Pharaoh Pharaoh Oh Baby Let My People Go, HUH!

The Non-Calvinistic View of Romans 9:

• It begins, as before, with Paul agonizing over the failure of Israel to come to faith in Christ (vv. 1-5).

• He has to confront the Jewish objection that, if his gospel were correct, it would mean that God’s promises to the Jews had failed. His response is that God’s promises have not failed, but others are inheriting the promises, because not all of Israel is Israel: i.e., not all of Israel has followed Abraham in faith (v. 6).

• Ethnic descent from Abraham is not enough to be considered “Abraham’s children,” as the examples of Ishmael and Esau demonstrate; Israel has already been granted unmerited blessings as compared with other descendants of Abraham (vv. 7-13).

• Therefore God is not unjust if he now excludes those descendants of Jacob who do not come to faith, because anyone he blesses, even Moses, is a recipient of his mercy (vv. 14-16).

• God may choose to spare for a time even someone like Pharaoh, whom God has chosen to harden—knowing that he will harden himself in response to God’s challenge—in order for God to glorify himself through that person, who can be viewed as both an example of God’s mercy and hardening (vv. 17-18).

• The implication is therefore that the Jews have been given mercy in the past but are not guaranteed mercy in the future if they do not come to faith in Christ. The hypothetical questioner asks why God still blames the Jews, if He has hardened them (v. 19), refusing to recognize that the Jews are hardened just as Pharaoh was hardened, by their own stubborn refusal to repent. Paul therefore rebukes them, and uses the potter-clay illustration to point out that God has always dealt with Israel on the basis of its repentance, and it is only those who refuse to repent who argue back to God that he made them as they are (vv. 20-21).

• Paul then points out that God has to bear patiently the “objects of his wrath”—the unbelieving—in order to make his glory known to the “objects of his mercy”—those who come to faith, which he specifically identifies as having come not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles (vv. 22-24).

• The supporting quotations from Hosea and Isaiah make clear the point: that many of those whom the Jews had considered excluded from the covenant (the Gentiles) would in the end be included, while many whom the Jews had considered included in the covenant (themselves) would be excluded (vv. 25-29).

• The basis upon which Gentiles have been included and Jews excluded is made explicit in vv. 30-33: it is that the Gentiles are obtaining righteousness through faith, while the Jews have pursued it by works.

In essence, Paul is telling ethnic Israel something very close to what Reformed interpreters see. He is telling them that God has the right to choose whomever he wills to be among his covenant people. But he is not telling them this because God has chosen not to elect most of them. He’s telling them this because the paradigm for inclusion in the covenant people has shifted, from national Israel following the Law to anyone who comes to faith in Christ. Israel feels betrayed by this paradigm shift, so Paul explains that God has no obligation to the physical descendants of Abraham; rather, Paul demonstrates from the Old Testament that his relationship to Israel has always depended upon repentance.

Examples, such as God's hardening of Pharaoh's will, or God's hardening of Israel's hearts, or God using means to persuade Jonah, or Paul are all clearly redemptive. They are also often pointed to by Calvinists as examples of God's effectual control over the will of man. In this podcast we point out that these examples, like many others, show God intervening to change, alter, and override man's will are unique (not commonplace) and redemptive (not without a greater purpose). 

What makes an event in history uniquely a 'work of God' in a more deterministic worldview?In other words, if all events, choices and acts are divinely brought to pass through His decisive conditioning of all things that occur (however you want to nuance it), then what is different about those things which God actively DOES and what he merely 'ORDAINS.'

What I'm getting to is the point of proof texting as often done by those of the Reformed persuasion who point to the crucifixion of Christ or the inspiration of scripture as supporting a more deterministic worldview.The argument seems to go something like this: "If God predetermined and causally brought to pass the greatest evil of all time, in the crucifixion of his Son, then that proves God causally predetermines all morally evil events in like manner."But this argument seems to ignore the uniquely divine nature and purpose of this particular event in human history. To suggest that God has causally determine the shooting at the school, or Dahmer's crimes or other such heinous events in our history in the same 'active' and 'sovereign' predeterminate manner that he brought about redemption by laying down his own life seems to be quite a stretch. I believe God did blind Israel in their rebellion so as to ensure the crucifixion and the passover, just as he blinded Pharaoh to accomplish the first passover. He does actively intervene to ensure certain redemptive purposes are fulfilled, and our doctrine has always allowed for this divine conditioning and causality regarding the human will and the divine prerogative. But, do these examples of God's active working to ensure his redemptive plan in human history somehow prove that God likewise works to ensure all evil things by those same determinative means? Doesn't the even the suggestion of that undermine the unique nature of those divine works of redemption?

Contrasted with...

 

The Calvinistic View of Romans 9:

• Paul begins by agonizing over the failure of Israel to come to salvation through faith in Christ (9:1-5).

• Paul’s solution is that not all of Israel is Israel; i.e., not all of Israel is elect (v. 6).

• Paul demonstrates God’s prerogative to elect whomever he wills by having elected Isaac over Ishmael and Jacob over Esau (vv. 7-13).

• God has mercy only on those whom he chooses to have mercy, and hardens the rest, as exemplified by Pharaoh (vv. 14-18).

• At this point, Paul hypothesizes a questioner who articulates the Arminian contention: if God has chosen to harden someone like Pharaoh, how can God then judge him for what he was predestined to do (v. 19)?

• Paul rebukes the questioner for impiety, and uses the potter-clay illustration to reiterate that God has the right to elect some and reprobate some as he deems fit (vv. 20-21).

• Paul then adds, as a supporting argument, the fact that when God chooses to reprobate someone like Pharaoh, he has to bear patiently their sin and arrogance, but does so, in order to demonstrate his glory to his elect, which turn out to be among the Gentiles as well as among the Jews (vv. 22-24).

• He thus brings the discussion back to the issue of Jewish unbelief in Christ, from which his discussion of election has been an excursus. From that point, the rest of the chapter is interpreted with regard to the Jew-Gentile question and salvation by faith, as opposed to works, without explicit reference to election (vv. 25-33).