There Is No Injustice With God

Well, good morning. So we're going to carry on in this section here. And actually, in scheduling it, Mike and I have been talking about a particular verse, verse 16. So I get first dibs at 16. So I get, it's a pretty amazing verse. So, as is all of God's Word. So I took this out of verse 14, the title. there is no injustice with God. Or you could say there's no unrighteousness with God. Or you could say God is not unfair.

And I talked about our grandsons. We have two twin boys. And they're all about being fair. It gets to the point when we have them over for babysitting that washing their hands has to be fair. They have to, and going first also has to be fair. So they argue over who's gonna wash their hands for lunch. And then they argue. So anyway, being fair to man, even the smallest kids, is important.

Well, Paul's gonna show us that God is perfectly just, perfectly righteous, even though it appears from man's perspective that he may be doing this and not being fair or being cruel or being you know harsh if you will so let's get into it here all right so I want to go back and look at starting verse 10 from last week so I'm just gonna have a I think I was six charts a review and just kind of going over Rebecca Ising and Rebecca's sons the twins and how God in his sovereignty.

He chose the line of Christ, if you think about it in the big scheme. He chose the very line of Christ. But looking from Israel's point of view, it's even questioned, Malachi is going to question Esau was Jacob's son. How could you not choose Esau and choose Jacob?

So there's already a thought process that well Ken, is God, what's God doing here? But let's ratchet back to Rebekah first. So let's look at some verses about Rebekah here. And this is from Genesis 25. Now these are the records of the generations of Isaac, Abraham's son. Abraham became the father of Isaac. Isaac was 40 years old when he took Rebekah, the sister of Laban, the Armin, to be his wife. Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife because she was barren, and the Lord answered him, and Rebekah, wife, conceived.

But the children struggled together in her. And she said, if it be so, why then am I this way? So she went to inquire of the Lord. And I felt this, I said last week too, is she didn't have a gynecologist to go to and say, I got a strange pregnancy here. Something's happening in my, something's going on there. She went to the Lord, it's a good place to go. And this is a prophetic thing the Lord is going to say. Everything is prophetic in the sense of the Lord.

But he's going to set the stage for his choice. The twins are not born yet, but he's going to tell Rebecca, this is what's going to happen. And the Lord said to her, two nations are in your womb, two peoples, plural, will be separated from your body. One people shall be stronger than the other, and the older shall serve the younger. So pretty astounding statements by the Lord.

Okay, so let's just go on to verse 11. So here we see the beginning of his sovereign plan. And so we saw that though the twins were not born yet, he prophesied that it's going to be two peoples, two nations are coming from them. And actually she was perplexed before the birth, what's going on here? There's a struggle going on within me.

And they had done nothing good or bad. And that's kind of the key here. Nothing good or bad had happened. As a man's perspective, they knew nothing about the lives of her twins. God did, but God did not, that did not influence him. So this word done, had done good or bad is basically to practice, to exercise. So God did not wait to see how the twins would turn out to make His plans. Neither did He, neither was He influenced by any good or bad actions they would do in the future. God knows all things. He knew what was going to happen but that didn't, Paul wants to make very clear that did not influence His decision. He's going to decide In essence, based on His holy and righteous character, we're going to see that in multiple places, God makes choices based upon who He is. He's holy, righteous, and just, and He makes His choices based upon that.

Okay, so now the middle part I liked better in the interlinear version, so that the purposes of God might remain according to His choice or His selection. So the idea here is purpose, his predetermined plan, the design of God in calling men, might remain, that's the verb.

It's minnow, to stay, to abide. It's present tense, so it's continuous action, continuing to go on. The purpose of God will continually remain, as with everything with God. We're going to see here shortly that When God speaks, when He speaks to Moses, we're gonna get to that part, I'm getting a little bit ahead, but it comes across, and I'm not really getting ahead, it comes across in the perfect tense. So it's like, we're still here, I'm still speaking to Moses, and you can hear it now. I mean, it's just, we'll get to it here. But God does things that are outside of time. So His purposes remain, they remain to today. His line remains to today through the nation of Israel, through Christ our Savior. according to the Norman standard of what follows.

And it's basically back to himself. It's back to his choice. Everything comes back to his choice, his selection, his purposes, not influenced by what man does or does not do. Or how good or bad he is. So then I thought Zodiates, and I have that in my computer Bible there, has a good comment here. This means that God's intention or his purpose was according to the principle of election or choice, which God is free choice without being affected by any outside circumstances or the worth of the individual concerned. So God is choosing based upon His character and His choice outside of any human interaction.

Okay. So then the last part of 11. And kind of a reiteration of this, is it works or is it him? So it's not of works, but of his calling. So it's not out of works, ek is the word out of, so you could say the purpose of God cannot be out of man's works as a source. But on the contrary, so no man's works can influence God's choice. But on the contrary, ek again, Strong contrast, the purpose of God is out of him as a source. So it's not out of man as a source, it's out of God as a source.

And that's the key of much that we're gonna see through this chapter. And the word kaleo describes his purpose or how he does things according to his choice. Okay, so now on to 12. So now these last two verses are interesting. and somewhat challenging too. Okay, so we start off with this.

And this is part of what the Lord told Rebecca. It was said to her, the older will serve the younger. So I'll just re-quote what I read earlier. The Lord said to her, two nations are in your body, two nations are in your womb. Okay, the difference is I quoted it before. Is that right? Okay, anyway. Two nations are in your womb, two peoples will be separated from your body.

One people shall be stronger than the other, and the older shall serve the younger. Okay, so we see, just kind of restating this, we see two nations, two peoples, one people stronger than the other. So we're talking, as I mentioned a lot, we're talking about a line of people, a nation of people.

So God chose a nation, through Jacob, the nation of Israel. He chose that nation to bring forth the Messiah. That was His choice, His purpose. So we're focused on national salvation, if you will. I'm going to say that shortly here. So we're talking about national election of Jacob or Israel We're not talking about the election of Jacob for salvation directly, even though it seems like you read the story of Jacob, at some point the Lord convinced him and he had to break his rib or he was hobbling around the rest of his life. So I think he was convinced.

God's choice for Esau, God's choice for Esau, the older brother, to serve the younger, that was God's choice. But all men, even though Esau was not chosen, but all men in God's plan were to be blessed through the line of Israel, through the line of Jacob. And that's kind of an overriding theme in this. All of men, when God chooses, His choice, He makes choices between people groups here, and the choice He makes will bless everyone, not just the one He chose. Okay?

And then the last verse in this little section before we get to the new verses, just as it is written, Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated. So actually Malachi quotes this, and Malachi quotes it a little bit differently, but a little bit more information. He says, I have loved you, speaking of Israel, says the Lord, but you say, so the question arises back here, how have you loved us, speaking of Israel, was not Esau Jacob's brother, declares the Lord, yet I have loved Jacob but hated Esau. I'm going to offer another verse that talks about hate as we see from Christ.

But I was listening to Macaulay a little bit and he was pointing out that hate and love in the Old Testament are kind of indicating choices. It's a strong way of saying a choice. So don't get too much hung up on hate and love seem to be so dramatically opposite, especially hate. How can that be? But here's a challenging one in the New Testament. I didn't quote it all, just part of it. Luke 14, 26, if anyone comes to me, speaking of Christ, and does not hate his own father, mother, wife, children, and it goes on, and even himself, you cannot be my disciple.

So what's Christ's point? Christ's point is, what is most important in your life? And Christians come to realize that Christ is our life. He's our very life. Everything else is less important in comparison. So we're kind of back to comparisons again. So when Paul quotes a verse from Malachi saying, Jacob, I have love and Jesus, all I've hated, he's showing that God's making a choice. That's one of the key things. And that word hate, you have to take it in that context. So here's a thought.

God in his great love has chosen Jacob, Israel, to be a blessing to all mankind since Christ would come through this nation. said that before. Esau, he was from the line of the Edomites. So if you look at different nations we have the line of Christ through Jacob, through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Then you have the Edomites through Esau. Two different lines of people. So you could say Esau was not chosen or hated by the terminology here. God always blesses through a mediator. The Old Testament, Israel's in view. And the New Testament, Christ is in view. Okay, so now let's look at today's verses. So let me go ahead and read them again. Okay, so verse 14.

So what happens here is, And as many say, Paul's pretty good. He anticipates there may be questions in his phraseology. He'll ask questions and then he'll answer the questions. He'll answer typically with a short-term answer and then with a longer-term answer. And this is very, we're going to see how this kind of stacks up against other times he's spoken in Romans too. What shall we say then?

There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be. For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy. I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. So then, it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.

All right. So let's get into it here. What shall we say then? So we've seen this structure before. Here's a couple of verses that we've covered in the last six months or so. In Romans, a very similar phraseology that kind of the core part of the verse kind of tells you the question at hand. But the first thing is to kind of get your attention. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may increase? May it never be. And in Romans 7, 7, what shall we say then? Is the law a sin? May it never be.

So there's a couple other examples of that. So the question, so it starts off with this phrase, what shall we say then? So if you look at kind of breaking it down, there's kind of two parts. There's shall we say. is to speak, to utter definite words, and then the then is the idea of a conclusion. So if you kind of combine those two ideas, the uttering words and a conclusion, Macaulay translates this same phrase, what shall we say then is, what shall we say as a conclusion? And then I found, I looked at my Amplified Bible online, they render it, what shall we conclude? So this tells me, it helps me to understand that we're starting off here, he wants us to conclude something about the statements we previously saw about Esau and Jacob. What shall we conclude? That's kind of the takeaway, if you will, okay? So let's look at the middle part. So the middle part is the key question here. And here are the middle parts.

So our key question is here, there is no injustice with God, is there? And the key question in 6.1 was, are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? And then in 7.7 it was, is the law a sin? So Paul's desire is to answer these questions. There is no injustice with God, is there?

So I think it refers back to verse 13, which we just covered. Jacob I loved, Esau I hated. So Paul's anticipating that he may get objections about this. And injustice here is the idea of what's not corresponding to justice or conformal to justice. So Paul's gonna make a statement.

He's gonna make an initial statement at the end of this verse 14, then he's gonna spend more time explaining more about it. So just one more, okay. So I just kind of restated here, actually this is from Zodiates. He says a statement in 9.14, which is the verse we're on, is made concerning God that there is no unrighteousness with him.

Kind of a little bit different words, which means that he cannot treat anyone unjustly. So that's gonna be Paul's initial reaction. And and his initial reaction is may it never be may get away May it never be May it may it be never okay? May it be never that's it. That's a word-for-word Greek from the Greek. There's only two Greek words, and that's that's English Okay, so some have translated.

God forbid King James has God forbid others have away with the thought May it never happen And we have may it never be. So they're all a strong reaction that God may be unjust, God may be unfair. God cannot be unfair. God cannot be God and be unfair is kind of the idea. The apostle first flatly denies the charge that God is unjust. God cannot be unjust is what they're saying. So now Paul's gonna, we're gonna get into more details, and actually, it's gonna go even deeper than that. He's gonna prove, he's gonna prove to us, I believe, that, and this is from Merriman, that God cannot be unrighteous. We're gonna see that. Okay, so let's go on to 15. So now we start in 15, I'm gonna have four or five charts on this. And so let's just look, kind of go kind of slowly on this. So we're going to see, this is the start.

Paul's going to introduce two men. He's going to introduce Moses and Pharaoh. If you think about it, Moses was a man, an incredible man. We're going to see how incredible he was. You know, God talked with Moses. Moses got to be in God's presence. fellowship with him. In fact, we're going to see what Moses said about how he wanted the relationship to be even deeper with God. But we have Moses, and God's going to make this statement about his mercy, but God's also going to bring along this rascal, Pharaoh, right? You know, Pharaoh I was trying to think of something clever. Anyway, Pharaoh wasn't a good guy.

You know, he was going to help out Israel, right? I'll let you go, I'll let you go. But then he changed his mind, he changed his mind. You know, it just kept going on and on and on. So what's interesting, God can use a righteous man or God can use a rascal or an unrighteous man. So we're going to see both. And Mike gets to cover the rascal and I get to cover Moses. Such a deal, right? Okay. All right. So the background for this is in Exodus 32 and 33.

So the whole nation of Israel rebelled against God by worshiping the golden calf. There's a lot, we could spend a lot of time on this, but this is a quick summary. I use gospel for this. God took the lives of only 3,000 of the rebels. He could have slain the whole nation. So all of Israel, the entire lot, deserve God's judgment. But God gave them mercy. And then I like what Merriman says here. Israel was in the plan of God via faith response. They deserve wrath but got mercy. And that's gonna be a key item. Man's actions don't deserve what God gives him. Okay, let's carry on with this.

So now, so let's look at the, here's this really neat account of where this statement comes from, the Old Testament, from Exodus 33. So I'm just gonna read several verses before that. So the Lord said to Moses, I will also do the thing, and the thing he's talking about here, in the previous verse 13, he said, Moses said to God, let me know you, let me know your ways, that I may know you. Can anyone in the auditorium think of where we've heard a very similar verse to that?

Maybe in Sunday school? I'm losing it here, right? Philippians 3.10, right?

I thought this was just amazing. So, and I had not, you know, this is what's so incredible about Bible study. Here's Moses wanting to, I want to know you. I want to know about your ways. I want to know you. And what does Paul say in Philippians? That I may know you and the power of your resurrection, the fellowship of your suffering. So, wow, Moses My opinion of Moses went up by leaps and bounds after studying this out. Wow, this guy really wanted to know the Lord. He really wanted to be in fellowship, walking with him and knowing his ways.

Okay, so God's gonna grant him that. He says, I'm gonna grant you your request, let you know my ways that I may know you. He's gonna grant that request, okay? And so he goes on, the Lord goes on. For you, Moses, have found favor in my sight, I have known you, Moses, by name. I also kind of picked up from this, knowing a person by name is more than just knowing their name. It's knowing about them. Because God's going to come back and say, I'm going to let you know my name. You think, well, anyway, we'll keep going here.

Then Moses said, I pray you show me your glory. And if you're a good student in scripture, glory, when it says God's glory, It really speaks of the total totality of who he is. It's more than just the bright shining, you know, the blinding light of God. It's his essential essence. It's his attributes. That's who he is.

So Moses is saying, I want to see you. I want to see all of you. I want to see the whole works. Well, God's going to say you can't do that. right here real quickly, and he said, this is God's response, I myself will make all my goodness pass before you. So God's gonna let all his goodness, all his attributes, if you will, pass before him.

And will proclaim the name of the Lord before you. And this is where I got picked up on the name again. Moses God says I know Moses name then God comes back and says I will proclaim the name of the Lord to you So the name is I don't think I still have a fully grasp that it's worth a study certainly So God says in 19. He said I myself will make all my goodness pass before you I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you and This is what's interesting is so So he said, I'm going to proclaim the name of the Lord.

Then he gives us our verse that we're studying in the Paul's quoting in In Romans 9.15, a little different word, I will be gracious to whom I am gracious, I will show compassion to whom I am compassion, whom I show compassion. So, my conclusion, my takeaway from that is, this statement that we have in 9.15 talks about God's glory.

This is who God is. This is how God operates. This is how God thinks. This is His very nature. God is gracious to whom I will be gracious. I will show compassion to whom I show compassion that's the very essence of God and that cannot be that cannot be sinful that cannot be to our mind that seems like you want you just choosing who you want you choosing you know no that's totally consistent with who God is if that's what Moses asked to see that and God comes back and quotes this Boy, that's pretty amazing. And also, this relationship that Moses asked for with God, I'm not going to read that part where he puts him in the cliff of the rock, it's really an incredible story, but just the takeaway is this verse we're reading is talking about God's character. This is who God is.

You wouldn't have seen that necessarily unless you'd gone back and looked at the Old Testament. Okay, so let's go on. for he says to Moses. So actually, and this is the part I was kind of alluding to, this very first part. And actually, this is from our brother Ron Merriman. He's just great with the original language. So this is interesting.

For he says to Moses, you say, well, how much can you get out of where he says to Moses? Well, the key part of this is, it's in the present tense. You would think that he said, I said to Moses, way back yonder, many, many years ago, I said to Moses. No, he says, he is saying to Moses, present tense, You scratch your head and say, wow, he's saying to Moses present tense right now.

Okay, what does that mean? It's the verb leggo, to speak. He's personifying that verb. He's personalizing. And if you take the tense, God is still speaking these words to Moses. And actually we talked about this in Sunday school today a little bit. God has given us his word. Much of it is what he spoke. God spoke it, it was recorded. Christ spoke it, it was recorded. When God speaks something, It's eternal. So God's still speaking these words right now.

That's another cool thing. He's saying, I have mercy on whom I have mercy, I have compassion, and so on. He's speaking those words right now, present tense. Just like we know as far as salvation's concerned, the blood of Christ. His blood keeps on cleansing. This is one of these present tense that seems like it should be a past tense. But the cool part is, God is continually, this is who He is. This is His character. This is the very character of God. And it actually has an interesting structure.

I will have mercy on whomever I have mercy. So that's statement one. And statement two, I will have compassion on whomever I have compassion. So we've got like parallel ideas. And this will set off some ideas in your head too a little bit. Especially the ladies who are studying the Psalms. Think about that. We'll get to that in a second. Okay, parallel statements, okay.

The idea and this is from a waste I will have mercy on anyone Whomever it is that I was I will show mercy to in the future I'll say it again. I'm not sure I totally still understand it, but I'll say it again. I asked Bonnie with I said now There's something here. Maybe I'm missing it.

I will have mercy on anyone Whomever it is that I will show mercy to in the future Okay And then, so, Weis' conclusion is here, the emphasis is the absolute sovereignty of God in the disposition of His mercy. Okay, so let's go on. We have a little bit more to say about this verse. All right. So now, now let's just, I decided it would be worthwhile.

He uses the two words here, has parallel statements, he has two words. Well, what are these two words about? Mercy, and sometimes I try to pronounce el echo. It's an active voice to have pity or mercy or to show mercy. And the other word, atero, to have pity, a feeling of distress through the ills of others. So here's kind of a comparison. Otero is closer to splanchnon.

You guys remember that word? I don't know, you have to be kind of a, this is, in the King James, it has that word bowels of mercy. I know if you're a King James kind of person, that always intrigued me, that word bowels of mercy. It's your inner gut, it's your inner side of you is concerned about something. So what he's saying, this one word is closer to this bowels of mercy kind of word. being connected with the sympathetic feelings which expressed in tears and lamentations, and he says the other word, aleo, mercy involves the intent to help. Well, the bottom line is, The bottom line is, both these words are very close, right?

I mean, I look at that, and I didn't try to get sample verses for each one of those, but they're very, very close. So I think this is, this is an example, and Vern Peterman was big on this, Hebrew poetry parallelism. And what that is, and this is Courtney McCauley, is where the synonymous kind of Hebrew poetry, and a lot of that's in the Psalms, where the second statement, which would be, first you have mercy statement, then you have compassion statement. The second statement restates the first, but with different words. In this case, there's only one word different, the compassion versus mercy. So it seems like it fits that pattern. To make his point, he states it twice in a poetry pattern.

Okay, so let's go on. So finally, we get to Mike's verse. We talked about it a few times. Okay, here we go. I hope I do it justice here. Okay, well I'm gonna start out with a picture. Okay, so then, therefore then, so it's summing up based upon what's going on. So then, therefore then. So if you'll notice, look carefully.

A good student of the Bible looks for italics. When you see italics, You know, well, somebody's, it's been added, right? So there's no subject or verb here. So then, it, and in this context, looking at the different translations, I believe, it looks to me like it's God's gift or God's grace, the one being the recipient of God's mercy, that's kind of the subject, is supplied verb, not as there in the original, not of the one desiring, kind of speaking of human will, nor of the one running human effort, but of the one having mercy." This helped me. Now, you may say, Roger, that may not help you, but to me it helps me.

He's saying it cannot be from Human will it cannot be from human effort. It only be from the source of mercy has to be from God If you think about this is kind of a restatement of what we talked about before It's not from human. Will it's not from human effort. It's only from God having mercy So now let's go a little bit deeper It's not of the one desiring Desiring is I did to wish to desire implies volition and purpose It's a present tense continuous action it continually continually desire continually willing So we're speaking of a continuous human desire or will and that's it's a negative so it cannot God's mercy cannot be that as a source nor are the one running running and this is a now many times in Scripture we have the Kind of the since it's a Greek society, the athletic games in the Greek culture, running a race, illustration from running a race, the swiftness. So it's not your extra effort that gets you there, that's not that. Neither of these, willing or running, will determine how God will show mercy.

If you think about it, People do all kinds of crazy things. Think of people that think they're getting God's favor. They torture themselves. They do all kinds of crazy things. They deny themselves, all thinking that's going to obtain God's favor or His mercy. But God says, Paul's saying, no, that neither one of man's willing or his running or his human effort can do it. So God's mercy cannot be received by human desire to receive it. God's mercy does not flow from justice, but it flows from God's grace.

This is from Macaulay. That last statement kind of got me. Think about this. We want, this is back to being fair, right? We want justice. It's got to be fair. Well, that's not the way God's mercy works. And that's it. Get your head going there, but it's not from justice. It flows from his grace. Okay. So here's the last part of the verse, about the one having mercy. This also is a present tense, so this is his present tense mercy. So again, we're speaking about continuous action, but this is with respect to God's mercy.

So this verse came to mind, Lamentations 3.23. They, the Lord's mercies, are new every morning, great is thy faithfulness. His mercy continually is being provided day after day after day. The grace of God has been spoken, this is from Newell, he had two statements here which I thought were really good. The grace of God has been spoken of in this epistle often before. But now, starting with 9, in these chapters His mercy is named, until mercy is understood, grace cannot fully be appreciated. I'll say that again, until Mercy is understood grace cannot be fully appreciated.

That was very interesting. Okay, so one three final points for Merriman Does God does this mean God picks our picks and chooses his What is that word Extensions, okay Does this mean that God arbitrary picks and chooses? Oh the extension of his mercy. Thank you God is not capricious in his extensions of mercy like the pagans deities like I was kind of talking about No, he extends his basic mercy to all members of the human race but the maximum to the believer and that that verse 1132 is in your bulletin and and I'll just quote it for you. For God has shut up all disobedience so that He may show mercy to all.

So the believer is in this wonderful place where we have received the maximum amount of mercy because we have this relationship with our Savior and He loves us and He extended the maximum amount of mercy but His mercy still extends to all mankind. Okay, let's close. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you so much. Thank you for the blessings we have in the Savior. We thank you for your care for us. In Christ's name, amen.