Audio Transcript

God is all-sovereign. Amen. But in his all-sovereignty, is he fair? That topic of God’s impartiality comes up on the podcast a lot. Is God governed by objectivity, or does his sovereignty somehow excuse a bias, an unfairness, in how he works in this world and deals with each of us? Many episodes on the podcast come at this essential question, which you can see in my episode digest in the new APJ book on pages 355–64. You’ll see the diverse ways this question has come up over the years.

The fairness of God is such a dominant theme for you, our listeners, that I was not surprised at all to discover that Romans 9:22 is the most-asked-about verse in all of the Bible in our inbox. No other verse has been asked about more often in our inbox, your emails to us, in our eleven-plus years of podcasting than Romans 9:22. And this most-asked-about text happens to be next up in our reading tomorrow, if you’re reading along with us through the Navigators Bible Reading Plan.

So, to prepare for that reading in Romans 9 tomorrow, here’s one representative question from a listener named Leslie that captures the heart of a hundred-plus other emails that we have: “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.

Sent by Sovereignty

It may interest our listeners that this text — which is so problematic for most of us, the text that highlights the absolute sovereignty of God over salvation as clearly, as forcefully as any other text in the Bible — was the text God used in 1979 (I could even date it, December 14) to move me from being an academic theologian (after teaching six years in college) to becoming a pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church, where I served for 33 years. It 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 saying, 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 in those years to move me out of an academic dealing with the word of God into a frontline effort to save lost sinners and strengthen the church and reach the nations.

“The moral accountability of man is not destroyed by the absolute sovereignty of God in salvation.”

That’s important, and I say it because people think that if you believe in the absolute sovereignty of God over the salvation of sinners, 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, as it did on John Paton, as it did on Adoniram Judson and hundreds of other missionaries and pastors who laid down their lives to reach lost people with the gospel.

Open-Armed Calvinism

There is such a thing as hyper-Calvinism, which is not historic Calvinism. It’s 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, you don’t share the gospel indiscriminately (like I do). You wait and you look for signs among unbelievers that they might be elect. That’s absolutely wrong. It is not what Romans 9 teaches or implies. It’s 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:

Listen, everyone who thirsts. Come to the waters. You who have no money, come, buy and eat. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and labor for that which does not satisfy? Come to the water of life. Drink freely.

Everyone, absolutely everyone, who receives Jesus Christ as the Son of God, crucified for sinners, risen from the dead — every one of you who puts your trust in him as your only and precious Savior 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 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 a full minute like that, that’s what you say to every single human being.

Challenge of Romans 9

Now, here are the words from Romans 9 that cause people to stumble. Let me say a word about them. Romans 9:18–19: “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 Paul didn’t ask. We’re not thinking, “I’ve got a question, Paul, that you never thought of.” No, you don’t. The questioner asks, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” And now Paul did not say, “Well, everybody can resist his will. We’ve all got free will. Everybody can resist his will.” That’s not the way he answered the question “Who can resist his will?”

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

Two Compatible Truths

Now, Leslie asks, “It seems to imply that those who are not elect are not given a chance — even 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?” My answer: 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.

The first truth is that, 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. So, that’s the first truth.

Here’s the second. Everyone who perishes and is finally lost and cut off from God perishes because of real, blameworthy self-exaltation — sin — and 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 for a Savior is lost. No one is judged or condemned for not knowing or believing or obeying reality to which they had no access. All lostness and all judgment are owing to sin and rebellion against the revelation that we have. That’s the second truth.

Now, 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. Or to say it another way, God’s final and decisive governance of all things, including who comes to faith, is compatible — it fits — with all humans being morally accountable to God for whether they believe or not.

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

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 — nowhere. But God’s sovereignty is, and man’s accountability is, and nowhere are these considered contradictory.

No Innocent People in Hell

Therefore, my response to Leslie’s statement — that 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, either through natural revelation (the sun rising on the good and the evil, or the rain falling on the good and the bad, Matthew 5:45) or through conscience, or they’re being wooed and invited by 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 do that, 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; that is why they didn’t believe.

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

I recently had the incomparable joy of visiting the Grand Canyon. Though visit isn’t quite the right word, I suppose. You don’t just visit the Grand Canyon — you marvel at it, stand in awe of it, catch your breath before it, and find yourself transfixed and transformed by it. You come away “canyoned” by the juxtaposed emotions of feeling smaller and bigger at the same time. As a Christian, I reveled in knowing that the Creator of such beauty also happens to be the Savior of my soul.

I believe gospel-shaped humility can have similar effects. It makes us feel smaller and bigger at the same time. But only if we have a proper understanding of humility, carefully defined, delineated, displayed, and distinguished — that is, only if we move past some common confusions about humility.

Humility Confused

I’ve heard some Christians say things like, “I’m nothing. I’m just a worm.” Or, “I didn’t do a thing. I’m just an empty vessel.” I don’t think such statements reflect a healthy view of humility. The New Testament calls us saints and God’s children and goes out of its way to declare just how loved, redeemed, and blessed we are. Our new identity cannot square with “I’m nothing.”

It’s easy to get confused about humility. Consider how C.S. Lewis put these directions into the mouth of Screwtape, the senior demon in charge of training a new tempter:

Your patient has become humble; have you drawn his attention to the fact? . . . Catch him at the moment when he is really poor in spirit and smuggle into his mind the gratifying reflection, “By jove! I’m being humble,” and almost immediately pride — pride at his own humility — will appear. If he awakes to the danger and tries to smother this new form of pride, make him proud of his attempt — and so on, through as many stages as you please. But don’t try this too long, for fear you awake his sense of humor and proportion, in which case he will merely laugh at you and go to bed. (The Screwtape Letters, 69)

Humility Defined

Merriam-Webster defines humility as “freedom from pride or arrogance.” But that leaves us needing another definition — one for pride. And we need the Bible’s authority, not the dictionary’s, to help us most.

“Humility is not thinking of yourself more highly than you ought but with sober judgment, according to what God says in his word.”

I suggest this definition adapted from Romans 12:3: humility is not thinking of yourself more highly than you ought but with sober judgment, according to what God says in his word. Thus, growing in humility is a lifelong venture as you increase in knowledge of God’s word and in appreciation for God’s work through Christ.

Humility Delineated

Clear thinking about humility is on display in Andrew Murray’s classic short book Humility: The Beauty of Holiness. He starts with this insight: “There are three great motives that urge us to humility. It becomes me as a creature, as a sinner, as a saint” (10).

First, we should be humbled by the fact that we did not create ourselves or have any say in the specifics of our birth. How is it that you weren’t born in the 1300s in an obscure, poverty-stricken, disease-ridden village? Can you provide breath at any given moment? Which talents came from your blueprint, and not God’s? Consider Paul’s insightful question, “What do you have that you did not receive?” (1 Corinthians 4:7).

Second, humility befits our fallenness. We’re sinners, rebels, transgressors, and worshipers of false gods. Reflect on Paul’s recounting of our before-salvation résumé: “We ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another” (Titus 3:3).

Third, we are saved by grace, “not because of works done by us in righteousness” (Titus 3:5) “so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:9).

Humility Displayed

Humility’s central text is Philippians 2:1–11, where Jesus is lifted up as the perfect example of humility. It’s easy to zoom in on verse 5, “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,” and think, “I should be humble like Jesus was humble.” He is indeed our supreme example.

But we can follow his example only because he was also our supreme sacrifice. Don’t race past the first phrase of this chapter: “If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ . . . .” It is your union with Christ that transforms you into a new creature who can “consider others better than yourself,” and “look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:1–4 NIV).

Humility Distinguished

Humility, as the Bible puts forth, must be distinguished from vague ideas apart from the specifics of the gospel. Humility is not feeling bad about oneself. Humility is not comparing ourselves to others. And humility isn’t merely the absence of boasting. (What goes on inside our heads can be disgustingly self-exalting even while we keep our mouths shut.)

“Humility shaped by the gospel shows us just how bad we are and, at the same time, just how great God’s salvation is.”

Humility shaped by the gospel shows us just how bad we are and, at the same time, just how great God’s salvation is. It chastens while it emboldens. It puts us in our place, which, amazingly, is a place of both contrition and confidence. It is a proper and complete understanding of who we are — created, fallen, redeemed, and blessed. We live out our lives in humble boldness, knowing we deserve wrath instead of grace, judgment instead of justification, separation from God instead of the indwelling of his Spirit.

Humility Pursued

Note what immediately follows Philippians 2:1–11. Verse 12 begins with “therefore” and goes on to tell us to “work out [our] salvation with fear and trembling.” We do have a part to play in pursuing humility. Consider some practical suggestions.

Bodily Prayerfulness

The position of our bodies can make a difference in our prayer lives. Kneeling while interceding, raising our arms while praising, and opening our palms while giving thanks can intensify the blessings received through prayer. And it can help us grow in humility before God. It’s hard (although not impossible!) to feel self-empowered while kneeling.

Rigorous Confession

I’ll let C.S. Lewis present this case for me. He writes in The Weight of Glory,

I find that when I think I am asking God to forgive me I am often in reality (unless I watch myself very carefully) asking him to do something quite different. I am asking him not to forgive me but to excuse me. But there is all the difference in the world between forgiving and excusing.

Forgiveness says, “Yes, you have done this thing, but I accept your apology; I will never hold it against you and everything between us two will be exactly as it was before.” But excusing says, “I see that you couldn’t help it or didn’t mean it; you weren’t really to blame.” If one was not really to blame then there is nothing to forgive. In that sense forgiveness and excusing are almost opposites. (178–79)

Humility makes a regular practice of asking God, and others, to forgive us instead of excuse us.

Regular Periods of Fasting

Simply put, fasting makes us feel physically weak. That’s a good state for trusting entirely in God’s provision for everything. Fasting can take all sorts of forms and varieties. All of them can help in growth toward humility.

Outward-Facing Intercession

Jesus told us to include “our daily bread” (the most basic unit of physical sustenance) as well as “your kingdom come” (the most expansive scope of church growth) in our prayers. Prayer guides like Operation World (both the book and the app), which inform us how to pray for gospel advance in every country, help us see our individual needs on a larger canvas and forge humility.

Others-Centered Conversation

Many so-called dialogues are really simultaneous monologues. A gospel-humbled conversationalist can allow the interchange to be unbalanced — in the direction of the other person. Asking questions to draw more out of the other person can display Philippians 2 humility in tangible, practical ways.

Bowing Low, Standing Tall

Some might say standing before the Grand Canyon should have made me feel like “nothing.” But that wasn’t my experience. To be sure, I had no doubt that the nearly two thousand square miles of a mile-deep chasm dwarfed my 5-foot, 9-inch frame. If I did not know the Creator of both the physical universe and my physical body, I would have felt like dust.

But standing before an even greater wonder — the cross, where we are “united with Christ . . . in the comfort from his love . . . with the fellowship of the Holy Spirit . . . with tenderness and compassion” (Philippians 2:1 NIV) — forges a gospel-humility that bows us low and stands us tall.

Audio Transcript

Hello and welcome back to the podcast on this Wednesday. So “the passions of the flesh . . . wage war against [our souls].” That’s 1 Peter 2:11. That’s what we looked at in-depth with Pastor John on Monday. The desires of the flesh draw away from the all-satisfying fullness of Christ.

That’s a huge point, and I want to return to that text and to that verse and to the verse after it, because in them we encounter the two greatest questions faced by the universe. No joke. The universe’s two greatest questions are answered here in 1 Peter 2:11–12. There Peter wrote,

Beloved [writing to Christians], I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.

These two verses answer the two most gigantic issues faced by the universe. To make the claim and defend it, here’s Pastor John in a 1994 sermon.

In those two verses, two issues are seen to be massively important. In fact, I would say they are the two most important issues in the world, in the universe. They are the two issues that the whole Bible deals with throughout. And one of the ways that we know that we are aliens and exiles and strangers, like verse 11 says, is that the world, by and large, does not think that they are important issues. If the world did, the newspaper would look different, television would look different, radio would sound different, university classes would sound different, advertising would be different, business would be different. But by and large, these two issues, which the Bible treats as the most important issues in the world, are non-issues in our world. This makes aliens out of us who get our bearings from the Bible.

The two issues are these: the salvation of the human soul and the glory of the name of God. Or to put it another way, the two big issues in the Bible and in the world are these: How do you save the soul so that it’s not destroyed? And how do you glorify God so that he’s not belittled? Those are the two huge issues in these two verses. Let’s get that before we even talk about any details.

Salvation of the Soul

“Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul” (1 Peter 2:11). The issue here is whether the soul is going to be so fought against that it dies, that it is lost. There are anti-soul forces in the world. The world, by and large, doesn’t even think about its soul. But this text says that there’s a war going on, and there are desires in the world that are waging war, trying to bring my soul to ruin. And if it succeeds, if the anti-soul forces win, my soul is lost. And if my soul is lost, everything is lost, and there is no recovery.

Remember what Jesus said? “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul?” (Mark 8:36–37). Which means, if the soul has been lost, there’s no negotiating anymore. If the soul is lost, you don’t buy it back — it’s gone. If anti-soul forces win, they win. It’s over. Jesus said so in Luke 16, when he was talking about the rich man and Lazarus, and the rich man went to Hades and Lazarus went to Abraham’s lap. And they were granted for a moment to see and commune in word. And the man in Hades said, “Just send him over with a drop of water. I am in torment in these flames.” And Abraham said, “There is a gulf here that is so big, so wide, so deep, that God has ordained nobody crosses either way, ever” (see Luke 16:19–31).

It’s over. That’s an awesome reality. This is a reality that has to do with everybody. It has to do with everybody forever, and it has to do with everybody forever in huge ways that have to do with hell and heaven. And yet, there’s no column in the newspaper, there’s no public-service announcement on the radio, there’s no sound bite on television, there’s no values-clarification course at the university or in our schools, there’s no government agency, there’s not even a welfare pamphlet that gives one hint as to how to fight for our souls.

“Our world is passionately committed to the inconsequential.”

The biggest issue that our souls face is a non-issue in the world, which is why you’re an alien and a stranger. They, the world order, teach us how to fight AIDS and how to fight mosquitoes and sunstroke and drunk driving and pollen and depression and rape and fire and theft and cholesterol and dandelions. But they don’t teach us how to fight for our soul. Our world — you must get this — is passionately committed to the inconsequential. One of these days that will not be the case. The eyes of the world will be opened, and our obliviousness to what will then be seen to be so obvious will so stun the world that we will have no explanation for the way we lived in America. How the eternal condition of the human soul could be a non-issue will be absolutely inexplicable. It will boggle the mind as we stand before our Judge. We are aliens.

That’s the first great issue. “How shall the soul of man be saved and not destroyed forever and ever?” That is a big issue.

Glory of God

Here’s the second one. “Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation” (1 Peter 2:12). The first issue is how the soul shall not be lost. The second issue is how God shall not be belittled. Or to make it positive: how the soul shall be saved, and now, how God shall be glorified.

The salvation of the soul and the glory of God are the two biggest issues in the universe. And they’re non-issues for most people in America. This text says, “The goal of all human behavior is to be the glory of God.” Isn’t that an incredibly sweeping statement? The goal of all your behavior, from the time you get up in the morning until you go to bed at night, is to draw attention to God. That’s the significance of human life. The positive significance of human life consists in our capacity to deflect attention from ourselves to God. That’s the meaning of human life as God intended it to be.

“If we don’t live for God’s glory, we become simply a little echo of a God-neglecting culture.”

You see that. I’m not making that up. That’s right here. “Keep your conduct honorable so that the Gentiles might glorify God” (see 1 Peter 2:12). Live, conduct yourselves, act, behave with a mind that asks, “How can I direct their attention to God by the way I live?” That’s what life is for. We live in order to get attention for God. If we don’t — if we don’t live for God’s glory — we become simply a little echo of a God-neglecting culture. We fit in so well to this world that we can’t direct anybody’s attention out of the world, which is where God is.

I just have the feeling that we’re so afraid of being Amish: dressing wrong, riding a horse-drawn carriage, being anti-modern, or getting the wrong tie, or not having a tan. We’re so afraid of not being in step that we blend in too well so that nobody’s saying, “Wow — look at God” anymore. And it’s because of the church.