An Exegesis of Romans 9

Romans 9 has long been a centerpiece for the argument for unconditional election. This view, the second point of the “five points” of Calvinism, says that God has elected, or chosen, those who are saved apart from anything external to God’s own decree. In other words, when trying to discover why some are saved and some are not, one cannot expect to find any characteristics in those who are saved that distinguishes them from those who are not.

This does not mean that the elect are always completely indistinguishable from those who are reprobate (that is, not elect, not chosen for salvation). The main sign of election, for example, is faith. Clearly those who are elect will manifest faith. Nobody holding the position of unconditional election would expect to see anyone saved who does not believe. Similarly those who are elect will show other signs, such as appropriate good works, that reveal the fact that they are chosen by God. But these signs are post-hoc, after the fact, or rather, brought about by God’s operation in the elect. The point is that God’s election is effectual, bringing about in the elect everything necessary for their salvation.

The contrasting viewpoint can be called conditional election. God chooses those who have some characteristic that distinguishes them from those who are not chosen. For example, those who in some way attain merit may thereby be entitled to salvation. One of the main reasons for teaching unconditional election is to deny the idea that one’s merit has anything to do with one’s salvation. Those who affirm unconditional election consider it a major part of a defense of the idea of salvation by grace.

Salvation by grace is a primary theme in Paul’s letter to the Romans. It is most clearly stated in chapter 3, where he says,

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction; since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith. (3:21-24)

The statement here is that since everyone has sinned, everyone is justified before God in the same way, namely by God’s grace as a gift. An important aspect of this statement is its unitary character — it speaks of all coming before God in the same way. Nobody stands before God on the basis of his own merit; everyone gains standing as a gift or not at all.

However, there is another factor mentioned in this passage that provides a possible alternative to both unconditional election and election conditional upon merit. Paul says that the righteousness of God has been manifested. That righteousness comes “through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.” He also says that the gift of justification is “to be received by faith.” This idea of faith as being crucial to the process is stated even more strongly in Romans 4:

The promise to Abraham and his descendants, that they should inherit the world, did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void.

For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression. That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants — not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham, for he is the father of us all….(4:13-16)

Two points in this passage stand out as relevant to the issue of election. First, there is the strong emphasis on faith as contrasting with the law. This is a consistent theme in Romans: faith stands over against works and the law. For example, in 3:27-28 Paul says,

Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On the principle of works? No, but on the principle of faith. For we hold that a man is justified by faith apart from works of law.

Similarly the entire argument of chapter four uses Abraham’s justification by faith apart from works of the law as a prototype for all who would come to God. In particular Paul says,

He received circumcision as a sign or seal of the righteousness which he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised and who thus have righteousness reckoned to them, and likewise the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but also follow the example of the faith which our father Abraham had before he was circumcised. (4:11-12)

In this passage another facet of the unitary nature of Paul’s view of salvation is revealed — God’s righteousness is given to all who believe, circumcised or not, because Abraham was the father of those who believe apart from circumcision and those who have faith and are circumcised.

The distinction between faith and works of the law also appears in Romans 9:30-32; this will be a key passage in the interpretation of Romans 9. From all this it can be concluded that, for Paul, the following principles apply: first, faith and works are fundamentally opposed when it comes to justification. From Paul’s point of view, faith is not a work, and works are not faith. Second, faith does not give grounds for boasting before God, whereas works does.

The second point from 4:13-16 is that the apprehension of grace is through faith. 4:16 sees faith as a crucial link to grace: “…this is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest upon grace….” Romans 11 allows one to complete the logical links here when it says, “But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace” (v. 11:6). In other words faith and grace are inextricably linked in Paul’s thinking — a person apprehends the gift of justification and God’s righteousness through faith. Faith and works are inextricably opposed in Paul’s thought. Finally, grace and works are inextricably opposed.

The upshot of the above is that the possibility of an alternative view to both unconditional election and conditional election based on merit — or works — arises. If the doctrine of unconditional election is affirmed as a bulwark of the view of salvation by grace, another formulation that also strongly affirms Paul’s view of salvation by grace would seem to be at least worth exploring. Of course, such a view would need to be consistent with all the biblical evidence.

The idea of election conditional on faith would seem to be a candidate for a formulation alternative to unconditional election that also maintains a strong view of salvation by grace. Indeed, a straightforward interpretation of the pertinent passages in Romans would seem to lead obviously to such a view. The logic outlined above shows that a view that emphasizes the role of faith is both compatible with, and indeed supportive of, a view that affirms the primacy of grace. Similarly it strongly denies any view that says that salvation can be earned — that the sinner can achieve legitimate standing before God — on the basis of any kind of works.

In fact, one problem with the idea of unconditional election is that it is still preoccupied with merit. In its readiness to deny any human merit, this view denies that salvation is affected by anything human, even though there might be biblical evidence for it. Faith, for example, is rejected as a necessary human response to the offer of salvation (instead being seen solely as a work of God) because that would imply that some human merit would accompany salvation. But Paul clearly states that human merit — that which would permit boasting — only accrues to works:

What then shall we say about Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the scripture say?

Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.

Now to one who works, his wages are not reckoned as a gift but as his due. And to one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness. (Romans 4:1-5)

Faith, then, makes no claim upon God except the claim that God himself demands — to trust “him who justifies the ungodly.” It does not receive anything as its due, but only as a gift. Faith does not come before God on the basis of its own merit, but on the basis of God’s promise.

The one passage that would seem to pose the most problems for the view of election conditional upon faith is Romans 9. Even this passage, however, contains, as its conclusion, a clear statement of election conditional upon faith:

What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, righteousness through faith; but that Israel who pursued the righteousness which is based on law did not succeed in fulfilling that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it through faith, but as if it were based on works….(9:30-33)

In other words, Paul himself, when writing his own conclusion to the discussion begun in chapter nine, articulates a view that seems to be identical with election conditional upon faith. This would seem to be the implication of the phrase “What shall we say, then?” Is it possible to read the logic of chapter nine so as to arrive at the conclusion Paul seems to state? That is, can this chapter be read according to the following logical formulation: “(verses 1-29) imply (verses 30-34)”? A reasonable reading along these lines would seem to shift the burden of proof onto the unconditional election viewpoint; advocates of that view would have to show why the straightforward view that salvation is conditional upon faith was not a valid inference from this passage. What follows is an attempt to make a reasonable case for the above logical formulation; that is, to argue that Paul is trying to make the case that salvation is conditional upon faith.

Paul begins the chapter by reflecting upon his own grief that his people, the Jews, are mostly not saved. He speaks of his anguish over this fact and his willingness to even give his own salvation in exchange for theirs if it were possible.

He notes the many advantages that the Jews have. In fact, everything that God has done, he has done through them, to the point that Christ himself is of the Jews. There is thus a tremendous sad irony that these very Jews have rejected the one who was their glory and the culmination of their hope. But Paul notes that “…it is not as though the word of God has failed.”

This statement gives a clue as to what Paul is trying to accomplish, the question he is trying to answer. That question is not, as is often assumed, why some are saved and some are not. Instead, it is the question of whether God has the right to move in such a way that his people, the seeming heirs of the promise and the covenants, the children of Abraham, are left out. In the first eight chapters of Romans, Paul has outlined a view of God’s actions in Christ that seems to go against what God has done before. According to Paul, God’s righteousness comes apart from the law. Though Paul claims that the law and the prophets bear witness to it (4:23) it still was something that the Jews as a whole were unable to accept. Romans 9 is an explanation of how God could do something like this and still keep faith with the promises in the Old Testament.

Paul proceeds by making a series of characteristically Pauline arguments. Nobody else in the New Testament, except possibly the writer of Hebrews, argues from the Old Testament the way Paul does. Similar kinds of arguments can be found in Galatians and the letters to the Corinthians. The overall thrust of the logic is to show from the Old Testament that salvation by grace through faith apart from works should be acceptable to Jews, even if it results in most Jews rejecting that salvation and Gentiles accepting it.

Paul starts by observing that fleshly descent is no guarantee of spiritual blessing. His argument is based on Genesis 21:12, which says, “Through Isaac shall your descendants be named.” This use of the descendants of Abraham by Paul is similar to an argument from the book of Galatians (Gal. 4:21-31). His point here is that God has never bound himself to approve of anyone simply because he is a descendant of Abraham; it is the spiritual rather than physical descendants of Abraham that are heirs of God’s promises. And what is the basis for being Abraham’s spiritual descendant? It is simply faith.

Paul goes on to discuss Jacob and Esau. God favored Jacob, and this favor predated anything either he or Esau had done. Paul here is giving an Old Testament example of how God’s favor was not based on works:

…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 his call….(Romans 9.11)

In other words, Paul shows that, in principle, God’s favor given to someone apart from works was indeed acceptable to Jews, since there was a precedent, and a patriarchal one at that.

Paul continues by asking whether disassociating God’s favor from works leads to the conclusion that God is unrighteous. Again he shows that the Jews have no grounds for saying this, because they have already accepted the principle that God can have mercy on whom he wishes and harden whom he wishes.

For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So it depends not upon man’s will or exertion, but upon God’s mercy. (9:15-16)

This passage is often used as evidence for a mysterious will or decree of God that is beyond our comprehension. That view, however, is the result of reading the passage out of its historical context. Paul’s problem was to present a radical concept — God’s favor as a gift of grace apart from works — to people to whom that concept made no sense. God, through grace, was having mercy upon people who did not deserve it. But Paul notes that the Jews had already accepted God’s right to do that, having heard Moses tell them that God claimed that right.

The example of Pharaoh is interesting because it shows God deliberately “hardening” someone. Again this often seen as an outcome of a mysterious will of God, where God not only chooses those whom he would favor for some arbitrary (to us) reason, but actively prevents those whom he does not favor from seeking him or responding to him. A careful reading of this passage and the relevant passages in Exodus leads to a different conclusion.

Paul’s argument is that Pharaoh has become a foil for God, a means for God to make his power known. In order to do that, God actually hardened Pharaoh, made him resist him more strongly than he would have given his own human strength. God told Moses he would do that:

And the LORD said to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles which I have put in your power; but I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go.” (Ex. 4:21)

After this, in Exodus 5, there is an encounter between Moses and Pharaoh:

Afterward Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.'”

But Pharaoh said, “Who is the LORD, that I should heed his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD, and moreover I will not let Israel go.” (Exodus 5:1-2)

It is crucial to note here that this passage does not speak about Pharaoh’s heart being hardened. In every other encounter with Moses, it specifically says either that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, that Pharaoh hardened his heart, or that Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, but in this first instance it seems that Pharaoh’s response was unconstrained. God knew Pharaoh, and God knew that when confronted with Moses’ demand that he should let God’s people go, he would resist. This is why God could tell Moses in advance that it would happen. But this first time Pharaoh did what he wanted to. Once his choice was made, God acted to fix that choice for his own purpose.

This leads us to what is probably the most difficult part of the passage for modern readers — the “potter-clay” metaphor. But it is far easier to understand if it is put in proper context.

Paul is making an Old Testament reference when he says

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

But who are you, a man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me thus?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for beauty and another for menial use? (9:19-21)

The observation can be made with fair confidence that this is a reference to Isaiah 45, which describes God’s restoration of Israel through the instrumentality of Cyrus. God’s treatment of Cyrus in this passage is a kind of mirror-image of his treatment of Pharaoh:

Thus says the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped, to subdue nations before him and ungird the loins of kings, to open doors before him that gates may not be closed:

“I will go before you and level the mountains, I will break in pieces the doors of bronze and cut asunder the bars of iron, I will give you the treasures of darkness and the hoards in secret places, that you may know that it is I, the LORD, the God of Israel, who call you by your name. For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen, I call you by your name, I surname you, though you do not know me, that men may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me; I am the LORD, and there is no other.” (Isaiah 45:1-6)

God used Pharaoh in a negative way (once Pharaoh had refused to let the Israelites go) to show his power as he delivered his people from their slavery. God used Cyrus in a positive way to restore his people from their captivity.

So the answer to the objection Paul poses in verse 19 seems to be, “You may not be able to resist his will, but there is a difference in the way his will affects you. You can be Pharaoh, or you can be Cyrus, but God is going to accomplish his purposes. How would you rather have God treat you?”

It is important to keep in mind that the argument of this passage is directed towards those who accept and know the Old Testament scriptures. To someone who is already in a state of rebellion against God, someone who may even question his existence, Paul’s argument in verses 19-21 will be like pouring gasoline on fire. But someone who claims to be faithful to the Old Testament will be confronted with powerful instances of the way God, hardening whom he wills (Pharaoh) and being merciful upon whom he wills (Cyrus) in both cases acted powerfully to support his people. A hypothetical Jewish critic could hardly complain that God was being unjust in the way he chose to keep his covenant with his people. If he chose in one case to devastate a proudly obstinate ruler, and in another case he chose to reward a more cooperative ruler, the fact remained that God was making known his faithfulness to his people.

To this point Paul has established the following principles. First, that not everyone descended from Abraham is a child of Abraham; “children of the flesh” were not, but “children of the promise” were. Second, even the line of the promise was not dependent on works. Third, God has the right to show mercy to whoever he chooses, on whatever basis he chooses.

Having laid this groundwork, he now tackles what would probably be the major difficulty for a hypothetical Jewish critic: the fact that Gentiles were accepted while Jews were not. Moving from God’s intention to show mercy upon those whom he has called, he goes on to specify who they were: both Jews and Gentiles. This is the last piece of Paul’s argument and he sticks with his plan to support his argument from the scriptures. First, he quotes Hosea:

When she had weaned Not pitied, she conceived and bore a son.

And the LORD said, “Call his name Not my people, for you are not my people and I am not your God.”

Yet the number of the people of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which can be neither measured nor numbered; and in the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” it shall be said to them, “Sons of the living God.” (Hosea 1:8-11)

Paul uses this passage to make the case that God has previously taken people who were not his people, and made them his people. While this passage applies directly to the rebellious Israel, there is no reason it could not apply to any people who are not God’s people. That is the use Paul makes of it. The Gentiles are the people who are not God’s people but who are now called “sons of the living God.”

Paul continues by showing that God has always called only a remnant of Israel, because he always judged them righteously. Finally he alludes to “children” without which Israel would have “fared like Sodom, and been made like Gomorrah.”

At this point Paul comes to his first major conclusion in the chapter 9-11 passage. He says that the Gentiles have attained the righteousness of God, even though they did not pursue it. Clearly the Gentiles are those who are called, not by “man’s will or exertion, but [by] God’s mercy.” The Israelites, who sought God, are rejected. This is not on the basis of a mysterious decree of God, impenetrable to the human mind. Paul states clearly why, though the Gentiles attained God’s righteousness, Israel did not attain it:

Why? Because they did not pursue it through faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written, “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone that will make men stumble, a rock that will make them fall; and he who believes in him will not be put to shame.” (Romans 9:32-33)

Paul, in Romans 9-11, deals with what is for him a difficult issue – the fact that his brethren, the Jews, largely rejected Jesus as the Messiah. To him this was a tragedy, made all the more poignant by the fact that God had given and revealed so much to the Jews. Paul, however, sees this not as a failure of God’s plan, but as a failure of faith on the part of the Jews. Romans 9 is Paul’s discussion of why the Jews should have seen that salvation by grace, through faith, is in accordance with the way God has always worked.

This issue is clouded because some interpreters, seeking to deny any role for human “merit” in the salvation process, have denied that faith is the necessary human response to God’s grace whereby salvation becomes effective in a person’s life. Instead, they have posited an unknowable decree of God according to which some are saved and some are not, with those saved being given (or rather, having imposed on them) all things God requires for salvation, including faith. Certain passages in Romans 9 are often used to support this view.

However, Paul’s overall teaching is that faith stands opposed to works in that works give a basis for boasting (that is, claiming standing before God), whereas faith is simply the reception of a gift and thus makes no claim on God except the claim that God is faithful in fulfilling his promises. Since faith is focused on the goodness of God rather than the goodness of man, it is compatible with a God-centered view of salvation. Thus a view of salvation conditional upon its being received by faith is compatible with Paul’s teaching. Even more, it is explicitly adduced by Paul in his own conclusion to Romans 9.