Romans 9:18,19 - Not my fault?

9:18

The primary point from this is the sovereignty of God. He decides on whom He has mercy, and whom He will harden. Again there are two things in operation. One is the decree of God, this is what ultimately decides the outcome. But those He has mercy on will put their faith in Christ, and those whose hearts are hardened will be disobedient and rebellious. The two are not in conflict, we may not be able to understand exactly how it works, but the Bible is clear. In the immediate context the Jew who found it difficult to accept that the Gentiles were coming into the kingdom, whilst most Jews were being excluded (for now) needed to accept the will of God. At the same time we need to notice that the Gentiles who were being saved were the ones who were putting their faith in Christ, and the Jews who were being excluded were being excluded because they refused to put their faith in Christ. If they had believed they too would have been saved.

9:19

The Greek actually says “You will say to me”, rather than the NIV’s “One of you will say to me”. So the objection here, and this is one that is still very much around today, is that of God’s decree decides everything how can we be blamed for anything? As I have pointed out already, God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility are not at odds with each other. We think of God’s sovereignty within the limits of our human powers and think that if we decide something is going to happen then the will of everyone else counts for nothing. That is not the way it works with God. In fact it is not even the way it works with us when we are at our best. One style of leadership is to be a dictator, to force people and organisations to do things, having no respect for their will. But what are truly great leaders like? They are people who bring others with them, they win hearts and minds. They exercise authority when they have to, but they do not ride roughshod over the desires of others.

However, Paul is not really answering the philosophical questions we like to ask. He is primarily concerned with the question of the Jews and the gospel. So God has allowed, actively allowed, the Jews to reject Christ, to have hardened hearts, and He has chosen to have mercy on the Gentiles. Now neither of these apply to all Jews nor all Gentiles. Some Jews, Paul most of all, did accept Jesus, and many Gentiles did not.