Part IV: Romans 9—Does It Really Prove Calvinism?

What is Romans 9 about? Does it really prove the teach­ing of predestination?

At first glance, some verses in this chapter can give the impres­sion that man has no free will con­cern­ing sal­va­tion. We would like to show that, in this chapter, Paul addresses a spe­cif­ic prob­lem of the Jews, which was quite rel­ev­ant in his time. Briefly sum­mar­ized, Romans 9, like so many oth­er pas­sages in the Bible, con­firms the truth that we are saved by faith, and that God does not just cast people away without giv­ing them a chance to repent.

If you have dif­fi­culties under­stand­ing this chapter, we would like to encour­age you to con­tin­ue read­ing. It is a long pas­sage with many aspects to con­sider, hence why we have writ­ten more lengthily, but we hope that you find the explan­a­tions easy to under­stand. We invite you to share with us any ques­tions you might have.

In our main art­icle about pre­des­tin­a­tion, we write more gen­er­ally about the dif­fer­ent inter­pret­a­tions of pre­des­tin­a­tion and the bib­lic­al understanding.

1 Answer­ing the Prob­lem of the Jews

To bet­ter under­stand the mes­sage of this chapter, we need to under­stand Paul’s aim with­in the broad­er con­text. In Romans chapters 9 through 11, Paul addresses dif­fi­cult ques­tions related to the fate of Israel. Des­pite their zeal, most Jews did not listen to Jesus (John 8:39–40). The out­come is quite paradoxical:

• The Jews who eagerly pur­sued the right­eous­ness of the Law, did not attain it because they did not seek it by faith.
• The Gen­tiles, who did not pur­sue right­eous­ness, attained the right­eous­ness of faith.

Paul sum­mar­izes this out­come at the end of the chapter:

What shall we say, then? That Gen­tiles who did not pur­sue right­eous­ness have attained it, that is, a right­eous­ness that is by faith; but that Israel who pur­sued a law that would lead to right­eous­ness did not suc­ceed in reach­ing that law. Why? Because they did not pur­sue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. (Romans 9:30–32)

Paul explains the prob­lem of Israel fur­ther in the first verses of chapter 10. The Jews were zeal­ous for God, but not accord­ing to the know­ledge of God. Instead of sub­mit­ting to God in Christ, they tried to estab­lish their own righteousness.

Broth­ers, my heart’s desire and pray­er to God for them is that they may be saved. For I bear them wit­ness that they have a zeal for God, but not accord­ing to know­ledge. For, being ignor­ant of the right­eous­ness of God, and seek­ing to estab­lish their own, they did not sub­mit to God’s right­eous­ness. For Christ is the end of the law for right­eous­ness to every­one who believes. (Romans 10:1–4)

Had the Jews lived out of true obed­i­ence to God, they would have believed in Christ. But their zeal was not based on true know­ledge, and not on real obed­i­ence to God. In fact, the unre­pent­ant Jews wanted to set up their own stand­ard for acceptance.

Thus, in Romans 9, Paul uses mul­tiple well-known examples from the Old Test­a­ment to show that man with his zeal can­not set the stand­ard by which God grants sal­va­tion. Giv­en the proud, self-righteous mind­set of many Jews, Paul firmly emphas­izes God’s sov­er­eignty through­out this chapter, mak­ing it clear that without excep­tion all Jews must sub­mit to God’s plan of sal­va­tion by grace through Christ.

2 Paul’s Sor­row for Israel (verses 1–5)

I am speak­ing the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my con­science bears me wit­ness in the Holy Spir­it— I have great sor­row and unceas­ing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my broth­ers, my kins­men accord­ing to the flesh. They are Israel­ites, and to them belong the adop­tion, the glory, the cov­en­ants, the giv­ing of the law, the wor­ship, and the prom­ises. To them belong the pat­ri­archs, and from their race, accord­ing to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen. (Romans 9:1–5)

In verses 4–5, Paul describes what Israel received: the adop­tion as sons, divine glory, the cov­en­ants, the law, the Temple wor­ship, and the prom­ises of the Mes­si­ah as a des­cend­ant of Abra­ham. The Jews regarded these bless­ings as a guar­an­tee for their sal­va­tion. Nev­er­the­less, Israel as a whole was far from God (verses 2–3). Their state caused Paul “great sor­row and unceas­ing anguish”.

But, had Paul advoc­ated pre­des­tin­a­tion (which accord­ing to its pro­ponents mag­ni­fies God’s glory and sov­er­eignty), why would he then have such great sor­row? If God determ­ines sal­va­tion and con­dem­na­tion, then Paul’s sor­row would not be right­eous, because he grieves over what God has predestined.

Yet Paul’s sor­row was not against God. On the contrary—God has the same atti­tude. Sim­il­arly, Jesus also wept over Israel shortly before his death:

And when he (Jesus) drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, say­ing, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace!” (Luke 19:41–42)

“O Jer­u­s­alem, Jer­u­s­alem, the city that kills the proph­ets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your chil­dren togeth­er as a hen gath­ers her brood under her wings, and you would not!” (Mat­thew 23:37)

3 Has the Word of God Failed? (verse 6)

But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are des­cen­ded from Israel belong to Israel … (Romans 9:6)

Israel’s tra­gic unbe­lief was indeed the fruit their will­ful dis­obedi­ence. It was unima­gin­able for the Jews that most of Israel is far from God, and it was a chal­lenge for them to accept their responsibility.

A Jew might react to Paul in the fol­low­ing way: “If your gos­pel is true, this would mean that most of us Jews are not saved, because we do not believe in Jesus. And yet we, Jews, received all these bless­ings and prom­ises from God, and we are the chosen people of God. If most of us are not saved, this would mean that God’s word and prom­ises have failed.”

Paul firmly rejects the thought that God’s word has failed. The prob­lem is not that God’s prom­ises are in some way untrue, but Israel chose to fol­low a dif­fer­ent path—the path of works. Obed­i­ence to God by faith is essen­tial. If the Jews do not have faith, God will not receive them.

4 The Two False Pil­lars of Righteousness

The Jews had two main pil­lars on which they based their right­eous­ness before God, through which they expec­ted that God accepts them:

1. being a des­cend­ant of Abraham
2. keep­ing the Mosa­ic Law

When examin­ing Paul’s train of thought in verses 6–13, it is help­ful to con­sider this back­ground. Paul addresses the first pil­lar in verses 6–8 and the second pil­lar in verses 9–13. He demon­strates that the Jews can­not rely on being a des­cend­ant of Abra­ham nor keep­ing the Law for accept­ance by God.

4.1 Being a Des­cend­ant of Abra­ham Accord­ing to the Flesh (verses 6–8)

… For not all who are des­cen­ded from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are chil­dren of Abra­ham because they are his off­spring, but “Through Isaac shall your off­spring be named.” This means that it is not the chil­dren of the flesh who are the chil­dren of God, but the chil­dren of the prom­ise are coun­ted as off­spring. (Romans 9:6–8)

Being a child of the flesh (a nat­ur­al des­cend­ant of Abra­ham) counts for noth­ing, because God regards the chil­dren of the prom­ise as Abraham’s off­spring. What really counts is obed­i­ence to God by faith. Ish­mael, though not named in Romans 9, serves as an example to the Jews that mere nat­ur­al des­cent is not enough. God chose Isaac and not Ish­mael^[1], although both were chil­dren of Abra­ham. In the same way God can now reject those who, though being chil­dren of Abra­ham, do not have faith.

4.2 God’s Choice of Jac­ob – Not Because of Works (verses 9–13)

For this is what the prom­ise said: “About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.” And not only so, but also when Rebekah had con­ceived chil­dren by one man, our fore­fath­er Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done noth­ing either good or bad—in order that God’s pur­pose of elec­tion might con­tin­ue, not because of works but because of him who calls— she was told, “The older will serve the young­er.” As it is writ­ten, “Jac­ob I loved, but Esau I hated.” (Romans 9:9–13)

Paul writes more about God’s choice of who should carry for­ward the prom­ise first gran­ted to Abra­ham. Jac­ob is an espe­cially good example to show that God did not bestow the prom­ise accord­ing to human stand­ards. Esau was the first­born and accord­ing to the cus­tom he should have been the recip­i­ent of the prom­ise. The real­ity was dif­fer­ent, and here Paul emphas­izes that God retained the right to decide who would be the bear­er of the prom­ise, as God is not sub­mit­ted to human standards.

God made the decision that Esau should serve Jac­ob. Esau’s sub­mis­sion to Jac­ob does not express that God determ­ined their per­son­al fate. God decided before their birth who would receive the prom­ise. In this way, Jac­ob could not boast of hav­ing received this through his deeds.

As men­tioned before, in these verses, Paul is address­ing the second pil­lar of self-righteousness: the works of the Law. Through Jac­ob, Paul wants to demon­strate that God’s choice is irre­spect­ive of leg­al­ist­ic deeds. In choos­ing Jac­ob and not Esau, God did not elect one son for etern­al life and the oth­er for etern­al con­dem­na­tion. Elec­tion meant the priv­ilege to carry for­ward the prom­ise God gave to Abraham—responsibility which Jac­ob received with thank­ful­ness and awe. Paul extends this example to the Jews of his cur­rent time to show that no one can rely on works of the Law for salvation.

… though they were not yet born and had done noth­ing either good or bad—in order that God’s pur­pose of elec­tion might con­tin­ue, not because of works but because of him who calls … (verse 11)

The state­ment in verse 11, “that God’s pur­pose of elec­tion might con­tin­ue”, does not mean that God chooses arbit­rar­ily. It rather means that God was always free to choose whom he wanted. He chooses those who live by faith – not those who live by their works.

5 “Jac­ob I Loved, Esau I Hated”

Many inter­pret verse 13 to mean that before Rebecca bore her sons, God already loved Jac­ob and hated Esau in the sense of etern­al elec­tion. But verse 13 is a quo­ta­tion from Mala­chi 1, writ­ten many cen­tur­ies after the death of the twin brothers.

“I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have you loved us?” “Is not Esau Jacob’s broth­er?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jac­ob but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill coun­try and left his her­it­age to jack­als of the desert.” (Mala­chi 1:2–3)

In Mala­chi, Esau stands for the nation of Edom, which does not receive the favor Israel receives. Mala­chi does not address Esau’s per­son­al fate. Addi­tion­ally, the state­ment in verse 12, “The older will serve the young­er”, a quo­ta­tion of Gen­es­is 25:23, con­firms that the cur­rent top­ic is not about their etern­al life, but about whom God will use to ful­fill his prom­ise to Abra­ham. By quot­ing Mala­chi in this con­text, Paul stresses that God’s selec­tion did not fol­low human standards.

While lov­ing and hat­ing are strong expres­sions, else­where in the New Test­a­ment, we find the expres­sion of lov­ing one and hat­ing the oth­er to express pref­er­ence and pri­or­ity. For example, in Luke 14:26 it says:

If any­one comes to me and does not hate his own fath­er and moth­er and wife and chil­dren and broth­ers and sis­ters, yes, and even his own life, he can­not be my disciple.

Here to “hate” surely does not mean hav­ing anim­os­ity towards someone, as it nor­mally does in mod­ern lan­guage. It means lov­ing Jesus more and everything else less. We can exclude the wrong inter­pret­a­tion that God elec­ted Esau to con­dem­na­tion. Nowhere does the Old Test­a­ment expli­citly describe Esau’s etern­al fate, and neither does the con­text in Romans 9.

6 God is Both Sov­er­eign and Just (verses 14–18)

What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have com­pas­sion on whom I have com­pas­sion.” So then it depends not on human will or exer­tion, but on God, who has mercy. For the Scrip­ture says to Pharaoh, “For this very pur­pose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be pro­claimed in all the earth.” So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills. (Romans 9:14–18)

Is God unjust? By no means. God chooses and elects accord­ing to his own stand­ards and not accord­ing to human stand­ards or cus­toms. As Paul has already estab­lished earli­er in the let­ter to the Romans, God’s stand­ard has always been that “the right­eous shall live by faith” (Habakkuk 2:4, Romans 1:17). Paul also emphas­izes that God coun­ted Abra­ham’s faith as right­eous­ness (Romans 4:3). Paul repeats this point at the end of Romans 9, demon­strat­ing that there is no base for ques­tion­ing God’s treat­ment of Israel.

6.1 The Man Who Wills and Runs

So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. (Romans 9:16, NASB 1995)

Paul refers to someone who is “will­ing” or “run­ning”. He has in mind Jews who want to reach sal­va­tion through their own stand­ard. But Jews with all their effort can­not force God to save them, des­pite being des­cend­ants of Abra­ham who keep the Law. In con­trast, the Gen­tiles attained the right­eous­ness of faith, even though gen­er­ally speak­ing they did not eagerly pur­sue God before hear­ing the gos­pel. Paul is teach­ing that no mat­ter how much man strives, sal­va­tion always depends on God’s grace. As seen in verses 30–32, attain­ing right­eous­ness is not simply about exert­ing much effort. Man’s effort can­not replace humble belief.

In verse 16, when Paul writes that “it does not depend on man who wills”, he does not mean that man’s will in response to God’s offer of grace does not count. Sal­va­tion begins and ends with God’s grace, but God’s grace cooper­ates with man’s faith, mean­ing grace implies the act­ive will of man.

6.2 The Harden­ing of Pharaoh

God hardened Pharaoh, but not because he pre­destined Pharaoh for con­dem­na­tion. God hardens people as a response to their own bad decisions. Pharaoh hardened his own heart and, as a response to this, God hardened him fur­ther through his right­eous judg­ments, such as through the plagues. The Old Test­a­ment writes many times that Pharaoh hardened his own heart.

Why should you harden your hearts as the Egyp­tians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? After he had dealt severely with them, did they not send the people away, and they depar­ted? (1 Samuel 6:6)

As we con­sider verses 15–18, which emphas­ize God’s sov­er­eignty, we must reject the view that God would in any way be arbit­rary, being mer­ci­ful to one while harden­ing anoth­er irre­spect­ive of the per­son­al response. As pas­sages like 1 Timothy 2:3–4 demon­strate, God has plainly revealed his will to save all, even includ­ing Pharaoh.

But Paul had anoth­er aim in Romans 9 than to repeat the basic mes­sage that God wants all to be saved. Without describ­ing Pharaoh’s per­son­al respons­ib­il­ity for res­ist­ing God and harden­ing his own heart, Paul rather focuses on God’s sov­er­eignty in using Pharaoh accord­ing to his pur­pose. God, as the mas­ter pot­ter, used Pharaoh in the best way pos­sible, demon­strat­ing his glory through the judg­ment over Egypt.

So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills. (Romans 9:18)

By using the strong act­ive verb “harden”, Paul illus­trates God’s sov­er­eignty and right to use even the dis­obedi­ent to serve his glory. As part of God’s good will for all, he calls every­one for obed­i­ence. The response of dis­obedi­ence is what then res­ults in harden­ing. We should under­stand this point to be a spir­itu­al law: evil as a response to good always causes hardening.

6.3 More on the Mean­ing of Hardening

Giv­en the strong emphas­is placed on the expres­sion of “harden­ing” by adher­ents to pre­des­tin­a­tion, we would like to provide fur­ther explan­a­tion of this expres­sion. Two par­ables can help deep­en the right under­stand­ing of hardening.

The first is the par­able of the vine­yard laborers in Mat­thew 20:1–16. Laborers who worked longer were dis­sat­is­fied and grumbled when they observed the owner’s gen­er­os­ity. The end of the par­able focuses the atten­tion on their envy:

Or is your eye envi­ous because I am gen­er­ous? (Mat­thew 20:15, NASB 1995)

Like­wise, the par­able of the prod­ig­al son (Luke 15:11–32) con­tains a sim­il­ar theme. The older son is unable to rejoice in the repent­ance of his broth­er, becom­ing angry des­pite the pleas of his fath­er (verse 28). Rather than rejoice with his fath­er, he pours out reproach:

Look, these many years I have served you, and I nev­er dis­obeyed your com­mand, yet you nev­er gave me a young goat, that I might cel­eb­rate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your prop­erty with pros­ti­tutes, you killed the fattened calf for him! (Luke 15:29–30)

In both cases, we see great bene­vol­ence, first from the mas­ter, second from the fath­er. In neither case did the mas­ter or the fath­er act­ively harden oth­ers, but they indir­ectly hardened through their good­ness. Inter­est­ingly, both par­ables seem to address self-righteous Jews (e.g. con­text in Luke 15:1–2). Self-righteous con­ceit stands opposed to grace. The self-righteous have set their own stand­ard of right­eous­ness, and they do not see them­selves in great need of God’s grace. The self-righteous are then envi­ous of God’s good­ness towards oth­ers, because they expect some great­er reward for themselves.

The con­nec­tions between self-righteousness and harden­ing are import­ant, both in Romans 9:18 and con­cern­ing the broad­er mes­sage of chapters 9–11. Through Jesus, God not only invited into his king­dom sin­ners and tax col­lect­ors from among the Jews, but he even invited the Gen­tiles (we find mul­tiple such ref­er­ences to the Gen­tiles in these chapters—9:24, 9:30, 10:19, 11:11–13). While many Jews did believe the mes­sage of the gos­pel, over­all, Israel stumbled, becom­ing hardened through con­ceit and envy in response to God’s love shown through Christ.
>To reit­er­ate, the mes­sage of sov­er­eignty in Romans 9 is not about elec­tion to per­son­al sal­va­tion but high­lights God’s gra­cious will to extend sal­va­tion to the nations.

7 Who Res­ists His Will? (verse 19)

You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can res­ist his will?” (Romans 9:19)

Who is speak­ing to Paul in verse 19? Through­out the broad­er let­ter to the Romans, Paul deals quite sys­tem­at­ic­ally with many ques­tions of teach­ing. In some parts of the let­ter, Paul car­ries for­ward his argu­ment­a­tion through the aid of an ima­gin­ary dia­logue. It is worth not­ing that the dia­logue does not reflect the atti­tude of the Chris­ti­ans of Rome, rather it high­lights the sen­ti­ments of a self-righteous Jew. We find sim­il­ar examples in 2:1–5, 2:17–24.

The ques­tions raised here in verse 19 do not come from a good atti­tude. This ima­gin­ary Jew in his stub­born­ness reas­ons: I am a Jew. I keep the Law. Abra­ham is my ancest­or. And now God hardens me. What can I do if God wants to harden me? Who can res­ist his will?

But this hypo­crit­ic­al ques­tion­ing of God and of Paul’s teach­ing is not right­eous. The solu­tion would be that the self-righteous ques­tion them­selves. They should choose the way of faith instead of the Law. Then God would not harden them. God only hardens those who want to go their own way. God will surely reject them if they seek to force God to accept them accord­ing to their own standard.

But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is moul­ded say to its moulder, “Why have you made me like this?” (Romans 9:20)

Advoc­ates of Calvin­ism often use this next verse, verse 20, to argue that Paul him­self rejects any attempt to ques­tion God’s abso­lute sov­er­eignty in pre­des­tin­a­tion. But this inter­pret­a­tion ima­gines that Paul would react to oppon­ents of pre­des­tin­a­tion, ignor­ing that in this con­text he actu­ally addresses self-righteous Jews. Paul emphas­izes that when God judges, the fault is nev­er in God but in man. No mat­ter how much the Jews believed they were right­eous, their stub­born self-righteousness could not please God. Man can­not res­ist God and then find fault with God for judging accord­ing to his own standards.

8 The Pot­ter (verses 20–21)

But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is mol­ded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the pot­ter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one ves­sel for hon­or­able use and anoth­er for dis­hon­or­able use? (Romans 9:20–21)

In verses 20–24, we find imagery of the pot­ter and the clay, taken from Isai­ah and Jeremi­ah. In Jeremi­ah 18:1–10, we find more con­text which helps explain the imagery of the pot­ter form­ing the clay. For many read­ers, this pic­ture of someone form­ing inan­im­ate mat­ter, which does not pos­sess its own will, aligns quite well with pre­des­tin­a­tion. But neither Jeremi­ah nor Paul meant the absence of free will, as shown by the context:

And the ves­sel he was mak­ing of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into anoth­er ves­sel, as it seemed good to the pot­ter to do … If at any time I declare con­cern­ing a nation or a king­dom, that I will pluck up and break down and des­troy it, and if that nation, con­cern­ing which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the dis­aster that I inten­ded to do to it. And if at any time I declare con­cern­ing a nation or a king­dom that I will build and plant it, and if it does evil in my sight, not listen­ing to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had inten­ded to do to it. (Jeremi­ah 18:4.7–10)

The pot­ter is God, who does not make mis­takes in hand­ling the clay. Inter­est­ingly, the clay spoils while the pot­ter forms it, imply­ing that not everything depends on the pot­ter. The pot­ter then adjusts his plans accord­ing to the qual­ity of the clay. God is the mas­ter pot­ter, who pro­duces the best pos­sible pot­tery with what he has. Verse 8 con­firms this, for God will relent from judging a nation if that nation turns from evil. The pot­ter thus forms new ves­sels for glory out of the ones that spoiled. This text speaks against pre­des­tin­a­tion, instead under­lin­ing God’s mercy and grace. Simply put, a pot­ter does not cre­ate any­thing with the plan of des­troy­ing it.

In verses 20–21, Paul states that no one may cri­ti­cize God for the way he is made. The pot­ter has the right to cre­ate one ves­sel “for hon­our­able use and anoth­er for dis­hon­our­able use”. The word “com­mon” is also a viable altern­ate trans­la­tion to “dis­hon­our­able”. It is import­ant to note that the ves­sels for both hon­our­able and com­mon use have their func­tion in a house­hold. Sum­mar­iz­ing, up to verse 21, Paul has not yet spoken dir­ectly about sal­va­tion and con­dem­na­tion, but about God’s sov­er­eignty in using indi­vidu­als and peoples for his purposes.

9 Ves­sels of Mercy and Wrath (verses 22–24)

What if God, desir­ing to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience ves­sels of wrath pre­pared for destruc­tion, in order to make known the riches of his glory for ves­sels of mercy, which he has pre­pared before­hand for glory— even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gen­tiles? (Romans 9:22–24)

Mov­ing to verses 22–24, the focus turns to the ques­tion of God’s sov­er­eignty con­cern­ing sal­va­tion and con­dem­na­tion. The lan­guage escal­ates from “hon­our­able and com­mon ves­sels” to “ves­sels of mercy and wrath”. Just as in Jeremi­ah 18:5–10, God has the right to build up and tear down even entire nations and king­doms. Israel is not inher­ently bet­ter than oth­ers, they must not be con­ceited, as God both plants and plucks up the nations accord­ing to their ways. This is an import­ant par­al­lel for Romans 9:22–24, where we find that Israel, because of its dis­obedi­ence, could no longer be the ves­sel of mercy God inten­ded. Thus, the ves­sels of mercy pre­pared for glory are Jew­ish and Gen­tile Chris­ti­ans, while the ves­sels pre­pared for destruc­tion are those who oppose God, includ­ing the broad­er nation of Israel. Here we do not find any grounds for pre­des­tin­a­tion without respect to per­son­al free will.

Romans 9 does not expli­citly men­tion the fact that people decide against God out of their own free will, but we must sup­pose it through oth­er pas­sages. For example, earli­er in the let­ter to the Romans we find a par­al­lel to 9:22 con­cern­ing God’s patient endurance:

Or do you pre­sume on the riches of his kind­ness and for­bear­ance and patience, not know­ing that God’s kind­ness is meant to lead you to repent­ance? But because of your hard and impen­it­ent heart you are stor­ing up wrath for your­self on the day of wrath when God’s right­eous judg­ment will be revealed. (Romans 2:4–5)

As we find here and in so many oth­er pas­sages, God is indeed patient and mer­ci­ful, and his aim is that all repent. In the Calvin­ist under­stand­ing, the world is like a stage in which God scripts all events, includ­ing sal­va­tion and con­dem­na­tion. In this real­ity it is only a ques­tion of time until God makes mani­fest his etern­al decrees.

But Romans 2:4 clearly states that God’s patience has the real aim that people repent. Thus, we can also con­clude that in 9:22, God’s patience is not a pre­tense. The ves­sels of wrath in Romans 9:22, as seen from Romans 2:5, are those who stored up wrath for them­selves through their impenitence.

Finally, in verses 23–24, Paul high­lights the Gen­tiles, who testi­fy to the glory of the Pot­ter. They, who were once com­mon ves­sels, now receive the full riches of God’s grace as ves­sels of mercy. God did not determ­ine this out­come in advance. God worked with real patience and grace to achieve his glor­i­ous purposes.

10 Sum­mary

To sum­mar­ize, Paul high­lights God’s sov­er­eignty in Romans 9 as a response to Israel’s com­pla­cency. Israel’s reli­ance on their her­it­age and zeal for reli­gious forms revealed a deep­er pride, as though God should accom­mod­ate and accept Israel’s self-righteous ways as the stand­ard of sal­va­tion. Such deeply engrained self-righteous ways war­rant strong lan­guage, hence why we find chal­len­ging expres­sions in this sec­tion. In Romans 9:30–10:4, Paul sum­mar­izes why many des­cend­ants of Israel strayed and Gen­tiles found faith. The respons­ib­il­ity lies firmly on indi­vidu­als to sub­mit to God’s grace and love pre­pared for us in Christ.

In clos­ing, as we have referred to chapters 10 and 11 in explain­ing the con­tent of chapter 9, we sug­gest that the read­ers extend their study of Romans 9 to the broad­er unit of chapters 9 through 11. Des­pite the strong lan­guage of chapter 9, Paul cla­ri­fies in Romans 11:1 that “God has not rejec­ted his people.” Chapter 11 con­tains much hope, that God might arouse jeal­ousy in the heart of his hardened people Israel. God’s way is clear: patience with the aim of sav­ing, not pre­de­ter­mined condemnation.

The Lord is not slow to ful­fill his prom­ise as some count slow­ness, but is patient toward you, not wish­ing that any should per­ish, but that all should reach repent­ance. (2 Peter 3:9)