Hardening, the Potter, and the
Stumbling Stone
Romans 9:20-33
We’re in Romans
9 where God is dealing with His plan for Israel. The most important thing to
understand here, as I explained last time, is context. Context, context,
context. The context so far is God dealing with a nation, with a corporate
entity of Israel, God’s plan for Israel. The reason I stress that is because
just today as I’ve been reading through some additional commentaries, I’m
reading through one by a Dallas Seminary professor who’s younger than me. He’s
a guy who has a reputation as being a free grace guy but I’ve had some problems
with some things he’s written in his commentary on Romans and I disagree here.
He quotes
several commentators, Cranfield, Leon Morris, and two or three others who are
reform but recognize that Romans 9:12 is not dealing with individuals at all.
It’s dealing with corporate entities. Then he disagrees with them, as many
scholars do, by saying, “Well when you start getting down into chapter 9, how
can you talk about God’s grace and mercy to a corporate entity because they’re
made up of individuals so it’s got to apply to both?” The fuzzy thinking that
goes with that is that God deals with Israel as a corporate entity, even though
there are many individuals within that corporate entity that go a different
way. And he always does that so there’s an individual plan of salvation and
justification for individuals within Israel and then there is God’s plan for
the national entity, the ethnic Israel. That’s the important distinction.
The only time
we’re dealing with individual, personal salvation in Romans is when Paul uses
the term “justification”. When the Paul uses the term “salvation” in Romans
9:11 he’s not talking about individual personal salvation or personal
justification. He’s talking about the deliverance of Israel corporately because
they came under divine judgment in A.D. 70 and in terms of God’s future plan, there has to be
a restoration to the land when the kingdom is set up. That’s what we’re talking
about here. That God has not forgone, forgotten his promises to Israel: that He
is still going to fulfill the promises He made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
David, Daniel, Jeremiah, all the way through. So what’s he’s illustrating here
is not personal. It’s not personal salvation or decision-making, it is national
entities and God’s sovereignty over the direction of history.
So as we went through
this we saw from Moses that was exactly what was happening and the quote we
looked at there in verse 15 which came from Exodus 33:19. The conclusion was
that God said to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy…” The
context had nothing to do with justification. It has to do with how God is
choosing to demonstrate His mercy upon nations in terms of God’s plan. And that
He has chosen to show additional mercy to Moses which He did not show to all of
the Israelites.
On the other
hand He’s going to also show a measure of what is called “hardening”. This is
not a good translation but it refers to God’s judgment on Pharaoh. It’s really
upon the nation of Egypt and God’s plan for Egypt. It’s not this choice of who
God will bless as a nation in terms of His choice of Israel versus His not
choosing for special blessings other nations. It’s a matter of God’s will, not
human will or human ideas as in verse 16, “It’s not of him who wills…”
Moses had a
different plan. He argued, “God You need to do this with the Israelites. You
need to walk with them and be close to them as in the original plan.” God said,
“No, we’re going to Plan B. You don’t understand all the issues and My justice
and righteousness.” So, “It’s not of him who wills or him who runs but of God
who shows mercy.” God is God and as the Sovereign creator has the right to
oversee human history. In doing so God has also determined that man will have
his own volition.
Now there’s a
great illustration of this that is difficult for people to understand. It’s not
an illustration of this that’s easy. It’s not one you and I can fully
comprehend but you and I can understand it. Every time we talk about
inspiration we are thinking about this. How does God inspire the Scripture? God
so superintends the writers of scripture that without violating their
individual personality, writing styles, background, or culture, God guarantees
that they write what He wants them to write but it’s written from their personality.
It’s not dictation. If it was just God’s sovereignty saying what He wanted
written then God would dictate it to them; but it’s not.
Peter and Paul
and John all write very, very differently. The writer of Hebrews uses a very
high form of Greek whereas Peter’s is a little more rudimentary. John’s is very
simple. Paul’s is much more complex but this shows that their individual
volition and personality style, all those different factors are not overridden
by God. He is using that so that is God, as a sovereign, causing things to
happen in history. I tried to explain this at the end last time, that’s cause
and effect. We think of cause and effect only in terms of our frame of
reference within creation. But this is God outside of creation causing things
in such a way that it doesn’t violate individual volition and responsibility.
We can’t comprehend that. We don’t have a frame of reference for Creator
causation. We only have a frame of reference for creaturely causation and so we
have to understand that God’s ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not
our thoughts. There’s an analogy. That’s why our knowledge of God is referred
to as analogical. It is not univocal. Univocal means one and the same. It’s not
identical so we always have to understand that.
Now the next
illustration that God used from Exodus had to do with Moses. In Exodus 7:3, it
says, “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart.” Everyone goes, “Oh no, God violated
Pharaoh’s volition.” Well if we think about it logically, if God violated his
volition, then how can Pharaoh be held accountable for the decisions he makes?
And as I pointed out last time, even within the text God is pointing out that
Pharaoh made those decisions on his own, apart from God.
The problem
that we have is this word that English translators have chosen to use, “hardening”.
It makes it sound as if God just reaches down and says, “There. I’m pushing you
on negative volition and I’m going to make you stay there and be hostile and
you don’t have anything to say about it.” But this word, especially the primary
word that’s used to translate it is chzq. It’s not translated that way anywhere
else in the Old Testament and that’s significant. I’ll show you some other
examples for that.
And another way
in which one of the other words is translated is stubborn. It’s this idea of
strengthening the will. So the first thing we have to understand is that
there’s this dynamic. We went to Romans 1, which is where you have to start. It
says that at the point of God-consciousness every Egyptian including the
Pharaoh understood that God existed. They understood from general revelation
that God existed and they went, “No, I’d rather worship Ra, Eptah, and all the
other deities in our pantheon and I’m going to substitute these creaturely
inventions for God rather than try to find out about the true Creator God.” So
they start on negative volition and they’ve made that decision. They continued
down that track for 20, 30, 40, 60, 70, 80 years and then along comes Moses and
God is working out His purposes in history.
So God, instead
of tweaking their volition, it’s already there. God is strengthening it. Some
people say, “Well I don’t understand how that works.” Well, I don’t think
there’s one of us who hasn’t said, “Lord, I really need to be stronger. I need
to make this decision and I want you to just strengthen my will. Enable me to
do this.” The Holy Spirit enables us and He influences us but He never
overrides our volition. He strengthens us and there are scriptures that use
similar terminology but it’s in a positive direction so everybody says that’s
okay. See when you’re positive you just want God to help you maintain that
positive volition and to strengthen you through the Holy Spirit.
Pharaoh’s the
flip side. He’s negative and God is just helping him to stay negative to carry
it out to the end result. This doesn’t have to do with his salvation. It has to
do with the full demonstration of the might and the power of the throne of
heaven over Egypt and Egyptian religion so that it will be clear to the
Israelites and clear to the Egyptians and clear to the whole world that God is
the one who has miraculously delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.
What happens in
Romans 1 is we get this foundational understanding about religion. Romans 1:21
says, “Although they knew God they did not glorify Him as God nor were they
thankful but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart
was darkened.” I want you to notice that their foolish heart “was darkened” is
a passive voice. It doesn’t mean that God darkened their heart. It means that
as a result of their negative volition to God their souls, their minds, their
mentality became dark. They shut out the light of revelation so when we have
these passive forms like “Pharaoh’s heart was hardened” where God’s not even in
the passage, it doesn’t mean that God is the one performing the action of
hardening. That’s expressing the result of Pharaoh’s own negative volition
already.
What they did
is standard in paganism. They exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for
an image in the form of corruptible man.” So God does what? He gives them over
which is, He sort of takes them, using a small engine metaphor, He takes the
governor off so that if you want to go in that direction, He takes the
restraints off and you’re going to be able to go that way fast and furiously so
that My purposes will be taken care of. You’ve made the decision, not God. So
in Romans 9:17 we read, “For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, ‘For this very
purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might
be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.’ ” This is God’s purpose in taking
and pushing Pharaoh to the limits of his own volition. It’s a quote from Exodus
9:16 as I pointed out last week. Now God had announced this to Moses long before
it ever says anything about God hardening Pharaoh’s heart. In Exodus 3:19,”But
I know that the king of Egypt will not permit you to go, except under
compulsion.” This is the role of God’s omniscience. It’s not just His will. The
problem with Calvinism and the deterministic, fatalistic flaw in Calvinism is
that they look at this and say, “See it’s all God’s will.” They exclude His
omniscience but 1 Peter 1:2 says that we are predestined according to
foreknowledge. Foreknowledge precedes God’s choice of destiny there. All that’s
review.
Get your mind
back into that hard grind where we were last time. Of the three words that are
used in the Hebrew that are translated “hardened” or express that concept, the
most important is chzq and is usually translated to be strong or to strengthen, to
prevail, or to harden only in these contexts in Exodus. Now the conclusion, as
we saw last time, is that God has mercy on whom He wills. This is not a blanket
statement that every act of God’s mercy is based on His sovereign will in terms
of justification or in terms of sanctification. This has to do with the context
of what God is doing with the destiny of Egypt and the destiny of Israel as a
nation. Now the New Testament word that is translated here is skleruno, which means to
harden or to make stubborn. It’s only used a couple of times and it has
basically that idea of just intensifying something in its current state.
Now we’re going
to get into some new material. I want you to look at this word chzq where it’s
not used as hardened. I think if we think about how it’s used in these other
passages, it gives us an understanding that this is not a word about overriding
someone’s volition. In Isaiah 35:3 and 4, God says, “Encourage the exhausted,
and strengthen the feeble. Say to those with anxious heart, ‘Take courage; fear
not. Behold your God will come with vengeance. The recompense of God will come
but He will save you.’ ” Encourage in this verse is parallel to
strengthen, which is chzq.
So what does chzq mean in
this passage? It is a synonym for encourage. The “anxious heart” in the verse
is someone who is given over to worry. That describes the person who is
exhausted and feeble. The idea in this verse of strengthening those who are
exhausted is to “take courage”. It doesn’t mean that their will or volition is
being overridden. Isaiah 41:7 is talking about an analogy here with a
craftsman. It says, “So the craftsman encourages the smelter.” That’s chzq. The
craftsman isn’t taking over the will and volition of the one who’s doing the
smelting. There’s a parallel in the next line. “And he who smooths metal with
the hammer encourages him who beats the anvil.” The verb is not there a second
time. It’s assumed from the first line. It’s probably in italics in your translation.
So the craftsman encourages the smelter and he who smooths metal with the
hammer encourages him who beats the anvil. So again you don’t see this idea of
God or one person overriding the volition of another. It’s strengthening them.
Ezekiel 13:22
is a condemnation of apostate Israel in a time of going out under the 5th
cycle of discipline in 586 B.C. It says,
“Because you disheartened the righteous with falsehood when I did not cause him
grief but have encouraged the wicked to turn from his wicked way and preserve
his life.” This is what God was doing, encouraging the wicked to turn from
their wicked way and preserve life. It’s not a sense of overriding their
volition and forcing them to go in another direction.
Ezekiel 22:14,
“Can your heart endure or can you be strong in the days that I will deal with
you? I, the Lord, have spoken and will scatter you…” There’s that idea of being
strong. Ezekiel 30: 24, 25 is about the idea of strengthening. Here’s this big
battle between Nebuchadnezzar and Pharaoh Necho at Carchemish in 605. God says,
“I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon and put My
sword in his hand, and I will break the arms of Pharaoh so that he will groan
before him with the groanings of a wounded man.” God is
going to intervene in the battle so that Pharaoh Necho loses and Nebuchadnezzar
wins. Anyone have a problem with that? God has the right to do that. He’s not
violating their volition. He’s directing the course of history. Haggai 2:4,
“But now, take courage Zerubbabel, declares the Lord, take courage also Joshua,
the son of Jehozadak, the high priest and all you people of the land take
courage, declares the Lord and work for I am with you.” Again, it’s that idea
of strengthening their will to complete the task.
Now I saved the
best for last. This is four verses from Daniel 10 and this has the closest
parallel. Daniel is getting a vision. He is being visited by an angel and he
says in verse16, “And behold, one who resembled a human being was touching my
lips; then I opened my mouth and spoke and said to him who was standing before
me, ‘O my lord, as a result of the vision anguish has come upon me and I have
retained no strength. For how can such a servant of my Lord talk with such as
my Lord? As for me there remains just now no strength in me nor has any breath
been left in me.’”
Daniel is
saying, “I’m just speechless. I’m overcome and overwhelmed. I cannot deal with
what I’ve just been shown.” Verse 18, “Then this one with human appearance
touched me again and strengthened me.” It’s the same verb in the same piel
stem. It doesn’t mean he touched me and hardened me! That wouldn’t even make
sense. This isn’t about overriding someone’s will. It’s about strengthening
someone and encouraging them in the same way we pray that God would strengthen
us so we do the right thing at the right time. It’s sort of like being on
performance enhancing drugs. It gives you a little more ability. You’ve already
made a choice to go in one direction. That may not be the best illustration but
it’s one that came to mind.
Job 4:3,
“Behold you have admonished many, and you have strengthened weak hands.” We are
weak and God strengthens us. This isn’t a violation of volition. All right. I
hope that brings you a little more clarity to what that word group means and
how it’s translated. It’s not talking about overriding someone’s volition but
simply enhancing it to accomplish what they want to do already so God can use
that for a greater and higher purpose. Now it’s going to become clearer as we
continue that the whole context here is still dealing with nations and not
individuals.
Let’s go back
to Romans 9. This is where we’re going to get into that wonderful little
illustration related to the potters’ wheel. Those of you going to take the
Bible Study Methods class, this is one of those great examples of people who
can read something and not see what they’re reading. We read into things we
read what we’ve been told are there. We don’t even take the time and see that
it’s not there. We’ve just heard so many say that’s what it’s talking about for
so long that we just look at it that way. That’s one of the tough things with
Bible study methods.
I’ve talked to
other guys who come out of strong teaching churches and went through Dallas
Seminary. We had Bible Study Methods our first year and we had to take our
blinders off and think what does this text really say, not what have I been
told is there? We had to ask, what am I reading here? What do I see? It’s a
great lesson for anyone who likes Sherlock Holmes. What is the Bible actually
saying? Not what I’ve been told is there but what’s there and what’s not there?
The second
question that the objector comes up with in Romans 9:19 is where Paul puts
these words in the mouth of the objector and says, “You will say to me then,
‘Why does He still find fault?’” How can God find fault if He’s running
history? So even though He is running history, He doesn’t override individual
volition but Paul’s going to take the answer to another level. In one sense
he’s answering the objector like God answered Job. “I’m not going to answer it
because number one, I can’t understand it. Number two, if I were capable of
explaining it, you’re not capable of understanding it.” That’s just about what
God said to Job when Job asked why he had to suffer like he did. God told him
that he’d just have to trust him because he couldn’t understand it if God told
him. It’s beyond our comprehension.
So the
answer in verse 20 is a very strong answer, “On the contrary, who are you, O
man, who answers back to God?” Who are you to reply against God in your
limited, finite brain to ask God to justify how he’s ruling the universe
because you don’t even have a clue in relation to the vast amount of knowledge
that goes into God’s omniscience that leads to all the decisions that He makes
in His providential care of creation. Paul uses an illustration from the potter
that he gets out of Jeremiah. It’s really important to look at the context of
these quotes. Paul says, “The thing molded will not say to the molder, ‘Why did
you make me like this, will it?’’
Now this quote
comes out of Jeremiah 18. There are numerous passages in the scripture that
uses this potter metaphor when talking about the creature and the creator. Now
here’s the question. If you just had Romans 9:20 in front of you, would you say
that he’s talking about an individual or a national entity? It’s real easy if
you’re preset this way to think he’s talking about individuals. A vast number
of people read it that way. Paul then says, “Or does not the potter have a
right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use
and another for common use?” He’s asking if the Sovereign Creator has the right
to make things the way He wants to. That’s his whole point.
God makes one
for honor and one for dishonor. Now that’s not talking about heaven or hell.
Don’t read that into it. God can raise up Israel for blessing and He can bring
judgment upon Egypt but that doesn’t mean that no Egyptian can be saved or only
Jews can be saved and none of them will go to the Lake of Fire. It doesn’t say
that. It’s still talking about nations. “What if God, although willing to
demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience
[longsuffering] vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?” Wrath refers to
God’s right to judge within history. God allows the wicked to continue their
wickedness for a purpose.
What we want to
know is, what are the vessels? What are the vessels for honor and for dishonor?
What is the vessel for wrath? Are those people or national entities? Let’s go
to Jeremiah 18:3, “Then I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was
making something on the wheel. And the vessel that he was making of clay was
spoiled in the hand of the potter so he remade it into another vessel, as it
pleased the potter to make.” So that’s our analogy. The potter has the right to
make the clay, to mold the clay for the purposes that he has in mind. “Then the
word of the Lord came to me saying, ‘Can I not, O house of Israel, deal with
you as this potter does?’ Declares the Lord.” He’s not talking to Jeremiah as
an individual. He’s talking to Israel as a national entity. Can I not do with
you as this potter?
“Behold like the
clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.” It’s just
like we were talking about the first illustration dealing with Jacob and Esau
and they were nations going back to Israel, going back to the womb of their
mother. He never deals with them as personal individuals but in terms of the
nations that came from them. The same thing we’re dealing with them here, the
nation. ”At one moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a
kingdom to uproot, to pull down, or to destroy it, if that nation against which
I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the calamity I
planned to bring on it.” It’s talking about nations and kingdoms. How many
people can see individual salvation here, so far? It’s not there. God is
talking about His choice of nations or kingdoms in history.
But wait a
minute. Right in the middle of this, that nation has the right to say, “Wait a
minute. I’m going to turn to God.” Volition is right in the center of the
passage. Just because God says He’s going to do one thing to a nation, it
doesn’t mean their volition is null and void. Right in the middle of the
analogy of the potter, the nation can choose to turn to God. Incidentally this
is one of the best verses to use for a nation turning to God and God relenting
of judgment. Not the passage over in 2 Chronicles 7:14 which everybody quotes
because they don’t know hermeneutics. That’s from Solomon’s dedicatory prayer
and God’s answer to it. “If my people who are called by My name turn back to
Me, repent and humble themselves, then I will restore them to their land.” You
can’t make that apply to anyone else. You know why? Because it’s for Israel.
You don’t understand the word “application’ if you think it can apply to anyone
else.
That verse,
actually, is an application of this principle in Jeremiah. That verse in 2
Chronicles is an application to Israel. The principle here is that if any
nation, against whom God has spoken, turns from its evil…” Nineveh is an
example when Jonah went there. The principle is here in Jeremiah. 2nd
Chronicle 7:14 is an application of that divine principle to Israel and God’s
answer is within covenant terms so you can’t apply it to anybody else. But you
can apply this verse in Jeremiah to any nation. This is a key verse for that.
Verse 9
continues, “Or at another moment I might speak concerning a nation or
concerning a kingdom to build up or to plant it; if it does evil in my sight,
then I will think better of the good with which I had promised to bless it.”
This is the picture. What is the potter analogy a picture of? God’s sovereignty
over national destinies, not individual destinies in terms of the Lake of Fire
or heaven. You can substitute nations for vessels in these verses.
So we go back
to Romans 9:23 and it goes on to say, “And He did so to make known the riches
of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory,
even us whom He also called, not from among Jews only but also from among
Gentiles.” Does it say anything about making one individual for honor and
another for dishonor? Does it say anything about an individual here? It means
one nation for honor and another for dishonor. It’s a choice that one nation is
preferred over another.
It doesn’t
really mean that God despises the second one as we saw from Genesis. I used the
quote dealing with Jacob, that Jacob loved Rachel and hated Leah. It doesn’t
mean he really hated Leah. He just preferred Rachel over Leah. He liked Leah
and had a bunch of children by Leah. Now Paul is going to make application why God has the
sovereign right to do this. Romans 9:24, “As He says also in Hosea…” So it’s
sword drill time. We were just in Jeremiah 18 so now let’s go to Hosea 2:23.
Hosea is the
first of the Minor Prophets. They’re not minor because they’re in a different
key. They’re not minor because they’re not as significant. They’re minor
because they’re smaller. Actually all twelve Minor Prophets are included as one
book in the Hebrew canon, just simply referred to as The Twelve. In Romans 9:25
Paul quotes just the last part of Hosea 2:23. Now it’s a little different from
your English because Paul is quoting from the Septuagint translation, “I will
call them My people who are not My people and her beloved who is not My beloved.”
Now he’s just
talked about the Gentiles so in the context of Romans 9, Paul is applying this
to now calling and including Gentiles as part of His people but that wasn’t
what Hosea was talking about. Hosea 2:23 says, “I will sow her for Myself in
the land. I will also have compassion on her who had not obtained compassion.
And I will say to those who were not My people. You are My people. And they
will say, You are my God.”
So let’s talk
about Hosea 2 a little bit. This second chapter of Hosea reiterates the
charges, indictments against Israel at the time of their destruction in 586 B.C. going out under the fifth stage of divine
discipline. The charges are listed and reiterated from verses 2 down through 13
on why God is removing them from the land. If you read through that they are
indicted for their unfaithfulness to God, for their spiritual adultery with the
idols of the land, specifically the Baalim and following all of the different
rituals related to the Baalim. In verse 13 it concludes, “I will punish her for
the days of the Baals, when she used to offer sacrifices to them and adorn
herself with her earrings and jewelry and follow her lovers, so she forget Me,
declares the Lord.” She was having a hot dating life going out after all these
other lovers.
Verse 14,
“Therefore, behold, I will allure her, Bring her into the wilderness, and speak
kindly to her.” This is God winning Israel back to Himself. “I will give her
vineyards from there and the valley of Achor as a door of hope. She shall sing
there as in the days of her youth, As in the day when she came up from the land
of Egypt.” God is talking about this future time when He will restore Israel to
the land.
So Hosea
jumps from the destruction of 586 to the future restoration, which occurs in
the future Messianic Age. Verse 16, “In that day I will also make a covenant
for them with the beasts of the field, the birds of the sky, and the creeping
things of the ground.” When you read “that day” in scripture it’s usually
talking about that future day of Israel’s redemption. “In that day” which is a
future time, the Second Advent, the beginning of the Millennium Kingdom, God is
going to make a covenant with them. What is that covenant? It’s the New
Covenant that is put into effect with the house of Judah, the house of David
when Jesus returns at the Second Coming.
Verse 19, “I
will betroth you to Me forever. Yes I will betroth you to Me in righteousness
and in justice, in loving-kindness and in compassion, And I will betroth you to
Me in faithfulness. Then you will know the Lord. It will come to pass in that
day that I will respond, declares the Lord. I will respond to the heavens, and
they will respond to the earth, And the earth will respond to the grain, to the
new wine, and to the oil, and they will respond to Jezreel.“ That’s the Valley
of Jezreel. Now this is God saying that there will finally be the consummation
of this marriage between Yahweh in the Millennial Kingdom.
Then he says in
verse 23, which is the context, “I will sow her for Myself in the land. I will
also have compassion on her who had not obtained compassion, and I will say to
those who were not the people.” Who is God talking about here? Who was the one
who had not had mercy? That was Israel in disobedience. It wasn’t another country.
It was Israel during the time they were out during the 5th Cycle of
discipline and had not obtained mercy. “And I will say to those who were not my
people,” Who are the ones who were not His people? Those rebellious, obstinate
Jews who had rejected Jesus and who are out under the 5th cycle of
discipline. “I will say to those who are not My people, You are My people, and
they will say, You are my God.” They have repented and they are God’s people at
a future date.
So
remember many times I’ve mentioned but some of you are new and haven’t heard
this, there are four ways in which the Old Testament is quoted and applied in
the New Testament. Number one was literal prophecy and literal fulfillment. An
example of this is Micah 5:2 which says that the Messiah will be born in
Bethlehem. It’s a prophecy which has been literally fulfilled. Then there is a
second use, which is more of a type, such as “Out of Egypt I called my people.”
It’s quoted as an historical event and at times it’s a picture of Israel coming
out of Egypt, which is fulfilled in Christ.
Then you have a
third use of Old Testament prophecy when is by way of application. It’s not a
typology. It’s just something similar happened and they’re drawing a connection
by way of a pattern. We studied this when we went through Acts 2 when Peter
said that this is what the prophet Joel spoke of. He didn’t mean this was the
fulfillment of what Joel said because everything that was prophesied in Joel 2
was not fulfilled in Acts 2 but what did happen in Acts 2 which was speaking in
tongues. Although it wasn’t what is prophesied in Joel 2, it’s similar, though.
It showed a parallel. So this is the third use and says, “this is like that”.
It’s simply drawing an analogy which is parallel to something in the Old
Testament and that’s what’s going on in this verse is that Paul is going back
here and taking this verse and saying, that those who weren’t God’s people were
now His people. In the same way, even those he’s talking about Gentiles, those
who were not God’s people are being brought into the family of God. So all he’s
doing is making that kind of analogy with that third use.
Romans 9:26,
“And it shall come to pass that in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are
not My people’s, then they shall be called sons of the living God.” That’s a
quote from Hosea 1:10 so just turn back one page. The first part of Hosea is
the condemnation stated against Israel and because of their apostasy the wife
of Hosea, Gomer, was supposed to have two children. One was called Lo-ruhamah mentioned
in verse 6, which means “no mercy” and the second Loammi meaning “not my people”. Verse 9
says, “Call his name Loammi because you are not My people and I am not your God.” This
is an announcement of divine judgment. Then verse 10, “Yet the number of the
sons of Israel will be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured and
it shall come to pass.” What does that sound like? The Abrahamic covenant. So
what God is doing here is reiterating the promise to Abraham that he will have
descendants that will be as numerous as the sands of the seashore and God will
not forsake them. Nevertheless the people are going to go out under divine
judgment.
He then says in
the second half of verse 10, “And in that place where it is said to them, ‘You
are not my people. Then they shall be called sons of the living God.” That’s
the part that’s being quoted in Romans 9. Israel will be restored to a position
of blessing but first they’re going to go through a time of divine discipline
and divine judgment so Romans 9: 25 and 26 include quotes from Hosea 2:23 and
Hosea 1:10 and these quotes are dealing with God’s plan for Israel as a nation,
the judgment that came upon the nation, and the future blessing of restoration
that will come upon the nation. So we’re continuing to see that Paul is dealing
with Israel as a national entity, not in terms of individual justification.
Then we come to
verse 27 where we go to Isaiah10: 22 and 23. Hosea and Isaiah lived about the
same time and their names almost sound the same. Isaiah 10:22, “For though your
people, O Israel, may be like the sand of the sea…” What’s that terminology
from? That’s from the Abrahamic Covenant. It is just a reminder that God’s
promise is solid bedrock. Israel’s not going to be saved from discipline. “Only
a remnant within them will return.”
Remember
earlier in Romans 9, Paul said that not all Israel is of Israel. He’s focusing
on many who are apostate but there’s a subset that are true Israel. That’s the
remnant. Isaiah 10 23: “For though Your people, O Israel, may be like the sand
of the sea, Only a remnant within them will return.” Promised blessing. God has
a future for Israel. That’s Paul’s theme in Romans 9-11. God has not
permanently forsaken His people, Israel.
Isaiah 10:23 is
quoted in Romans 9:28, “For a complete destruction, one that is decreed, the
Lord God of hosts will execute in the midst of the whole land. This judgment
will come during the tribulation period. So what’s the point here? Again Paul
is dealing with Israel as a nation in terms of their future destiny, showing
from these quotations that God did promise a period of judgment when the nation
will be out of the land. He also promised He would fulfill His promises to
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and to David and He would restore the nation to the
land and they would have great blessing.
In Romans 9:29
we again have a quote from Isaiah. This is from Isaiah 1, a chapter which is an
indictment against Israel for their apostasy. In Romans 9:29 Paul says, “And
just as Isaiah foretold, Unless the Lord of Sabaoth [Lord of Armies] had left
to us a posterity [a seed] we would have become like Sodom and would have
resembled Gomorrah.” What Paul is saying is that God left a remnant and that
remnant will be restored to a place of blessing and that remnant will be the
ones who receive the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant.
This is a quote
from Isaiah 1:9 where there is a description of all of the judgments which will
come upon Judah because of their apostasy. Verse 7, “Your country’s desolate
and your cities burned with fire. Your fields-strangers are devouring them in
your presence. It is desolation, as overthrown by strangers. The daughter of
Zion is left like a shelter in a vineyard. Like a watchman’s hut in a cucumber
field, like a besieged city. Unless the Lord of hosts had left us a few
survivors, we would be like Sodom, we would be like Gomorrah.” Again, national
destiny is the issue.
That ends this
section for Paul. He’s going to segue into another section starting in verse
30. So let me summarize the argument to this point. By referring back to ideas
he’s already talked about in Romans 9:6-7 and talking as well in relation to
language that goes back to “Jacob I loved and Esau I hated” it’s clear that
Paul is dealing with God’s plan for Israel, that He’s not going to go back on
it and that He has chosen Israel for a specific destiny and He has not chosen
other nations for that kind of a destiny. Even though Israel is currently apostate
they will eventually accept Jesus as the Messiah.
Now as a result
of having established this from the Old Testament, from the Hebrew Scriptures,
it’s clear that God has predicted judgment and restoration. What are we then
going to say about what’s going on now with the inclusion of Gentiles into the
Church? Verse 30, “What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue
righteousness, attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by
faith.” See Gentiles were pagans. They weren’t concerned about righteousness.
But now they responded to the gospel and they have become righteous because
when they trusted in Christ as their Savior, they received the imputation of
Christ’s righteousness. They have attained to righteousness that is the righteousness
from faith, the righteousness that comes from faith. Justification is by faith
alone. Abraham was the pattern in Genesis 15:6. In Romans 9:31, “But Israel,
pursuing a law of righteousness [the Mosaic Law and specifically the
Pharisaical interpretation of that Law] did not arrive at that law.” They can’t
meet that righteousness. No one has ever perfectly obeyed the Mosaic Law
outside of Jesus Christ.
Verse 32, “Why?
Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works.” They
weren’t trying to gain righteousness as a result of faith, which was the
pattern from the Old Testament but they were trying to gain righteousness by
the works of the Law. They thought that by obeying the Law that would make them
righteousness. Now he ties it to Christ, “For they stumbled at the stumbling
stone, just as it is written, “Behold I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a
rock of offense. And He who believes in Him will not be disappointed [put to
shame].” [Quote from Isaiah 28:16] If you believe on Him He will fulfill all of
His promises.
So the point
that Paul has made so far in Romans 9 is that God has a future plan for Israel.
Right now they have rejected Christ and they are being “hardened” just like
Pharaoh was hardened. God’s not making them reject Christ. They’ve already
chosen to reject Him. He’s just encouraging them in that for a time. He doesn’t
lock them into negative volition. They can respond. There are an incredible
number of Jews down through the centuries who have
trusted in Jesus Christ as their Messiah. There are many who do today, and
there will be hundreds of thousands who will during the Tribulation.
So God has a
plan. That plan is His plan because He’s the one who knows all the variables.
He knows all the information in perfect omniscience. So He knows the best plan
and is working it out in history We can’t determine or influence that plan by
our behavior one way or the other because it’s not based on who or what we are
but on what God is and His plan and His understanding of history. So far we’re
not talking about individual eternal destiny. We’re talking about historical
destinies for nations, for the Gentiles and the Jews and God’s plan within
history.
So that, I
hope, helps us understand the “hardening” of Pharaoh’s heart as we talk about
this passage and the potter and the potter’s wheel that this has nothing at all
to do with individual justification and eternal destiny. Okay? I hope it’s a
little clearer now. It’s clearer for me now. This is the first time I’ve taught
through the “hardening of Pharaoh’s heart.” There’s always something to learn,
something you avoid as a pastor saying to yourself, “Lord, I just hope I don’t
get there or when I do get there I hope I’ll figure something out and it’s
close to being right.”