Romans 9: Individual Salvation and Damnation, or Collective Promise?

Jewish Peter struggled at times with the writings of Paul because their complexity made them difficult to understand (2 Peter 3:15-16). If Peter, being a man enmeshed in complex Jewish culture, who also walked physically with Jesus during his ministry, found the writings of Jewish Paul difficult to understand, how much harder will it be to easily understand the writings of Paul for those of us who are not Jews, and who are far removed from the ancient world? Romans 9 is one such place where Christians from the early modern era of the 16th century all the way up until today have struggled. This struggle with Romans 9 has produced mistakes which have then created division and challenges in the Body of Christ.

For instance, one such mistake is that Romans 9 is frequently viewed as an argument for the sovereignty of God being a divine denial of any particular individual’s free will to choose salvation. Aside from our separation from the ancient world or a full understanding of Jewish religious culture, this mistake occurs because we look at chapter 9’s challenging verses in isolation and remove them from the context of Paul’s overarching argument – which spans Romans 9, Romans 10, and Romans 11.  The context of Romans 9 is not about individual salvation, but rather about the election, or choice, God has made to bless one group of people to be the carriers of his rescue plan for humanity.  He has chosen Jacob over Esau for that purpose (Romans 9:6-13). Paul’s point is not that God hated individual Esau, and loved individual Jacob in any emotional sense, and therefore arbitrarily damned one and saved the other. Instead, Paul’s point is that God chose the nation, Israel, which would flow from Jacob’s family to be the bloodline of the Messiah, as well as become the generator of the culture that would produce, collate and carry the scriptures, truths, promises and glory that would underpin the gospel. God did not affirm and choose Jacob because Jacob was good, but because he had promised Abraham he would make from him a great nation that would bless all of humanity (Genesis 12:1-3). God did not reject Esau because Esau was fundamentally less than Jacob, but because Esau despised his blessing, and because God had prophesied that the older would serve the younger (Hebrews 12:15-17,Genesis 25:22-23).

Notice that Paul begins the entire chapter talking about his grave concern for his kinsmen – national Israel – and how that nation is blessed by God. Interestingly, he is comparing national Israel and its boastful spirit to justify itself by works instead of faith to the evil and proud Pharaoh who opposed Moses, and by extension, almighty God. When Paul then declares truthfully that God will have mercy on whom he will have mercy and indirectly references God's hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, he is not talking about the individual salvation or damnation of Pharaoh (Romans 9:14-18). He is warning about the absurdity that a fallen people blessed by God’s grace can maintain their blessedness through a pompous exertion of their will (Romans 9:16). To reject faith in Christ and pursue a works based salvation despises their blessing and puts them on the brink of reprobation (Romans 1, Romans 2:17-24). If they willfully harden their hearts by taking offense to the gospel in light of the overwhelming, miraculous evidences of its truth, then God can give them over to the prideful error they desire and permanently harden their heart in the same way that Pharaoh’s was. Just as a hardened reprobate like Pharaoh can be raised to political prominence to become a vessel of wrath for the purpose of showing God’s power and goodness, the same can happen to a stiff-necked people who carry the name of God’s promise but not the actual goodness of that promise (Romans 9:6). Consider that God turning a reprobate Pharaoh into an object of wrath did not thwart his plan in any way. It magnified God’s name so greatly that the very non-Jewish Canaanite prostitute, Rahab, was adopted into the family of God (Joshua 2:10, Joshua 6:25, Hebrews 11:31, James 2:25, Matthew 1:5-6) – which makes Paul’s controversial point in Romans that Gentiles, too, will be rescued by our loving father.