The thick curtain separating the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies in the Temple represented a number of realities to Israel: none could casually enter the presence of the Lord; none could approach God without His justice being propitiated or satisfied; none could approach God without a mediator. Yet another truth surely entered the minds of Israelites as they watched the high priest make his way into the Holy of Holies. The ways of God are mysterious. Curiosity probably ran high among the Jews as they wondered exactly what was behind the curtain. The high priest could describe the mercy seat, the golden cherubim, and the ark but in the dim light he could see little; plus he feared for his life if he failed to approach God as prescribed. Until eyes could gaze upon the Holy of Holies it would remain a mystery behind the curtain.
Many things we think we want to know about God we do not know. We know to some degree what He has shown us but beyond that we only speculate and guess—often wildly! Can any of us truly explain the love of God or His patience or His wrath? We know some things about these displays of His attributes but we are limited in fully getting our minds around them. The rest remains a mystery.
Such is the case with election and reprobation. We read what the Scripture declares; we see how it illustrates these truths. But honestly, we struggle to get our minds fully around them. We understand enough to assure our hearts before the Lord but we do not fathom the depths or reach the heights of these truths. Mystery shrouds them. Occasionally, like a giant mountain peak shrouded in clouds, the clouds part so that we gaze momentarily from our vantage point at the craggy peak. Yet it is certain that the peak looks much different when one climbs to the top and gazes firsthand.
When we get to heaven all things will be clear! We will see election from the vantage point of one that has ascended to the mountain peak. The vistas before us will strip away the mystery and leave us shouting, “Glory!” The same will be true for reprobation, the divine passing over of the non-elect, giving them over to their sins, and declaring their eternal judgment. John Calvin remarked, “Yet the cause of eternal reprobation is so hidden from us, that nothing remains for us but to wonder at the incomprehensible purpose of God” [Calvin’s Commentaries, XIX, 417]. That’s why Paul ends this section with the breathtaking doxology declaring the depth of God’s riches displayed in His wisdom and knowledge, explaining, “How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!” Until that time we must live with the light that God has given and the rest we acknowledge as glorious mystery.
Our passage is one that pulls back the curtain so that we might gaze for a bit on election and reprobation. It does not tell us everything we want to know about either but it tells us enough to show both the mercy of God and the certain justice of God. Our God is glorious in both His sovereign mercy and sovereign justice. Yet we may struggle with both, particularly His justice. How does He reveal His mercy and justice so that we are left to worshiping and believing? Let’s consider this theme from our text.
We’re not jumping into a new subject. We’re still working through Paul’s explanation of divine sovereignty, human responsibility, and how both are applied to Israel particularly, and extended to the entire world. Chapter 11 especially focuses on Israel. How do we know this? Paul begins by asking if God had rejected His people—the Israelites (11:1). He gave himself as an example that this is not the case then followed through by telling the story of the remnant left during the time of Elijah the prophet (11:2-4). He introduces our text by again focusing on Israel, even down to the Scriptural foundation quotes from the Law, Prophets, and Wisdom Writings (11:7-10). Verse 11 shows the contrast with Jews and Gentiles as Paul uses the plural pronoun “they” to imply the Jews. He continues the contrast by picturing Israel as natural branches of the olive tree and Gentiles wild branches grafted in (11:17-24). He further speaks of a partial hardening of Israel “until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in” (11:25), then declaring future mercy to them (11:26-32).
“What then?” In other words, how does he summarize up to this point his exposition of sovereign mercy and sovereign justice and how it relates to the Jewish people? What does he say next? How does he assess the fact that from the people of Israel there is only a remnant of true believers? What about the rest who are not part of the remnant and thus not elected by grace? That’s Paul’s concern in these verses—and so now it is our concern to dig into them.
Is he saying anything new in verse 7? He’s actually drawing into a tighter circle the argument he has already set forth. “What Israel is seeking, it has not obtained.” What was Israel seeking? They wanted a right standing with God, but they wanted it on their own terms, which explains, why they did not obtain it. Notice what he has already argued.
(1) Faulty means—the law of righteousness
Notice what he stated in 9:30-33. “What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith; but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works.” Rather than depending on the means that God had given to obtain righteousness, Israel pursued it through “a law of righteousness.” In other words, they set up their own means of getting to God. They believed that if they kept certain commandments and followed certain regulations that they would be pleasing to God. In doing so, they maintained a low view of God and exalted view of themselves. They thought that by their aggressive persistence they would achieve enough righteousness to be acceptable to God. Of course, if you put the target close enough and low enough, even if you’re not a good shot you can hit it! That’s what they did. ‘Follow this rule, obey this law, live by this regulation, order yourself by this principle, and God will accept you.’ Everything depended upon them and their ability to perform to a certain religious level. In a sense, the Lord God was not necessary for them.
That same subtle, deceitful practice continues even in Christian circles. Many jump on the treadmill of good works and acts of service, thinking, ‘Surely this is what God desires of me. Surely I’m acceptable to God because of my actions!’ Yet this is no different than the “law of righteousness” that Israel pursued. It was a faulty means to righteousness then and a faulty means now. It is only “the righteousness which is by faith” that pleases God.
(2) Faulty aim—seeking to establish their own righteousness
Perhaps even more damning in explaining why Israel sought, but did not obtain righteousness, is Paul’s indictment in 10:3. “For not knowing about God’s righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God.” What is God’s righteousness? It is the righteousness of Jesus Christ! “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” Yet “they stumbled over the stumbling stone” (9:32). Instead of seeing the total inadequacy of their own righteousness before a holy God they established their own. In other words, they expected God to accept them on the basis of their own standard of righteousness. While Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalmist pounded away at how inadequate man is apart from the grace of God, they ignored the warnings. Nothing would dissuade them from aiming at their own version of righteousness.
They have their kin in our day as well. Three-fourths of our nation claim to be Christians yet we are surrounded by godlessness, idolatry, and disobedience. But ask most people if they are Christians, and in spite of no interest in the gospel, no dependence upon the righteousness of Christ alone, no passion for obedience, no love of holiness, they will declare themselves to be Christians. They have their own view of what Christian means, and they expect God to accept it. Like Israel, they seek but do not obtain.
The second clause stands in great contrast. “But those who were chosen obtained it, and the rest were hardened.” Who did the choosing? The word allows no room for human choosing. The passive voice indicates that it was not the one obtaining that did the choosing but One chose him so that he might obtain. The Lord God did the choosing. That’s what’s involved in election. This does not discount or exclude faith in Christ. Paul has already explained that the Gentiles attained righteousness by faith (9:30). Yet why did the Gentiles—not all Gentiles but those who were believers—believe the gospel and the Jews—as a whole—did not? What lay behind it all? It was sovereign mercy at work! God chose a people for Himself before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:3-4). Without this display of divine mercy then none would believe the gospel. So hardened in sin, so calloused by heaping one sin upon another, so darkened in the mind, so rebellious in spite of God’s natural revelation at every turn, every person would turn away from God unless He intervenes. Notice that Paul is only compressing again his previous argument.
(1) Chosen according to God’s purpose
Romans 9:10-13 tells the story of the birth of Isaac and Rebekah’s twins, Esau and Jacob. The story stands as evidence of God’s electing grace. “For though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to His choice [“election,” same word as in 11:7] might stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls, it was said to her, ‘The older will serve the younger.’ Just as it is written, ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated’.” What explanation does he give for this action on God’s part in choosing Jacob over Esau? Was it because of a certain level of goodness in Jacob? Just read the story and you will find that he well fit his name (deceiver, tricky, heel-holder). It was God’s purpose according to His sovereign electing grace alone.
Do we shudder at such a thought? I hope we glory in such a thought! Jacob did not choose the Lord prior to the Lord’s choice of Jacob. Read the story in Genesis. The Lord chose him and then pursued him until Jacob was humbled and submitted to the Lord! That’s what He does with us as well.
(2) Election is an act of mercy and compassion
Immediately, there are cries, “That’s just not fair!” Of course, one making that kind of statement has not given strong consideration to the holiness of God and his own lack of holiness. Nor has he considered the biblical description of humanity as “dead in your trespasses and sins,” walking “according to the prince of the power of the air,” living “in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest” (Eph. 2:1-3). Even so, the cries of “Foul!” are laid before the Eternal Judge as though He lacks justice if He indeed elects a people for Himself. I suppose that person would rather leave things to his own sovereignty rather than to the sovereign mercy of God. But is that a good idea?
Paul picks up the argument against election in 9:14-15. “What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there?” He’s dealing with the accusation that something is foul and unfair when it comes to election! “May it never be! For He says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” What is election? Is it unfair? May it never be! Instead, it is God’s action of mercy and compassion toward rebels. Can it be called anything else in light of the human condition in sin and the lofty holiness of God? Mercy and compassion stream from the throne of God toward the undeserving, so that He embraces them in His favor, not due to personal righteousness or goodness or potential, but only due to His own mercy. Who gets the glory in that action toward sinners? God alone!
(3) Election is wholly God’s action
“Those who were chosen obtained it,” leaves no room for personal boasting. None can proudly say, “I’m a Christian because I did…[you fill in the blank].” He can only boast in the Lord. Paul explains this so clearly in 9:16-18, “So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.” He illustrates this by explaining that God raised up Pharaoh in judgment, “that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.” And then Paul explains again that nothing within man motivates God to show electing love. “So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.”
(4) Election is totally without any contradiction
But do we not think that the call to repent and believe the gospel—human responsibility—stands contrary to the whole idea of divine election? Many would acknowledge this to be the case. But if one wants to see human effort at its best trying to achieve righteousness, he need only look at the Jews. “What Israel is seeking [the present tense shows this a continual action], it has not obtained, but those who were chosen obtained it, and the rest were hardened.”
Surely something is wrong with a God that would not leave everything up to us! Surely that kind of proposition creates robots that cannot truly love God!
That’s sort of the way that Paul’s imaginary objectors responded (9:19-24). “Why does He still find fault?” If election is true, then why does God judge us? We’re just robots or puppets on a string! “For who resists His will?” After that kind of impertinence, the Apostle fires back: “On the contrary, who are you, O man [and merely a man], who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, ‘Why did you make me like this,’ will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?” In other words, you’ve forgotten that God is God and that we are not! Paul explains, what’s wrong with God being God? If He wants to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known by preparing some vessels for wrath and others for mercy, is He not just exercising His prerogative? How can one who is in every way affected by sin and sinful tendencies accuse God of being less than just and honorable in election and reprobation?
Clouds of mystery shroud the peaks of perfect knowledge when it comes to election and reprobation. So what are we to do if we cannot piece together every detail and action of God? We are to rest in the wisdom and mercy of God shown to sinners. We are to glory in Him and even in the mystery by which He conceals some things for His glory.
The first side of the equation—election—may not cause us any struggle. It’s the second side—hardening—that makes it more difficult. Here Paul takes up the issue of reprobation: God passing over the non-elect and hardening them as a judicial act so that they justly face the wrath of God. There is some debate, and rightly so, that some acts of hardening are partial and temporary, as God in mercy again grafts in unbelievers—both Jews and Gentiles (e.g. 11:17-31). But that is not the focus of these verses. Here Paul deals with those not elected by grace but instead, left to their own desires and sins.
Consider the searing words: “and the rest were hardened.” Who is referred to as “the rest”? I think that the context points to Israel (again not geo-political Israel but ethnic Israel as physical descendants of Abraham). Language of remnant and judicial hardening is sprinkled throughout this section. “Though the number of the sons of Israel be like the sand of the sea, it is a remnant that will be saved; for the Lord will execute His word on the earth, thoroughly and quickly,” Paul quotes Isaiah in 9:27-28. He adds that so severe was their sin and rebellion against God, so hardened their hearts that “unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left to us a posterity, we would have become like Sodom, and would have resembled Gomorrah” (9:29). The same type language is used in the passage from our previous study in 11:3-5. While the rebellion seemed to grow in Israel, the Lord kept for Himself “seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal,” the rest being hardened in idolatry. Paul emphasizes that this is still the divine practice: “there has also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God’s gracious choice.”
But “the rest were hardened,” he explains in the following verses. Who did the hardening? Just as “were chosen” is a theological or divine passive so also is “were hardened.” In other words, it is the Lord who chooses and the Lord who hardens. Do people sometime harden their own hearts? Certainly, as in the case of Pharaoh but we also see judicial hardening by God in Pharaoh and others. There’s no case of someone passionately desiring to follow Christ but God hardens his heart! Hardening casts the divine judgment against those already inclined to callousness toward the gospel. How do we assess this hardening? Lloyd-Jones explained, “As God has elected some to salvation, He has not elected others to salvation. And that seems to me to be the explanation of these statements. They are ‘ordained unto this condemnation’ only in the sense that they have not been elected to salvation” [Romans: Exposition of Chapter 11 To God’s Glory, 40].
God’s prerogative is to show mercy to those He elects in Christ Jesus. It’s not that any deserve mercy (or it would not be mercy) but He chooses to be merciful through election, calling by the gospel, regeneration, and justifying the sinner. But mercy does not mean that God is no longer a God of justice. His nature requires justice. Thus the cross is necessary if God is to show mercy to the elect. However, He passes by mercy while giving what is deserved to others. “Just as it is written, ‘God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes to see not and ears to hear not, down to this very day’.” This dullness and inability to perceive the gospel is judicial rather than arbitrary. Those objecting to election and reprobation typically do so on the basis of it not being fair and equal to all. They picture God as arbitrarily picking one here and another there, while damning the rest. But nothing is arbitrary with Him. He acts in justice to all though in mercy to some. Paul has already shown that God acts in mercy against the backdrop of justice (9:23-24).
Jim Boice clarified, “But those who are lost are not made to disbelieve God. They do that by themselves. To ordain their end [i.e. reprobation], God needs only to withhold the special grace of regeneration…The lost are not lost because God merely consigns them to it, but rather as a righteous judgment for their wrongdoing” [Romans, III, 1315]. Hardening is never unjust. John Stott expressed it rightly. “A judicial process is in mind…by which God gives people up to their own stubbornness” [Romans, 293]. Paul explains, quoting from David, that this hardening is “a retribution to them,” or payback time. It is only what they deserve.
The metaphorical language makes the effect of hardening graphic. “God gave them a spirit of stupor [spiritual insensibility], eyes to see not and ears to hear not, down to this very day…let their eyes be darkened to see not, and bend their backs [as in those held captive, bent under the burden of their captivity] forever.” What privileges had the Jews enjoyed? Paul had already explained, “Who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple service and the promises, whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever” (9:4-5). Yet what had the majority done with these marvelous privileges given by God? They squandered them, ignored them, and presumed upon them.
Here is the grave danger facing any among us who have heard the gospel and yet have put off the necessity of repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Passing over and presuming on the common grace shown hardens the heart. Can God still crush the hardened heart? Yes indeed, but the danger, the grave danger is that He will harden the already hardened heart. Paul quotes from the Psalmist as he calls for judicial hardening. “Let their table become a snare and a trap, and a stumbling block, and a retribution to them.” What does he mean by the “table”? It speaks of personal security, provision by God’s common grace, and the blessings granted by God. Yet when one presumes upon these things, when he thinks it is his right rather than a gift from God, his callousness grows. The good things, the blessings in life become a snare and a stumbling block. The picture is that of a tablecloth spread over a low table of that day, when suddenly, danger approaches and the one at the table spread so delightfully has to quickly jump up to head for safety. But he ironically, catches his foot in the tablecloth. It snares him so that he cannot leave and is quickly captured.
What glory that God would choose sinners to bestow the kindness of His riches of glory through Jesus Christ upon vessels of mercy! Yet as wonderful as that truth is, there is an equally sobering reality. Many, perhaps even some among us, have had wonderful gospel privileges. You’ve heard God’s Word. You’ve been taught the Scriptures by your parents and Sunday School teachers. You’ve been exposed to a regular diet of the gospel. Yet you’ve presumed upon it. You’ve ignored the urgency of repenting of your sins and trusting in the Lord Jesus. You’ve been self-absorbed and self-centered. All the while, slowly but surely, hardness has begun to settle on your heart. You don’t find the gospel as convicting as it once was. You don’t have as much interest in hearing and responding as earlier. You’ve settled into a pattern of quiet rebellion against God. Even the good privileges that are yours have become a stumbling block and a snare.
Has that been happening to you? The great danger you face is God hardening your heart and giving you over to what you desire. Yet here are moments of mercy. The gospel has been set before you. A moment of tenderness has slipped through the hardness. Then call on the Lord who is mighty to save! Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ; confess Him as Lord. Find Him much, much more than you ever thought Him to be as Savior and Lord.
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