Romans 9:22-24 - What if God ...

9:22

Now this is a fascinating verse. There are some translational difficulties, but I am not clear exactly what they are, so look up a good commentary if you really want to know what they are. Now who is Paul referring to here? Who are the “objects of His wrath”? The Greek actually just says “the wrath”, it is taken as axiomatic that it is God’s wrath. Wrath is a fundamental characteristic of God. Now God was amazingly patient with Pharaoh. He gave him numerous chances to act sensibly, yet Pharaoh was repeatedly stubborn. Now what if Paul is speaking about Israel here? The Old Testament could reasonably be called a catalogue of the sins of Israel. They repeatedly disobeyed God, despite a multitude of warnings and acts of mercy. They needed to realise that by nature they were “objects of wrath”. Now this is not the whole story, we need to see later in chapters 9-11. But all are sinners, and Israel’s fundamental failing was not to acknowledge her need for a saviour.

9:23,24

In delaying the judgement upon Israel He was making the riches of His glory known to the objects of His mercy. So God has mercy on some and some are objects of wrath. Notice also that the objects of mercy are prepared for glory. Glory is our destiny. We are the objects of His mercy. And it has always been God’s plan to save us and that glory should be our destiny. And the objects of mercy are taken from the Jews and from the Gentiles.

The fundamental point at issue here is that God is doing things in a way that is offensive to the Jews. We too can be offended at times by the way that God acts. Our starting point needs to be that God has the absolute right to do what He wants. Now that is not all. God is also absolutely loving, merciful, wise and righteous. And it will transpire that His plans and purposes are absolutely perfect and just. If we wait till we see this before we accept God’s plans we will get nowhere. If instead we accept God’s ways then our eyes will be opened and we will see the glory and justice and grace of all His plans.