Questioning the Goodness of God | Romans 9:1-29

Of all the temptations we all face, I wonder if the one we most commonly share is the temptation to “question the goodness of God.” And I say, “common temptation” not “common sin.” It’s not all common, praise God, to hear one another grumbling, and slandering the Lord. But disappointments, frustrated expectations, desires unfulfilled, or profound losses, and heartbreaking griefs—at some point or another, we experience them all. And when we do, is it not also common that we hear a voice, somewhere nearby, saying something to the effect, “And you believe that God is good? You believe that God is looking out for you? You believe that God will keep you safe and protect your interests? You believed that God would never let you down? You believed that God would never let you suffer. Well, well, well. What do you think of Him now?”  

In Romans 8:38–39, Paul writes, “I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor any height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 

What a hope-saturated and exultant exclamation of praise. Right? And then comes Romans 9. In the very next verse Paul writes, “I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit—that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.”

Why? Why joyfully confident in God’s great love, and yet always aching?  

“For [or because] I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh. They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen” (Romans 9:1–5).

Perhaps the circumstance that provokes the most conflicting emotions in the life of a believer is the entangled sweetness of one’s own salvation, with the unimaginable thought that the one, or the ones, we love and care about the most, are willfully, and persistently, and sometimes angrily rejecting Christ as their Savior and Lord. I wept as a ten-year-old child at my father’s defiant unbelief. As an adult, my most passionate pleadings with God were that my sons would experience new birth and follow Jesus. Now, my interceding shifts into a higher gear when I express to the Lord my affection and desire for the genuine conversion of my grandchildren. And such was the focal point of Paul’s mental grief and soul agony. It’s as though the glorious salvation doctrines of divine election, and effectual calling, regeneration, and justification, sanctification, and glorification only made him suffer all the more.  

Verse 3: “I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers.”

It’s as though Paul experienced a kind of “survivor’s guilt.” “I’d face the wrath of God myself, if only they would believe.” Loved ones, God knows our fears. God knows our questions. God knows our temptations. And He addresses them for our peace, and for our hope, and, above, for the sake of the praise of His glorious grace.

Now before we look at the questions Paul raises in Romans 9, bear with me as I register a common, and pervasively accepted assumption. We have been trained to assume that human self-determination is a feature of Biblical thinking.

We Assume Human Self-Determination Is a Feature of Biblical Thinking

And because we assume human self-determination is a fundamental feature of correct Biblical thinking, Paul’s discussion of God’s sovereignty over who is saved and not saved is emotionally jarring. Now, I want to ask you, gently, to do something, I know is not easy. I ask you to pause and consider whether or not the Bible actually supports that assumption. “Ultimate self-determination, as a trait of one’s will, might be taught in Scripture, or it might not be.”

So here’s how I would challenge you. Let that assertion “be decided by the teaching of Scripture, and not from assumptions you may bring to the text.” Our first question should always be, what does the text of Scripture teach us about reality? So, I urge you not to “bring to the text your own philosophical assumptions that would, in turn, dictate or define what God’s wisdom and goodness and justice must do” (See John Piper, Providence, 417).

Now the first challenge to the notion of God’s goodness has to do with the trustworthiness of God’s Word. When Paul looks at his Jewish kinsmen—his own brothers and sisters—and sees them rejecting Jesus as the Messiah of God, it provokes the question …  

Has the Word of God Failed?

Or to say it another way, can God be trusted to keep His promises? After all, aren’t the Jews God’s chosen people? Out of all the nations of the earth, through which God might assert His saving purpose and plan, it was with Israel He established covenants. It was to Israel He delivered the Ten Commandments. It was with Israel that He communicated Himself. And it was to Israel and through Israel that God promised a Savior, a snake-crusher, a Savior-Son. To and through Israel God promised a wonderful counselor, who is God, and Father, and Prince of Peace—a redeemer King who rules over all. If any people on earth should turn, and trust, and exult in Jesus, as Lord and Christ, a look at the Old Testament, and one would conclude, it should be Israel. But Paul’s Jewish kinsmen are not turning and trusting and exulting in Jesus. Why? Is it because God’s Word has proven to be insufficient? Is it because God is unable to bring to fulfillment this reality He has promised?

Paul anticipates this question and answers in verse 6:

“But it is not as though the word of God has failed.”

(Really? How so?)

“For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel. And not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but ‘Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.’ This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. For this is what the promise said. ‘About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.’ And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls—she was told, ‘The older will serve the younger.’ As it is written, ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated’” (Romans 9:6–13).

So why don’t God’s “chosen” people believe? Is God’s saving purpose being thwarted? Is God’s promise failing? Is God’s power proving to be limited and insufficient? Can God be trusted? Answer? God’s Word has not failed! How so?

Not all who are descendants of Israel belong to Israel. What do you mean, Paul—not all Israel is Israel? Not all national Israel is spiritual Israel. And the reason the Jews are rejecting the gospel is not because God’s Word is failing. The Jews are not rejecting the gospel because God can’t be trusted to keep His promise. The reason the Jews are rejecting the gospel is because God only promised to save the elect. Salvation has nothing to do with ethnic privilege, the faith of your parents, birth order, or merit of works, or any other category of human self-determination. The reason someone, anyone turns and trusts Christ, is ultimately because of (v. 11) “him who calls.” 

So when the ones we care about most, are rejecting Christ, and your heart is breaking, and you’re tempted to believe that God’s Word has failed, or He’s not faithful in keeping His promises, promises like 2 Peter 3:9: “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise . . . but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”

But they are perishing. Or they have perished—and perished without Christ. “Why is it that God chooses not to carry his ‘wish’ forward into the accomplishment of his ‘wish’”? There are two possible ways to go. 1) God is hindered by “ultimate human determination.” That is, “God has given to humankind the power of decisive self-determination so that man, not God, provides the decisive cause in the choice not to come to Christ.” Or 2) “God has a wise and holy and good purpose for not bringing his ‘wish’ to fruition.” (see J. Piper, Providence, pp. 416-417)

And you see, according to Romans 9:11, God does have a purpose, namely, “That God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls.”

But the whole matter of divine election, for many, immediately raises another question. How is this fair? Or as Paul writes …

Is There Injustice on God’s Part?

 Doesn’t divine election undermine equal opportunity? Verse 14:

“What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means!”

(Paul, how can you say that God is not unjust?)

“For he says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.’ So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, ‘For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.’ So then he has mercy on whoever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills” (Romans 9:14–18).

Why is God not unjust? How does God defend His goodness? Loved ones, an essential element in the God-ness of God, is His sovereignty. That is, God’s very God-ness consists in His freedom to do whatever He wills. What sets God apart from all created beings, is that He is non-contingent. God is not a responder to His creation. He is sovereign Lord over His creation.

In Exodus 33:18 (to which Paul refers) Moses says to God, “’Please show me your glory.’ And he said, ‘I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you my name “The LORD.” And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy’” (Exodus 33:18–19). 

“How is it good news that God determines—by Himself—to whom He will show mercy? Loved ones, it’s good news because in Romans 9:16 Paul writes, ‘So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.’”

So God says, “Moses, up to now, you’ve seen only a part of my goodness. Now I’m going to take you deeper than you’ve ever been before. I’m going to show you all my goodness. What you really need to see, in order to know me, to behold me as I am, is my self-existence, and my sovereign freedom to choose whomever I will choose—to be merciful to whomever I choose to be merciful—to display compassion on whom I choose to display compassion.”

And we say, “How is this good? How is it good news that God determines—by Himself—to whom He will show mercy?” Loved ones, it’s good news because in Romans 9:16 Paul writes, “So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.”

“It” depends not on human will or exertion. What is “it”? According to verse 15, “it” refers to receiving God’s compassion. “It” is receiving God’s mercy. And it’s good news because “it” depends on God. And the reason it’s good news that “it” depends on God, is because all we ever merit is wrath. If “it” depended on us, loved ones, listen, there would be NO hope. If receiving mercy from God was based on self-determination (the possibility of which verse 16 completely eliminates), we’d all be doomed.

Now, how does Pharaoh play in to all this? In verse16 Paul says that neither human will or exertion play any part in salvation. But then supports that assertion by calling attention to Pharaoh, that is, the Pharaoh who so famously refused to free from slavery, the people of Israel. And then draws this conclusion in verse 18: “So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.”

How can Paul draw this conclusion in verse 18, when verse 17 doesn’t even mention Pharaoh’s hardened heart? I believe it is because Paul’s aim is to demonstrate, above all else, that the purpose of God, the justice of God, the right-ness of God in showing mercy on whomever he chooses to show mercy, and hardening whomever he chooses to harden, together put on display God’s ultimate purpose of revealing His glory. The hardening of Pharaoh’s heart led to this: “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth” (Romans 9:17).

Loved ones, for God to be God, He must do what He has to do to be God. For God to be righteous, for God to be just, He must be committed to what is most right. And what is most right for God, then, is to be unswervingly faithful to Himself, and to the revelation of His own glory. And God’s glory is most powerfully and pervasively revealed through mercy and through hardening of hearts. 

Now of course, that raises yet another question regarding God’s goodness.

On What Basis, Then, Does God Find Fault?

If God, ultimately, determines who is shown mercy, and who is not, then how can God hold us accountable? Paul writes in verse 19:

“You will say to me then, ‘Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?’”

(And then Paul offers, what, to many, might be considered an unsatisfying answer)

 “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?’ Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?” (Romans 9:19–21).

Paul’s response doesn’t really resolve the mystery. One commentator writes, “If we demand an explanation for how this can be—that God freely chooses who is hardened, and yet they have real guilt—we will probably be disappointed in this life” (John Piper).

What Paul affirms, however, is that since we are NOT God, we have no grounds to accuse God of wrongful fault-finding. Since God is the “molder,” the “potter”—in other words, the Creator—He has certain inalienable rights. Now that does not mean that God is capricious, or arbitrary in His actions. Quite the opposite. God does, in fact, have a rationale for doing things the way He does.

Look at verse 22-24:

“What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make know the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?” (Romans 9:22–24).

“Loved ones, consider the ‘goodness’ of God—who does not merely tolerate evil, and put up with hard-hearted people. Rather, consider the matchless ‘greatness of God,’ who has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known his power.”

Have you ever wondered why God allows evil? Loved ones, consider the “goodness” of God—who does not merely tolerate evil, and put up with hard-hearted people. Rather, consider the matchless “greatness of God,” who has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known his power. God has a purpose for evil. But …

How Can God Be Good, Allow Evil, and Then Express Wrath against Evil? 

God’s purpose is to make known, that is, to put on display “the riches of His glory for vessels of mercy.” Listen. God endures evil people. He allows them to exist for purpose, namely, for the purpose of showing His glory by merciful to others. In other words, wrath is not an end in and of itself. Rather, wrath is means to the end of displaying the glory of God’s mercy. And how can God display mercy unless there are people on which to express mercy? And how can there be people on which to express mercy unless there are people on whom rests God’s wrath? Here’s another way to think of it.

We tend not to appreciate our health unless we’ve been sick. We tend not to appreciate spring unless we’ve endured a long, hard winter. God’s mercy is not as glorious a treasure without the dark terror of God’s wrath. And so evil exists in order that there is a backdrop to show how rich and beautiful mercy is. So Paul offers an illustration in verse 25:

“As indeed he says in Hosea, ‘Those who were not my people I will call “my people,” and her who was not beloved I will call “beloved.”’ And in the very place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” there they will be called “sons of the living God.”’ And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel. ‘Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved, for the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and with delay.’ And as Isaiah predicted, ‘If the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring, we would have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah’” (Romans 9:25–29).

Isn’t this what we need to tell the world? That God is holy, that God is righteous, that God is just, that God hates sin with eternal hatred, and that God will punish it. But praise be to God! Having revealed the glory and goodness of His justice and wrath, he goes on to reveal the riches of “all His goodness”—including His love for His own, and His purpose to redeem them mercifully to the praise of the power of His glorious grace, and that His might be proclaimed in all the earth! This is the unquestionable goodness of God.