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§22 God’s Severe Mercy (Rom. 9:14–29)

This section continues the theme begun in 9:6, in which Paul defends God’s historical choices leading from Abraham to the establishment of a church consisting of Jews and Gentiles. On the one hand, God blessed Israel immeasurably as the chosen people (9:4–5), but Israel resisted or became hardened to God’s final overture in Jesus the Messiah (9:32; 11:7), thus placing itself under wrath and outside salvation. The problem is summarized in 11:28: “As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs.” The logical mind asks, Is Israel’s hardening the cause of God’s rejection, or the result of it? That is, has God rejected Israel because of its unbelief, or has Israel been unable to believe because God rejected it? Many theologians have put the question this way, and as tempting as it may be to do so, it runs the risk of channeling the river of providence into a straight and shallow sluiceway of theory. What is logical is not always theological.

The error of the first option is apparent from verse 6: “It is not as though God’s word had failed.” The creator is not determined by the creation any more than a potter is determined by a pot (9:20–21). God’s will achieves its purpose despite sin, adversity, and rebelliousness, even from elect Israel. The second position is equally erroneous. If it were true that Israel could not believe because God blinded it, why would Paul struggle so vehemently with Israel’s unbelief (9:1–5; 10:1–3), thereby calling into question the eternal decree of God and violating the principle of 9:20, “Who are you, O man, to talk back to God?” In reality the discussion of Romans 9–11 is more nuanced and subtle, however. Sometimes Paul implies that God predestined Israel to unbelief (11:7–10) and other times that Israel is responsible for its unbelief (9:32). In contrast to many interpreters who regard the dilemma of Romans 9–11 from the side either of predeterminism or of Israel’s failure, Paul preserves a tension between the two, similar to the tension which Exodus preserves regarding Pharaoh’s hardness of heart. The tension, in fact, is the very tension of faith, which is both a divine gift and a human response. At present divine providence and human free will look like two rails of a train track which will never meet. There is, however, a point in the distance beyond human knowing where they converge, in God’s “unsearchable judgments” and “inscrutable ways” (11:33, RSV). To speak otherwise on such matters is to confess with Job, “Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know” (Job 42:3).

9:14–18 / The rhetorical defense in verses 14ff. is not of God’s nature or attributes, but of his sovereign acts, and the diatribe style again is employed to that end. Does not Scripture suggest an arbitrary and capricious God when it says “ ‘Jacob I loved but Esau I hated’ ” (v. 13)? Anticipating the challenge to God’s righteousness, Paul asks rhetorically, Is God unjust? (v. 14). He vigorously denies the charge (Gk. mē genoito) and counters with a quotation from Exodus 33:19, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” A Targum to this verse reads, “I will spare whomever is worthy of being spared, and I will have mercy on whomever is worthy of being pitied.” The idea of worthiness is exactly what Paul does not want to suggest. God chose Abraham before the Torah had been revealed; God chose Jacob over Esau before either had merited or forfeited the blessing; God revealed his Son to Paul while he was still a persecutor of the church; God justifies persons by grace through faith while they are still sinners (5:8) and apart from works of the law. In saying that he will have mercy on whom he will have mercy, God is not, like a mad dictator, saying he can do whatever he pleases. It is rather a promise that in his behavior towards humanity God will be true to his character of love and justice. God’s character guarantees his actions. I will have mercy on whom I have mercy is simply the experiential form of “I am who I am” (Exod. 3:14).

We can hear the pious rejoinder of Jews—and of all morally upright peoples—in verse 16. Does man’s desire and effort then count for nothing? The term, effort, is literally “running” (Gk. trechein), suggesting the devotion of an athlete in training and competition. Desire and effort were in fact very much part of Paul’s commitment to Christ (Phil. 3:12–16), but they had nothing to do with his (or Israel’s) choosing by God. Human effort is a necessary response of gratitude and commitment to God for his grace in Jesus Christ, but it neither merits nor maintains grace. With regard to election God remains totally free, not to employ arbitrary (or worse, malevolent) designs, but to express mercy.

It is, then, God’s freedom and mercy which Paul advocates in these verses. God’s superior power, his ability to execute what he desires, is, of course, everywhere acknowledged. Our fear, however, is that God will use his power arbitrarily and without regard to his subjects, or even against them. Everyone agrees that God is free; but is he just? Here, as elsewhere in Romans 9–11, Paul takes a surprising tack, for he does not defend God’s justice but champions his mercy. A God determined by justice would have to deliver the world to wrath and punishment because of its greed and lust and war. But a God whose nature is love is free to make the dictates of justice penultimate to those of compassion.

But what is the relation between God’s mercy and his judgments? That is the issue of verses 17–18. That Paul connects a verse on judgment (v. 17) to a verse on mercy (v. 16) with for (which normally defines a causal relationship) reveals how closely judgment and mercy (which ordinarily are deemed contradictory) are in his mind. The quotation of verse 17 comes from Exodus 9:16. The case of Pharaoh poses a knotty problem because the hardening of his heart is sometimes attributed to God (Exod. 4:21; 7:3; 9:12; 10:1, 20; 11:10) and sometimes to Pharaoh himself (Exod. 7:14, 22; 8:15, 19, 32; 9:7, 35; 13:15). Thus, the same tension is maintained in Pharaoh’s case which Paul maintains with regard to the Jews. Pharaoh freely chooses what God ordains. The Book of Exodus is clear that in his hardening Pharaoh pits himself not against Moses but against God, and that God uses Pharaoh’s hardness in order to demonstrate his glory! The effect of Pharaoh’s hostility, in other words, accomplishes the opposite of its intent, for it results in the liberation of the Israelites. Pharaoh’s hardening thus not only benefits those whom it was intended to harm (the Jews), but it ultimately works to the advantage of his own descendants, for it initiates a process of redemption which will include Gentiles. Thus, through Pharaoh’s resistance God’s power and name are proclaimed in all the earth.

Verse 18 repeats and intensifies the idea of verse 13, God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. The terminology obviously derives from the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. Like verse 13, this verse has an unfair ring to it, but also like verse 13, it conveys a functional rather than eschatological sense, i.e., it is an interim, penultimate, causal judgment, not necessarily an ultimate judgment. Not that we have any interest in defending Pharaoh; he was a cruel and oppressive ruler. Nevertheless, the subject remains one of redemption and not damnation. If God used Pharaoh’s obdurateness to save the Jews, God now uses the obdurateness of the Jews to save the Gentiles. God imprisons sinners within their own refusal in order to provoke them to repentance (1:24, 26, 28; 2:4). Throughout salvation history, God has often employed severe immediate measures in order to serve gracious ends: “God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all” (11:32).

9:19–21 / The diatribe style continues in verse 19 with Paul countering in the words of an imaginary objector: If God pities some and hardens others, who can be blamed? In resisting his will is not one only acting out a role predetermined by God? And if this be the case, how can one be held morally accountable? This echoes the refrain of 3:7, “Someone might argue, ‘If my falsehood enhances God’s truthfulness and so increases his glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner?’ ” A careful reading of verses 19ff. erects a roadblock, or perhaps a detour, to an understanding of the prevailing thought here as a reference to the final salvation or damnation of individuals, for these verses steer away from that issue. Rather, the apostle already has his eye set on verse 24, that God has called (also v. 12) a new society not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles. The subject continues to be the purposes of God from the call of Abraham to the establishment of the church, thus conveying a functional understanding of predestination.

Neither in Paul’s day nor since, of course, has eschatological determinism lacked proponents. A Targum on Daniel 4:32 reads, “All the inhabitants of earth are regarded as nothing; God deals with the host of heaven and the inhabitants of earth alike according to his will, and there is no one who can resist his hand by saying, ‘What are you doing?’ ” (Str-B, vol. 3, pp. 269–70; see also Wisd. of Sol. 11:21; 12:12). In a similar vein the Dead Sea Scrolls record, “Before things came into existence [God] determined the plan of them; and when they fill their appointed roles, it is in accordance with His glorious design that they discharge their functions. Nothing can be changed. In His hand lies the government of all things” (1QS 3.15–16; see also 1QH 15.14–20).

Paul asks similarly, who resists God’s will? and follows with an illustration of a potter throwing a pot (vv. 20–21). Dodd finds it “the weakest point in the whole epistle,” maintaining that a person is not a pot but a responsible moral agent (Romans, pp. 158–59). But this is to press the illustration too far. Calvin is right that the limitedness of human understanding cannot fathom the divine purpose, and errs when it tries to do so. There is a “madness in the human mind,” says the Reformer, which is more ready “to charge God with unrighteousness than to blame itself for blindness” (Romans, p. 354). Paul is not here constructing a theodicy in an attempt to justify the ways of God. A theodicy puts humanity and its questions at the center, whereas Paul maintains the focus on God’s sovereign purposes.

Who are you, O man, to talk back to God? The address, O man, is more than dramatic flair; it is surely a reminder of the wide chasm which separates humanity from God. There is indeed a “madness in the human mind” which presumes to fathom God’s every purpose and which calls him to account when it cannot. That is the point of the potter illustration, which was well-known in Judaism (Isa. 29:16; 45:9; Wisd. of Sol. 12:12). A potter makes vessels for various purposes. God likewise ordains times and events and peoples for purposes of his choosing, some for noble purposes and some for common use. Even if those purposes are not apparent, that is no reason to doubt that God’s righteousness and holy love are also operative in them. It would be an odd potter who made vessels simply to destroy them.

We ought to be clearer on one point than are many of the commentators. This passage might be interpreted to mean that if God is almighty, no finite creature dare question his judgments. But that is to transpose an ethics of “might makes right” onto God. Egoistic ethics are involved in either case, resulting in tyranny on earth and fate in heaven. Right is not right because God does it; rather, God does it because it is right. God’s righteous will, as revealed in the Ten Commandments and in the rules of fairness and justice associated with them, is ultimate, and not even God can transcend it. The devil can lie; God cannot (and still be God). There is a moral order in creation only because there is a corresponding moral order in the Creator. This passage does not depict or defend a cosmic bully. God is perfect love and perfect justice, at the same time and forever, with which his creative freedom coincides perfectly.

9:22–24 / Verses 22–23 are difficult and ambiguous in Greek, leaving Paul’s thought uncompleted. One interpretation is that God demonstrated his wrath by bringing vessels of wrath to destruction, and that he demonstrated his glory by showing mercy to those vessels ordained for glory. This is a justifiable rendering, which, if adopted, conceivably argues for double predestination. It would be, as Käsemann says, “an eschatological equivalent of verse 17” (Romans, p. 270).

Despite the fact that some of Paul’s contemporaries from the rabbis and Qumran can be found in support of such thinking, it is not clear that this is Paul’s meaning. Verses 22–23 are obviously predestinarian, but, as in verse 17 which they repeat, the accent falls on God’s power and glory, and especially on his compassion ([bearing] with great patience the objects of his wrath). The NIV (which itself is not altogether clear) tries to bring this out in the form of a question. The gist is that although God desired to demonstrate his wrath against objects prepared for destruction (the Greek is unclear whether God prepared them or they prepared themselves), he restrained himself with patience in order to show mercy to the objects of his mercy. The ambiguity and incompleteness inherent in verses 22–23 are further complicated by a difficult textual variant (see Additional Notes). Both verses at any rate funnel into verse 24, which clearly celebrates God’s calling of Jews and Gentiles in the gospel. Since verse 24 stresses the realization of God’s will in history rather than at the end of time, it is again reasonable to conclude that the intent of verses 22–23 is functional as opposed to eschatological. It is predestination directed to soteriology; i.e., eternal election effected in historical calling. Objects of wrath and objects of mercy are alike instruments of God’s saving work in history.

It would be incorrect to conclude that objects of wrath and objects of mercy (vv. 22–23) refer to Jews and Gentiles respectively, for in verse 24 the church is comprised of both (cf. 1:16–17). Like a shaft of light, the call of grace pierces the remotest corners of society. The first person plural pronoun is thrust prominently to the beginning of verse 24 in both Greek and the NIV, emphasizing that the new community consists of us, both Jews and Gentiles. The church is not a Jewish society or a Gentile society, but Christ’s society. It is not an accident of history or a result of social evolution. The church exists because God called it, and it bears witness always and everywhere to his prevenient grace (8:28–30).

Despite the antithesis between destruction and glory (vv. 22–23), there is a distinct bias toward God’s grace and mercy in verses 22–29. Even vessels of wrath prepared for destruction are borne with much patience (v. 22)! Wrath is subservient to mercy throughout Romans 9–11. Again, “God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all” (11:32). Although Israel deserves destruction, it will not be destroyed. At present unbelieving Israel is “hardened,” as was Pharaoh, but the hardening is temporary in order to permit Gentiles access to the gospel. That Israel was chosen in the first place was a matter of sheer mercy; it should come as no surprise, least of all to Israel, that through its hardening God again extends his call to the nations. Ultimately, hopes Paul, Israel’s hardening will lead to repentance (2:4) and salvation (11:26). The final result will be to the benefit of Jews and Gentiles.

9:25–29 / Verses 25–29 adduce three passages from the OT as proof texts that the church, by God’s plan, consists of Jews and Gentiles. The quotation in verses 25–26 comes from Hosea 2:23 and 1:10. A Targum on this text reads, “I (God) will love the unloved because of their works” (Str-B, vol. 3, p. 273). Paul, by contrast, says that the Gentiles, like the Jews, belong to the covenant not by works but by grace. In its original context Hosea applied the saying to the Israelites who had forsaken the kingdom of God for the affluent and indulgent northern kingdom of Jeroboam II. But, with no little audacity, Paul applies it here to the Gentiles! A Jewish apocalypse a generation later would scorn the Gentiles: “O Lord, you have said it was for us (Jews) that you created the world. As for the other nations (Gentiles) which have descended from Adam, you have said that they are nothing, and that they are like spittle, and you have compared their abundance to a drop from a bucket” (4 Ezra 6:55; Charlesworth, OTP, vol. 1, p. 536). In applying the Hosea prophecy to the Gentiles, however, Paul affirms that they too are heirs of the promises to Israel.

The two quotations in verses 27–29 come from Isaiah 10:22–23 (and Hos. 1:10) and 1:9. The themes of calling and people predominate, bearing witness that Israel’s existence depends not on itself but on God. It is God’s call which constitutes Israel as God’s people (9:8). The effect of both quotations is that a remnant, and not all Israel, will be saved. The quotation in verse 28 is somewhat problematic. The original Greek (lit., “The Lord completes and cuts short his word on earth”) is rendered ambiguously by the NIV, the Lord will carry out his sentence on earth with speed and finality. Paul evidently means that God currently accomplishes his purpose through a diminished Israel. But even a remnant in Israel is a testimony to God’s grace. Had God not had mercy on a remnant, Israel “would have become like Sodom … and Gomorrah.” The plight of most damnable societies in the OT, in other words, would be the fate of Israel were it not for God’s grace. Thus, both the inclusion of Gentiles in salvation and the preservation of a Jewish remnant testify to the grace of God.

The OT prophets developed the idea of a saved portion of Israel within the larger nation (Isa. 4:3; 10:22–23; 46:3; 65:8; Amos 3:12; Mic. 2:12; 5:7). Thus began the doctrine of the remnant. Paul appeals to the same idea with regard to the Jewish response to the gospel: only a few would respond, as was foretold in Scripture (SO 9:6). The present believing remnant, however, is not the last chapter. Paul’s continuing burden for the Jews (9:1–5; 10:1–3; 11:25–29) develops into the hope that the remnant is but an interlude in the divine drama, after which greater Israel will embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ and be joined to the church (ch. 11).