CHOSEN FOR GOD’S ETERNAL PURPOSE--Romans 9:1-26
***Jimmy and Billy were brothers, born more than ten years apart. Jimmy seemed successful from an early age, graduating from the United States Naval Academy, and serving in the Navy before going home to the family business. Billy tried college, but dropped out, also going home to the family business, while working to promote a liquor company. Jimmy had a heart for justice and civil rights, going into politics. Jimmy—Jimmy Carter—went on to become the 39th President of The United States, and Billy took advantage of his brother’s success to promote his product, “Billy Beer.” Billy Carter was disgraced by taking a bribe from Libya, and died at age 51. Jimmy went on to promote human rights and Habitat for Humanity, living well in to his 90’s.
What should we say about Jimmy and Billy? Should we condemn Billy, or feel sorry for him? When a reporter asked Jimmy whether he was embarrassed by his brother, he simply replied that he loved him. Should we give Jimmy credit for being such a good man? Perhaps—but I think he would give God credit for that; at least, I hope so.**
Last week, we considered how God works in our lives, to make us his children. Our text was Romans 8:28-30, “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.” God is committed to our salvation, from beginning to end.
That raises a lot of questions, however. If the entire process begins before we are born (and it does; Ephesians 1:4 says, “God chose us in Christ before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.”), how does God choose who will be saved? Does he see in advance that some people will be better or more responsive, so that they are predestined to choose him? Does he choose on the basis of lineage or privilege?
Then, if God’s choice leads to predestination, is there still room for human choices, or free will? It all gets rather confusing. In fact, we must say that how it all works together is a MYSTERY—a mystery that cannot be solved by people like ourselves, bound by time and space, and limited in understanding.
If we struggle to understand the relationship between God’s choice and human choices, we are in good company. The Apostle Paul also struggled with the concept of ELECTION (or choice). He didn’t solve the mystery, but in Romans 9-11 he provides answers to 4 of our most important questions.
First, ARE PEOPLE CHOSEN BY BIRTH OR HERITAGE?
It is certainly an advantage to be born into a Christian home, go to church, and learn about God. Yet some people who seem to have every advantage do not accept Jesus as Savior and Lord. Why do some not respond to God’s goodness and grace?
This might be a personal question for some of us, if we have children or grandchildren, brothers or sister, or friends we grew up with who have rejected Christ. We would do anything to bring them to Christ.
Paul felt the same way about his people, the Jews Although he called as an apostle to the gentiles, he had a deep concern for Jews who did not accept Jesus as the Messiah.
Read Romans 9:1-5.
Paul lists the advantages of the Jews: the covenant with Abraham, the law given by Moses, and temple worship. By descent they were children of Abraham, of the same lineage as Jesus and Paul. Yet they rejected Jesus as the Messiah.
God had promised Abraham that he would be his God, and the God of his descendants. Paul struggled to understand how the Jews, who were included in God’s covenant with his people, could be allowed to reject the good news of salvation, and be cast aside.
Paul was forced to reconsider his understanding what it meant to be a descendant of Abraham.
Read Romans 9:6-9.
In the Old Testament, it sometimes seems that salvation was by birth and family lineage. Paul points out that faith is not inherited by birth, but by God’s PROMISE.
As an example, Paul refers to the children of Abraham. God promised Abraham a son, but as Abraham and Sarah were much too old to have children, Sarah encouraged Abraham to have a child by her servant, Hagar.
Ishmael must have heard about God and his covenant promises. In fact, Abraham circumcised him, as a sign of the covenant, along with the male servants in his household. Was he the descendant through him God would cause all people to be blessed?
Miraculously, Sarah gave birth to a son, Isaac. When Ishmael picked on Isaac, Sarah demanded that Abraham send him away. Abraham was distressed, but God told him to do as Sarah said, “…because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.”
God did not abandon Ishmael. In fact, he promised to make Ishmael into a nation, and Ishmael gave birth to 12 princes. Isaac and Ishmael buried Abraham together, and Ishmael lived to an old age.
Yet Ishmael was not included in the covenant promise given to Abraham and Sarah. God’s covenant promise was not passed on by genetics, but by God’s choice of Isaac, and then Isaac’s son, Jacob.
Second question: DO NOT SOME NEVER HAVE A CHANCE TO ACCEPT THE GOOD NEWS?
Read Romans 9:10-13.
It is shocking to hear that God said, “Esau I hated,” and the phrase is not found in Genesis. Long after Esau lived, it was spoken of his descendants, the Edomites, who had mistreated the Israelites and gloated when they were taken into exile.
“Esau I hated” is a Hebrew figure of speech—a form of hyperbole. Genesis indicates us that God did not literally hate Esau; he blessed him with large flocks and many descendants.
Yet God did say to their mother Rebekah, while Esau and Jacob were still in the womb, that Esau would serve Jacob. As time went on, it was evident that God had chosen Jacob to fulfill his covenant promise.
Jacob was actually quite unworthy of the promises God passed on to him and his descendants. He was a schemer, a liar, and a poor husband and father. In fact, I think if you had known Esau, you might have liked him better with Jacob. Esau might have been impulsive and rough around the edges, but Jacob would deceive, manipulate, and cheat.
Since God chose Jacob to receive the covenant promise, did Esau never have a chance?
***In theological circles, some people talk about “double predestination,” the idea that God sends some people to heaven, and some to hell, and they have no choice in the matter. The idea is sometimes identified with the Reformed theology, and the “Five Points of Calvinism,” summarized by the mnemonic device, TULIP, where the U is Unconditional Election.
However, the Reformed Canons of Dort, which defined TULIP, avoids the idea that God chooses people for eternal punishment. They are fully capable of choosing that on their own: “Holy Scripture most especially highlights this eternal and undeserved grace of our election and brings it out more clearly for us, in that it further bears witness that not all people have been chosen but that some have not been chosen or have been passed by in God’s eternal election…to leave them in the common misery in which, by their own fault they have plunged themselves…”**
Esau made his own choices: He did not value God’s promises. He foolishly sold the rights of the firstborn son to his brother for a pot of red stew. He made plans to kill his brother, after Jacob deceived their father. He made his own choices, but it happened “in order that God’s purpose in election might stand.” God had chosen Jacob, even before he was born.
That raises a third question:
IS GOD FAIR?
I hope not!
Romans 3: 23 says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
If God were fair, he would simply let us go along the sinful course of all of humanity, never to rescue us from our sinful selves, and never to redeem us as his children, so that we could live forever with him in holiness and glory. That would be fair, but not good.
If God were fair, he would not bother to work with a scoundrel like Jacob. He would condemn a murderer like David to death. He would deny ever knowing a man like Peter, who denied even knowing Jesus. He would not take a man like Paul, who had persecuted Christians, and use him bring the gospel to millions, including us.
God is not fair; God is merciful.
Read Romans 9:14-21.
It seems that not everyone receives God’s mercy. Pharaoh, for example, did not receive mercy. In fact, Paul says that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart!
Exodus does say, six times, that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, but only after the fifth plague. Pharaoh started out with a hard heart, and after each of the first four plagues, Exodus says that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. Pharaoh chose to resist God.
Yet God did not change Pharaoh’s heart. Could he have done so? We don’t know; it is a mystery of free will and God’s providence. Changing Pharaoh’s heart would have involved changing the course of history, perhaps for centuries before and after!
God chose not to change Pharaoh’s heart, because Pharaoh fit into a greater plan and purpose. God raised up Pharaoh for a purpose: to show his power, and so that his name might be proclaimed in all the earth.
Was Pharaoh like a pawn in God’s chess game, a strategic sacrifice? I suppose you could look at it that way, but you could also say that Pharaoh and all of Egypt deserved to wiped off the face of the earth. Paul quotes from Exodus 9:15-16, where Moses is told to say to Pharaoh, “For by now I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with a plague that would have wiped you off the earth. But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”
God’s overall purpose is clear; to show his power and glory to “all the earth.” His purpose was to reveal himself to all people, and to save. God is merciful and gracious.
This leads us to our final question:
WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF ELECTION?
Read Romans 9:22-26.
God had a plan.
When he first called Abram, he said, “All peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
When he led his chosen people out of Egypt, and met them at Mount Sinai, he said in Exodus 19:5-6, “Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although THE WHOLE EARTH IS MINE, you will be for me A KINGDOM OF PRIESTS and a holy nation.” The Israelites were God’s priests, to bring the entire world into God’s presence.
In Isaiah 49:5-6, God says of his servant, the Messiah, “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH.”
When the New Testament prophet Simeon saw the baby Jesus in the temple on the eighth day, he praised God, saying, (Luke 2:30-32) “My eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of ALL NATIONS: a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.”
Then, after Jesus ascended into heaven and the Holy Spirit came upon the church, Peter said in Acts 2:39, “The [covenant] promise is for you and your children AND FOR ALL WHO ARE FAR OFF—FOR ALL WHOM THE LORD OUR GOD WILL CALL.”
The ways of God are a mystery beyond our comprehension, but God’s eternal purpose is revealed to us. As Ephesians 1:4-10 says, God chose us in Christ before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves…God made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to ALL THINGS IN HEAVEN AND ON EARTH under Christ.”
Why did God choose to save you? He loves you—yes. He is gracious and merciful—yes. He chose you, not because you were good, but because you needed his grace—yes. Why you? That is a mystery of God’s goodness, glory and grace.
Yet God did choose you and me, for a purpose. He chose us so that many people—many who are yet children of God—might become children of God, forever. His purpose is that through us, his glory may be shared by all whom he will call.
This leaves no room for pride, feelings of superiority, or self-centeredness. God did not choose us to recognize our goodness of glory; he chose us for his glory.
It does not allow to be casual about our faith and commitment, or to be casual about sin or the priorities by which we live. We are called to be saints, called to a holy life, a life that displays God’s holiness to everyone around us.
It does not allow us to retreat into a cocoon of the privileged few, for God chose us to go into all the world make disciples of all whom he will call. We are the light of the world—the ones who display his glory, so that people who have not encountered Jesus may see his goodness and grace, hear the gospel, and accept Jesus as Savior and Lord.
It drives us to fulfill our ultimate purpose. As Paul says in Ephesians 1:11-12, “In Christ we were also chosen…in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory.”
To God alone be all the glory! Amen.
