June 3: These three passages raise some deep theological questions when carefully reflected upon. A simple story of conversion followed by "victory unto victory" is not exemplified by most Bible characters. Ezekiel presents Noah, Daniel and Job as prime examples (Ezekiel 14:14). Elsewhere we're told that Abraham was the "friend of God" to whom He spoke as one speaks to a friend (Numbers 12:8; Exodus 33:11). He was the meekest of all men on earth (Numbers 12:3-5), and was in some ways, as a spokesman for God, prototypical of Christ's ministry. (Deuteronomy 18:18) David was a "man after God's own heart" (1 Samuel 13:14/Acts 13:22). And yet Noah seems to have fallen short in his drunkenness, (Gen. 9:20-27), Job justified himself at God's expense, (Job 32:1-2), Daniel confessed his sin along with his people's sins, (Dan. 9:20), and David turned aside in the matter of the wife of Uriah the Hittite. (1 Kings 15:5) Chapters 3-9 of Romans decisively show that we are saved by grace, through faith in Christ, apart from works of our own merit. There's also mention of an attainment to righteousness in Romans 9:30, which may be simply a way of saying we ended up with it as a gift, as Romans 5:15-18 repeatedly says. But it also could be an implication of what Romans 8:4 is saying: that the righteousness to which the Law pointed is actually worked out in born-again believers as we walk after the Spirit. Ephesians 2:10 also implies this: we are saved by grace after trusting Christ, given salvation as a gift, "created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." (Ephesians 2:10) There's a purpose in His salvation for us: as our lives defy the world's testimony about Christ and exemplify His life in us, it is a way of overcoming the world, (1 John 5:4), and testifying of Him for its salvation (Romans 10:14-18; 2 Corinthians 5:18-20) or condemnation. (Hebrews 11:7) Such a blameless life is only by the faith of the Son of God, (Galatians 2:20), so when we fall short, giving place to the enemy, it gives occasion for those who oppose God to blaspheme, (2 Samuel 12:14), and thus serves the cause of the enemy as David was doing when taking refuge in Gath.
1 Samuel 26-27: What happened between the end of 1 Samuel 26, ‘David went on his way, and Saul returned to his place.’ and the beginning of 1 Samuel 27, ‘David said in his heart, I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul’? Was it just fatigue from being chased? Was it despair over Saul’s persistent hatred in the face of David’s unwillingness to take vengeance on him? How could David have such strong faith as to refuse to assassinate Saul on two occasions but then give in so much to fear that he ends up with the Philistines? David's life has paradoxes like all of ours—about to take matters in his own hands with Nabal, taking two wives, fleeing to Gath, the hometown of Goliath… We're on our way to serving the enemy when we start allowing fear or temptation to make us stop venturing in faith.
Psalm 105:23-45: In light of the Romans passage, how does the Psalmist exhort the people in recounting their own history with God? The reason He preserved them miraculously was “His holy promise… He brought forth His people with joy and his chosen with gladness…that they might observe His statues and keep His laws.” (Psalm 105:42-45) Salvation was always by promise, through God’s deliverance, unto good works.
Romans 9:6-33: So human will and works are not the basis for salvation. Are they, however, a way to diagnose it? Now that we’ve considered God’s sovereign election in the case of Jacob, Esau and Pharaoh, without trying to reason out a framework or mechanism for it, how are we to determine the true people of God, if it’s not by the self-determination, genetic lineage, or legal obedience of man? Paul turns us now to the Gentiles. If it bothered us that perhaps not all Israel are really “Israel” in the sense of being <H3478> “prevailers with God,” what about the majority of people in the world? Hosea’s children were a sign to Israel, and one of them was “Lo-Ammi,” “not my people” because they had abandoned God. God promises restoration to those who will hear Him and forsake idolatry and also to those who were not His people. It wasn’t obvious at that time that He was speaking of Gentiles, but Paul now applies it that way. Going back to the Jews again, he reminds us that the point was always the remnant, using Old Testament passages that emphasize the faithful remnant in Israel. How, then, are we to determine the people of God? The attainment of righteousness is by faith. (9:30,33) The works of the Law actually become a stumbling stone when righteousness is sought that way. (9:32) So, does this passage teach a Calvinistic election of individuals to either reprobation or redemption? I’m unconvinced of that. Although God does raise up individuals for the express purpose of opposition, like Esau and Pharaoh, it seems unwise to generalize from those specific examples toward a general inexorable election to destruction of everyone who ultimately fails to come to Christ. And although we’re expressly told that salvation is “not of him that willeth,” it seems unwise to commute that to some sort of irresistible call to salvation to those who do come to Christ. God is sovereign and uncompelled. Yet the Scriptures clearly resound with invitations meant to win over the unconvinced, warnings against hardening one’s own heart, and commands to compel the unreached to believe.
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