Romans 9:14-23 His Mercies Are New Every Morning
The Text
Romans 9:14–23 (CSB)
14 What should we say then? Is there injustice with God? Absolutely not!15 For he tells Moses, I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
16 So then, it does not depend on human will or effort but on God who shows mercy.
17 For the Scripture tells Pharaoh, I raised you up for this reason so that I may display my power in you and that my name may be proclaimed in the whole earth.
18 So then, he has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
19 You will say to me, therefore, “Why then does he still find fault? For who resists his will?”
20 On the contrary, who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? Will what is formed say to the one who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?”
21 Or has the potter no right over the clay, to make from the same lump one piece of pottery for honor and another for dishonor?
22 And what if God, wanting to display his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience objects of wrath prepared for destruction?
23 And what if he did this to make known the riches of his glory on objects of mercy that he prepared beforehand for glory—
The Introduction
14 What should we say then? Is there injustice with God? Absolutely not!
New Daily Mercies: God is perfectly just
To understand anything about God--that is his love, mercy, grace, salvation, election--we must understand that God is perfectly just.
In the 1689 Chapter 2.1, among all the attributes of God like
most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; the rewarder of them that diligently seek him
perfectly and without conflict coincide with:
and withal most just and terrible in his judgments, hating all sin, and who will by no means clear the guilty.
Our world cannot fathom this. That we hate sin and therefore we are judgmental and hate those who commit sins that either we don't struggle with or it is the sin that we absolute struggle with. I am quick to point out and be upset when some guy is acting like a jerk but that is me. I am that jerkwad.
Or someone struggles with a particular sin and you look down your nose at them because by God's sheer grace, you don't struggle with that sin--yet, you might catch yourself thinking you are better than them. (For the uninformed, that is pride.)
Yet, this is what makes God so mysterious. God is fully love and compassionate and kind and yet "withal most just and terrible in his judgments, hating all sin, and who will by no means clear the guilty." In other words, God absolutely get to have it both ways.
Because God is holy and without sin, he must be just. We beg him to be just against those who do us harm but when we harm, we beg for mercy. >15 For he tells Moses, I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
New Daily Mercies: God is perfectly merciful
We might all be familiar with the story of Noah. But let us start with Genesis 6 verse 1 and see the state of mankind before evoking the right judgment of God.
Genesis 6:1–8 (CSB) When mankind began to multiply on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of mankind were beautiful, and they took any they chose as wives for themselves. And the LORD said, “My Spirit will not remain with mankind forever, because they are corrupt. Their days will be 120 years.” The Nephilim were on the earth both in those days and afterward, when the sons of God came to the daughters of mankind, who bore children to them. They were the powerful men of old, the famous men. When the LORD saw that human wickedness was widespread on the earth and that every inclination of the human mind was nothing but evil all the time, the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and he was deeply grieved. Then the LORD said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I created, off the face of the earth, together with the animals, creatures that crawl, and birds of the sky—for I regret that I made them.”
Read that passage again. Whom was corrupt? Who was wickedness? How bad did it get? Did some or every inclination of the human mind was towards evil?
Noah...
Stop right there. This is not a trick question. What Noah human? Was he part of mankind.
Now before this point, what did we just read? If Noah was man and man was corrupt, wicked, and the mind of man was bent and thought evil all the time...
Was Noah wicked?
Was Noah corrupt?
Did Noah think evil thoughts continually?
Go back to Romans 9:15. What did he tell Moses?
I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
What did Noah do to deserve mercy? What did Noah do to deserve compassion?
Forget what you might heard in Sunday School. Remember the gospel.
Romans 3:23 (CSB) For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God;
Did God regret making Noah? He absolutely did.
Could God rightfully wipe Noah off the face of the earth? He would be well within his rights.
But look at our God
Genesis 6:8 (CSB) Noah, however, found favor with the LORD.
God gave Noah his grace. Doesn't that sound familiar? Yes, that is what we call the good news of God! That is the gospel of God!
Noah was just as wicked as everybody around him. But for no reason other than the sovereign grace of our great Lord, he saved Noah.
Titus 3:3–5 (CSB) For we too were once foolish, disobedient, deceived, enslaved by various passions and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, detesting one another. But when the kindness of God our Savior and his love for mankind appeared, he saved us—not by works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy—through the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit.
If we know that gospel is true and that the Scriptures do not contradict one another, then what happened to Noah after God gave him saving grace? You know the gospel.
Read on in Genesis 6:
Genesis 6:9 (CSB) These are the family records of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among his contemporaries; Noah walked with God.
Noah did not earn his salvation. For:
Romans 3:10–12 (CSB) as it is written: There is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away; all alike have become worthless. There is no one who does what is good, not even one.
God alone is gracious. God alone is merciful. God alone has perfect compassion. You did not deserve for God to look your way. But he did. He didn't saw you were a pretty good person in needing of a God to get you to that next level so you can go on living your best life. NO!
He foreknew you. He foreknew just how far you were from him.
16 So then, it does not depend on human will or effort but on God who shows mercy.
New Daily Mercies: God is perfectly giving
John 1:11–13 (CSB) He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, he gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born, not of natural descent, or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man, but of God.
Ephesians 1:3–6 (CSB) Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ. For he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him. He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he lavished on us in the Beloved One.
Ephesians 2:1–5 (CSB) And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the disobedient. We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace!
Well, that is just Paul who talks about that. He doesn't really mean predestined. Except:
John 15:16-17 (CSB) You did not choose me, but I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce fruit and that your fruit should remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you. “This is what I command you: Love one another.
1 John 4:9-10 (CSB) God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him. Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
We can do this all day.
Our God
Romans 9:17–18 (CSB) For the Scripture tells Pharaoh, I raised you up for this reason so that I may display my power in you and that my name may be proclaimed in the whole earth. So then, he has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
New Daily Mercies: God is perfectly holy
“That attribution of greatness and goodness to God can be summed up as “He is holy,” because holiness incorporates both greatness and goodness.” 1
Could this Pharaoh been saved by God? There is no doubt. The Bible needs not go into every sinful detail of Pharaoh's heart. But his actions: let us never forget that Pharaoh's father declared war on God's people. That Pharaoh, with his massive army, and chariots, and horses, and machines of war did not attack the able-bodied men of Israel nor even the women.
But he attempted to slaughter every Jewish baby boy.
And that Pharaoh raised up this Pharaoh to think of himself to be a god.
And God sent Moses and Aaron to preach the gospel, "Pharaoh, you are not god. I Am is God alone. So let his people go!"
God sent 9 terrible plagues. And the Pharaoh hardened his heart over and over again.
On the 10th plague, the Bible never said Pharaoh soften his heart towards God. No! The Pharaoh was never repented over himself being a god. Pharaoh was sad that his narcissism and folly bore consequences--the death of his oldest son. Paul called that "worldly sorrow." That's not salvation. We know that. God always knew that. Pharaoh could have repented, let the Israelites go, and surely God would have blessed the Egyptians. It did not have to end like this. But it did.
God is holy. Make war against a holy God, this is what you should expect to happen--God will stop at nothing to make all things right with him.
Our world makes war against him. From Genesis 3 onward. Every day with with every action and every thought, we puny, feeble, weak, depraved little humans make war against God.
What does God do? Wipes off the face of the earth? That day is coming.
But he sends his Son to proclaim to all of mankind, "you are not gods, I am God. Put your sins upon me, and you shall be free indeed."
Don't reject the gospel. Take the free gift. He is holy. Take the free gift.
19 You will say to me, therefore, “Why then does he still find fault? For who resists his will?”
New Daily Mercies: God is perfectly sovereign
We might wage war against God but it is not dualistic. Dualism suggest that there are two nearly equal powers struggling against one another. It's like Jesus and Satan arm wrestling over the souls of man:
We know that is ridiculous. Yet, without the preaching of the good news to ourselves, we will default and try to war with and manipulate the will of God. Open Theism suggests that God doesn't know the future and we can bend his will towards our whims. If you think there is no church on earth who does that, think again. It is what Galatians (and the Bible) preaches against: upper tier, upper class Christianity. If you believe hard enough, do enough good works, give a lot of money, or read your Bible enough, or pray enough--the end goal of getting humans to do more stuff is so that God will do what we want him to do.
Romans 4 absolutely declares we do not put God in our debt.
God is sovereign. Which means that God is free to do what he pleases--and he does. But it means that God is Almighty--which means if God wants to do it, he can absolutely do it. 2
20-21 On the contrary, who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? Will what is formed say to the one who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?” Or has the potter no right over the clay, to make from the same lump one piece of pottery for honor and another for dishonor?
New Daily Mercies: God is perfectly Creator
Consider
“If God is eternally righteous, then it is unthinkable that He would ever sin. If it is unthinkable for God to sin, and if He created all things, how can there be evil in the world? Why, within His universe and under His sovereignty, are creatures like us running loose and doing evil? The confession says that God not only permits us to sin, but in His sovereignty He ordains that we sin. Paul anticipates this objection from the creature: “You will say to me then, ‘Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?’ But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, ‘Why have you made me like this?’” (Rom. 9:19–20).” R. C. Sproul. Truths We Confess.
Our desire for autonomy is at war with the One who created us and everything around us.
In Genesis 2, God gave mankind dominion over his creation. In Genesis 3, because we sinned and disobey God, we lost that dominion.
And as part of the Fall: our now born sin selves--whether it be our physical, mental, emotional, will, or heart--did not get that memo. We still think we have dominion over some part of creation. We see that in marriages and parenting. And the grossest part of it all: we think we have dominion and sovereignty over our lives.
But we were born into sin and keep sinning just like fathers did.
That is why Jesus is the last Adam: he came to perfectly obey God, and with his death and his resurrection, perfectly subdue all of creation. And that includes us.
Now, the rest of creation will submit to him and be made right-standing with him. With mankind, it is not so one direction.
22 And what if God, wanting to display his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience objects of wrath prepared for destruction?
New Daily Mercies: God is perfectly God
Matthew 13:36-43 (CSB) Then he left the crowds and went into the house. His disciples approached him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.”
He replied, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; the field is the world; and the good seed — these are the children of the kingdom. The weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. Therefore, just as the weeds are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will gather from his kingdom all who cause sin and those guilty of lawlessness. They will throw them into the blazing furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in their Father’s kingdom. Let anyone who has ears listen.
Either you are with him or not with him. There is no middle ground. There is no neutral field. There is no grading on a curve. I think R.C. Sproul said it best, "All paths do lead to God; only the narrow path through the Son gets the protection from his wrath."
John 3:36 (CSB) The one who believes in the Son has eternal life, but the one who rejects the Son will not see life; instead, the wrath of God remains on him.
As creation, we are subjected to Christ. All of us.
Philippians 2:9-11 (CSB) For this reason God highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee will bow —
in heaven and on earth
and under the earth —
and every tongue will confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
The question remains: do you bow your knee today or do you bow your knee, under the wrath of Christ in hell?
Choose on this day whom you will serve.
The Gospel
23 And what if he did this to make known the riches of his glory on objects of mercy that he prepared beforehand for glory—
New Daily Mercies: God is perfectly saving
If you have read Romans 9 thus far in light of Romans 1-8 and you still think "it's just about Israel", or "it's about Calvinism prooftext", or "God is a jerk", I don't know what to tell you.
This is the word of God through the lens of Romans 9:
God is Creator.
God is good.
God is holy.
God is just.
God punishes sin.
God is compassionate.
God is merciful.
And there is no one like him.
Our Response
What do you say and do in light of the Almighty power and sovereignty of God who alone is right and just and holy and does not and cannot tolerate even a drop of sin?
Proclaim this with David in Psalm 103 and magnify our great God!
Psalm 103:1–14 (CSB)
1 My soul, bless the LORD, and all that is within me, bless his holy name.2 My soul, bless the LORD, and do not forget all his benefits.
3 He forgives all your iniquity; he heals all your diseases.
4 He redeems your life from the Pit; he crowns you with faithful love and compassion.
5 He satisfies you with good things; your youth is renewed like the eagle.
6 The LORD executes acts of righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.
7 He revealed his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel.
8 The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love.
9 He will not always accuse us or be angry forever.
10 He has not dealt with us as our sins deserve or repaid us according to our iniquities.
11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his faithful love toward those who fear him.
12 As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
13 As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him.
14 For he knows what we are made of, remembering that we are dust.
God does not deal with us as our sins deserve.
God does not repay us according to our iniquities.
But he is not an apathetic deity who has chosen to look the other way. No!
For his children, for his people, for those whom he bought with the price of the death of his Son:
His love towards us is as high as the heavens are from the earth. (Please give me a rough estimate of the distance between heaven and earth. I will take miles, kilometers, or lightyears. The answer is below.) 3
And because he loves us so much, he took our sins and iniquities and removed them as far as the east is from the west. (Again, miles, kilometers, or lightyears. And again, the answer is below.) 4
Our Father God loves us and gives us all the compassion because he saved us.
He saved us because he knows we are made from dust--we are just mere mortals.
We know this because we have His Son, Jesus Christ, dwelling in our hearts forever.
Amen