In Romans 9, Paul is responding to the question about whether the Jews’ rejection of Jesus meant that God’s purpose has failed. Over and against this Paul makes it clear that God’s purpose is not contingent on the irrational choices of people. God’s purpose depends only ultimately on himself and therefore cannot be thwarted. God is operating at a whole other level to us. We live in this chaotic realm where things seem to happen so randomly, and where people make choices for all sorts of strange irrational reasons. Paul is pointing us beyond this, to God’s sovereignty over the chaos. Imagine the chaos of life like acres of tangled string. When you look closely all you see is a tangled mess. But when you draw back and see the whole thing together you see that God has made a perfect pattern out of this chaos. As I said, God is operating at another level, and from an eternal perspective. He isn’t subject to the limitations of space and time. He is past, present and future. Paul says in Ephesians 1:11: “In [Christ] we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will.” The problem with us is that we get caught up in the logic of it. We ask questions like: Does God choose me because I chose him, or did I choose God because he chose me? The problem here is with our question. We are subjecting the ways of God to logic. Let’s stop trying to understand these things and begin to wonder at them.
Reflect on the incomprehensibility of these things.
Read Romans 9:6-18 again
