Session 4.24: June 12, 2026
Study session scripture: Romans 9:14-29
What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means! For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.
You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? As indeed he says in Hosea,
“Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’ and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’” “And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’”
And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved, for the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay.” And as Isaiah predicted,
“If the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring, we would have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah.”
Study session topics:
God's Saving Promises to Israel, Continued
Is God unjust?
"What shall we say then?"--refers back to Paul's explanation of God's sovereign choice
This is an objection we encounter to this day--"If God is all-powerful, then He is unjust."
Paul shifts his answer from God's justice to God's mercy
Under God's justice we are all deservedly condemned (3:10-12)
God's mercy is the only way anyone is saved, and mercy is in a different category than justice -Paul again states that salvation is a work of God that doesn't depend on human exertion or will (8:30)
The example of Pharaoh (Exodus 9:13-16)
God is not responsible for man's sin
God is free to save whom He wills and judge whom He wills
In both cases, His name is glorified
Why does He still find fault?
This objection flows directly from Paul's answer to the first
Critical problems with this question:
It assumes God condemns certain people without reference to what they are or do as sinners
It assumes God creates certain people only to damn them, and that they themselves are bystanders in all this
The question itself is a rebellion against God's right to do with His creation as He will
Paul's answer to the question begins with 3 comparisons to put the question in its proper context
Man and God -Created and Creator
Clay and Potter
Paul connects the illustration of the potter with the conclusion of the previous objection, the idea of God's wrath (Ch. 1), and His forbearance (2:4)
Paul ends his refutation with quotes from Hosea and Isaiah that show that God's new covenant of salvation was always His goal, even in the days of the old Israelite kingdom
Hosea
God commanded Hosea to marry a woman who would be unfaithful to him and give his children strange and symbolic names
Paul is emphasizing unity between Jews and Gentile believers
Isaiah -"only the remnant will be saved"--Paul once again rejects physical lineage as the way to be included in God's covenant
Apart from God's grace in saving a remnant, Israel would have been destroyed
Taken together, these quotes emphasize a church blended together from Jews and Gentiles and God's faithfulness to His promises as they are rightly understood
Study session audio: