Romans 9:14–33 forces us to ask questions many of us quietly carry: Is God fair? Can a sovereign God still hold us responsible? In this episode, we walk through Paul’s stark language about mercy and hardening and discover that Scripture does not shrink back from these questions—but it also refuses to let us treat God as our equal. Instead, we are led to see that we begin life already condemned, and that our only hope is the sovereign mercy of a God who chooses to save.
In this week’s episode, we explore:
- The travel-soccer analogy that sets the stage: why “not treating everyone the same” is not automatically injustice, and how that helps us think about God’s freedom to act
- Paul’s central question in Romans 9:14: “Is there injustice on God’s part?” and why his first answer is to quote God’s own words to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy”
- What it means that salvation “does not depend on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy,” and why that is both humbling and profoundly comforting
- The contrast between Moses and Pharaoh—one of the “best” and one of the “worst”—and why neither deserved anything but judgment, yet God used both to display His glory
- How the Exodus story shows God hardening Pharaoh in order to make His name known, and why this does not turn Pharaoh into a puppet but confirms his chosen rebellion
- The reminder that we do not start neutral but already condemned in Adam, and that election is God’s rescue of some from a race that would otherwise universally resist Him
- Paul’s four-part response to the objection, “Why does He still find fault?”—including the potter-and-clay image, our limited credentials to challenge God, and the possibility of purposes we cannot yet see
- The picture of God enduring “vessels of wrath” with much patience to make known the riches of His glory to “vessels of mercy,” and why this pushes us to trust His wisdom rather than our logic
- How Hosea and Isaiah prepare us for a remnant Israel and a surprising flood of Gentile believers—showing that Scripture had always anticipated this pattern
- The “testing point” of election: Jesus as the stone in the path—some stumble over Him in self-reliance, while others stand on Him in faith and will never be put to shame
By the end of the episode, listeners will see that Romans 9 is not a cold puzzle about fate, but a searching invitation to let God be God. You’ll be encouraged to lay down the instinct to put God in the dock, to recognize your very desire for Christ as evidence of His prior mercy, and to rest in the One who freely chooses, patiently endures, and unfailingly keeps those who stand on the stumbling stone who has become their Rock.
In the opening verses of Chapter 9 Paul gave us three reasons God himself gives for his actions. These are the principles upon which he acts.
- Romans 9:1 tells us that God does not base redemption or salvation on natural privileges, like inheritance, ancestry, education, opportunity. All these natural privileges, though they may be granted to an individual and may give him great access to knowledge about God, do not guarantee that a person is chosen of God.
- Salvation is always based on a divine promise. God himself promises to act. He never bases salvation upon what human beings are going to do. At the heart of redemption is a promise that God has given and that we are to respond to.
- Paul points out that God’s choice is never based on the behavior of individuals, whether good or bad. Paul proves it in the case of Jacob and Esau, in which a choice was made before the boys were born, before they had opportunity to do anything, either good or bad. God made a choice. Therefore, salvation or redemption never is based on human works.
On what is the basis does God choose then? If it is not works, if it is not the natural advantages which he himself gives, then what is it?
Paul’s answer, in the second half of Romans 9, is that it is based upon God’s sovereign right to choose.
For more detail and explanation, please listen to the podcast.
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Series: Romans: Justification by Faith
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Season 2, Episode 15
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