Romans Chapter 9 cont'd
Again, I can anticipate what you may be tempted to think- "God is unjust for saving people on the basis of his choice to show mercy rather than on the basis of their own efforts." Right? Wrong! God made this point clear even in Moses' day when he said, "I will have mercy and compassion on whom I choose to show mercy and compassion." Our salvation therefore does not depend on our will power or our frantic efforts to earn it, but on God's willingness to show mercy. This truth is again reinforced in scripture when God said to Egypt's Pharaoh, "I have raised you up to your office of power to reveal my superior power. This will be showdown that will make me famous among all the nations of all ages." God has the power at his command to soften or harden people's hearts for his own righteous and higher purposes.
Now your natural mind will react by suggesting, "If no one can resist God's will, then how can he justly find fault with us weak human beings?" Here's my response- It's an illegal question for any of us to ask! We must refuse to attempt to explain the mystery of the interplay between the sovereignty of God and human responsibility in a way that is totally satisfying to us. God has intentionally left this philosophical "stumbling block" in our path to keep us mindful that we are his creation, not vice-versa. We're dealing with the all-knowing, all-powerful, and infinite Creator of all things here! How could we, or why should we, expect to fully comprehend his infinite mysteries with our finite minds? Doesn't he have the right to withhold some secrets from us to keep us humble and worshipful? A world full of morally fallen people is bad enough, what if we all possessed omniscience too?! As part of his "job description" as God, can't he do with mankind what he thinks best for the universe?
Comments:
We long to personally connect with Someone who is greater, better, more powerful, wiser, more loving, more just and more intelligent than we are. God has "put eternity in our hearts". And knowing him is the essence of life. Though we can truly come to know him through Jesus Christ and the scriptures and the Holy Spirit's work within us, truly, we do not know everything about him. That will be the "stuff" of infinite ages to come. The mystery of God messes with our minds, but it fuels our hearts. This is why Father has left us truths about him and his eternal kingdom that hold great mystery and tension at their center.
For too long the Church, under the cultural pressure of modernism, has been progressively embarrassed and almost ashamed about the great mysteries of our faith. Ironically, now the Western cultural winds have shifted and people are starving to touch and be touched by...mystery. So much so...that they often open their minds so widely that their brains fall out! We owe an apology to our secularized culture for caving to the pressure in decades past to denude our faith from the greatest mysteries the world has ever known.
To bring it down to the personal level...I like to say to myself and others..."Is it alright with you if God is and does certain things that I can't fully explain in a philosophically pleasing way?" Indeed, if I (or we) could, I would be highly suspicious that I had made a god after my own image, rather than finding myself in a love relationship with the living God. So it is with this great mystery Paul touches on in Romans 9...the interplay between the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of human beings before him. Great theologians have disagreed on the details of explaining this biblical truth in tension...they always will. As best I can, I choose to take to heart in the present moment the various passages that emphasize...one side here and another there...like a little child who doesn't need to understand and explain as much as she/he needs to connect and relate. God is sovereign and we are responsible...go and deal with it. Or better said, let it deal with you!
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