How do we get our minds around the mercy of God? Obviously, we lack the ability to fully absorb the extent and magnitude of His mercy shown to us but we surely must pursue understanding it. For the more we grasp the mercy of God, the more intense our worship, the more motivated our witness for Christ, the more serious our walk as disciples, and the more our love endures for the church. Mercy is foundational in our salvation and so it lies at the heart of our spiritual practice.
We are familiar with mercy in legal circles. A man commits a crime with ample evidence to convict him. A jury renders the guilty verdict, and in the sentencing phase, the convicted man pleads for mercy. Often, he gives a rationale for mercy: it was the first crime he has ever committed; he has led an exemplary life up to the point of a foolish mistake; he will be committed to restoring the wrong and serving the community. The judge may decide that he deserves the mercy of the court, and so offers leniency in the sentence.
But that example is wholly inadequate for our consideration. Our guilt is not for one crime but many. Our life does not contain only a solitary blot but is bent on rebellion against God’s rule. We proved in times past how thoroughly self-centered we are (and can be). We slid into idolatry in spite of the glory of God manifested in the creation and the witness of His rule in our conscience. We have no intrinsic basis to plea for mercy. We cannot offer to do better or provide an appropriate ‘plea bargain’ with God. Our guilt by reason of our natural propensity to sin and our regular practice of sinning is lessened only because God has mercifully restrained us from more and more sin!
What does mercy shown look like in that kind of life? It looks like real mercy! Compassion shown to the helpless…kindness expressed to the undeserving…generosity toward those who can never repay…pity on the guilty. Mercy takes on different dimensions. The fact that it “rains on the just and the unjust” evidences God’s mercy in a common way to all humanity. When a tornado wipes out a community yet there’s no loss of life, it evidences God’s mercy, not because the community deserved it but simply out of His compassion on the helpless. But we could receive (and surely we do) mercy day after day in common ways while still ultimately facing divine judgment. Our concern goes beyond the common, ordinary need for mercy. We need redemptive mercy—saving mercy.
That’s what our text hammers home to us. In mercy, God calls His people through the gospel from both Jews and Gentiles. None deserve mercy or it would not be mercy. The Lord God initiates it and executes it from start to finish. To whom does God show saving mercy? Let’s consider this together.
Paul makes much of this phrase: “vessels of mercy.” As a metaphor, he thinks of people as vessels, “one for honorable use and another for common use” (v. 21). As he works this metaphor out further, he tells us that God “endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction.” He endured those destined for wrath “to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory.” So the contrast exists: vessels of wrath describing those lost in sin and destined for eternal judgment with vessels of mercy describing those saved by grace and destined for glory. Paul’s previous argument helps us to see precisely the identification of vessels of mercy. He calls them “children of the promise” in distinction from “children of the flesh” (v. 8). He explains that they are chosen by God unconditionally, i.e. they “were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad” so that God’s choice of them came out of His own “purpose according to His choice” rather than due to intrinsic value in the one chosen (v. 11). Those chosen were elected on the basis of God’s sovereign mercy and compassion (v. 15). One’s election does not “depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy” (v. 16). It is God’s prerogative to show mercy and to harden (v. 18). As the Potter, He can “make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use” (v. 21). As we considered in our previous study, against the backdrop of “vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,” God makes “known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory.”
But how do you know who are vessels of mercy and who are vessels of wrath? Is it our job to inspect and judge in order to make that distinction? The Apostle explains that there is one way, in which the distinction is made: the calling of God. These “vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory,” Paul identifies as “even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles.” What sweetness and wonder in the Apostle’s thoughts! “Even us,” he phrased it. He had not gotten over that moment when the Lord Jesus met him on the Damascus Road and called his name, and even more, called him out of darkness into light. So intent on not being a Christian was Saul of Tarsus, that he was committed to wreak havoc among the Christian community. He wanted to ransack their homes, imprison them, and evidently had no problem with having them put to death, as the case with the stoning of Stephen. Yet as he wrote about “vessels of mercy” upon which God made known the riches of His glory, he had to insert, “even us.”
Have you gotten over the mercy of God? If so, then I wonder if you have truly thought of your sinfulness and God’s righteousness? I wonder if you’ve considered the awfulness of God’s wrath that deservedly lay ahead of you? Look how Paul helps us to get reconnected with the astonishing measure of God’s mercy.
(1) God prepared beforehand for us to receive His mercy. He did that by predestining us—marking out the boundaries of our lives and fencing us in the compass of His saving grace. The Apostle had no hesitation to extol the wonder of God predestining or electing a people for Himself. He explained it clearly in the stories of Isaac and Ishmael and of Jacob and Esau, and further in the mercy shown to Israel and wrath shown to Pharaoh (vv. 6-18).
(2) God calls us in time by the gospel through the Spirit: “whom He also called.” We’ve already seen that word used (8:30; 9:7, 11), and noted that it refers to God’s effectual or inward call, not merely an external call through someone preaching. The external preaching is vital, as the next chapter shows (10:14-17) but it lacks effectiveness apart from the inward call of God that awakens us. It is the same thing that Jesus taught. “It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught of God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me” (John 6:45). “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish” (John 10:27-28). “I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd” (John 10:16).
It happens sovereignly and supernaturally, though when it does, I dare say that few of those hearing and responding to the gospel recognize theologically what is taking place. They just know that they have suddenly grasped the gospel and believed! But when we look at the theology of what took place, it astounds us once again that God would call us by His mighty power through the gospel; that He would speak in the deadness of our hearts to bring us to life, and speak in the deafness of our minds to make the gospel clear. Be astounded that God calls us!
The Apostle makes the point that this calling is “not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles.” He has already made good use of God’s electing grace among particular people identified later on as Jews. But now it is important to understand that neither Jew nor Gentile has an upper hand with God. He does not elect or call us due to a special identity but out of His great mercy. His calling comes to both, since with both, He has elected a people. But how do we know that? This is where Paul takes us once again, back to the pages of the prophets, in this case Hosea and then Isaiah.
“And He says also in Hosea, ‘I will call those who were not My people, “My people,” and her who was not beloved, “Beloved.” And it shall be that in the place where it was said to them, “You are not My people,” there they shall be called sons of the living God’.” How is Paul interpreting this familiar passage from Hosea?
In a word, he collapses the distinctions between Jews and Gentiles in this passage, putting both on level ground when it comes to the mercy of God. Remember the story. In the 8th century, God told Hosea to take a wife of harlotry. He married Gomer who later bore three children, the latter two presumably children of harlotry. The first was named Jezreel, which is a name meaning to be tossed or scattered. The Lord declared, “I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. On that day I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel” (Hosea 1:4-5). Notice the austerity of the phrase directed toward the northern kingdom whose capital was in Samaria: “I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel.”
This is further evident by the second child, a daughter named Lo-ruhamah, meaning “no compassion” or “no pity.” “Name her Lo-ruhamah, for I will no longer have compassion on the house of Israel, that I would ever forgiven them” (1:6). God removes His compassion; He refuses them forgiveness as a covenantal claim. They had broken covenant with Him, so forfeited His compassion. The third child identified the final blow. “Name him Lo-ammi, for you are not My people and I am not your God” (1:9). His name meant literally, “Not my people,” and he personified precisely the judgment of God against Israel—they no longer were God’s people.
For hundreds of years, the Gentiles were not the people of God while Israel held that distinction. But no longer. The northern kingdom fell so low that she no longer had claim to Yahweh. The covenant with Yahweh broken time and time again with her rebellion and idolatry left Israel in the same condition as the Gentiles: “Not My people.” According to Hosea’s prophecy, the ten tribes of the northern kingdom no longer had claim to the title of God’s people. He had removed them.
Was all hope gone? Here’s the point that Paul makes. The Jews were now in the same position as the Gentiles—in constant need of God’s mercy. Unless the Lord came through by calling them through the gospel, they were destined to be vessels of wrath. But the promise in Hosea rang through, and in Paul’s interpretation, it includes Gentiles as well as Jews. “I will call those who were not My people, ‘My people,’ and her who was not beloved, ‘Beloved’.” Though reversing it and slightly changing the wording, Paul builds his biblical interpretation from Hosea 2:23. “I will sow her for Myself in the land”; so rather than being scattered, as pictured by the name “Jezreel,” the Lord would plant them for Himself. “I will also have compassion on her who had not obtained compassion.” Rather than being called “Lo-ruhamah,” ‘she who has not obtained compassion,’ the Lord promises compassion or mercy. And then the final evidence of God’s mercy, “And I will say to those who were not My people [i.e. Lo-ammi], ‘You are My people!’ And they will say, ‘You are my God!’”
Here is the reality: none of us deserve God’s favor. We stand in a unity of the undeserving—Jews and Gentiles—so that apart from God’s kindness shown to us through the gospel of Jesus Christ, we remain “vessels of wrath.” As James M. Boice explained, “…the true people of God are neither the Jews as a nation nor any Gentile nation, but rather the church of Jesus Christ, which is composed of Jews and Gentiles according to the principle of election” [Romans: God and History, vol. 3, 1118; his arguments were helpful in this section]. The electing grace of God sets apart a people—from Jews and Gentiles—upon whom He sets His favor. The evidence of that favor comes through the powerful, effective call of the gospel in their lives. One by one, Jew and Gentile, undeserving sinners are awakened by the good news of Jesus Christ bearing the judgment of God for them at the cross, so that they repent of their sins and trust in the righteousness of Christ as their standing with God. God alone gets the glory for such mercy shown to sinners!
The Apostle places emphasis upon God’s mercy from start to finish in every Christian’s salvation. “I will call those who were not My people, ‘My people’.” Be astounded that the Lord would call His own those for whom there was no special designation or attachment. They were “not My people.” Nothing about them (us) was desirous for God. He did not call us because of loneliness since God is perfectly happy in Himself. He did not do it because He needed us since God is omnipotent and without need of anything. He did not call us due to certain likeable characteristics in us: He says we “were not beloved.” It was sovereign mercy at work! No chance or good fortune found us in a “savable” condition. God acted sovereignly to call us by the gospel to Himself.
Paul further emphasizes this in verse 26 as he quotes Hosea 1:10. “And it shall be that in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not My people,’ there they shall be called sons of the living God.” What was “the place” that God spoke of to the prophet? It was the place of not belonging to God; the place of no compassion; the place of separation; the place of enmity; and the place of wrath. It is what the Apostle wrote of to the Ephesians. “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of the flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which He loved us, made us alive together with Christ…” (2:1-4). In that very place, without doing works of merit as though to better position yourself for God to save, He came to you in sovereign mercy! You who were “sons of disobedience,” he now calls “sons of the living God.” This same God “who raised Jesus from the dead… will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you” (Romans 8:11). This “living God,” full of resurrection power, brings you from spiritual death into spiritual life, from darkness into light, from bondage to Satan to children of God, from not forgiven to forgiven.
There is that lingering question, but what about Israel? Paul deals with this more thoroughly in chapter 11 but for now, he reiterates Israel’s need for divine mercy as well as the Gentiles.
Here the Apostle shifts his teaching from Hosea to Isaiah, from 8th century Israel to 6th century Judah. Do the Jews have claim to universal salvation? He has already explained, “For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel,” and “it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants” (9:6,8). That came from the example of the patriarchs. But now he moves to the prophets, hundreds of years later. Judah bore far too much resemblance to Israel. The judgment that met Israel now loomed before rebellious Judah. So to instruct them, Isaiah tells of the remnant left in Israel. “Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, ‘Though the number of the sons of Israel be like the sand of the sea, it is the remnant that will be saved’.” As the Lord tells of judging the Assyrians who brought Israel down, He also gives a future promise of hope and mercy to Israel. No longer would they have any special claim to God. They needed mercy! They deserved nothing but wrath—just like us. “For though your people, O Israel, may be like the sand of the sea, only a remnant within them will return” (Isa. 10:22).
Some of you ladies understand that word better than the guys. If you go into the fabric store and ask for a “remnant,” they do not bring you the whole roll but only a portion that was left from previous sales. It is a portion of the whole but far from the whole. That’s what Paul and Isaiah indicate concerning Israel. They do not have nationalistic claim for salvation but depend upon God to show mercy to a remnant.
Paul continues by adapting Isaiah’s next verse. “For the Lord will execute His word on the earth, thoroughly and quickly.” Why does he point to judgment while speaking of the remnant that will be saved? It seems that he does not want us to lose sight of the certainty of divine judgment. Yet just as certain is His mercy that saves the remnant for Himself.
The final quotation is from Isaiah 1:9. “Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left to us a posterity, we would have become like Sodom, and would have resembled Gomorrah.” Both of those ancient cities were vaporized by fire from heaven in an act of divine judgment. None were left—that is, no remnant remained. Against that kind of backdrop, once again we see the greatness of God’s mercy. Unless the Lord of Sabaoth or Lord of hosts had intervened to leave a posterity, then the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah would be our due. Tom Schreiner expressed it well, “No one can legitimately complain that the preservation of a remnant justifies a complaint against God. The saving of any is mercy!” And then he explains, “Those who grumble against a God who refuses to save all reveal that they believe that God “should” save all, and that salvation is not a merciful gift of God but a necessary part of God’s contractual obligations to human beings. In this theology praise will shrivel up, for no one is thankful when God merely gives what he should” [ECNT: Romans, 530].
How appropriate that we will soon hold in our hands the symbols of God’s great mercy in the gospel to us: the body and blood of Jesus Christ on our behalf. Mercy drips from these elements as they remind us that we did not pursue Him but He pursued us with saving mercy. And He did so because the Son of God satisfied the eternal justice that stood between God and us. What mercy our God has shown us! May we ring with praise to His great name for meeting us in sovereign mercy!
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