ROMANS 9:16\u201321<\/b><\/p>\n
One of you will say to me: \u201cThen why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n
(Romans 9:19)<\/i>.<\/p>\n
In our earlier lessons from Romans 9 we saw that God hardened Pharaoh\u2019s heart, not by forcing him to sin against his will, but by withdrawing the restraints of common grace. God simply let Pharaoh do what he always wanted to do, which was to harden his heart (Romans 9:17\u201318). Paul now raises an objection, one that is very important for us to consider.<\/p>\n
Much confusion surrounds the doctrine of predestination because of the way we think about humanity. When we consider the mass of mankind, we think of it in a state of original righteousness and innocence. We imagine God considering this innocent race of people and saying, \u201cI\u2019m going to take this group over here and make sure that they are saved and go to be with Me in heaven, and I\u2019m going to take this other group and make sure they continue in sin, and eventually I\u2019m going to send them to hell.\u201d In other words, we think of God contemplating an innocent human race.<\/p>\n
The Proper Biblical Perspective<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
This is not what the Bible and historic Augustinian Christianity teaches. Rather, God makes His decree in light of the Fall. When God made His decree of election, He was contemplating a willfully disobedient, corrupt mass of humanity. It was as if God said, \u201cOut of this mass of sinful and doomed humanity, I\u2019m going to extend My grace to some and withhold it from others. I will give mercy to some, and to the others I will give justice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Why does God blame us? Why does He find fault? Because there is fault in us. Who can resist His will? Well, ultimately no one can, but that is not the point here. Could Judas have resisted God\u2019s will? In one sense, yes, he could have if he had wanted to<\/i>. But that\u2019s the whole point: Judas did not want to do good. Judas did what Judas wanted to do.<\/p>\n
CORAM DEO<\/b><\/p>\n
Paul warns us that we cannot expect to understand this mystery from God\u2019s point of view. Romans 9:20 simply says, \u201cWho are you, O man, to talk back to God?\u201d We can get some insight into the matter, as we have seen, but ultimately predestination is God\u2019s business, not ours. When you pray today, confess to God that He and He alone is God, and ask Him to help you leave His concerns in His hands.<\/p>\n
For further study: Isaiah 64:1\u20139; Jeremiah 18:1\u201310<\/i><\/p>\n
WEEKEND<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ROMANS 9:16\u201321 One of you will say to me: \u201cThen why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?\u201d (Romans 9:19). In our earlier lessons from Romans 9 we saw that God hardened Pharaoh\u2019s heart, not by forcing him to sin against his will, but by withdrawing the restraints of common grace. God … Continue reading “GOD\u2019S ETERNAL DECREES”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11002\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}