on our part actually play no role in procuring
our salvation. At best, they describe illusions within the human mind. Why would the
apostles foster such fictions? Why wouldnt they say what they mean?
Now, one who holds to predestination may argue that what God predestines is the
granting of the grace to believe, receive, and trust. Before the foundation of the world, he
sovereignly determines the ones he will provide with the power to choose him. The rest
of humanity will not be granted the capacity to exercise that choice. But if this is the case,
then the passage we just read from St. Johns gospel makes no sense. The apostle says
that Christ came to his own, meaning the people of Israel. As a people, they were the
elect of God. Just as St. Paul told us, the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of
the law, and the service of God belonged to every Israelite. So did Gods promises of
salvation. And yet, St. John tells us the experience of that salvation was achieved only by
those who decided to believe in Christ and receive him. Try to follow this carefully you
see. When taken together with what St. Paul tells us about the election of the Israelites in
Romans 9, St. Johns words here suggest something very disconcerting about God if we
take the doctrine of predestination to be true. For St. Paul says that Gods promise of
salvation belonged to all of Israel, including the ones who had become accursed, as he
puts it, for their rejection of Christ (Romans 9:3-5).
Now, consider. If the promise of salvation belonged to all the Israelites, including those
who rejected Christ, and if those who chose to receive him, or at least imagined they were
choosing to receive him, were only able to do so because God had foreordained it, then
we must conclude that God never intended to keep the promises he made to all the rest of
the Israelites, that is those who didnt receive Christ. Is our God one who makes promises

he has no intention of keeping? Is his character such that he would make a pledge to
someone even as he works within that individual to ensure that he or she will never be
able to reap the rewards of that pledge? That doesnt sound like unconditional, otherdirected love, and it certainly doesnt sound like mercy. But then, from the perspective of
predestination, Gods need to manifest his sovereignty is more fundamental to his nature
than either other-directed love or mercy.
Lets sum up where weve come so far in Romans 9. Weve been trying to view St. Pauls
teachings here in context and in the light of other passages of Scripture. So far, this has
yielded two observations. One, that neither ethnic heritage nor the possession of Gods
special favor is enough to ensure ones salvation, and two, that salvation comes to us by
right of a choice we make, the choice to believe in Christ, trust him, and receive his gift
of redemption. For when we consider the teaching of Scripture as a whole, the proposal
that our salvation or damnation is predetermined by God cannot be consistently upheld.
Of course, we have not yet come to the most potent verses of Romans 9 when it comes to
supporting unconditional election. There is the matter of God hardening Pharaohs heart.
Theres also Gods declaration that Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated. How can
we read these verses without admitting some sort of divine predestination? Next time,
well examine these difficult verses in context and in the comprehensive light of
Scripture.