Romans 9

andy

Posted: 03.09.2003, 09:30

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Got to lead house group tonight on Romans 9. Utterly stuck.

Any ideas on how to read and believe this without throwing your faith out of the window?

davidb

Posted: 03.09.2003, 13:21

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It is a very difficult passage to believe, and most of the times I feel angst-ridden in life I have this passage rattling round in my mind adding to my angst.

9.1-3 are great, and often sum up how I feel - if only I could sacrifice myself so that other people could believe the truth. It just doesn't work like that. I guess the point is that this has already been done by Christ. And I guess we can build on that by being martyrs. But there doesn't seem to be a direct exchange of eternities possible.

4-5 is expressing the confusion of Paul's situation - how can God's own people possibly have turned against him? It doesn't make sense, apparently. So far so good.

In 6-9 Paul begins to explain how this ridiculous situation could actually be true. He points out something Jesus also said, which is that you can make a distinction between God's *apparent* and *real* people. This is a helpful distinction for us, too - how can the church be so corrupt, for instance? Because not everything that looks like God's people is God's people. So far so good.

10-18 are the mischief. Paul says that God chooses who to have compassion on, who to choose, who to harden. His argument seems to be, 'OK, so Israel haven't believed God - well, God's entitled to harden whoever he wants, so what's the problem with that?' I can see that this is a fair answer to his initial problem in 4-5, if it's true. The problem is believing it. I prefer the idea that *we* choose God, or *we* reject him. The idea that this is preceded by his choosing or hardening (especially the latter) is very hard for me to swallow.

Swallow it I do, for now, because I can't see another way of understanding this passage. So my current belief is that, while we have an actually real choice and real accountability before God for choosing or rejecting him, behind the scenes he also has a real choice which brings us to that position or doesn't. How these can both be true (ie God's election and our free choosing) I don't know. That's not my main worry - my main worry is that I'm very uneasy, to say the least, with God choosing to pre-damn people. I don't know what the answer to this is. Perhaps it doesn't happen much? Perhaps it comes down to trusting that God has good reasons?

Paul's thinking along the same lines, and he moves to head this sort of questioning off in 19-23. In the first instance he says I don't have the right to criticise God for the way I'm formed, ie whether I'm formed into something good or wretched. I suppose he's right, but it feels initially like a 'Shut up!' argument. However, he goes on to give what does seem to be a reason, but it's a very uncomfortable one: God's entitled to choose to destroy some sinners to show his powerful judgment and wrath against evil, and he's also entitled to show people mercy. It seems Paul's saying that God chooses some people for both of these outcomes, showing the 'dynamic range' of his relationship to sinners. Is that the point?

By the way, I'm feeling squeezed into believing that there's *some* form of pre-damning going on in life, whatever we make of this passage. If God knows the future, and he makes a world where he knows that Mr & Mrs Smith are going to end up in hell, isn't he responsible for that? Why not make a different world? Why not influence them and beg them strongly to come to heaven, at least? This doesn't seem to happen. So although this doctrine of predestination is very hard for me to believe, I'm not sure what the alternative is. To tell the truth, this is what makes me angry with God - the fact that so many people are apparently going to hell, and he's created this world knowing it would happen, and is now letting it happen without many signs in the sky. Why so? Does 9.22-23 go towards answering this?

In 25-33 Paul gets back to his application of this theorising - that God has chosen some Gentiles, and not chosen some Jews. This accounts for the issue of 4-5, and it's a more comfortable area as we're away from specific people and thinking about groups of people. Of course, in another sphere of argument this is a controversial bit as it opens questions of race and anti-Semitism, but I don't think the problems are actually so severe.

Those are my thoughts, Andy. As you can see, I struggle very badly with this, but accept it as a disturbing part of my set of beliefs.

andy

Posted: 03.09.2003, 14:33

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Thanks for the summary davidb, this is an accurate and honest outline I think.

I have to deal with my conclusions slightly differently, though:

- Paul seems to be saying that some people are born to go to hell.

and

- I can't believe God would do that.

So I have to conclude that I am misunderstanding Paul. That feels like a really bad cop-out from saying I disagree with Paul.

But, here is some encouragement from Peter:

"... just as our dear brother Paul also wrote to you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction. Therefore, dear friends, since you already know this, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your secure position." 2 Peter 3:15-17

And some encouragement that there is backup for my feelings:

"For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God." 1 Peter 3:18

Once for ALL.

I had others but I managed to close the browser window and lose them, and I think this one says it all.

Midge

Posted: 04.09.2003, 19:09

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Ah yes - "once for all". Unfortunately that's one of those things in the NIV that's supposed to be clear. What it means, in my English, is "once and for all" - but apparently the translators thought that'd be misunderstood as "once, and for all" so they put "once for all" instead. This phrase translates the Greek word hapax 'once' or ephapax 'for once' which is a key word used in talking about Jesus' sacrifice - i.e. to point out that it only had to happen once and that it is good for all time.

There are other verses though which do say (in a particular context) that Jesus died 'for all' (e.g. 2 Cor 5:14-15, 1 Tim 2:6) or that God wants 'all people to be saved' (1 Tim 2:4). On the other hand, that doesn't necessarily mean that He paid the price for every single person - just that it's universally "available", not restricted to certain kinds of people.

(Another NIV bizarre translation is the use of 'even' as in 'to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ' (Eph 1:10) - where 'even Christ' means 'that is, Christ', rather than 'all things - even Christ!'. There isn't even a word in the original Greek corresponding to this.)

Haven't got time to write an in-depth reply to the rest of the stuff at the moment, but this is my number one struggle I suppose. The thing is, I can't see any satisfying solution either way - I can't believe that God could create time and space, and then create human beings, and then lose control over them so that they can frustrate Him and act outside His control (and so that I can wander out of His hand and become un-born-again). On the other hand, I can't believe that our choices are just an illusion, like some deterministic computer simulation in God's created universe. But somehow I manage to hold it together most of the time, in normal practical life.

Getting down to specifics though, how can I possibly divide up the reasons that I'm a Christian and my brother is not - to say whether the determining factor is our will, our personality, our environment, or God? At least Christians have the freedom to look at these different factors - materialists can't say anything.

Last thought - it must be great to lead a Bible study on something so hard and thought-provoking - that people won't just all agree with each other about! That's what they should be like, isn't it

Midge

Posted: 05.09.2003, 23:53

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>> Paul seems to be saying that some people are born to go to hell.

But what does that actually mean? They are 'prepared for destruction', but does that mean that ultimately they will end up being destroyed, or that they were created just for the purpose of being destroyed, which seems rather callous?

The argument in Romans seems to be:

God created everyone.

We have all sinned against Him.

Therefore we all deserve condemnation.

But some people hear the gospel and believe and are saved.

If all of us deserve condemnation, then any people being saved is a plus. My problem is that I find it hard to see why all of us should deserve condemnation, and why not all of us get saved. If God is ultimately in control, why are things apparently so bleak?

Midge

Posted: 06.09.2003, 23:23

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This reminds me of what you were saying about mystery once, Andy. Some people want to be able to understand everything about God, and this pushes them into a variety of different positions - like, God is thwarted by our free will, or we are just puppets in God's hands, or God doesn't exist and we're just atoms. For some things, it's nice to be able to say that we just can't understand them.

andy

Posted: 08.09.2003, 09:19

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>>Ah yes - "once for all". Unfortunately that's one of those things in the NIV that's supposed to be clear. What it means, in my English, is "once and for all" - but apparently the translators thought that'd be misunderstood as "once, and for all" so they put "once for all" instead. This phrase translates the Greek word hapax 'once' or ephapax 'for once' which is a key word used in talking about Jesus' sacrifice - i.e. to point out that it only had to happen once and that it is good for all time.

Oh dear.

>>There are other verses though which do say (in a particular context) that Jesus died 'for all' (e.g. 2 Cor 5:14-15, 1 Tim 2:6) or that God wants 'all people to be saved' (1 Tim 2:4). On the other hand, that doesn't necessarily mean that He paid the price for every single person - just that it's universally "available", not restricted to certain kinds of people.

Jesus tells his disciples to tell all nations about him. I find it difficult to believe he meant "some people in each nation" rather than "all people" by this. I just don't understand why Jesus would want us to tell everyone about him if some of them are created for destruction.

>>Last thought - it must be great to lead a Bible study on something so hard and thought-provoking - that people won't just all agree with each other about! That's what they should be like, isn't it

We've gone over this stuff already, and I don't want to drag it up again. I don't think a theological discussion will be useful. So stop being so Polyanna on me!

andy

Posted: 08.09.2003, 09:22

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>>If all of us deserve condemnation, then any people being saved is a plus. My problem is that I find it hard to see why all of us should deserve condemnation, and why not all of us get saved. If God is ultimately in control, why are things apparently so bleak?

OK, I have less of a problem with this because I believe God has deliberately given up his power over us so that we can escape his influence and make a real choice.

So God is not all-powerful in some senses, which is interesting.

andy

Posted: 08.09.2003, 09:24

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>>This reminds me of what you were saying about mystery once, Andy. Some people want to be able to understand everything about God, and this pushes them into a variety of different positions - like, God is thwarted by our free will, or we are just puppets in God's hands, or God doesn't exist and we're just atoms. For some things, it's nice to be able to say that we just can't understand them.

Stop using my words against me!

I was talking about this the other day: the explanation must be that 2 apparently contradicting things which are both true doesn't work for me here, because one of those things is that some people are created in order to be destroyed, and I can't accept this on its own, let alone along with a contradictary thing alongside.

andy

Posted: 08.09.2003, 09:25

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So basically my opinion is ra ra ra grr grr nrgh blah blah blah.

Not up to much debate today. Got a headache.