“the Irrevocable God” Series

What is God’s Supreme Purpose and plan in the history of the world and in the salvation of Jews and Gentiles alike? Chapters 1-11 are summed up in verse 32. “For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.” God’s purpose is that God’s mercy might be revealed.

Why have all men gone astray? Why is there not ONE who is righteous, not even one? Why did God harden Israel’s heart? Why do Romans 1-3 clearly teach us that everybody is guilty before the throne of God, Jew and Gentile alike? And that God provides a justification by the gift of Faith? So that God might reveal mercy to the guilty. Romans 1:21 says: “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.”

In the same way that God is undeniably Sovereign God, sinful man is unmoved and not persuaded, even with a mountain of evidence… The word for “disobedience or disobedient” means obstinate opposition to God’s Divine plan. We actually get the word “apathy” from the Greek word, but disobedience to God is much stronger than our idea of apathy. The Greek word means that you are impersuasible. God is able to do what NO HUMAN MIND CAN COMPREHEND: God’s mercy persuades and saves the impersuasible. As Romans 9:16 says, “So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.”

Verse 32 is another verse which demonstrates so clearly the necessity of defining the CONTEXT, as well as the framework of a verse, and then understanding it light of ALL of God’s WORD. If you take this verse alone, as some do, you can promote a kind of universalism, that all people will be saved by God’s mercy; that would cancel out the first 11 chapters of Romans 11, and the majority of the New Testament.

Here is what this verse is saying: First of all, ALL have received the death sentence, but NOT ALL been condemned. All have been disobedient. No one has faith. No one can “drum up” saving faith. All try to justify their own sinfulness. All try to find their own way of salvation. All have become futile in their own thinking and have exchanged God’s glory for their own…AND YET God HAS NOT condemned all, but has save some. He has ALWAYS saved some…a REMNANT. Why? Because He chose to reveal His grace and mercy on SOME.

So here is the second part of understanding: To ALL who have received mercy, ALL of them WILL BE SAVED. He will not allow one to slip through the cracks of unbelief. Everyone who has received mercy, will persevere until the end, not because they are so good, but because God will not ALLOW EVEN ONE to be lost. God will show mercy to the FULLNESS of those He has chosen from Israel and to the FULLNESS of the Gentiles… and so ALL OF ISRAEL, the full number of ALL WHOM God will SAVE, will be saved by HIS MERCY…and no other reason.