(Bible)
With the two examples given, Paul has abolished all hope of a sinner working his way to God. He has now handed over all power and all sovereignty to God. Now Paul goes on in these verses to prove the absolute sovereignty of God in bringing the "children of promise" to himself.
Notice here as well as in verse 19, this is the common response by anyone who is confronted with the doctrines of election or predestination. The first objection shown here in verse 14 is that there is injustice with God. To save some and to look over others and they can do nothing, doesn't that make God unjust? "Certainly not!" is the answer Paul gives. It would be interesting to see if any other ideas of election such as that of the Arminian or a "corporate" electionist would warrant such an expression as Paul just gave. All other ideas attempt to give man some credit in his election, but this simply is not true. Men attempt to bend the scriptures to fit within our understanding, but this doctrine of election is something we must accept. As Piper has said, "it is better that our minds be broken, than that the scriptures be broken."
For an outline's sake, I'll break this into two parts. How God deals with His chosen people (v.15,16), and how He deals with the reprobate, or the ones He passes over (v.17,18).
I. Dealings With The Elect
"I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion." Paul has just said that God is certainly not unjust, he now proves the denial. As Matthew Henry says on this verse, "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"(Henry). In other words, God has to give us no reason why it is He has mercy on some and not others. Charles Spurgeon once gave an example of 10 beggars on a street and a man walks by and decides to give some money to only one of the beggars, is this man unjust for not giving the others some money? Of course not, it is his money he does with it as he pleases, in fact he didn't have to give any of them money, but he did. And so it is with God. "God makes some vessels of wrath according to their merit; other vessels of mercy according to His grace"(Calvin's editor note).
"So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy." "That none of you may think that they who are elected are elected because they are deserving"(Calvin). Henry makes a good point,
"Applying this general rule to the particular case that Paul has before him, the reason why the unworthy, undeserving, ill-deserving Gentiles are called...while the greatest part of the Jews are left to perish in unbelief, is not because those Gentiles were better desrving 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, they sat in darkness...He is found of those that sought Him not (Isa. 65:1)."II. Dealings With The Reprobate
"There seems to be something more unreasonable in this (the rejection of the ungodly), [Paul] endeavours to make it more fully evident, how God, in rejecting whom He wills, is not only irreprehensible, but also wonderful in His wisdom and justice"(Calvin).
Paul comes to how God deals with Pharoah from Exodus. God raised up Pharoah, "For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth"(Exodus 9:16). "Thus doth God raise up sinners, make them for himself even for the day of evil (Prov. 16:4), raise them up in outward prosperity, external privelages (Matt. 11:23), sparing mercies"(Henry). For what reason? "That I may show my power in [them], and that My name may be declared in all the earth." "God would...serve the honour of His name, and manifest His power in baffling the pride and insolence of that great tyrant, who bade defiance to Heaven itself, and trampled upon all that was just and sacred. If Pharoah has not been so high and mighty, so bold and hardy, the power of God had not been so illustrious in the ruining of him"(Henry).
III. "Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens."
Matthew Henry puts it beautifully:
"The various dealings of God...must be resolved into His absolute sovereignty. He is debtor to no man, His grace is His own, and He may give it or withold it as it pleaseth Him; we have none of us deserved it, nay, we have all justly forfeited it a thousand time, 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...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 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."Citation:
*Piper Sermons
*Calvin Commentaries on Romans
*Matthew Henry Commentaries on Romans
*C.H. Spurgeon
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