Scripture Daily

Context No. 1474 of 4322 · Romans

Context · Reflection

Romans 9:19-26: in context

19You will say then to me, “Why does he still find fault? For who withstands his will?” 20But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed ask him who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?” 21Or hasn’t the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel for honor, and another for dishonor? 22What if God, willing to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23and that he might make known the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory— 24us, whom he also called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles? 25As he says also in Hosea, “I will call them ‘my people,’ which were not my people; and her ‘beloved,’ who was not beloved.” 26“It will be that in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘children of the living God.’”

Paul is wrestling with God's freedom in showing mercy, and he anticipates the objection: why does God still find fault, if no one can resist his will? He answers first with the image of the potter and the clay: who are you, a mere creature, to answer back to God? Has the potter no right over the clay? But he moves toward mercy, and closes with words from Hosea: I will call them my people who were not my people, and her beloved who was not beloved; and in the very place where they were told, you are not my people, there they will be called children of the living God.

The heavy questions of this passage, about God's sovereignty and freedom, have been debated endlessly, and Paul's first word is a rebuke to our presumption in judging the Creator as though we were his equals. But notice where he lands: on mercy, and specifically on mercy to those who had no claim. He quotes Hosea to declare that God calls a people who were not his people, names as beloved those who were not beloved, and in the very place where they were told you are not my people, they are called children of the living God. This is the astonishing direction of God's mercy: outward, to the outsiders, to those with no standing, no claim, no right to be called God's. The mercy that seems so troubling when we ask why God chooses whom he chooses becomes wonderful when we see whom it reaches: the not-my-people made my people, the not-beloved made beloved, the excluded named children of the living God. For those of us who by nature had no claim on God, no membership in his people, this is everything. We were not-his-people, and he has called us his own; we were not beloved, and he has named us beloved; in the very place of our exclusion we are called children of the living God. Whatever mysteries remain in God's freedom, its direction here is grace, reaching out to name as his own those who had no right to the name.

Can I receive the wonder of God's mercy reaching outward to those with no claim on him, and rejoice that I, who by nature was not his people, have been called his own, named beloved, made a child of the living God?

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