For 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 who calls, it was said to her, “The elder will serve the younger.” Even as it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? May it never be! For he said to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I caused you to be raised up, that I might show in you my power, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” So then, he has mercy on whom he desires, and he hardens whom he desires.
You will say then to me, “Why does he still find fault? For who withstands his will?” But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed ask him who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?” Or hasn’t the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel for honor, and another for dishonor? What if God, willing to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv11–22 11. For when the children, etc. He now begins…
11. For when the children, etc. He now begins to ascend higher, even to show the cause of this difference, which he teaches us is nowhere else to be found except in the election of God. He had indeed before briefly noticed, that there was a difference between the natural children of Abraham, that though all were adopted by circumcision into a participation of the covenant, yet the grace of God was not effectual in them all; and hence that they, who enjoy the favor of God, are the children of the promise. But how it thus happened, he has been either silent or has obscurely hinted. Now indeed he openly ascribes the whole cause to the election of God, and that gratuitous, and in no way depending on men; so that in the salvation of the godly nothing higher (nihil superius) must be sought than the goodness of God, and nothing higher in the perdition of the reprobate than his just severity.
Then the first proposition is, — “As the blessing of the covenant separates the Israelitic nation from all other people, so the election of God makes a distinction between men in that nation, while he predestinates some to salvation, and others to eternal condemnation.” The second proposition is, — “There is no other basis for this election than the goodness of God alone, and also since the fall of Adam, his mercy; which embraces whom he pleases, without any regard whatever to their works.” The third is, — “The Lord in his gratuitous election is free and exempt from the necessity of imparting equally the same grace to all; but, on the contrary, he passes by whom he wills, and whom he wills he chooses.” All these things Paul briefly includes in one sentence: he then goes on to other things.
Read full note →
Moreover, by these words, When the children had not yet been born, nor had done any good or evil, he shows, that God in making a difference could not have had any regard to works, for they were not yet done. Now they who argue on the other side, and say, that this is no reason why the election of God should not make a difference between men according to the merits of works, for God foresees who those are who by future works would be worthy or unworthy of his grace, are not more clear-sighted than Paul, but stumble at a principle in theology, which ought to be well known to all Christians, namely, that God can see nothing in the corrupt nature of man, such as was in Esau and Jacob, to induce him to manifest his favor. When therefore he says, that neither of them had then done any good or evil, what he took as granted must also be added, — that they were both the children of Adam, by nature sinful, and endued with no particle of righteousness.
I do not dwell thus long on explaining these things, because the meaning of the Apostle is obscure; but as the Sophists, being not content with his plain sense, endeavour to evade it by frivolous distinctions, I wished to show, that Paul was by no means ignorant of those things which they allege.
It may further be said, that though that corruption alone, which is diffused through the whole race of man, is sufficient, before it breaks out, as they say, into action, for condemnation, and hence it follows, that Esau was justly rejected, for he was naturally a child of wrath, it was yet necessary, lest any doubt should remain, as though his condition became worse through any vice or fault, that sins no less than virtues should be excluded. It is indeed true, that the proximate cause of reprobation is the curse we all inherit from Adam; yet, that we may learn to acquiesce in the bare and simple good pleasure of God, Paul withdraws us from this view, until he has established this doctrine, — That God has a sufficiently just reason for electing and for reprobating, in his own will.
That the purpose of God according to election, etc. He speaks of the gratuitous election of God almost in every instance. If works had any place, he ought to have said, — “That his reward might stand through works;” but he mentions the purpose of God, which is included, so to speak, in his own good pleasure alone. And that no ground of dispute might remain on the subject, he has removed all doubt by adding another clause, according to election, and then a third, not through works, but through him who calls. Let us now then apply our minds more closely to this passage: Since the purpose of God according to election is established in this way, — that before the brothers were born, and had done either good or evil, one was rejected and the other chosen; it hence follows, that when any one ascribes the cause of the difference to their works, he thereby subverts the purpose of God. Now, by adding, not through works, but through him who calls, he means, not on account of works, but of the calling only; for he wishes to exclude works altogether. We have then the whole stability of our election inclosed in the purpose of God alone: here merits avail nothing, as they issue in nothing but death; no worthiness is regarded, for there is none; but the goodness of God reigns alone. False then is the dogma, and contrary to God’s word, — that God elects or rejects, as he foresees each to be worthy or unworthy of his favor.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 God’s decree, which proceedeth of his mere good will,…
God’s decree, which proceedeth of his mere good will, whereby it pleased him to choose one, and refuse the other.
Paul saith not, might be made, but being made, might remain. Therefore they are deceived which make foreseen faith the cause of election, and foreknown infidelity, the cause of reprobation.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv11–22 11 (For the children being not yet born, neither…
11 (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;)
Ver. 11. For the children, &c.] Here the apostle wadeth into that profundum sine fundo, bottomless subject, predestination.
Read full note →
Being not yet born] Sapores son of Misdates, king of Persia, began his reign before his life. For his father dying, left his mother with child, and the Persian nobility set the crown on his mother’s belly, acknowledging thereby her issue for their prince, before she as yet had felt herself quick. God elects not of foreseen faith or works, but of free grace.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv11–22 For the children being not yet born: q.d. As…
For the children being not yet born: q.d. As there was nothing in the birth of those twins, so neither in their works, that occasioned the difference that God made between them; for when God spake of what should happen to them, they were unborn, and had done neither good nor evil.
Neither having done any good or evil; he means, actual good or evil, such as might difference them one from another. As for original sin, they were both alike tainted therewith.
Read full note →
That the purpose of God; this purpose of God is to be understood about reprobation, or (if you will) rejection, or preterition, as well as about election.
Might stand; be firm or stable.
Not of works, either done or foreseen.
But of him that calleth; i.e. of the good pleasure and undeserved favour of God, who also effectually calleth those that he hath elected, as Rom 8:30. See a parallel place, 2Ti 1:9.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 22 The apostle having by the two foregoing instances asserted…
The apostle having by the two foregoing instances asserted his doctrine, concerning the purpose and decree of God to justify those that should believe in his Son, be they Gentiles or Jews: and consequently made it good, that no word or promise of God falls to the ground by the rejection of the unbelieving Jews; proceeds in this verse to demonstrate the righteousness of God in the execution of this his purpose.
Is there then, says he, unrighteousness or injustice with God? God forbid. As if the apostle had said, "Is there any cause to say, That God, who preferred the posterity of Isaac before that of Ishmael, and the seed of Jacob before the numerous offspring of Esau; is there any just reason to say, that God is no unjust in calling the Gentiles, and upon their faith owning them for his people, the spiritual seed of Abraham, and rejecting the Jews because of their unbelief? God forbid that we should accuse him of unrighteous dealing upon this account."
Read full note →
Learn hence, That God is just, infallibly and inflexibly just and righteous, in all his dealings with, and dispensations towards the children of men: Is there unrighteousness with God? That is, there is none, there can be none.
Learn, 2. That all such tenets or doctrines which reflect any manner of unrighteousness upon God, or charge him with hard dealing, ought to be disclaimed with the utmost abhorrency and detestation: Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.
Observe next, How the apostle proves that there is no unrighteousness in this dispensation of God, in rejecting the Jews and calling the Gentiles, because he had said to Moses, he would show mercy, where, when, and to whom, or to what people, he pleased. If therefore, upon the infidelity of the Jews, he will call the idolatrous Gentiles, and receive them to be his people, who can accuse him of any injustice upon that account? Shall not Almighty God dispense his favours where and upon whom he pleases? May he not confer his kindness upon some, which he owes to none?
Learn hence, That God is absolutely and ultimately resolved to follow the counsel of his own will, in and about the justification of sinners; and whatsoever he doth, or resolves to do, his will being the rule of righteousness, is for that reason exactly just and undeniably righteous.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v14 The apostle, having asserted the true meaning of the…
The apostle, having asserted the true meaning of the promise, comes here to maintain and prove the absolute sovereignty of God, in disposing of the children of men, with reference to their eternal state. And herein God is to be considered, not as a rector and governor, distributing rewards and punishments according to his revealed laws and covenants, but as an owner and benefactor, giving to the children of men such grace and favour as he has determined in and by his secret and eternal will and counsel: both the favour of visible church-membership and privileges, which is given to some people and denied to others, and the favour of effectual grace, which is given to some particular persons and denied to others.
Now this part of his discourse is in answer to two objections.
Read full note →
I. It might be objected, Is there unrighteousness with God? If God, in dealing with the children of men, do thus, in an arbitrary manner, choose some and refuse others, may it not be suspected that there is unrighteousness with him? This the apostle startles at the thought of: God forbid! Far be it from us to think such a thing; shall not the judge of all the earth do right? Gen 18:25; Rom 3:5, Rom 3:6. He denies the consequences, and proves the denial.
1. In respect of those to whom he shows mercy, Rom 9:15, Rom 9:16. He quotes that scripture to show God's sovereignty in dispensing his favours (Exo 33:19): I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious. All God's reasons of mercy are taken from within himself. All the children of men being plunged alike into a state of sin and misery, equally under guilt and wrath, God, in a way of sovereignty, picks out some from this fallen apostatized race, to be vessels of grace and glory. He dispenses his gifts to whom he will, without giving us any reason: according to his own good pleasure he pitches upon some to be monuments of mercy and grace, preventing grace, effectual grace, while he passes by others. The expression is very emphatic, and the repetition makes it more so: I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. It imports a perfect absoluteness in God's will; he will do what he will, and giveth not account of any of his matters, nor is it fit he should. As these great words, I am that I am (Exo 3:14) do abundantly express the absolute independency of his being, so these words, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, do as fully express the absolute prerogative and sovereignty of his will. To vindicate the righteousness of God, in showing mercy to whom he will, the apostle appeals to that which God himself had spoken, wherein he claims this sovereign power and liberty. God is a competent judge, even in his own case. Whatsoever God does, or is resolved to do, is both by the one and the other proved to be just. Eleēsō on han heleō - I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. When I begin, I will make an end. Therefore God's mercy endures for ever, because the reason of it is fetched from within himself; therefore his gifts and callings are without repentance. Hence he infers (Rom 9:16), It is not of him that willeth. Whatever good comes from God to man, the glory of it is not to be ascribed to the most generous desire, nor to the most industrious endeavour, of man, but only and purely to the free grace and mercy of God. In Jacob's case it was not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth; it was not the earnest will and desire of Rebecca that Jacob might have the blessing; it was not Jacob's haste to get it (for he was compelled to run for it) that procured him the blessing, but only the mercy and grace of God. Wherein the holy happy people of God differ from other people, it is God and his grace that make them differ. Applying this general rule to the particular case that Paul has before him, the reason why the unworthy, undeserving, ill-deserving Gentiles are called, and grafted into the church, while the greatest part of the Jews are left to perish in unbelief, is not because those Gentiles were better deserving or better disposed for such a favour, but because of God's free grace that made that difference. The Gentiles did neither will it, nor run for it, for they sat in darkness, Mat 4:16. In darkness, therefore not willing what they knew not; sitting in darkness, a contented posture, therefore not running to meet it, but anticipated with these invaluable blessings of goodness. Such is the method of God's grace towards all that partake of it, for he is found of those that sought him not (Isa 65:1); in this preventing, effectual, distinguishing grace, he acts as a benefactor, whose grace is his own. Our eye therefore must not be evil because his is good; but, of all the grace that we or others have, he must have the glory: Not unto us, Psa 115:1.
2. In respect of those who perish, Rom 9:17. God's sovereignty, manifested in the ruin of sinners, is here discovered in the instance of Pharaoh; it is quoted from Exo 9:16. Observe,
(1.) What God did with Pharaoh. He raised him up, brought him into the world, made him famous, gave him the kingdom and power, - set him up as a beacon upon a hill, as the mark of all his plagues (compare Exo 9:14) - hardened his heart, as he had said he would (Exo 4:21): I will harden his heart, that is, withdraw softening grace, leave him to himself, let Satan loose against him, and lay hardening providences before him. Or, by raising him up may be meant the intermission of the plagues which gave Pharaoh respite, and the reprieve of Pharaoh in those plagues. In the Hebrew, I have made thee stand, continued thee yet in the land of the living. Thus doth God raise up sinners, make them for himself, even for the day of evil (Pro 16:4), raise them up in outward prosperity, external privileges (Mat 11:23), sparing mercies.
(2.) What he designed in it: That I might show my power in thee. God would, by all this, serve the honour of his name, and manifest his power in baffling the pride and insolence of that great and daring tyrant, who bade defiance to Heaven itself, and trampled upon all that was just and sacred. If Pharaoh had not been so high and might, so bold and hardy, the power of God had not been so illustrious in the ruining of him; but the taking off of the spirit of such a prince, who hectored at that rate, did indeed proclaim God glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders, Exo 15:11. This is Pharaoh, and all his multitude.
(3.) His conclusion concerning both these we have, Rom 9:18. He hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. The various dealings of God, by which he makes some to differ from others, must be resolved into his absolute sovereignty. He is debtor to no man, his grace is his own, and he may give it or withhold it as it pleaseth him; we have none of us deserved it, nay, we have all justly forfeited it a thousand times, so that herein the work of our salvation is admirably well ordered that those who are saved must thank God only, and those who perish must thank themselves only, Hos 13:9. We are bound, as God hath bound us, to do our utmost for the salvation of all we have to do with; but God is bound no further than he has been pleased to bind himself by his own covenant and promise, which is his revealed will; and that is that he will receive, and not cast out, those that come to Christ; but the drawing of souls in order to that coming is a preventing distinguishing favour to whom he will. Had he mercy on the Gentiles? It was because he would have mercy on them. Were the Jews hardened? It was because it was his own pleasure to deny them softening grace, and to give them up to their chosen affected unbelief. Even so, Father, because it seemed good unto thee. That scripture excellently explains this, Luk 10:21, and, as this, shows the sovereign will of God in giving or withholding both the means of grace and the effectual blessing upon those means.
II. It might be objected, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? Rom 9:19. Had the apostle been arguing only for God's sovereignty in appointing and ordering the terms and conditions of acceptance and salvation, there had not been the least colour for this objection; for he might well find fault if people refused to come up to the terms on which such a salvation is offered; the salvation being so great, the terms could not be hard. But there might be colour for the objection against his arguing for the sovereignty of God in giving and withholding differencing and preventing grace; and the objection is commonly and readily advanced against the doctrine of distinguishing grace. If God, while he gives effectual grace to some, denies it to others, why doth he find fault with those to whom he denies it? If he hath rejected the Jews, and hid from their eyes the things that belong to their peace, why doth he find fault with them for their blindness? If it be his pleasure to discard them as not a people, and not obtaining mercy, their knocking off themselves was no resistance of his will. This objection he answers at large,
1. By reproving the objector (Rom 9:20): Nay but, O man. This is not an objection fit to be made by the creature against his Creator, by man against God. The truth, as it is in Jesus, is that which abases man as nothing, less than nothing, and advances God as sovereign Lord of all. Observe how contemptibly he speaks of man, when he comes to argue with God his Maker: "Who art thou, thou that art so foolish, so feeble, so short-sighted, so incompetent a judge of the divine counsels? Art thou able to fathom such a depth, dispute such a case, to trace that way of God which is in the sea, his path in the great waters?" That repliest against God. It becomes us to submit to him, not to reply against him; to lie down under his hand, not to fly in his face, nor to charge him with folly. Ho antapokrinomenos - That answerest again. God is our master, and we are his servants; and it does not become servants to answer again, Tit 2:9.
2. By resolving all into the divine sovereignty. We are the thing formed, and he is the former; and it does not become us to challenge or arraign his wisdom in ordering and disposing of us into this or that shape of figure. The rude and unformed mass of matter hath no right to this or that form, but is shaped at the pleasure of him that formeth it. God's sovereignty over us is fitly illustrated by the power that the potter hath over the clay; compare Jer 18:6, where, by a like comparison, God asserts his dominion over the nation of the Jews, when he was about to magnify his justice in their destruction by Nebuchadnezzar.
(1.) He gives us the comparison, Rom 9:21. The potter, out of the same lump, may make either a fashionable vessel, and a vessel fit for creditable and honourable uses, or a contemptible vessel, and a vessel in which is no pleasure; and herein he acts arbitrarily, as he might have chosen whether he would make any vessel of it at all, or whether he would leave it in the hole of the pit, out of which it was dug.
(2.) The application of the comparison, Rom 9:22-24. Two sorts of vessels God forms out of the great lump of fallen mankind: - [1.] Vessels of wrath - vessels filled with wrath, as a vessel of wine is a vessel filled with wine; full of the fury of the Lord, Isa 51:20. In these God is willing to show his wrath, that is, his punishing justice, and his enmity to sin. This must be shown to all the world, God will make it appear that he hates sin. He will likewise make his power known, to dumaton autou. It is a power of strength and energy, an inflicting power, which works and effects the destruction of those that perish; it is a destruction that proceeds from the glory of his power, Th2 1:9. The eternal damnation of sinners will be an abundant demonstration of the power of God; for he will act in it himself immediately, his wrath preying as it were upon guilty consciences, and his arm stretched out totally to destroy their well-being, and yet at the same instant wonderfully to preserve the being of the creature. In order to this, God endured them with much long-suffering - exercised a great deal of patience towards them, let them alone to fill up the measure of sin, to grow till they were ripe for ruin, and so they became fitted for destruction, fitted by their own sin and self-hardening. The reigning corruptions and wickedness of the soul are its preparedness and disposedness for hell: a soul is hereby made combustible matter, fit for the flames of hell. When Christ said to the Jews (Mat 23:32), Fill you up then the measure of your father, that upon you may come all the righteous blood (Mat 23:35), he did, as it were, endure them with much long-suffering, that they might, by their own obstinacy and wilfulness in sin, fit themselves for destruction. [2.] Vessels of mercy - filled with mercy. The happiness bestowed upon the saved remnant is the fruit, not of their merit, but of God's mercy. The spring of all the joy and glory of heaven is that mercy of God which endures for ever. Vessels of honour must to eternity own themselves vessels of mercy. Observe, First, What he designs in them: To make known the riches of his glory, that is, of his goodness; for God's goodness is his greatest glory, especially when it is communicated with the greatest sovereignty. I beseech thee show me thy glory, says Moses, Exo 33:18. I will make all my goodness to pass before thee, says God (Exo 33:19), and that given out freely: I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious. God makes known his glory, this goodness of his, in the preservation and supply of all the creatures: the earth is full of his goodness, and the year crowned with it; but when he would demonstrate the riches of his goodness, unsearchable riches, he does it in the salvation of the saints, that will be to eternity glorious monuments of divine grace. Secondly, What he does for them he does before prepare them to glory. Sanctification is the preparation of the soul for glory, making it meet to partake of the inheritance of the saints in light. This is God's work. We can destroy ourselves fast enough, but we cannot save ourselves. Sinners fit themselves for hell, but it is God that prepares saints for heaven; and all those that God designs for heaven hereafter he prepares and fits for heaven now: he works them to the self-same thing, Co2 5:5. And would you know who these vessels of mercy are? Those whom he hath called (Rom 9:24); for whom he did predestinate those he also called with an effectual call: and these not of the Jews only, but of the Gentiles; for, the partition-wall being taken down, the world was laid in common, and not (as it had been) God's favour appropriated to the Jews, and they put a degree nearer his acceptance than the rest of the world. They now stood upon the same level with the Gentiles; and the question is not now whether of the seed of Abraham or no, that is neither here nor there, but whether or no called according to his purpose.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv11–22 It was said unto her,.... To Rebecca, Gen 25:23,
It was said unto her,.... To Rebecca, Gen 25:23,
the elder shall serve the younger, or "the greater shall serve the lesser", an Hebrew way of speaking; so Japheth is called "the great", or, as we render it, "the elder", Gen 10:21; and the evil imagination is said (i) to be "greater", that is, elder than the good, thirteen years; See Gill on Luk 22:26; The sense is, Esau shall be a servant to Jacob; which is to be understood, not of temporal servitude; for in this sense he never was a servant to him; so far from it, that as soon as Jacob had got the birthright and blessing, he was obliged to flee from the face and fury of Esau; and upon his return after many years, he sent messengers to Esau in a very submissive manner, charging them after this manner, "thus shall ye shall say to my lord Esau, thy servant Jacob saith thus", &c. Gen 32:4, and when he found that his brother was coming to meet him, which threw him into a panic fear, lest he should "smite him, and the mother with the children", Gen 32:11, he prepares presents for him; and when he came to him, bowed himself seven times, and his wives and children bowed likewise; and the language in which he addressed his brother Esau, all the while they were together, was that of "my lord": now if this oracle was to be understood of outward temporal servitude, it is strange it should have no appearance, nor any shadow of an accomplishment in the persons of Jacob and Esau, supposing it was to have one in their posterity; and indeed the completion of it, in this sense, is not very evident in their offspring. It is certain, there was a long train of dukes and kings in Esau's family, before there was any king in Israel; the posterity of Esau were in lordly grandeur and splendour, when the children of Israel were grievously oppressed with hard bondage in Egypt. The single instance usually referred to, when the Edomites became tributaries to David, was near a thousand years after the giving out of this oracle; and this show of servitude did not last long, for in Joram's time they revolted, and so continued; and it is evident, that at the time of the Babylonish captivity, the children of Edom were prosperous and triumphant, and said concerning Jerusalem, "Raze it, raze it, even to the foundation thereof", Psa 137:7, this servitude therefore is to be understood in a spiritual sense, of Esau's exclusion from the favour of God, and blessings of grace, signified by his being rejected from inheriting the blessing, which was given to Jacob; and it appeared that he was not a son, but a servant, by his departure, and pitching his dwelling elsewhere; which showed he had no interest in spiritual adoption, no right to the covenant of grace, nor was he an heir of heaven, all which were peculiar to Jacob: Esau was a servant of sin, under the dominion of it, and in bondage to it; whilst Jacob was the Lord's freeman, and, as a prince, had power with God and with men, and prevailed: Esau was serviceable to Jacob, both in things temporal and spiritual; as reprobates are to the elect, for all things are for their sakes, and work together for their good; Jacob's being obliged to flee from his brother, was for his good; by this means he got him a suitable wife, and large substance: his brother's meeting him on his return, which gave him so much pain and uneasiness, issued in his spiritual good; this sent him to the throne of grace, to humble himself before God, acknowledge his mercies, and his dependence on him, to implore his help, and plead his promises; and thus the oracle was verified in the persons of Jacob and Esau.
Read full note →
(i) Midrash Kohelet, fol. 80. 1.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv12–22 The elder - Esau. Shall serve the younger -…
The elder - Esau. Shall serve the younger - Not in person, for he never did; but in his posterity. Accordingly the Edomites were often brought into subjection by the Israelites. Gen. xxv, 23.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 Verse 11. For the children being not yet born]…
Verse 11. For the children being not yet born] As the word children is not in the text, the word nations would be more proper; for it is of nations that the apostle speaks, as the following verses show, as well as the history to which he refers.
Neither having done any good] To merit the distinction of being made the peculiar people of God; nor evil, to deserve to be left out of this covenant, and the distinguishing national blessings which it conferred; that the purpose of God according to election might stand-that such distinctions might appear to depend on nothing but God's free choice, not of works, or any desert in the people or nations thus chosen; but of the mere purpose of him who calleth any people he pleases, to make them the depositories of his especial blessings, and thus to distinguish them from all others.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv14, 17, 19, 20, 22 Rom 9:14-16. What shall we say then? — To…
Rom 9:14-16. What shall we say then? — To this. The apostle now introduces and refutes an objection. Is there unrighteousness, or injustice, with God? — In the distribution of his providential blessings, in this or any other instance that can be produced? Was it unjust in God to choose Jacob and his posterity to be the members of his visible church on earth, and to inherit the promises in their literal meaning, rather than Esau and his posterity? Or to accept believers who imitate the faith of Jacob, and them only? God forbid — In no wise: this is well consistent with justice. For he saith to Moses, &c. — For he has a right to fix the terms on which he will show mercy; according to his declaration to Moses, petitioning for all the people, after they had been guilty of idolatry in worshipping the golden calf; I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy — According to the terms I myself have fixed; and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion — Namely, on those only who submit to my terms; who accept of it in the way that I have appointed. So then — The inference to be drawn is; It — The blessing; therefore is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth — It is not the effect either of the will or the works of man, but of the grace and power of God. The will of man is here opposed to the grace of God, and man’s running, to the divine operation. And this general declaration respects not only Isaac and Jacob, and the Israelites in the time of Moses, but likewise all the spiritual children of Abraham, even to the end of the world.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv11–22 For the children being not yet born - It…
For the children being not yet born - It was not, therefore, by any works of theirs. It was not because they had formed a character and manifested qualities which made this distinction proper. It was laid back of any such character, and therefore had its foundation in the purpose or plan of God.
Neither having done any good or evil - That is, when the declaration Rom 9:12 was made to Rebecca. This is a very important passage in regard to the question about the purposes of God.
Read full note →
(1) They had done nothing good or bad; and when that is the case, there can be, properly speaking, no moral character, for “a character is not formed when the person has not acquired stable and distinctive qualities.” Webster.
(2) That the period of moral agency had not yet commenced; compare Gen 25:22-23. When that agency commences, we do not know; but here is a case of which it is alarmed that it had not commenced.
(3) The purpose of God is antecedent to the formation of character, or the performance of any actions, good or bad.
(4) It is not a purpose formed because he sees anything in the individuals as a ground for his choice, but for some reason which he has not explained, and which in the Scripture is simply called purpose and good pleasure; Eph 1:5.
(5) If it existed in this case, it does in others. If it was right then, it is now. And if God then dispensed his favors on this principle, he will now. But,
(6) This affirmation respecting Jacob and Esau does not prove that they had not a nature inclined to evil; or a corrupt and sensual propensity; or that they would not sin as soon as they became moral agents. It proves merely that they had not yet committed actual sin. That they, as well as all others, would certainly sin as soon as they committed moral acts at all, is proved everywhere in the Sacred Scriptures.
The purpose of God - Note, Rom 8:28.
According to election - To dispense his favors according to his sovereign will and pleasure. Those favors were not conferred in consequence of the merits of the individuals; but according to a wise plan “lying back” of the formation of their characters, and before they had done good or evil. The favors were thus conferred according to his choice, or election.
Might stand - Might be confirmed; or might be proved to be true. The case shows that God dispenses his favors as a sovereign. The purpose of God was thus proved to have been formed without respect to the merits of either.
Not of works - Not by anything which they had done either to merit his favor or to forfeit it. It was formed on other principles than a reference to their works. So it is in relation to all who shall be saved. God has good reasons for saving those who shall be saved. What the reasons are for choosing some to life, he has not revealed; but he has revealed to us that it is not on account of their works, either performed or foreseen.
But of him that calleth - According to the will and purpose of him that chooses to dispense those favors in this manner. It is not by the merit of man, but it is by a purpose having its origin with God, and formed and executed according to his good pleasure. It is also implied here that it is formed in such a way as to secure his glory as the primary consideration.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 What shall we say, then? Is there injustice with…
What shall we say, then? Is there injustice with God, when he bestows special favours and benefits on some, and not on others? He answers, by no means. And he justifies almighty God’s conduct, ver. 22. In the mean time, it is certain that there is no injustice in not giving what another has no right to: and besides all men having sinned, deserved punishment. If, then, he shews mercy to some, it is an effect of his goodness and liberality only which they do not deserve. If he leaves others in their sins, they are only punished according to their deserts. His mercy shines upon his elect; and his divine justice is displayed against the wicked and the reprobate, but only according to what they have deserved. (Witham)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv14–22 What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with…
What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid--This is the first of two objections to the foregoing doctrine, that God chooses one and rejects another, not on account of their works, but purely in the exercise of His own good pleasure: "This doctrine is inconsistent with the justice of God." The answer to this objection extends to Rom 9:19, where we have the second objection.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 11. Neither… done… good or evil—The apostle assumes here,…
11. Neither… done… good or evil—The apostle assumes here, 1. That no child can be responsible for its impulsive acts or emotions before its birth. 2. That no responsibility exists upon man for any thing done in any supposed state of preexistence.
Purpose… according to election— Purpose in regard to election. The purpose of electing is antecedent and eternal, (Eph_1:11;) the act of election under the purpose is in time.
Read full note →
Him that calleth—To works the apostle does not here oppose faith, as we might expect from his usual antithesis, but God himself. Rightly, because faith does, of itself, deny itself to be the cause of salvation, and ascribes all to God. (See note on Rom_3:24.) To be justified by works is to justify ourselves; to be justified by faith is to be justified gratuitously by God—by him that calleth us to that very faith. As condition by us performed, and a means and method by God used, it is right to say in a subordinate sense that faith saves us. But the true, sole, original, and efficient Agent in our salvation is God. So that, as the apostle here maintains, our election is not of works, but of God.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv11–22 11. being not yet born, &c.] Nothing could go…
11. being not yet born, &c.] Nothing could go beyond this verse in stating that the reasons of the Divine Choice lie wholly within the Divine Mind, and not in the works and characters of the chosen.
the purpose of God according to election] So according to the best order of the Gr. words. Another order, not so well supported, gives “the purpose according to God’s election.” The meaning is the same in either case.—On “the purpose,” see last note on Rom_8:28.—“According to election”:—i.e. as determined, or characterized, by the sovereign Choice of the Divine Mind. In the case of Esau and Jacob, the “purpose according to election” does not, at least explicitly, mean a purpose of eternal salvation. But St Paul is evidently here treating the Divine Choice in the widest and most absolute respects; and the sovereign gift to Jacob of sacred privileges, determining his whole course and that of his posterity, is thus taken as illustrating the fact of an equally sovereign gift, to “whomsoever God will,” of the capacity to repent, believe, and love. Throughout the argument we must remember who the “elect” are in the grand special case in hand, viz. the “remnant” who actually (not only potentially) are true believers, under both the Old and New Dispensations. See especially Rom_11:2-8.
Read full note →
Election
On the general subject of the Divine Election we may remark,
(1) That “the arguments of the Apostle are founded on two assumptions. The first is, that the Scriptures are the word of God; and the second, that whatever God actually does cannot be unrighteous. Consequently, any objection which can be shewn to militate against either an express declaration of Scripture, or an obvious fact in providence, is fairly answered.” (Dr Hodge, in loc.) It is almost needless to add that such a submission to the Divine Righteousness, while in one sense a surrender of reason, is in another its truest exercise. It is the surrender instinctively yielded by the soul which, conscious of its own sin, lies open to the full impression of the overwhelming purity and majesty of its Creator. It is absolute trust, under complete mystery, in Him who in one respect is truly known, but in another cannot (by the created being) be “found out unto perfection.” See Rom_11:33-36.
(2) It must be remembered that Divine Election affects a world not of righteous beings, nor even of neutral beings, but of “sinners,” “enemies” (ch. Rom_5:8-9.)[41] We come to face its mystery only when we have first faced, and owned, the unfathomable mystery of sin. We see it, not making the good evil, nor the evil arbitrarily worse, but judicially leaving the sinner to himself; (as we are bound to believe every sinner might righteously have been left; for otherwise Salvation would be our Right, not our Mercy;) save in cases—determined by the Divine Mind by reasons within Itself—in which, of mere mercy, a positive and prevailing influence intervenes, producing spiritual life, the life of repentance, faith and love.
[41] The abstruse questions which have been raised in controversy on this point may be fairly said to “intrude into” what lies wholly outside the Scripture Revelation.
(3) This view of the case, which is indeed full of distressing mystery, yet owes what is most distressing in it to the riddle which lies beneath all others connected with it—that of the Existence of Sin at all. But meantime it also assures us that while the will (influenced by sin) is the cause of ruin, it is also the will (influenced by grace) which, acting strictly as the will, lays hold on salvation. In neither case is the will forced, unless indeed we call every influence on the will compulsion, so far as it is successful. The lost “will not come;” the saved come as “whosoever will.” (Joh_5:40; Rev_22:17.)
(4) The doctrine of Election is, in Scripture, never made the foreground of doctrine; and it is always so presented as also to assure us, however little we can reconcile the vast range of spiritual truths, that we are in the hands of Righteousness as well as Power, and that our will, affections, and aspirations, are perfectly real. Lastly, the doctrine, if studied in Scripture, is viewed always from the only safe view-point—the foot of the Cross.—See further, Appendix F.
might stand] i.e., continue to act on its necessary principle—“not of works, but of Him that calleth.”
of works] Based on, or resulting from, “works;” in the largest sense of “works;” actions whose aggregate is character.
calleth] See on Rom_1:6.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 (12) The elder shall serve the younger.—The margin gives…
(12) The elder shall serve the younger.—The margin gives as an alternative rendering, “the greater shall serve the lesser.” The quotation is taken from the LXX., in which there is the same ambiguity.
This ambiguity also appears to exist in the Hebrew, where it is a disputed question whether the words refer to age or to the comparative strength of the two peoples. In either case, it is the nations that should spring from Esau and Jacob that are meant.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv11, 13, 14, 17, 19, 20, 22 Vers. 11-13. For the children being not yet born,…
Vers. 11-13. For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election (i.e. the principle of his electing to privileges of his own good will and purpose, and not on the ground of any fancied human claims) might stand (menh , i.e. should remain in force, ever applicable), not of works, but of him that calleth; it was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. (Gen_25:23) As it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. (Mal_1:2, Mal_1:3) It is here to be carefully observed that, though Jacob and Esau were individuals, yet it is not as such, but as the progenitors and representatives of races, that they are here spoken of. So it was, too, in both the passages quoted from the Old Testament. In Gen_25:23 the words are, "Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger." In Mal_1:2 the prophet"s entire drift is to set forth the Divine favour shown, from the first and still, to the race of Israel as compared with the race of Edom. Hence, as well as from the purport of the chapter as announced at its beginning, it is evident that the subject of individual predestination does not really come in, as it did in Ro 8, but only that of nations or races of men to a position of privilege as inheritors of promises. It will be seen, also, as we go on, that the introduction in illustration of the case of the individual Pharaoh does not really affect the drift of the chapter as above explained. The strong expression, "Esau I hated" (applicable, as shown above, not to the individual Esau, but to the race of Edom) is capable of being explained as meaning, "I excluded him from the love I showed to Israel." The evidence of such alleged hatred the prophet expresses thus: "and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness;" whereas Israel, it is implied, had been protected from such desolation. As to the necessary force of the word in the Hebrew (ak we may compare Gen_29:30, Gen_29:31, where in ver. 30 it is said that Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah, and in ver. 31, as meaning the same thing, that Leah was hated; and Deu_21:15, "If a man have two wives, one beloved and another hated." In both these passages the same verb is used as in Malachi, and need not, in either case, mean more than disregarding one in comparison with another who is loved. For the use, in the New Testament, of the Greek word misein in a sense for the expression of which our English "to hate," in its usual acceptation, is evidently too strong, cf. Luk_14:26 (to be compared with Mat_10:37) and Joh_12:25; so also, though not so distinctly, Mat_6:24 and Luk_16:13. It is, moreover, not improbable that the Prophet Malachi, in his patriotic ardour, had in his mind the idea of wrath against the race of Edom on the part of the LORD, as "the people," as he afterwards says, "against whom the LORD hath indignation for ever." But even so, the glowing language of prophets need not be taken as dogmatic assertion; and certainly not as binding us to believe that any race of men is, in the literal sense of the expression, hated of Cod. Such a view is in evident contradiction to the general teaching of Scripture, and notably so to that of St. Paul, who has so emphatically declared that God "made of one blood all nations of men," and is One to all.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv13, 17, 19, 21 Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
Rom_9:13
Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
Read full note →
Jacob loved, but Esau hated
It is evident that to the writer it was a mystery why God should love Jacob more than Esau. He even goes so far as to imply that, at first sight, it has the character of unrighteousness in God. But he instantly crushes the thought (Rom_9:14). St. Paul makes it the basis of some thoughts about election. It would be impossible that there should be a God of infinite knowledge and no election. But there are only two right uses of it--viz., to humble and leave God in His unapproachable greatness, and to comfort the tried and harassed believer.
I. To a mere superficial reader, it seems very strange that God should love Jacob and hate Esau.
1. Esaus picture is well drawn. He was a clever hunter, a man of the field--what we should call a man of the world. He loved pleasure, and had a clear eye for any present advantage. We could not call him immoral, and, by the side of Jacob, he stands up the better man. He was far more sinned against than sinning. He had some fine traits. He was irritable, even to the point of saying that he would kill his brother! But he was forgiving, and his passion quite passed away. He bought what he might, probably, have taken by force. He never once deceived his father and mother. He spoke to his father respectfully and reverently. If he thought lightly of the birthright at one time, he was very earnest about it at another. He showed consideration at least the second time, in the selection of his wives (Gen_28:8-9). And Esau was most generous afterwards, at Peniel, e.g., even at the moment when Jacob was treating him with suspicion, fear, and cunning (Gen_33:1-20.) He was unwilling to take anything at Jacobs hand, but, with great delicacy, when Jacob urged him to take it, he took it, and added, Let us go, and I will go before thee. And when Jacob declined it, he said, Let me now leave with thee some of the folk that are with me. And the last thing we read of him is an act of modest thoughtfulness (Gen_36:7).
2. The patient life of Jacob is a sad contrast. His besetting sin is deceitfulness. He takes advantage of his brothers hunger, and gets the birthright by what was almost cheating. To his apparently dying father, he tells, acts, asserts, and re-asserts a lie! And before he goes away he makes no confession or apology. He deceives his master and father-in-law, Laban, and runs away and outrages his feelings. And even to his generous brother he acts trickily.
II. Where, then, is the solution of the verdict, Jacob have I loved, etc.? We go down into the sanctuary of a mans real life.
1. Esau seems to have never cared for God at all. He had no crime; but he certainly had no grace. There is not a prayer, nor any recognition of the fatherhood or the sovereignty of the Almighty. His birthright is little or nothing to him; and a present gratification comes before any future advantage. He tries, even with tears, to change his fathers resolve that Jacob should have the property. But there is no repentance. The birthright is valuable to him in a secular point of view; but he is utterly indifferent to its spiritual nature.
2. Jacob seeks the blessing by wrong means; but he values it. He makes his peace with God the very night after. His life at Syria is such that Laban was constrained to say, I have learned by experience that the Lord hath blessed me for thy sake. He traces everything he had to God. He wrestles all night in prayer. He goes up to Bethel, and renews his covenant when God bids him. He puts away all his wives strange gods before he goes there. He secures Gods permission and blessing before he ventures to go down into Egypt. He is careful when there to separate his family from idolators, and he makes good confession before Pharaoh. In his last act he talks to his children with grandeur, and most piously, and shows his faith by charging his sons to bury him in the land of promise.
Conclusion:
1. Jacob had great sins, but they were falls! He rose; he repented; and he was forgiven. The child of God comes out, and grace prevails.
2. Esau was, in a worldly sense, moral, but godless. Not very wrong with man, but never right with God.
3. Suppose you had two sons. The one lived a perfectly correct life; but you were nothing to him. The other often grieved you; but he loved you, and was sorry when he hurt you. Which would be the one you loved?
4. What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. Then how is it with ourselves? The world is very much made up of Esaus and Jacobs. Some lead very correct lives. What is God? A cypher. Where is God? Nowhere. Others are really religious. They love God. But they do many, many inconsistent and very bad things. They repent; they are forgiven. And the correct, moral people of the world see the sins of the religious people, and suspect and despise them. And the religious people scarcely remember how very inferior they are in many things to the world.
5. Then what will be to the Jacobs? They will be punished, as Jacob was, by a retributive justice. They will go through several ordeals of purification. They will suffer even to the fire! But they will be saved! And what to the Esaus who live and die Esaus? A retributive justice too. No God in them; then no God for them! No birthright! No blessin! No repentance! (J. Vaughan, M.A.)
Jacob loved and Esau hated
I. In what sense.
1. Comparatively, not absolutely.
2. As representatives of a race, not as individuals.
3. In reference to earthly, not heavenly privileges.
II. How is Gods justice and mercy vindicated in this ordination? He is the Supreme Sovereign, who specially privileges some, but blesses all.
III. What has this example to do with the question of individual salvation?
1. Nothing as to its possibility, for all may be saved.
2. Nothing as to its conditions, for all must be saved by grace through faith.
3. Yet much as to special privilege and increased responsibility. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
Esau hated and Jacob loved
Some light is thrown on the strong verb hated by other passages in which it is employed (Mat_6:24; Luk_14:26; Joh_12:25). In these statements there is certainly no intention of conveying an idea of malice. There is in them, just as in the Saviours remark regarding the camel and the needles eye, something of bold hyperbolism. Such hyperbolisms are common and rife enough, in the language both of literature and every-day life. They give piquancy to speech, and are relished by all the world. So Esau I hated is comparative, not absolute; and there is really more in the representation than in the reality, just because a phraseological foil was wanted. The idea is, that in the treatment accorded to the Edomites there was a conspicuous absence of that favour which distinguished the Divine treatment of the Hebrews and vindicated the expression, Jacob I loved. In truth, there was now no room for national forgiveness to Edom. The cup of their iniquity they had filled to the brim, and it was now time that they should be compelled to drain to its dregs the cup of merited retribution. It was otherwise with Jacob in the days of Malachi (chap. 1.). God, although greatly provoked, had not dealt with that people according to their desert. In wrath, He had remembered mercy. Through the influence of Ezra and Nehemiah over the kings of Babylon, many families were encouraged to return to the desolated city. The streets were restored. The walls were rebuilt. The temple was reconstructed, and an appreciable amount of prosperity once more rolled over the land. God loved Jacob; for with all the waywardness and faithlessness of the peculiar people, they were still, in virtue of their Messianic destination, like a peculiar treasure to God. They were the casket which contained the heavenly jewel; and, for the jewels sake, the casket was carefully kept and guarded. It was otherwise with Edom. Like many surrounding peoples, they had a time of merciful visitation. Their local habitation had many advantages; they were blessed in the fatness of the earth and the dew of heaven, and were sheltered within the munition of rocks; and, had they been willing to be good, they might have had a constant flow of prosperity. But they became highminded, aggressive, selfish, morally rank to heaven with rottenness, and were involved at last in the overflow of Babylonian devastation (Mal_1:4, cf. in contrast the case of Israel, verse 5). We have additional evidence in these statements of the prophets reference to peoples as distinguished from individuals in the plural we, ye, etc. The apostles argument is irrefragable. Pure patriarchal descent on the part of Israel was insufficient to ensure everlasting Messianic blessings; for it was utterly insufficient on the part of Edom to secure those temporal advantages which were conferred on the Hebrews till the fulness of time. (J. Morison, D.D.)
Esau hated and Jacob loved
Note that--
1. In speaking of Jacob or Esau, either as men or as nations, neither Genesis nor Malachi nor St. Paul have eternal salvation in view; the matter in question is the part they play regarded from the theocratic standpoint, as is proved by the words to serve.
2. Esau, though deprived of the promise and the inheritance, nevertheless obtained a blessing and an inheritance for his descendants.
3. The national character inherited from the father of the race is not so impressed on his descendants that they cannot escape it. As there were in Israel many Edomites, profane hearts, there may also have been many Israelites, spiritual hearts in Edom. Compare what is said of the wise men of Teman (Jer_49:7), and the very respectable personage Eliphaz (notwithstanding his error) in the book of Job. (Prof. Godet.)
Jacob loved
This is seen all through his history.
1. In the promise made before his birth.
2. The vision of Bethel (Gen_28:12, etc.).
3. The blessing in Padanaram (Gen_31:5; Gen_31:9).
4. The vision there (verse 11-13).
5. The command given to Laban concerning him (verse 24).
6. The blessing given him at Peniel (Gen_32:28-29).
7. The command to go to Bethel and the vision there (Gen_35:1; Gen_35:9; Gen_35:11). (T. Robinson, D.D.)
Jacob and Esau
Why was it that God loved Jacob and hated Esau?
I. This is a fact. Ask an Arminian about election, and at once he begins to sharpen the knife of controversy. But say to him, Ah, brother I was it not Divine grace that made you to differ? Was it not the Lord who called you out of your natural state and made you what you are? Oh, yes, he says, I quite agree with you there. Well, then, why is it that one man has been converted, and not another? Oh, the Spirit of God has been at work in this man, that God does treat one man better than another is not very wonderful. It is a fact we recognise every day. There is a man that, work as hard as he likes, he cannot earn more than fifteen shillings a week; and here is another that gets a thousand a year? One is born in a palace, while another draws his first breath in a hovel. Here is a man whose head cannot hold two thoughts together; here is another who can dive into the deepest of questions; what is the reason of it? God has done it. He has made some eagles, and some worms; some He has made lions, and some creeping lizards; He has made some men kings, and some are born beggars. Do you murmur at God for it? No. What is the use of kicking against facts? God does in matters of religion give to one man more than to another. He gives to me opportunities of hearing the Word which He does not give to the Hottentot. He gives to me parents who trained me in the fear of the Lord. He does not give that to many of you. He places me afterwards in situations where I am restrained from sin. Other men are cast into places where their sinful passions are developed. Again, He brings one man under the sound of a powerful ministry, while another sits and listens to a preacher whose drowsiness is only exceeded by that of his hearers. And even when they are hearing the gospel the fact is God works in one heart when He does not in another.
1. Look at Jacobs life. You are compelled to say that from the first hour that he left his fathers house God loved him. Why, he has not gone far before he has the Bethel experience. Laban tries to cheat him and God suffers it not, but multiplies the cattle that Laban gives him. When he fled God charges Laban not to speak to Jacob either good or bad. When his sons had committed murder in Shechem, and Jacob is afraid that he will be destroyed, God puts a fear upon the people, and says to them, Touch not Mine anointed, and do My prophet no harm. And when a famine comes over the land, God has sent Joseph into Egypt to provide for him and his brethren. And see the happy end of Jacob. It was that of a man that God loved.
2. On the other hand, God did not love Esau. He permitted him to become the father of princes, but He had not blessed his generation. Where is the house of Esau now? Edom has perished.
II. Why is this?
1. Why did God love Jacob? There was nothing in Jacob that could make God love him, but much that might have made God hate him it was because God was infinitely gracious, and because He was sovereign in His dispensation of this grace. Let us look at Jacobs character. As a natural man he was always a bargain-maker. Read what he says after the glorious experience and promise at Bethel (Gen_28:20; Gen_28:22). While he lived with Laban what miserable work it was! He had got into the hands of a man of the world, and whenever a covetous Christian gets into such company, a terrible scene ensues. The whole way through we are ashamed of Jacob; we cannot help it. Now, if the character of Jacob be all this there could have been nothing in him that made God love him, and the only reason why God loved him must have been because He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy.
2. Why did God hate Esau? The two questions are entirely distinct, so one answer will not do for both. Why does God hate any man? Because that man deserves it; no reply but that can ever be true. There are some who answer Divine sovereignty; but I challenge them to look that doctrine in the face. Do you believe that God created man and arbitrarily, and for no other reason than that of destroying him for ever? Well, if you can believe it, I pity you that you should think so meanly of God, whose mercy endureth for ever. Sovereignty holds the scale of love, it is justice holds the other scale. Who can put that into the hand of sovereignty? That were to libel God. Did Esau deserve that God should cast him away? Yes, what we know of Esaus character clearly proves it. Esau lost his birthright; but he sold it himself and for a mess of pottage. Oh, Esau, it is in vain for thee to say, I lost my birthright by decree. God is not the author of sin. And the doctrine is that every man who loses heaven gives it up himself. God denies it not to him. He will not come that he may have life. But, says one, Esau repented. Yes, but what sort of a repentance was it? As soon as he found that his brother had got the birthright he sought it again with tears, but he did not get it back. He sold it for a mess of pottage, and he thought he would buy it back by giving his father a mess of pottage. So sinners say, I have lost heaven by my evil works; I will easily get it again by reforming. No, you may sell heaven for carnal pleasures, but you cannot buy heaven by merely giving them up. You can get heaven only on another ground, viz: the ground of free grace. You think that Esau was a sincere penitent; but when he failed to get the blessing, what did he say? I will slay my brother Jacob. That is not the repentance that comes from the Holy Spirit. But there are some men like that. They say they are very sorry and then they go and do the same that they did before. On this whole matter read verse 22. Observe that God had nothing to do with fitting men for destruction. They do that. God only fits men for salvation. At the last day the righteous shall inherit the kingdom prepared for them; but the wicked shall go into everlasting fire, prepared--not for you but--for the devil and his angels. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The mystery of Gods love
A gentleman who thought Christianity was merely a heap of puzzling problems, said to an old minister, That is a very strange statement Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. Very strange replied the minister; but what is it that you see most strange about it? Oh, that part of course about hating Esau. Well, sir, said the minister, how wonderfully are we made and how differently constituted. The strangest part of all to me is that He could ever have loved Jacob. There is no mystery so glorious as the mystery of Gods love. (N. T. Anecdotes.)
What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.
The unimpeachable righteousness of God in the dispensations of His mercy and justice
I. He acts on immutable principles.
1. These principles are fixed (verse 15).
2. Are independent of human will and action (verse 16).
3. Respect both mercy and justice (verse 17).
4. Are the same in application to all. He has mercy on the penitent, withdraws His Spirit from the impenitent (verse 18).
II. He has a perfect right to determine those principles and direct the application of them.
1. Men are apt to complain (verse 19).
2. But unreasonably, because God is the Supreme Sovereign (verse 20). He can mould as He pleases, whether to honour or dishonour.
III. These principles are always applied in mercy.
1. Even vessels fitted for wrath are endured with much long-suffering, affording ample room for repentance.
2. While the riches of His glory are displayed in the vessels of mercy.
3. And there is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for the righteousness of faith is unto and upon all that believe. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
Unrighteousness with God is a thing
I. Abhorrent to human sense.
1. We could then have no confidence in Him.
2. There would be no security for moral order and happiness.
3. No hope in the future.
II. Inconceivable. Because opposed to all our notions of Divine perfection, whether derived from revelation, conscience, or reason.
III. Impossible.
1. Either in the dispensations of His mercy or justice.
2. Because contrary to His nature.
3. Hence seeming injustice, whereever it occurs, must be referred to human ignorance. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
Righteousness of the Divine administration
All the unutterable woes of the depraved residuums of our great cities are taking place under the administration of a God of kindness and love. There is provision in New York for food and raiment, and thousands there are that wander through the streets hungry and naked. There is provision in New York for health and strength, and thousands there are that writhe in anguish on beds of sickness. There is provision also in the heart of God for every miserable creature that has erred, and thousands there are that curse and blaspheme with remorse in hospitals or in lazar-houses, or in the midst of the vermin and filth at the bottom of society. All that takes place, though God, who is God of love and benevolence sees it; all this takes place though nature is ordained to promote happiness; all this takes place, though the structure of society and the structure of individual men are designed to promote happiness; all this takes place, though Gods government is for the promotion of happiness; all this takes: place, though the interior nature of God and His everlasting decree aim: at happiness. And yet, men are found who, with these facts staring them in the face, rise up and say, God is too good to punish men! Why, there never was an assertion so flung in the face of facts. The administration of God is full of goodness; but goodness in the Divine administration is employed according to law. (H. W. Beecher.)
God righteous in all His ways
Going up among the White Mountains some years ago, I thought of that passage in the Bible that speaks of God as weighing mountains in a balance. As I looked at those great mountains, I thought: Can it be possible that God can put those great mountains in scales? It was an idea too great for me to grasp; but when I saw a bluebell down by the mules foot on my way up Mount Washington, then I understood the kindness and goodness of God. It is not so much of God in great things I can understand, but of God in little things. Here is a man who says: That doctrine cannot be true, because things do go so very wrong. I reply: It is no inconsistency on the part of God, but a lack of understanding on our part. I hear that men are making very fine shawls in some factory. I go in on the first floor and see only the raw material, and I ask: Are these the shawls I hear about? No, says the manufacturer, go up to the next floor; and I go up, and there I begin to see the design. But the man says: Do not stop here, go to the top floor of the factory, and you will see the idea fully carried out. I do so, and having come to the top, see the complete pattern of an exquisite shawl. So in our life, standing down on a low level of Christian experience, we do not understand Gods dealings. He tells us to go up higher if we would know. We go up higher and higher until we begin to understand the Divine meaning with respect to us. God says, Go up higher, and we advance until we stand at the very gate of heaven, and there see Gods idea all wrought out--a perfect idea of mercy, of love, of kindness, and we say: Just and true are all Thy ways. It is all right at the top; all right at the bottom. Remember, there is no inconsistency on the part of God, but it is only our mental and spiritual incapacity. (T. De Witt Talmage.)
For He saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.--
Moses and Pharaoh
I. Moses an example of Gods mercy and grace.
II. Pharaoh an example of Gods justice.
III. Both examples of Gods righteousness. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
Mercy is
I. An act of sovereign will.
II. A display of unmerited grace.
III. Consists with infinite justice.
IV. Is dispensed with consummate wisdom. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
Mercy abused
To sin because mercy abounds is the devils logic. He that sins because of mercy is like one that wounds his head because he hath a plaster, he that sins because of Gods mercy shall have judgment without mercy. Mercy abused turns to fury. Nothing sweeter than mercy when it is improved, nothing fiercer when it is abused; nothing colder than lead when it is taken out of the mine, nothing more scalding than lead when it is heated; nothing blunter than iron, nothing sharper when it is whetted. The mercy of the Lord is upon them that fear Him. Mercy is not for them that sin, and fear not; but for them that fear, and sin not. (T. Watson.)
Mercy, alternative of
When the Romans attacked a city it was sometimes their custom to set up a white flag at the city gate. If the garrison surrendered while the white flag was up, their lives were spared; after that the black flag was run up, and every man was put to the sword. Sinner, to-day the white flag of mercy is out. Surrender to Christ and live before the black flag of death and doom takes its place.
Mercy, importance of
Mercy is in the air we breathe, the daily light which shines upon us, the gracious ram of Gods inheritance. It is the public spring for all the thirsty, the common hospital for all the needy. It is mercy that takes us out of the womb, feeds us in the days of our pilgrimage, furnishes us with spiritual provision, closes our eyes in peace, and translates us to a secure resting-place. It is the first petitioners suit, and the first believers article, the contemplation of Enoch, the confidence of Abraham, the burden of the prophetic songs, and the glory of all the apostles, the plea of the penitent, the ecstasies of the reconciled, the believers hosanna, the angels hallelujah. Ordinances, oracles, altars, pulpits, the gates of the grave, and the gates of heaven, do all depend upon mercy. It is the load-star of the wandering, the ransom of the captive, the antidote of the tempted, the prophet of the living, and the effectual comfort of the dying: there would not be one regenerate saint upon earth, nor one glorified saint in heaven, if it were not for mercy. (J. Hamilton, D.D.)
Mercy, manifold
As John Bunyan says, all the flowers in Gods garden are double; there is no single mercy: nay, they are not only double flowers, but they are manifold flowers. There are many flowers upon one stalk, and many flowers in one flower. You shall think you have but one mercy; but you shall find it to be a whole flock of mercies. Our beloved is unto us a bundle of myrrh, a cluster of camphor. When you lay hold upon one golden link of the chain of grace, you pull, pull, pull; but lo! as long as your hand can draw there are fresh linked sweetnesses of love still to come. Manifold mercies! Like the drops of a lustre, which reflect a rainbow of colours when the sun is glittering upon them, and each one, when turned in different ways, from its prismatic form shows all the varieties of colour; so the mercy of God is one and yet many; the same, yet ever changing; a combination of all the beauties of love blended harmoniously together. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The sovereignty of Divine mercy
Observe--
I. The text does not mean that God is not merciful to all--
1. Favours some to the disadvantage of others.
2. Is not disposed to save all.
3. Distributes His favours capriciously.
4. Saves any without the co-operation of their own will.
II. It means that Gods purpose in redemption is independent of man.
1. That its conditions are fixed without the will of man.
2. That the will or efforts of man cannot supersede these conditions. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
The Divine sovereignty
When it is affirmed that the sovereignty of God is absolute, it is simply meant that He is a Being who can do whatever He pleases. None can stay His hand, or say to Him, what doest Thou? He is not accountable for His deeds to any superior. He giveth not account of any of His matters. But as He can do whatever He pleases, so He will fulfil His pleasure. He does according to His will in the army of heaven, etc. My counsel shall stand, etc. But while God is thus absolute sovereign, this absolute sovereignty does not determine for Him what it is right that He should please to do. Something else is indispensable, viz., His peculiar intelligence. In it, and in it alone, does God find the idea of right, an idea without which there could be no ethical imperative uttering itself in the affirmative I ought. It is the highest glory of God, that He should, and that He always does please, to do only what is right. In Him is no darkness at all. He exercises His sovereignty in doing only what is holy and just and good. His sovereignty is itself holy and just and good. The apostles adduction of the oracle addressed to Moses is a decided argumentative success. Men, without exception, are the subjects of Gods sovereign sway. It cannot be disputed. So therefore are the Jews in particular; universally so. And yet all have come short of the glory of God; so that there is unless there supervene some great change or new creation, overhanging all, both Gentiles and Jews, a lurid thundercloud of doom. Is there room for hope? The asseverations, I shall have mercy, etc., seem to assume that there is forgiveness with God, that He may be had in reverence (Psa_130:4). But there are limits to His pardoning grace. He keeps mercy indeed for thousands (Exo_34:7), but He will by no means clear those whose guilt has deepened into impenitence. There is a sin that never hath forgiveness (Mar_3:29). Who then shall be pardoned? Just those whom it pleases God to pardon--He will have pardoning mercy on whomsoever, etc. And who are these? Under the Old Testament the category of the pardonable was not clearly revealed. Under the new none need walk in uncertainty. Those who put their trust in Christ shall be pardoned. And as regards those who are destitute of this revelation, see Rom_2:13-15. Their responsibility is measured by their opportunity. And it lies entirely with Gods sovereignty to determine who shall be the recipients of His bounty. In the statements On whomsoever I have, or am having, mercy, etc., there seems to be the conveyance of the idea that God was already in absolute spontaneity at work forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin. The favourite work of Divine grace, however, is so great, august, and far-reaching in its ethical influence that none but the Highest could reasonably undertake it, or carry it through. There is none who can forgive sins but God only. There is hence, on the part of God, the well-grounded assumption of a very lofty prerogative, which is tantamount to an assertion that He will not suffer any one, not even Moses, to interfere with the administration of His bounty. He is resolved to dispense His bounty to whomsoever He pleases. (J. Morison, D.D.)
The Divine sovereignty: its infinite graciousness
As Gods throne is a throne of holiness, so it is a throne of grace (Heb_4:16). A throne encircled with a rainbow, in sight, like an emerald (Rev_4:3); an emblem of the covenant, betokening mercy. Though His nature be infinitely excellent above us, and His power infinitely transcendent over us, yet the majesty of His government is tempered with an unspeakable goodness. He acts not so much as an absolute lord as a gracious sovereign and obliging benefactor. He delights not to make His subjects slaves; exacts not of them any servile or fearful, but a generous and cheerful obedience. He requires them not to fear or worship Him so much for His power as His goodness. He requires not of a rational creature anything repugnant to the honour, dignity, and principles of such a nature; nor anything that may make it weary of its own being, or of the service it owes its sovereign. He draws it by the cords of a man; His goodness renders His laws as sweet as honey and the honeycomb to an unvitiated palate and a renewed mind. And though it be granted He hath full disposal of His creature as the potter of His vessel, yet His goodness will never permit Him to use this sovereign right to the hurt of a creature that deserves it not. As not to punish the sinner would be a denial of His justice, so to torment the innocent would be a denial of His goodness. It is as much against the nature of God to punish one eternally who hath not deserved it as it is to deny Himself and act anything foolishly, and unbecoming His other perfections which render Him majestical and adorable. (S. Charnock, B.D.)
The Divine sovereignty: real and merciful
Conspiracies have at various times sprung up to deprive the Supreme of this peculiar glory--to deny Him a will. Men would fain substitute a law of nature for the living God. They conceive of an unthinkable principle like gravitation; they think of a power like the sea, lashing itself and raging and advancing without a purpose or a plan, floating a ship and sinking a stone with equal indifference, and continuing afterwards its unmeaning roar. I love this chapter; it is a sublime protest against an atheistic human philosophy. I can have no communion with a mere mechanical omnipotence--a sort of infinite ocean that heaves eternally by laws to which it is subject; saving me if I continue to make myself sufficiently buoyant before I am cast on its cold, uncaring bosom; and swallowing me up with the same relentless regularity if I make the leap before I be light enough. This omnipotent principle is not my Saviour; I need as my Saviour the living God who loves me, and whom I may love in return--the God who looked on me when I was lost, and loved me when I was worthless--who saved me from hell and made me His child. I need from my God not merely a general aspect of benevolence towards the world, under which some of the most vigorous agonisers may struggle into heaven; I need not only permission to save myself, but a hope that the Infinite sees me, knows me, pities me, loves me, grasps me, and holds me in the hollow of His hand, safe against all dangers, until He bring me safe to His eternal rest. (W. Arnot, D.D.)
Justification by free grace vindicated
For He saith to Moses, I will, etc. As if He should have said, My doctrine of justification, by the free grace and pleasure of God through believing, is so far from rendering Him unrighteous, that Himself plainly asserteth the substance of it in saying thus unto Moses. Meaning that inasmuch as all men having sinned are become obnoxious unto Me, I am resolved to use my prerogative, and to show mercy unto whom I please, not upon such who shall be obtruded upon Me by men, or who shall judge themselves worthy. The repetitions are very emphatical, and import in the highest degree a resolvedness in God to dispense His favour according to His own pleasure, and not according to the thoughts of men. When the clouds pour out rain in abundance it is a sign they were full of water. In like manner, when a man reiterates any purpose, it argueth a fulness of that which is thus uttered, and that the heart could not discharge itself by one expression. Now we know who those are on whom God is everlastingly resolved to show mercy, viz., those who believe in His Son (2Co_1:19-20). And upon this account the gospel, which asserteth this purpose of God, is termed the everlasting gospel (Rev_14:6), i.e., one the tenor and contents whereof shall never be altered. Here God fully declares who they are on whom He will have mercy, viz., believers. Neither are all the angels in heaven nor men upon earth able to take Him off from this His purpose. For that is to be considered by the way that the apostle clearly speaketh here of that grace or mercy of God which relateth to the salvation of men. But whereas the Scripture speaks of two sorts or degrees of grace, one which precedes faith, and consists partly in the gift of His Son, partly in calling them by the gospel, and vouchsafing means and opportunities unto them for repenting and believing; and another, which is subsequent. The question may be, of which the apostle speaks. I answer of the latter.
1. God makes no such difference or distinction of men in His preventing grace as the words before us manifestly imply (Heb_2:9; 1Ti_2:6; Act_17:30; Mat_20:16, etc.).
2. The whole discourse of the apostle in the context is not concerning preventing grace or mercy, but subsequent, as, viz., concerning justification, adoption, etc.
3. And evident it is that the apostles intent is to declare the Jews to be excluded from that grace and mercy, as in telling them that the children of the flesh are not the children of God, but the children of the promise (Rom_2:8), that the elder should serve the younger, and that the purpose of God stands not of works, etc. Certain it is that these Jews were not excluded from preventing grace, for they were called of God by the apostles, yea, and by Christ Himself, and this by means so efficacious that our Saviour affirmeth that even the men of Tyre and Sidon might or would have been converted by them (Mat_11:21). Therefore the grace or mercy spoken of in the words in hand must needs be subsequent. And if so it cannot be understood of any such mercy in God towards men by which men, yet unregenerate, are enabled, much less necessitated, to repent or believe, but of that mercy which is vouchsafed unto them who do now repent and believe. So that the meaning of the words, I will have mercy on whom, etc., is as if God should have said, I will justify, adopt, and glorify persons under what qualifications soever I Myself please, and will not be ordered or taught by men what I have to do, or what becometh Me to do, in this kind. As regards what God actually said to Moses (Exo_33:16), it appears that Moses (Exo_33:13; Exo_33:16)had desired of God that He would consider that the Jews were His people, and that He would please lead them that so it might be known in the world that both he and his people had found grace in His sight. This God grants. Upon this Moses makes a further request, viz., that God would show him His glory (Exo_33:18). To this God answers, I will make all My goodness pass before thee, etc., giving the reason hereof in the words cited by the apostle, Let no man take offence that I should do that in a way of favour for thee, which I neither shall do to any of the people besides, nor ever did to any of thy fathers, nor to any man after thee; nor do thou imagine that I am anyways a debtor unto thee of that grace which I deny unto others, for I am debtor unto no man, and will dispense My favours, and so My mercies, only unto such persons as I please. Now many of those whom God decreed upon their believing from eternity to justify, and adopt, apostatise from, and make shipwreck of their faith (as the Scripture in many places testifieth), from whom He hath peremptorily threatened to take away the grace of justification which before He had conferred upon them. Therefore the emphatical import of the apostles expression, I will have mercy on whom I have (now or at present) mercy, respects the same species, not the same persons of men; being as if He had said, To that sort or kind of men to whom at this day I show mercy (viz., in pardoning their sin and justifying their persons, meaning believers), I will show the like mercy at all times hereafter to the worlds end. Or rather thus, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, i.e., I will not be taken off by men or by angels from showing the grace or mercy of justification and adoption unto those (i.e., that kind of men)
to whom I at this day show this grace or mercy, and these are such who believe. (John Goodwin.)
Arrogance of arraigning God
They say the head of the great river Nilus could never yet be found. It has been sought for, and many have travelled possibly some thousands of miles, but yet it cannot be found. But the head of Nilus will be found before men find any cause of Divine love beyond the Divine will. It speaketh a wonderful arrogance in men to make God accountable for His acts of Divine grace; what greater arrogance and vanity can be imagined than this? When a poor creature will not himself be brought to an account why he gives one beggar money and not another, or why he giveth to one child a greater portion than to another (though they both be the acknowledged fruit of his body), that yet this worm should dream that God must be accountable to his reason, why He showeth mercy to this man and not to another, when they are both the work of His hands. It is certainly enough to say, He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy; and extend compassion to whom He will extend compassion. What pride, what arrogance is this, not to allow to God, whom we confess to be the supreme and most free agent, the liberty which we will yet claim and challenge for another! This is flat rebellion against the Lord of all, whose sovereignty it dares to question. (John Collinges.)
So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy.--
Not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth
For ages this chapter has been a battle-ground for theological dispute. Doctrines have been raised here most degrading to man--most derogatory to God. The first thing, therefore, is to brush away the clouds of false opinions with which theological polemics have enveloped it. The verse is not meant to express the idea--
1. That the Great Father does not show mercy to all mankind. This would be contrary to facts. Reason, consciousness, and the Bible unite in declaring that it is of the Lords mercy that we have not been consumed. Mans existence is to be traced to the fact that he lives every moment by mercy, and mercy bears him up from hell.
2. That God gives to some men favours that He withholds from others, which is a truth too obvious for debate. You see this unequal distribution of the Divine favour--
(1) In natural endowments. No two men are alike in natural endowment.
(2) In our secular condition.
(3) In the means of spiritual improvement.
Some are born heathens, etc., So that however humbling to our pride it may be, yet God does bestow favours on some which He withholds from others. But here Paul would not argue a point so palpable to his opponents.
3. That the Infinite Father is not disposed to save all. This is opposed to His own most positive and frequent declarations. I have no pleasure in the death of a sinner. Let the wicked forsake his way, etc. This is also contrary to the universality of His remedial provisions. God so loved the world, etc. He is a propitiation … for the sins of the whole world.
4. That the Infinite Father distributes His favours capriciously. We are unable to discover them, but that He has the highest reasons for His conduct we are bound to believe. The Infinite intellect never acts without reason, and Infinite love never acts unkindly. His mighty operations are under the sway of intellect; His intellect is under the sway of love.
5. That willing and running, or human efforts, are not essential to salvation.
(1) There are blessings bestowed upon us independent of our willing and running. This is the case, e.g., with natural endowments. If we have inferior powers the blame is not with us; if we are above the average the credit is not ours. It is sometimes the case too with our temporal condition. Sometimes riches come to a man without any effort or will of his own, and with poverty the same, but not always.
(2) It is ever true, however, of mental and moral excellence. We do not say that God cannot make a man intelligent and virtuous irrespective of his own conduct, but we have never heard of such cases. Gods regular method to enlighten the ignorant, to reform the depraved, etc., is by the earnest use of their own faculties. The Bible gives us to understand--
(a) That without my willing and running I cannot be saved. The work of a man in obtaining his salvation is compared to husbandry, building, battle, racing; all laborious occupations. In one word, so far from willing and running not being required, we must agonise to enter in.
(b) That when there are the right running and willing, salvation is sure to be obtained. Seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened. He that cometh to Him He will on no account cast out. Running and willing therefore cannot be dispensed with. What then does it mean? Simply this--that the original reason of salvation is in God and not in man. A truth this which is no sooner propounded than adopted by universal intelligence as an axiom. If there be a God He must be the primordial cause not only of all existence, but of all good throughout His vast and ever-extending universe. Then It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth--
I. That Gods determination to save mankind came. Human effort had nothing to do in starting the eternal idea. Who being His counsellor hath taught Him? Gods ideas are as old as Himself. There is no succession of thought in the Eternal Mind. One all-seeing, all-embracing, infinite thought is His. Known unto God are all His works, redemption included, from the beginning of the world. We are saved, then, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, etc. Had He not determined to save humanity we never could have been saved, and His determination is entirely independent of all willing and running.
II. That Gods condition of salvation was formed.
1. It is Gods plan to work by means. The principle of mediation fills and rules the universe.
(1) It is so in the material world. God acts upon one thing through the instrumentality of another. One body is moved, one life is produced, one creature is supported by another.
(2) It is so in the mental world. One mind guides, educates, moulds another.
(3) In the moral world Gods method here is to save the world by Christ. He is in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son,etc. What the law could not, do, etc. This is a settled condition. There is no other name, etc.
2. Now what has human willing or running to do with this plan of salvation? Nothing.
(1) The plan is eternal, and therefore no creature could have had an influence in its formation. The Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world.
(2) The plan transcends all finite thought. It could not have entered into the heart of man to conceive of such a thing.
III. To supersede Gods established method of salvation. Perhaps this passage especially refers to the Jew, who had an idea that he should be saved on the ground of patriarchal descent. And Paul wishes to impress him with the fact that no amount of effort on that condition would save him. He might will and run intensely and for ever, but it would be of no service. There is a Divine way to reach Divine results. There is a Divine way to cultivate the soil, to navigate the ocean, to build houses, to get a well-informed and well-disciplined intellect, and if these are not observed labour will be lost. It is so in mans salvation. There is a Divine way, which, if not observed, all the willing and the running will go for nothing. The heathen, the Mahometan, the Jew, the Deist, may will and run, but their labour must prove futile, since they observe not the way. (D. Thomas, D.D.)
Not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth
Abraham willed that the blessing should be given to Ishmael; Isaac willed that it should be given to Esau; and Esau ran to hunt for venison that it might be regularly conveyed to him. But they were all disappointed; for it was Gods will that it should be given to Isaac and Jacob. (B. Field.)
Gods will and mans will
(Text and Rev_22:17):--
1. The great controversy which has divided the Church upon the question of the will has been fraught with incalculable usefulness, for it has thrust forward the two great doctrines of human responsibility and Divine sovereignty.
2. In this controversy, however, mistakes have arisen from two reasons. Some have altogether forgotten one order of truths. Like Nelson they have put the telescope to the blind eye, and then protested that they could not see. On the other hand, others have pushed a truth too far. You know how often things are injured by over-praise; how a good medicine comes to be despised because a quack has advertised it as an universal cure. So puffery in doctrine leads to its dishonour. You have seen those crystal globes, in which, as you walk up to them, your head is ten times as large as your body, and in another position your feet are monstrous and the rest of your body small. Many go to work with Gods truth upon the model of this toy; they magnify one capital truth till it becomes monstrous; they minify another till it becomes forgotten. Let us note that--
I. Salvation hinges upon the will of God, and not upon the will of man. It is not of him that willeth, etc.
1. This may be argued from analogy. There is a certain likeness between all Gods works. If a painter shall paint three pictures, or an author write three books, there will be certain qualities running through the whole which will lead you to see that they are the same mans work. Now turn your thoughts--
(1) To the works of creation. There was a time when these works had no existence. With whom did God then take counsel? Did it not rest with His own will whether He would make or not? And when He willed to create, did He not still use His own discretion as to what and how He would make? You see running through creation, from the tiny animalculae up to the tall archangel, this working of Gods own will. Well, then, does He reign in creation and not in grace?
(2) The works of Providence (Dan_4:35). From the first moment of human history to the last Gods will shall be done. And as surely as Gods will is the axle of the universe and the great heart of Providence, so in grace, despite mans hardness of heart, His own purposes will be fulfilled.
2. The difficulties which surround the opposite theory are tremendous. The theory that salvation depends upon our own will--
(1) Makes the purpose of God contingent. Christ may die, but it is not certain that He will redeem any, since the efficacy of the redemption rests not in its own intrinsic power, but in the will of man accepting it.
(2) Makes man, practically, the supreme being. The Lord intends good, but He must wait on His own creature to know what his intention is.
3. Ponder the known condition of man. On the theory that man comes to Christ of his own will, what do you with texts which say that he is dead?
4. It is consistent with the universal experience of all Gods people that salvation is of Gods will. I have never yet met with a man even professing to be a Christian who ever said that his coming to God was the result of his unassisted nature. Universally the people of God will say it was the Holy Spirit that made them what they are.
5. To the law and to the testimony. Each part of the whole process of salvation is attributed to Gods will.
(1) The preparation (Eph_1:3; Eph_1:9; Eph_1:11).
(2) Regeneration (Joh_1:13; Jam_1:18).
(3) Sanctification (1Th_4:3).
(4) Preservation, perseverance, resurrection, and eternal glory (Joh_6:39).
II. Mans will has its proper place in the matter of salvation (Rev_22:17).
1. According to this and many other texts it is clear that men are not saved by compulsion. When a man receives the grace of Christ he does not receive it against his will.
2. Nor is the will taken away, for God does not come and convert the intelligent free-agent into a machine. We are as free under grace as ever we were under sin; nay, we were slaves when we were under sin, and when the Son makes us free we are free indeed.
3. But though the will of man is not ignored, the work of the Spirit, which is the effect of the will of God, is to change the human will, and so make men willing in the day of Gods power, working in them to will and to do of His own good pleasure. The work of the Spirit is consistent with the original laws and constitution of human nature. Now, how is the heart changed in any matter? Generally by persuasion. A friend sets before us a certain truth in a new light, pleads with us, and our hearts are changed towards it. So the Spirit makes a revelation of truth to the soul, whereby it seeth things in a different light, and then the will cheerfully bows that neck which once was stiff as iron.
4. This gives the renewed soul a most blessed sign of grace. If thou art willing, depend upon it that God is willing.
5. Then, when a man has any willingness given to him, he has a special promise. Before he had that willingness he had an invitation. My text is a special call to some of you. Are you willing to be saved? Then the Lord says to you, Whosoever will, let him come. You cannot say this does not mean you. You are willing, then come and take the water of life freely. Had not I better pray? It does not say so; it says, take the water of life. But had not I better go home and get better? No, take the water of life, and take it now. God says, Here is a special invitation for you; you are willing; come and drink. Dont say, I must go home and wash my pitcher. No preparation is wanted. When the crusaders heard Peter the hermit, they cried out at once, Dens vult! and every man plucked his sword from its scabbard, and set out to reach the holy sepulchre. So come and drink, sinner; God wills it. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv11–22 11. For the children. The children, yet unborn, were…
11. For the children. The children, yet unborn, were both Isaac's seed according to the flesh; hence, according to the flesh, of the promised seed, and both equally without works, neither having done good nor evil. That the purpose of God according to election might stand. That it might stand forth that he made the choice of his own will, freely. Of his own will he chose Jacob, yet unborn, to become the head of the chosen race, rather than Esau. Note that this election was not to eternal salvation, but to become the head of a people. As Moses, Samuel, and John the Baptist were raised up for a great work of God, so was Jacob.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v17 Rom_9:17.—According to Sir G. Wilkinson, the Pharaoh here meant…
CRITICAL NOTES
Rom_9:17.—According to Sir G. Wilkinson, the Pharaoh here meant was Thothmes III., not drowned, but overthrown in the Red Sea. Reigned twenty-five years after that event. So Jewish tradition carried on afterwards a vigorous war with the northern nations. Sculptured records of his successes still preserved in the monuments he erected. Gave encouragement to the arts of peace. Founded numerous buildings in Upper and Lower Egypt and in Ethiopia. Made extensive additions to the temples at Thebes. Improved Coptos, Memphis, and Heliopolis by his taste for architecture. From caprice and love of change made columns with reversed capitals at Karnak. The last king of the nineteenth dynasty, Si Pta Menephtha, ‘the light of the sun,” was not buried in his own tomb, and may have been this Pharaoh. Others say Thothmes II. Two astronomical notes of time on contemporary monuments of his successor, Thothmes III., or Rameses the Great, show the accession of the latter and consequent death of the former to have taken place on the Egyptian day answering to May 4–5, 1515 B.C., or, astronomically verified, the twelfth of the second spring moon, the Hebrew second month (Stones Crying Out).
Read full note →
Rom_9:18.—σκληρύνει, hardens (indurat). Pharaoh’s heart hardened by God in fact by His longsuffering and delay of punishment.
Rom_9:23.—ἐνδείκ. applied to wrath as known before, γνωρ. to grace as yet comparatively unknown.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Rom_9:17-24
Divine liberty.—There must be in all discussions about the divine nature and the divine proceedings questions which can never be satisfactorily settled, in this world at least. This is not to be considered astonishing, if God be infinitely great and men be infinitely little. We can only fringe the boundless realm of the infinite greatness. All we appear to do in the settlement of our difficulties is to push the difficulty a little further back. We explain but never answer fairly the questions: Whence sin? Why moral evil? How is it that a Pharaoh hardens himself against light and reason, and to his own undoing? Why not have humility enough to confess our ignorance, to acknowledge that there must necessarily be much in the infinitely great, in the eternally vast and complex, which must be beyond our comprehension? We at least do not presume to settle points above reason, though, when all is seen, not contrary to reason. We simply pray that some heavenly light may be shed upon our pathway.
I. Let us then observe that divine liberty is not arbitrary.—Not arbitrary in the sense of being despotic or capricious. The God of love is no reasonless despot; the All-wise cannot be capricious. We talk of our fellows as having their little caprices. But if we think of the unchangeable God as being capable of change in any direction, we can never rightly suppose that He changes without sufficient reason. We are not to speak of God as having mercy on whom He will have mercy, as if the divine will were the mere faculty of moving from one being to another in the way of favour without any wise reason. If God is self-determined solely by His own judgment, it is because that judgment is regulated by infinite wisdom and goodness.
II. Divine liberty then is ruled by the great law of right.—What is right? Is it dependent upon the will of Deity? Is it antecedent to that will? We should say, concomitant. The will of God is coeternal with moral right and fitness. However the law of right arises, one thing is certain, that divine liberty is not opposed to the morally right. God is eternally free, but He is not free to do wrong,—free, because God never wishes to do wrong. Divine freedom is never human licentiousness. God does not will “to show His wrath,” either to display His divine liberty or to give vent to revenge. “What if God, willing to show His wrath,” etc. St. Paul does not affirm that God does show His wrath. God makes His power known in the marvellous way in which He endures so much longsuffering. Let us believe in the eternally right, the morally fit. Let us rise above all difficulties by grasping to our hearts the truth that God can do no wrong.
III. Divine liberty is guided by all-wise though inscrutable purposes.—“Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up.” Even with the help of a St. Paul we cannot read the strange language of the divine purposes. The very alphabet we cannot master; the verbs have intricate moods and tenses which we cannot follow. The Pharaohs of time are dark mysteries. The sound of the rolling waters deadens our ears, so that we cannot catch the lessons of divine movements. God’s purposes are inscrutable because of their far-reaching sweep, because of the infinite wisdom according to which they are planned. Let folly bow with reverent head in the presence of all-wise purposes. One purpose is revealed that God’s name may be declared throughout all the earth. God’s name is written in nature. God’s new name of love is written in revelation. God’s name of power and of wisdom is declared in the rise and fall of nations, in the downfall of tyrannies, in the overthrow of unrighteous thrones, in the destruction of foolish and tyrannical Pharaohs. Let us move, regulate our lives, in harmony with the revealed purpose of infinite wisdom.
IV. Divine liberty is directed to gracious ends.—The divine Potter has made known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy which He had afore prepared unto glory. The riches of God’s glory are seen in the vessels of mercy. As the human potter takes pride in the vessels that show his skill and that are raised to positions of honour in the earthly palace, so we venture to assert that the divine Potter glories in the vessels of mercy that are raised to positions of honour in the heavenly mansions. The heart of infinite love must be touched with compassion whenever a poor, blind, misguided Pharaoh is engulfed with his hosts by the resilient waters. Whatever may be our perplexities, whatever may be our creeds, let us hear this song rising clearly above every other sound, and sweetly charming away all our doubts and fears—“There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.” This truth we may further learn, that God’s power and glory cannot be declared by numerous vessels showing incompleteness, inadequacy, incompetence, on the part of the divine Potter. Imagine a human potter having his workshop well-nigh full of vessels that none would wish to purchase. Such a potter would soon be bankrupt. Are we to imagine the divine Potter, the infinite Architect of the universe, the essential Goodness, the unerring Wisdom, forming vessels that will for ever redound to His discredit? Vessels of mercy in large numbers will brilliantly reflect infinite goodness and wisdom as they adorn, as so many monumental pillars, the boundless temple of God’s gathered worshippers. Let us learn, not to find fault with divine proceedings, not to suppose that we can understand everything, not even in thought to resist the divine will, for that will is on the side of goodness and moves in mercy to man. Above all things let us heartily obey the divine call. He calls from sin to holiness, from ruin to salvation in Christ Jesus, from the spoiling agency of the satanic potter to the repairing and glorifying agency of the divine-human Potter. Oh to be monumental vessels of divine grace and mercy in the vast storehouse of divine curiosities! Vessels of mércy! What exquisite skill they display! What richness of spiritual texture! What beauty of moral tints! How they shine in the unclouded light that radiates about the eternal throne!
Rom_9:21. The sovereign right of God.—Some aspects of the Deity may be less pleasing to contemplate than others. The pride of man rejoices not at first in the thought of the Majesty which overawes his littleness and compels him to submission. Yet as a hard flint forcibly struck emits a bright spark, and as a rough husk often covers a sweet kernel, so these stern views of the Almighty may, if reverently faced and meditated upon, yield salutary, ennobling, and even comforting reflections.
I. The Potter claims absolute right to deal with the clay as He thinks fit.—His arbitrary power does not signify the absence of proper reasons for His selection. As in the calling of Israel to peculiar service and responsibility and honour, so everywhere can an election be discerned. We do not start in the race of life with exactly similar equipment, though we live in tabernacles of clay. If the physical and spiritual powers are the same in essence, like the particles of “the same lump,” yet the faculties of some have been well trained from the beginning, and their natures have developed under favourable conditions. Here is a lesson of resignation. He is happiest who accepts the will of God as revealed in his lot, assured that God’s decision has ample justification. Even the Stoic philosophy could declare that if man knew the plans of the Superintendent of the universe and saw them in their completeness, he would at once acquiesce in the determinations of the Arbiter of his destiny. This is the truth which mingles with the error of Mohammedan fatalism. We have to do all that lies within our power, and leave the result with Him who is wise and merciful. For the potter is our Father in heaven. How much of the vexation and worry of life is due to a conceit of our capacity, and perhaps to a jealousy of the position and attainments of our neighbours! Be content to fill a lowly place; and the time is at hand when “the pots in the Lord’s house shall be like bowls before the altar.”
II. The Potter has no desire for the destruction of His workmanship.—He cares not to waste His clay, nor to employ it in a manner to secure its speedy extinction. It is a pain to God to see His gifts abused, His image degraded, His work marred. He is said in Rom_9:22 to endure “with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath.” A lesson of hopefulness is here. The Most High will not break His vessels in pieces as long as they are fit for any use, for any post, though humble and insignificant. “Potter and clay endure,” however the wheel of life may turn and fashion the material into altered shapes. If the light of God shines in a vacuum, no brightness is observable. An empty heaven were a dreary home for a God of love, a silent temple for Him who glories in the praises of His people and His works.
III. The Potter prefers to construct the choicest vessels.—The noblest ware pays Him best, and He lovingly exerts His skill on specimens of highest art. Deny not to God the delight which every artist feels in the finest productions of his genius. The most polished mirrors best reflect His glory. A lesson of aspiration therefore. “Covet earnestly the best gifts.” God has made His clay instinct with will and energy; He takes pleasure in the improvement of the vessels, that they may be brought into His sanctuary. It will mightily assist our struggles to be sure that the Captain longs “to bring many sons unto glory.”—S. R. Aldridge.
The parable of the potter and the clay.—Let us notice:—
I. What it does not teach.—Starting from a perfectly sound and correct view as to God’s absolute sovereignty and His right to dispose of men as He pleases, some have thought that St. Paul brings in his reference to the potter and his clay in order to show that in the exercise of that sovereignty God makes some souls to destruction, and that those so made have no ground of complaint. Now whatever truth there may be in such a notion as this, a close examination will show that it is not “the whole truth”—still less is it “nothing but the truth.” God is sovereign Lord, and He has a right to dispose of us all as He will. But that He exercises these rights in any arbitrary or cruel way, reason and Holy Scripture alike lead us to deny. “God is love.” The foreordaining of any creature to everlasting misery is utterly inconsistent with love.
II. Its origin in the sphere of manual industry.—[For description of the potter’s work, see quotation from Thomson’s The Land and the Book on p. 323.] Sometimes it would happen that on account of defect in clay or other cause vessel would be spoiled in process of formation. Potter would crush it up and reduce it once again to shapeless mass, which he would afterwards fashion into perhaps a quite different form. The clay which appeared unfit to make one kind of vessel he would make into another.
III. Its place in Old Testament prophetic teaching.—St. Paul has in his mind the opening verses of Jeremiah 18 (vide Rom_9:1-6). Jeremiah’s parable was spoken of the Jewish nation: “O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the Lord. Behold, as the clay in the potter’s hand, so are ye in Mine hand, house of Israel.” God had a right to mould them as He chose. They rebelled. The vessel was marred in His hand. Yet He strove with them again and again. At length, notwithstanding God’s purposes towards them for good, they so rebelled that they were cut off. In following chap. 19 this terrible fact also foreshadowed in figure. Prophet again receives command from God—this time to take an earthen bottle which has been baked and hardened in the fire. He is to go forth into the valley of Hinnom, and there break the bottle in the sight of the ancients and priests, and in doing so to say, “Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaketh a potter’s vessel, that cannot be made whole again.” God will strive with sinners again and again, but the hardened and impenitent cannot be allowed to resist His will.
IV. Its bearing upon St. Paul’s argument.—In the opening verses of this chapter the apostle gives expression to his grief that Israel should be hardening their hearts against the gospel. God’s word and promise regarding them have not failed, for all who are Jews naturally are not Jews spiritually, and are therefore not heirs of the promise. Of the seed of Abraham only one son, Isaac, was chosen; of Isaac’s two sons one was utterly rejected. Is God unjust, then? asks the apostle. Impossible! he would reply; God has an absolute right to love and to hate whom He will. And he gives instances illustrating the fact that God has proclaimed pity towards some and meted out retribution to others (Rom_9:17-19). The question next arises, Why doth He yet find fault? If, i.e., wickedness be the result of God’s will, what becomes of man’s responsibility? If a man be bad, can he help it? Who can resist the will of God? This question is stated by the apostle as one which a Jewish objector might and probably would urge. And he treats it as absurd. “Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to Him that formed it, Why hast Thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?” Quite true. But St. Paul shrinks back aghast from the horrible supposition that God would predestine any creature to eternal woe. And thus he will not say that God “created vessels of wrath” or “prepared them for destruction”; but he asks: “What if God, willing to show His wrath, and make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had afore prepared unto glory, even us, whom He hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?” The vessels of wrath were fitted, not by God, but by themselves, for destruction. Like Pharaoh, they hardened themselves in sin. Their evil character, like Jeremiah’s earthen bottle, had assumed so permanent a shape that no reforming process was possible. The vessels of mercy, on the other hand, were made such by God’s grace moulding and fashioning them into the form that He willed.
V. Its meaning to ourselves.—Clearly this:
1. That God’s purpose is to prepare unto glory all those whom He has called into His Church (Rom_9:21). The potter has a design in view in connection with every lump of clay which he takes into his hand. And God too has a design, a purpose, in every life. He is shaping us into that form which He deems most fitting. Every life has not the same purpose. One is fitted for one sphere of duty, another for another, just as the potter makes vessels of innumerable shapes. And yet each life is successful if only its own particular purpose be fulfilled. A life is no failure because it is lowly and put only to lowly uses, so long as it attains the end for which God designed it. The potter takes the clay into his hand. We are taken in hand by God when made members of His Church; and His first work in us is the forming of our souls aright. The first question is, not as to what we do, but as to what we are—what shape or form our character has taken. The potter makes vessels of various shapes, sizes, tints. God is making characters of various kinds, dealing with souls, fashioning lives, and thus preparing them “unto glory.” Having taken somewhat of the form which God willed, we may then be put to some further end—used for good—employed in the carrying out of some of God’s purposes of grace, and thus the preparation for glory will be advanced a further stage.
2. That we may so resist the will of God as to alter our own destiny, though we can never alter God’s purpose. The potter, when his work is marred, presses the day back again into a shapeless lump, and makes a vessel perhaps of quite another kind. And so, when a man has failed to profit by one kind of earthly discipline, God may subject him to another. There are afflictions which crush a man for a time, soften his heart and make it liable to receive new impressions, and thus he may be led on to begin a new life and be actuated by new aims and hopes. The character which would not assume one good form may thus be made to assume another. Still, the renewed process may fail, for some vessels are “fitted” (alas! by themselves) “to destruction.”
Practical lessons:
1. Thankfulness to God for the revelation of His will towards us. He has willed that a place of honour and usefulness in His kingdom shall be ours. That will shall be done unless we harden ourselves against it. 2 Warning. Beware of resisting God’s Spirit. Beware of the danger of the hardening process. Even if the vessel be remade, if afflictions soften, and the soul be renewed, the process is a terrible one. The preparation for glory is not the work of an instant.
3. Self-examination, Are we earnestly and prayerfully acting out the terms of our baptismal covenant? By our neglect to do so His work is marred, the preparation unto glory ceases to go forward.
4. Heartfelt prayer. Let our petitions ever be offered that God’s will may be done in us and our will conformed to His, so that, under the shaping and fashioning influence of His hand, each may at length become “a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the Master’s use, and prepared unto every good work” (2Ti_2:21).—G. E. P. Reade.
Rom_9:20. The potter and the day.—Two points insisted on:
1. God’s almightiness. He can do whatever He likes. (We do not say He does, but He can do.)
2. Man’s weakness. God allows him to sin.
Two objections made by some men:
1. How can God make on purpose to destroy? Answer: Nowhere stated that He does so.
(1) Similitude looks other way: no potter begins to make anything on purpose to destroy it.
(2) Statement that God is father looks other way.
(3) Statement that all things are made for God’s good pleasure (Rev_4:11) looks other way.
2. Why should God blame us if we are so powerless? How it has been answered: Man, though weak, not an automaton or machine: has a will; can reasonably be blamed for sin. How it is answered here: How can we find fault with absolute Maker, who forms all for good purpose—with absolute Father, who brings all children into the world for good? If they disobey, who can blame Him for punishing them for their good and good of others?
Power, anger (righteous), longsuffering, must be shown. These considerations must be set over against each other: God’s power, God’s purpose; man’s weakness, man’s responsibility.—Dr. Springett.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Rom_9:17-24
The hardening of Pharaoh’s heart.—What effect did all these signs and wonders of God’s sending have upon Pharaoh and his servants? Did they make them better men or worse men? We read that they made them worse men—that they helped to harden their hearts. We read that the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, so that he would not let the children of Israel go. Now how did the Lord do that? He did not wish and mean to make Pharaoh more hard-hearted, more wicked—that is impossible. God, who is all goodness and love, never can wish to make any human being one atom worse than he is. He who so loved the world that He came down on earth to die for sinners and take away the sins of the world would never make any human being a greater sinner than he was before—that is impossible and horrible to think of. Therefore, when we read that the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, we must be certain that that was Pharaoh’s own fault; and so we read it was Pharaoh’s own fault. The Lord did not bring all these plagues on Egypt without giving Pharaoh fair warning. Before each plague He sent Moses to tell Pharaoh that the plague was coming. The Lord told Pharaoh that He was his Master, and the Master and Lord of the whole earth; that the children of Israel belonged to Him, and the Egyptians too; that the river, light and darkness, the weather, the crops, the insects, and the locusts belonged to Him; that all diseases which afflict man and beast were in His power. And the Lord proved that His words were true in a way Pharaoh could not mistake, by changing the river into blood, and sending darkness and hailstones, and plagues of lice and flies, and at last by killing the firstborn of all the Egyptians. The Lord gave Pharaoh every chance. He condescended to argue with him as one man would with another, and proved His word to be true, and proved that He had a right to command Pharaoh. And therefore, I say, if Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, it was his own fault, for the Lord was plainly trying to soften it, and to bring him to reason. And the Bible says distinctly that it was Pharaoh’s fault; for it says that Pharaoh hardened his own heart, he and his servants, and therefore they would not let the children of Israel go. Now how could Pharaoh harden his own heart, and yet the Lord harden it at the same time? Just in the same way as too many of us are apt to make the Lord harden our hearts by hardening them ourselves, and to make, as Pharaoh did, the very things which the Lord sends to soften us the causes of our becoming more stubborn, the very things which the Lord sends to bring us to reason the means of our becoming more and more foolish. This is no old story with which we have nothing to do. What happened to Pharaoh’s heart may happen to yours, or mine, or any man’s. Alas! it does happen to many a man’s and woman’s heart every day; and may the Lord have mercy on them before it be too late! And yet how can the Lord have mercy on those who will not let Him have mercy on them? Suppose a man to be going on in some sinful habit. He comes to church, and there he hears the word of God by the Bible or in sermons, telling him that God commands him to give up his sin, that God will certainly punish him if he does not repent and amend. God sends that message to him in love and mercy to soften his heart by the terrors of the law and turn him from his sin. But what does the man feel? He feels angry and provoked: angry with the preacher; ay, angry with the Bible itself, with God’s words. For he hates to hear the words which tell him of his sin; he wishes they were not in the Bible; he longs to stop the preacher’s mouth; and as he cannot do that, he dislikes going to church. He says, I cannot, and, what is more, I will not, give up my sinful ways, and therefore I shall not go to church to be told of them. So he stops away from church, and goes on in his sins. So that man’s heart is hardened just as Pharaoh’s was. Yet the Lord has come and spoken to that sinful man in loving warnings, though all the effect it has had is that the Lord’s message has made him worse than he was before—more stubborn, more godless, more unwilling to hear what is good. But men may fall into a still worse state of mind. They may determine to set the Lord at naught; to hear Him speaking to conscience, and know that He is right and they wrong, and yet quietly put the good thoughts and feelings out of their way, and go on in the course which they know to be the worst. How many, when they come to church, harden their hearts, not caring enough for God’s message to be even angry with it, and take the preacher’s warnings as they would a shower of rain—as something unpleasant, which cannot be helped, and which therefore they must sit out patiently and think about as little as possible! And thus they let the Lord’s message to them harden their hearts.—Charles Kingsley.
The potter at work.—I have been out on the shore again, examining a native manufactory of pottery, and was delighted to find the whole biblical apparatus complete and in full operation. There was the potter sitting at his “frame “and turning the wheel with his foot. He had a heap of the prepared clay near him, and a pan of water by his side. Taking a lump in his hand, he placed it on the top of the wheel (which revolves horizontally) and smoothed it into a low cone, like the upper end of a sugar-loaf; then thrusting his thumb into the top of it, he opened a hole down through the centre, and this he constantly widened by pressing the edges of the revolving cone between his hands. As it enlarged and became thinner he gave it whatever shape he pleased with the utmost ease and expedition. This, I suppose, is the exact point of those biblical comparisons between the human and the divine Potter (Jer_18:6). And the same idea is found in many other passages. When Jeremiah was watching the potter the vessel was marred in his hand, and “so he made it again, another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.” I had to wait a long time for that, but it happened at last. From some defect in the clay, or because he had taken too little, the potter suddenly changed his mind, crushed his growing jar instantly into a shapeless mass of mud, and beginning anew, fashioned it into a totally different vessel.—Thomson, “The Land and the Book,” p. 520
God’s work in shaping our lives.—The wheel of time spins fast, but not carrying us away, changing but not destroying each separate individuality. In providence there are wheels within wheels. We do not understand their meaning. The clay is pressed now below into a solid base, now above into a dainty rim, but it is difficult to see what the final outcome will be till all is finished. So our lives are pressed on one side and on another; something which in our eyes is indispensable is taken away, something which to us seems needless is added. But out of the dizzy whirl, the rush and confusion of life, God is steadily working out His purpose.—W. F. Adeney, “Pulpit Commentary.”
Men harden themselves.—The sins of men are freely committed. They are the effects and indications of evil dispositions of heart; and they are done with the free consent and choice of their wills. No sin could expose to wrath otherwise; nay, otherwise there could be no such thing as sin at all; all sin implying, in the very idea of it, the consent of the will. The very essence of all that is sinful lies in this. If a man were used, either by God or by a fellow-sinner, as a mere physical machine, he could not be a sinner. Now, every man who sins, sins with his will. Make what you like of God’s secret purposes, it is a matter of fact which there is no questioning that they do, in no way and in no degree, interfere with the perfect liberty of the agent. Every sinner is sensible that he acts from choice; that neither, on the one hand, is he constrained to evil, nor, on the other, restrained from good. To say, in regard to the latter—that which is good—that man cannot will it, is to employ terms most inconsiderate and misleading. What hinders him from willing? It is obvious that the word cannot must mean a moral inability. It is neither more nor less than the absence of right dispositions. But the indisposition to that which is good is just, in other words, the want of will to that which is good; and there being no other inability whatever in man than this moral inability—this unwillingness—to say he cannot will resolves itself ultimately into he will not will, inasmuch as he is kept from willing good by nothing but his aversion to good. All that can properly be meant by human freedom is the absence of all constraint and of all restraint. Man is at liberty to do whatever he wills; and if he does not will good, what is it that prevents him but his love of evil? He likes evil, and dislikes good; and therefore, in practice, chooses and does the one, and rejects and refrains from doing the other. These are truths sufficiently plain and simple; and they serve to show the meaning of the expression which follows—“fitted to destruction.”—Dr. Wardlaw.
God’s long-suffering.—It is evident that the idea of “patience and long-suffering” implies the existence of a tendency in a contrary direction, arising from something in the nature or character of the Being by whom it is exercised, and that the difficulty of its exercise bears proportion to the strength of that tendency. Now, the holiness of God is infinitely opposed to all sin. He hates it with a hatred that is properly and absolutely infinite. “He is of purer eyes than to behold evil; neither can He look upon iniquity.” And while His holiness abhors it, His justice calls for its punishment—its punishment to the full extent of its deserts. In proportion, then, to the strength of these principles of the divine character is the difficulty (if it be lawful so to express it) of forbearance with those by whom it is practised—the workers of iniquity. By considering the amount of evil thought and felt, and said and done, in this world of ours every successive moment, I might set the amount of the longsuffering of a holy God before your minds in many and impressive lights. But I must forbear; it would lead me too far away from my one point. Now, by this longsuffering, the great majority of men, alas! are only encouraged in evil—hardened in their unbelief and impenitence and ungodly courses: “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil” (Ecc_8:11). They thus criminally, because wilfully, and from the love of evil, abuse the divine goodness; and, by the abuse of it, “fit themselves for destruction”: “Despisest thou the riches of His goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God” (Rom_2:4-5). Others, dealt with in the same “longsuffering,” are at times, after very protracted and obstinate resistance of the means of grace—of the word and providence of God (His word in all its variety of appeals and motives, and His providence in all its variety of dispensations, prosperous and adverse)—subdued to repentance, “turned to God.” Their hearts relent, they believe, and are saved. Toward both of these classes of persons there has been shown, on the part of God, “much longsuffering.” To many a believer—especially to such as have been converted later in life than others—might I make my appeal for the truth of this. Many a heart would melt, and many an eye would glisten with the tear of shame and of humble and grateful joy, in recollecting the past and comparing it with the present, and reflecting how long they held out against a longsuffering God; ay, and to many an unbelieving sinner, now going on in his trespasses, in despite of the patience of a holy, sin-hating, but merciful God, who is still “waiting to be gracious,” might I make a similar appeal—an appeal to which, whatever impression it might make or fail to make upon his heart, his conscience would secretly and faithfully, and perhaps stingingly, respond.—Dr. Wardlaw.
The hardening of Pharaoh’s heart.—Oh, my friends, this is a fearful thought—that man can become worse by God’s loving desire to make him better! But so it is. So it was with Pharaoh of old. All God’s pleading with him by the message of Moses and Aaron, by the mighty plagues which God sent on Egypt, only hardened Pharaoh’s heart. The Lord God spoke to him, and His message only lashed Pharaoh’s proud and wicked will into greater fury and rebellion, as a vicious horse becomes the more unmanageable the more you punish it. Therefore it is said plainly in Scripture that the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart—not, as some fancy, that the Lord’s will was to make Pharaoh hard-hearted and wicked. God forbid! The Lord is the fountain of good only, and not He but we and the devil make evil. But the more the Lord pleaded with Pharaoh and tried to bend his will, the more self-willed he became. The more the Lord showed Pharaoh that the Lord was king, the more he hated the kingdom and will of God, the more he determined to be king himself and to obey no law but his own wicked fancies and pleasures, and asked, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey Him?”—Charles Kingsley.
The potter and clay.—But some may say, Is not that a gloomy and terrible notion of God that He cannot change His purpose? Is not that as much as to say that there is a dark necessity hanging over each of us; that a man must be just what God chooses, and do just what He has ordained to do, and go to everlasting happiness or misery exactly as God has foreordained from all eternity; so that there is no use trying to do right or not to do wrong? If I am to be saved, say such people, I shall be saved whether I try or not; and if I am to be damned, I shall be damned whether I try or not. I am in God’s hands, like clay in the hands of the potter, and what I am like is therefore God’s business and not mine. No! The very texts in the Bible which tell us that God cannot change or repent, tell us what it is that He cannot change in—in showing lovingkindness and tender mercy, longsuffering and repenting of the evil. Whatsoever else He cannot repent of, He cannot repent of repenting of the evil. It is true we are in His hand as clay in the hand of the potter. But it is a sad misreading of Scripture to make that mean that we are to sit with our hands folded, careless about our own way and conduct—still less that we are to give ourselves up to despair because we have sinned against God: for what is the very verse which follows after that? Listen: “O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the Lord. Behold, as clay is in the hands of the potter, so are ye in My hand, O house of Israel. At what instant I shall speak concerning a kingdom, to pull down and destroy it; if that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil which I thought to do to them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; if it do evil in My sight, that it obey not My voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.” So that the lesson which we are to draw from the parable of the potter’s clay is just the exact opposite which some men draw. Not that God’s decrees are absolute, but that they are conditional, and depend on our good or evil conduct. Not that His election and His reprobation are unalterable, but that they alter at that instant at which man alters. Not that His grace and will are irresistible, as the foolish man against whom St. Paul argues fancies, but that we can resist God’s will, and that our destruction comes only by resisting His will: in short, that God’s will is no brute, material necessity and fate, but the will of a living, loving Father.—Charles Kingsley.
God’s sovereignty not to be arraigned by men.—There are some persons so partial to what we may call the high doctrines of the gospel that they can scarcely endure to hear anything else: they are like persons whose taste is vitiated by strong drink or highly seasoned food; they have no appetite for anything which does not savour of their favourite opinions. This is a great evil in the Church, not only as injuring the souls in whom it exists, but as tending exceedingly to strengthen the prejudices of others against the doctrines which are so abused. Those who are thus disposed towards “the deep things of God” fancy themselves edified merely because their corrupt taste is gratified; but their edification is not real and scriptural, for if it were it would incline them to receive with meekness and humility every word of God, whereas they treat with contempt everything which seems to savour of plain, practical religion. We regret exceedingly that such persons exist; but we must not on their account run into an opposite extreme, and keep these doctrines altogether out of sight: we must not shun to declare unto men the whole counsel of God. Whatever is revealed in the sacred records must be brought forth in its season; nor are we at liberty to “withhold from men anything that may be profitable unto them.” We therefore address ourselves to every subject in its place, though on such subjects as that which is before us we would do it with fear and trembling, conscious how unable we are to do justice to it, and fearful lest by any means we should make it an occasion of offence to those who are not prepared for the investigation of it. The sovereignty of God is to the proud heart of man an unpalatable subject; but in the passage before us we are called to vindicate it against the objections of those who are disposed, like the Jew in our text, to contend against it. To place the matter in its true light, we shall consider:—
I. The point at issue between the objector and St. Paul.—St. Paul had intimated that the Jews were to be rejected from, and that the Gentiles were to be admitted into, the Church—an offensive subject to the Jews. They are represented as declaring that if God exercise sovereignty in this way, the blame of man’s condemnation must be transferred to God Himself, since it was impossible for a man to resist His will. To this objection we must now reply—
II. The apostle’s determination of it.—St. Paul, hearing such a blasphemous objection as this, “Why doth God yet find fault? for who hath resisted His will?” replies to it in a way of just reprehension. “O man, who art thou that repliest against God?” Consider thyself as a creature; consider thyself as a sinner. In a way of sound argument two things St. Paul proceeds to substantiate against his objector—one, that God had a right to dispose of everything according to His sovereign will and pleasure, and the other was that in the way He had hitherto disposed of them and had determined still to dispose of them He was fully justified. We may conclude with suggesting—
III. The proper improvement of the subject, which offers important hints to objectors. Strange that even Christians should determine what will and what will not consist with the divine attributes! But be assured as the heavens are high above the earth, so are His thoughts and ways higher than yours. There are many who speak of the deep things of God as if they were as plain and intelligible as the simplest truth that can be mentioned. It becomes you doubtless to investigate, and as far as possible to understand, every truth of God; but in things so infinitely above the reach of human intellect it becomes you to be humble, modest, diffident. To all persons without exception, you have other things to do than to be wasting your time about unprofitable disputes—you are now under the hands of the Potter. The question that most concerns you is, For what are you preparing? In order to ascertain this you need not look into the book of God’s decrees, but simply examine the state of your own hearts. Are you diligently seeking after God? Are you living by faith on the Lord Jesus Christ, washing daily in the fountain of His blood, and renewed daily by the operations of His Spirit? This will mark you vessels of honour; and the want of this is sufficient to stamp you vessels unto dishonour.—Simeon.
Predestination of the vessel not its fabrication.—The all-important point for the interpretation of these verses is to decide when the act of forming the vessels took place. Does this operation represent the predestination or the moral government of God in actual time? A word of Rom_9:23 decides this question without giving ground for the least hesitation. This word is the key of the whole passage, and, strange to say, it is omitted by Luther and by the French translations anterior to that of Lausanne. It is the word “afore”—“which He has prepared afore for His glory.” The predestination of the vessel, then, is not its fabrication; it precedes it. Thus, then, when God is compared to a potter who fashions the clay, the question is about His actual treatment of sinners. They are before Him one identical mass, vile and shapeless. To make the one portion vessels unto dishonour, to make them promote His glory without bettering their condition, is to treat them according to their nature; to make the other portion vessels unto honour is to treat them according to His grace which has been given them in Christ before the foundation of the world. As to the vessels of wrath, God is not the author of their nature, but only of their form; He has fashioned them, but He has not “prepared” them; their form is already a merited punishment; He shows therein His wrath. Could one believe that God was irritated against those who would be such as He had wished them to be? Would He need “a grand long-suffering” to endure His own work in the state which He had Himself determined? Has He raised with one hand what He has overturned with the other? Such a doctrine ends by doing violence to that reason in the name of which it has outraged our moral sentiments. It is clear, then, that the potter’s relation to the vessels of wrath is that of the fashioner of material made ready to his hand. He is not to be blamed if the coarse clay will only make a dishonoured vessel. The preparation of the clay, the contraction of its coarse character, has been anterior to the potter’s disposal of it. All he can do is to determine the destination which suits the nature of the provided clay. In the same way God is not to be held responsible for the coarse characters sinners contract in the process of their development. They have exercised their freedom in reaching the condition when, like clay, they lie before the great Potter’s wheel. All that God can be held responsible for is the form as vessels of dishonour they are to take; and if He show His deserved wrath in disposing of them as dishonoured vessels, He is acting well within His rights. It is in the disposal of incorrigible sinners, in suffering long with them, and in at last dooming them to destruction, that He displays the severe side of His character—that side without which He could not ensure our respect. As for this wrath of God, it has been very happily denominated by some of the Germans “the love-pain [Liebesschmerz] of God.” There is in our chapter only one predestination, that of grace; and not only that, but the words of the apostle are weighed and chosen to prevent all misapprehension: the one are ready or fit for perdition, the other are prepared for glory; the first, it is not God who has made them ready—on the contrary, He endures them “with a grand long-suffering”; the latter, it is God who has prepared them. Still more, He has prepared them afore. Were it not for the care with which the idea of reprobation is here put aside, I should never have supposed that such a dogma had presented itself to the spirit of a sacred writer. Paul makes on purpose an antithetic parallelism, as he had done (Rom_6:23) between wages and gift, and this parallelism finds itself in all the members of the sentence. God shows His anger towards the wicked and the riches of His glory towards the saved; but the latter, the mercy, is altogether gratuitous. If He wish to make the power known (Rom_9:22), it is not His power to create evil, but to punish it; and how to punish evil if not by evil, how to show His anger towards the clay unless by making the vessels unto dishonour.—Monsell.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 9
Rom_9:21. Vessels of honour and dishonour.—A certain minister, having changed his views of some parts of divine truth, was waited upon by an old acquaintance, who wished to reclaim him to his former creed. Finding he could not succeed in his object, he became warm, and told his friend in plain terms that God had given him “up to strong delusion,” and that he was “a vessel of wrath fitted to destruction.” “I think, brother,” replied the one who was charged with the departure from the faith with great calmness—“I think, brother, that you have mistaken the sense of the passage you last referred to. Vessels are denominated according to their contents. A chemist, in conducting a stranger through his laboratory, would say, ‘This is a vessel of turpentine, that of vitriol,’ etc., always giving to the vessel the name of the article it contains. Now when I see a man full of the holy and lovely Spirit of Christ, devoted to His service, and imitating His example, I say that man is a vessel of mercy, whom God hath afore-prepared unto glory; but when I see a man full of everything but the spirit of the Bible—opposed to the moral government of God, seeking his own things rather than those which are Christ’s—and filled with malice, wrath, and all uncharitableness. I am compelled to consider him ‘a vessel of wrath fitted to destruction.’ ”
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On vv11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 20, 21, 22 11. “For the children not having yet been born,…
11. “For the children not having yet been born, nor done anything good nor evil, in order that the purposes of God may stand according to election, not of works but of him that calleth.” This was because Jacob was elected to the progenitorship before he was born, and Esau reprobated from the same. Yet the atonement was as free and efficacious for Esau as for Isaac, for the Arabs as the Jews.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain On vv11–22 for the children being not yet born, neither having…
for the children being not yet born, neither having done anything good [as might be supposed of Jacob] or bad [as might be presumed of Esau], that the purpose of God according to election [choosing] might stand [might be made apparent and be fully and finally confirmed], not of works, but of him that calleth [not a choosing enforced on God by the irresistible, meritorious claims of man, in keeping the law of works, human and divine; but a free choosing on God's part manifested in his calling those who suit his purpose],
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv14, 19, 22 The Divine Sovereignty and Its Result.
The Divine Sovereignty and Its Result.
A serious objection answered:
Read full note →
v. 14. What shall we say, then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid!
v. 15. for He saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
v. 16. So, then, it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy.
v. 17. For the Scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show My power in thee, and that My name might be declared throughout all the earth.
v. 18. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth.
What inference shall we draw from the argument as presented in the first part of the chapter? The apostle makes ready to meet an objection which he anticipates, not only on the part of the Jews, but on the part of every person that might read these words, namely, that the sovereign freedom of God is essentially unjust. He shows that God does not act unjustly in His sovereign choice, since he claims for Himself in Scriptures the liberty both to favor and to harden as He will. With horror, therefore, the apostle rejects the insinuation: Surely we cannot sap that there is unrighteousness with God? By no means! The principles which the sovereign God chooses for His own actions cannot be unjust, even if our weak human understanding should feel inclined to draw that conclusion. And the apostle quotes a passage from the solemn interview of God with Moses, Exo 33:18-19, to prove His contention. God there said to Moses: Mercy I will show to whomsoever I will show mercy, and compassion I will have upon whomsoever I will have compassion. The mercy and compassion of God have their foundation in God only, in His mercy and compassion; they depend solely upon His own sovereign will; He is responsible to no one outside of Himself; He must render an account to no one but Himself; He is under no obligation to any man. It is important to note that these words were spoken in the case of Moses, for in His case, if in that of any person in the world, the Lord might have been induced to make an exception. But since the same rule was applied in his case as in that of all other men, Paul concludes: So, then, it is not a matter of him that wills nor of him that runs, but of God that manifests mercy. In no way is the merciful application of God’s compassion dependent upon the efforts and endeavors of men, but solely upon God. And what God thus declares to be right and good by that token is right and good. The apostle rests his case upon two assumptions, namely, that the Scripture from which he quotes is the Word of God, and that no act of God can be actually unrighteous. And so he has answered every objection.
But still Paul is not satisfied. He wants to demonstrate also from the case of one that has experienced God’s wrath and displeasure that there is no unrighteousness and injustice in God. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, Exo 9:16: To this end have I had thee arise, come forward, appear in history, that I might show in thee My power, and that My name might be proclaimed in all the earth. That was the reason why the Pharaoh of Scriptures appeared on the stage of history, that he might he an example of the revelation of God’s power, the power which is able to effect the destruction of obstinate sinners. And this design of God having been accomplished, Exo 9:15-17, the account of the punishment of Pharaoh and the deliverance of the children of Israel was spread far and wide among the heathen nations and served to establish the judgment and justice, the glory of God. And so Moses concludes, taking Pharaoh as a type of the hardened sinners: So, then, God has mercy upon whom He will, but whom He will He hardens. The example of Pharaoh shows the terrible effect of self-hardening. God has thoughts of grace and mercy toward all men, He seriously wants the salvation of all men. He offers His gifts of mercy to all without exception, 1Ti 2:4; Rom 11:32; Eze 33:11. God had extended His call also to Pharaoh; He sent His messengers to him, He pleaded with him, He chastised him to lead him to the way of repentance and righteousness. But the proud king refused to heed each and every offer; he deliberately turned from the attempts of God to direct his feet to the way of peace. And therefore God finally delivered him to his evil mind and intention; He withdrew His hand, His saving grace, from him. That was the judgment by which the heart of Pharaoh was hardened.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv14, 17, 19, 22 What then will we say?
What then will we say?
Paul is using the question to get the attention of his readers. (See: Rhetorical Question)
Read full note →
May it never be
"That is not possible!" or "Certainly not!" This expression strongly denies that this could happen. You may have a similar expression in your language that you could use here.
For he says to Moses
Paul speaks about God's talking with Moses as if it is being done in the present time. AT: "For God said to Moses" (See: Metaphor)
it is not because of him who wills, nor because of him who runs
"it is not because of what people want or because they try hard"
nor because of him who runs
Paul speaks of a person who does good things in order to gain God's favor as if that person were running a race. (See: Metaphor)
translationWords
righteous
Moses
mercy
compassion
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 20 9:12 “Your older son will serve your younger son”:…
9:12 “Your older son will serve your younger son”: God spoke these words to Rebekah before the twins were born (Gen 25:23). As the older of the twins, Esau was Isaac’s natural heir. But Esau sold his birthright to Jacob and ceded his position to his brother in fulfillment of God’s promise.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.