"Behold, I lay in Sion a stumblingstone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed." Romans 9:33
Romans 9I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel: Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed. For this is the word of promise, At this time will I come, and Sarah shall have a son.And not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac; (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;) It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles? As he saith also in Osee,
I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved. And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people; there shall they be called the children of the living God.
Esaias also crieth concerning Israel,
Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved: For he will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness: because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth.And as Esaias said before,
Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we had been as Sodoma, and been made like unto Gomorrha.What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith. But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumblingstone; As it is written,
Behold, I lay in Sion a stumblingstone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
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"Romans Nine, Ten, and Eleven become an essential part of Christian doctrine in this respect: that while they do not set forth our salvation or our place in Christ, as do the first eight chapters, yet they unfold to us our relative place in God’s plans, along with national Israel’s place. They also reveal to us several matters absolutely essential to our proper estimate of God and His ways; and, properly believed, they “hide pride” from us: bringing in as they do the great fact that both ourselves and (in the future), the saved Remnant of Israel, are the objects of sovereign Divine mercy. We discover ourselves in Chapter 9:23 to be “vessels of mercy,” as will future Israel discover themselves to be, by the example of the mercy shown to us. The grace of God has been spoken of in this Epistle often before; but not until these chapters is mercy named; and until mercy is understood, grace cannot be fully appreciated.
In Luke 1:78 (margin) we read of the “heart of mercy” of our God; and in Ephesians 2:4, that God is “rich in mercy.” God proclaimed His name to Moses: “Jehovah, Jehovah, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in loving-kindness and truth” (Ex. 34:6). God’s mercy is the sovereign going forth of His heart to us sinful wretched creatures; His grace follows, in His pardoning our guilt; and His loving-kindness is His proceeding with us in abundant goodness thereafter.
1 I speak the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience bearing witness with me in the Holy Spirit, 2 that I have great sorrow and unceasing pain in my heart. 3 For I could pray that I myself were [cast out] accursed from Christ for my brethren’s sake, my kinsmen according to the flesh: 4 who are Israelites; whose is the [Divine national] adoption and the [earth-manifested] glory, and the covenants, and the custodianship of the law, and the sanctuary service, and the promises; 5 whose are the fathers, and of whom is Christ as concerning the flesh, who is over all, God blessed unto the ages. Amen.
This most remarkable paragraph naturally divides itself into two parts:
1. Verses 1 to 3: Paul’s constant yearning pain for the unbelieving Israelites, his brethren and kinsmen,—a yearning to which he declares the Spirit bears witness, which could, were it right, go the length of his being lost if they could be saved! Thus Moses prayed: “If thou wilt not forgive them, blot me, I pray thee, out of Thy book, which Thou hast written!” (Ex. 32:32, 33.) Dear old Bengel searchingly says, “It is not easy to estimate the measure of love in a Moses and a Paul. For our limited reason does not grasp it, as the child cannot comprehend the courage of warriors!”
2. Verses 4 and 5: The rehearsing of eight matters which belonged to Israel,—yea, and yet belong to Israel, in spite of all their unfaithfulness. As Jehovah says to Jeremiah:
“If these ordinances [of the sun, of the moon, of the stars and of the sea] depart from before Me, saith Jehovah, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before Me forever. Thus saith Jehovah: If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, then will I also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith Jehovah” (Jer. 31:35-37).
Therefore, first, let us deeply reflect on this thing of Paul’s unceasing pain over Israel, lest in our Gentile shallowness we miss the correct judgment of the importance of this event before God, that Israel, among whom He had dwelt, became disobedient, and were broken off from blessing; and lest in our own affections we become so narrowed as to have no yearning over Israel. Shall we let Paul, our great apostle, have this “unceasing pain,” this “great sorrow,” in his heart, all alone? Nay for Paul would not have shared the fact with us except he expected our sympathy in the Spirit. Let us not be like those thousands of grace-hating Jews in Paul’s day who kept following him in his blessed ministry, declaring that he was an apostate Jew, one really denying the faith of his fathers, bitter against his own race in order to curry favor among the despised Gentiles. They spread the report that Paul “taught all men everywhere against Israel and the Law and the temple” (Acts 21:28). How Christ-like was the love in Paul’s heart, that persisted even to be willing to be lost, for the unbelieving Israelites who were reviling him!
Second, let us enumerate and examine the eight respects in which the apostle here declares the nation of Israel differed before God from all other nations:
1. The Divine national adoption—“Thus saith Jehovah, Israel is my son, my first-born” (Ex. 4:22). “Thou art a holy people unto Jehovah thy God: Jehovah thy God hath chosen thee to be a people for His own possession, above all peoples that are upon the face of the earth” (Deut. 7:6). “You only have I known of all the families of the earth” (Amos 3:2). Let the nations, British, Americans, French, Germans, or whatever they be, lay this to heart before it is too late! For as to God’s election of Israel as His chosen nation, it is absolute and eternal, as He says in Isaiah 66:22: “As the new heavens and new earth [of Rev 21 and 22] shall remain before Me, so shall your seed and your name [Israel] remain.”
2. The glory—We all know how God’s presence accompanied Israel as a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night through the sea and through the wilderness, and then filled the tabernacle! No other nation has had or will have God’s presence thus. God said:
“And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them . . . And thou shalt put the mercy-seat above upon the ark; and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee . . . And there I will meet with thee” (Ex. 25:8, 21, 22).
And concerning the dedication of Solomon’s temple we read,
“It came to pass, when the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking Jehovah, and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music, and praised Jehovah, saying. For He is good; for His loving-kindness endureth forever; that then the house was filled with a cloud, even the house of Jehovah, so that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud: for the glory of Jehovah filled the house of God” (II Chron. 5:13, 14).
3. The covenants—With “covenants” Gentiles have absolutely nothing actively to do.196 In Genesis Fifteen God made a covenant with Abraham, and gave to his earthly seed the token of circumcision. In Genesis Twenty-two, God “confirmed” the promise to Abraham’s Seed, which is Christ (Gal. 3:16). With David God made an earthly kingdom-covenant,—that one of David’s descendants should sit upon his throne forever (II Sam. 7:13); as we find Gabriel announcing to Mary in Luke 1:32, 33. God says He will make a New Covenant in the future with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah (Heb. 8:8-12 , quoted from Jer. 31:31, ff), in connection with which He promises to “bring Israel back into their land,” to “take away the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh, to put His Spirit within them, to cause them to walk in His statutes, and keep His ordinances, and do them” (Ezek. 36:24-27).
4. And the custodianship of the Law—It was a great thing to be entrusted with God’s holy Law, as we have seen in Chapter 3:2. Let me here repeat that every writer of Scripture is an Israelite. No other nation has ever been even directly spoken to, as a nation, by God: except to be warned, as were Egypt by Moses, and Nineveh by Jonah. There were written messages,—as Isaiah 13-23; but these were given to Israel, concerning other nations.
5. And the sanctuary-service—The Greek word here (latreia), refers to those religious ordinances prescribed to Israel by God in connection with the tabernacle-worship, and afterwards the temple-worship, which will be resumed in the Millennium, as we read in the last nine chapters of Ezekiel. (The ordinances and offerings then will be memorial, rather than prophetic, as in the days before Christ died.)
Note carefully that such outward form-worship belongs to the nation of Israel, and not to Christianity. To introduce it into Christianity is to return to paganism. For Paul plainly classifies the forms and ceremonies of Judaism as now belonging with “the weak and beggarly religious principles” which heathen Gentiles engage in! (Gal. 4:9, 10.)
Until the “Aryans” (whoever they are) have been led out from all other races by God Himself in manifest presence, and have had a “fiery law” given them from heaven as had Israel, let them stop their mouths, and also stop their ears from any vain pagan prophet! And let the Gentiles all humble their miserable pride. What have they to do with the Law that God committed to Israel? or with the Jewish Sabbath, which God said was a token of His covenant with that chosen people? (Ex. 31:12-17.)
6. And the promises—God’s salvation-promises were lodged in Abraham; His kingdom-promises, in David. No promises were made to Gentile nations as such. For the gospel now proclaimed is not a promise, but the announcement of a fact to be believed; and it is not preached to nations as such, but to individuals—good news to sinners everywhere. But to Israel, promises, thousands of them, were committed,—as a nation.
Now we do not have to become “Israelites” in any sense whatever to enjoy God’s salvation in Christ. The nation of Israel has been set aside for the present as the vessel of Divine blessing to the world, while the Gentiles, as set forth in Chapter Eleven, have now the privileged place, and Jews and Gentiles come individually, upon believing, into a heavenly inheritance. Nevertheless, “the promises” pertain nationally to Israel, and to no other nation as such.
7. Whose are the fathers—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, are directly referred to; and Jacob’s sons also, especially Joseph, and Judah the vessel of royal promise and blessing to Israel (Ps. 77:15; 80:1; 81:5; Gen. 49:8,10; Heb. 7:14). Our hearts include Moses, Samuel, David, and the prophets when we think of Israel and remember “the fathers.” But it is especially to Abraham, “the father of all them that believe,” that our grateful memory turns; for, although we have no connection with Israel, we do have indeed a vital connection with Abraham, as his “children.”
8. And of whom is Christ as to the flesh—who is over all God blessed unto the ages! Amen. In Chapter 1:3 God’s Son is said to be “born of the seed of David according to the flesh”; in John 1:14, we read: “The Word became flesh”; in Hebrews 2:16: “He taketh hold of the seed of Abraham”; and in Matthew 1:1, it is: “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.”
Now this is an astonishing honor to Israel,—infinitely outranking all others: our Lord, “the Mighty God” (Isa. 9:6), is, “according to the flesh,” an Israelite! For two other things are immediately affirmed of Him: He is over all, and He is God blessed unto the ages. The words “over all” are partly explained in I Corinthians 15:27: “He [God the Father] put all things in subjection under His [Christ’s] feet.” But in John 1:1, 3: “The Word was God. All things were made through Him.” As in Col 1:16, 17: “All things were created through Him and unto Him; and by Him all things consist” (hold together); so that Christ is indeed “over all, God blessed forever”! (As to this ascription of deity to Christ, see Kelly’s Notes on Romans, pp. 165-171.)
And now Paul falls back upon the sovereignty of God, accomplishing thereby three things:
First he defends himself (and all of us) against the charge of teaching that God had been unfaithful in His promises toward Israel; (2) he shows that Israel’s own Scriptures had foretold their temporary rejection, and the salvation of the Gentiles; and (3) he shows the great future blessing which will come to Israel, in God’s sovereign MERCY. Let us read the text:
6 But it is not as though the word of God hath come to nought. For they are not all Israel, that are of Israel; 7 neither, because they are Abraham’s seed, are they all children: but. In Isaac shall thy seed be called. 8 That is, It is not the children of the flesh that are children of God; but the children of the promise are reckoned for a seed. 9 For this is a word of promise, According to this season willI come, and Sarah shall have a son. 10 And not only so; but Rebecca also having conceived by one,—by our father Isaac: 11 for [the children] being not yet born, neither having done anything good or bad, that the purpose of God, according to election might stand, not of works, but of Him that calleth, 12—it was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. 13 Even as it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.
The great revealed truth of the sovereignty of God perplexes many, disturbs others, and some take occasion to stumble at it.
Verse 6: But it is not as though the word of God hath come to nought—Paul here refers to those great promises God had made to Abraham, then to Isaac, then to Jacob; conferring blessing upon their seed, announcing Himself as God of Israel, giving them by oath the land of Palestine, placing in David’s line the promise of perpetual royalty on earth; prophesying a great and glorious future for Israel, not only in the coming Millennium, or 1000 years kingdom here, but in the new earth which follows that (Isa. 66:22). Paul’s immediate explanation (for it looked as if these Divine promises had lapsed) was that not all that are of Israel are really Israel before God.
Verse 7: Neither, because they are Abraham’s seed, are they all children: but. In Isaac shall thy seed be called. I know, said our Lord, that ye are Abraham’s descendants; but if you were Abraham’s children you would do the works of Abraham. “If God were your Father, ye would love Me. Ye are of your father the devil” (John 8:37 to 44). To regard religious privilege as spiritual reality is the very deadliest delusion. The real sons of Abraham are defined in Gal. 3:7: “Know therefore, that they that are of faith, the same are sons of Abraham.” However, in the present passage, the point is not that Abraham’s real children are those that believe, but that Divine sovereign calling lies behind all. As God said to Abraham concerning Ishmael, “Nay, but Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his seed after him. And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: behold, I have blessed him and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly. But My covenant will I establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year” (Gen. 17:19-21). The direct quotation is from Gen. 21:12, when Ishmael was cast out. “In Isaac shall thy seed be called.” This is Divine sovereign action. Now Paul explains it:
Verse 8: That is, it is not the children of the flesh that are children of God; but the children of the promise are reckoned for a seed. What does the apostle mean by “The children of the promise are reckoned for a seed”? It is most necessary that we perceive that Paul is speaking here, not of man’s believing a promise and therefore being written down as one of God’s children; but on the contrary, of the promise (of God to Christ) that characterizes the existence and calling of all the real children of God. He expounds this in the next verse.
Verse 9: For this is a word of promise, According to this season will I come, and Sarah shall have a son—The quotation is from Genesis 18:10. Read the connection there carefully. Isaac, the coming child, did not believe the promise in order to be born! But, God promised Isaac to Abraham, and kept His promise by a miracle. When Isaac was born, therefore, he was a child of promise,—a promised child, in God’s sovereign will.
Verses 10, 11: And not only so, but Rebecca also having conceived by one, even by our father Isaac—for the children being not yet born, neither having done anything good or bad, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth,—
In the former passage it is brought out that Isaac was a child of promise, not merely of natural generation. In the present passage the Divine sovereignty—“the purpose of God according to election”—is seen extending still further than birth, to the disposition of the condition and affairs of the children thus promised. The elder shall serve the younger, is not only a prophecy that Jacob would inherit and obtain the Divine blessing, and that his seed (as in the days of David and Solomon) would be temporarily triumphant over the Edomites, Esau’s descendants; but also looks far into the future beyond the brief triumph of the Herodians, the Edomites, in the days of Christ and the apostles, to the day when, as Balaam was forced against his will to prophesy:
“There shall come forth a Star out of Jacob,
And a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel,
And shall smite through the corners of Moab,
And break down all the sons of tumult.
And Edom shall be a possession;
Seir also shall be a possession, who were his enemies;
While Israel doeth valiantly” (Num. 24:17, 18).
“And they [Israel and Judah when the Lord returns, agrees Isaiah], shall put forth their hand upon Edom and Moab, and the children of Ammon shall obey them” (Isa. 11:14).
Verses 12, 13: The elder shall serve the younger, and, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated—These words are chosen from the first and from the last books of the Old Testament. As to “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated,” a woman once said to Mr. Spurgeon, “I cannot understand why God should say that He hated Esau.” “That,” Spurgeon replied, “is not my difficulty, madam. My trouble is to understand how God could love Jacob!” All men being sinners, we must allow God to “retreat into His own sovereignty,” to act as He will. You and I may say, Esau proved himself entirely unworthy of the covenant blessings, for he despised them. This, however, will be seen to be a shallow view of the statement of the eleventh verse, that the prophecy of their future was told to their mother while the children were yet in her womb, not having done anything good or bad. For the Divine statement concerning His own election, and His providence that carries out that election, is very plain, that it is not of works but of Himself, who gives the creature his calling. We have already in Romans seen and believed that righteousness is not of works but of Divine grace—uncaused by us. Now let us just as frankly bow to God’s plain statement that His purpose according to election is likewise not of human works. That is to say, the favor of God to the children of promise (to those whom He has given to Christ) is not procured by their response to God’s grace, but contrariwise, their response to God’s grace is because they have been given to Christ.
14 What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Far be the thought! 15 For He saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. 16 So then. it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that hath mercy. 17 For the Scripture saith unto Pharaoh, For this very purpose did I raise thee up, that I might show in thee My power, and that My name might be published abroad in all the earth. 18 So then He hath mercy on whom He will, and whom He will He hardeneth.
We have now come upon that passage of Scripture against which the human mind—or rather heart, rebels most of all. For it sets the creature as he really is before God; not, indeed, as an automaton, nor in fatalistic compulsion,—otherwise there were no morals, and no appeal in the gospel.
Nevertheless, it will be our only safe path to receive just as God writes it down, the truth we find here.
Verses 14,15: What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Far be the thought! For He saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. We have only to remember the circumstances under which God thus spoke to Moses, to see the righteousness of God’s sovereignty in mercy. There had been the awful breach at Sinai: Israel had “changed their glory for the likeness of an ox that eateth grass.” The eternal ineffably glorious Jehovah in His indignation had said to Moses: “Let Me alone, that My wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation” (Ex. 32:10). Moses pleads for the people, and the next day offers, if God will forgive them, to be himself blotted out of God’s book! He said to the people: “I will go up unto Jehovah; peradventure I shall make atonement for your sin” (Ex. 32:30). Forty days and forty nights this devoted man lay on his face interceding for Israel, and God brought about, as we know, Moses’ mediatorship for Israel. (Study carefully Ex. 33; 34: especially Ex. 33:12-17; Ex. 34:1, 27, 28, 32.) God shows Moses himself favor; and finally extends it to all the people. And note, it is in this connection, and under these circumstances, and in answer to the personal request of His beloved servant: “Show me, I pray thee, thy glory,” that Jehovah says, “I will make all My goodness pass before thee, and will proclaim the name of Jehovah before thee; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy” (Ex. 33:18, 19).
Now who can find fault with that? Unless Jehovah shows mercy, Israel must all righteously perish. There was no resource left in man! God, whose name is Love, must come out to man and come in mercy, or all is over! And here we earnestly ask you to read the remarkable words of Darby...below.* It will accomplish in the heart which weighs it carefully that reconciliation of the sovereignty of God with God’s love and grace which is possible alone to faith; and it will also enlighten the mind concerning God’s dealings with Israel as recorded in these three great chapters of Romans.
*"Here the apostle shows Israel from their own history that they must leave God to His sovereignty or else they must lose their promises; and then that in the exercise of this sovereignty He will let in the Gentiles, as well as the Jews. If, says Paul, you Israelites will take your promises by descent, we will just see what comes of it. You say, we be Abraham’s seed, and have a right to the promises by descent; for these Gentiles are but dogs, and have no right to share with us in God’s promises. Well, if God has His sovereignty, He will in grace let in these Gentile dogs! But now I will prove to you that you cannot take the promises by descent. In the first place, ‘They are not all Israel which are of Israel’; yet if it is by descent you must take in all Abraham’s seed, And if you take in Abraham’s children, then you must take in Ishmael—those Arabians! Oh no, say they, we cannot allow that; what! Ishmaelites in the congregation of Israel, and heirs of promise? Yes, if by descent! You must take it by grace; and if it is by grace, God will not confine this grace to you, but will exercise it toward the Gentiles.
“But now, to go further down in your history, you have Jacob and Esau; and if you go by descent, you must let in the Edomites by the same title as yourselves. But in verses 5 and 9, it says, ‘The children of the promise are counted for the seed’: so that it must rest on Isaac and Jacob, and Ishmael and Esau remain outside: therefore your mouth must now be closed as to descent, for your mouth is bound up by God’s saying, ‘Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.’ He has chosen, according to His sovereign title, to bless you, and on that alone your blessing depends; as your own history shows, and your own prophetic testimony proves. You cannot rest it on a mere title by descent. But further, see how their (the Jews’) mouth is stopped: for when did God say, ‘I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy’? When every Israelite had lost all title to everything God had to give, then God retreated, if I may use the expression, into His own sovereignty, that He might not cut them off.”
[See Exodus 33:19, after the great breach made by Israel’s worshipping the golden calf, while Moses was standing in the mount with Jehovah!]
“By this act, Israel had forfeited everything: they had cast off the promises, which they had accepted on the condition of their own obedience (Ex. 19:8), and the God who made the promises, and who alone could fulfil them. Could God overlook this sin? Israel had undertaken to have the promises by their obedience; if God had dealt with Israel in righteousness, every one must have been cut off. What could God do, but retreat, as I said, into His own sovereignty? There He had a resource; for if any of them are to be spared, it must be in this way of mercy. ‘I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.’ Man is entirely lost, so now God says, I will act for Myself. Taking a truth in connection with all other truth gives it its right and proper place, and its own Divine force.
“Say now, you Jews, (and you, my reader, ask yourself the question), will you be willing to be dealt with in righteousness? No, you would not! Then do not talk about it, until you can go to God on that footing. But if you have such a conviction of sin as stops your mouth about righteousness, and so excludes all boasting, you will rejoice in the ‘mercy’ and ‘compassion’ of God, who retreats into His own sovereignty, that He may know how to spare; because in this sovereignty He can show mercy.” John Darby
Verse 16: So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that hath mercy—Oh, that this great verse might sink into our ears, into our very hearts! Perhaps no statement of all Scripture so completely brings man to an utter end. Man thinks he can “will” and “decide,” God-ward, and that after he has so “decided” and “willed,” he has the ability to “run,” or, as he says, to “hold out.” But these two things, deciding and holding out, are in this verse utterly rejected as the source of salvation,—which is declared to be God that hath MERCY. Human responsibility is not at all denied here: man ought to will, and ought to run. But we are all nothing but sinners, and can do,—will do, neither: unless God come forth to us in sovereign mercy.*
Verses 17 and 18: For the Scripture saith unto Pharaoh For this very purpose did I raise thee up, that I might show in thee My power, and that My name might be published abroad in all the earth. So then He hath mercy on whom He will, and whom He will He hardeneth.
Now in Pharaoh’s case, it is customary to emphasize the fact that he said: “Who is Jehovah, that I should hearken unto His voice to let Israel go? I know not Jehovah, and moreover I will not let Israel go” (Ex. 5:2).
But we must go back of that to Exodus 4:21: “And Jehovah said unto Moses, When thou goest back into Egypt, see that thou do before Pharaoh all the wonders which I have put in thy hand: but I will harden [lit., make strong] his heart, and he will not let the people go.”
“And I will harden Pharoah’s heart and multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt. But Pharaoh will not hearken unto you, and I will lay My hand upon Egypt, and bring forth My hosts. My people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great judgments” (Ex. 7:3, 4).
Now it is not necessary nor right to make God the author of Pharaoh’s stubbornness. No more is it right to insist that if God be a God of love He must save everybody, as all sorts of Universalists claim. Ex. 7:13, 14 records Pharaoh’s attitude after the first “wonder”; and then God’s report of Pharaoh’s heart-condition,—for God sees the heart: “And Pharaoh’s heart was hardened [lit., was strong], and he hearkened not unto them; as Jehovah had spoken.”
“And Jehovah said unto Moses, ‘Pharaoh’s heart is heavy.’” Now the Hebrew word translated “heavy” or “hard” here, is frequently used of that which weighs down, as in Exodus 17:12: “Moses’ hands were heavy”; and in I Kings 12:10: “Thy father made our yoke heavy.” See especially Isaiah 1:4: “A people laden [lit., heavy] with iniquity.” On the whole, therefore, we are compelled to see that Pharaoh’s heart was left by God simply in its natural state,—heavy with iniquity. Unlike Jehoshaphat (II Chron. 17:6), his heart had never been “lifted up in the ways of Jehovah.” Unlike David, he had not even felt the weight of his sins, for David complains, in Psalm 38:4:
“Mine iniquities are gone over my head;
As a heavy burden they are too heavy for me.”
The word heavy here is the same Hebrew word which God uses to describe Pharaoh’s heart, in Exodus 7:14.
God had a perfect right to allow Pharaoh to remain (where we all would have remained, apart from Divine sovereign mercy!), in a disobedient. God-defying attitude: “Who is Jehovah that I should obey Him?” Pharaoh fulfilled the Divine counsels. The plagues his rebellion brought on, and his overthrow at the Red Sea, are celebrated in Exodus 15:14: “The peoples have heard, they tremble.” The pagan Philistines, even in Samuel’s day said: “These are the gods that smote the Egyptians with all manner of plagues in the wilderness” (I Sam. 4:7, 8). Jehovah’s name was indeed through this unregenerate rebel, Pharaoh, “published abroad in all the earth,” just as He said!
What God’s Word tells us as to His dealing with Pharaoh, explains “He hardeneth.” But nothing else than a subject heart of faith will enter, with reverent footstep, into the twice repeated words, “whom He will,” here. And we say boldly, that a believer’s heart is not fully yielded to God until it accepts without question, and without demanding softening, this eighteenth verse.
Paul in the Spirit forestalls the natural operations of man’s proud heart:
19 Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth He still find fault? For who withstandeth His will? 20 Nay, but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to Him that formed it, Why didst Thou make me thus? 21 Or hath not the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor?
In His infinite wisdom and knowledge God reads with unerring accuracy the operations of the human heart: “Man looketh on the outward appearance, but Jehovah looketh on the heart.” Man says, If I am not one of God’s elect, an object of His mercy, then I cannot do right, and God should not blame me. I asked an intelligent man in western Michigan if he had believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. He burst out into loud laughing, saying, “If I am elect, I will go to heaven; and if I am not elect, there is no use in my worrying about the question!” I rebuked him sternly, with these words: “‘God commandeth men that they should all everywhere repent: inasmuch as He hath appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He hath ordained.’ ‘God’s commands are God’s enablings,’ and if you will hearken to Him, you will be saved. But you will not dare to say to God in that day, I could not come because I was not of the elect; for that will not be true! The reason you refused to come, will be found to be your love of sin, not your non-election!” God says, “Whosoever will,” and the door is open to all, absolutely all. God means “Whosoever”: and that is the word for you, sinner; and not election, which is God’s business, not yours!
*God has come forth at Calvary! He has set forth Christ as a propitiation through faith in His blood. Here is infinite love, displayed when human sin was at its topmost height of frightful guilt and malignity. “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34) were the words spoken in tenderness to God the Father by God the Son at the moment wicked hands were nailing Him to a cross of agony—spoken by One whose face was “marred more than any man.” Therefore in the gospel is power to turn men’s hearts, for it is the goodness of God that leadeth us to repentance. “That repentance and remission of sins should be preached in my Name,” said our risen Lord, He of the pierced hands and feet and side!"
