EPISODE 103 ROMANS CHAPTER 9 through 11 Part 2 " Wrasling over words"

Salvation, predestined or not? Where do you stand? And why do we feel that we can reconcile God's ways, or why do we try to compartmentalize Him? System theology is truly man's attempt to deep dive into the mind of God when, in fact, we really can't. Can we? Should we?

Should we even be having this conversation? Why not? Let's find out. Romans chapters 9 through 11, part 2: Wrestling over words. Not long ago, I ran across a reel on Facebook that made me laugh out loud. By reel, I mean those short little videos that show up on your Facebook page.

It featured a cute little boy, probably four or five years old, with long blonde hair and a red T-shirt and black shorts. And he's talking to his grandpa, who's not in the picture. And he says, Didn't you hear me? I'm tired. I'm cranky. I worked hard at school, okay?

And grandpa answers back, So what? You don't want me to mess with you right now? And the little boy says, No, I'm cranky. I'm tired. I worked hard at school. And he turns to start walking away.

So we're not going to wrestle here in a little bit? Grandpa calls after him, which caused the little boy to pause. And he turned back and said, Well, maybe. Maybe if I stop being tired and cranky. Got the feeling he came around after a little while because you know what? Boys do love to wrestle.

Boys have been wrestling, and yeah, I'm mispronouncing that on purpose because that's how they say it some places in our country, like where I grew up. Boys have been wrestling over ideas that come up in Romans chapters 9, 10, and 11 for centuries, actually. In the 16th century, a French theologian and scholar named John Calvin became prominent in the Protestant Reformation. He wrote an influential work titled Institutes of the Christian Religion, as well as commentaries on books of the Bible. He didn't actually compose the now famous five points of Calvinism, but they were drawn from his ideas and teaching. His theology stressed the sovereignty of God, or control of God over all things.

In regard to personal salvation especially, Calvin believed that even before God created the world, He predetermined which individuals among us would be saved and which would be damned, vessels of honor and dishonor. He emphasized that it had nothing to do with us, but is entirely a choice of God's based on His sovereign grace. The five points identified with the acronym TULIP by some theologians are a logical sequence of ideas attempting to explain how God causes salvation to happen with an individual. Calvinism, as it's called today, is a system of theology that has developed, and it's like a prism through which many interpret the Bible. I'm not going to delve into explaining the five points because that's really beside my big idea today.

But suffice it to say, Romans chapter 9 in particular, with its statements about God choosing Jacob over Esau and showing mercy to whom He will and so on, is one of the favorite passages of those who believe Calvin's theories and who have accepted that system of theology. Of course, as happens when one movement grows strong and influential, there's usually a reaction against it. Some Protestant theologians saw Calvin's system as only possible if you kind of purposely closed your eyes to other things in the New Testament Scripture which stress man's responsibility and necessity of our personal choices to believe the gospel. A generation after his time, another scholar and theologian, this time in the Netherlands, a man named Jacobus Arminius, wrote a number of theological, very influential theological treatises arguing against Calvin's ideas, which he felt went beyond the Scripture.

He didn't, but again, his followers didn't organize his ideas into another logical system. Five points emphasizing human responsibility and free will. Those who adopted this view became known as Arminians. Denominational divides actually happened among Protestants as a result. They exist to our day, at least partly over this interpretational difference between Calvinist and Arminian views over the question of how God works out salvation. Calvinists stressing God's sovereignty and, as they call it, the unconditional election of those who will be saved, and Arminians stressing man's responsibility to, by his own free will, choose to believe in and follow Jesus in order to be saved.

I can't even tell you how many volumes have been written arguing these points back and forth since the time of those Calvin and Arminius theologians and their followers, and how much energy has and is being burned up debating and debating their points. One of my questions is, is that a good use of Christians' time and energy? Could such theological disputes be distracting from much more important things? You can probably tell by how I framed the question how I feel about it. Someone once said, A God who is small enough to be fully understood would not be big enough to worship. I think they meant by that that there are some things about God and His ways that are past full understanding, at least this side of heaven.

That reality is called the inscrutability of God, if you're studying Him in seminary, for example. Right here in our context, as Paul discusses God's relationship with Israel in chapter 11, verses 33 and 34, he writes, Oh, the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, how inscrutable His ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or ever been His counselor? Other versions translate inscrutable there as past finding out or unfathomable. Some things about God and what He does are beyond us, Paul is saying, and I wish theologians were okay with that and didn't feel the need to try and systematize God into neat compartments they feel are consistent in their own eyes.

The prophet who understood God better than anyone, Isaiah, speaking for Him in the 55th chapter of his Old Testament writing, says, My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts. How much higher are the heavens than the earth? We don't even know. Do we know? I mean, so far as we can see, you can go up and up and up forever.

And Isaiah is saying, just as Paul was trying to say in his underscoring, how limited our understanding of some of God's ways are. He's not fully explained or reconciled everything for us, such as man's free will and how it interacts with His sovereign choices. Do you think guys in this or that seminary are capable of reconciling them fully? They have access to God's thinking and works. He is not fully disclosed? I doubt it.

The truth is, both concepts are seen in Scripture, and they are seen over and over. God is a sovereign, and He also has created a world in which He has given us choices and a free will.

So, while one will quote what Paul writes in Romans 9 concerning the Pharaoh, who Moses had to deal with being hardened by God in support of their Calvinistic system, and, I have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I have compassion on whom I have compassion, so then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy, the other side will respond with their own quotations from, say, 2 Peter chapter 3: God is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but wanting everyone to come to repentance, or quote Jesus as He sat overlooking Jerusalem shortly before His arrest and His formal rejection by the Jewish leaders: Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you've killed the prophets and you stoned those who I have sent to you. How often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.

Unfortunately, when theologians and preachers in general want to stress a view of Scripture they feel strongly about, they sometimes do not take in the whole context. I'm afraid Calvinist theologians do this even with chapter 9 here in Romans, which is one of their favorite proof texts. As I look over the whole context of the chapter from the beginning to end, it's not focused on individual election so much; it's focused on the election of God's people, the Israelites, from the time of Abraham, that God chose them to bless the whole earth because He was going to bring through them a Savior for the whole world. What then shall we say, he writes at the end of that chapter, that the Gentiles who were not pursuing righteousness have now obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith. But the people of Israel, who pursued the law as a way of righteousness, they have not obtained their goal.

Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith, but as it were by works. They stumbled over a stumbling stone. As it's written, I laid in Zion a stone of stumbling that causes people to stumble, a rock that causes them to fall. But the one who believes in him, this is Jesus obviously, will never be put to shame. In that summary of chapter 9, Paul does not explain Israel's unbelieving condition, for the most part, on their lack of election.

They were God's chosen people. He explains it in terms of their lack of faith. So in the very same context where some people are latching onto verses they like because they fit their system, verses about God's sovereign choices, Paul comes back in the very same context and talks about faith and man's responsibility to believe in Jesus. You know what? The same is true of the other side too. It's why I am not a big fan of systematic theology.

It seems that whoever is writing the textbook is always trying to shove too many square pegs into round holes to come up with a humanly consistent system of explaining God, rather than just admitting maybe we can't. Maybe we can't neatly reconcile every idea presented in the Bible. Maybe some of God's ways are, in fact, well beyond us. So I am sorry if you opened up our podcast on Romans 9, 10, and 11 expecting to hear me or another teacher delve down deeply into these arguments and hammer down on Calvinistic ideas or the opposite. I could do that on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, or maybe hoping that I would on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday come up with the other point of view. I don't feel the need to do either one of those things.

I'm okay with just letting God's Word say what it says. I can tell you for sure, though, that on Sunday, if I am preaching, as I will be this Sunday, I will share the gospel before my message is over, and I will challenge anybody listening who hasn't put their faith in Jesus to do so. And I won't be concerned about whether they are elect by God's sovereign choice, or whether they are elect by God's foreknowledge, or how they might fit into this or that system of someone's theology. I'm just concerned that I understand the gospel and that I give them an opportunity to believe it and accept it. The other part, that is the behind-the-curtain part, how exactly God is working it out in their life, that frankly is beyond my understanding, over my head. It's not practically important to me.

My job, as I understand it, is to share with people the gospel and challenge them to receive Christ. So personally, I don't really care very much what side of the election versus free will debate other teachers or pastors come down on, as long as it does not interfere with what's most important, and that is sharing the good news, believing people need to hear it and respond to it in faith in order to be saved. Listen again to Paul in this very context. This is from chapter 10, verses 9 and following. If you declare with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.

As Scripture says, anyone who believes in Him will not be put to shame. Now listen to this next part. How then can they call on one that they have not believed in? How can they believe in one whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them or proclaiming the message to them? How can anyone proclaim the message unless they are sent?

As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring us the good news. And then at verse 16, he concludes, So faith comes from hearing the word concerning Christ. As long as someone understands that, that people need to share the good news, that people need to hear the message concerning Christ in order to believe it and be saved, as long as we're on the same page about that, I'm not going to argue with them about speculative things beyond what we've been told in the Scripture, things that God has not fully explained to us. You know, I am on this topic today because I'm very aware there's just too much wasted energy in the body of Christ today with Christians debating their differences.

I won't tell you where because I don't want you to go there and waste your time, but I could show you websites where theological students and preachers and just people who like to argue spend incredible amounts of time wrassling over these questions about free will and sovereignty. Boys who love to wrestle. There's pay-per-view money, I think, that could be made by getting a prominent Calvinist theologian and a prominent Arminian or a provisionalist of the view I would favor, actually, to debate mano a mano for the cameras on a Christian TV network. Or better yet, why not let's get them into the actual ring and wrestle WWE style? I'd actually be tempted to watch that. But man, what a sideshow and what a waste of time.

Listen to this scripture because this is actually my big idea today. Keep reminding people, Paul once wrote to Timothy, keep reminding people of these things. Warn them before God against quarreling about words, which is of no value and only ruins those who listen. Don't have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguing because, you know, they only produce more quarrels. That's 2 Timothy chapter 2, and that summarizes my concern. Arguing about things that the Bible is not clear on is a distraction and a big waste of precious time and energy.

Why not be humble enough to recognize that God's ways are past figuring out in some instances, on questions where He has not shown us what's behind the curtain? Why not focus on what is practical and what matters more? Those things are clear in God's Word. Why not conclude that if a theological problem has not been solved by Bible scholars over the last 600-plus years, it's probably not going to be solved this side of heaven? So my advice is, don't get caught up in following this or that theologian and their system of interpretation, or dragged into such controversies. We'll see when we get there what a problem and how divisive it was for the members of one early church who started to become focused on following their favorite church leader and teacher.

I am with Paul, some said. I am with Cephas. I am with Apollos. The apostle Paul didn't respond, Here's why more of you should join my team. I understand the deep things of God better than Apollos. On the contrary, he said, I didn't die for you, did I?

Should Christ be divided? The ideas I hear Paul trying to explain to an early church made up of both Gentile and Jewish believers in Romans 9, 10, and 11 revolve mostly around God's plan, going back to Abraham's time, to produce a special nation. What made them special was God's intention to produce a Savior for the whole world through them. But this did not mean that every individual Jewish person was a believer. Every Jew had the kind of faith that would save them. They were not.

Not in the past, certainly not in Jesus and Paul's day, and not now. So there is a difference in this section of Scripture between the Jews being God's people in a national sense, as in the Jewish nation which altogether was chosen and privileged, versus an individual Jewish person who is either a person of genuine faith in God or not. Paul explains that the fact most Jews did not receive Jesus as Messiah caused God to open up the gospel to the Gentiles, to all the rest of us. In chapter 11, he visualizes this as the people of Israel being an ancient olive tree that God has been tending for a long time. But more recently, because of their unbelief, Gentiles are now being grafted into it. Unbelieving Jews, Paul says, in a sense, have been broken off from that tree, and believing Gentiles now grafted in, and we're growing together as one tree, one people of God.

But still, some Jews are being saved. Paul calls them in section a remnant. Jews can be saved today during this church age the same way as anyone else, and many are. There are today more than a hundred Messianic Jewish churches in the nation of Israel, and I've read about a 300 or so in the United States of America. These are Jews who have received Jesus as their Messiah. So, neither nationally, as we learned last lesson, nor personally is God finished with the Jewish people.

All who call on the name of the Lord will be saved, Paul assures us in chapter 10, verse 13. Whether Jew or Gentile, if you realize you need to be saved, that Jesus died to save you, paying for your sins on the cross, then call on Him by faith. Claim Him as your Savior. And I can promise you, if you are sincere, you won't be denied because you weren't predestined to make that decision. People who imagine or teach that, they're pushing Paul's points in these chapters well past what the apostle ever intended. And that's the problem in a nutshell.

People who think they are smart enough to capture all God's thoughts and doings in a neat little system of theology. I'm tired and cranky sometimes, but I'm not one of the boys that likes to wrassle over controversial questions. I'm just simple enough that I'm okay with a tension between ideas I cannot easily see mesh. So, let me leave you with a visual illustration that somebody shared with me when I was first confronted with these arguments between Calvinists and Arminians in college and seminary. Debates between those who believe everything has been predetermined by a sovereign God and those who believe that in His sovereignty, God has decided to give men free will and the ability to make real choices. This person told me to imagine the spectrum of thought on this theological question like a giant arcing rainbow.

Can you picture that? On one side, representing God's sovereignty, stretching down from the clouds toward the west, and on the other side, the rainbow representing man's free will is arcing up to the clouds from the earth. So he said, Imagine those two sides of the arcing rainbow, and they are rising so high that near the top they are covered by clouds. You can't even see the top of the rainbow because it's so high and the clouds are now in your way. You can't see where the two sides join, but you know they must. Behind the clouds, you know they meet and are perfectly joined together.

I've never forgotten that. From my angle, looking at the rainbow, it seems like there's a lot more emphasis in the New Testament on the necessity of faith than there is on the concept of election and predestination. And that seems to me to be the place on which we should place emphasis, because it's the part we can actually do something about. By that I mean, we can all make choices, and we can all challenge others to make choices too, like the all-important choice to receive and follow Christ. But none of us can see behind the curtain, inside the mind of God. None of us can see who is and who is not elect, even if we accept that theory of personal election.

That is, that God is choosing who will be saved. So what real value is there in any of us putting the emphasis there, even if you choose to believe that? And certainly there is no value in arguing about it. At Share the Word, we're going to save our arguments for things that are very clear in God's Word, and waste no time wrassling with other believers over distracting controversies. I hope you're okay with that. This is Paul for Share the Word.

I guess we all get tired and cranky sometimes, Paul. So many great points that have been made today. I especially agree that in today's society, there's such a focus on being part of this side or that side. Sometimes I feel we lose the true meaning of the good news of the gospel. Listen, please help us share the good news. Remember, Christ died for us while we were still His enemies.

If you have any questions regarding this episode or your faith, or if you just accepted Christ and you're wondering what to do next, well, first check out the article in our blog section at sharetheword.org. And you can simply email us at info at sharetheword.org. From all of us at Share the Word, our blessings and prayers go out to all of you.