3. The Spirit of Glory (8:18–30)

18For I consider that the sufferings of the present time are not worth comparing with the glory that shall be revealed to us.

19For the eager expectation of the creation is awaiting the revelation of the sons of God. 20For the creation was subjected to frustration, not of its own will, but because of the one who subjected it, in hope 21that1 the creation itself would also be set free from the bondage to decay into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22For we know that the whole creation groans together and suffers birth pangs together up to the present time. 23And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, groan in ourselves, awaiting adoption,2 the redemption of our bodies. 24For we were saved with hope. But hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what one sees?3 25But if we hope for what we do not see, we await it with endurance.

26In the same way, the Spirit also comes to the aid of our weakness. For we do not know what we are to pray as it is necessary, but the Spirit himself intercedes4 in groans that words cannot express. 27And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, for he intercedes for the saints in accordance with the will of God.

28And we know that all things work together5 for good for those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30And those whom he predestined, these also he called; and those whom he called, these also he justified; and those whom he justified, these also he glorified.

This passage develops the reference to suffering and glory in v. 17b, continues the overall theme of assurance that dominates chap. 8, and brings us back full circle to the opening paragraph (5:1–11) of this major section of the letter.

Although “glory” is mentioned only three times in vv. 18–30, it is the overarching theme of this passage. Occurring at both the beginning (v. 18—“the glory that shall be revealed in us”) and at the end (v. 30—“these he glorified”), this concept frames these verses, furnishing us with an important indicator of Paul’s central concern. This “inclusio,” the noticeable shift at v. 17b from the Christian’s present status to his future inheritance, and the parallels between vv. 17–30 and 5:1–11 (on which see below) show that vv. 18–30 comprise a coherent unit of thought, whose focus is eschatological glory.6 Paul enlists several other concepts in his elaboration of this glory: “freedom” (v. 21), “the redemption of the body” (v. 23), and, most important, “sonship” (vv. 19, 23, 29).7 The causal connection suggested in v. 17b between suffering and glory—“if we suffer with Christ in order to be glorified with him”—is not developed in vv. 18–30. To be sure, “suffering”—of both creation (vv. 19–22) and of Christians (vv. 18, 23, 26 [“weakness”])—is still present, but Paul is not so much interested in its relationship to glory8 as he is in their sequence. He assumes the fact of suffering as the dark backdrop against which the glorious future promised to the Christian shines with bright intensity.

In vv. 1–17, Paul has focused on the Spirit as the agent through whom believers are granted life and sonship. “No condemnation” can be proclaimed over the Christian (v. 1) because he or she has been transferred from death to life and made God’s own child. But the problem that Paul had already broached in vv. 10–11 is insistently raised by v. 17b: How can the Christian maintain hope for eternal life in the face of sufferings and death? How can those who have been set free “from the law of sin and death” die? How can God’s very own, dearly loved children suffer? Do not these contradict, or at least call into question, the reality of Paul’s “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”? The exposition of the future glory to be enjoyed by the believer is necessary to answer this objection. In a sense, what Paul is saying in vv. 18–30 is that the Christian must go the way of his Lord. As for Jesus glory only followed suffering, so for the Christian (cf. v. 17c). The life we now definitively enjoy is, nonetheless, incomplete or, better, inchoate—present but not yet fully worked out. “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 15:50), and only when the “mortal body” is transformed will the life that we now have be visible and final (v. 23; cf. vv. 10–11).

It is this transformation of the body that brings to fruition our sonship (v. 23). Only then will our sonship be “revealed” (v. 19), and will we be fully conformed to the image of God’s Son (v. 29). We may, perhaps, draw here a loose parallel with Jesus’ own sonship, for it was only at the time of his resurrection that he became “Son-of-God-in-power” (1:4). All this is summed up in Paul’s words in v. 24a: “we were saved in hope”: “saved”—a past, definitive action; “in hope”—the state in which we now live, waiting with anticipation and assurance for the culmination of God’s plan for us and the world.9 And, while the Spirit is not mentioned nearly as often in vv. 18–30 as in vv. 1–17, it is just in bridging this gap between our present status and our future deliverance that the Spirit plays the crucial role. For the Spirit is the “first fruits”—the pledge, or first installment, of God’s gifts to us that both anticipates and guarantees the gift of glory yet to come (v. 23). The Spirit connects our “already” with our “not yet,” making “the hope of glory,” though unseen, as certain as if it were already ours—which, in a sense, it is (cf. “glorified” in v. 30).

Finally, vv. 18–30 (with vv. 31–39) remind the attentive reader of the themes with which Paul opened this great section of his letter to the Romans. In both 5:1–11 and this text, Paul demonstrates the unbreakable connection between the Christian’s present status—“justified by faith” (5:1, 9, 10; 8:30); “set free from the law of sin and death” (8:2); “children of God” (vv. 14–17)—and her enjoyment of the blessings of God’s eternal kingdom—“saved from wrath” (5:9b); “glorified” (8:18, 19, 30). Sufferings, though real, unavoidable, and painful, cannot break this connection (5:3–4; 8:18, 23); for the Spirit is active to instill within us a deep sense of God’s love as the basis for our hope (5:6) and to act as God’s pledge that he will continue to work on our behalf (8:23; cf. 26–27). (For additional details, see the introduction to Rom. 5–8.) There are, of course, important differences in these texts: 8:18–30 delineates in more detail this “hope of glory” than does 5:1–11, and sets the issue against a more “cosmic” background. But the basic message is very much the same.

Several key words, or concepts, serve to bind vv. 18–30 together. In addition to “glory” (vv. 18, 21; cf. “glorify” in v. 30), these are “groaning” (vv. 22, 23, 26), “hope” (vv. 20, 24–25), “await, wait for” (vv. 19, 23, 25), and, as we have seen, “sonship” (vv. 19, 21, 23, 29). Some have suggested divisions of the paragraph based on one or more of these words—particularly the threefold groaning of the creation (vv. 19–22), the Christian (vv. 23–25), and the Spirit (vv. 26–27 [–30])10—but none is very obvious. If we go by literary markers, the most obvious breaks occur at v. 26 (“likewise”]) and v. 28 (“we know”).11 And these markers correspond to the logical flow of the passage. Verse 18, and particularly the last phrase of v. 18—“the glory that shall be revealed in us”—states the theme of the section as a whole. Verses 19–25, whose key words are “wait for” (vv. 19, 23, and 25) and “hope” (vv. 20, 24–25), develop particularly the note of futurity implicit in the word “to be revealed.” Paul wants Christians to realize that they, along with the subhuman creation, are in the position of waiting and hoping for the culmination of God’s plan and purposes. There is, Paul is arguing, a necessary and appropriate sense of “incompleteness” in our Christian experience and a consequent eager longing for that incompleteness to be overcome. But, cautions Paul at the end of this subparagraph, this yearning for our final redemption should be characterized by “patient fortitude.” The final two subparagraphs describe those works of God that help us to maintain this attitude. First, during this present stage of incompleteness, or “weakness,” the Spirit helps us to pray that prayer which God infallibly hears and answers (vv. 26–27). And, second, God himself is working in accordance with his fixed and eternal purpose to bring all things touching our lives to a triumphant conclusion—the “good” (v. 28), conformity to the person of Christ (v. 29), and, coming back to the overall theme, “glory” (v. 30).

18 The “for”12 introduces this verse and, indeed, the entire paragraph that follows, as an elaboration of the sequence of suffering and glory attributed to believers in v. 17b. Viewed from a perspective that holds this world to be a “closed system,” suffering is a harsh and final reality that can never be explained nor transcended. “All is trouble, adversity, and suffering!” cries Sue Fawley, summarizing Thomas Hardy’s own judgment in his most pessimistic novel, Jude the Obscure.13 But a Christian views the suffering of this life in a larger, world-transcending context that, while not alleviating its present intensity, transcends it with the confident expectation that suffering is not the final word. “The present and visible can be understood only in the light of the future and invisible” (Leenhardt). Thus, Paul can “consider14 that the sufferings of the present time are not worth comparing with15 the glory that shall be revealed to us.” We must, Paul suggests, weigh suffering in the balance with the glory that is the final state of every believer; and so “weighty,” so transcendently wonderful, is this glory that suffering flies in the air as if it had no weight at all. “For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Cor. 4:17).

These “sufferings of the present time” are not only those “trials” that are endured directly because of confession of Christ—for instance, persecution—but encompass the whole gamut of suffering, including things such as illness, bereavement, hunger, financial reverses, and death itself. To be sure, Paul has spoken of our suffering in v. 17 as “suffering with Christ.” But there is a sense in which all the suffering of Christians is “with Christ,” inasmuch as Christ was himself subject, by virtue of his coming “in the form of sinful flesh,” to the manifold sufferings of this world in rebellion against God. The word Paul uses here16 refers to “sufferings” in any form; and certainly the “travail” of creation, with which the sufferings of Christians are compared (vv. 19–22), cannot be restricted to sufferings “on behalf of Christ.”17 And the qualification “of the present time” links these sufferings with the old age of salvation history, conquered in Christ but remaining as the arena in which the Christian must live out his or her new life.18

Paul was certainly not the only ancient author to contrast present sufferings and future glory; see, for example, 2 Apoc. Bar. 15:8: “For this world is to them [the righteous] a struggle and an effort and much trouble. And that accordingly which will come, a crown with great glory.” But, since the Christian’s glory is a partaking of Christ’s own glory (“glorified with him”), Paul puts more stress than does Judaism on the righteous person’s participation in this glory.19 In light of this focus on certainty, and since Paul conceives the Christian’s glory to be something that has, in some sense, already been determined (8:30), we are probably justified in seeing in “to be revealed” the nuance of a manifestation of that which already exists. “Glory,” like salvation in 1 Pet. 1:4–5, can be conceived as a state that is “reserved for us,” a state that Christ, our forerunner, has already entered. This is not, then, to say that the Christian already possesses this glory,20 but that the last day, by bringing the believer into the scope of the glory of God,21 will manifest the decision that has already been made on our behalf.22

19 Verses 19–25 support in some way what Paul has said in v. 18.23 But in what way? Is Paul explaining and demonstrating the suffering he has mentioned;24 giving reasons for the patient endurance commanded by implication in v. 18;25 supporting the certainty of the future manifestation of glory;26 or giving evidence of the transcendent greatness of the glory?27 None of these suggestions does justice to the focus of these verses, which is on the longing anticipation of future transformation shared by both the creation and Christians. In these verses, therefore, Paul supports and develops “to be revealed” in v. 18 by showing that both creation and Christians (1) suffer at present from a sense of incompleteness and even frustration; and (2) eagerly yearn for a culminating transformation.

Paul begins with the yearning of creation: “For the eager expectation of the creation is awaiting28 the revelation of the sons of God.” The word “eager expectation” suggests the picture of a person craning his or her neck to see what is coming.29 Paul further enhances the idea of anticipation by using a common literary device: “eager expectation,” the grammatical subject, is put in place of the real subject, “creation.” But what does Paul include in this “creation”?30 Noting the naturally broad meaning of the word, and Paul’s addition of “the whole” in v. 22, some interpreters argue that Paul must mean the entire created universe—human beings, animals, plants, and so on.31 Others, however, insist that the distinctly personal activities Paul attributes to the creation (“anticipating,” “set free,” “groaning”) show that he has only the human part of creation in view (cf. Col. 1:23)—either all humankind (Augustine) or unbelievers only.32 However, while we may agree with Schlatter that the transition from v. 22 to v. 23—“we ourselves”—plainly excludes believers from the scope of creation in vv. 19–22, Paul’s insistence in v. 20 that the “vanity” to which this creation was subjected was not of its own choice appears to exclude all people, not just believers. With the majority of modern commentators, then, I think that creation here denotes the “subhuman” creation.33 Like the psalmists and prophets who pictured hills, meadows, and valleys “shouting and singing together for joy” (Ps. 65:12–13) and the earth “mourning” (Isa. 24:4; Jer. 4:28; 12:4), Paul personifies the subhuman creation in order to convey to his readers a sense of the cosmic significance of both humanity’s fall into sin and believers’ restoration to glory.34

The “revelation of the sons of God” that creation keenly anticipates is the “unveiling” of the true nature of Christians. Paul has already made clear that Christians are already “sons of God” (vv. 14–17). But, experiencing suffering (v. 18) and weakness (v. 26) like all other people, Christians do not in this life “appear” much like sons of God. The last day will publicly manifest our real status.35 Nevertheless, since this “being revealed” as God’s sons takes place only through a further act of God—causing his glory to reach out and embrace us (v. 18), transforming the body (v. 23)—we are justified in attaching a degree of dynamic activity to “revelation” here also. The “revelation” of which Paul speaks is not only a disclosure of what we have always been but also a dynamic process by which the status we now have in preliminary form and in hiddenness will be brought to its final stage and made publicly evident.

20 In this verse and in v. 21 (which make up one sentence in Greek) Paul explains what many of his readers would naturally be wondering: Why must the creation be eagerly anticipating the revelation of the sons of God? The reason, Paul says, is that the subhuman creation itself is not what it should be, or what God intended it to be. It has “been subjected to “frustration.”36 In light of Paul’s obvious reference to the Gen. 3 narrative—Murray labels these verses “Paul’s commentary on Gen. 3:17, 18”—the word probably denotes the “frustration” occasioned by creation’s being unable to attain the ends for which it was made.37 Humanity’s fall into sin marred the “goodness” of God’s creation, and creation has ever since been in a state of “frustration.”38

But creation’s frustration, Paul reminds us, came “not of its own will, but because of the one who subjected it.” The “one who subjected it” has been identified with (1) Adam, whose sin brought death and decay into the world (cf. Rom. 5:12);39 (2) Satan, whose temptation led to the Fall;40 and (3) God, who decreed the curse as a judgment on sin (Gen. 3:17).41 Reference to Adam, however, is unlikely; as Bengel says, “Adam rendered the creature obnoxious to vanity, but he did not subject it.” Nor did Satan, whatever his role in the Fall, “subject” creation. Paul must be referring to God, who alone had the right and the power to condemn all of creation to frustration because of human sin.42 But this decree of God was not without its positive side, for it was issued “in hope.”43 Paul probably has in mind the protoevangelium—the promise of God, given in conjunction with the curse, that “he [the seed of the woman] will bruise your [the serpent’s] head” (cf. Rom. 16:20). The creation, then, though subjected to frustration as a result of human sin, has never been without hope; for the very decree of subjection was given in the context of hope. As Byrne puts it, this phrase is the “pivot” of Paul’s argument in vv. 19–22,44 because he now moves from explanation of the reason why creation should need to be looking ahead in hope to the nature of that hope and its relationship to the “revelation of the sons of God” (v. 19).

21 In this verse, Paul specifies the content of the hope that he mentioned at the end of v. 20:45 “[the hope that] the creation itself46 would be set free from the bondage to decay into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” Creation, helplessly enslaved to the decay47 that rules this world after the Fall, exists in the hope that it will be set free to participate in the eschatological glory to be enjoyed by God’s children. Paul describes this glory in terms of freedom; we might paraphrase, “the freedom that is associated with the state of glory to which the children of God are destined.”48 The repetition of the “freedom” idea here—“set free … into49 the freedom”—suggests that it is only with and because of the glory of God’s children that creation experiences its own full and final deliverance (Chrysostom). As in v. 19, then, the hope of the creation is related to, and even contingent upon, the glory to be given Christians.50 We might also note that the idea of creation “being set free” strongly suggests that the ultimate destiny of creation is not annihilation but transformation. When will this transformation take place? If one adopts a premillennial structure of eschatology (see Rev. 20:4–6), then it is tempting to apply the language Paul uses here to that period of time. But we cannot be certain that Paul has the millennium in mind because there is some evidence that the language he uses could also apply to the eternal state (see, e.g., the description of “the new heaven and new earth” in Rev. 21:1–22:7).

22 This verse, concluding the subparagraph on the hope of the creation, comes back to the theme with which the paragraph began (v. 19): the longing of creation for deliverance. “We know,”51 Paul says, “that the whole creation52 groans together and suffers birth pangs together up to the present time.”53 Paul uses the simple verb “groan” in 8:23, and in 2 Cor. 5:2 and 4, to depict the “groans of eschatological anticipation.”54 And, while neither the verb “suffer birth pangs together” nor the simple “suffer birth pangs” is used elsewhere in the NT in this sense,55 the noun form of this verb is used in Mark 13:8 (= Matt. 24:8) to depict the times of distress preceding the end. Indeed, the image is a natural one, for the difficulties and trials of this age are, for Christians and the creation, fraught with the knowledge that they will ultimately issue in victory and joy. Our Lord makes this application in John 16:20b–22, as he addresses the disciples:

You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. When a woman is in travail she has sorrow, because her hour has come; but when she is delivered of the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a child is born into the world. So you have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.

The “with” idea in both verbs means not that creation is groaning and in birth pangs with believers,56 but that the various parts of the creation are groaning together, are in birth pangs together, uttering a “symphony of sighs” (Phillips).

23 In vv. 19–22, Paul has described the yearning anticipation of creation for deliverance and tied that deliverance to the “glory to be revealed” to believers. Now he shows how believers share this same eager hope. The transition from creation to Christian is made via the idea of “groaning”; not only is the creation “groaning together,” but “we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, groan in ourselves,57 awaiting adoption, the redemption of our bodies.” By saying that Christians “groan in themselves,” Paul suggests that these groans are not verbal utterances but inward, nonverbal “sighs,” indicative of a certain attitude.58 This attitude does not involve anxiety about whether we will finally experience the deliverance God has promised—for Paul allows of no doubts on that score (cf. vv. 28–30)—but frustration at the remaining moral and physical infirmities that are inevitably a part of this period between justification and glorification (see 2 Cor. 5:2, 4) and longing for the end of this state of “weakness.”59

Paul defines those who experience this frustrated longing for final deliverance as those “who have the first fruits of the Spirit.” The word “first fruits” signifies a ministry of the Spirit that is very characteristic in Paul. The word alludes to both the beginning of a process and the unbreakable connection between its beginning and the end.60 As applied to the Spirit, then, the word connotes both that God’s eschatological redemptive work has begun and that this redemptive work will surely be brought to its intended culmination. The Spirit, in this sense, is both the “first installment” of salvation and the “down payment” or “pledge” that guarantees the remaining stages of that salvation.61

But does Paul want to say that Christians groan because we possess the Spirit as “first fruits”62 or that we groan even though we have the Spirit as “first fruits”?63 Both make good sense in this context and fit Paul’s theology of the Spirit. However, the fact that Paul refers to “the first fruits of the Spirit” rather than simply the Spirit shows that he is thinking of the Spirit’s role in anticipating and pledging the completion of salvation rather than as the agent of present blessing. This being so, a causal interpretation of the participle is to be preferred: it is because we possess the Spirit as the first installment and pledge of our complete salvation that we groan, yearning for the fulfillment of that salvation to take place. The Spirit, then, functions to join inseparably together the two sides of the “already-not yet” eschatological tension in which we are caught. “Already,” through the indwelling presence of God’s Spirit, we have been transferred into the new age of blessing and salvation; but the very fact that the Spirit is only the “first fruits” makes us sadly conscious that we have “not yet” severed all ties to the old age of sin and death.64 A healthy balance is necessary in the Christian life, in which our joy at the many blessings we already possess should be set beside our frustration at our failures and our intense yearning for that day when we will fail no more—when “we shall be like him.”

Paul’s description of the climax of salvation for which we are eagerly awaiting65 furthers this sense of eschatological tension. For the “adoption” that, in vv. 14–17, we were said already to possess is here made the object of our hope. As we noted at v. 15, some seek to relieve the tension thus created by making only the “Spirit of adoption,” not the adoption itself, a present possession of the Christian, but Paul clearly goes further than that in vv. 14–17. Christians, at the moment of justification, are adopted into God’s family; but this adoption is incomplete and partial until we are finally made like the Son of God himself (v. 29).66 This final element in our adoption is “the redemption of our bodies.”67 “Redemption” shares with “adoption” and many other terms in Paul the “already-not yet” tension that pervades his theology, for the redemption can be pictured both as past68 and as future.69 As Paul has hinted in v. 10, it is not until the body has been transformed that redemption can be said to be complete; in this life, our bodies share in that “frustration” which characterizes this world as a whole (cf. 20).70

24 Paul’s purpose in the last two verses of this subsection (vv. 19–25) is to make it clear that this need for expectant waiting is not surprising. For, as creation was subjected to frustration “in hope” (v. 20), so Christians, though saved, are nevertheless also saved “with hope”—and hope, by its very nature, means that expectant and patient waiting is going to be necessary. The juxtaposition of the assertion of past experience—“we were saved”71—and its qualification “with hope”72 is one more expression of the eschatological tension of Christian existence. Hope, Paul is saying, has been associated with our experience of salvation from the beginning. Always our salvation, while definitively secured for us at conversion, has had an element of incompleteness, in which the forward look is necessary. The last part of the verse is a rather obvious explanation of the very nature of “hope”—it involves looking in confidence for that which one cannot see. Paul uses the word “hope” in both an objective sense—that for which we hope—and a subjective sense—our attitude of hope. Here, by modifying hope with the phrase “that is seen,” he shows that he is thinking of the former meaning. That “glory to be revealed,” which is the focus of our hope, is not visible; and the frustrations and difficulties of life can sometimes all but erase the image of that glory for us. But hope would not be what it is if we could see it, for “who hopes for what one sees?”

25 Paul rounds off this subsection with a return to its central theme: the need, in this age of salvation history, for “earnest waiting.”73 In the “if” clause, Paul resumes the point he made in v. 24b and draws a conclusion from it: hoping for what one does not see means that we must wait for it with “patient fortitude.”74 While this emphasis on what is not seen may be nothing more than a reiteration of what hope, by its nature, is, the logic of this verse may imply that Paul is thinking more distinctly theologically about the matter. For, as Paul puts it in 2 Cor. 4:18b, “the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (cf. also Heb. 11). If this thought lies behind what Paul is saying here, then the logic of this verse is strengthened; we Christians can wait expectantly and with fortitude for the “hope” to manifest itself precisely because that for which we hope is “unseen” and thereby part of the eternal and sure purposes of God.75 The attitude of “patient endurance” is one that is frequently required of Christians undergoing trials76 and as they await the climax of God’s salvation for them.77 The word suggests the connotation of “bearing up” under intense pressure. This is the virtue required by Christians as we eagerly await “the hope of the glory of God.”

26 In vv. 24–25, Paul has argued that the nature and solidity of our Christian hope enable us to wait for its culmination with fortitude. Now, he says, “in the same way [as this hope sustains us], the Spirit also comes to our aid.”78 To be sure, this is not the only way that v. 26 might be connected to its context. Especially popular, for instance, is the view that “in the same way” compares the groaning of the Christian (v. 23) with the “groaning” of the Spirit.79 But the “groans” of the Spirit come rather late in v. 26 for this to be the point of comparison; and, while there is an obvious literary parallelism between the “groaning” of creation (v. 22), the Christian, and the Spirit, the groaning of the Spirit is very different in its nature and purpose from the other two “groanings.”

The word we have translated “come to the aid of” connotes “joining with to help,” “bearing a burden along with.”80 The Spirit joins with us in bearing the burdens imposed by our “weakness.” This weakness may be specific—inability in prayer or external sufferings (v. 18)—but is probably general: the “totality of the human condition” (Dunn), the “creatureliness” that characterizes even the child of God in this period of overlap between the old age and the new.81 This condition means that we believers do not know “what we are to pray as it is necessary.”82 The wording of the clause indicates that it is not the manner, or style, of prayer that Paul has in view83 but the content, or object, of prayer—what we are to pray for.84 Some think that the context suggests a restriction of this prayer to entreaties for the realization of God’s glory,85 but Paul’s language is too general for that; and surely we know enough to pray for that glory, however much specific knowledge of it we may lack. Again, there is no good reason to restrict this knowledge to some special circumstance. What Paul apparently has in mind is that inability to discern clearly God’s will in the many things for which we pray; note that the “as it is necessary” of this verse is paralleled by “according to God,” that is, “according to his will,” of v. 27. All our praying is conditioned by our continuing “weakness” and means that—except perhaps on rare occasions—our petitions must be qualified by “if it is in accordance with your will.”86 This does not, of course, mean that we should not strive to understand the will of God for the circumstances we face, or that we are in the wrong to make definite requests to God; but it does mean that we cannot presume to identify our petitions with the will of God.

This inability to know what to pray for cannot be overcome in this life, for it is part of “our weakness,” the inescapable condition imposed on us by our place in salvation history. Therefore, Paul does not command us to eradicate this ignorance by diligent searching for God’s will or by special revelation.87 Instead, Paul points us to the Spirit of God, who overcomes this weakness by his own intercession.

What, however, is the nature of this intercession? Specifically, is it an intercession that comes about through our praying, aided by the Spirit? Or is it an intercession that is accomplished solely by the Holy Spirit on our behalf? One clue to the meaning may be found in the term we have translated “that words cannot express” (alalētois). This word, found only here in biblical Greek, means, as its etymology implies, “unspoken,” “wordless.” But does it mean here specifically “ineffable,” incapable of being expressed in human language,88 in which case the “groans” may well be audible though inarticulate?89 Or does it mean simply “unspoken,” never rising to the audible level at all?90 If the former is correct, then the “groans” are probably the believer’s own, inspired and directed by the Spirit. Paul’s reference may then be to those times when, in the perplexity of our ignorance, we call out to God in “content-less” groans—whether expressed out loud or kept to ourselves.91

However, others who ascribe the groans to believers think that Paul is referring to glossolalia—the “speaking in tongues” of 1 Cor. 12–14.92 Like tongues, these “groans” are a “prayer language,” inspired by the Spirit, and taking the form of utterances that cannot be put in the language of earth. But this identification is unlikely. The gift of tongues is clearly restricted by Paul to some believers only (cf. 1 Cor. 12:30), but the “groans” here are means of intercession that come to the aid of all believers.93

Furthermore, and to return to our original point, the word alalētois probably means “unspoken” rather than “ineffable”; and this makes it almost impossible to identify the “groans” with glossolalia; for tongues, of course, are verbalized if not understandable.94 Moreover, it is likely that the groans are not the believer’s but the Spirit’s.95 While we cannot, then, be absolutely sure (and we have no clear biblical parallels to go by), it is preferable to understand these “groans” as the Spirit’s own “language of prayer,” a ministry of intercession that takes place in our hearts (cf. v. 27) in a manner imperceptible to us. This means, of course, that “groans” is used metaphorically. But vv. 22 and 23, with their references to the “groans” of creation and the “groans” of Christians “in” themselves, has prepared us for such a meaning. I take it that Paul is saying, then, that our failure to know God’s will and consequent inability to petition God specifically and assuredly is met by God’s Spirit, who himself expresses to God those intercessory petitions that perfectly match the will of God. When we do not know what to pray for—yes, even when we pray for things that are not best for us96—we need not despair, for we can depend on the Spirit’s ministry of perfect intercession “on our behalf.” Here is one potent source for that “patient fortitude” with which we are to await our glory (v. 25); that our failure to understand God’s purposes and plans, to see “the beginning from the end,” does not mean that effective, powerful prayer for our specific needs is absent.97

27 Verse 27 continues98 Paul’s discussion of the intercession of the Spirit and focuses on the effectiveness of this intercession. The reason for this effectiveness is the perfect accord that exists between God, “the one who searches99 hearts,” and “the mind of the Spirit.”100 God, who sees into the inner being of people, where the indwelling Spirit’s ministry of intercession takes place, “knows,” “acknowledges,” and responds to those “intentions” of the Spirit that are expressed in his prayers on our behalf.

The second clause of the verse is usually taken as explicative: God “knows” what the Spirit intends, in that, or “for,”101 the Spirit intercedes in accordance with God’s will for the saints. But the emphatic position of “in accordance with [the will of] God”102 suggests that Paul is rather giving a reason for the first statement. God knows what the Spirit intends, and there is perfect harmony between the two, because it is in accordance with God’s will that the Spirit intercedes for the saints.103 There is one in heaven, the Son of God, who “intercedes on our behalf,” defending us from all charges that might be brought against us, guaranteeing salvation in the day of judgment (8:34). But there is also, Paul asserts in these verses, an intercessor “in the heart,” the Spirit of God, who effectively prays to the Father on our behalf throughout the difficulties and uncertainties of our lives here on earth.

28 This verse may be in adversative relationship to what comes before it—“we groan, we do not know how to pray, but God is working …”104—but is probably continuative: in this time of suffering and expectation (vv. 18–25) the Spirit helps us by interceding for us (vv. 26–27) and, by God’s providence, “all things work together for good.”105 This sentiment is one that has parallels in both pagan and Jewish literature,106 and Paul may presume that his readers “know” this to be true because they are familiar with these sayings. It is more likely, however, that Paul assumes they know this because they have come to know God in Christ and experienced the fullness of his grace in their lives.

The translation and interpretation of the sentence are disputed. The first difficulty is the subject. There are three main possibilities.

(1) God. Some MSS contain the word; but even if it is not original,107 God could still be presumed to be the subject of the verb, since the immediately preceding clause contains the word (“to those who love God”). If we do this, then “all things”108 could be either the direct object of the verb—“God causes all things to work together for good” (NASB)109—or a reference to the sphere in which the assertion is true110—“in all things God works for the good” (NIV; cf. also NRSV, TEV). The problem with the first rendering is that the verb “works together” does not usually take a direct object.111 The second rendering, then, is preferable,112 but it, too, has its difficulties.113

(2) Another possibility, then, is to assume that “works together” has the same subject as all the main verbs in vv. 26–27—the Spirit (cf. REB: “he [the Spirit] cooperates for good with those who love God”).114 But the subject of the verbs that follow in vv. 29–30 is clearly “God,” and the close relationship between these verses and v. 28 makes it likely that Paul has moved away from his focus on the Spirit already in v. 28.

(3) This leaves, then, what may be the most straightforward reading of the clause: “all things work together for good” (KJV, NIV margin).115 If, however, we adopt this translation, it is important to insist that “all things” do not tend toward good in and of themselves, as if Paul held to a “naively optimistic” interpretation of history (Dodd’s objection to this rendering). Rather, it is the sovereign guidance of God that is presumed as the undergirding and directing force behind all the events of life. This being so, it does not finally matter all that much whether we translate “all things work together for good” or “God is working in and through all things for good.”

A second difficulty in the verse is the scope of “all things.” We would expect that Paul has particularly in mind the “sufferings of the present time” (v. 18; cf. vv. 35–37), but the scope should probably not be restricted. Anything that is a part of this life—even our sins—can, by God’s grace, contribute toward “good.”116 A third issue is the precise meaning of the main verb. Should we render, with most English translations, “works together” or simply “work,” in the sense of “help, assist”? If we adopt the former,117 then Paul might think of all things “working with” the believer” for good,118 or of all things “working together, with one another” (interacting and converging together) for good,119 or of God “working with” the believer in all things to produce good. However, we think the second, simpler, translation to be preferable: all things work for good on behalf of believers.120 In any case, the uncertainty about the word should make us cautious about concluding that it is only in the interaction of “all things” that good comes.

A fourth difficulty in the verse is the meaning of the “good.”121 Many interpreters insist that it has a very specific meaning in this context: eschatological glory.122 The “good,” these scholars argue, is “defined” in vv. 29–30 as consisting in our ultimate conformity—in heaven—to the image of Christ and the glory that will then be ours. While, however, Paul’s focus is on this completion of our salvation, we should probably include in the word those “good” things in this life that contribute to that final salvation and sustain us on the path to that salvation.123 Certainly Paul does not mean that the evil experienced by believers in this life will always be reversed, turned into “good.” For many things that we suffer will contribute to our “good” only by refining our faith and strengthening our hope. In any case, we must be careful to define “good” in God’s terms, not ours. The idea that this verse promises the believer material wealth or physical well-being, for instance, betrays a typically Western perversion of “good” into an exclusively material interpretation. God may well use trials in these areas to produce what he considers a much higher “good”: a stronger faith, a more certain hope (cf. 5:3–4). But the promise to us is that there is nothing in this world that is not intended by God to assist us on our earthly pilgrimage and to bring us safely and certainly to the glorious destination of that pilgrimage.

We have now exposited the main clause of the verse; it remains to look at the subordinate clauses. These are two parallel descriptions of those for whom “all things work for good.” First, they are “those who love God.” Paul speaks only rarely of Christians “loving” God,124 but the expression is widely used in the OT and Jewish literature to describe God’s people. “Loving God” is therefore a qualification for the enjoyment of the promise of this verse,125 but it is a qualification met by all who belong to Christ. In other words, Paul does not intend to suggest that the promise “all things work for good” ceases to have validity for a Christian who is not loving God enough. “Loving God” sums up the basic inner direction of all Christians—but only of Christians.

The second description of those to whom this promise applies looks at our relationship to God from its other, divine, side. While we must not play one of these descriptions off against the other—for both are important—it is nevertheless clear, from vv. 29–30, that this second clause contains the real reason why Christians can know that “all things work for good.” We might paraphrase: “we know that all things are working for good for those of us who love God; and we know this is so because we who love God are also those who have been summoned by God to enter into relationship with him, a summons that is in accordance with God’s purpose to mold us into the image of Christ and to glorify us.” “Those who are called,” then, describes Christians not as the recipients of an invitation that was up to them to accept or reject, but as the objects of God’s effectual summoning of them to become the recipients of his grace.126

This calling takes place “in accordance with and on the basis of127 God’s purpose.”128 The majority of early interpreters took this to be a human purpose,129 but Augustine was surely right in insisting that it is God’s purpose that is intended.130 Paul adds “according to [God’s] purpose” to “those who are called” to indicate that God’s summons of believers was issued with a particular purpose, or plan, in mind—that believers should become like Christ and share in his glory. And it is because this is God’s plan for us who are called and who, thereby, love God, that we can be certain that all things will contribute toward “good”—the realization of this plan in each of our cases.

29 Verses 29–30 may support v. 28 as a whole,131 or, specifically, the promise that “all things work for good,”132 but a better immediate connection is with the word “purpose.”133 In these verses Paul spells out the “purpose,” or “plan,” of God. At the same time, however, he also states the ultimate ground for the promise of v. 28 and for the assurance that has been his theme throughout this chapter. The realization of God’s “purpose” in individual believers is the bedrock of “the hope of glory.”134

Paul exposits God’s plan in four parallel clauses, in which Paul repeats key verbs as a way of connecting them closely together.135 He thereby creates what has been called a “golden chain” and has furnished theologians throughout the history of the church with rich material for the construction of a doctrine of soteriology—particularly for its earliest (predestination) and latest (perseverance) stages. While such application is entirely justified, we must remember that (1) Paul does not intend to give a complete picture of his, still less of NT, soteriology; and (2) these verses have a definite role to play in the argument of this chapter.

The first of the verbs is the most controversial. “Foreknow,” as its etymology in both Greek and English suggests, usually means “to know ahead of time.”136 See Acts 26:5, where Paul says that the Jews “knew before now, for a long time, if they wished to testify, that I had lived according to the strictest party of our religion.” This being the commonest meaning of the verb, it is not surprising that many interpreters think it must mean this here also. Since, however, it would be a needless truism to say that God “knows” (about) Christians ahead of time, the verb would have to suggest that God “foresees” something peculiar to believers—perhaps their moral fitness (so many patristic theologians) or (which is far more likely, if this is what the verb means) their faith.137 In this manner the human response of faith is made the object of God’s “foreknowledge”; and this foreknowledge, in turn, is the basis for predestination: for “whom he foreknew, he predestined.”138

But I consider it unlikely that this is the correct interpretation. (1) The NT usage of the verb and its cognate noun139 does not conform to the general pattern of usage. In the six occurrences of these words in the NT, only two mean “know beforehand” (Acts 26:5, cited above, and 2 Pet. 3:17); the three others besides the occurrence in this text, all of which have God as their subject, mean not “know before”—in the sense of intellectual knowledge, or cognition—but “enter into relationship with before” or “choose, or determine, before” (Rom. 11:2; 1 Pet. 1:20; Acts 2:23; 1 Pet. 1:2).140 (2) That the verb here contains this peculiarly biblical sense of “know” is suggested by the fact that it has a simple personal object. Paul does not say that God knew anything about us but that he knew us, and this is reminiscent of the OT sense of “know.”141 (3) Moreover, it is only some individuals—those who, having been “foreknown,” were also “predestined,” “called,” “justified,” and “glorified”—who are the objects of this activity; and this shows that an action applicable only to Christians must be denoted by the verb. If, then, the word means “know intimately,” “have regard for,”142 this must be a knowledge or love that is unique to believers and that leads to their being predestined. This being the case, the difference between “know or love beforehand” and “choose beforehand” virtually ceases to exist.143 What, then, is the meaning of this “beforehand”? While it is of course true that God’s actions, in and of themselves, are not bound to created “time,”144 it is also clear that the “before” can have no other function than to set the divine action in the conceptual framework of what we call “time.” The “before” of God’s “choosing,” then, could relate to the time at which we come to “love God” (v. 28),145 but 1 Pet. 1:20 and Eph. 1:4 suggest rather that Paul would place this choosing of us “before the foundation of the world.”146

With this first verb, then, Paul highlights the divine initiative in the outworking of God’s purpose. This does not entail any minimizing of the importance of the human response of faith that has received so much attention in chaps. 1–4.147 But this “before” does make it difficult to conceive of faith as the ground of this “choosing.” As Murray puts it, what is involved is “not the foresight of difference but the foresight that makes difference to exist, not a foresight that recognizes existence but the foreknowledge that determines existence.” But what, or whom, precisely, has God “foreknown” in this way? The answer of many contemporary exegetes and theologians is “the church.” What is “foreknown,” or “elected,” is not the individual but Christ, and the church as “in Christ.”148 But whatever might be said about this interpretation elsewhere, it does not fit these verses very well. Not only is nothing said here about “in Christ” or the church, but the purpose of Paul is to assure individual believers—not the church as a whole—that God is working for their “good” and will glorify them.

While this first verb generates much of the discussion, it is the second verb in the verse that Paul emphasizes. “Foreknowing” is simply the step that leads to what Paul is really concerned to stress: God’s “foreordaining,” or “predestining,”149 to conformity with the image of his Son. This second verb takes a step beyond the first by focusing attention on the purpose of God’s electing grace.150 And the way in which Paul disrupts his careful parallelism in the last part of v. 29 to develop this idea reveals the importance it had for him. The “destination” toward which believers have been set in motion is that we might “be conformed to the image of [God’s] Son.” The language Paul uses here reminds us of his central “with Christ” theology and suggests a (negative) comparison with Adam.151 Now it is God’s purpose to imprint on all those who belong to Christ the “image” of the “second Adam.”152

When does this “being conformed” take place? In light of v. 17b—“suffer with Christ in order to be glorified with him”—Paul may think of the believer as destined from his conversion onward to “conform” to Christ’s pattern of suffering followed by glory.153 Hodge is representative of those who argue for an even broader reference: conformity to God’s will, exemplified by Christ, in this life and glory in the life to come.154 But the closest parallels, Phil. 3:21 and 1 Cor. 15:49, are both eschatological; and eschatology is Paul’s focus in this paragraph.155 This makes it more likely that Paul thinks here of God’s predestining us to future glory, that glory which Christ already enjoys.156 The last clause of the verse tends to confirm this interpretation: “so that157 he [Christ] might be the firstborn among many brothers.” For the idea of Christ as “firstborn” reminds us of Christ’s place as the “first fruits” of those who are raised (1 Cor. 15:20; cf. vv. 10–11).158 It is as Christians have their bodies resurrected and transformed that they join Christ in his glory and that the purpose of God, to make Christ the “firstborn” of many to follow, is accomplished.

30 Paul resumes his “chain” of verbs by repeating the one with which the chain was “broken”: “predestined.” Forming the next link is the verb “he called,” which denotes God’s effectual summoning into relationship with him.159 The exact correspondence between those who are the objects of predestining and those who experience this calling is emphasized by the demonstrative pronoun “these”160: “it was precisely those who were predestined who also161 were called.” This leaves little room for the suggestion that the links in this chain are not firmly attached to one another, as if some who were “foreknown” and “predestined” would not be “called,” “justified,” and “glorified.”162

The next link in the chain brings us back to the central theme of chaps. 1–4: justification. As we recall Paul’s repeated stress on faith in those chapters, we do well to remember that Paul’s focus in these verses on the divine side of salvation in no way mitigates the importance of human response. It is, indeed, God who “justifies”; but it is the person who believes who is so justified.

With the final verb in the chain, Paul has come back to his starting point in this paragraph and to the paragraph’s central theme: glory. This verb is in the same tense as the others in the series.163 What makes this interesting is that the action denoted by this verb is (from the standpoint of believers) in the future,164 while the other actions are past. Most interpreters conclude, probably rightly, that Paul is looking at the believer’s glorification from the standpoint of God, who has already decreed that it should take place.165 While not yet experienced, the divine decision to glorify those who have been justified has already been made; the issue has been settled.166 Here Paul touches on the ultimate source of the assurance that Christians enjoy, and with it he brings to a triumphant climax his celebration of the “no condemnation” that applies to every person in Christ.

Scholars are fond of using the inelegant phrase “already … not yet” to decribe an essential dimension of NT teaching: while “already” redeemed, justified, reconciled to God, and so on, the believer has “not yet” been glorified, released from temptation and suffering, and the like. Nowhere in the NT is this tension as clear as in this paragraph; and nowhere is the solution to that tension more clearly expressed. God’s intention, Paul emphasizes, is to bring to glory every person who has been justified by faith in Jesus Christ. Our assurance of ultimate victory rests on this promise of God to us. But Paul, ever the realist, knows that that ultimate victory may lie many years ahead—years that might be filled with pain, anxiety, distress, and disaster. Thus he also encourages us by reminding us that God sends his Spirit into the heart of everyone he justifies. The Spirit brings power and comfort to the believer in the midst of suffering; and he brings assurance in the midst of doubt. Christians who are unduly anxious about their relationship to the Lord are failing to let the Spirit exercise that ministry. It is by committing ourselves anew to the life of devotion—prayer, Scripture reading, Christian fellowship—that we enable the Spirit to have this ministry of assurance in our hearts.

E. THE BELIEVER’S SECURITY CELEBRATED (8:31–39)

31What then shall we say in view of these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32He who did not even spare his own Son, but handed him over for all of us—how will he not also freely give us all things with him? 33Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; 34who is the one condemning? Christ Jesus1 is the one who died and, more, was raised, who is also at the right hand of God, who also is interceding for us.

35Who will separate us from the love of Christ?2 Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? 36Even as it is written, “For your sake we are being put to death all day long; we are considered as sheep for slaughter.”a 37But in all these things we are more than conquerors through the one who loved us. 38For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, neither angels nor rulers, neither present things nor things to come, neither powers,3 39nor height, nor depth, nor any created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This beautiful and familiar celebration of the believer’s security in Christ comes in response to Paul’s rehearsal of the blessings that have been granted to the believer through the gospel. Since Paul has been enumerating these blessings from virtually the first verses of the letter, this paragraph could be the climax of the letter up to this point.4 At the other extreme, “these things” in v. 31 could refer only to those blessings enumerated in the immediately preceding verses (28, or 29–30).5 But the similarity between the language and contents of this passage and Rom. 5 suggests rather that this paragraph, while responding immediately to what Paul has been saying in chap. 8, and especially 8:18–30,6 is intended to cap Paul’s many-sided discussion of Christian assurance in chaps. 5–8 as a whole.7 Thus, we hear again, as in 5:1–11, of the love of God in Christ for us and the assurance that that brings to us; of the certainty of final vindication because of the justifying verdict of God; and of how these great forces render ultimately impotent and unimportant the tribulations of this life.

The elevated style of this paragraph, with its rhetorical questions, plethora of relative pronouns and unusual vocabulary, has suggested to many that Paul may be quoting from a liturgical tradition.8 This is, of course, possible, although the way in which the paragraph so naturally picks up themes that are present elsewhere in Rom. 5–8 suggests rather that the style reflects Paul’s own emotions as he looks back over the abundance of the Christian’s privileges. Various subdivisions of the paragraph have been suggested,9 but I think it is simplest and most natural to divide the paragraph into two parts: vv. 31–34 and vv. 35–39.10 The first is dominated by judicial imagery—“on our behalf,” “hand over,” “bring any charge,” “justify,” “condemn,” “intercede.” God being “for us” means that the verdict he has already rendered in justification stands as a perfect guarantee of vindication in the judgment. In vv. 35–39, Paul expands the picture by adding to our assurance for the “last day” assurance for all the days in between. Not only is the believer guaranteed ultimate vindication; he or she is also promised victory over all the forces of this world. And the basis for this many-faceted assurance is the love of God for us in Christ; God’s, or Christ’s, love is the motif of this paragraph, mentioned three times (vv. 35, 37, 39; cf. Rom. 5:5–8).

31 As we have seen, Paul uses the rhetorical question “What, then, shall we say?” frequently in Romans to advance his argument. Here, however, as in 3:1 and 4:1 (and cf. the variant in 9:19), these words do not stand alone but are part of a substantive question: “What shall we say in view of11 these things?” “These things,” as I suggested above, should not be confined to what Paul has just said in vv. 28–30, or even in chap. 8 as a whole, but embrace all the blessings ascribed to Christians in chaps. 5–8. All this Paul sums up in the simple statement, “if God be for us.” The preposition I translate “for” could also be translated “on behalf of.”12 Paul uses it frequently to depict the vicarious work of Christ (cf. especially 5:6–8); here it suggests that God is “on our side,” that he is working “for” us. If this be so, Paul asks, “who13 is against us?” Obviously, Paul does not mean that nobody will, in fact, oppose us; as Paul knows from his own experience (to which he alludes in v. 35), opposition to believers is both varied and intense. What Paul is suggesting by this rhetorical question is that nobody—and no “thing”—can ultimately harm, or stand in the way of, the one whom God is “for.” This is how Chrysostom put it:

Yet those that be against us, so far are they from thwarting us at all, that even without their will they become to us the causes of crowns, and procurers of countless blessings, in that God’s wisdom turneth their plots unto our salvation and glory. See how really no one is against us!

32 The lack of connecting conjunction between this verse and v. 3114 is typical of this paragraph, lending it a solemn and elevated style. But the implicit connection is with “for us”: God being “for us” has its deepest demonstration in his giving his own Son for us,15 a demonstration that should leave us in no doubt about his commitment to be “for us” right up to, and including, the end. The argument of this verse—God’s giving his Son as a guarantee of his future blessings—is very close to 5:8–916 and is another example of the way in which the last part of chap. 8 comes back to the basic themes with which this section of the letter began. Calling Christ God’s “own”17 Son distinguishes him from those many “adopted” sons that have come into God’s family by faith (8:14–16); but it may also suggest a parallel with Abraham’s giving of his “beloved” son Isaac (Gen. 22).18 Rather than “sparing” his Son, God “handed him over,”19 a verb that reminds us of the initiative of God in the crucifixion.20 The addition of “all” to “us” stresses that it is for all believers (“you” in this context) that God has given his Son (note, however, that the text does not say “only for all you believers”).

Verse 32 is a kind of conditional sentence, with “God handing over his Son” being the “if” clause and “how will he not also freely give21 us all things” the “then” clause. But by introducing the second with “how,” Paul suggests how inconceivable it would be for this “then” clause to remain unfulfilled: “If God has, indeed, given his Son for us, how can anyone doubt that he will not also22 freely give us all things along with him?”23 How broad is the scope of the “all things” that God so graciously bestows on us? Paul could be alluding to our share in Christ’s sovereignty over creation.24 But it is not clear that these ideas play a role in our present passage. Certainly Paul’s focus is on those things necessary for our salvation;25 but, as with “the good” in v. 28, we should not restrict the meaning to salvation as such but include all those blessings—spiritual and material—that we require on the path toward that final salvation.26 “Why be dubious about the chattels, when you have the Lord?” (Chrysostom).

33 There are at least six possible ways to punctuate this verse and the next;27 but the best alternative is the one that emerges most clearly in the NASB: “Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is he who died, yes, rather, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.”28 “Bring a charge”29 is the first of the explicitly judicial terms in this context.30 The future tense of the verb focuses attention on the last judgment: Who will stand and accuse us at that time? To be sure, Satan, the “accuser,” may seek to do so; so may our enemies and, perhaps most persuasively of all, our own sins. But no accusation will be effective because it is against God’s “elect” that the accusation is being made; and, as Paul has shown in vv. 28–30, those who are God’s “elect ones” by virtue of his calling and purpose are assured of glory. In a sense, then, this manner of designating Christians in the question itself is the only answer required.31 But it is natural to view the following sentence as a further basis for the ultimate failure of any accusations against us: it is God who is justifying.32

34 That “who is the one condemning?”33 is not a fresh, independent question but a “follow-up” on the discussion in v. 33, is suggested by the fact that “condemn” and “justify” are natural contrasts. This question is, then, to be seen as an additional rhetorical response to the statement in v. 33b that it is God who justifies. The sentence beginning “Christ Jesus” consists of four clauses, the first two using participles in a way similar to vv. 33b–34a, the last two being relative clauses describing further aspects of Christ’s work. The sentence as a whole can be construed as a response to the question “who will condemn?”—“no one [implied]; for Christ Jesus …”34—or as a preparation for v. 35—Christ Jesus has done these things for us; who, then, will separate us from the love of Christ?35 The continued use of judicial images in the sentence—especially Christ’s intercession—favors the former alternative. The enumeration of actions accomplished by, and through, Christ occurs in ascending order, with the emphasis falling on the last in the series. Not only has Jesus died to secure our justification—“more than that”36 he has “been raised” and has also ascended to the right hand of God, so that he may intercede for us, ensuring that the justifying verdict for which he died is applied to us in the judgment. The language of Jesus being at “the right hand of God”37 is taken from Ps. 110:1, one of the most often quoted OT verses in the NT.38 The language is, of course, metaphorical, indicating that Jesus has been elevated to the position of “vice-regent” in God’s governance of the universe. But it is not with the universe, but with Christians, that Paul is concerned here. Because Christ lives and has ascended, he is able to “intercede” for us, acting as our High Priest in the very presence of God.39

35 The question that begins and sets the tone for the next five verses is formally parallel to those in vv. 33 and 34; but, materially, it makes a new start. Left behind is the forensic image of “God for us”; begun is the more personal and relational emphasis on the love of God in Christ for us. Not, of course, that these images are contradictory, or even to be put in separate compartments. As 5:6–10 makes absolutely clear, it is in the “giving of his Son” “for us” that God’s love is preeminently shown; and God’s love for us is not simply an “emotion” but his gracious action on our behalf. But, perhaps because he has just delineated the work of Christ for us, Paul in this verse speaks not, as in v. 39, of the love of God but of the love of Christ.40

The “who” in this opening question embraces any conceivable “opponent,” whether personal or impersonal.41 The list of difficulties that follows requires little comment, except to note that all the items except the last are found also in 2 Cor. 11:26–27 and 12:10, where Paul lists some of those hazards he himself has encountered in his apostolic labors. All these, then, Paul himself has experienced, and he has been able to prove for himself that they are quite incapable of disrupting his relationship with the love of Christ. And the last—the “sword,” death by execution—Paul was to find overcome for him in the love of Christ at the end of his life.

36 This verse is something of an interruption in the flow of thought, and one that is typical for Paul. For he is constantly concerned to show that the sufferings experienced by Christians should occasion no surprise (see a similar interruption in Phil. 1:29). Here Paul cites Ps. 44:22 (LXX 43:22)42 to show, as Calvin puts it, that “it is no new thing for the Lord to permit his saints to be undeservedly exposed to the cruelty of the ungodly.”

37 The “but”43 connects this verse with v. 35. Paul assumes a negative answer to the question of v. 35 and here proceeds to go even further: not only are such things as enumerated in that verse unable to separate us from Christ’s love, but, on the contrary, we are “more than conquerors” with respect to them. “More than conquerors” is a felicitous rendering, going back to the Geneva Bible, of the intensive verb Paul uses here.44 If more than simple emphasis is intended, perhaps Paul wants to emphasize that believers not only “conquer” such adversities; under the providential hand of God, they even work toward our “good” (v. 28).45 But the victory is not ours, for it is only “through the one who loved us”46 that it happens.

38 The assurance expressed in v. 37 is now grounded47 in a more personal testimony of Paul’s own. Paul stands completely convinced48 that nothing at all will be able to separate believers from the love of God in Christ. The enumeration of possible threats to this security unfolds mainly in obvious pairs: “death and life,” “angels and rulers,” “things present and things to come,” “height and depth.” Only the word “powers”49 disrupts the sequence of pairs, leading some to suggest it originally appeared after “rulers,” with which it is often joined in the NT.50 But there is no textual evidence for this displacement, and we must conclude that Paul has not arranged his sequence as carefully as some critics would have wanted him to.

“Death” probably comes first in the list because it picks up the reference to “being put to death” in the quotation (v. 36). While this might suggest that Paul has specifically martyrdom in mind,51 it is more likely that he is thinking of physical death in any form. Similarly, while “life” has been taken to mean the distractions and cares of this life52 or the sufferings of this life,53 it is preferable to regard Paul as using the term in a rather “unreflective” way, as a natural contrast to “death” and without any specific aspect of life in mind. We must avoid introducing more precision in Paul’s choice of terms than his evident rhetorical purpose would justify.54 The first pair of terms, then, refers in the most general way to the two possible states of existence.55 The second pair of terms, “angels and rulers,” embraces the spirit world. While there are places where Paul uses “angel” to refer to any “spirit” being, whether good or evil,56 he usually uses the word to denote the “good” angels, and this is probably his intention here also.57 “Rulers” is never used with “angels” elsewhere in Paul. Paul can use “ruler” to denote a secular authority,58 but more often he uses it to denote powers or authorities of the spirit world, sometimes those of an evil nature (Eph. 6:12; Col. 2:15) but also in a general way that makes it difficult to know whether evil, or evil and good, spirit “rulers” generally are meant.59 If “angels” refers to “good” angels, it is natural to think that “rulers” denotes evil spiritual powers,60 but the lexical evidence makes it impossible to be sure.

Having touched on the modes of human existence and the spirit world, Paul now includes the temporal dimension in his enumeration of those “powers” that are unable to separate the believer from God’s love. These “things present” and “things to come” are sometimes also taken as references to spiritual beings,61 but evidence is lacking for such an identification. Paul’s point is rather that the believer need have no fear that either present or future circumstances and events will call into question his relationship to God in Christ. The last term in this verse, “powers,” is the only one in the list (except, of course, for the last, summarizing item) that occurs by itself. Since Paul uses the word to denote miracles,62 he may mean that nothing of such a nature—performed perhaps by Satan—can threaten our security as believers. But the occurrence of “powers” with “rulers” to denote spiritual beings suggests rather that some kind of spiritual forces are denoted here.63 Why the word occurs on its own is impossible to know.

39 The final pair of terms—“height” and “depth”—is the most controversial. There are two main possibilities. First, since these terms, or terms like them, were used in astronomical contexts to denote the celestial space below and above the horizon, and, derivatively, celestial powers,64 Paul may be referring to spiritual beings.65 However, neither term occurs elsewhere in the NT with this meaning,66 and the imagery in some of the texts where the terms occur—especially Eph. 3:18—suggests that Paul is using the terms in a simple “spatial” sense. According to this, the second main interpretation, the terms are intended to embrace the entire universe: either those things above the heavens and beneath the earth,67 heaven and earth itself,68 or, perhaps most likely, heaven and hell.69

Lest a picky reader think that Paul has omitted something that could threaten the believer’s security in Christ, Paul concludes with the comprehensive “any created thing.”70 Are even the responsible decisions of Christians themselves included in this last phrase? Calvinists usually think so, and conclude that Paul clearly teaches here the eternal security of believers.71 Others, however, argue that Paul, by implication, focuses on only those forces that lie outside the believer’s own free and responsible choices; and that what Paul says here and in this paragraph does not, then, preclude the possibility that a believer might decide to separate himself from the love of God in Christ.72 While we must not press Paul’s language beyond what he intends, we think that the broad “who” in v. 35 and the phrase here more naturally would include even the believer herself within the scope of those things that cannot separate us from Christ.

The subparagraph ends on the note with which it began: the impossibility that the believer can be “separated” from the divine love. The fact that this love is identified specifically as “the love of Christ” in v. 35 and “the love of God” here only shows again how much Paul joined (without equating) God and Christ in the experience of the believer. But even here, this love of God for us73 is “in Christ Jesus our Lord.” For it is in giving “his own Son” that God’s love is above all made known to us, and only in relation to Christ do we experience the love of God for us. As we have noted repeatedly, the absence from Romans of an extended passage on Christology per se should not blind us to the centrality of Christology in the letter. Here again, as at the conclusion of chaps. 5, 6, and 7 (cf. v. 25a), Paul reiterates the supreme significance of Christ for all that he is teaching.

IV. THE DEFENSE OF THE GOSPEL: THE PROBLEM OF ISRAEL (9:1–11:36)

Paul’s celebration of God’s faithfulness and love in 8:31–39 is a fitting end to his theological exposition. We might now expect Paul to solidify and apply his theology in a series of exhortations of the kind that often conclude his letters. But these exhortations do not begin until chap. 12. What fills the gap between the end of chap. 8 and the beginning of chap. 12 is Paul’s anguished wrestling with the problem of Israel’s unbelief. Is this section, then, a detour from the main line of Paul’s argument in Romans, an excursus that disrupts the natural flow of the letter?1 Not at all. Rom. 9–11 is an important and integral part of the letter.

Those who relegate chaps. 9–11 to the periphery of Romans have misunderstood the purpose of Rom. 9–11, or of the letter, or of both. As we showed in the introduction, Paul’s presentation and defense of “his” gospel to the Roman Christians occurs against the backdrop of controversy over the relationship between Judaism and the church. Paul, the “apostle to the Gentiles,” found himself at the center of this debate. A decade of struggle to preserve the integrity and freedom of the gospel from a fatal mixture with the Jewish torah lies behind him; a critical encounter with Jews and Jewish Christians suspicious of him because of his outspoken stance in this very struggle lies immediately ahead (cf. Rom. 15:30–33). And the Roman Christians themselves are caught up in this issue, divided over the degree to which, as Christians, they are to retain the Jewish heritage of their faith.

Once we recognize the importance of this Jewish motif in Romans, we can give Rom. 9–11 its appropriate place in the letter. In these chapters Paul is not simply using Israel to illustrate a theological point, such as predestination2 or the righteousness of God.3 He is talking about Israel herself, as he wrestles with the implications of the gospel for God’s “chosen people” of the OT.4 Paul frames chaps. 9–11 with allusions to the key tension he is seeking to resolve: the Jews, recipients of so many privileges (9:4–5), are not experiencing the salvation offered in Christ (implied in 9:1–3); they are the objects of God’s electing love, yet, from the standpoint of the gospel, they are “enemies” (11:28). Paul’s aim is to resolve this tension.5 The tension arises from the historical circumstance that the majority of Jews have rejected the gospel. Why is this, if indeed the gospel is “first of all” for Jews (cf. 1:16)? But the tension has theological roots also. Paul’s own explanation of the gospel in chaps. 1–8 is partly responsible for this theological tension. He has denied that Jews are guaranteed salvation through the Mosaic covenant (chap. 2, especially). What, then, becomes of their OT status as “God’s chosen people”? Magnifying the problem is Paul’s repeated insistence that what once apparently belonged to, or was promised to, Israel now belongs to believers in Jesus Christ, whether Jew or Gentile. Christians are Abraham’s heirs (chap. 4), God’s adopted children (8:14–17), possessors of the Spirit (chap. 8), and heirs of God’s own glory (5:2; 8:18–30). If Jewish rejection of the gospel creates the problem Paul grapples with in Rom. 9–11, Gentile acceptance of that same gospel exacerbates it.6 It seems that Israel has not only been disinherited but replaced. Paul earlier categorically but briefly rejected the conclusion that his teaching implied the cancellation of all the Jews’ advantages (3:1–4). Now he elaborates.

Of course, Paul could have cut the Gordian knot by simply claiming that the church had taken over Israel’s position and leaving it at that. But what, then, would become of the continuity between the OT and the gospel? For the Jewish claim to privileged status arises not simply from a self-generated nationalistic fervor; it is rooted in the OT: “The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people” (Deut. 7:6b).7 Paul could not jettison these promises, for to do so would be to jettison the gospel. The gospel is “the gospel of God” (1:1), and the God of whom Paul speaks is none other than the God who has spoken and acted in Israel’s history. Paul must, then, demonstrate that the God who chose and made promises to Israel is the same God who has opened the doors of salvation “to all who believe.” To do so, Paul must prove that God has done nothing in the gospel that is inconsistent with his word of promise to Israel; that the gospel he preaches is not the negation but the affirmation of God’s plan revealed in the OT (see, e.g., 1:2; 3:21).8 It is for this reason that Paul quotes the OT so often in Rom. 9–11 (almost a third of all Paul’s quotations are found in these chapters9): he is seeking to demonstrate “the congruity between God’s word in Scripture and God’s word in Paul’s gospel.”10 At the same time, then, Paul is demonstrating that God is consistent, faithfully fulfilling all his promises—whether they are found in the OT or the NT (cf. 9:6a).11

Romans 9–11, therefore, is an integral part of Paul’s letter to the Romans.12 These chapters contribute to Paul’s exposition of the gospel by showing that it provides fully for God’s promises to Israel, when those promises are rightly understood. The appropriateness of Rom. 9–11 within the letter is revealed also in the many specific textual and thematic contacts with chaps. 1–8.13 But the very number of these contacts suggests that chaps. 9–11 form a distinct argument, relating generally to the argument of chaps. 1–8 without being tied to any one text or theme.14 However, to call Rom. 9–11 the climax or center of the letter is going too far.15 Such an evaluation often arises from a desire to minimize the importance of the individual’s relationship to God in chaps. 1–8. But the individual’s standing before God is the center of Paul’s gospel, which offers salvation only on the basis of a personal response (1:16). If some earlier expositors of Paul were too preoccupied with his teaching about the individual’s relationship to God at the expense of his emphasis on the corporate relationship between Jews and Gentiles, many contemporary scholars are making the opposite mistake. Individual and corporate perspectives are intertwined in Paul. His claim that individual Jews are sinners, in danger of God’s wrath (2:1–3:20), requires him to deal with the status of the people Israel.

In these chapters Paul continues to use the dialogical style that is so characteristic of Romans. He uses rhetorical questions to move his argument along (9:14, 30; 10:8, 14–15a, 18, 19; 11:1, 7, 11) and in 9:19–23 engages in a dialogue with a fictional respondent. These are argumentative devices and do not necessarily provide us with any information about the “real” addressees of Paul’s argument in these chapters. However, Paul’s address of Gentile Christians in 11:13–32 is in a different category. This must be read as an indication of Paul’s intended audience at this point in his discussion16 and demonstrates that one of Paul’s purposes in Rom. 9–11 is the rebuke of Gentile arrogance (in Rome and elsewhere) toward Jews and Jewish Christians.17 But does it require that this be Paul’s only intended audience throughout these chapters? We do not think so. Paul’s vehement affirmation of concern for his Jewish kinfolk, as well as his careful scriptural defense of the exclusion of many Jews from the messianic salvation, suggests strongly that he also writes to convince Jewish Christians of the truth of his gospel.18 As he has throughout the letter, then, Paul in Rom. 9–11 writes to both Gentile and Jewish Christians, both of whom are represented, as we have seen, in the church at Rome.19 Paul’s complex theologizing in chaps. 9–11 has a very practical purpose: to unite the squabbling Roman Christians behind his vision of the gospel and its implications for the relationship of Jew and Gentile. As so often in Romans, Paul’s approach is balanced. He insists, against the presumption of many Gentiles in the community, that the gospel does not signal the abandonment of Israel (chap. 11, especially).20 But he also makes clear that Jews and Jewish Christians who think that they have an inalienable salvific birthright are in error (chaps. 9 and 10, especially). Paul therefore criticizes extremists from both sides, paving the way for his plea for reconciliation in chaps. 14–15.21

Tied though these chapters are to the immediate needs and problems of both Paul and the Roman Christians, we should not miss the larger and enduring theological issue that they address. Israel’s unbelief of the gospel is a matter of significance not only to the Roman Christians, or to first-century Christians generally, but to all Christians.22 For it raises the question of the continuity of salvation history: Does the gospel presented in the NT genuinely “fulfill” the OT and stand, thus, as its natural completion? Or is the gospel a betrayal of the OT, with no claim therefore to come from the same God who elected and made promises to Israel? We need to hear Paul’s careful and balanced answer to these questions. He teaches that the gospel is the natural continuation of OT salvation history—against an incipient “Marcionism” that would sever the gospel from the OT and Judaism. But at the same time, he teaches that the gospel is also the fulfillment of salvation history—against the Judaizing tendency to view the gospel in terms of the torah.

The body of Rom. 9–11 is framed by an opening personal lament (9:1–5) and a closing doxology (11:33–36). The intervening material can be divided into four basic sections. The first (9:6–29) opens with a positive assertion—“It is not as though the word of God had failed”—that states a possible implication from what Paul has written in vv. 1–5. This assertion is taken by many to be the thesis that Paul defends throughout Rom. 9–11. While it is true that Paul is concerned to show the compatibility of his understanding of the gospel and the OT throughout these chapters, those who view each of the main units of Rom. 9–11 as parallel defenses of this statement may be guilty of imposing a neat “outline” format on Paul that he never intended.23 Paul’s argument proceeds in a more “linear” fashion, with each new section building on, or responding to, points in the previous section (or sections).24 Suggesting such a progressive form of argument is the fact that each of the three remaining units in Paul’s argument is introduced with a rhetorical question that ties it to what has preceded. We may then summarize the movement of Paul’s argument as follows:

9:1–5—Introduction of the issue Paul seeks to resolve: the Jews’ failure to embrace the gospel (vv. 1–3) calls into question the value of the privileges and promises God has given them (vv. 4–5).

9:6–29—Defense of the proposition in v. 6a—“the word of God has not failed.” Paul argues that God’s word never promised salvation to all the biological descendants of Abraham (9:6b–13). Salvation is never a birthright, even for Jews, but always a gift of God’s electing love (vv. 14–23), a gift he is free to bestow on Gentiles as well as Jews (vv. 24–29).

9:30–10:21—Connected to 9:6b–29 (and esp. vv. 25–29) with the rhetorical question “What then shall we say?” Paul uses his understanding of the gospel to explain the surprising turn in salvation history, as Jews are cast aside while Gentiles stream into the kingdom.

11:1–10—Connected to 9:30–10:21 (esp. vv. 20–21) and indirectly to 9:6b–29 with the rhetorical question “I ask, then.…” Paul summarizes the situation of Israel as he has outlined in the previous two sections and prepares for the next section by affirming the continuation of Israel’s election.

11:11–32—Connected to 11:1–10 (esp. v. 7a) with the rhetorical question “I ask then.…” Paul argues that Israel’s current hardened state is neither an end in itself nor is it permanent. God is using Israel’s casting aside in a salvific process that reaches out to Gentiles and will include Israel once again.25

11:33–36—Response to the teaching of Rom. 9–11 with extolling of God’s transcendent plan and doxology.

A. INTRODUCTION: THE TENSION BETWEEN GOD’S PROMISES AND ISRAEL’S PLIGHT (9:1–5)

1I am speaking the truth in Christ, I am not lying, as my conscience bears witness to me through the Holy Spirit, 2for I have great pain and ceaseless anguish in my heart. 3For I could pray that I might be accursed from Christ for the sake of my fellow Jews, my kindred according to the flesh, 4who are Israelites, and whose are the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants,1 and the giving of the law, and the worship, and the promises, 5whose are the fathers, and from whom, according to the flesh, is the Messiah, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.

Paul signals a break in his argument by the abrupt transition from chap. 8 to chap. 9. No conjunction or particle connects the two chapters, and the tone shifts dramatically from celebration (8:31–39) to lamentation (9:1–3).2 Paul begins his exposition of the gospel and Israel with an impassioned assertion of his own concern for his “kindred according to the flesh” (vv. 1–3). Implied by this concern, as the word “accursed” in v. 3 makes especially clear, is a circumstance well known among the Roman Christians: the great majority of the Jewish people have not responded in faith to the gospel. But Paul’s concern is not the result only of a natural love for his own people; nor is it directed only to their salvation. As the rehearsal of Israel’s privileges in vv. 4–5 makes clear, Paul is also concerned that Israel’s unbelief has ruptured the continuous course of salvation history: the people promised so many blessings have, it seems, been disinherited. It will be Paul’s task to show that this is not the case.

1 Paul draws his readers’ attention to what he is about to say by forcefully proclaiming his sincerity. He emphasizes the point by putting it both positively—“I am speaking the truth”—and negatively—“I am not lying.”3 And he adds conviction to his assertions by joining to each a reference to the Christian reality from which he speaks. The truth that Paul speaks (the word for truth in the Greek comes first for emphasis), he speaks “in Christ,” “as one united with Christ.”4 Moreover, his assertion that he does not lie is confirmed to him5 by the witness of his conscience. “Conscience” in Paul is an inborn faculty that monitors a person’s conformity to a moral standard.6 The word thus has much the same meaning as it has in modern usage, when we speak, for instance, of having “a good conscience” or “a bad conscience.” Paul assures the Romans that he has a good, or “clear,” conscience about the truthfulness of what he is about to tell them. But one’s conscience is only as good as the moral standards that it monitors. Hence Paul reminds the Romans that, as a believer with a “renewed mind” (12:1–2), his conscience testifies “by means of” the Holy Spirit.7

Why has Paul stressed so strongly the truth of his concern for Israel (v. 2)? Almost certainly because he knew that his passionate and well-known defense of the law-free Gentile mission had earned him the reputation—in Rome, as elsewhere—of being anti-Jewish.8 To the Jewish Christians in the church Paul therefore wants to make clear that his focus on the Gentile mission has by no means meant the abandonment of his concern for, and, indeed, plans for, the salvation of their fellow Jews. But he also wants to dispel any notion that he might have joined with the Gentile Christians in Rome in their sinful disdain for the Jewish people (cf. 11:13–24).

2 The rhetorically effective doubled expressions9 of v. 1 (“I am speaking the truth”/“I am not lying”; “in Christ”/“in the Holy Spirit”) continue in v. 2: “great pain”/“ceaseless anguish.”10 Paul’s grief over the spiritual state of Israel (cf. v. 3) is similar to laments over Israel’s sinful or fallen state in the OT prophets.11 In these texts, lament over Israel’s fallen condition generally gives way to expressions of hope for her future. Without, then, calling into question the reality of Paul’s grief, we can see how naturally his lament fits into the subject that he develops in these chapters.

3 Paul now gives the reason12 for his sorrow: the condemnation under which so many of his fellow Jews stand by reason of their refusal to embrace the gospel. To be sure, he does not state this as his cause for concern in so many words. But that no less than eternal condemnation is the issue is plain from his expressed wish to be “accursed” and “cut off from Christ [or the Messiah13]” for the sake of his fellow Jews. “Accursed” translates the Gk. anathema, which, transliterated, has entered ecclesiastical English to denote a person who is excommunicated. Paul, however, applies the word to the underlying spiritual reality of which the church’s excommunication is but the response: eternal damnation.14 Paul’s willingness to suffer such a fate himself makes sense only if those on behalf of whom he offers himself stand under that curse themselves.15

Paul’s prayer16 that he become anathema for the sake of his fellow Jews strikingly demonstrates his love for his own people. But it also creates a difficulty: Would Paul actually have prayed that he be eternally damned so that others could be saved? A few scholars, noting that Paul uses a Greek tense that usually denotes past action (the imperfect), think that Paul is describing only what “he used to pray.”17 But this is both contextually unlikely and grammatically unnecessary.18 I prefer, in agreement with most English translations, to ascribe a hypothetical nuance to the imperfect tense; as Cranfield paraphrases, “I would pray (were it permissible for me so to pray and if the fulfillment of such a prayer could benefit them).”19 Paul’s willingness to suffer on behalf of Israel may reflect certain ideas in his own heritage. He would know the stories of the Maccabean martyrs, whose deaths were sometimes thought to have atoning value for the nation of Israel as a whole.20 Closer to Paul’s situation, however, and more likely to have influenced him, is the example of Moses, who, after the Golden Calf incident, prayed that God would forgive the people of Israel and asked that his own name be blotted out of “the book” if God chose not to forgive (Exod. 32:30–32).21 Allusions to Moses’ history and person elsewhere in Rom. 9–11 (e.g., 9:14–18; 10:19; 11:13–14) make it likely that Paul does see Moses as, to some extent, his own model. As Moses, the leader of God’s people, offered himself for the sake of his people, so Paul offers himself.22 In keeping with this substitutionary concept, the preposition translated “for the sake of” probably includes the connotation “in place of.”23 It is by taking the place of his “kindred according to the flesh” under the curse of God that Paul will be able to act “for their sake,” and thus save his fellow Jews (see 10:1).24 The unbelieving Jews for whom Paul grieves are his “kindred” in the sphere of human relationships—“the flesh” (for Paul’s use of this word, see the notes on 1:3 and 7:5; and see 11:14, where “my flesh” refers to unbelieving Jews).25 Paul applies “kindred” to his fellow Jews to demonstrate the degree of his continuing identification with, loyalty to, and concern for them. “Apostle to the Gentiles” he may be; but a Jew he remained.

4 In vv. 4–5, Paul enumerates some of the divine privileges given to his “kindred according to the flesh.”26 This suggests that Paul’s willingness to sacrifice himself for unbelieving Israel (v. 3) arises not only from love for his own people but also from love for the truthfulness of God’s word. Paul’s concern is not just that so many of his own people seem doomed to hell; it is also that their fate seems incompatible with the many privileges and promises granted to Israel by God in the OT. Thus Paul’s listing of Israel’s blessings prepares the way for the question that is central to this whole section: Has God’s word failed (v. 6a)? But, more than this, it also suggests, albeit very indirectly, one of the answers to that question. For the blessings Paul lists relate not only to Israel’s glorious past that she has forever forfeited; some of them, at least, relate also to Israel’s present state and are pregnant with potential future significance (especially, “adoption,” “promises,” and “patriarchs”). While, then, Paul’s inventory of Jewish privileges has as its main purpose the explanation of his willingness to sacrifice himself for his people, it also hints at why that sacrifice will not be necessary: God “has not rejected his people whom he foreknew” (11:2).

We are justified in suggesting a causal relationship between vv. 4–5 and v. 3: “I have great sorrow for my fellow Jews and could even pray that I might be condemned so that they could be saved because they are.…”27 Paul’s list of Jewish privileges reflects a careful organization.28 The first term, “Israelites,” stands in its own clause and is the heading for the whole series. There follow three clauses, each connected to Israelites with the relative pronoun “whose”:

v. 4b, “whose are29 the adoption … and the promises”;

v. 5a, “whose are the patriarchs”;

v. 5b–c, “and from whom … forever.”

Paul’s selection of the term “Israelites” to head this list is significant. For, in contrast to the colorless, politically and nationally oriented title “Jew,” “Israelite” connotes the special religious position of members of the Jewish people.30 It is therefore no accident that Paul in Rom. 9–11 generally abandons the word “Jew,” which has figured so prominently in chaps. 1–8,31 in favor of the terms “Israelites” and “Israel.”32 Paul is no longer looking at the Jews from the perspective of the Gentiles and in their relationship to the Gentiles but from the perspective of salvation history and in their relationship to God and his promises to them. The appellation “Israelites,” then, is no mere political or nationalistic designation but a religiously significant and honorific title. And despite the refusal of most of the Israelites to accept God’s gift of salvation in Christ, this title has not been revoked.33 Here is set up the tension that Paul seeks to resolve in these chapters.34

The first of the clauses that unfolds the significance of the word “Israelites” lists six privileges. The Greek suggests an arrangement in two series of three.35 The first prerogative is also the most striking. “Adoption,”36 Paul has just informed us, is the Spirit-conferred status of all those who have been justified by faith in Christ (8:15, 23; cf. Gal. 4:5 and Eph. 1:5). Paul’s attribution of this blessing to the Israelites, most of whom are unbelieving (cf. v. 3), is surprising—particularly since the word is not used in the OT or in Judaism.37 Some interpreters think this indicates that Paul is affirming that the people of Israel remain God’s children in just the way that the church is God’s people. There are, according to these scholars, two “separate but equal” peoples of God, both saved and destined for glory: the church, those who become God’s children through faith in his Son, and Israel, those who are God’s children by virtue of God’s covenant through Moses.38 But this view is incompatible both with what Paul has said earlier in this letter (e.g., 2:1–29; 3:9–20) and with what he will say later in this same section (e.g., 9:6b–13; 9:30–10:8). Moreover, if Israel remains within the sphere of salvation, we cannot explain Paul’s anguish in the preceding verses.

Clearly, then, Israel’s “adoption” here must mean something different than the adoption of Christians in chap. 8. The term is Paul’s way of summing up the OT teaching about Israel as “God’s son.”39 The privilege is one that adheres to the nation as a whole, branding the people as set aside by God from other peoples for blessing and service.40 God’s “adoption” of Christians gives to every believer in Christ all the rights and privileges that are included within new covenant blessings. God’s adoption of Israel, on the other hand, conveys to that nation all the rights and privileges included within the Old Covenant. These blessings, as Paul indicated earlier (2:17–3:8) and as he will reiterate again in the next paragraph (vv. 6–13), do not include salvation for every single Israelite. Nevertheless, Paul’s choice of the term “adoption” is a deliberate attempt (after 8:15, 23) to highlight the continuing regard that God has for Israel, despite her widespread unbelief. It may therefore hint at the new and ultimate work of God among the people Israel that Paul predicts in 11:25–28.41

The second privilege that adheres to the Israelites is “the glory.” It is difficult to know whether this term, like “adoption,” is picked up from chap. 8 and refers therefore to eschatological blessing (e.g., 5:2; 8:17, 18, 21, 30),42 or whether it is historically oriented to the manifestation of God’s presence with the Israelites in the OT—“the splendour of the divine presence” (NEB).43 But these are not mutually exclusive alternatives. Granted the other items in this list, “glory” probably refers basically to God’s presence with the people of Israel; but the very fact that Paul raises the question that he does here suggests that it is the ultimate continuation of that presence (into the eschaton) that is the issue.

Paul’s use of the plural “covenants” is unusual, the singular being much more frequent in both OT and NT. He could be referring to (1) the covenants with Abraham and the other patriarchs,44 (2) the several ratifications of the Mosaic covenant,45 (3) the several covenants mentioned throughout the OT (with Noah, Abraham, the people of Israel at Sinai, and David [e.g., 2 Sam. 23:5]),46 or (4) all the biblical covenants, including the New Covenant (Jer. 31:31–34; cf. 11:26–27).47 The third option is best, since intertestamental passages that use the plural “covenants” refer generally to all the covenants that God had made with the “fathers” (Sir. 44:12, 18; Wis. 18:22; 2 Macc. 8:15). Paul uses the plural “covenants” in the same sense in Eph. 2:12, where he refers to “the covenants of promise” that mark Israel as God’s special people and from which, therefore, Gentiles were alienated.

Paul begins his second triad of Israelite privileges with mention of the “giving of the law.” The word Paul uses can refer both to the act of giving a law or to the results of that act, the law or “legislation.” Many scholars adopt the second definition here (see NEB, “the law”; NIV, “the receiving of the law”).48 But the first definition has better lexical support and fits Paul’s argument better: he wants to focus on the law as given to Israel by God, not on its negative effects on the people as a result of the power of sin.49 “Worship” could refer broadly to Israel’s worship of God wherever and however that was carried out.50 But it is more likely to focus more narrowly on the Israelite sacrificial system.51 The importance of the temple cult and the worship associated with it is seen in one of the most famous statements of the Mishnah: “By three things is the world sustained: by the Law, by the [Temple-] service, and by deeds of loving-kindness” (m. ʾAbot 1:2). “The promises” conclude Paul’s initial list of prerogatives enjoyed by the Israelites. Paul’s characteristic emphasis on the promises given to Abraham and the other patriarchs suggests that these are the promises that he here has in mind.52

5 Paul highlights the last two Jewish privileges in his list by giving to each a separate clause. The first is a final privilege “belonging to” the Israelites: “the fathers,” or “the patriarchs.”53 Descent from the patriarchs is valuable because God gave promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that were valid both for them and for their descendants. The meaning and extent of these promises are the linchpin in Paul’s interpretation of salvation history; see 9:6b–13; 11:15; and especially 11:28, which forms with this verse an “inclusio” surrounding Paul’s discussion in these chapters. Much of what Paul says in Rom. 9–11 is an attempt to explain just what the Israelites legitimately can expect to inherit from their founding fathers.

The last privilege mentioned by Paul not only occupies its own clause but is introduced in a different construction. Rather than “belonging” to the Israelites, the Messiah “is from”54 them. The shift is significant, suggesting, as do vv. 2–3, that the Israelites, for all the privileges they enjoy, have not, as a group, come into genuine relationship with God’s Messiah and the salvation that he has brought.55 As Paul qualified the meaning of his own relationship to the Jewish people (“kindred according to the flesh,” v. 3), so he now qualifies in the same way the descent of the Messiah from the Israelites. The Messiah, Paul is pointing out, comes from the people of Israel “only in respect to that relationship which is strictly and narrowly human.”56 “Flesh,” then, while it is basically “neutral” in meaning here, carries with it that nuance of “this-worldliness,” with implicit contrast with “the world to come,” which is rarely absent from the word in Paul’s usage.57

This prepositional phrase implies that what Paul has said of the Messiah so far, while true, is incomplete. Does Paul explicitly complete the picture by denoting in the last part of v. 5 another aspect of Messiah’s person: his deity? Exegetes and theologians since the inception of the church have been sharply divided over this question. The issue is one of punctuation and therefore of interpretation, for Greek manuscripts of the NT rarely contain punctuation marks and the marks that are found tend to be sporadic and irregular. At least eight different possibilities for the punctuation of the last part of the verse have been suggested, but they can be reduced to two basic choices.58

(1) A comma could be placed after “flesh,” meaning that the words following the comma would modify “Messiah.”59 The words following “Messiah” can then be punctuated in two different ways:

a. “… from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen” (NRSV; cf. also KJV; JB; NASB).

b. “… from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen” (NIV).60

(2) The second general approach to the punctuation of these words places a period after “Messiah” and takes what follows as an independent ascription of praise to God.61 Again, two possible translations result, depending on the punctuation adopted within the clause.

a. “… of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ. God who is over all be blessed for ever. Amen” (RSV; cf. also NEB; TEV).

b. “… from them, in natural descent, sprang the Messiah. May God, supreme over all, be blessed for ever! Amen” (NEB; cf. also TEV).62

The christological implications of this issue are great, for if the first alternative is adopted, Paul here calls Jesus “God,” and Rom. 9:5 becomes one of the most important “proof-texts” for the deity of Christ. Such evidence from Greek manuscripts that we possess favors slightly the second view.63 Most of the church fathers, on the other hand, favor the first interpretation.64 Ancient translations almost all take “God” as a designation of Christ;65 modern translations, as we have seen, are divided, as are modern commentators.66 Despite this difference of opinion, arguments in favor of taking “God” as an appellation of “Messiah” greatly outweigh those that support the alternative.

Favoring a comma after “Messiah” (and thus the first option) are several stylistic arguments. First, the words “the one who is”67 are most naturally taken as a relative clause modifying a word in the previous context (see the similar construction in 1 Cor. 11:31). Second, Paul’s doxologies are never independent but always are tied closely to the preceding context.68 Third, independent blessings of God in the Bible, with only one exception (Ps. 67:19), place the word “blessed”69 in the first position. Here, however, the Greek word for “blessed” occurs after “God,” suggesting that the blessing must be tied to the previous context. As Metzger points out, it is “altogether incredible that Paul, whose ear must have been perfectly familiar with this constantly recurring formula of praise, should in this solitary instance have departed from established usage.”70 Fourth, as suggested above, the qualifying phrase “according to the flesh” implies an antithesis; and Paul usually supplies the antithetical element in such cases, rather than allowing the reader simply to assume it. In other words, we would expect, after a description of what the Messiah is from a “fleshly” or “this-worldly” standpoint, a description of what he is from a “spiritual” or “otherworldly” standpoint; see especially Rom. 1:3–4.

Proponents of the other interpretation, the placing of a period after “Messiah,” admit the force of these arguments but insist that they are outweighed by theological and contextual considerations. The theological issue boils down to the insistence that Paul does not elsewhere call Jesus “God” and that, considering his Jewish monotheistic background, it is very unlikely that he would have done so. But this objection cannot stand. First, Paul almost certainly does call Jesus “God” in one other text (Tit. 2:13).71 Second, the exalted language Paul uses to describe Jesus72 as well as the activities Paul ascribes to him73 clearly attest Paul’s belief in the full deity of Christ. The argument from context is that it would be inconceivable for Paul to describe Christ as God in a passage in which he is trying to create common ground with his unbelieving “kindred.” However, as we have noted, Paul’s shift in construction when introducing the Messiah implies already a certain “distance” between unbelieving Jews and the reality of Jesus the Messiah. And this fits naturally into Paul’s overall perspective, accenting his grief at Jewish unbelief by highlighting the divine status of the Messiah whom his fellow Jews have rejected.

Connecting “God” to “Christ” is therefore exegetically preferable, theologically unobjectionable, and contextually appropriate. Paul here calls the Messiah, Jesus, “God,” attributing to him full divine status. The frequent association of God with “blessed” makes it likely that these should be kept together, and the whole taken in apposition to “the one who is over all”: “Christ, who is supreme over all things, God blessed forever” (thus, essentially, option 1.a above).74

B. DEFINING THE PROMISE (1): GOD’S SOVEREIGN ELECTION (9:6–29)

According to the typical understanding of Jewish Christians in Paul’s day, salvation history had taken an unexpected turn. Most of the people of Israel to whom the promises of salvation had been given refused to recognize the fulfillment of those promises. At the same time Gentiles, who were considered to be excluded from the covenant, were embracing the one in whom those promises had come to fruition. Paul insists, however, that this turn of events, though unexpected, does not violate the integrity of God’s word and his promises. Paul justifies that claim by showing what God’s word itself says about becoming a member of God’s true spiritual people.1 If the OT teaches that belonging to physical Israel in itself makes a person a member of God’s true spiritual people, then Paul’s gospel is in jeopardy. For were this the case, the gospel, proclaiming that only those who believe in Jesus Christ can be saved (cf. 3:20–26), would contradict the OT and be cut off from its indispensable historical roots. Paul therefore argues in vv. 6b–29 that belonging to God’s true spiritual people has always been based on God’s gracious and sovereign call and not on ethnic identity. Therefore, God is free to “narrow” the apparent boundaries of election by choosing only some Jews to be saved (vv. 6–13; 27–29).2 He is also free to “expand” the dimensions of his people by choosing Gentiles (vv. 24–26).3

God’s “calling” of a spiritual “people” is therefore the topic of the passage, a topic Paul characteristically highlights at both the beginning (v. 7) and end (vv. 27–29) of the section.4 Verses 6–13 and 24–29 contain the brunt of Paul’s argument, while vv. 14–23 form an excursus in which Paul deals with certain questions that his teaching about the freedom of God in election raises.5 Throughout, Paul argues from Scripture,6 seeking to convince both his Jewish and Gentile Christian readers in Rome that his viewpoint is rooted in the OT.7

1. The Israel within Israel (9:6–13)

6Now it is not that the word of God has failed. For not all those who are of Israel, these are Israel. 7Neither is it the case that all of Abraham’s children are his seed; but, “In Isaac your seed shall be called.”a 8That is, it is not the children of the flesh, these are the children of God, but the children of the promise who are reckoned as seed. 9For this is the word of the promise: “About this time I will come and Sarah shall have a son.”b

10And not only this, but also Rebecca, when she conceived children in one act of intercourse with Isaac, our ancestor—11for her sons, not yet having been born or done anything good or evil, in order that the purpose of God according to election might remain, 12not out of works but out of the one who calls—it was said to her, “The greater shall serve the lesser.”c 13Just as it is written,

Jacob I loved,

but Esau I hated.d

Paul’s distinction between a broader, ethnic, Israel and a narrower, “spiritual,” Israel (v. 6b) is his basic defense of the proposition that “the word of God has not failed.” He justifies the distinction in two parallel arguments (vv. 7–9 and 10–13).8 In each, Paul quotes the OT twice to contrast two brothers. God’s choice of Isaac rather than Ishmael and Jacob rather than Esau reveals a pattern in God’s creation of his spiritual people that Paul applies to the problem of widespread Jewish unbelief in his own day. For these stories about the founders of the Jewish people demonstrate that the reason why some were included in the people of God and others were not was that God freely chose some and did not choose others. Physical descent, these stories show, was not the crucial qualification. In the same way, Paul implies, belonging to the New Covenant people of God is based on God’s free choice and is not a birthright. Thus it should be no surprise, and certainly no threat to the integrity of God’s word, if many Jews have failed to trust Christ and to be saved.

In summarizing the paragraph in this way, we take issue with an increasingly large number of scholars who are convinced that Paul in this paragraph, and in the succeeding ones (9:14–18, 19–23), is implying nothing about the salvation of individuals.9 Rather, they urge, Paul is describing the way in which God has used some individuals rather than others in the furtherance of his plan: salvation-historical roles, not eternal destinies, is the issue. Moreover, as the quotation of Mal. 1:3 in v. 13 suggests, Paul may not be thinking of individuals at all, but of peoples: Israel (Isaac), Edom (Esau), and Egypt (Pharaoh in v. 17). These scholars have a point: the OT verses Paul cites do not clearly refer to the eternal destiny of the individuals concerned. Yet three points suggest that Paul, however he understands the original meaning of these texts,10 applies them here to the issue of individual salvation.11

(1) His argument requires such an application. Paul must explain why some Israelites in his own day are being saved and why others are not (vv. 3–5); to justify his assertion that only some from “among Israel” are truly Israel (v. 6b). A discussion of the roles of individuals or peoples in salvation history simply does not meet the point Paul needs to make.

(2) Key words in the paragraph—“children of God” (v. 8), “descendants” (vv. 7 and 8), “counted” (v. 8), “children of promise” (v. 8) “name” or “call” (vv. 7, 12), and “not of works” (v. 12)—are consistently applied by Paul elsewhere to the salvation of individuals (see the exegesis below for details).

(3) The continuation of vv. 6b–13 in vv. 24–29 shows that Paul’s point is to demonstrate how God has called individuals from among both Jews and Gentiles to be his people and that those Jews who are called (the “Israel” within Israel of vv. 6b–13) constitute the “remnant” that will be “saved” (v. 27).

6 The first half of v. 6 is the transition between the introduction and the “body” of Paul’s exposition in chaps. 9–11. Paul makes clear that the problem of Israel is at the same time the problem of God’s word and, ultimately, of God himself. For God has adopted Israel, revealed himself to her, bound her to him with his covenants, and given her his law, the temple service, and his promises. Do these now mean nothing? Has God revoked these blessings and gone back on his word to Israel? Many Christians, both Jewish and Gentile, in Rome and elsewhere, must have thought that this was the logical implication of Paul’s radical critique of the Jewish assumption of guaranteed salvation (cf., e.g., Rom. 2). And, if God had indeed reneged on his earlier word, the consequences were dire for more than Jews. For how could Christians trust such a God to fulfill his promises to them?

Thus Paul must affirm that “it is not that12 the word of God has failed.”13 “The word of God” might refer specifically to the gospel.14 Paul would then be defending his gospel against the charge that its failure to bring Israel to salvation at the present time invalidates it.15 But the sequence of thought requires that the “word of God” mentioned in v. 6 is that word which contains the privileges just listed (vv. 4–5) and to which Paul makes reference throughout this chapter. Moreover, “the word of God” here is somewhat parallel to “the oracles of God” in 3:2. Therefore “the word of God” is God’s OT word,16 with particular reference to his promises to Israel.17

Paul now introduces his first justification for the denial that Israel’s unbelief nullifies God’s promises to Israel, a justification that gets to the heart of the matter: Who constitutes the “Israel” to whom God’s promises of salvation have been given? The standard view among Paul’s Jewish contemporaries was that this Israel was made up of all those physically descended from Jacob, the heir of Abraham and Isaac, who was himself named “Israel.” Only those who had refused their inheritance by outright apostasy would be excluded from this Israel to whom the promises belonged. Paul does not deny that ethnic Israel remains God’s people, in some sense (cf. 9:4–5; 11:1–2, 28). But he denies that this corporate election of Israel means the salvation of all Israelites; and he insists that salvation has never been based on ethnic descent (see 2:1–29; 4:1–16). Therefore the people of Israel cannot look to their birthright as a guarantee of salvation. This is the point that Paul makes by asserting that “all those who belong to Israel18 (in a physical sense) do not belong to Israel (in a spiritual sense).”19

What does Paul mean by this “spiritual Israel”? He may be referring to the church, the messianic community composed of both Jews and Gentiles.20 Paul has already in Romans claimed that Abraham’s true descendants are composed of all who believe (4:1–16; cf. Gal. 4:28, where Paul calls Christians “children of promise, like Isaac”). He can elsewhere claim that Christians are “the circumcision” (Phil. 3:3) and uses the title “Israel” to denote the church (Gal. 6:16).21 These texts show that Paul was quite capable of transferring language and titles applied to God’s Old Covenant people Israel to his New Covenant people, the church. Moreover, in v. 24, which resumes the topic of vv. 6–13, Paul emphasizes the inclusion of Gentiles in the new people of God.

These points make it quite possible that Paul includes Gentile Christians in his second reference to “Israel” in v. 6. But we must finally reject this interpretation. (1) Verses 1–5 establish the parameters within which Paul’s language of Israel in Rom. 9–11 must be interpreted, and these verses focus on ethnic Israel. Throughout these chapters, Paul carefully distinguishes between Israel and the Jews on the one hand and the Gentiles on the other. Only where clear contextual pointers are present can the ethnic focus of Israel be abandoned. (2) Paul explains v. 6b in vv. 7–13 with examples of God’s selection of his people from within ethnic Israel. (3) Verses 27–29, which, as we have seen, relate closely to vv. 6–13, feature OT quotations that focus on the idea of the remnant—again, a group existing within ethnic Israel. The “true Israel” in v. 6b, therefore, denotes a smaller, spiritual body within ethnic Israel rather than a spiritual entity that overlaps with ethnic Israel. Paul is not saying “it is not only those who are of Israel that are Israel,” but “it is not all those who are of Israel that are Israel.”

7 Paul supports this distinction between ethnic and spiritual Israel and explains its basis in vv. 7–13. His argument falls into two sections, vv. 7–9 and vv. 10–13, in each of which he cites and comments on Scripture to prove his point.

Paul begins where anyone seeking to define “Israel” must begin: with Abraham. God’s call of and promises to Abraham were the basis for both physical and spiritual Israel.22 Jews therefore looked to their descent from Abraham as the source of their spiritual benefits: they were the “children” or “seed”23 of Abraham.24 It is this assumption that Paul calls into question: “Not all of Abraham’s children are his seed.”25 To be a child of Abraham in a physical sense, Paul is saying, is not necessarily to be his descendant in a spiritual sense. Salvation is not a Jewish birthright.

Paul finds support for the distinction between physical and spiritual descent from Abraham in Gen. 21:12: “In Isaac your seed26 shall be called.”27 These words of God to Abraham come in response to his reluctance to follow Sarah’s advice to banish his son Ishmael and Ishmael’s mother Hagar. They remind Abraham of a crucial distinction between his two sons. The “calling” of descendants “in” Isaac therefore involves more than the promise of physical offspring.28 For God promised that he would give many descendants to Ishmael as well as to Isaac (Gen. 17:20; 21:23). The advantage of Isaac lies rather in the spiritual realm: it is with Isaac, and not Ishmael, that God promises to establish his covenant (Gen. 17:21).29 It is from among Isaac’s descendants—not Ishmael’s—that God will call individuals to become part of his covenant people.

8 Verse 7 in itself provides little support for Paul’s assertion in v. 6b that “not all those who are of Israel belong to [spiritual] Israel.” To claim that covenant blessings descended only through the line of Isaac was no more than what all Jews acknowledged—indeed, insisted on. But it is the conclusion Paul draws from his quotation in v. 7b that distances Paul’s view from that of his Jewish compatriots and buttresses his assertion in v. 6b.30 The opening phrase of v. 8 resembles a formula used by some Jews to introduce interpretations of Scripture, suggesting that v. 8 is Paul’s “commentary” on his quotation of Gen. 21:12.31 This commentary contrasts the “children of the flesh” with “the children of promise,”32 and asserts that only the latter can be truly considered “the children of God.” The immediate reference is to Ishmael—tied to Abraham only by natural descent (“the flesh”)33—and Isaac—tied to Abraham by both natural descent and God’s promise.

It is possible that Paul intends his commentary to apply only to those salvation-historical privileges enjoyed by Isaac and his descendants. But that Paul intends something more than this is evident from the principial nature of Paul’s assertion (note the present “are reckoned”) and from his choice of vocabulary. “Children of God” in Paul always denotes people who belong to God and thus partake of his salvation (Rom. 8:16, 17, 21; Eph. 5:1; Phil. 2:5). The phrase “reckoned as” likewise translates a Greek phrase that Paul elsewhere uses only when referring to Gen. 15:6, a text that Paul quotes to prove that Abraham’s faith brought him into righteous relationship with God (Rom. 4:3, 5, 22; Gal. 3:6).34 And the reference to “promise,” while applicable immediately to the promise expressed in Gen. 21:12, also harks back to the argument of Rom. 4 (cf. vv. 13, 14, 16, 20), where Paul discusses the means by which God brings people into relationship with himself.35 Thus God’s words to Abraham in Gen. 21:12, according to Paul, imply a principle according to which God acts in bestowing his covenantal blessings; as N. T. Wright puts it, “what counts is grace, not race.”36 And the language Paul uses to express that principle implies that he includes within those covenantal blessings the new life experienced by believers in Christ.

9 Paul now explains37 his use of the word “promise” to describe Isaac (and others like him) in his commentary on Gen. 21:12 (v. 8).38 Isaac, though like Ishmael a natural son of Abraham, was born in unusual circumstances as a direct act of God in fulfillment of his promise. The promise that Abraham and Sarah, despite their advanced age and the latter’s barrenness, would have a child is first made in Gen. 17:15–16 and then reiterated in 18:10 and 14. Paul’s quotation appears to be a loose paraphrase of one or both of the latter two verses.39 Paul emphasizes again God’s initiative in creating his covenant people: not by natural generation but by God’s supernatural intervention is the promise to Abraham fulfilled.40

10 In vv. 10–13 Paul moves down one patriarchal generation to develop further his distinction between an ethnic and a spiritual Israel (v. 6b). In fact, God’s choice of Jacob rather than Esau illustrates particularly clearly the principle of “grace rather than race” developed in vv. 7–9.41 Three particulars in the scriptural story about God’s choice of Jacob over Esau provide Paul with powerful support for his insistence that covenant participation comes only as the result of God’s call. First, Jacob and Esau shared the same father and mother. This silences the objector who might argue that Isaac was preferred over Ishmael simply because they had different mothers. Second, God promised that Jacob would be preeminent before the twins were born, implying (as I will argue) that it was God’s will alone, and not natural capacity, religious devotion, or even faith that determined their respective destinies. Third, Jacob’s being the younger of the two makes it even more clear that normal human preferences had nothing to do with God’s choice.42

The transitional phrase “and not only this”43 makes clear that vv. 10–13 take the argument of vv. 7–9 one step further. Since Paul highlighted Sarah’s role in giving birth to the heir of the covenant promises in v. 9b, it is natural that the next step of this argument focuses on the matriarch of the next generation: Rebecca. Paul sees an important similarity between Sarah and Rebecca.44 The point of comparison is obvious: Rebecca, like Sarah, was barren; Rebecca’s barrenness, like Sarah’s, was overcome by divine intervention (Gen. 25:21); and, especially important for Paul’s argument, Rebecca’s son, like Sarah’s, was called by God to become the heir of the covenant promises (see v. 12). In addition, both of the sons who so inherited the covenant promises had a rival. But it is at this point that a critical difference in the two situations exists: Isaac’s rival was but a half-brother, the son of a different woman, while Jacob’s rival was his own twin. It is this difference to which Paul is probably alluding in v. 10b. Most translations (e.g., NRSV; NIV; NASB) suggest that Paul is simply referring to the birth of both Jacob and Esau from the same father, “our ancestor Isaac.”45 This point fails, however, to advance Paul’s argument, for the essential situation is then no different than it was in the case of Isaac and Ishmael, who were both children of Abraham. It is therefore attractive to interpret Paul’s Greek as a reference to the one act of conception that produced the twins Jacob and Esau (see our translation above).46 Paul would then be highlighting the utter lack of natural distinguishing characteristics separating Jacob and Esau. Born of the same mother, sharing the same father, and conceived at the same point in time, neither of the twins had a better claim to the divine promise as a birthright than the other.

11 This verse interrupts the flow of Paul’s argument, leaving v. 10 syntactically incomplete. The sense (but not the syntax) of v. 10 finds its continuation in v. 12b: “it was said to her [that is, Rebecca, “when she conceived”; v. 10] that ‘The greater shall serve the lesser.’ ”47 The beginning of v. 11 describes the circumstances in which this prophetic word was spoken to Rebecca: “when they [Jacob and Esau] had not yet been born or done anything good or evil.” The purpose clause in v. 11b and its further modifier in v. 12a then belong together as a parenthesis, explaining why it was that this word about her children was spoken to Rebecca when it was.48 The awkwardness of the syntax reflects Paul’s concern to emphasize that there was nothing within the persons of Jacob and Esau that could have been the basis for God’s choice of the one over the other.

This is evident, Paul points out, from the situation in which God’s promise about Jacob’s primacy (v. 12b) was uttered. For it was before Jacob and Esau were born49 and before, therefore, they had done anything, whether good or evil, that God predicted to Rebecca that “The greater shall serve the lesser.” This lack of any human reason for differentiation between Jacob and Esau, which Paul reiterates in other terms at the beginning of v. 12, is the basis for the purpose clause in v. 11b—“so that God’s purpose according to election might remain.” For God’s purpose in election is established not simply by virtue of God’s prediction of Jacob’s prominence over Esau, but by the fact that this prediction was made apart from any basis in the personal circumstances of Jacob and Esau. “Purpose”50 is one of those many words that connect Paul’s argument here with his teaching about the children of God in 8:18–39 (for this, see the introduction to chaps. 9–11). In 8:28, it denotes the “plan” or “design” according to which God calls people to belong to him, a plan whose steps Paul unfolds in vv. 29–30. Here, similarly, the word denotes a predetermined51 plan that God would use to bring covenant blessings to a people, Israel, and eventually to the world.52 Paul’s use of the word “election” to characterize this plan reflects his purpose in this part of Rom. 9: to demonstrate that God’s plan has unfolded in the OT by a series of free “choices” that he has made.53 Isaac was chosen; Ishmael was not. Jacob was chosen; Esau was not. By these choices God has seen to it that his plan to bring into existence a people who would be his “peculiar possession” would “remain.”54 If God’s plan depended on the vagaries of sinful human beings for its continuance, then, indeed, God’s “word” would have fallen to the ground long ago (see v. 6a). But God’s purpose in history is fulfilled because he himself “elects” people to be part of that purpose.

12 The first part of this verse repeats and generalizes what Paul said in v. 11a about the circumstances in which God’s promise pertaining to Rebecca’s sons was given. God’s choice of Jacob over Esau came before either had “done anything good or evil”; therefore, Paul now concludes, this choice must not have been based on works but on God’s call. The connection between v. 12a and v. 11a makes clear that “works” has general reference to human activity and cannot be restricted to any particular category of “works.”55 At the same time, this new assertion advances Paul’s argument by making it clear that the temporal relationship between Jacob’s and Esau’s works and God’s choice mirrors a causal relationship as well: God’s choice not only came before they had done anything but also was not based on anything they had done. The particular phrase Paul uses here—“[not] on the basis of works”56—is prominent in Paul’s discussion of Abraham’s justification in Rom. 4 (cf. vv. 2–8). The use of this phrase, along with the general way in which Paul states the matter, suggests that he has more in mind here than the situation of Jacob and Esau per se. As Paul in v. 8 drew from the history of Isaac and Ishmael a principle about the way God bestows his covenant blessings, so he now derives another principle about the basis for God’s election from the history of Isaac’s sons.57

Contrasted with “works” as the basis for God’s election is “the one who calls.”58 Highlighted again is the activity of the God of creation and history whose own word powerfully and irresistibly brings about what he chooses.59 Earlier in Romans Paul sets “works” in contrast with another kind of human response—faith (e.g., 4:2–8). Some commentators suggest that this antithesis is implicit here also, and that Paul’s denial that God’s election is based on works does not mean that he would exclude faith as a basis for election.60 But the contrast between human activity and God’s activity suggests rather that Paul wants to base election in what God does and not in anything that the human being does.61 Surely, if Paul had assumed that faith was the basis for God’s election, he would have pointed this out when he raised the question in v. 14 about the fairness of God’s election. All he would have needed to say at that point was “of course God is not unjust in choosing Jacob and rejected Esau, for his choosing took into account the faith of one and the unbelief of the other.” Paul’s silence on this point is telling. While, therefore, the phrase “not by works” does not in itself exclude faith as a basis for God’s election (for Paul carefully distinguishes works and faith), I believe “on the basis of the God who calls” does.62

The point that Paul has been qualifying throughout vv. 10a–12a is now finally expressed: “She [Rebecca] was told, ‘The greater shall serve the lesser’ ” (Gen. 25:23b).63 As Paul has already made clear, God makes this prediction about the relationship between Esau (the elder) and Jacob (the younger) after the twins are conceived but before they are born.

13 Paul’s quotation of Mal. 1:2–3, introduced with one of Paul’s favorite formulas (“just as it is written”64), restates v. 12b and expands on it by making clear that the contrasting destinies of Jacob and Esau were not simply seen in advance by God but were also caused by him.65 Jacob’s preeminence was the result of God’s love for him; Esau’s servitude was the result of God’s “hate” for him.66 What Paul means by this depends on the referents of the names “Jacob” and “Esau.” For, in addition to denoting individual persons, both names are also used in the OT to designate the peoples, or nations, descended from each of them. As the father of the twelve men who gave their names to the “tribes” of Israel, Jacob was given by God himself the name “Israel” (Gen. 32:28). Correspondingly, then, “Jacob” can refer to the nation of Israel.67 In the same way, Esau gives his name to the people of Edom who are his descendants.68 That Paul may be using the names in this way is strongly suggested by the contexts from which he takes his quotations in vv. 12b and 13. Immediately before the prediction quoted by Paul in v. 12b come these words: “ ‘Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples born of you shall be divided’ ” (Gen. 25:23a). And it is clear from what comes after Mal. 1:2b–3a that the prophet is using the names Jacob and Esau to stand for the countries of Israel and Edom (see vv. 3b–5). God’s “love” of Jacob will then refer to God’s election of the people Israel, not of individuals; and his “hatred” of Esau, correspondingly, will denote his rejection of the nation of Edom. As a corollary of this corporate interpretation, it is then further alleged that election here must not be election to salvation but election to a special and honored role in salvation history: “it is election to privilege that is in mind, not eternal salvation.”69

Advocates of the corporate interpretation of these verses make a strong case. In the OT God’s election is primarily his “calling out” of a people “for his own name”: Israel. And, as the OT itself makes clear, this election of a people does not in itself guarantee eternal life for every Israelite person. We would expect Paul to be thinking of “election” here in the same terms, an expectation that seems to be confirmed by the OT texts that Paul quotes. Nevertheless, for all its strong points, I think that a corporate and salvation-historical interpretation of vv. 10–13 does not ultimately satisfy the data of the text. In addition to the general points I made in the introduction to this section, the following points are especially relevant to vv. 10–13.

First, Paul suggests that he is thinking of Jacob and Esau as individuals in vv. 10b–11a when he mentions their conception, birth, and “works”—language that is not easily applied to nations.70 Second, several of Paul’s key words and phrases in this passage are words he generally uses elsewhere with reference to the attaining of salvation; and, significantly, they occur with this sense in texts closely related to this one: “election” (see esp. 11:5, 771); “call” (see esp. 8:28); and “[not] of works” (see esp. Rom. 4:2–8 and 11:6). These words are therefore difficult to apply to nations or peoples, for Paul clearly does not believe that peoples or nations—not even Israel—are chosen and called by God for salvation apart from their works. Third, as we noted earlier (see the introduction to 9:6b–13), a description here of how God calls nations to participate in the historical manifestation of his salvific acts runs counter to Paul’s purpose in this paragraph. In order to justify his assertion in v. 6b that not all those who belong to “physical” Israel belong also to “spiritual” Israel, and thus to vindicate God’s faithfulness (v. 6a), he must show that the OT justifies a discrimination within physical Israel in terms of the enjoyment of salvation. An assertion in these verses to the effect that God has “chosen” Israel rather than Edom for a positive role in the unfolding of the plan of salvation would not contribute to this argument at all.

For these reasons I believe that Paul is thinking mainly of Jacob and Esau as individuals rather than as nations and in terms of their own personal relationship to the promise of God rather than of their roles in carrying out God’s plan. The nations denoted by these names, we must remember, have come into existence in and through the individuals who first bore those names. In a context in which Paul begins speaking rather clearly about the individuals rather than the nations, we should not be surprised that he would apply a text that spoke of the nations to the individuals who founded and, in a sense “embodied” them. It is not the issue of how God uses different individuals or nations in accomplishing his purposes that is Paul’s concern, but which individuals, and on what basis, belong to God’s covenant people. This matter of “belonging to God’s covenant people” is the bridge that connects Paul’s appeal to the patriarchs to his own concerns. Paul appeals to OT history to establish a principle about the way in which God brings into being his own people.72 What it means to belong to the New Covenant people may not be exactly the same as what it means to belong to the Old Covenant people; in this regard, for instance, Paul is not clearly asserting that Jacob and Isaac were saved while Esau and Ishmael were not.73 But he is arguing that God in his own day is bringing into being a covenant people in the same way that he did in the days of the patriarchs: by choosing some and rejecting others.74 So, Paul will make clear later in this text, some Jews are called by God to be part of his people (vv. 24–29), while others have, for the time being at least, been rejected.75

This brings us back to our original question: What does Paul mean by asserting that God “loved” Jacob but “hated”76 Esau? The connection of this quotation with v. 12 suggests that God’s love is the same as his election: God chose Jacob to inherit the blessings promised first to Abraham. God’s “hatred” of Esau is more difficult to interpret because Paul does not furnish us at this point with contextual clues. Some understand Paul to mean only that God loved Esau less than he loved Jacob.77 He blessed both, but Jacob was used in a more positive and basic way in the furtherance of God’s plans. But a better approach is to define “hatred” here by its opposite, “love.” If God’s love of Jacob consists in his choosing Jacob to be the “seed” who would inherit the blessings promised to Abraham, then God’s hatred of Esau is best understood to refer to God’s decision not to bestow this privilege on Esau.78 It might best be translated “reject.”79 “Love” and “hate” are not here, then, emotions that God feels but actions that he carries out. In an apparent paradox that troubles Paul (cf. 9:14 and 19 following) as well as many Christians, God loves “the whole world” at the same time as he withholds his love in action, or election, from some.

Before leaving this paragraph, we must put some of the issues it raises in a larger context. As the attentive reader will realize, I have argued that this passage gives strong exegetical support to a traditional Calvinistic interpretation of God’s election: God chooses those who will be saved on the basis of his own will and not on the basis of anything—works or faith, whether foreseen or not—in those human beings so chosen. Attempts to avoid this theological conclusion, whether by leaving room for human faith in v. 12 or by restricting the issue to the roles of nations in salvation history, are, I think, unsuccessful. But if we exclude faith as a basis for God’s choice here, what becomes of Paul’s strenuous defense of faith as the means of justification in Rom. 3:21–4:25 and again in the following section of the letter, 9:30–10:21? It is precisely in an attempt to do justice to these texts that many interpreters insist on finding room for faith in this text also: God’s choice, they argue, is a choice to bestow his salvation on those who believe. Faith, then, in this traditional Arminian perspective, becomes the basis for God’s choice.

I can only reiterate that the introduction into this text of any basis for God’s election outside God himself defies both the language and the logic of what Paul has written. The only logical possibility, then, would seem to be to reverse the relationship between God’s choosing and faith; as Augustine stated it: “God does not choose us because we believe, but that we may believe.”80 This way of putting the matter seems generally to be justified by this passage and by the teaching of Scripture elsewhere. But it comes perilously close to trivializing human faith: something that many texts in Romans and in the rest of the NT simply will not allow us to do. We need, perhaps, to be more cautious in our formulations and to insist on the absolute cruciality and meaningfulness of the human decision to believe at the same time as we rightly make God’s choosing of us ultimately basic. Such a double emphasis may strain the boundaries of logic (it does not, I trust, break them!) or remain unsatisfyingly complex, but it may have the virtue of reflecting Scripture’s own balanced perspective.81

At stake in all this, as Paul makes clear in 11:5–7, a text that takes up the argument of these verses, is the grace of God. As we have seen (see the notes on 3:24 and 4:5), Paul rules out any human claim on God as a violation of his grace. Perhaps, as my Arminian friends and colleagues insist, foreseen faith, as the product of “prevenient” grace, need be no threat to God’s freedom and grace. But by making the human decision to believe the crucial point of distinction between those who are saved and those who are not, and thus making God’s election a response to human choice, this perspective seems to me to minimize Paul’s insistence that election to salvation is itself an act of God’s grace (cf. 11:5): a decision he makes freely and without the compulsion of any influence outside himself.

2. Objections Answered: The Freedom and Purpose of God (9:14–23)

14What then shall we say? There is no unrighteousness with God, is there? By no means! 15For to Moses he says, “I will have mercy on whomever I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I have compassion.”a 16Therefore it is not a matter of the person who wills or the person who runs, but of the God who shows mercy. 17For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very reason I have raised you up, so that I might demonstrate through you my power and so that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”b 18Therefore he has mercy on whomever he wishes, and he hardens whomever he wishes.

19You will then say to me, “Why then1 does he still find fault? For who resists his will?” 20On the contrary, O man,2 who are you to answer back to God? “That which is molded does not say to the molder, ‘Why did you make me in this way?’ does it?”c 21Or does the potter not have authority over the clay, to make from the same lump both a vessel for honor and a vessel for dishonor? 22But what if God, wishing to demonstrate his wrath and to make known his power, bore with much patience vessels of wrath, prepared for destruction, 23and3 in order to make known the riches of his glory to vessels of mercy, whom he prepared beforehand for glory?

These verses are a detour from the main road of Paul’s argument. Paul takes this detour because he knows that his insistence on God’s initiative in determining who should be saved and who rejected (see vv. 10–13 especially) will meet with questions and even objections. Appropriately, therefore, Paul reverts to the diatribe style, with its question-and-answer format and references to a dialogue partner, that he has utilized earlier in the letter (see 2:1–3:8; 3:27–31; 6–7). While Paul himself formulates these questions in order to carry on his argument, they undoubtedly represent objections that Paul has heard frequently during his ministry.4 Indeed, these questions state the inevitable human response to an insistence on the sovereignty of God in salvation: if God decides apart from anything in the human being whom he will choose and whom he will reject (v. 13), how can he still be “righteous” (v. 14)—and how can he blame people if they reject him (v. 19)?

Paul responds to the first question with citations of and comments on Scripture (vv. 15–18) and to the second with a series of rhetorical questions (vv. 20–23). These responses are not what we might expect. Paul does not attempt to show how God’s choice of human beings for salvation fits with their own “choosing” of God in faith. Quite the contrary: rather than compromising the apparent absolute and unqualified nature of God’s election, he reasserts it in even stronger terms. God not only has mercy on whomever he wants, he also hardens whomever he wants (v. 18). God’s freedom to act in this way, Paul suggests, while directed toward a definite end (vv. 22–23), is the freedom of the Creator toward his creatures, and cannot be qualified (vv. 20–21). Many commentators are troubled by Paul’s apparent disregard for human choice and responsibility. Dodd criticizes the argument here as “a false step.”5 O’Neill goes further, claiming the teaching is “thoroughly immoral,”6 and follows a number of the church fathers in ascribing the offending verses to someone other than Paul.7 These criticisms are sometimes the product of a false assumption: that Paul’s justification of the ways of God in his treatment of human beings (his “theodicy”) must meet the standard set by our own assumptions and standards of logic. Paul’s approach is quite different. He considers his theodicy to be successful if it justifies God’s acts against the standards of his revelation in Scripture (vv. 15–18) and his character as Creator (vv. 20–23). In other words, the standard by which God must be judged is nothing less and nothing more than God himself.8 Judged by this standard, Paul contends, God is indeed “just.” Paul does not provide a logically compelling resolution of the two strands of his teaching—God, by his own sovereign choice, elects human beings to salvation; human beings, by a responsible choice of their will, must believe in order to be saved. But criticism of the apostle on this score is unfair. It is unfair, first, because Paul can accomplish his purpose—showing God to be just—without such a resolution. And it is unfair, second, because no resolution of this perennial paradox seems possible this side of heaven.

14 The opening question—“What then shall we say?”—is typical of the questions Paul uses at several points in Romans to advance his argument.9 At some points such questions introduce clarifications of Paul’s teaching (e.g., 6:1; 7:7). Here, however, it introduces a defense of his teaching, for the following question embodies an accusation: if God on the basis of nothing but his own choice (v. 12) determines who is to be saved and who rejected (v. 13), then there is “unrighteousness with God.”10 The criticism Paul raises is that, in choosing and rejecting individuals apart from their own merits or faith, God has acted “against what is right” (Gk. adikia). The standard assumed for “what is right” might be general considerations of justice, in which case the objector might be accusing Paul of attributing to God a way of acting that is “unfair” or “partial.”11 But the word “unrighteousness” comes from a Greek word group that is used in both the OT and in Paul with reference to God’s faithfulness to his promises and to his covenant with Israel. Paul may, then, be reflecting a specifically Jewish objection to the effect that God’s choosing and rejecting whomever he wants is incompatible with their understanding of his promises to Israel.12 However, as I have argued earlier, Paul also uses “righteousness” language to refer to God’s faithfulness to his own person and character.13 And the course of Paul’s argument suggests that, in Paul’s answer at least, it is ultimately this standard, revealed in Scripture and in creation, against which God’s acts must be measured.14 But this is to anticipate. At this point, Paul simply rejects the charge about God’s unrighteousness with his characteristic “By no means!”15

15 The “for”16 introducing this verse shows that Paul is not content simply to reject the accusation that God is unrighteous: he will also explain why that rejection is justified. The first part of Paul’s explanation uses Scripture to show that God’s unconstrained decision to choose Jacob and reject Esau was no isolated case but reflects God’s very nature (vv. 15 and 17). Continuing the trend of this passage (see vv. 7, 9, 12, and 13), Paul cites OT texts in which God himself speaks. Such texts constitute the most important evidence we can have about God’s essence and ways of acting.17

Paul’s first citation is from Exod. 33:19b.18 In the Exodus context, Moses requests that the Lord show him his glory. The Lord replies by promising to cause all his “goodness” to pass in front of Moses and to proclaim to him his name, “the LORD.” Then follow the words that Paul here cites. Justifiably, Paul finds in God’s words to Moses a revelation of one of God’s basic characteristics: his freedom to bestow mercy on whomever he chooses. It is against this ultimate standard, not the penultimate standard of God’s covenant with Israel, that God’s “righteousness” must be measured.19 Paul’s reference to Moses reinforces the point, for it is to the mediator of the covenant himself that God reveals his freedom in mercy.20

16 Paul now spells out the conclusion (“therefore”21) he wants to draw from his quotation: “it is not a matter of the person who wills or the person who runs, but of the God who shows mercy.” The sentence reads like a general principle (note the present tenses of the verbs). But to what does the principle apply? Our translation preserves the ambiguity of the original in not making clear the subject of the sentence (“it”). We might substitute “salvation”22 or “God’s purpose in election” (cf. v. 11b),23 but the connection with v. 15 suggests rather “God’s bestowal of mercy.”24 In keeping with a popular view of this passage as a whole, many commentators think that the “mercy” involved here is God’s mercy in choosing different persons or nations in the outworking of his historical plan.25 But, as we have seen earlier (see esp. the notes on v. 13), Paul’s use of OT examples of God’s choosing and rejecting develop a principle that he applies to the salvation of individual Jews and Gentiles in his own day (see 9:3, 6a, 22–23, 24).26 Here, the principle Paul formulates moves beyond the positive assertion of v. 15—God’s bestowal of mercy has its origin in his own will to be merciful—to its negative corollary—God’s mercy does not, then, depend27 on human “willing” or “running.” The former denotes one’s inner desire, purpose, or readiness to do something28; the latter the actual execution of that desire.29 Together, then, they “sum up the totality of man’s capacity.”30

17 In vv. 15–16 Paul reiterates and expands the positive side of God’s sovereignty in election that he alluded to in vv. 10–13 (“Jacob I have loved”). Now Paul will do the same with respect to the “negative” side (“Esau I have rejected”). Verses 17–18 parallel vv. 15–16: Paul begins by citing Scripture and then states a principle drawn from it (note, as in v. 16, the “therefore” in v. 18). The “for”31 introducing v. 17 may, then, function as does its counterpart in v. 15 and indicate that vv. 17–18 contain a second reason to reject the accusation that God is unjust.32

14	Is God unjust?
15	A   [No], because (gar) it says (legei) …
16	Therefore (ara oun) …
17	B   [No], because (gar) Scripture says (legei)
18	Therefore (ara oun) …

It is also possible, however, that the “for” connects vv. 17–18 to v. 16, as a further illustration of God’s sovereign freedom in bestowing mercy.33 However, vv. 17–18 can hardly be an explanation of God’s mercy in v. 16 since the “hardening” that Paul illustrates in v. 17 is, according to v. 18, antithetical to “mercy.” Verses 17–18 probably relate mainly to v. 14, although there may be a secondary connection with v. 16 as Paul develops from another side the primacy of God’s will that v. 16 implies.34

As in v. 15, Paul introduces the OT quotation with the verb “says” and specifies the person to whom the text is addressed (“to Pharaoh”; cf. “to Moses” in v. 15).35 The words are again from Exodus, from the Lord’s instructions to Moses about what he is to say to Pharaoh on the sixth occasion that Moses and Aaron are told to go before the Egyptian ruler to demand the release of the people of Israel (9:16). Paul’s wording, “I have raised you up,”36 differs from both the standard Greek LXX text and the Hebrew MT.37 Various explanations for the differences have been offered,38 but it seems reasonable to conclude that Paul has deliberately accentuated God’s initiative in the process.39 The verb “raise up” probably, then, has the connotation “appoint to a significant role in salvation history.”40 Of particular importance in the quotation is the purpose of God’s raising Pharaoh up: “so that I might demonstrate through you41 my power and so that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” Indeed, this purpose clause is probably the reason that Paul has cited this particular text since its lack of explicit reference to Pharaoh’s “hardening” makes it less suitable than others as a preparation for Paul’s conclusion in v. 18.42 Paul wants to make clear that even God’s “negative” actions, such as the hardening of Pharaoh, serve a positive purpose (a point Paul will develop further in vv. 22–23). And this positive purpose is the greatest imaginable: the demonstration of God’s power43 and the wider proclamation of God’s name. In Pharaoh’s day, the plagues on the land of Egypt and the deliverance of Israel through the “Sea of Reeds,” made necessary by Pharaoh’s hardened heart, accomplished this purpose (see Josh. 2:10). In Paul’s day, he implies, the hardening that has come upon a “part of Israel” (see 11:5–7, 25) has likewise led to the name of God being “proclaimed in all the earth” through the mission to the Gentiles.44

18 Anyone who knows the Exodus story would understand that God “raised up” Pharaoh with a negative rather than a positive purpose. By resisting God’s will to deliver his people from bondage, Pharaoh caused that deliverance to assume a more spectacular aspect than it would have otherwise. Pharaoh’s resistance to God’s purpose is caused, according to Exod. 4–14, by his “hardness” of heart. It is this concept that connects vv. 17 and 18, as Paul now states a principle of God’s acting that Pharaoh’s experience serves to illustrate: God hardens “whomever he wishes.” But Paul expands the principle to reiterate God’s freedom in bestowing mercy as well. This shows that v. 18 embodies a conclusion drawn from all of vv. 15–17. As God’s self-revelation to Moses demonstrates that he is a God who freely bestows mercy on “whomever he wishes,” so God’s words to Pharaoh reveal that he is at the same time a God who hardens “whomever he wishes.”

I have argued that Paul intends his assertion of the freedom of God in showing mercy to apply to the salvation of individuals (see v. 16). This must certainly be true here also. But does the other part of the principle, God’s hardening, also have such an application? The term “harden” (Gk. sklērynō) occurs 14 times in Exod. 4–14, where it has the connotation “make spiritually insensitive.”45 Many scholars, noting that Pharaoh’s role in Exodus is purely salvation-historical and that reference to his own final spiritual condition is foreign to the context, insist that Paul applies God’s hardening only to the processes of history. God prevents some people, or nations, from understanding his work and message in order to further his plan of salvation; no implications for the ultimate destiny of the individuals concerned are present.46 However, this limitation of Paul’s language to the sphere of historical process, which we have seen to be unlikely in earlier texts (vv. 12–13, 16), is particularly difficult here. In addition to the points I have made earlier with reference to Paul’s purpose in this section as a whole, we may note the following.

First, structural and linguistic considerations show that v. 18 is closely related to vv. 22–23, where the “vessels of mercy, destined to glory” are contrasted with “vessels of wrath, prepared for destruction.” As God’s mercy leads to the enjoyment of glory, God’s hardening brings wrath and destruction. Second, the word group “harden” is consistently used in Scripture to depict a spiritual condition that renders one unreceptive and disobedient to God and his word.47 Third, while the Greek word is a different one, most scholars recognize that Paul’s references to Israel’s “hardening” in Rom. 11:7 and 25 are parallel to the hardening here.48 Yet the hardening in Rom. 11 is a condition that excludes people from salvation.49 Fourth, it is even possible that the references to Pharaoh’s hardening in Exodus carry implications for his own spiritual state and destiny.50

God’s hardening, then, is an action that renders a person insensitive to God and his word and that, if not reversed, culminates in eternal damnation. We have seen that Paul has insisted that God bestows his mercy on his own initiative, apart from anything that a person is or does (v. 16). The strict parallelism in this verse suggests that the same is true of God’s hardening: as he has mercy on “whomever he wishes,” so he hardens “whomever he wishes.” However, many scholars deny that this is the case. They point particularly to Exod. 4–14, where the first reference to God’s hardening of Pharaoh (9:12) comes only after references to Pharaoh’s hardening of his own heart (8:11, 28).51 This background implies, these scholars argue, that Paul would think of God’s hardening as a response to a person’s prior decision to harden himself or herself.52 God’s hardening may then be likened to his “handing over” of sinners to the sin that they had already chosen for themselves (see Rom. 1:24, 26, 28). Yet the assumption that Paul expects his readers to see behind God’s hardening a prior self-hardening on the part of the individual is questionable.

First, Exod. 4–14 does not clearly indicate that Pharaoh’s hardening of his own heart was the basis for God’s hardening; in fact, it may well imply that Pharaoh’s hardening of his own heart was the result of God’s prior act of hardening.53 Second, Paul’s “whomever he wishes” shows that God’s decision to harden is his alone to make and is not constrained by any consideration having to do with a person’s status or actions. Third, if Paul had in fact wanted his readers to assume that God’s hardening was based on a person’s self-hardening, we would have expected him to make this clear in response to the objection in v. 19. What more natural response to the objection that God is unfair in “finding fault” with a person than to make clear that God’s hardening is based on a person’s own prior action?54

The “hardening” Paul portrays here, then, is a sovereign act of God that is not caused by anything in those individuals who are hardened.55 And 9:22–23 and 11:7 suggest that the outcome of hardening is damnation. It seems, then, that this text, in its context, provides important exegetical support for the controversial doctrine of “double predestination”: just as God decides, on the basis of nothing but his own sovereign pleasure, to bestow his grace and so save some individuals, so he also decides, on the basis of nothing but his own sovereign pleasure, to pass over others and so to damn them.56 Many scholars argue, however, that God’s hardening of an individual is not final. They note that Romans clearly teaches that Israel’s hardening will one day be reversed (see 11:25).57 But this objection fails to make the vital distinction between the individual and corporate perspectives. In Rom. 11 Paul is arguing about the position of Israel as a nation in the plan of God: how God called that people (11:2), hardened much of it (11:7), and will eventually remove that hardening so as to save it (11:26). Here, however, Paul is speaking about the work of God in individuals. And vv. 22–23, where Paul expands on the idea of both God’s mercy and his hardening, suggest that the division between those individuals who receive mercy and those who are hardened is basic and final.

No doctrine stimulates more negative reaction and consternation than this one. Some degree of such reaction is probably inevitable, for it flies in the face of our own common perceptions of both human freedom and God’s justice. And vv. 19–23 show that Paul was himself very familiar with this reaction. Yet, without pretending that it solves all our problems, we must recognize that God’s hardening is an act directed against human beings who are already in rebellion against God’s righteous rule.58 God’s hardening does not, then, cause spiritual insensitivity to the things of God; it maintains people in the state of sin that already characterizes them. This does not mean, as I have argued above, that God’s decision about whom to harden is based on a particular degree of sinfulness within certain human beings; he hardens “whomever he chooses.” But it is imperative that we maintain side-by-side the complementary truths that (1) God hardens whomever he chooses; (2) human beings, because of sin, are responsible for their ultimate condemnation. Thus, God’s bestowing of mercy and his hardening are not equivalent acts. God’s mercy is given to those who do not deserve it; his hardening affects those who have already by their sin deserved condemnation.59

19 The diatribe style becomes more pronounced in this next paragraph (vv. 19–23). Paul explicitly quotes his interlocutor—“You will then say to me”—and answers the objections raised in the questions of v. 19b with a series of rhetorical questions of his own (vv. 20a, 21, 22–23). Paul’s sharp response to the questions of v. 19 suggest that the interlocutor here is an opponent and not just a “dialogue partner.”60 The objector wonders how God can “still”—that is, assuming the truth of Paul’s teaching in v. 18—“find fault”61 with people. For, “who resists62 his will?”63 Embodied in these questions is the objection that God’s sovereign act of hardening (v. 18b) jeopardizes the clear biblical teaching about the justice of God’s judgment on people who resist him (see, in Romans itself, 1:19–23). For only if people are responsible for their own actions can God’s judgment be truly just. Yet Paul’s teaching about the sovereignty of God in hardening appears to remove such responsibility. Before analyzing what Paul does say in response to this objection, we do well to note what he does not say. He makes no reference to human works or human faith (whether foreseen or not) as the basis for God’s act of hardening (as so many of Paul’s “defenders” have done).64 Nor does he defuse the issue by confining God’s hardening only to matters of salvation history; quite the contrary, vv. 22–23 make more explicit than ever that Paul is dealing with questions of eternal destiny. In fact, Paul never offers—here or anywhere else—a “logical” solution to the tension between divine sovereignty and human responsibility that he creates. That he affirms the latter is, of course, clear; and we must never forget that Paul will go on in 9:30–10:21 to attribute the Jews’ condemnation to their own willful failure to believe. Paul is content to hold the truths of God’s absolute sovereignty—in both election and in hardening—and of full human responsibility without reconciling them.65 We would do well to emulate his approach.

20 The adversative “on the contrary”66 contrasts the objection implicit in the second question of v. 19—it is “wrong” of God to “find fault” if he himself is the cause of a person’s behavior—with Paul’s viewpoint. “O man” need not have a derogatory sense, since this address occurs in dialogues similar to Paul’s as a polite address.67 But the present context, which emphasizes the gulf between human beings and God (v. 21; and note the contrast between “man” at the beginning of v. 20 and “God” at its end), shows that Paul chooses the term to accentuate the subordinate, creaturely status of the objector68: “who are you69 to answer back to God?”

Paul quotes Isa. 29:16 to remind the objector of the dependent and subordinate position of the human being in respect to God.70 Human beings are in no more of a position to “answer back” to God than a vase is to criticize its molder for making it in a certain way. Paul is not here denying the validity of that kind of questioning of God which arises from sincere desire to understand God’s ways and an honest willingness to accept whatever answer God might give. It is the attitude of the creature presuming to judge the ways of the creator—to “answer back”71—that Paul implicitly rebukes.

21 Paul continues to use the imagery of the potter and his clay to reinforce the point of v. 20. His rhetorical question asserts the right72 of the potter to make out of the same “lump” of clay both a vessel “for honor”73 and one “for dishonor.”74 While Isa. 29:16 and (probably) 45:9 have furnished the immediate source of Paul’s language, the metaphorical application of the potter and the clay is quite widespread in both the OT and Judaism.75 Scholars have argued that one text or another is key to Paul’s imagery here and draw conclusions about Paul’s meaning accordingly.

Noting that several of the OT texts involved (Isa. 45:9; Jer. 18:6–10) focus on Israel as a nation, some scholars think that Paul is arguing for God’s right to use the people of Israel “for dishonor”—in other words, to use the nation in a negative way in salvation history.76 The idea that Paul is focusing on God’s use of what he makes rather than on the making itself is suggested also, it is argued, by the probable allusion to Wis. 15:777 and by the clear parallel between this text and 2 Tim. 2:20.78 On this general approach, then, the verse is asserting God’s right to use nations, or individuals, for different purposes in his unfolding plan of salvation.79 Some—such as Ishmael, Esau, Pharaoh, and the hardened Jews—have a negative or “dishonorable” role to play in the purposes of God in history. Others—such as Isaac, Jacob, and believing Jews and Gentiles—have a positive role.

Other scholars, however, note that many of the OT and Jewish texts that compare God to a potter focus on God as Creator—a point that Paul underscores by using the verb plassō.80 Further, the contrast between “honor” and “dishonor” is said to match the contrast between “glory” and “wrath,” or “destruction,” in vv. 22–23.81 On this reading, Paul is asserting God’s right to make from the mass of humanity (the “lump”) some persons who are destined to inherit salvation and others who are destined for wrath and condemnation.82

Certainty about which OT and Jewish texts Paul may have in mind is impossible to attain and probably immaterial: Paul’s imagery is probably distilled generally from many of them without being specifically dependent on any one of them.83 This means that our exegetical conclusions must be guided by Paul’s own use of the metaphor, and not by any specific contexts in which the metaphor appears. We have seen that Paul is applying his teaching to the issue of the present spiritual condition and eternal destiny of unbelieving Jews (and believing Jews and Gentiles). This makes it likely that Paul is thinking here also of the eternal destinies of individuals.

22 The de introducing this verse is often given a slight adversative force (“but”; cf. NEB; REB) and taken to imply some distinction between the image of the potter (vv. 20–21) and its application to the ways of God (vv. 22–23).84 But this seems overly subtle; Paul appears to use de with simple transitional force as he moves from the illustration to its application (cf. TEV: “And the same is true of what God has done”).85 The exact meaning of this application depends on our understanding of the structure of the following verses. There are two main difficulties. The first is that Paul begins a conditional sentence in v. 22 (“But if …”) without indicating clearly where he finishes it (e.g., the apodosis of the sentence is not evident). Various solutions have been offered, but most recent commentaries agree that vv. 22–23 are a protasis that does not have an explicit apodosis.86 Paul is inviting his readers to complete the thought from the context.87 Many English versions suggest something of this sort by translating “what if” (KJV; NIV; RSV; NRSV; NASB), or, as we may paraphrase, “what if God has acted in this way? who will question God’s authority [cf. v. 21] to do so?”

The second difficulty is two-pronged: What is the force of the participle “wishing” (thelōn) in v. 22a, and how does the clause this participle introduces relate to the purpose clause in v. 23 (kai hina, “and in order to …”)? Commentators again propose several alternatives, but two are especially worth considering.

(1) The participle “wishing” might be concessive. In this case, the infinitives in v. 22a that depend on this participle would express what God wanted but did not actually do, while v. 23 would state God’s ultimate purpose in bearing with vessels of wrath:

“But (what) if God,

although he wished

[1] to manifest his wrath and

[2] to make known his power,

bore with much patience the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and [kai] [bore with them] in order to make known the riches of his glory to vessels of mercy that he prepared beforehand for glory.…”88

(2) The participle “wishing” might be causal. In this case, the two infinitives in v. 22a that depend on this participle would be essentially parallel to the purpose clause in v. 23, all three summarizing God’s purpose in bearing patiently with the vessels of wrath:

“But (what) if God,

because he wished

[1] to manifest his wrath and

[2] to make known his power,

bore with much patience the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,

[3] [doing this because he wished] also [kai] to make known the riches of his glory to vessels of mercy that he prepared beforehand for glory.…”89

A decision between these options is difficult. The former has in its favor the different placement and construction of the purpose statement in v. 22a as opposed to the one in v. 23a. But the second interpretation fits the context better since it achieves a more natural parallel with vv. 17–18. In the case both of Pharaoh and of the vessels of wrath, God withholds his final judgment so that he can more spectacularly display his glory. For this reason, I favor slightly the second interpretation. I will summarize my conclusions on the structure of these verses in a paraphrase: “What objection can you make if it is in fact the case that God has tolerated with great patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction when you realize that his purpose in doing so has been to demonstrate his wrath, make known his power, and—especially90—to make known the riches of his glory to vessels of mercy, prepared beforehand for glory?”

In v. 22, then, Paul is reiterating the point that he made with respect to God’s dealings with Pharaoh in v. 17: God works with those who are not in positive relationship with him to display in greater degree his own nature and power. The Exodus background makes it clear how God’s raising up of Pharaoh contributed to the widespread publication of his power and name: Pharaoh’s obduracy required God to work miracle after miracle in order to secure his purpose. But how has God’s patient toleration91 of the vessels of wrath served the purpose of manifesting his wrath and power? On two other occasions Paul ascribes “patience” (makrothymia) to God, and both assume a positive purpose for that patience: allowing an opportunity for repentance (Rom. 2:4; 1 Tim. 1:16). Paul may then be thinking of the display of God’s wrath and power as a historical process with both a negative and a positive side: God’s patience in withholding final judgment has enabled him to demonstrate his anger at sin through the processes of history (see, perhaps, 1:18) and at the same time to make known the saving power of the gospel to more and more people.92 However, Paul may here be viewing the revelation of God’s wrath and power as taking place at the final judgment (as he often does; see, e.g., Rom. 2:5). In this case, the purpose of God’s patience here would be to allow the rebellion of his creation to gain force and intensity so that his consequent victory is all the more glorious and also (and perhaps primarily) to give opportunity for him to bestow his mercy on those whom he has chosen for his own (v. 23).93 This interpretation fits better with the causal meaning of the participle “wishing” in v. 22a (see above). In addition, it accords better with the sharp contrast Paul draws in these verses between the vessels of wrath and the vessels of mercy. This contrast would be unfairly diminished, I think, if we were to assume that the vessels of wrath could have the same ultimate destiny as the vessels of mercy. We must remember at this point that God, in strict justice, could have executed his sentence of condemnation on the entire human race immediately after the Fall. It is only because of God’s great patience that he has waited to bring down his wrath on a rebellious world so that he can finish his wise and loving plan.

But what of the objects of God’s patience endurance, the “vessels of wrath”? Is God’s patience also for the purpose that they might come to repentance?94 Much depends on our interpretation of the participle “prepared” that describes the vessels of wrath. For Paul does not tell us who has done the “preparing.” Many commentators argue that the parallel with vv. 17–18—where God “raises up” Pharaoh and hardens—and with v. 23—where the subject of “prepared beforehand” must be God—make clear that God is the agent of this “preparing.”95 The phrase “prepared for destruction” would then refer to God’s act of reprobation whereby he destines the vessels of wrath to eternal destruction.96 However, others argue that it is the difference between Paul’s description of the vessels of mercy in v. 23 and the vessels of wrath here that is significant. In contrast to the active participle “prepared beforehand” in v. 23, Paul here uses a middle/passive participle that does not clearly bring God into the picture.97 But the parallel with vv. 17–18 suggests strongly that the agent of “prepared” is indeed God: Paul considers the “vessels on whom God’s wrath rests”98 as prepared by God himself for eternal condemnation.

23 As I have argued above, this verse expresses a third, and climactic, purpose of God’s patient endurance of the vessels of wrath. God has withheld the final judgment that could rightfully fall on his rebellious creatures at any time not only because he wanted to display more gloriously his wrath and power (v. 22a) but also, and especially, because he wanted to “make known his glorious riches99 to vessels on whom his mercy rests,100 vessels whom God has prepared beforehand for glory.” God’s ultimate purpose in his decree of hardening is mercy. But his mercy is in this context clearly discriminating rather than universal: some receive mercy (v. 18), those “vessels” of mercy whom God chooses (vv. 15–16); others, vessels of wrath, are hardened (v. 18). Therefore we must not allow the preeminence of God’s purpose in bestowing mercy on some to cancel out the reality and finality of his wrath on others. Paul is clear here, as he is elsewhere: some people receive God’s mercy and are saved, while others do not receive that mercy and so are eternally condemned.101 And as those who do not receive that mercy refuse to do so ultimately because God himself hardens them, so those who experience that mercy with its outcome, glory, do so because God himself “prepared them beforehand.”102 “Prepared beforehand,” then, refers to the same thing as the word “predestine” in 8:29: a decision of God in eternity past to bestow his mercy on certain individuals whom he in his sovereign design has chosen.103

Verses 14–23, while something of a parenthesis in Paul’s argument, contribute significantly to our understanding of Paul’s teaching in this chapter and to our conception of God. In the face of the accusation that his stress on the initiative of God in determining who would be his people turns God into an unjust tyrant, Paul retreats not one step. On the contrary, he goes on the offensive and strengthens his teaching about the unconstrained freedom of God in making choices that determine people’s lives. Paul also makes even clearer that the choices he is talking about have to do not just with historical roles but with eternal destinies. This text, then, gives further support (see Rom. 8:28–30) to the doctrine of unconditional election. It also supports, although more ambiguously, the doctrine of reprobation. Paul teaches that God has brought upon certain people whom he chooses on the basis of nothing but his own will a condition of spiritual stupor, a condition that leads to eternal condemnation.

Allusion in this part of the chapter to unbelieving Israel is muted but clear. So many Jews have failed to embrace the gospel because God has so willed it: as with Pharaoh, God has hardened them, and they are now vessels on whom God’s wrath rests.