Romans 9 speaks of the impossibility of ‘human free-will.’
I think many people read the scriptures to find answers to their questions. So, if you have a question and someone in scripture asks that very same question and it is answered, wouldn’t you pay attention to that question and answer considering you had the exact same question? I believe so.
For instance: Should I love my enemies? Well, in Matthew 5:44, Jesus says “love your enemies.” Even though Christianity teaches that God will torture His enemies in fire for all eternity, not showing an ounce of love. But, I digress. The true God saves all humanity through Jesus Christ. Therefore, the command of Jesus to love our enemies makes perfect sense. So, question answered.
Relating to God’s sovereignty and His complete control over all creation, I have heard the question many times and it goes like this: If God causes us to do evil, then how could He judge us for doing that evil?
When people ask this question, they do not realize that they are asking the same question the hypothetical protester asks the apostle Paul in Romans chapter 9. The question is asked and answered by Paul. However, people today continue to ask the same question as if there is no answer. But again, Paul gave an answer. So, why do dissenters continue to ask it? It is because, I believe, they do not like the answer given in scripture.
Well, to set up Romans chapter 9, let’s look at just a few things that Paul says about God’s sovereignty and man’s lack of free will:
- First, Paul says that before Jacob and Esau were even born, every decision they made good or bad was determined by God. Paul is setting up the fact that God determines everything. Everything that happened in Jacob and Esau’s life was not ultimately according to their acts but of God’s choice that determined their acts.
11 For, not as yet being born, nor putting into practice anything good or bad, that the purpose of God may be remaining as a choice, not out of acts, but of Him Who is calling,
12 it was declared to her that “The greater shall be slaving for the inferior,”
13 According as it is written, “Jacob I love, yet Esau I hate.” -Romans 9: 11-13
- Second, Paul goes on to hint at the objection of God’s sovereignty. Someone might argue that its not fair that God chose the actions and determined the outcome of Jacob and Esau before they were even born. Paul says, “Not that there is injustice with God? May it not be coming to that!” Well, here is Paul’s response and with it, goodbye to human free will.
15 For to Moses He is saying, “I shall be merciful to whomever I may be merciful, and I shall be pitying whomever I may be pitying.”
16 Consequently, then, it is not of him who is willing, nor of him who is racing, but of God, the Merciful.
17 For the scripture is saying to Pharaoh that “For this selfsame thing I rouse you up, so that I should be displaying in you My power, and so that My name should be published in the entire earth.”
18 Consequently, then, to whom He will, He is merciful, yet whom He will, He is hardening. -Romans 9: 15-18
So Paul makes it clear that God is the One that hardens hearts. Therefore, as Paul references earlier in this chapter, Pharaoh did evil things because God hardened his heart. So, all evil done with a hard heart can be credited to God’s purpose.
As a result, it is clear that God causes people to have a hard heart, otherwise, scripture is clearly denied. So, the question that comes to many people’s mind is this: How can God judge a person for evil when He is the One that hardened their heart to do evil?
This is the question Paul asks by pretending to take the position of someone that would object to God’s sovereignty. Paul says, “You will be protesting to me, then, Why, then, is He (God) still blaming? For who has withstood His intention?”
Paul anticipates the argument of How can God blame a person He caused to do evil…the very question that is asked so often today. From the protester’s point of view, Paul is asserting the undeniable truth that NO ONE can withstand God’s intention. Otherwise, the protest wouldn’t make any sense.
On a side not, a very important truth is that all people have gone against God’s stated will (what God tells them to do), but NO ONE can go against God’s intention (what God has planned for them to do).
So, here is Paul’s answer to the objector’s question of today, like it or not:
20 O man! who are you, to be sure, who are answering again to God? That which is molded will not protest to the molder, “Why do you make me thus?”
21 Or has not the potter the right over the clay, out of the same kneading to make one vessel, indeed, for honor, yet one for dishonor?
22 Now if God, wanting to display His indignation and to make His powerful doings known, carries, with much patience, the vessels of indignation, adapted for destruction,
23 it is that He should also be making known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He makes ready before for glory — -Romans 9: 20-23
To summarize, not that its needed…Paul is saying that God organizes every circumstance of life to cause people to act according to His preordained plan that Nobody can go against. That is what Paul means when He says God is the Potter and we are the clay. Not puppets! Not robots! Clay! We are molded by God to do exactly what He has planned for us to do.
Some are vessels of honor and some are vessels of dishonor created by God. Remember, no matter what we think about this, Paul addressed our perceived ‘injustice’ and our ‘protests’ against this being unfair. It is answered. God is God and we are not.
With that being said, we must understand that when God judges people for having a hard heart or doing evil; it is not punishment. It is not like God produces the circumstances for us to act in a certain way and then says, “why did you do this action?”
No, God’s judgement is correction (Isaiah 26:9) and it always leads to the good of the one being judged. Though judgement is not pleasant, those whose hearts have been hardened will experience unspeakable joy when God shows them why He did what He did. This joy and understanding of God will be magnified because of the experience of having a hard heart.
Remember, 32 For God locks up all together in stubbornness, that He should be merciful to all. – Romans 11:32
God perfects all in the end through Christ’s death for sin, His entombment, and His resurrection.
Grace and peace to you all.
Saved ignoble 
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