Romans 9

III. THE DEFENCE OF GOD IN ESTABLISHING A SYSTEM OF IMPARTIAL FREE-AGENCY BASED ON FAITH EVEN THOUGH RESULTING IN UNBELIEVING ISRAEL’S DOWNFALL, Romans 9:1 to Romans 11:36.

Our “Plan of the Epistle,” given at page 290, gives what our Commentary on these chapters will, we trust, show to be the true current of the apostle’s argument and thought. But it is well known that since the time of Augustine, in the fourth century, and later, of John Calvin, this chapter has been wrenched from the train of the apostle’s argument and made the basis of what is called the Doctrine of “Divine Sovereignty,” “Predestination,” and “Unconditional Election and Reprobation.” These dogmas were unknown or rejected by the Church of the first three centuries, and by the great majority of Christendom in all ages. But as they have been inherited from Calvin by a large share of the Protestant Church, even of America, and are taught in most of our commentaries on Romans, such as those of Barnes, Hodge, Stuart, and Schaff’s Lange, our exposition is obliged to follow their example, and assume a somewhat controversial air, in order to render clear and conclusive the ancient and true view. For our replies we have usually selected the popular and, in many respects, valuable commentary of Mr. Barnes, as being a mild yet explicit statement of unconditional predestination.

Unconditional predestination implies, comprehensively, that God unconditionally, and without any previous foresight or foreknowledge, foreordains whatever comes to pass, sin and the damnation of the sinner therefore not excepted. As God foreordains, or eternally decrees, the holiness of the saint, and rewards him with glory for the holiness decreed, so, on the other hand, he decrees the sin of the sinner, and then damns him eternally for the sin decreed.

According to unconditional election, God does from the number of foreordained sinners (namely, all mankind) select a certain definite number of individuals, without any regard to anything in them, and does from his mere good pleasure omnipotently fasten upon them holiness and everlasting life, while the others, being left in the sin and misery in which they were eternally foreordained to be born and to exist, are sent to eternal damnation for such foreordained sin and misery.

The view of the ancient Christian Church may be stated as follows.

The omniscient God, foreknowing from all eternity all things possible, did in view of such foresight, originally select the plan of his own conduct, preferring of all possible actions or plans of action that which is best. Adopting for the highest reason a system of free-agents, he does, in view of what he knows that in every possible case any free-agent will do, so plan his own conduct as, without violating the freedom of the agent, to prevent evil in the greatest attainable degree, and to secure the highest amount of good. He, therefore, endures sin, but neither approves, foreordains, necessitates, decrees, or permits it; and the sinner is punished not for God’s decree, but for his own avoidable sin. God’s comprehensive plan is thus so far contingent as that it recognises the free acts which the free agent is able to withhold; yet, inasmuch as, whichever way the agent will do, His foreknowledge of all is perfectly accurate, so the Divine Mind can neither be deceived in its expectations or frustrated in its purposes.

As to election, the true doctrine of the Church is that God, being eternally holy, does prefer and elect to himself all beings who are holy, or who do freely by his grace accept and consent, in faith, to become holy, with him; and so every human free-agent accepting God’s terms is in time elected, according to an eternal purpose of election. On the other hand, all in opposition to God’s holiness, freely preferring and persisting in sin, become reprobated, with an eternal reprobation, to everlasting death.

Mr. Barnes maintains that the elect are “a definite number” of individuals, (see his note on Romans 9:15) predestinated personally from all eternity, (see note on Romans 8:30,) without any foresight of any thing (even faith) in the individual, (see note on Romans 9:11;) that they are chosen to holiness, (see note on Romans 8:29,) and that they cannot fall away, (see note on Romans 8:30.) The reprobate are to unbelief, (see note on Romans 9:15,) and to hell; and it is just as fated, and just as right thus to predestinate a man to sin and damnation, as it is to make one less beautiful, wealthy, or intelligent than another, (see note on Romans 9:12; Romans 9:21,) as, for instance, to make a Barnes inferior to a Bacon. Like most amiable men, Mr. Barnes dwelt mostly on the bright side of the doctrine, the glories of election, and shrunk from energetic statements of reprobation. Yet he implied the worst points of the doctrine unequivocally. And the whole and the worst of the doctrine is conclusively embraced in the single proposition, (contained in Mr. Barnes’ confession of faith,) “God has from eternity unchangeably foreordained whatsoever comes to pass.” No reasoning can make those words mean less than that God unconditionally decrees the sin and damns the sinner for the sin decreed.

The stern genius from whom this dark and sullen system is named, John Calvin, frames it into language like the following:

“No one can deny but God foreknew Adam’s fall, and foreknew it because he had ordained it so by his own decree.” Inst., Book III, chap. 23, sec. 7.

“The wills of men are so governed by the will of God that they are carried on straight to the mark which he has foreordained.” B. I, ch. 16, sec. 8.

“Many indeed (thinking to excuse God) own election and yet deny reprobation; but this is quite silly and childish. For without reprobation election itself cannot stand; whom God passes by, those he reprobates.” B. III, chap. 23, sec. 1.

“All men are not created for the same end, but some are foreordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation. So, according as every man was created for the one end or the other, we say he was elected or predestinated to destruction.” Chap. 21, sec. 1. To these views we object: 1. They make God the responsible author of sin. 2 . They destroy the free-agency of Man 1:3 . They render all penalty for sin unjust. 4. They destroy all divine government by transforming it into a mere machinery. 5. They degrade God and destroy the divine sovereignty by sinking the sovereign into a mere machinist. 6. They impute infinite cruelty to God by making him decree the sin and damn the sinner.

It is important to note that the Jews of Paul’s day, the opponents with whom he here argues, held to predestination, endeavouring, like modern Calvinists, to unite some sort of free-will with it. Thus Josephus says: “The Pharisees ascribe all to fate and to God, and yet allow that to act right, or the contrary, is principally in the power of man, although fate does cooperate in every action.” Wars, II, 8, 14. They believed also that every Jew was predestinated to eternal life. John the Baptist at the beginning encountered their “We have Abraham to our father.” (Matthew 3:9.)

And against Jesus they retorted, “We be Abraham’s seed;” as if this Abrahamic descent secured their salvation and rendered Christianity unnecessary. Their proverbial maxim was, “All Israel have their portion in the world to come.” So Rabbi Bechai, commenting on a passage of the Pentateuch, says, “The Gentiles are ordained to hell; Israel to life.” Wetstein on Acts 13:48. The early Christian fathers, like Paul, encountered the same doctrine of unconditional election of all Jews. Says Justin Martyr: “Ye (Jews) expect to be saved because ye are the lineally descended children of Jacob.” Again, “Your rabbies deceive both themselves and you, supposing that the everlasting kingdom shall be assuredly given to them who are lineally descended from Abraham, even although they be sinners and unbelievers, and disobedient toward God.” (See notes on Romans 1:17; Romans 2:25.)

With this proud expectation of salvation by blood and circumcision by birth and works Paul’s Christianity, salvation by faith in Christ, came into deadly issue. This battle, begun by Stephen, (Acts 6:13; Acts 7:2,) pervades Paul’s whole history in Acts, as apostle of the Gentiles, both in contest with the Jews and Judaistic Christians. The battle, bitter and deadly from the Jewish side, began at their first driving him, to escape death, from Jerusalem, (Acts 9:23-30,) continued through a whole series of plots, persecutions, waylayings, and attempts at assassination. As soon as he had finished the writing of this epistle, being about to take ship from Corinth to Jerusalem, he was obliged, by a Jewish plot, to change his plan, and prosecute his journey by land. (Acts 20:3.)

Of this issue the Epistle to the Romans is a summary. The first eight chapters (with a slight reference to the Jewish issue in chapter 3) do in most magnificent argument state the positive Christian theory. But as the theory of faith-justification assumes the rejection by God of unbelieving Jews, the three ensuing chapters (9, 10, and 11) meet that great question.

After expressing profound grief at unbelieving Israel’s downfall, (Romans 9:1-5,) Paul maintains that from the patriarchs downward it was the spiritual Israel by faith that was accepted, and the false Israel by unfaith that was rejected, (Romans 9:6-13;) that this accords with Old Testament history, (Romans 9:14-18,) with the true principles of free-agency and probation, (Romans 9:19-24,) with ancient prediction, (Romans 9:25-29,) all presupposing that the law of acceptance by faith and rejection by unfaith underlies the whole history, (Romans 9:30-33.)