Does God Choose Some and Not Others?

I read Romans 9 today. I’m having a tough time with it. Paul writes, “For God said to Moses, ‘I will show mercy to anyone I choose, and I will show compassion to anyone I choose.’…So you see God shows mercy to some just because he wants to, and he chooses to make some people refuse to listen” (v. 15, 18).

I read these words and I wonder, how can this be a loving God? Why would God purposely make people not listen, are we not all created in the image of God? How can we be responsible if it isn’t even our fault? I guess I’m lucky that God has allowed me to hear his voice, and I certainly am! But what about the people I love how choose not to listen, are they choosing that or has God made them refuse to listen. 

So as these thoughts are streaming through my mind, I continue to read. Paul, or course, responds directly to those questions, “ Well then, you might say, ‘Why does God blame people for not listening? Haven’t they simply done what he made them to do?’” Yes, my thoughts exactly, Paul. He continues, “No, don’t say that. Who are you, a mere human being, to criticize God? Show the thing that was c rested to say to the one who made it, ‘Why have you made me like this?’ When a potter makes jars out of clay, doesn’t he have a right to use the same lump of clay to make on jar for decoration and another to throw garbage into?” (v. 19-21). Ok, so I’m not suppose to question God. I understand that God is far beyond my comprehension, and I will never understand many of his ways, but he created man to think. He created us to question and to reason, and when I employ those capacities and I read these words I just don’t understand. Did God really make certain people to be used only to throw trash into? That just doesn’t make any sense to me, it makes me sick to my stomach.

I hope I’m misunderstanding what’s being said. There are a lot of debates between predestination and the free-will (I think those are the categories), and they explore this exact question. Maybe I should look into what people have written about these verses to get a bigger picture, a deeper understanding. 

I don’t have any final thoughts on this, I just read it this morning and was struggling with it. I read the next chapter in hopes to find more of an understanding but didn’t find much. If anyone is reading this and has thoughts or has struggled with this, please comment. I think it’s a good conversation to have, and I’m curious to hear other thoughts on it.

Sinful Self vs. True Self

I just finished the book Wild at Heart by John Eldridge. In his book he writes that we aren’t evil, that sin is outside of us and we give into it- it’s not our “true selves”. He uses Romans to back up his point. Paul writes “I don’t understand myself at all, for I really want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do the very thing I hate…But if I am doing what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing it; the sin within me is doing it” (Romans 7:15 and 20). What does this mean? We’re not responsible for our sin because it’s not actually us sinning? That’s what it sounds like to me. As a teacher of Life Skills classes, I want to say to Paul, “You are responsible for the choices you make, blaming something or someone else is not going to change that responsibility.” Am I right?

If we go back to the way beginning, Adam and Eve, they were perfect without sin, but with the ability to choose. Satan, who was not in them but outside of them, comes along and tempts them, and they give in. From that moment forward, mankind was born with a sinful nature and that’s who they were. In that very simplified story, we see man as God created him to be, or as John Eldridge would say, man in his “true self.” Temptation and sin were outside of him. In making the choice to eat the apple Adam and Even invited the sin inside themselves (and us). But, “Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord…for the power of the life-giving Spirit us freed [us] from the power of sin that leads to death” (Romans 7:25, 8:2). I think this is what Paul meant when he wrote that he is not the one sinning, that the sin is something outside of his true self. 

So are we responsible for our sin? Absolutely. Adam and Eve were responsible. I am also responsible, but sin can no longer control me, not if the Spirit of God is living in me. I am no longer who I was under the sinful nature. Because of Jesus’ sacrifice I am made new. That is who I am. So Am I perfect? No, just as Adam and Eve were tempted, so I am and because I live in a fallen world I may (or will) give into temptation, but my true self is redeemed by the blood of Christ and that is who I am.