by Matthew W. Bassford<\/p>\n
If there is any passage in the Bible that Calvinists love, it is Romans 9:6-24. Upon a casual reading, it seems to confirm the Calvinist doctrine of predestination. It talks at great length about God’s mercy and God’s choice being the deciding factors in human existence, and in the context, Paul cites a number of Old Testament figures to prove his point. When first I began to study the Bible on my own, this context intimidated me.<\/p>\n
However, as is often the case, when we consider this text in a wider context, it takes on a different meaning. Paul’s goal in Romans 9-11 is not to explain the salvation or damnation of individuals; it is to explain why the physical nation of Israel, despite having received God’s promises, largely has rejected Jesus and His salvation. Romans 10:6 implies the question Paul is answering: has the word of God failed?<\/p>\n
In response, Paul argues that the promises to the patriarchs are not fulfilled through their fleshly descendants (physical Israel) but through the children of the promise (Christians). It always has been this way; according to the flesh, Ishmael and Esau should have been the heirs of the promise, but God chose Isaac and Jacob as heirs.<\/p>\n
In this, Paul continues, God is not being unjust. If He wants to show mercy to Christians instead of Israelites, He has the right to do that, and if He wants to use Israel as a tool to make known His glorified people from all races, He can do that too.<\/p>\n
None of this has anything to do with the predestination or salvation of individuals. Ishmael was not automatically lost because he was not the heir of the promise; in fact, we know nothing about his salvation or condemnation. The same is true of Esau. In many ways, he looks like a more righteous man than his younger brother [even though he is later condemned as an immoral man in Hebrews 12:15-17].<\/p>\n
The issue of Pharaoh is trickier. As Paul’s quotation from Exodus 9:16 shows, God did indeed raise Pharaoh up so that He would be glorified through him. However, at least for a time, Pharaoh had a choice about how God would be glorified. Cyrus-like (compare Isaiah 45:1-6), Pharaoh could have let God’s people go immediately, which would have made the book of Exodus much shorter and less interesting.<\/p>\n
However, that’s not the choice that Pharaoh made. Though God did harden Pharaoh’s heart later (in much the same way that I might harden my wife’s heart by doing something that I know drives her buggo), the first time that Pharaoh’s hard heart is attributed to anybody, it’s attributed to Pharaoh, in Exodus 8:15. Now, God only could be glorified through Pharaoh’s humbling and destruction.<\/p>\n
All of these Old-Testament characters are introduced, though, only to prove Paul’s main point. God can do whatever He wants with the physical nation of Israel, and He can do whatever He wants with the spiritual nation of Christians. Only the second nation will be saved, but as Paul’s own example proves, there was nothing hindering Jews from joining spiritual Israel except for their own hardheartedness.<\/p>\n
The same holds true for us today. We know which group will be saved. Whether we belong to that group is up to us.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Matthew W. Bassford If there is any passage in the Bible that Calvinists love, it is Romans 9:6-24. Upon a casual reading, it seems to confirm the Calvinist doctrine of predestination. It talks at great length about God’s mercy and God’s choice being the deciding factors in human existence, and in the context, Paul…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[59,562,120],"class_list":["post-39328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-calvinism","tag-predestination","tag-romans"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":35226,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-sovereign-love-of-god\/","url_meta":{"origin":39328,"position":0},"title":"The Sovereign Love of God","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 11, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"An Examination of Romans 9 by Bruce Reeves Introduction June 23,24,26,27, 2005, Bruce Reeves debated Calvinistic Baptist Gene Cook on the campus of the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, Arkansas. The first two nights Mr. Cook affirmed, \"The scriptures teach that the alien sinner is forgiven of his past\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":53774,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/a-tale-of-two-gods\/","url_meta":{"origin":39328,"position":1},"title":"A Tale of Two Gods","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 2, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"How Calvinism's God and the Bible's God are Two Very Different God's by Ben Giselbach One very popular denominational preacher and writer, John Piper, is famous for saying that \"all things\" - even down to the subatomic level - \"are ordained, guided, and governed\" by God.\u00a0[1]\u00a0The idea that God determines\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":69853,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/predestination\/","url_meta":{"origin":39328,"position":2},"title":"Predestination","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 19, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"by Kyle Campbell Are some people predestined to be saved while others are predestined to be lost? If this is true, would it make any difference for one to do right if he is predestinated to be lost? Predestination is definitely a Bible topic, but not in the way that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":26677,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/does-romans-9-support-calvinism\/","url_meta":{"origin":39328,"position":3},"title":"Does Romans 9 support Calvinism?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 10, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I have been worrying over Calvinism. Could you help me understand Romans 9:20-22 and Romans 9:11-16? In verse 13 you can read of Esau being hated which is after verse 12 where you can read about the older will serve the younger. Calvinist may use this to support their\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":37783,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/calvinism-and-the-great-commission\/","url_meta":{"origin":39328,"position":4},"title":"Calvinism and the Great Commission","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 10, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"by Wayne Jackson John Calvin (1509-64) was a religious reformer and theologian. The basic premise of his theology was the absolute sovereignty (right to reign) of God, out of which evolved his misguided theory of \"predestination.\" The Swiss reformer believed that human \"free will\" was destroyed by man's \"original sin\";\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":28769,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/spiritual-illumination\/","url_meta":{"origin":39328,"position":5},"title":"Spiritual Illumination","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 4, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jeffrey W. Hamilton Text: II Corinthians 3 \u00a0 I.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0What does it take to understand the Bible? \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I had one woman object to an article stating that the Ten Commandments were not directly in effect because they were a part of the Old Law. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a01.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0She told me to read several\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Audio"","block_context":{"text":"Audio","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/audio\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39328\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}