Thank God that he called those who were not his people his people! We, ourselves, are the Gentiles that God called to come into his kingdom to be his people. All people are invited! But we must come through Jesus Christ.

Throughout Romans 9, Paul makes the point that God made a sovereign choice. He starts with God’s choice that Isaac was chosen as the son of Abraham through whom the promise would be given. Then he continues with Jacob and Esau, showing that God chose Jacob over Esau and through him, the covenant would be passed to his children. He even makes the case with Pharaoh that God chose to show his power and his wrath known, while at the same time making those that he saved the objects of his mercy instead of his wrath.

Paul is making the point and concluding it that he has chosen whom he has chosen. God decided, at least for a time, to reject Israel, and instead bring into the kingdom those that he had chosen from amongst the Gentiles.

What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory — even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? As he says in Hosea:

“I will call them ‘my people’ who are not my people;
and I will call her ‘my loved one’ who is not my loved one,”

and,

“In the very place where it was said to them,
‘You are not my people,’
there they will be called ‘children of the living God.’”

Romans 9:22-26

So we see, both here in Romans 9 as well as in many other parts of the Bible, that God makes a choice. He calls his people to himself. He chooses them. He makes his people the objects of his love and mercy so that he will make his glory known and receive the glory due to him.

But of course this is one side of a famous theological argument:

You are saying that God chooses me instead of me choosing him?

Well, yeah, I’m quoting what Paul says here in Romans 9.

On the other hand, Romans 10 is the chapter that we are scheduled to read tomorrow and in that chapter it reads more like the person places their faith in Christ and that is how they are saved.

So, is it true that God makes a sovereign choice about who will receive mercy from him? It certainly seems that way, and I definitely would not want to deny that God is sovereign, that he is not able to make a determination about what will happen within his creation.

On the other hand, is it true that we make a choice and either place our faith in Christ or not? Yes, it certainly also seems that way and I wouldn’t want to be in the place of denying the scriptures that tell us that we must repent and believe!

So, I have three quick thoughts to share about this:

First, the most important thing is that we should be grateful to God for the gift to know him, to be reconciled to him, through Christ. Much more than trying to prove our theological point and win a debate, we should live with gratitude for the gift of life lived eternally with God.

Second, a friend of mine showed me a video recently of John McArthur essentially saying “I don’t know” when he was asked to reconcile these two different points of view. I think that probably sums up my perspective as well. I would say that I have to agree that my human mind isn’t sophisticated enough to understand all of the interworkings of God’s mind to understand exactly how the interplay of God’s choice and my choice work together.

And finally, I continue to ask myself the same question: In the end, with regard to the way that we do our work, what difference does my perspective here ultimately make? If I believe that God makes a sovereign choice, do I know who the people are that God has chosen? No, of course not. So what should I do? I need to share the good news of the Gospel with them! On the other hand, if I believe that each person chooses God, how can they choose unless someone tells them? So what do I need to do? I need to share the good news of the Gospel with them!

My contention is that we need to fight for unity, fight to remain as one body in Christ instead of fighting so that we are right. Yes, we must dig in the scriptures to find what God wants, but there are some answers that are actually not answers that we can fully resolve, and I believe that this is one of them. Let us, therefore, find unity and not division as we come before God in Christ.