Romans 9:17-29
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Calculas 1 in Junior College
Spending hours in study hall. One problem would fill up 4 to 5 pieces of paper.
I made it through the class with a C.
I enrolled in Calc 2.
I will never forget my first day in that class. The professor said you need to have at least 4-6 hours a night set aside for this class and the homework.
Being a two sport athlete, I did not see how this was going to be possible. So I waited a few class periods just to see if the professor was right and He indeed was so I went and dropped the class.
Last weeks text was a challenge, and if you think this week gets any easier then I liken it much like going from Calc 1 to Calc 2. The text continues to present some challenges that our finite brains are not able to fully comprehend.
Paul starts with another Old Testament example in verse 17 in Pharaoh
17 For the Scripture tells Pharaoh: I raised you up for this reason so that I may display My power in you and that My name may be proclaimed in all the earth.
Paul quotes Exodus 9:16 when God tells Moses what to tell Pharaoh and the very next verse says this
17 You are still acting arrogantly against My people by not letting them go.
I would also build the case that Pharaoh had the chance to be obedient to the Lord and chose not to based upon scripture
15 But when Pharaoh saw there was relief, he hardened his heart and would not listen to them, as the Lord had said.
19 “This is the finger of God,” the magicians said to Pharaoh. But Pharaoh’s heart hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the Lord had said.
So then this also takes place. The Lord hardens Pharaoh’s heart
12 But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart and he did not listen to them, as the Lord had told Moses.
1 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials so that I may do these miraculous signs of Mine among them,
This is a complicated issue. Pharaoh says, “No, Moses. I will not let the people go.” And God says, “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart so that he will not let the people go.”
Both are happening at the same time. So there isn’t a simple, tidy solution here.
Pharaoh isn’t “off the hook,” because “God made him do it.”
But God isn’t guilty of forcing Pharaoh to sin and rebel against His Word God uses even human rebellion to display His glory. This doesn’t mean God is causing that human rebellion to happen, or that humans aren’t choosing to rebel out of their own free will.
Now back to Romans
18 So then, He shows mercy to those He wants to, and He hardens those He wants to harden.
This is a hard verse. In light of the rest of Romans that we have seen especially in the first few chapters, Paul lays out for us that no one deserves to be saved. That is none of us are righteous on our own. Romans 3:23 All have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God.
God’s plans go forward by the Mercy of God.
19 You will say to me, therefore, “Why then does He still find fault? For who can resist His will?”
20 But who are you, a mere man, to talk back to God? Will what is formed say to the one who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?”
21 Or has the potter no right over the clay, to make from the same lump one piece of pottery for honor and another for dishonor?
God is the Potter and we His creation should not question who he has created us to be. God is God. Yet, so often we find ourselves here in Romans 9 of questioning the Potter saying why did you make me like this.
This reference of the potter and the clay takes us back to some Old Testament Scriptures.
The Lord tells Jeremiah to go down to the Potters house and he wants to teach him there.
4 But the jar that he was making from the clay became flawed in the potter’s hand, so he made it into another jar, as it seemed right for him to do.
5 The word of the Lord came to me:
6 “House of Israel, can I not treat you as this potter treats his clay?”—this is the Lord’s declaration. “Just like clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, house of Israel.
7 At one moment I might announce concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will uproot, tear down, and destroy it.
8 However, if that nation I have made an announcement about turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the disaster I had planned to do to it.
9 At another time I announce that I will build and plant a nation or a kingdom.
10 However, if it does what is evil in My sight by not listening to My voice, I will relent concerning the good I had said I would do to it.
11 So now, say to the men of Judah and to the residents of Jerusalem: This is what the Lord says: I am about to bring harm to you and make plans against you. Turn now, each from your evil way, and correct your ways and your deeds.
12 But they will say, ‘It’s hopeless. We will continue to follow our plans, and each of us will continue to act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.’ ”
Back to Romans
22 And what if God, desiring to display His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience objects of wrath ready for destruction?
23 And what if He did this to make known the riches of His glory on objects of mercy that He prepared beforehand for glory —
v.22 Call back to Pharaoh and God’s patience with Pharaoh. He was patient with Pharaoh and as Pharaoh’s heart was hardened it would be seen that the judgement that Pharaoh recieved that it would be deserved. It would also be seen that God would accomplish a mighty deliverance for His people.
God is patient we see this with Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 18.
24 on us, the ones He also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?
God’s plan all along beginning with the Promise to Abraham when he said look at the stars and so shall your offspring be was to include the Gentiles into this plan. People from every tongue, tribe and nation will worship the Lord.
Mercy on the other side of Judgement
25 As He also says in Hosea: I will call Not My People, My People, and she who is Unloved, Beloved.
26 And it will be in the place where they were told, you are not My people, there they will be called sons of the living God.
Chapter 1 is judgement
Chapter 2 is Mercy on the other side of Judgement
27 But Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: Though the number of Israel’s sons is like the sand of the sea, only the remnant will be saved;
28 for the Lord will execute His sentence completely and decisively on the earth.
29 And just as Isaiah predicted: If the Lord of Hosts had not left us offspring, we would have become like Sodom, and we would have been made like Gomorrah.