Are Calvinists Inconsistent with Romans 9?
00:00:00.000 | 1) Romans 9 – The chapter Romans 9 has been mentioned almost 300 times in emails.
00:00:12.200 | Lots of questions about that chapter. Today a question about why Calvinists so often speak
00:00:16.520 | of election of believers as unconditional, but the reprobation of the non-elect as conditional.
00:00:24.240 | Question from Henry, "Dear Pastor John, hello. In Romans 9 10-13 Paul says God loved
00:00:30.600 | Jacob and hated Esau before either had done anything good or bad. I've heard many Calvinists
00:00:37.240 | say election has nothing to do with works alone, good or bad, present or foreseen. That's
00:00:42.840 | true and glorious. However, many of those same Calvinists say that when God predestines
00:00:48.400 | people to hell, he ensures that they are deserving of judgment due to their past sins. This sounds
00:00:54.720 | contradictory to me. If election is unconditional, why is perdition here so often presented as
00:01:02.040 | a conditional response?"
00:01:04.000 | Let's put the text, the key text, in front of us and make sure we understand the question
00:01:10.440 | in context. Here's what Paul wrote in Romans 9 11-13. "Though Jacob and Esau were not
00:01:18.660 | yet born and had done nothing either good or bad." Really important. Really important.
00:01:27.640 | They had done nothing good or bad. In order that… Now, Paul is explaining why he chooses
00:01:36.480 | the way he does. In order that God's purpose of election might continue not because of
00:01:43.000 | works but because of… And you might expect him to say because of faith. No. He says not
00:01:50.280 | because of works but because of him who calls. Rebecca was told the elder will serve the
00:01:58.240 | younger. As it is written, "Jacob I loved, Esau I hated."
00:02:03.760 | Now what Paul had said in verse 6, that was verses 11-13, what Paul had said in verse
00:02:09.800 | 6 was that the promises of God to Israel have not failed, even though many Jewish people
00:02:17.400 | are perishing according to verse 3, being accursed and cut off from Christ. And the
00:02:23.320 | reason the promises of God to Israel have not failed, even though some are perishing,
00:02:30.280 | is that "not all Israel is Israel." That is, the saving promises of God do not guarantee
00:02:39.520 | the salvation of every single ethnic Israelite, but only the true Israel. That's the point
00:02:49.200 | of verses 6-8. Not all the descendants of Abraham are the children of God.
00:02:57.080 | Then Paul shows the deepest root of what makes a person part of the true Israel, the saved
00:03:04.840 | Israel, and that deepest root is God's unconditional election, meaning God's choice of one person
00:03:15.280 | and not another, not based on any good deeds or any bad deeds, not based on any good deeds
00:03:25.240 | or bad deeds, one person is chosen and not another. Chosen for what? Choice for what?
00:03:32.200 | What choice are you talking about? Well, what Paul is dealing with in verse 3 is how can
00:03:38.840 | so many individual Israelites be lost, be cursed, and cut off from Christ, verse 3?
00:03:46.880 | So the issue is eternal salvation. Paul is burdened by his kinsmen according to the flesh
00:03:54.280 | who are lost, eternal cursedness. So election here means election of who will be the true
00:04:04.000 | Israelites, verse 6, the true children of God, verse 8, and who will not be.
00:04:10.680 | Now what Henry is pointing out is that the Scriptures—not just Calvinists—the Scriptures
00:04:18.680 | teach that everyone who is sentenced to eternal condemnation, hell, deserves to be there.
00:04:28.320 | That's biblical teaching. Nobody is in hell because they don't deserve to be there.
00:04:36.200 | They will be there because of their unbelief and their sin. And Henry is saying this sounds
00:04:43.880 | contradictory. Unconditional election on the one hand, conditional damnation on the other
00:04:51.760 | hand. When God decided not to choose a person, he did not base his decision on foreseen unbelief
00:05:02.600 | and sin. But when God condemns a person, in the end, it is based on unbelief and sin.
00:05:12.480 | And Henry wonders if that's a contradiction. And my answer is no, it is not. There are
00:05:19.760 | good reasons for why God elects in the beginning in the way he does, and there are good reasons
00:05:26.400 | for why God judges in the end the way he does. And these acts of election and condemnation
00:05:33.240 | and these reasons are not contradictory. He condemns in the end on the basis of unbelief
00:05:41.160 | and sin because he's just. And the principle of justice in the Bible is, Exodus 23, 7,
00:05:48.760 | do not kill the innocent and righteous. And Proverbs 17, 15, it's an abomination to the
00:05:55.920 | Lord to condemn the righteous. And Romans 2, 8, those who do not obey the truth but
00:06:02.340 | obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. That's the biblical principle of
00:06:07.440 | justice, and God is just. So God's final decision to assign someone to hell will be
00:06:14.400 | because they deserve it. There will be no injustice. No one will be in hell who does
00:06:22.700 | not deserve to be there. And no degree of punishment in hell will be out of proportion
00:06:30.960 | to the greatness of the guilt of the sinner, Luke 12, 47. So God condemns on the basis
00:06:38.300 | of unbelief and sin because he's just, but he elects before the foundation of the world,
00:06:46.800 | not based on unbelief and sin, because he's free and independent of all external constraints
00:06:55.640 | in forming his own plan. Let me say it again. Here's the way Paul puts it. He seems to
00:07:01.160 | be laboring to make this clear. Though they were not yet born and had done nothing good
00:07:06.840 | or bad in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works, good
00:07:15.440 | or bad, but because of him, his purpose, his will, his counsel, alone, his freedom. She
00:07:25.760 | was told the elder will serve the younger. So here's why I think Henry says this sounds
00:07:31.320 | contradictory, that God condemns on the basis of unbelief and sin, but he elects before
00:07:39.240 | the foundation of the world, not based on unbelief and sin. And I think Henry says that
00:07:46.160 | sounds contradictory because we don't know how God sees to it that all those who are
00:07:55.600 | not elect do in fact become guilty of condemnation. Let me say that again. We don't know how
00:08:05.080 | God renders it certain or sees to it that all those who are not elect do in fact become
00:08:17.400 | guilty of condemnation. How does real guilt become a certainty for all the non-elect?
00:08:24.800 | Which is another way of asking, how does a sovereign God govern the heart choices of
00:08:31.280 | all human beings, and yet those human beings be accountable for their heart choices? And
00:08:37.800 | I am happy to let that be one of the hidden things that belongs to the Lord, Deuteronomy
00:08:44.880 | 29.29. What we do know is this. Both are taught in the Bible. God governs the choices of all
00:08:55.360 | people, and all people are accountable for their choices. That's not a contradiction.
00:09:01.760 | It is a mystery, or it may be a mystery. Some think they may have figured it out. I haven't.
00:09:09.000 | It may be a mystery. That is, we don't know how—that's the key word—we don't know
00:09:14.640 | how God does it, but we do know he does it. The king's heart is a stream of water in
00:09:23.920 | the hand of the Lord, and he turns it wherever he will, Proverbs 21.1, and that king is accountable
00:09:31.760 | before God.
00:09:32.760 | Amen. A divine mystery indeed. Thank you, Pastor John. And we've now surpassed 1,300
00:09:39.040 | total episodes in this podcast. Thanks for your interest and your questions over those
00:09:42.600 | past six years as we enter now our seventh year on the podcast. You can search all of
00:09:47.920 | those episodes. You can read full transcripts and send us your own questions all at our
00:09:51.760 | online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:09:54.000 | Well, why does God withhold good things from his children, from us? It's a perennial question.
00:10:02.680 | It's older than Psalm 73, and most recently it came to us from a 27-year-old woman who
00:10:07.760 | is waiting for marriage. It's a great question, applicable to the not-yet-marrieds, but in
00:10:14.080 | principle applicable to all of us. I'm your host Tony Reinke. We'll see you back here
00:10:17.600 | on Wednesday.
00:10:18.240 | [BLANK_AUDIO]
00:10:26.600 | you