Romans 9_6-13： God's Total Control Over Salvation with Dale Partridge
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Summary
Sorrowful over the rejection of the Messiah by his own people, Paul's concern for his own tribe, and the people of his own nation, the pagans, and their rejection of Jesus Christ. We see in the book of Acts that Paul is concerned about their rejection, their being cut off of the covenant blessings, and his concern for them.
Transcript
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Good morning, saints. It's good to be with you guys this morning.
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Rise out of your seats with me this morning, Romans 9, 6 through 13.
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But it is not as though the word of God has failed, for not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel.
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And not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but through Isaac shall your offspring be named.
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This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God,
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but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.
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About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.
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And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac,
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though they were not yet born and had not done neither good or bad,
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in order that God's purpose of election might continue,
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Not because of works, but because of him who calls, she was told,
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As it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.
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Well, this is, I can't recall exactly, but somewhere around 75 to 80 sermons now through Romans.
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This book is a beautiful exposition of the gospel.
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And last week, if you were here or listened to the sermon, we covered the first five verses of chapter nine.
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And we saw that there was an appropriate attitude that we are to have towards the unconverted.
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It was an attitude of sorrow that his people had rejected the Messiah.
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It was actually him modeling Christ's example of how he was sorrowful over his own people.
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Over the very people that actually tried to kill him.
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Paul is in the situation where people of his own nation, of his own tribe, of his own heritage
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are trying to kill him multiple times through the book of Acts.
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Yet he is still sorrowful and grieving at the rejection of the Messiah.
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We explored the balance of being sorrowful for pagans while also desiring God's justice.
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It's this balance to want justice, which is the imprecatory Psalms of David.
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you can see the justice and also wanting mercy upon those who have rejected Jesus Christ.
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We saw Paul's particular concern for his own people, and I emphasized last week the importance
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of prioritizing those in your own home, in your own city, and in your own nation.
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Okay, we know that the globalists hate the idea of nationalism because they think that it's
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intolerant. But global fruitfulness always comes from local faithfulness. That's the way.
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And yes, we do need to be sending foreign missionaries. But if while we're sending
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foreign missionaries, we are starving our own nation of the gospel, we should consider the
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focus and frequency of international missions in this country. There is a good thing to desire
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the prioritization of your own people, which was modeled clearly by Paul.
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Lastly, we saw the reason for Paul's great sorrow. It wasn't just that his people had rejected the
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Messiah. It was that they had nine covenantal privileges, absolute blessings, absolute
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advantages. They had an entire heritage of pointing them to and preparing them for the
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Messiah, which is what makes it so puzzling that they rejected the Messiah. Despite all
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this, Paul was concerned about their rejection, their putting
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away, their being cut off of the covenant blessings. We dealt
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with passages like John 12, 37 through 40. It says, though he
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had done many signs before them, they still did not believe in
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him. So that the words spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be
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fulfilled. Lord, who has believed what he heard from us and to
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whom the arm of the Lord has been revealed. Therefore, they
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could not believe. They could not believe. Goes on to say, again, Isaiah said, he has blinded their
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eyes and hardened their hearts, lest they should see with their eyes and understand with their
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heart and turn and I would heal them. What do you do with that? What do you do with a passage like
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that? First Peter 2.8 says, the stone which the builders rejected, this became the very corner
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stone, a stone of stumbling, a rock of offense. They stumbled because they disobeyed the word
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as they were destined to do. So you have this balance of Paul being sorrowful over the rejection
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of the Messiah. And then you have these other scriptures that are talking about the prophesied
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reality that Christ would be a stumbling stone, that he would blind them, that they were destined
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to disobey passages like these are important because they show us that the decisive factor
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the decisive factor for belief it's not signs and miracles you saw this Jesus was literally said
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though he had done so many signs before them they still did not believe in him you know how many
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people saw Jesus do incredible, miraculous signs and still did not believe?
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It shows us that the decisive factor for belief is not information.
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decisive factor for why someone believes is God. I forgot who said the quote, but it was something
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along the lines of Judas saw all of Christ's miracles and heard all of his sermons. Do you
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know how many people, sometimes we think, if I could just get the gospel right, maybe they'll
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believe. Do you know how many people Jesus preached the gospel to? Jesus, God of heaven
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and earth, or the apostle Paul, the one we model our preaching after. How many people
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they have preached to and they were still rejected? It's not about information or even
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eloquence. Have you heard the stories of Spurgeon and Whitfield and how these men come to faith?
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Spurgeon comes to faith under the preaching of a layman who didn't even know what he was doing
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in the pulpit. This is how God works. And the most unexpected ways from the most unprepared
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preachers at times. In fact, I know as a preacher, the time I come in here with a sermon that I feel
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and I don't know if I fully understand the text
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Down is up, up is down, first is last, last is first.
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God determines whether someone will receive or reject Christ.
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This is the context of the next three chapters.
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if God causes all things to work together for good,
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for those who love him and are called according to his purpose.
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We learned that in chapter 8, the previous chapter.
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And he controls even their redemption from election to glory,
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Then how do we explain God's own people rejecting Christ?
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If that's the case, if God causes all things to work together,
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and then God's people had the covenants and the promises
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and the priesthood and the temple and the word of God and the law of God
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and had all these privileges, there seems to be an incongruent reality.
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That's what Paul is dealing with in this passage of scripture.
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How can God be in total control of his people's salvation and yet the vast majority of the Jews not be saved?
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This is why Paul has to write this passage of scripture, explaining why some are saved and some are not.
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Here in chapter 9, Paul deals with this apparent contradiction and he says, verse 6, follow along with me.
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But it is not as though the word of God has failed.
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For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel.
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When Paul speaks of the word of God, he's got three dimensions in mind.
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He's thinking of his own words in the previous chapter.
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He's also thinking of the Old Testament scriptures.
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He says, it's not that God is unfaithful to his people.
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It's that we have misunderstood who the recipient of these promises really are.
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They're not just the blood descendants of Abraham, but those who share in the faith of Abraham.
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Here we learn that the promise to Abraham was not only to his physical
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It said, quote, this is why it depends on faith.
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In order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his
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offspring, not only to the adherent of the law, that's the Jews, but also to the
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one who shares in the faith of Abraham that's Jews and Gentiles who is the
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father of us all just as it is written I have made you a father of many nations
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not just one nation of the Jews so essentially what we have here is Paul
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telling us that we have two groups of people we have ethnic Israel the Jewish
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people who's made up of the physical descendants of abraham and we have spiritual israel or true
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israel who is made up of both elect jews and elect gentiles who are the children of abraham
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by faith which is why it says in the very next verse in chapter 9 verse 7 nor are they all
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children because they are Abraham's descendants. But through Isaac, he's
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quoting the old scriptures, Old Testament, but through Isaac, your descendants will
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be named. That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of
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God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants. This would be an
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extremely difficult passage for a Jewish person to agree with. They would be very frustrated with
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the language that Paul is using here. Not all children, not all are children because they are
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Abraham's descendants. This is a shocking piece of language to the Jews. Paul is telling us that
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there is a group within a group, right? I should say backwards. There's a group within a group.
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This has always been the case and it remains so even to the Lord comes and separates the sheep
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from the goats. There is the wheat and the tares. There is the visible church and the invisible
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church. There are people in the covenant and there are people of the covenant. That is how
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Bible works there are a people and then there are a people all throughout the
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Old Testament all throughout the New Testament 36% of the world confesses and
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proclaims Christ are 36% of the world's population truly in the covenant of
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grace they're certainly in the covenant are they actually redeemed with the same
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dilemma as the old testament israelites you have the covenant and then you have the redeemed many
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people are in because of baptism they're in the covenant many people are in because of birth many
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people have married in they are now one with a spouse who does have belief and they are in the
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covenant it does not necessarily mean that that person is saved there are people in the church
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that have not come to christ this is why i often preach and whenever i go and speak at conferences
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I just assume that whoever's here isn't actually saved
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because millions of people have come to the church
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In the following verses, Paul provides two examples
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to support this claim that not all the children
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both children were ordained by God's sovereignty,
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Basic Old Testament covenant fundamentals here.
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Okay, both of them are genuine children of Abraham.
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then Paul offers a second example. Look at verse 10 through 13 with me.
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And not only so, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one man,
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our father, our forefather, Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good
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or bad in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works, but because
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of him who calls, she was told, the older will serve the younger, as it is written,
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Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated. So not only do we see this divine election between the
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two children of Abraham's family, but we actually see it again in Isaac's family. So Paul may have
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assumed that the first example of Abraham and Isaac and Ishmael could have been refuted because
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the sons were conceived by two separate women hey maybe they won't buy in because you know you have
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hagar and you have sarah and maybe there would be an argument to dissuade somebody to say well
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they're not part of the promise uh because it was from a different woman your point doesn't
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necessarily remain coherent and so the example of isaac and rebecca is not the case so if that was
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the hurdle that you needed to get over for trying to dispute Paul's claims. You can't get over it
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with the example between Rebecca and Jacob and Esau. Even though both of these children were
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conceived by the same man and the same woman, God still only elects one of them. Only elects one of
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them. But this election is not based on anything done by Jacob or Esau. I want you to look back
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real quick. Look into verse 11. Though they were not yet born and had done nothing, nothing.
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Okay, that's going to be important in a few minutes. Nothing. What does nothing mean? Nothing.
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Even though both of these children were conceived by the same woman and same man,
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So under the example of Abraham and Isaac, you might have somebody again refute the idea
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arguing that God elected Isaac because he was the promise to Sarah
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and because Isaac proved himself to be more faithful than Ishmael.
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Genesis records Ishmael mocking Isaac, and it records Isaac being submissive to his father,
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even to death, when he was to be burned as an offering.
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And so, hey, maybe God looked down the corridors of time and saw that Isaac was going to be
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the obedient one and not Ishmael, and God elected him for that reason.
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in order to continue God's purpose of election,
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not because of works, but because of him who calls.
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So essentially this passage eliminates any possibility
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of actions, human actions, choices, behaviors, thoughts,
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whatever it may be, to be the grounds of God's election.
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There is no learning God that looks down the corridors of time
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and sees that Isaac is going to make the right choice
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Though they were not yet born, they had done nothing,
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There is nothing that God is looking at down the corridors of time.
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Paul actually tells us in the text, what is the grounds for election?
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God told Rebecca the reason for his preference was before they were born.
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in order that god's purpose of election might stand or might continue not because of works
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but because of him who calls what's the reason god's reason of election do we know god's reason
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for election no we do not know that's why we call the doctrine unconditional election
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there is no conditions on which we understand why god has chosen some and left others to justice
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But God has chosen some of his own secret mystery and mercies.
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so many men love the fact that they have the right to elect themselves a bride,
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yet hate and will not allow Christ to elect himself one.
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He chose Abel over Cain, and he replaces Abel with Seth.
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He chose Isaac over Ishmael, Jacob over Esau, Joseph over his brothers, Judah within his brothers.
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Moses out of the tribe of Levi, David out of the tribe of Judah, he took the prophets and before
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they were even born, he had Jeremiah and he had Isaiah and he had Ezekiel and he had John the
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Baptist and he had Paul. All these people have been chosen before they were born, before anything
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had happened, good or evil in their lives. Jesus even says to his 12 disciples in John 15, 16,
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you did not choose me, but I chose you. John 6 44 says, no one can come to me unless the father
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who sent me draws him. This is the clear pattern of scripture. God first chooses us and then we
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choose him. God initiates. Do you want to know why you're saved? It's not because you on your
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own volition, of your own free will, heard the gospel and said, you know what? That's
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a good idea. I think that's a great, I think it's a great opportunity. I'm going to take
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that. No, that is not the biblical anthropology. That is not biblical soteriology. That's why
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John says we loved because he first loved us. We respond because of the work that God already does
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in us. God is the one who calls. God is the one who changes. We respond to that electing grace.
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He doesn't look down the corridors of time to see who will choose him, then goes back and chooses
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those people based on their future choice to choose him. This is an absurd way to think.
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This is the type of Arminian theological gymnastics that is required to maintain this concept of free will.
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Again, I did three or four sermons on free will.
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You can go back and listen to them if you want to learn more about that topic.
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There is no scripture to support this type of thinking.
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In fact, there are over a hundred scriptures that literally object that type of thinking.
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dr. Steve Lawson once said the free will is a pagan goddess that the church has worshiped for
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far too long we have a will but it's never free it's either enslaved to sin in the flesh
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or it's enslaved to Christ in righteousness we have free agency we can operate within the domain
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of our state of being if we're dead spiritually dead we're free to sin we're
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free to follow the flesh we're free to follow the prince and the power of the
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air we're free to follow the desires of the body and the mind what we are not
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free to do is change our nature you cannot change your nature without divine
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assistance when you have been born again which is the whole reason Jesus uses
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that example, it's the metaphor that makes sense universally. How much involvement do you have in
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your birth? None. None. You can't change your nature. You can't go from death to life without
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divine assistance. These are the purpose of the miracles. You can't go from blind to seeing
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without divine assistance. You can't go from deaf to hearing without divine assistance.
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Yeah, you could make all the decisions you want in this category,
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Because when you realize that the reason you have ears to hear and eyes to see
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but in fact you were actually so dead and so hated God,
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and all of a sudden, yesterday you hated God and today you love Him,
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The Bible says to give credit where credit is due.
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There's a reason that I have this passage of scripture imprinted on the front of my Bible.
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It says, for from him and through him and to him are all things.
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Let's briefly talk about these two phrases in verses 12 and 13.
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the older will serve the younger as it is written Jacob I have loved but Esau I have hated
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okay the idea of the older serving the younger was not only contrary to customs but it's actually
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contrary to the the Hebrew way of birthright this is not only speaking about carnal affairs here
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Okay, this isn't just speaking about Jacob essentially being over Esau as boys.
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Okay, the structure of this passage of scriptures we're going to see is about two nations.
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The Israelites came from Jacob and the Edomites came from Esau.
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So if you remember, if you've read Genesis recently, this is a poll from Genesis chapter 25, 23.
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and two peoples from within you shall be divided.
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That's the Old Testament context for this passage
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The Israelites would become the heirs of the covenant of grace.
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They'd have the grace of God, the bloodline of the Messiah.
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Now, this is, again, where many of the Arminians or the provisionists would say,
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see, Romans 9, it's not about individuals, it's about nations.
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It's not about electing individuals, it's about electing nations.
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Okay, this is flawed logic because salvation is thoroughly individualized in the scriptures.
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Not only do Jacob, Jacob and Esau are individuals, by the way, that's just one simple point,
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but the rest of the chapter in chapter nine is filled with singular, not plural,
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pronouns and references, and it continues to reference individuals throughout the remainder
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of his argument, and it's going to be very, very clear in my sermon coming up in two weeks.
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So scripture also calls, or also says that Jesus calls his sheep by name.
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Think about how impersonal electing nations makes the gospel.
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Oh, God elected a nation. I guess I'm included in that. So, you know, it's so strange because
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the Arminians are the people that are always like it's not a religion it's a
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relationship right it's so weird that you want this relationship element but
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you won't actually realize that salvation in the election of God is
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individualized and it's not individualized because you individually
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chose God it's because God individually chose you
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Our names have been written in the Lamb's Book of Life before the foundation of the
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Paul says that our names have been written in heaven in Philippians.
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Jesus said again, no man singular can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws
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him. Individual. So yes, this passage that we're talking about, it does reference nation. There's
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certainly a reference to nations here, but not at the exclusion of individuals.
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Nations are filled with individuals. So to say that it applies to the whole,
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while it does not apply to the parts, it's an illogical argument. Election of a nation by its
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very nature cannot exclude the unique individuals who form up the collective whole.
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and lastly I want you just to remember that the entire design of Paul's argument here in chapter
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9 10 and 11 is to show that some individuals are within the covenant and actually part of
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the covenant of grace and some individuals are not and so this first statement this first statement
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highlighted that God's election is not according
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it is written, Jacob I have loved and Esau I have hated,
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highlights that God's election is not based on human decision,
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I want to talk about this line, it is written, real quick.
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It is written, it's an affirmation of the inerrancy and the authority of the Word of God.
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In the Old Testament, we see many of the New Testament writers using Old Testament references
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by saying, it is written. It's a phrase used by Jesus, by Paul, by Peter, by the author of the
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Hebrews, it is a way to invoke authority showing that they trusted that the Old Testament scriptures
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were truly the word of God. Second, it's a statement of preference. It's a statement of
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preference of priority. It's a statement of election. God has preferred Jacob over Esau
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without respect to anything that they've ever done. Think about that. He has preferred
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Jacob over Esau without respect to anything they have ever done again this
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is why we call this doctrine unconditional election there are no
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conditions fulfilled by a person that caused God to choose them if there was
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then it would be done by works if God looks down the corridors of time and saw
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that this person would have faith then there would be a condition on which that
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person would be elected but there is no conditions upon man for our election
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because if there were we would have a right and reason to boast
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John Piper uses the example, you get to heaven, you stand there before the Lord, and God says,
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why are you here? And you say, well, because I trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. I had faith
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that his righteousness became my righteousness, and my sin was paid for on the cross.
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Because if you say, well, because I was smarter,
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The only answer that is appropriate to a question, again, this is a theoretical question.
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The only answer is to why are you here is because it pleased you to save me.
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But for some reason, in the mercies of your grand plan of redemption, it pleased you to save me.
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Now, many centuries have gone by, and this phrase has been vandalized by the liberals.
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they say, Esau I have hated really means Esau I have loved less. I don't know if you've heard
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this, but it's a very common thing in theological circles. I have just loved Esau less.
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The definition of the word in the Greek here is detest. Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have
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detested. 18th century theologian Robert Haldane wrote a commentary on this that's better than
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anything that I could write, so I'm just going to read it. He wrote, Jacob was loved before he was
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born, consequently, before he was capable of doing anything good. And Esau was hated before he was
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born, consequently before he was capable of doing any evil. It may be asked why God hated him
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before he sinned personally, and human wisdom has proved its folly by endeavoring to soften the word
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hated into something less than hatred. But the man who submits like a little child to the word
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of God will find no difficulty in seeing in what sense Esau was worthy of the hatred of God before
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he was born. He sinned in Adam and was therefore properly an object of God's hatred. There is no
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other view that will ever account for this language and this treatment of Esau. By nature,
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too, he was a wicked creature conceived in sin. Although his faculties were not expanded
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or his innate depravity developed, he was a child of wrath and a fit object of hatred.
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this is the biography of your sweet little child this is your biography
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before you came to Christ and you were dead and the trespasses and sins in
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which you once walked following the course of this world following the
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prince and the power of the air the spirit that is now at work and the sons
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of disobedience, among whom we all once lived, and the passions of our flesh, carrying out
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the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the
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You are not an exception to that passage of scripture, and neither is your beautiful one-year-old
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The primary reason people struggle to embrace Calvinism, or the doctrines of grace, or God's sovereignty over salvation, is because it demands humility.
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It requires you to have a biblical anthropology that admits that your newborn baby deserves God's wrath.
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it requires you to see that you were so utterly corrupted by sin that according to scripture you
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were hostile to god that you were spiritually blind in death that you were dead in sin that
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your god or that god's gospel was foolishness to you that you loved darkness rather than light that
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you followed the world that you followed the flesh you followed the devil and you followed
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the desires of your heart. It requires an immense degree of humility. Until you get
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there, you will never appreciate the grace of God as you should. You will never see the
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gospel as you should until you realize that God saved you when you could not and would not save
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yourself. A lady who went to Charles Spurgeon once said, Mr. Spurgeon, I don't understand how
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a loving God could say in his word that he hated Esau. Have you ever struggled with that? Mr.
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Spurgeon replied, that has never been my problem, miss. My problem has always been how could God
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have ever loved Jacob. That's the shift. We often say things like, why do bad things happen
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to good people? Without ever asking the opposite question is why do good things happen to bad
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people? The only time that a bad thing has ever happened to a good person was on the cross.
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no your cancer diagnosis your tragic accident your difficult career
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those are bad things happening to bad people we have been saved by God's grace which is a good
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thing that's happened to a bad person we deserve wrath we do not deserve mercy when you start there
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When you start that you don't deserve anything but God's hatred and wrath, then everything
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is mercy. Even trials, you can have unconditional joy because there are no conditions
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that change your joy or your peace. You have Christ, which means you have everything.
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And if you have everything, whatever trial may hit you, it doesn't matter.
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because you have Christ you've gained the whole world in Christ in his book
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all of grace Spurgeon said quote too many think lightly of sin and therefore
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think lightly of the Savior he who has stood before his God convicted and
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condemned with the rope around his neck is the man to weep for joy when he is
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pardoned, to hate the evil which he had been forgiven, and to live to the honor of the
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Redeemer by whose blood he has been cleansed, end quote.
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So next week, we're going to get into the further objections. If you look down, verse 14,
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Paul anticipates rejection and frustration from the audience that he's speaking to in Romans.
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He anticipates objection, and he's going to deal with that in even more forceful terms than he did in this section of scripture.
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If you don't currently yield to the fact that God is sovereign over electing whom he will,
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next week's sermon, which I'm not preaching next week, it's the following week,
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will certainly persuade you. If we are yielded to the word of God,
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we will be able to rest in the fact that God has for some reason elected to save some
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and leave others to justice. It'll allow us to revel in the beautiful mercy and grace of the
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gospel. Amen? Amen. Let's pray. Father, we thank you that you have saved us. Lord, that when we
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were disinterested, God-haters, loving sin and the flesh, that you had called us,
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brought us to new life, spiritually resurrected our souls,
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Lord, that you did what we could not do and were not interested in doing.
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Father, we ask that you would help us to understand the beauty of that,
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that we might appreciate the fact that you, before the foundation of the world,
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have predestined us to adoption as sons and daughters.
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Lord, that that truth would hit us somewhere in our heart and soul
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that it would force us to be graceful to others
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Father, we thank you for all these things in Jesus' name.