Exposition by Max A Forsythe
Christ Covenant Reformed (PCA)
This
portion arises from the assertion at the end of verse eighteen that God hardens
whom he will.
This statement and the resultant doctrine of election are very hard pills
for people to accept.
Certainly, very much of the church in our time would not object if -- as
Hodge describes it -- “if
Paul had merely said that God chooses those whom he foresees would repent and
believe, or that the basis of distinction lay in the different behavior of
men.”
And this is where many of our Christian brethren are, in their
understanding.
As G.I. Williamson details it, even very many evangelical churches
believe that a leap of faith on the part of the believer is necessary to grab a
hold on the gift of salvation.
We have only to imagine a desperate scene like a James Bond thriller
where the hero follows the empty escape plane over the edge of a cliff on a
motorcycle.
Then without benefit of a parachute, free falls after the plane, climbs
in and then flies off to safety!
Well,
I’m sorry.
We are not heroes of that stature.
I was recently asked how I was able to remain orthodox in my beliefs,
given
the denomination I was born into and the generation with which I was
raised.
Perhaps I answered too flippantly in implying that my parents didn’t
raise a fool.
Even I understood, many years ago, that the grace of the Lord was holding
me back from the group dynamics and from the liberal training being spread
abroad on purpose.
Several friends and professors at Seminary wondered why I was so
different.
Well, it is not in the Scot’s blood with which I many times bore you;
it was not in choosing one’s parents carefully, or in the reading of the
orthodox confessions.
I did not choose to be different from the common crowd.
My orthodoxy springs entirely from the grace of God.
If
the Army recruiting slogan of a few years back were really true, then
“Being all you can be” would
better explain the decadent lifestyle and the pagan beliefs so utterly common
around us.
This matter of human choice is faulty because our choosing procedures are
fallen.
I always get upset when our professional “educators”
tell me that
I’m not teaching the students what they want to learn.
If I did that I would be successful like they are.
You can see the tragic results of this methodology all around us.
You see, when students choose what to learn, they will choose not to
learn anything!
Eventually every course must become an educational or a communications
course, where there is no content to learn, no factual tests to fail and thus no
student failures!
My
first exposure to such courses was in Seminary, where I was required to sign up
for a communications course that I did not want to take.
I very quickly understood that the professor wanted every student to like
her. She
also suggested that talking over our problems was more effective than prayer, so
we were invited to talk to her any time we pleased.
Well, I won’t dwell on what the psychobabbelists might describe as a
Messiah complex.
But, can you imagine a “god
or goddess”
fabricated in just such a anthropological model?
She, he or it would save any of the created humans who simply learned to
like their creator.
Of course you would have to agree that such a system would be absurd in
the extreme.
But, isn’t this just exactly what the worldly theologians would have us
believe?
Who could learn to love a “god” who chooses to love those who loved
“him?”
Thanks
be to the real God of heaven, that revealed theology is of much greater depth
than the mindless communications systems of modern man or the inadequate
self-made religions of ancient men!
Our verses here are chock full of heavenly wisdom.
Charles Hodge summarizes the two answers that Paul sets before us to the
apparent problem.
First, in verses twenty and twenty-one, the objection “springs
from ignorance of the true relationship between God and men as Creator and
creatures, and of the nature and extent of the divine authority over us.”
Second,
on verses twenty-two and twenty-three, Hodge points out that “there
is nothing in his doctrine which is inconsistent with God’s perfect nature,
since he does not make men wicked, but from the mass of wicked men he pardons
one and punishes another, for the wisest and most benevolent reasons".
Let
me focus a minute on that second reason first.
“He
does not make men wicked.”
This is an important point, because we must never lay the cause of
wickedness at the feet of our righteous and holy God.
To do so, and to suggest that double predestination is obviously evident
here, goes beyond the relationship of this passage with many other passages in
both Testaments.
Let me go back to my short stint in that one professor’s communications
course.
I am certain that she was a very likable person, as worldly people go.
In fact, if the truth were really known, we are all attracted to the most
friendly and worldly people around us, because they would tell us exactly what
we want to hear.
And probably, if that professor hadn’t quietly denounced the whole
issue of what prayer is, I might have stayed and made my academic advisor happy,
instead of furious.
God
is righteous and holy, absolutely above reproach.
Who could love a God who caused people to sin and to despise Him?
This focus brings us back to the first focus of Paul -- our understanding
of who and what God is, and our relationship to him.
There
is a children’s story that comes close to helping us understand the personal
dynamics of the Creator and creature relationship.
According to this short tale, there was once an ant keeper who kept ants
in a glass ant farm.
Light and darkness were carefully controlled for the benefit of the
hard-working ants.
Food, water, humus and all the good things of life needed by the ants
were also provided in just the right quantities.
In fact, the ant farmer loved his little charges, and in imitation of the
divine purpose, turned himself into an ant to tell his creatures how much he
loved them.
Yes, he appeared as an ant, but really wasn’t an ant.
The point of this childish tale is that God is different from us.
The whole of Scripture is no anthropological manifesto, like liberal
commentators would have us believe.
Scripture was not written to create a God for our mental and spiritual
consumption.
It was and still is the revelation of the mind of God, in-so-far as we
are able to appreciate, comprehend and love Him!
Two
further points need to be addressed before we close this Scripture portion this
morning.
In verse twenty-two we see the revelation that, while this earth is
peopled by both elect and non-elect, He holds back His wrath and bears with
great patience those who are prepared for destruction.
The early church thought, when they envisioned the great day of
Christ’s return, that He must come quickly.
What if He had?
Where would we be?
What if He had returned before you were converted, and still in sin?
Where would you be?
One of my pagan students a few years ago asked me what I wanted more than
anything else.
I answered that I would like for Christ to return immediately.
He turned pale and said that he hoped that Jesus’ return could be
delayed until He had a chance to understand who He was.
In
verse twenty-three, we see God’s gracious love of the elect.
Here we understand why He tarries, so that we and others yet to be called
may come into the Kingdom.
Of course, the world continues on its merry way to hell while we are
being saved.
And everyone would perish like those in Sodom and Gomorrah if the Lord
Himself had not chosen descendants for Himself from both Israel and from the
Gentiles.
What is God doing in all of this? We have to be careful in our suppositions, and we dare not run ahead of Scripture. But I have had, penciled into my study Bible for many years, this idea along side our text today. The ugly duckling wouldn’t have known he was a swan if he hadn’t grown up with common ducks. Of course that is too simple, and there are theological problems if we take that too far. But do look around you this week. Consider the worldly crowd, their habits and your desires. Consider how you have come into Christ’s church, and be thankful that you are not just another ugly duckling. By the elective grace of our Father in heaven, you are called to glory. By His mercy you have a place in eternity in His presence. Thanks be to God our Father.
Resources Used: The Holy Bible, New International Version
Places Preached:Hodge, Charles. Romans. Murray, John. New International Commentary: Epistle to Romans. Williamson, G.I. The Shorter Catechism.
Christ Covenant REFORMED (Presbyterian Church in America) Post Office Box 13926 - Columbus, OH 43213-7926
Rom09d.htm 26 November 95
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