Would you please explain Romans 9:18?
Categories: Bible Questions and AnswersWould you please explain Romans 9:18?
Romans 9:18 states, “Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.” The context of this particular passage is in the midst of Paul’s expressed desire for the salvation of the Jewish people. He says in Romans 9:3, “For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.” Paul wanted them to be saved and he wished that this could be done even if it meant he himself being forever cursed. However, that was not God’s will for salvation. As such, it is up to God as to how men are going to be saved. This is the discussion that he enters into in this particular chapter.
Notice he says in verse 6, “not as though the word of God hath taken none effect.” The word of God had indeed said that Israel was going to be saved. Paul makes note of this in Romans 11:26, 27. However, who is Israel? He says in Romans 9:6, 7. Those who are of the seed of Abraham are the TRUE Israel–spiritual Israel. He explains this in verse 8 that just because one is the child of Abraham in the flesh doesn’t mean that he is the child of Abraham according to promise. Those are two different things. Who are the children of promise according to Galatians 3:16? “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, and to seeds, as of many; but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ.” Christ is the seed through which all nations would be blessed. So if the Jews in the time of Paul wanted to be saved, they must be saved through Christ, just as the Gentiles must be saved.
Paul says that this is illustrated through the cases of the birth of Isaac and Jacob. Both of these children were born as a result of promise, not as a result of lineage. That is, God promised that Abraham would have a son. Isaac was born through that promise. God also promised that Jacob would be the head of the house over Esau and Jacob became the child of blessing. It was through the promise of God that these things happened, not because of lineage. The Jewish people of that day believed that they would be saved based merely upon being the offspring of Abraham. They believed that their salvation was in their physical lineage. But Paul makes it clear that this was not the case. It is not lineage, but promise that affords one’s salvation.
Paul then takes up in verse 14 the hypothetical objection that God might be unrighteous because some have thought that they ought to be saved on account of the lineage. After all, this is what they understood God to be promising. But Paul answers this by showing that just because these Jews had this understand of God