(15.) God cannot be unrighteous. This is apparent from your own Scriptures, which, as you admit, glorify God’s righteousness, and which give you God’s own statements concerning Himself in the cases of Moses and Pharaoh. There can, therefore, be no dis- crepancy between God’s righteousness and the principle for which I am contending, since God represents Himself as acting on this very principle: Divine choice is not founded upon human desert. Man has no right to God’s favors. For when Moses asked God to show him His glory, God, in complying, assured him that He did not grant the request on the ground of Moses’ merit or services, but solely of His own free mercy. He would have mercy and com- passion upon whom He would, Moses had no claim upon that revelation.
(16.) Thus it appears that the divine bestowment proceeds from sovereign grace, and not from the will or the effort of the recipient.
140 WORD STUDIES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. [Cu. XI.
Hence the Jew cannot claim it on the ground of race or of moral striving.
It is right to wish and right to run. Paul elsewhere says, “So run that ye may obtain” (1 Cor. ix. 24). But that is not now the point in view. The point is to emphasize the fact of God’s sovereign right to dispense His favors as He will, in opposition to the Jew’s claim that God must dispense His favors to him on the ground of his descent. Hence the argument bears also on the divine dealing with the Gentiles. The Jew says, ‘The Jews alone are subjects of the divine mercy ; the Gentiles are excluded.” Paul replies, “Your own Scriptures show you that God has the right to show mercy to whom He will. The fact that He originally did not choose the Gentile, but chose the Jew, does not exclude Him from extending His salvation to the Gentile if He so will. The fact that He did so choose the Jew, does not save the Jew from the peril of exclusion and rejection.”
(17.) Again, God is vindicated against the charge of injustice by His declaration of the same principle applied to the matter of with- holding mercy in the case of Pharaoh. The one statement implies the other. The right to bestow at will implies the right to with- hold at will. Thus He says to Pharaoh that He has raised him up in order to show His power through his defeat and destruction.
(18.) Hence the conclusion. God has the absolute right to dis- pense or to withhold mercy at pleasure. “He hath mercy upon whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth.”
This last statement, on its face, appears to be the assertion of a rigid, inexorable predeterminism. But let it be at once said that Paul commits himself to no such theory. For to interpret this pas- sage as meaning that God takes deliberate measures to harden any man against holy and gracious influences, so as to encourage him to sin in order that He may show His power in destroying him, is:
1. To ascribe to God the most monstrous cruelty and injustice,
according to the standard of His own revealed character and law.
2. To make God the author and promoter of sin.
3. To contradict other declarations of Scripture, as 1 Tim. ii. 4;
Jas. i. 13; 2 Pet. iii. 9. 4. To contradict the facts in Pharaoh’s own case, since God gave
Cx. XL THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 14]
Pharaoh abundant warning, instruction, and call and induce- ment to repentance.
The key-note of the discussion must be kept clearly in mind as shaping this particular form of statement. To repeat: Paul is striking sharply at the assumption of the Jew that God must dis- pense messianic blessing to him, and must not exclude him, be- cause he is aJew. Paul meets this with the bare statement of God’s sovereign right to dispose of men as He will. He does not ignore the efforts which God makes to save men from blindness and hardness of heart, but the attitude of the Jew does not call for the assertion of these: only for the assertion of God’s absolute sovereignty against an insolent and presumptuous claim.