Down to Earth But Heavenly Minded

Paul’s Great Sorrow for Unbelieving Israel—Unbelieving Despite an Eight—Fold Preeminence. Verses 1 to 5.

The Real Israel, however, were an Elect, not a Natural Seed: God’s Sovereignty in Election Defended. Verses 6 to 29.

The Astonishing Conclusion! The Gentiles, not Following after Righteousness, Attain to it by Simple Faith; Israel, Following after a Law—Method, Stumble at the By—Faith Way,—at Christ! Verses 30 to 33.

IN ROMANS NINE, Ten, and Eleven, Paul turns aside from that glorious exposition of Grace, in the first eight chapters, to the explanation of God’s present dealing with Israel. God had committed Himself to bless this nation; and lo, now it is nationally set aside, while Paul’s message goes out to all nations without distinction between Jew and Greek! Where, then, is the Divine faithfulness? How reconcile God’s former condition of blessing,—through circumcision, the Law with its observances, the temple with its presence of Jehovah in the Holy of Holies, and the separateness of the elect nation, Israel, from all others:—how reconcile all this with such a by faith “no difference” message as Paul has been preaching to us—in the first eight chapters? A message, indeed, which he resumes from Chapter Twelve to the close, magnifying God’s present mercy to the Gentiles; and ending up the Epistle as he began it, with the words: “My gospel, (revealing a heretofore hidden secret), is sent forth unto all the nations unto the simple obedience
of faith”!

The question, therefore, is, how to reconcile the “no distinction between Jew and Greek” message that Paul is here preaching, with God’s former manner of speech to Israel, concerning which the Psalmist sings:

“He showeth His word unto Jacob,

His statutes and His ordinances unto Israel.

He hath not dealt so with any nation;

And as for His ordinances, they have not known them”

(Psalm 147:19, 20).

And not only so, but the whole book of Psalms, for that matter; yes, and the prophets, also!

Now it will not do merely to go back to Israel’s idolatrous history, and denounce the nation; or even to our Lord’s awful utterance, as He finally left their temple:

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killeth the prophets, and stoneth them that are sent unto her! how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her own brood under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate” (Luke 13:34, 35).

It will not do to say they were a disobedient people, and God has rejected them entirely, and has brought blessing out to the Gentiles instead. Nor will it do, in these three chapters, merely to go forward to Ephesians (2:14-16) and say, “Christ is our peace, who hath made both [Jew and Gentile] one, and has broken down the middle wall of partition, having abolished in his flesh the enmity [between them], even the Law of commandments in ordinances; that He might create in Himself of the two One New Man, so making peace; and might reconcile them both in One Body unto God through the cross.” Furthermore, it will not do to go on into Colossians and say concerning this new man, the Body of Christ, that “there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freeman; but Christ is all, and in all” (Colossians 3:11). All these things are true for us who are in Christ. But it is the facts as they are set forth in Romans, that we must examine if we are to study Romans. And God, here in Romans, sets forth His ways in the past, and His ways in the future, with this chosen earthly nation, Israel.

That God should so signally honor this nation Israel as to reveal His awful presence on Sinai, and speak in an audible voice to them, giving to them and them alone His holy “fiery Law,”—this fact must have its true place with us.

“For ask now of the days that are past, which were before thee, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and from the one end of heaven unto the other whether there hath been any such thing as this great thing is, or hath been heard like it? Did ever a people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou has heard, and live? Or hath God assayed to go and take Him a nation from the midst of another nation, by trials by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that Jehovah your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?” (Deuteronomy 4:32-34.)

I say, for God to do all this, and then publicly set this nation aside, and send a Paul to all nations without distinction of Jew or Gentile, preaching salvation apart from the Law, and by simple faith, instead of by “the Jews’ religion”; promising blessings, and that even heavenly blessings, inconceivably beyond those promised to Israel,—this was an astounding thing! The trouble with us Gentiles is, that we have become accustomed to it, we take it for granted. God’s plans and ways with Israel do not concern most Christians.

There is no more striking example of the deadly and deadening self-confidence into which human beings so quickly drift when they find themselves objects of Divine goodness: “Man that is in honor, and understandeth not, is like the beasts that perish” (Psalm 49:20).

One has only to look about Christendom to see at once the evidence of this fateful delusion. Behold the “state” churches, the great cathedrals, the vested choirs and magnificent music; and the “church calendars” with their man-invented feast days, “holy” days, “Christmas-tides,” “Lenten” periods, “Easter” services,—all that goes to make up the so-called “Christian religion”! And the high talk of the Gentiles about Israel as God’s “ancient people”: whereas God has never had and never will have any people, any elect nation, but earthly Israel!

When we reflect that, after He has “caught up in the clouds” His Church saints, our Lord is coming back to this earthly people Israel, and will
establish them in their land, with a glorious millennial temple and order of worship, to which the Gentile nations must and will submit: then we see that the present time is altogether anomalous! It is a parenthesis, in which God is making a “visit” to the Gentiles, to “take out of them a people for His name”;—after which, James tells us, our Lord “will Himself return,” and “build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen” (Acts 15:16), on Mount Zion, in Jerusalem, where David lived.

Romans Nine, Ten, and Eleven become an essential part of Christian doctrine in this respect: that while they do not set forth our salvation or our place in Christ, as do the first eight chapters, yet they unfold to us our relative place in God’s plans, along with national Israel’s place. They also reveal to us several matters absolutely essential to our proper estimate of God and His ways; and, properly believed, they “hide pride” from us: bringing in as they do the great fact that both ourselves and (in the future), the saved Remnant of Israel, are the objects of sovereign Divine mercy. We discover ourselves in Chapter 9:23 to be “vessels of mercy,” as will future Israel discover themselves to be, by the example of the mercy shown to us. The grace of God has been spoken of in this Epistle often before; but not until these chapters is mercy named; and until mercy is understood, grace cannot be fully appreciated.

In Luke 1:78 (margin) we read of the “heart of mercy” of our God; and in Ephesians 2:4, that God is “rich in mercy.” God proclaimed His name to Moses: “Jehovah, Jehovah, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in loving-kindness and truth” (Exodus 34:6). God’s mercy is the sovereign going forth of His heart to us sinful wretched creatures; His grace follows, in His pardoning our guilt; and His loving-kindness is His proceeding with us in abundant goodness thereafter.

1 I speak the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience bearing witness
with me in the Holy Spirit, 2 that I have great sorrow and unceasing pain in my heart. 3 For I could pray that I myself were [cast out] accursed from Christ for my brethren’s sake, my kinsmen according to the flesh: 4 who are Israelites; whose is the [Divine national] adoption and the [earth-manifested] glory, and the covenants, and the custodianship of the law, and the sanctuary service, and the promises; 5 whose are the fathers, and of whom is Christ as concerning the flesh, who is over all, God blessed unto the ages. Amen.

This most remarkable paragraph naturally divides itself into two parts:

1. Verses 1 to 3: Paul’s constant yearning pain for the unbelieving Israelites, his brethren and kinsmen,—a yearning to which he declares the Spirit bears witness, which could, were it right, go the length of his being lost if they could be saved! Thus Moses prayed: “If thou wilt not forgive them, blot me, I pray thee, out of Thy book, which Thou hast written!” (Exodus 32:32, 33.)194 Dear old Bengel searchingly says, “It is not easy to estimate the measure of love in a Moses and a Paul. For our limited reason does not grasp it, as the child cannot comprehend the courage of warriors!”

2. Verses 4 and 5: Therehearsing of eight matters which belonged to Israel,—yea, and yet belong to Israel, in spite of all their unfaithfulness. As Jehovah says to Jeremiah:

“If these ordinances [of the sun, of the moon, of the stars and of the sea] depart from before Me, saith Jehovah, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before Me forever. Thus saith Jehovah: If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, then will I also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith Jehovah” (Jeremiah 31:35-37).

Therefore, first, let us deeply reflect on this thing of Paul’s unceasing pain over Israel, lest in our Gentile shallowness we miss the correct judgment of the importance of this event before God, that Israel, among whom He had dwelt, became disobedient, and were broken off from blessing; and lest in our own affections we become so narrowed as to have no yearning over Israel. Shall we let Paul, our great apostle, have this “unceasing pain,” this “great sorrow,” in his heart, all alone? Nay for Paul would not have shared the fact with us except he expected our sympathy in the Spirit. Let us not be like those thousands of grace-hating Jews in Paul’s day who kept following him in his blessed ministry, declaring that he was an apostate Jew, one really denying the faith of his fathers, bitter against his own race in order to curry favor among the despised Gentiles. They spread the report that Paul “taught all men everywhere against Israel and the Law and the temple” (Acts 21:28). How Christ-like was the love in Paul’s heart, that persisted even to be willing to be lost, for the unbelieving Israelites who were reviling him!

Second, let us enumerate and examine the eight respects in which the apostle here declares the nation of Israel differed before God from all other nations:

1. The Divine national adoption—“Thus saith Jehovah, Israel is my son, my first-born” (Exodus 4:22). “Thou art a holy people unto Jehovah thy God: Jehovah thy God hath chosen thee to be a people for His own possession, above all peoples that are upon the face of the earth” (Deuteronomy 7:6). “You only have I known of all the families of the earth” (Amos 3:2). Let the nations, British, Americans, French, Germans, or whatever they be, lay this to heart before it is too late! For as to God’s election of Israel as His chosen nation, it is absolute and eternal,195 as He says in Isaiah 66:22: “As the new heavens and new earth [of Revelation 21 and 22] shall remain before Me, so shall your seed and your name [Israel] remain.”

2. The glory—We all know how God’s presence accompanied Israel as a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night through the sea and through the wilderness, and then filled the tabernacle! No other nation has had or will have God’s presence thus. God said:

“And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them . . . And thou shalt put the mercy-seat above upon the ark; and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee . . . And there I will meet with thee” (Exodus 25:8, 21, 22).

And concerning the dedication of Solomon’s temple we read,

“It came to pass, when the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking Jehovah, and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music, and praised Jehovah, saying. For He is good; for His loving-kindness endureth forever; that then the house was filled with a cloud, even the house of Jehovah, so that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud: for the glory of Jehovah filled the house of God” (II Chronicles 5:13, 14).

3. The covenants—With “covenants” Gentiles have absolutely nothing actively to do.196 In Genesis Fifteen God made a covenant with Abraham, and gave to his earthly seed the token of circumcision. In Genesis Twenty-two, God “confirmed” the promise to Abraham’s Seed, which is Christ (Galatians 3:16). With David God made an earthly kingdom-covenant,—that one of David’s descendants should sit upon his throne forever (II Samuel 7:13); as we find Gabriel announcing to Mary in Luke 1:32, 33. God says He will make a New Covenant in the future with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah (Hebrews 8:8-12 , quoted from Jeremiah 31:31, ff), in connection with which He promises to “bring Israel back into their land,” to “take away the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh, to put His Spirit within them, to cause them to walk in His statutes, and keep His ordinances, and do them” (Ezekiel 36:24-27).

4. And the custodianship of the Law—It was a great thing to be entrusted with God’s holy Law, as we have seen in Chapter 3:2. Let me here repeat that every writer of Scripture is an Israelite. No other nation has ever been even directly spoken to, as a nation, by God: except to be warned, as were Egypt by Moses, and Nineveh by Jonah. There were written messages,—as Isaiah 13-23; but these were given to Israel, concerning other nations.

5. And the sanctuary-service—The Greek word here (latreia), refers to those religious ordinances prescribed to Israel by God in connection with the tabernacle-worship, and afterwards the temple-worship, which will be resumed in the Millennium, as we read in the last nine chapters of Ezekiel. (The ordinances and offerings then will be memorial, rather than prophetic, as in the days before Christ died.)

Note carefully that such outward form-worship belongs to the nation of
Israel, and not to Christianity. To introduce it into Christianity is to return to paganism. For Paul plainly classifies the forms and ceremonies of Judaism as now belonging with “the weak and beggarly religious principles” which heathen Gentiles engage in! (Galatians 4:9, 10.)

Until the “Aryans” (whoever they are) have been led out from all other races by God Himself in manifest presence, and have had a “fiery law” given them from heaven as had Israel, let them stop their mouths, and also stop their ears from any vain pagan prophet! And let the Gentiles all humble their miserable pride. What have they to do with the Law that God committed to Israel? or with the Jewish Sabbath, which God said was a token of His covenant with that chosen people? (Exodus 31:12-17.)

6. And the promises—God’s salvation-promises were lodged in Abraham; His kingdom-promises, in David. No promises were made to Gentile nations as suchapter For the gospel now proclaimed is not a promise, but the announcement of a fact to be believed; and it is not preached to nations as such, but to individuals—good news to sinners everywhere. But to Israel, promises, thousands of them, were committed,—as a nation.

Now we do not have to become “Israelites” in any sense whatever to enjoy God’s salvation in Christ.197 The nation of Israel has been set aside for the present as the vessel of Divine blessing to the world, while the Gentiles, as set forth in Chapter Eleven, have now the privileged place, and Jews and Gentiles come individually, upon believing, into a heavenly inheritance. Nevertheless, “the promises” pertain nationally to Israel, and to no other nation as such.

7. Whose are the fathers—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, are directly referred to; and Jacob’s sons also, especially Joseph, and Judah the vessel of royal promise and blessing to Israel (Psalm 77:15; 80:1; 81:5; Genesis 49:8,10;
Hebrews 7:14). Our hearts include Moses, Samuel, David, and the prophets when we think of Israel and remember “the fathers.” But it is especially to Abraham, “the father of all them that believe,” that our grateful memory turns; for, although we have no connection with Israel, we do have indeed a vital connection with Abraham, as his “children.”

8. And of whom is Christ as to the flesh—who is over all God blessed unto
the ages! Amen.198 In Chapter 1:3 God’s Son is said to be “born of the seed of David according to the flesh”; in John 1:14, we read: “The Word became flesh”; in Hebrews 2:16: “He taketh hold of the seed of Abraham”; and in Matthew 1:1, it is: “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.”

Now this is an astonishing honor to Israel,—infinitely outranking all others: our Lord, “the Mighty God” (Isaiah 9:6), is, “according to the flesh,” an Israelite! For two other things are immediately affirmed of Him: He is over all, and He is God blessed unto the ages. The words “over all” are partly explained in I Corinthians 15:27: “He [God the Father] put all things in subjection under His [Christ’s] feet.” But in John 1:1, 3: “The Word was God. All things were made through Him.” As in Colossians 1:16, 17: “All things were created through Him and unto Him; and by Him all things consist” (hold together); so that Christ is indeed “over all, God blessed forever”! (As to this ascription of deity to Christ, see Kelly’s Notes on Romans, pp. 165-171.)

And now Paul falls back upon the sovereignty of God, accomplishing thereby three things:

First he defends himself (and all of us) against the charge of teaching that God had been unfaithful in His promises toward Israel; (2) he shows that Israel’s own Scriptures had foretold their temporary rejection, and the salvation of the Gentiles; and (3) he shows the great future blessing which will come to Israel, in God’s sovereign MERCY. Let us read the text:

6 But it is not as though the word of God hath come to nought. For they
are not all Israel, that are of Israel; 7 neither, because they are Abraham’s seed, are they all children: but. In Isaac shall thy seed be called. 8 That is, It is not the children of the flesh that are children of God; but the children of the promise are reckoned for a seed. 9 For this is a word of promise, According to this season willI come, and Sarah shall have a son. 10 And not only so; but Rebecca also having conceived by one,—by our father Isaac: 11 for [the children] being not yet born, neither having done anything good or bad, that the purpose of God, according to election might stand, not of works, but of Him that calleth, 12—it was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. 13 Even as it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.

The great revealed truth of the sovereignty of God perplexes many, disturbs others, and some take occasion to stumble at it.

Verse 6: But it is not as though the word of God hath come to nought—Paul here refers to those great promises God had made to Abraham, then to Isaac, then to Jacob; conferring blessing upon their seed, announcing Himself as God of Israel, giving them by oath the land of Palestine, placing in David’s line the promise of perpetual royalty on earth; prophesying a great and glorious future for Israel, not only in the coming Millennium, or 1000 years kingdom here, but in the new earth which follows that (Isaiah 66:22). Paul’s immediate explanation (for it looked as if these Divine promises had lapsed) was that not all that are of Israel are really Israel before God.

Verse 7: Neither, because they are Abraham’s seed, are they all children: but. In Isaac shall thy seed be called. I know, said our Lord, that ye are Abraham’s descendants; but if you were Abraham’s children you would do the works of Abraham. “If God were your Father, ye would love Me. Ye are of your father the devil” (John 8:37 to 44). To regard religious privilege as spiritual reality is the very deadliest delusion. The real sons of Abraham are defined in Galatians 3:7: “Know therefore, that they that are of faith, the same are sons of Abraham.” However, in the present passage, the point is not that Abraham’s real children are those that believe, but that Divine sovereign calling lies behind all. As God said to Abraham concerning Ishmael, “Nay, but Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his seed after him. And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: behold, I have blessed him and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly. But My covenant will I establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year” (Genesis 17:19-21). The direct quotation is from Genesis 21:12, when Ishmael was cast out. “In Isaac shall thy seed be called.” This is Divine sovereign action. Now Paul explains it:

Verse 8: That is, it is not the children of the flesh that are children of God; but the children of the promise are reckoned for a seed. What does the apostle mean by “The children of the promise are reckoned for a seed”? It is most necessary that we perceive that Paul is speaking here, not of man’s believing a promise and therefore being written down as one of God’s children; but on the contrary, of the promise (of God to Christ) that characterizes the existence and calling of all the real children of God. He expounds this in the next verse.

Verse 9: For this is a word of promise, According to this season will I come, and Sarah shall have a son—The quotation is from Genesis 18:10. Read the connection there carefully. Isaac, the coming child, did not believe the promise in order to be born! But, God promised Isaac to Abraham, and kept His promise by a miracle. When Isaac was born, therefore, he was a child of promise,—a promised child, in God’s sovereign will.

Verses 10, 11: And not only so, but Rebecca also having conceived by one, even by our father Isaac—for the children being not yet born, neither having done anything good or bad, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth,—

In the former passage it is brought out that Isaac was a child of promise, not merely of natural generation. In the present passage the Divine sovereignty—“the purpose of God according to election”—is seen extending still further than birth, to the disposition of the condition and affairs of the children thus promised. The elder shall serve the younger, is not only a prophecy that Jacob would inherit and obtain the Divine blessing, and that his seed (as in the days of David and Solomon) would be temporarily triumphant over the Edomites, Esau’s descendants; but also looks far into the future beyond the brief triumph of the Herodians, the Edomites, in the days of Christ and the apostles, to the day when, as Balaam was forced against his will to prophesy:

“There shall come forth a Star out of Jacob,

And a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel,

And shall smite through the corners of Moab,

And break down all the sons of tumult.

And Edom shall be a possession;

Seir also shall be a possession, who were his enemies;

While Israel doeth valiantly” (Numbers 24:17, 18).

“And they [Israel and Judah when the Lord returns, agrees Isaiah], shall put forth their hand upon Edom and Moab, and the children of Ammon shall obey them” (Isaiah 11:14).

Verses 12, 13: The elder shall serve the younger, and, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated—These words are chosen from the first and from the last books of the Old Testament. As to “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated,” a woman once said to Mr. Spurgeon, “I cannot understand why God should say that He hated Esau.” “That,” Spurgeon replied, “is not my difficulty, madam. My trouble is to understand how God could love Jacob!” All men being sinners, we must allow God to “retreat into His own sovereignty,” to act as He will. You and I may say, Esau proved himself entirely unworthy of the covenant blessings, for he despised them. This, however, will be seen to be a shallow view of the statement of the eleventh verse, that the prophecy of their future was told to their mother while the children were yet in her womb, not having done anything good or bad. For the Divine statement concerning His own election, and His providence that carries out that election, is very plain, that it is not of works but of Himself, who gives the creature his calling. We have already in Romans seen and believed that righteousness is not of works but of Divine grace—uncaused by us. Now let us just as frankly bow to God’s plain statement that His purpose according to election is likewise not of
human works. That is to say, the favor of God to the children of promise (to those whom He has given to Christ) is not procured by their response to God’s grace, but contrariwise, their response to God’s grace is because they have been given to Christ.

14 What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Far be the thought! 15 For He saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. 16 So then. it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that hath mercy. 17 For the Scripture saith unto Pharaoh, For this very purpose did I raise thee up, that I might show in thee My power, and that My name might be published abroad in all the earth. 18 So then He hath mercy on whom He will, and whom He will He hardeneth.

We have now come upon that passage of Scripture against which the human mind—or rather heart, rebels most of all. For it sets the creature as he really is before God; not, indeed, as an automaton, nor in fatalistic compulsion,—otherwise there were no morals, and no appeal in the gospel.

Nevertheless, it will be our only safe path to receive just as God writes it down, the truth we find here.

Verses 14,15: What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Far be the thought! For He saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. We have only to remember the circumstances under which God thus spoke to Moses, to see the righteousness of God’s sovereignty in mercy. There had been the awful breach at Sinai: Israel had “changed their glory for the likeness of an ox that eateth grass.” The eternal ineffably glorious Jehovah in His indignation had said to Moses: “Let Me alone, that My wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation” (Exodus 32:10). Moses pleads for the people, and the next day offers, if God will forgive them, to be himself blotted out of God’s book! He said to the people: “I will go up unto Jehovah; peradventure I shall make atonement for your sin” (Exodus 32:30). Forty days and forty nights this devoted man lay on his face
interceding for Israel, and God brought about, as we know, Moses’ mediatorship for Israel. (Study carefully Exodus 33; 34: especially Exodus 33:12-17; Exodus 34:1, 27, 28, 32.) God shows Moses himself favor; and finally extends it to all the people. And note, it is in this connection, and under these circumstances, and in answer to the personal request of His beloved servant: “Show me, I pray thee, thy glory,” that Jehovah says, “I will make all My goodness pass before thee, and will proclaim the name of Jehovah before thee; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy” (Exodus 33:18, 19).

Now who can find fault with that? Unless Jehovah shows mercy, Israel must all righteously perish. There was no resource left in man! God, whose name is Love, must come out to man and come in mercy, or all is over! And here we earnestly ask you to read the remarkable words of Darby, in the foot-note below.199 It will accomplish in the heart which weighs it carefully that reconciliation of the sovereignty of God with God’s love and grace which is possible alone to faith; and it will also enlighten the mind concerning God’s dealings with Israel as recorded in these three great chapters of Romans.

Verse 16: So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that hath mercy—Oh, that this great verse might sink into our ears, into our very hearts! Perhaps no statement of all Scripture so completely brings man to an utter end. Man thinks he can “will” and “decide,” God-ward, and that after he has so “decided” and “willed,” he has the ability to “run,” or, as he says, to “hold out.” But these two things, deciding and holding out, are in this verse utterly rejected as the source of salvation,—which is declared to be God that hath MERCY. Human responsibility is not at all denied here: man ought to will, and ought to run. But we are all nothing but sinners, and can do,—will do, neither: unless God come forth to us in sovereign mercy.200

Verses 17 and 18: For the Scripture saith unto Pharaoh For this very purpose
did I raise thee up, that I might show in thee My power, and that My name might be published abroad in all the earth. So then He hath mercy on whom He will, and whom He will He hardeneth.

Now in Pharaoh’s case, it is customary to emphasize the fact that he said: “Who is Jehovah, that I should hearken unto His voice to let Israel go? I know not Jehovah, and moreover I will not let Israel go” (Exodus 5:2).

But we must go back of that to Exodus 4:21: “And Jehovah said unto Moses, When thou goest back into Egypt, see that thou do before Pharaoh all the wonders which I have put in thy hand: but I will harden [lit., make strong] his heart, and he will not let the people go.”

“And I will harden Pharoah’s heart and multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt. But Pharaoh will not hearken unto you, and I will lay My hand upon Egypt, and bring forth My hosts. My people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great judgments” (Exodus 7:3, 4).

Now it is not necessary nor right to make God the author of Pharaoh’s
stubbornness. No more is it right to insist that if God be a God of love He must save everybody, as all sorts of Universalists claim. Exodus 7:13, 14 records Pharaoh’s attitude after the first “wonder”; and then God’s report of Pharaoh’s heart-condition,—for God sees the heart: “And Pharaoh’s heart was hardened [lit., was strong], and he hearkened not unto them; as Jehovah had spoken.”

“And Jehovah said unto Moses, ‘Pharaoh’s heart is heavy.’” Now the Hebrew word translated “heavy” or “hard” here, is frequently used of that which weighs down, as in Exodus 17:12: “Moses’ hands were heavy”; and in I Kings 12:10: “Thy father made our yoke heavy.” See especially Isaiah 1:4: “A people laden [lit., heavy] with iniquity.” On the whole, therefore, we are compelled to see that Pharaoh’s heart was left by God simply in its natural state,—heavy with iniquity. Unlike Jehoshaphat (II Chronicles 17:6), his heart had never been “lifted up in the ways of Jehovah.” Unlike David, he had not even felt the weight of his sins, for David complains, in Psalm 38:4:

“Mine iniquities are gone over my head;

As a heavy burden they are too heavy for me.”

The word heavy here is the same Hebrew word which God uses to describe Pharaoh’s heart, in Exodus 7:14.

God had a perfect right to allow Pharaoh to remain (where we all would have remained, apart from Divine sovereign mercy!), in a disobedient. God-defying attitude: “Who is Jehovah that I should obey Him?” Pharaoh fulfilled the Divine counsels. The plagues his rebellion brought on, and his overthrow at the Red Sea, are celebrated in Exodus 15:14: “The peoples have heard, they tremble.” The pagan Philistines, even in Samuel’s day said: “These are the gods that smote the Egyptians with all manner of plagues in the wilderness” (I Samuel 4:7, 8). Jehovah’s name was indeed through this unregenerate rebel, Pharaoh, “published abroad in all the earth,” just as He said!

What God’s Word tells us as to His dealing with Pharaoh, explains “He hardeneth.” But nothing else than a subject heart of faith will enter, with reverent footstep, into the twice repeated words, “whom He will,” here. And we say boldly, that a believer’s heart is not fully yielded to God until it accepts without question, and without demanding softening, this eighteenth verse.

Paul in the Spirit forestalls the natural operations of man’s proud heart:

19 Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth He still find fault? For who withstandeth His will? 20 Nay, but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to Him that formed it, Why didst Thou make me thus? 21 Or hath not the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor?

In His infinite wisdom and knowledge God reads with unerring accuracy the operations of the human heart: “Man looketh on the outward appearance, but Jehovah looketh on the heart.” Man says, If I am not one of God’s elect, an object of His mercy, then I cannot do right, and God should not blame me. I asked an intelligent man in western Michigan if he had believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. He burst out into loud laughing, saying, “If I am elect, I will go to heaven; and if I am not elect, there is no use in my worrying about the question!” I rebuked him sternly, with these words: “‘God commandeth men that they should all everywhere repent: inasmuch as He hath appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He hath ordained.’ ‘God’s commands are God’s enablings,’ and if you will hearken to Him, you will be saved. But you will not dare to say to God in that day, I could not come because I was not of the elect; for that will not be true! The reason you refused to come, will be found to be your love of sin, not your non-election!” God says, “Whosoever will,” and the door is open to all, absolutely all. God means “Whosoever”: and that is the word for you, sinner; and not election, which is God’s business, not yours!

Verse 20: Nay, but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to Him that formed it. Why didst thou make me thus? Literally, this reads: “O man, yes! but rather,—you! who are you, replying against God?”

Alford well says: “The words ‘yea, rather,’ take the ground from under the previous assertion and supersede it by another: implying that it has a certain show of truth, but that the proper view of the matter is yet to be stated. They thus convey, as in Luke 11:28, a rebuke,—here, with severity: ‘That which thou hast said may be correct human reasoning,—but as against God’s sovereignty, thy reasoning is out of place and irrelevant; the verse implying. Thou hast neither right nor power to call God to account in this matter.’ These verses are a rebuke administered to the spirit of the objection, which forgets the immeasurable distance between us and God, and the relation of Creator and Disposer in which He stands to us.”

And Stifler warns: “He who replies against God must mean that it is God’s
hardening that deprives a soul of salvation; that if God did not interpose with an election and take some and leave others to be hardened, all men would have at least an equal opportunity of salvation. This is false. If God did not elect, none would be saved, for there is ‘none that seeketh after God’ (Romans 3:11). And, men are not lost because they are hardened; they are hardened because they are lost; they are lost because they are sinners.

“God is not responsible for sin. He is under no obligation to save any one.
Obligation and sovereignty cannot both be predicated of God. If He saves any one it is a sovereign act of mercy.”

Shall the thing formed say to Him that formed it. Why didst thou make me thus?

Thus speaks also Jehovah by Isaiah:

“Woe unto him that striveth with His Maker! a potsherd among the potsherds of the earth! . . . Ye turn things upside down! Shall the potter be esteemed as clay; that the thing made should say of him that made it. He made me not; or the thing formed say of him that formed it, He hath no understanding?” (Isaiah 45:9; 29:16.)

In the Scriptures, those who meet God, fall into the dust. “I am but dust and ashes,” said Abraham, and Job: “Mine eye seeth Thee, and I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”

A “thing,” yea, and a formed thing, owing its very being to a Creator! Have we thus considered ourselves? Our only proper creature-attitude is one of faith, not questioning. As

“Frail creatures of dust,

And feeble as frail,

In Thee do we trust,

Nor find Thee to fail.”

These are days of man-vaunting, and God-despising. But they shall soon end, and the very earth on which man’s legions marched in such pride, shall flee away “before the face of Him who sits upon the Throne”! (Revelation 20:11.)

Verse 21: Or hath not the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor? As concerns the right of the Divine Potter over the human clay, we need to go with Jeremiah to “the potter’s house”: “I went down to the potter’s house, and, behold, he was making a work on the wheels. And the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? Such as is the clay in the potter’s hands, so are ye in my hand, O house of Israel” (Jeremiah 18:3-6). God called man “dust” in Eden (Genesis 2:7; 3:19). And, “The nations are as a drop of a bucket and are accounted as the small dust of the balance” (Isaiah 40:15). When the apothecary would weigh an article accurately, he whisks out with a breath from the balances any former dust remaining therein: and there go the nations, all,—as regards greatness before God! Yet here is one atom of this “small dust” replying against God, saying, “What right has He to do thus with me?”

Now it will not do to answer, “God is love”; “God so loved the world.” True, indeed. But God is God, and the nations are “less than nothing, and vanity,” as you read in Isaiah 40:17, and in many other Scriptures. God has rights high above all our poor comprehension. We know that God will always act righteously. We are not God’s judges! God has a right “from the same lump of human clay to make one part a vessel unto honor, another unto dishonor.” No godly person challenges that right. Nay, godly people most reverently bow to it! “What would the ability to fashion be worth, if it were under the dictation of that which is to be fashioned?”

22 What if GOD, willing to show His wrath, and to make His power known, endureth with much longsuffering vessels of wrath fitted unto destruction: 23 and that He might make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which he afore prepared unto glory, 24 even us, whom He also called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles?

Verse 22: What if GOD—the greatness of the Creator and the nothingness of the creature! God’s will is supreme and right, even to His being willing to show publicly His wrath—both at the day of judgment, and on through eternity. His holiness and righteousness will be exhibited to all creatures in His visitation of wrath upon the wicked:

And to make His power known—Job in astonishing words describes God’s power as seen in creation and providence, but adds:

“Lo, these are but the outskirts of His ways:

And how small a whisper do we hear of Him!

But the thunder of His power who can understand?”

(Job 26:14.)

But the day is coming when His power will be publicly exhibited in
overwhelming and eternal visitation upon the vessels of wrath. Let us ponder this great passage:

What if GOD, willing to show His wrath, and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering vessels of wrath fitted unto destruction?

Here we find:

1. That certain were fitted unto destruction. It is not said that God so
fitted them.201 But in Chapter Two we find those who “despise the
goodness and forbearance and long-suffering of God, not knowing that
the goodness of God was meant to lead them to repentance.” Of such it
is said that they “treasure up for themselves wrath in the day of
wrath.”

2. God had, we next read here, in their earth-life dealt with these with much longsuffering. They never learned however, as Peter urged, to “account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation” (II Peter 3:15). This longsuffering is the enduring on earth of ungrateful rebels by a God surrounded in Heaven by the glad, obedient hosts of light!

3. They thus became vessels of wrath: those in and through whom God could publicly and justly display His holy indignation against sin and godlessness,—for a warning to all ages and creatures to come.

4. Thus these came to that destruction unto which their sin had duly fitted them. Now this “destruction” is not at all that cessation of being, of which we hear so much from Satan’s false prophets in these days. But it is, according to II Thessalonians 1:7, 9, an eternal visitation of Divine anger “in flaming fire” from the very presence of the Lord Himself! It not only involves the final withdrawal of all mercy and long-suffering, but the eternal infliction of Divine punishment upon the bodies of the damned.

5. The terribleness of this is seen in the fact that this “destruction,” this
visitation of punishment upon the persons of the lost, will be made the occasion of God’s exhibiting publicly both His holy wrath against sin, and also His power in the punishment of it. His hatred of sin is absolute,—and these will be made to experience it; His power is infinite, and these will be compelled to be an example of it.

6. In the words What if GOD—should proceed thus? all creature-questionings are stilled into awful silence, if not today, some day!