Audio Transcript

It’s hard to confirm exact numbers, but by educated guess I would safely assume that the most asked-about chapter in the Bible in our emails here at APJ is Romans 9. I know without any exaggeration that we have hundreds of questions in the inbox on this one chapter alone. Within the chapter, Romans 9:22 is very likely the most asked-about text of all the other verses in the chapter. I know of at least 65 emails just asking about this single text, a hard text. Here’s one representative question from a listener named Leslie that captures the heart of dozens of those emails: “Pastor John, hello. I could use your help in my struggle with Romans 9:22. It seems to me to imply that those who are not elect are not even given a chance to repent since they were born for destruction. Is this right, that many people are created with no chance of ever being saved?”

I’m not surprised that Romans 9 is among the texts that people have the most questions about because my own history bore that out. Just recently, I’ve been perusing some of my old journal entries from 1977 to 1979. I was in my early thirties, and almost all of my discretionary time was spent studying and writing about Romans 9, especially Romans 9:14–23.

It may interest our listeners that this text — which highlights the absolute sovereignty of God over salvation as clearly, as forcefully, as any other text in the Bible and is therefore so problematic for most of us — was the text God used on December 14, 1979, to move me from being an academic theologian, who taught for 6 years in a college, to becoming a pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church, where I served for 33 years.

This text moved me to become a pastor with a longing that God would use me to save lost sinners from the cradle to the grave and to grow a strong church that would send hundreds of people to the unreached peoples of the world in world missions.

So I’m bearing witness that the most controversial chapter in the Bible with regard to the sovereignty of God in saving sinners was the chapter that God used to move me out of an academic dealing with the word of God into a frontline effort to save lost sinners, and to strengthen the church, and to reach the nations. That’s important.

“Nobody who humbly wants Christ as Savior is lost.”

It’s important because people think that if you believe in the absolute sovereignty of God over the salvation of sinners, then you would be disinclined to be a soul-winning pastor and a missions-driven church. That’s not true. It had the opposite effect on me — as it did on William Carey, John Paton, Adoniram Judson, and hundreds of other missionaries and pastors who laid down their lives to reach lost people with the gospel.

Bible-Saturated Pleas

There is such a thing as hyper-Calvinism, which is not historic Calvinism. Hyper-Calvinism has always been a tiny group who have twisted the Bible by their unbiblical logic to say that the only people you should invite to Christ are those who give evidence of being among God’s elect. So if you are a hyper-Calvinist, you don’t share the gospel indiscriminately — like I do — but you wait and look for signs among unbelievers that they might be elect.

That’s absolutely wrong. It is not what Romans 9 teaches or implies. It is not what any other text in the Bible teaches or implies. The lover of God’s sovereignty who is saturated with a big, biblical view of God’s power in saving sinners says to every human being, without exception, words like these:

Come, everyone who thirsts,     come to the waters;and he who has no money,     come, buy and eat!Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,     and your labor for that which does not satisfy? (Isaiah 55:1–2)

In other words, we are pleading with them, “Come to the water of life. Drink freely, everyone! If you will receive Jesus Christ as the Son of God — crucified for sinners, risen from the dead — and put your trust in him as your only and precious Savior, you will receive with him everything that God has done through him. Everything that God is for you in him — you will have it all. Nothing good will be withheld from you. If you will have the Lord Jesus Christ, you have everything that he achieved, climaxing in everlasting joy in the presence of God.”

That’s what you say. If people will let you talk for a full minute like that, that’s what you say to every single human being.

Unpacking Paul

Now here are the words from Romans 9 that cause people to stumble. Let me say a word about them. Romans 9:18–19 says, “So then [God] has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills. You will say to me then, ‘Why does he still find fault?’” In other words, we’re not asking a question that Paul didn’t ask. We shouldn’t be thinking, “I’ve got a question, Paul, that you never thought of.” No, you don’t.

Then Romans 9:19 continues like this: “For who can resist his will?” Paul did not say, “Well, everybody can resist his will. We all have free will. Everybody can resist his will.” That’s not the way he answered the question “Who can resist his will?”

Paul then says in Romans 9:20, “But who are you, O man, to answer back to God?” Now by that question, Paul did not mean we should never ask God questions. That’s not what he meant. He meant that you should never react with disapproval when God answers.

And he goes on,

Will what is molded say to its molder, ‘Why have you made me like this?’ Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory . . . (Romans 9:20–23)

Now, Leslie asks, “It seems to me to imply that those who are not elect are not even given a chance to repent, since they were born for destruction. Is this right, that many people are created with no chance of ever being saved?” That’s her question. My answer is no. That would not be a faithful, biblical way of stating the situation. Let me put beside each other two biblical truths that many people consider contradictory, but are not, and then I’ll draw out of those two truths an implication for Leslie’s statement.

His Sovereignty, Our Responsibility

The first truth is, from all eternity God has chosen from among the entire fallen, sinful humanity a people for himself — but not everyone. Thus, this selection is owing to no merit at all in those chosen people. God pursues their salvation not only by effectively achieving the atonement for their sin through Christ, but also by sovereignly overcoming all their rebellion and bringing them to saving faith.

Here’s the second truth: everyone who perishes and is finally lost and cut off from God perishes because of real, blameworthy self-exaltation, which is sin. Because they are hardened against the revelations of God’s power and glory in nature or in the gospel, no innocent people perish. Nobody who humbly wants Christ as Savior is lost. No one is judged or condemned for not knowing, or believing, or obeying a reality to which they had no access. All lostness and all judgment are owing to sin and rebellion against the revelation that we have.

“There will be no innocent people in hell, and there will be only forgiven sinners in heaven.”

What keeps those two truths from being contradictory is this: the moral accountability of man is not destroyed by the absolute sovereignty of God in salvation. To say it another way, God’s final and decisive governance of all things, including who comes to faith, is compatible with all humans being morally accountable to God for whether they believe or not.

Now, we live in a world that by and large refuses to embrace God’s purposeful sovereignty in all things. That is Ephesians 1:11: “[He] works all things according to the counsel of his will.” People reject this largely because the only solution their minds can embrace for maintaining human accountability is the presumption of ultimate human self-determination, otherwise known as free will. But ultimate human self-determination is not found anywhere in the Bible — but God’s sovereignty is, and man’s accountability is. Nowhere are these considered contradictory.

Invited Every Day

Therefore, my response to Leslie’s statement — namely, “many people are created with no chance of ever being saved” — is to say that everyone is being wooed and invited by God every day. They are being wooed through natural revelation — the sun rising on the good and the evil, or the rain falling on the good and the bad — or through conscience, or through gospel truth. These revelations of God are their chance to be saved. It is a real invitation. It is real precisely because if they humbled themselves and received God’s grace, they would be saved.

Those who humble themselves and receive God’s grace know that it was only the sovereign grace of God that enabled them to believe. And those who don’t do it know that it is because of their own sin. That they loved something else more than God is why they didn’t believe. There will be no innocent people in hell, and there will be only forgiven sinners in heaven.

You never imagined that it could come to this.

You have been married for years to your dear wife. You have been your beloved’s, and your beloved has been yours. Three sons and a daughter she bore you, four children that now watch you with a look you can’t describe. What an answer to prayer she has been. Your tears hold memories of life before the whispers came. Why is this happening?

You found out from your daughter. In disbelief you went to her with questions. The voice sounded the same, her hair framed her beauty as it always had, the dimple in her cheek and the birthmark on her neck remained where you left them. Yet someone else speaks as her mouth moves, telling foreign words of strange beliefs. The wife of your youth, your lovely doe, has become sick. An illness preys upon her soul. How did this happen? You resolve to reason with her quietly, surely she will snap out of it.

Time heats gentle persuasion into desperate pleading. She no longer follows Yahweh. She implores you and the kids to join her. There are gods elsewhere.

Days pass while leaving you in a nightmare from which you cannot wake. Her idolatry deepens. You would have preferred a grizzly death than see this day. You would have bid the stars crush you or the sea to swallow you before you witnessed her bowing to another than Yahweh. She is you, you are her, one flesh. Your rib has pursued death. And what is worse — you’re tempted to think — you know the Scriptures. You could turn a blind eye, but not a blind mind.

If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter or the wife you embrace or your friend who is as your own soul entices you secretly, saying, “Let us go and serve other gods,” which neither you nor your fathers have known, some of the gods of the peoples who are around you. . . you shall not yield to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him, nor shall you conceal him. (Deuteronomy 13:6–8)

You shall not yield to her, listen to her, pity her, spare her . . . or conceal her. What then was the hardest thing you have ever done, you did: You brought your daughter and both told the elders her secret. The elders inquired and searched and asked diligently to be certain (Deuteronomy 13:14); she did not hide, did not yield. And again, you know the next lines,

But you shall kill [her]. Your hand shall be first against [her] to put [her] to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. You shall stone [her] to death with stones, because [she] sought to draw you away from the Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. And all Israel shall hear and fear and never again do any such wickedness as this among you.

Never have you faced such a temptation to cast off Yahweh’s rule. You would give yourself to spare her. How can you sit by and watch her die, let alone be involved in her death, and even throw the first stone? Never has disobedience felt more right. Abraham brought Isaac up the mountain, and came down with him. This day would not end like that.

The community stands watching, waiting. “Your hand shall be first against her to put her to death, and afterward the hand of all the people.”

Cruelty, this is cruelty, the thought hisses into your mind. Before you can think it, she shouts, “The gods of the nations wouldn’t require you to stone your own wife!” Your eye, seeing through a flood, beholds the blurry shape of your dearest embrace, the mother of your children. And through the stillness your ear hears the word of your God, “Your eye shall not pity her, nor shall you spare her.” Your eye or your ear? Your wife or your God?

Could You Cast the Stone?

The scene is horrible even to imagine. It takes an emotional toll to consider. The rock in your hand, a mother, a daughter, a father, a husband, a best friend before you, the community surrounding you, and your God above. Moses knew this while writing,

If your brother, the son of your mother,or your son or your daughteror the wife you embrace (literally, “wife of your bosom”)or your friend who is as your own soul, entices you. . . .

Natural affection screams against the proceedings. This is not a faceless idolater but your beloved. The scene cuts the soul of all who see it; all who hear of it. It tests: to see whether we truly love Yahweh supremely or not (Deuteronomy 13:3). And it teaches. Teaches the fear of God and the proper appraisal of turning from the true God to other loves.

Have you, standing beside the solemn community, learned its lesson?

But God Isn’t Like That — Right?

The New Covenant is different from the Old. We do not execute false teachers or their apostates, do not “purge the evil from [our] midst” (Deuteronomy 13:5) by throwing stones. The closest thing we do — something just as serious — is church discipline and excommunication. When Paul tells the church at Corinth to “Purge the evil person from among you” (1 Corinthians 5:13), he means, “not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler — not even to eat with such a one” (1 Corinthians 5:11).

Yet, the difference between covenants is not the kind that some people want to make. Some imagine that the God of the Old Testament — the God who here would have idolaters and false prophets stoned — is somehow a bloodthirsty and brutal deity, while his divine Son, on the other hand, comes as the more moral, civil, and compassionate of the Godhead. They mention this Old Testament God with red face and ready-made apology. Reading this, they wonder, Why even reflect on such a text? This is not helping the gospel go forth.

“God values perfectly what we value imperfectly. He loves undyingly what we sputter to love and fail.”

Such reluctancies — in them and in ourselves — remind us of great news: God is not like you, not like me. He is more just, more holy, and more compassionate than we imagine, all at once. He is more appropriately tuned to reality than we. He values perfectly what we value imperfectly. He loves undyingly what we sputter to love and fail. He holds allegiances in perfect grasp, knows the weight of the crown upon his head, and legislates with mathematical perfection, despite our faltering algebra. That situation is horrible because sin is horrible, not God.

More Loving than God

Such texts help me (as I hope they help you) recalibrate my thinking and my feeling. They act as smelling salts to my sensibilities, confronting the weaknesses of my personality, community, and age. When I am tempted to imagine myself with a stone in hand, I feel my heart grow faint and shake its head. And when this occurs, when I let the text work on me, I begin to pray, “I believe, help my unbelief.” And I ask, Where are my loves crooked?

With my family, perhaps. I am not to lessen my love for family, but rather love God supremely, with my whole being. Christ reiterates that he will suffer no rivals (should we stand at the crossroad),

Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. (Matthew 10:37)

Or, perhaps, with my God’s glory. In my imagining, I am more devastated by the consequence of sin than the affront of sin; more offended by the wages of sin than by the sin itself. I need to overhear how God teaches angels to feel about exchanging him for anything else:

Be appalled, O heavens, at this;be shocked, be utterly desolate,declares the Lord,for my people have committed two evils:they have forsaken me,the fountain of living waters,and hewed out cisterns for themselves,broken cisterns that can hold no water. (Jeremiah 2:12–13)

Or, perhaps, with my community. God shows mercy to the community through this hard lesson: “And all Israel shall hear and fear and never again do any such wickedness as this among you.” Others’ family members would fall if I lacked nerve to obey.

My “compassion” would value the creature over the Creator, high-handed rebellion over God’s glory, my wife’s unbelieving life over the faithful she would infect with her whispers of unbelief.

Let Goods and Kindred Go

Today, we are a people quick to trust our feelings, our judgments, our sense of things, with God somewhere comfortably in the background. Difficult texts like this remind us of the towering worth of God and the high allegiance of our calling. And such texts can test us, “to know whether you love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul” (Deuteronomy 13:3).

“We must decide now, as best we can and with God helping us, to never choose kin over King.”

One of Satan’s most successful snares is to infect faith through our closest relationships. Where God means for them to give life, he means death. We feel for those caught in the crossfire of a beloved’s war with God. But neither can we ignore the rotten fruit: pastors who change their minds on homosexuality because a son comes out; a Christian mother who capitulates on abortion because her daughter secretly procured one; a wife who concedes to universalism because her husband left the faith. Satan has robbed many through this backdoor.

A text like Deuteronomy 13 bids us decide now, as best we can and with God helping us, to never choose kin over King, should that dark day ever come. Though my heart be wrung watching him or her run after other gods, I will not. Although their sin twists my soul in knots I can’t untie, though the loss of that relationship pierces to the deepest part of me, and all the while the world’s gods taunt me that Christ is too narrow, too particular, that it’s not worth it — Lord, keep me yours.

Jesus is worthy to be our great love, and no less — a love we bend or break for none. Let God be true, though every loved one is false. Resolve now to sing to the end with Psalm 73:25–26,

Whom have I in heaven but you?And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.My flesh and my heart may fail,but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Audio Transcript

Happy Monday, and welcome back to the podcast. Today, I’m going to batch several questions together all on the same Bible text: Colossians 1:20. Here’s the first one, from John, a listener to the podcast in Mullumbimby, Australia. “Pastor John, hello! What does it mean that God reconciled to himself all things, whether in heaven or on earth? And why did he need to reconcile all things to himself?”

A listener named Ryan writes in, “Dear Pastor John, a friend of mine and I have been discussing Colossians 1:20 and the reconciliation of ‘all things’ in heaven and on earth, making peace by the blood of the cross. What does this mean for those who are not elect? Does Colossians 1:19–20 allude to a reconciliation for both elect and non-elect alike? Many thanks from a longtime listener!”

And a listener named Lake writes in, “Pastor John, I understand that earth needs reconciliation. But what’s in heaven needing reconciling?” So also asks Vikki in Dayton, Ohio. “Pastor John, Colossians 1:20 seems to imply that not just earth but also heaven has been reconciled to God. The ladies in my Bible study group can’t agree here. Some think Paul means the general universe. Others think he means the actual heavenly abode of God. We’re wondering which is correct? It would seem to me that when the devil originally sinned, he contaminated heaven. Therefore, part of Christ’s atonement also cleansed the heavenly sanctuary. Maybe. Is that consistent with Scripture?” So, a lot of questions on Colossians 1:20.

Well, let’s get the text in front of us. This is Colossians 1:19–20: “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”

So, the questions our listeners are raising revolve mainly around what it means that God, through the ministry of the divine Christ, will reconcile to himself all things. The phrase “all things” raises the question of universalism for a lot of people. That is, will every person, even the demons and Satan himself, be reconciled to God — and there will be no hell, and there will be no final judgment, no final destruction of anyone? That’s the first question. Second question is raised by the phrase “whether on earth or in heaven.” What would it mean to speak of reconciling anything or any being in heaven? What in heaven needs reconciling? And then the third question I hear would be, How does the blood of Jesus establish peace in heaven and on earth?

Let’s take these one at a time.

Will Everyone Be Saved?

First, through Christ, God reconciles all things to himself, whether in heaven or on earth. Does that mean that there is universal salvation and that, in the end, hell will not exist, and all unbelievers and all demons and Satan himself will be reconciled and saved?

The first problem with that interpretation is that Paul himself, both in this letter of Colossians and elsewhere, teaches that there will be the final wrath of God that will last forever on people. It’s not even that they will be put out of existence (called annihilationism). For example, in Colossians 3:5–6, he says, “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming.”

Then if you ask, “Well, how long will that wrath last? What will that experience be like?” And he says in 2 Thessalonians 1:9, “[Those who do not obey the gospel] will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.”

And if we look for confirmation that we’re on the right track here in understanding Paul, we find in the teachings of John and the teachings of Jesus the same kind of thing. For example, in Matthew 25:46, Jesus says, “And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” And since “eternal life” is parallel with “eternal punishment,” then it seems clear that the eternal punishment will have the same duration as the eternal life.

And then in Revelation 14:11, John uses the strongest phrase possible in Greek to express eternity. He says, “And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever.” The Greek phrase behind that “forever and ever” is as strong as it can be.

So, we’re talking everlasting duration of wrath, and therefore, the problem with thinking that Colossians 1:20 is teaching that all things will be reconciled and thus saved — with no hell, no eternal punishment, and no unbelievers or demons in existence — is that Paul says that’s just not true.

What Does ‘All Things’ Mean?

So the question is, Well, what does it mean? If it can’t mean universalism or annihilationism, what does it mean — “through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven”?

I would say to our readers, Have you ever asked why it doesn’t say “to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven or under the earth”? Why does Paul omit “under the earth”? And I say that because he uses that phrase in Philippians 2:10, when he says that every knee will bow to Jesus and confess that he’s Lord — every knee “in heaven and on earth and under the earth.” Even the unsaved will grant that Jesus is Lord.

But here in Colossians 1:20, he doesn’t mention “under the earth” as what will be reconciled. It only says that he will reconcile all things to himself in heaven and on earth. So, here’s my suggestion: Paul is not at all contradicting the fact that the Bible teaches eternal judgment on Satan and his angels and on humans who are unrepentant, but all of those persons will be consigned to a realm outside the new heavens and the new earth.

“Everything in the new heavens and the new earth that has been contaminated with sin in any way will be reconciled.”

In Matthew 22:13, Jesus calls this “outer darkness.” They will be in a realm that is not part of the new heavens and the new earth. Everything in the new heavens and the new earth that has been contaminated with sin in any way will be reconciled, will be redeemed.

So, when Paul says that all things will be reconciled in heaven and on earth, he means that because of the work of Christ, there will be nothing unreconciled on earth, nothing unreconciled in heaven, when God consummates his purposes. For demons and unbelievers, there will be another entirely different realm of existence, which we call “under the earth” or “outer darkness,” but it will not be part of the new creation. All things will be reconciled in that earth and that heaven. So, that’s my answer to the first part of the question.

What Needs Reconciliation in Heaven?

Let’s turn to the second question: What would it mean to speak of reconciling anything or any being in heaven? What in heaven needs reconciling? What would Paul mean when he says that through Christ God reconciles to himself, “whether on earth or in heaven,” all things? And one answer is implicit in what I’ve already said — namely, he may not be talking about reconciling what is in heaven now but what will inhabit the new heavens and the new earth. And his point is, nothing contaminated by sin will inhabit the new heavens and the new earth that’s not reconciled to God. Everything will be reconciled that’s there.

But if someone pushes back and says, “Well, it looks, Piper, like it’s referring to the present heaven and earth, not just the future heaven and earth,” then my suggestion would be — if they’re right and I’m mistaken in that first suggestion — that Paul teaches in the next chapter, Colossians 3:4, and in Philippians 1:20 and 2 Corinthians 5:8, that Christians who have died are now in heaven. And Paul would then be saying that all of them are reconciled to God by the work of Christ.

That’s my suggested answer to the pushback and the suggestion that he may be referring to the present heaven and not just the future heaven: Christians are there. Christians are reconciled in heaven through the blood of Christ.

How Does Jesus’s Blood Make Peace?

One last question: How does the blood of Jesus establish peace in heaven and on earth? Paul says, “making peace by the blood of his cross” (Colossians 1:20). And I add this question for two reasons. One, because we know that demonic beings not only inhabit the earth but are referred to, for example, in Ephesians 6:12 as being operative in the heavenly places. For example, Job teaches that Satan had some kind of access to God.

“The blood of Christ takes away the one damning weapon that Satan has: the power to accuse us for sin.”

The other reason I ask this question is because Paul connects the blood of Christ with the defeat of the demonic rulers and authorities in Colossians 2:15. So, right after saying that the record of our sins, the record of our debts, is nailed to the cross so that our guilt is removed and our forgiveness is secure, he says in Colossians 2:15 that God, by this work of Christ, stripped (or disarmed) the demonic powers and shamed them and triumphed over them in him.

I take that to mean that the blood of Christ takes away the one damning weapon that Satan has — namely, the power to accuse us for sin, because they’re all forgiven. Our sins are all forgiven. He doesn’t have that weapon because of the blood of Christ. He’s stripped of it. He’s disarmed. And with that triumph over Satan and his demonic forces, all demonic hopes of victory are shattered, and Satan is finally consigned to outer darkness with his forces. And in that way, complete peace is established in the new heavens and the new earth.

So, when Paul says that God made peace through the blood of his Son, he means not only that Christians enjoy no condemnation and peace with God forever, but also that the marauding, tempting, destructive work of Satan and his forces is totally disempowered and consigned outside the new heavens and the new earth forever. There’s only peace.