9:14
Now this next section really offends modern ears. There are two things to say. The first is if you offended then tough, this is the word of God we are dealing with so if we are in disagreement God is right and we are wrong! The second is, as Leon Morris points out, Paul is answering Jewish questions and how the gospel going to the Gentiles and Israel’s rejection of Christ all works out with God’s promises in the Old Testament, he is not dealing with modern Western mind questions. And as I have pointed out before, God’s decreeing something does not mean we have no responsibility. So someone might object that God is unjust to choose Jacob over Esau, even before they have done anything good or bad. Paul declares that this is not true. Now we need to realise that God decreeing something does not mean that what we do does not matter. We also see in Scripture examples of God, at least apparently, changing His mind. God certainly responds to our actions.
9:15
Now as Westerners we would like a philosophical answer to the question of whether or not God is unjust, but Paul is arguing with people steeped in Jewish thought, not Western thought. So instead of giving a philosophical answer He quotes from Scripture, namely Exodus 33:19. This would be far more convincing to the Jew than any philosophical reply. God is perfectly at liberty to make any decision He likes. We need to accept the truth that God is the ultimate source of all things, any other starting point for knowledge leads to a dead end. As it says on several occasions in the Bible, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
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