Romans 9 has been a battleground text for centuries. Calvinists and Arminians have hotly debated this passage since the days of the Reformation.
Since I am neither a Calvinist nor an Arminian, I want to offer my perspective on Romans 9 over the course of the next few posts so that people who are trying to understand what Paul is saying in Romans 9 about election, Esau, Pharaoh, and the potter and the clay. Note that all of these posts are drawn from the longer explanation in my book The Re-Justification of God.
When it comes to understanding Romans 9, there are three keys which I have found helpful in explaining what Paul is teaching in this text. Let us look briefly below at each of these three keys to understanding Romans 9.
1. Salvation in Romans
To begin with, we must recognize that “salvation” in Scripture rarely refers to receiving eternal life. “Salvation” does not mean “forgiveness of sins so we can go to heaven when we die.” The word simply means “deliverance,” and the context must determine what sort of deliverance is in view.
Most often, the deliverance is some sort of physical deliverance from enemies, storms, and sickness, or from some of the temporal consequences of sin (cf. Matt 8:25; 9:22; Mark 5:34; 13:20; Luke 8:48; 23:35; John 12:27; 1 Tim 2:15; 2 Tim 4:18; Jas 5:15; Jude 5; See “save, saving” in Vine’s Expository Dictionary, p. 547). This understanding of “salvation” is especially true in Romans.
Most of the uses of “salvation” in Romans are in connection with wrath. It is not wrong to say that “salvation in Romans” is deliverance from wrath (Hodges, Romans).
So what is wrath?
Just as salvation does not refer to entrance into heaven, wrath does not refer to eternity in hell. Nor is wrath from God.
Though an imaginary objector to Paul does occasionally speak of “God’s wrath” in Romans, Paul does not understand wrath this way. For Paul, “wrath” is what happens to people (both believers and unbelievers) when they stray from God’s guidelines for proper living.
Today, we would speak of “consequences.” While someone today might say that a destroyed marriage is the consequence of adultery, Paul might argue that a destroyed marriage is the “wrath” of adultery. And as all who have experienced the damaging and destructive consequences of sin know, the fall-out from sinful choices often feels like wrath. Sin brings metaphorical earthquakes, hailstorms, raging fires, and flash floods into our lives, leaving behind large swaths of destruction. What better word to describe this than “wrath”?
So in Romans, salvation is deliverance from the devastating consequences of sin. This is the first key to understanding Romans 9.
2. Election is to Service
The second key to understanding Romans 9 is to see that “election” is not to eternal life, but to service. Just as God elected Israel to serve His purposes in the world, so also, God chose the Church for similar purposes. This understanding of election greatly helps us understand some notoriously difficult texts in Romans 9–11.
For example, Paul writes in Romans 11:17-21 that the elect branches were cut off so that non-elect branches could be grafted in, which in turn will lead to the elect-which-became-non-elect to be re-grafted back in and become re-elect. If Paul is referring to eternal life when he speaks of election, none of this makes any sense. How can a people or a nation whom God elected “to eternal life” before the foundation of the world go from being elect to non-elect and then re-elect?
However, this makes perfect sense when we recognize that election is not to eternal life but to service. God wants to bless the world through His people, and if one group of people fails in this God-given task, then God will simply find someone else to do it while He continues to lead the first group to fulfill His overarching purposes—albeit in different ways than originally intended. If this second group also fails, they too will be moved into an alternative role in accomplishing God’s will (Rom 11:17-21).
If necessary, God could raise up a people for Himself from rocks (Matt 3:9). In this way, when Paul writes about branches being cut off so others can be grated in which will lead to the cut off branches being grafted back in again, he is not talking about people losing and regaining eternal life, but about losing and re-gaining places of privilege and purpose in God’s plan for this world.
God’s plan of redemption started with Israel, shifted to the Gentiles, and eventually will reincorporate Israel so that “of Him and through Him and to Him are all things” (Rom 11:36).
This idea really helps us understand Romans 9. Election is to service, so that God can elect even people like Esau and Pharaoh to service, and this has nothing whatsoever to do with their eternal destiny.
3. Election is Corporate AND Individual
The third and final key to understanding Romans 9 is that election is both corporate and individual.
There is a long-standing debate about election, regarding whether Paul is talking about corporate election or individual election. That is, when Paul writes about the election of Israel, or God’s choice of Jacob over Esau, is Paul talking about the individuals within Israel, and the individual destinies of Jacob and Esau, or is Paul referring instead to the national and corporate destinies of Israel (which came from Jacob) and Edom (which came from Esau)?
Usually, the battle lines over this debate are determined by whether a person is a Calvinist or not. As Calvinists believe and teach the individual election of certain people to eternal life, they are more likely to understand and explain Romans 9 in this light. Those who do not hold to Calvinism tend to interpret Romans 9 as teaching corporate election. Henry Halley, author of Halley’s Bible Handbook, is one such writer:
Paul is not discussing the predestination of individuals to salvation or condemnation, but is asserting God’s absolute sovereignty in the choice and management of nations for world functions (Halley’s Bible Handbook, 527).
So which is it? Is Paul talking about individual election or corporate election?
I believe that in Romans 9 Paul is teaching both corporate and individual election.
Since it is the purposes of God that determine who gets elected and to what form of service they are elected, then it is God who decides when He needs to call individuals and when He needs to call nations or groups of people to perform certain tasks.
Of course, even when election is corporate, it is true that God’s purpose for that group of people is carried out by individuals within the group, and so in this sense, we can say that even corporate election has an individual aspect.
On the other hand, the benefit to corporate election is that even if some individuals within the corporate identity do not contribute to fulfill the purpose of the corporate entity, there will be some within the group that will fulfill their purpose, thus accomplishing God’s purpose in election.
With these three keys before us, the difficult chapter of Romans 9 becomes much less difficult. If you want to read more, you can get my book, The Re-Justification of God.
If you want to read more about Calvinism, check out other posts in this blog series: Words of Calvinism and the Word of God.
I’m trying to wrap my noodle around the concept of wrath and salvation that you are laying out here.
So if you have the vessels of wrath, and the vessels of mercy it is not speaking of those that God pours out his wrath or mercy upon, but those He uses to to mete out wrath and mercy? This brings me to mind of the Chaldeans as described in Habakkuk, but also makes me wonder which Moses was because while he was a vessel of mercy to Israel, he was in the same breath a vessel of wrath toward Egypt.
Just spitballing here, I might be completely misunderstanding what you are talking about here.
Dallas,
Keep chewing, it is well worth the effort to work through this one. If we can get away from the idea that a vessel of wrath means someone who is going to hell, and think more along the lines of created purpose in fulfilling God;s plan, then we get a completely fresh look at Romans 9. Once we decide that the “election” in Romans 9 is about getting into heaven or not, it creates more problems than it solves. I would argue that Paul really never has in mind “heaven or hell” when he uses words like “chosen” or foreknew, or predestined, or elect. Most often, there is a specific telos to which this election is pointing, and that is rarely if even only about who goes to heaven or who goes to hell.
Pastor FedEx
The election to service idea actually makes a ton of sense, it lines up really nicely with the concept of ekklesia.
Dallas,
I am still struggling with a lot of this too. I have some recently approach me and say that the “wrath of God” is actually His anger at sin in us and how it destroys our lives. This might be possible also.
Obviously, a lot more study and thinking needs to take place on this.
Neither Calvinist nor Arminian? That is impossible given the nature of the issues.
I personally see that as being a 1 Corinthians 1:12 kind of issue. I can take what great men throughout history have learned about scripture to help me in my reading, but if I start considering myself a Calvinist or an Arminian, am I not just like those that said “I follow Cephas” or “I follow Appolos”?
We could be blind to something that Scripture is attempting to reveal to us because we have too completely bought into some system of theology.
So if you CHOOSE to be a Calvinist, then aren’t you really being Armenian. Perhaps you were destined to be an Armenian all along. But how do you know if its your choice, or if you are only choosing Calvinism because you were predestined to choose that way. Maybe you think you are choosing Calvinism, but if you fail to persevere to the end as a Calvinist, and then change to Armenian, you were not elected to Calvinism at all. SOOOOOOOOOO CONFUSING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
FedEx
Using TULIP as a summary of Calvinism:
* Total Depravity (also known as Total Inability and Original Sin)
* Unconditional Election
* Limited Atonement (also known as Particular Atonement)
* Irresistible Grace
* Perseverance of the Saints (also known as Once Saved Always Saved)
The Five Arminian Articles. A.D. 1610
* Article III. Free Will
* Article I. Conditional Election
* Article II. General Atonement
* Article IV. Resistible Grace
* Article V. Falling from Grace
What is an individual that accepts some of the five points of TULIP, and some of the Five Arminian Articles?
For arguments sake:
* Article III
* Point 2
* Point 3
* Article IV
* Article V
There are systems of Christian theology that were developed without any reference to either Calvin, or Arminius. In some, perhaps most of them, these issues simply don’t come up.
That is what most Calvinists and Arminians think, which is both groups tend to shut out any mediating position from the conversation. But I assure you, having read extensively from both camps, I am neither Calvinist nor Arminian.
Jeremy Myers I can assure you given the nature of the issues you are either one or the other. I am not going to have a debate here about this.
Jeremy, ever consider Molinism?
Philip Stallings, I am not interested in a debate either. But considering your response, may I assume you are a Calvinist?
Tony, Yes, I have read several books on the topic. I prefer neo-molinism to straight-up Molinism, but still wouldn’t fall completely in that camp.
That’s a bold statement, Philip. I guess it depends on what you think defines Arminian though. If you take it that anyone who believes in free-will is Arminian, then I suppose most Free Gracers (but not all) are Arminian.
But even then it isn’t clear. For example,while most Free Grace people that I know believe in free-will, they also deny that faith is voluntary. We can’t choose what we want to believe. We have the freedom to listen to an argument, to search for proof, and to consider new evidence, but whether or not we believe the evidence is not a matter of the will. We either believe it, or not.
Or take another example. All Arminians of which I am aware, take it that salvation can be lost. By contrast, Free Gracers believe in eternal security, and interpret the warning passage in a dramatically different way than traditional Arminian or Wesleyan interpreters.
Or lastly, most Arminians think that the atonement was universal, but only provisional—God offers the promise of forgiveness to all, but only forgives believers (or the baptized). By contrast, the Free Gracers I know would say the atonement is universal in scope AND in benefit, in that it actually takes away the judicial consequences of sin for the whole world (John 1:29), but that is a separate issue from receiving eternal life, which is only given to those who have faith in Christ.
I see each of those positions are being distinct from both Calvinist and Arminian thought. So, I’ll have to side with Jeremy here.
It’s interesting to note that Arminius considered himself to be a Calvinist. So in a sense, Arminianism is a variety of Calvinism. They both share Calvin’s theory of penal substitutionary atonement, which Jeremy and I both reject.
In Romans 1 the wrath of God is contrasted with the righteousness of God. Both are genitives which can be translated with of or from. Most scholars (accept those who wrote the NIV!) accept that we should translate these genitives with of rather than from. So I agree wrath is not from God but of God. God has constructed a moral universe which results in wrath when we sin. Nonetheless God is still the ultimate source of this wrath Wrath is not just an accidental consequence of God’s moral universe.
I love that explanation. Thanks for helping out on this!
Jeremy, I’m baffled at why you want to dredge through tired old debates that haven’t been resolved and are not likely to be resolved (perhaps you consider them resolved but that only applies to you). Anyone who wades through these arguments with the intent of “I’m going to sort out everyone” comes across as a case of extreme hubris. It is a matter of fact the Christianity exist along a wide and varying continuum. We no longer live in the middle ages, we no longer are faced with what Luther and Calvin and what have you were faced with – the need to defend a theological position against Roman Catholicism. Honestly, I simply see these viewpoints as more indicative of personality differences than real differences in logic. Both sides and others have presented their cases and continue to present them, and at the end of the day it comes down to your vintage viewpoint of God and scripture. Everyone interprets scripture and God from their tiny little vintage point, including myself. I honestly think investing your time in some other realm of the Christian life would be better spent than trying to “correct” the “errors” of Calvinism.
This has just been my experience, but most of the self described Calvinists that I have met treat Calvin as the be all and end all of Biblical teaching. They don’t seem to wrestle with scripture because they already have their answer in Calvin. Again this is just my experience and I’m not saying this of everyone, but if there are errors, then they should be brought to light. Even if they are just presumed errors, the conversation can be valuable for everyone involved.
The church of the FSM. C’mon Jeremy,technicalities don’t matter. The meaning of the bible is revealed only by the holy spirit, We interpret it according to our nature.
Yuri, if I didn’t know better (I don’t), it sounds like you’re advocating for relativism, that finding the truth about a matter doesn’t really matter, and that we have to settle for one of the positions already staked out in theological history. But why? Why shouldn’t we keep on pressing on towards finding the truth, leaving behind the old paradigms if we have to, and searching for new ones that better explain the Scriptures? You’re right that both sides have presented their cases (actualy, there are more than two sides), but does that mean we have to settle for one of them? I, for one, think the Scriptures need to be read in a fresh light, without many of the assumptions that govern traditional Protestant hermeneutics.
Shawn, finding truth with a capital ‘T’ matters but demonstrating it is another thing. Many many theological positions deeply feel that they’ve found the truth of the matter. Understanding scripture heavily depends on interpretation which is also influenced by multiple factors. No one is immune from assumptions or presuppositions, regardless of how ‘fresh’ their reading is. You can take old interpretations and merge them with new information or whatever but to assume that now you’ve arrived at the Truth regarding the thing being argued is claiming more than you can really demonstrate. I would move forward with more practical applications – day to day living. Trying to settle centuries old disputes is pointless and just further contributes to the morass of interpretation already piled up. Rather than argue over free will, I would say that if you are Calvinist then be as consistent as you can, or if you are Arminian then live out your faith with that conviction or if you’re Catholic then pursued a deeper understanding of your Catholicism. Insert whatever theological tradition you can find but aim to be consistent. Trying to prove that another’s hermeneutical assumptions are fundamentally wrong is chasing windmills for they’ve been around too long to simply disappear.
If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction. – Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Yuri, I know that a lot of people don’t like to read about the Calvinism debate. But it is something I have wanted to write about for 20 years, so …. I’m writing about it. I have no illusions that I am going to “solve” the debate.
Please note, of course, that though this may be a tried old debate for you, it is brand new and fresh to lots and lots of people who are just hearing about Calvinism from the pulpits for the very first time, and have questions about what the Bible teaches. It is for them that I am writing, and based on numerous recent comments, they are glad I am writing on it.
I find that no matter what I write on, I get complaints from people saying, “Why are you writing about this? I don’t want to read this.” I always say, “So don’t read it. I’ll be writing about something else in 6 months. Check back then!”
“Trying to prove that another’s hermeneutical assumptions are fundamentally wrong is chasing windmills for they’ve been around too long to simply disappear.”
The belief systems may be around for a long time, but individuals are always being convinced one way or another!
“I would move forward with more practical applications…”
But practical applications are debated just as much!
Keep at it Jeremy!
Trying very hard to prepare myself for class where we are studying Chapter 9 and our instructor “leans toward Calvinism.” You make the point here that “salvation” is not speaking of eternal life. However, by the time we get to chapter 10, it most certainly is. (Verse 10:10 as a specific example.) Seeing that has made me far less confident to take your position into class. Can you help me with this? Thanks!
I believe Almighty SOVEREIGN God is so Sovereign that He can grant me freewill, hold me accountable for it and yet still be Sovereign over His election. It’s like explaining the concept of the trinity… impossible for a human to do but clearly taught in Bible.
In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the rich man still in total depravity found himself in torment and desired to be relieved but was powerless to do anything about his state.
This was a very helpful passage for this thorny chapter 9 in our Bible Fellowship this evening for Roman. Thank you. Understanding “election” both individual and corporate made things much clearer.