For he says to Moses, I will shew mercy to whom I will shew mercy, and I will feel compassion for whom I will feel compassion.
Paul has just described God's freedom to choose, and someone objects that this makes God unfair. His answer is not his own argument. It is a sentence God once spoke to Moses, and the moment He spoke it settles the question.
He reaches for the one occasion when Israel had destroyed every claim they had. God answered by falling back on Himself.
To answer this objection, the Apostle points to one case in Israel's history. There God plainly acted in sovereign grace, and no one could charge Him with unrighteousness. He recalls the terrible sin of Israel when they made a golden calf and worshipped it. Of the unrighteousness of this act there can be no question. They had broken the first command, and the penalty was death. Righteousness could have destroyed them all. But what did God do? He fell back on His sovereignty and said, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." God falls back on the very principle the Jew objects to. Without it, all Israel would have been destroyed.
The people complaining owed everything to the very thing they complained about.
History and prophecy alike showed that the blessing of Israel hangs on God's sovereignty... So the very sovereignty they disliked when God showed mercy to the Gentiles proves to be everything to the Jew.
That freedom also lets mercy cross national lines:
Ruth the Moabite is a striking instance in Old Testament times of God's mercy shown outside the limits of Israel, the nation the Lord chose out of all others to be His own people. In this impressive example, the Lord acted on His own right to show favour where, when, and how He pleased.
Look at what the word "mercy" means. Everyone is guilty, so justice cannot explain any kindness God shows.
Once the shared guilt and ruin of every creature has been proved, justice is no longer the question in any display of God's favour towards them... By its very nature, mercy is controlled and directed by the will of the One who shows it. Nothing deserving in the person draws it out. Human misery is itself the natural effect of God's judgment against sin, so it cannot force mercy to act. We must look for its deep and blessed spring in the mystery of the love of God — in God Himself, whose name is Love.
The next verse draws the conclusion: it does not depend on human will or exertion. For Israel that was rescue, not cold doctrine.
How blessed then for Israel that it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy! Romans 9:16 states this principle in general terms: the question is not man's desires or efforts, but God's will. Besides, when we come to the facts of the case, we find that man neither wishes nor seeks for mercy. It is too late, then, for man to talk of rights. The truth is that man himself is all wrong, and righteousness rests on God having His rights.
Paul's argument moves on to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. Commentators stress different sides of the pairing. One sees the same freedom working both ways:
God's sovereignty is like a two-edged weapon. He may display it in showing mercy. He may also display it in executing judgment. In Israel's case, when they were guilty of the sin of the golden calf, He displayed it in mercy. In Pharaoh's case He displayed it by hardening that king.
Another writer warns against a mistake people make here:
In truth, God's sovereignty is always on the side of mercy. Some people fix on one side of the truth and deny another that Scripture states just as strongly — that man is responsible to God. They sometimes go so far as to say that God elects the lost to be damned. Never was there a greater mistake.
The freedom in this verse is not cheap. Once God announced it, something had to happen to make it possible.
Only God can really say "I will". The moment God said that, the death of Christ became a necessity. How could God carry out His will which involved the showing of mercy apart from the cross?
- Occasion — God first spoke these words over a nation worshipping a golden calf. Strict justice would have wiped them out. Mercy enters where merit has collapsed.
- Freedom — the will of the One showing mercy directs it. Nothing we deserve draws it out. Its spring is in God Himself.
- Reach — the same freedom that spared Israel also reaches beyond Israel. The objector's complaint attacks his own only hope.
- Cost — "I will" is a word only God can say, and saying it made the cross necessary.
- Response — the self-righteous argue with sovereign mercy. The person broken over sin is glad it is free enough to reach him.
So then [it is] not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shews mercy.
Paul has just quoted God's words to Moses about showing mercy to whom He will. This verse is his conclusion, and it settles where blessing starts: not in what a person wants or does, but in God.
The force of Paul's conclusion depends on when God first spoke those words.
When was it that He said to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion"? It was when, on grounds of bare righteousness, Israel ought to have been cut off. God then drew back, so to speak, into His sovereignty, to spare Israel. Righteousness would have condemned them as they stood around their golden idol. How blessed then for Israel that it does not depend on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy! Romans 9:16 states this principle in general terms. The question is not man's desires or efforts, but God's will. Besides, when we come to the facts of the case, we find that man neither wishes nor seeks for mercy. It is too late, then, for man to talk of rights.
Paul's words may look back at the family history he has just told.
The words may hint at Isaac's well-known wish, which came to nothing, and at Esau's efforts to gain by the hunt, which failed too. They may hint at Jacob as well, who was faulty enough to lose everything by his trickery — except that sovereign mercy secured the promise to him. It is certainly the conclusion of grace against man's empty confidence in his own will and effort.
If mercy waited for people to want it, it would wait forever.
Man will have no mercy on himself. Man goes marching to everlasting woe. We can see thousands around us doing this — old and young… "So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy." This is grace, the free favour of God. He shows mercy to the man who has no mercy for himself. It is not man, the sinner, who chooses God. God chooses the sinner… God has chosen those who never would have chosen Him.
The same point can be put positively: what we could never begin, God begins in us.
God, by His Spirit, does for us or in us what we never would, or could, do for ourselves or by ourselves. The work from first to last is God's.
The verse sits between two examples, and the second one is Pharaoh.
But here comes a warning. God's sovereignty is like a two-edged weapon. He may display it in showing mercy. He may also display it in carrying out judgment. With Israel, guilty of the sin of the golden calf, He displayed it in mercy. With Pharaoh, He displayed it by hardening that king.
If will and effort do not produce blessing, does human choice matter at all? Commentators hold both facts together, even where they cannot see how they fit.
Let us by the grace of God firmly hold both of these great facts. God is sovereign in how He acts in grace. Man, though fallen, is a responsible creature, and God addresses him as one… So let us accept both, even if for now we cannot see far enough to work out how they fit together.
So who receives this mercy, and what should a person do about it?
But to whom is God pleased to show mercy? Certainly not to the self-righteous mockers, who by their very attitude deny their need of mercy. It is to the repentant — those who confess themselves sinners and call on the Name of the Lord in their extremity… God has sovereign title to show mercy, and man must bow to this divine sovereignty. Indeed, can anything do more good for man than being subject to his Creator?
Mercy is not only how the Christian life starts; it stays the footing underneath.
If mercy has declared itself, and He has spared us, we must still never forget that His estimate of what we are stands on record… The rainbow in the cloud declares His faithfulness to His promise. We stand on the ground of MERCY, and if we forget it, He does not… We look at the cloud; God looks at the rainbow. What grace is here!
- Occasion — God spoke those words to Moses while Israel stood beside a golden idol. Justice would have destroyed them. Mercy speaks at the exact point where merit is gone.
- Meaning — Human will and effort recall Isaac's wish and Esau's hunt earlier in the chapter. Both failed. Only mercy secured the promise.
- Reach — No one has mercy on his own soul. So God chooses those who would never have chosen Him, and mercy reaches the repentant who call on Him.
- Warning — The same sovereignty that spared Israel hardened Pharaoh. Mercy shown is never mercy owed.
- Response — Man stays responsible, and God stays sovereign. So the verse calls not for argument but for bowing, and for living on the ground of mercy.
For the scripture says to Pharaoh, For this very thing I have raised thee up from amongst [men], that I might thus shew in thee my power, and so that my name should be declared in all the earth.
God answers the charge that He is unfair in two ways. On one side stands mercy; on the other, power. This verse is the second half of that pair. What does it mean that God "raised up" a man, and is that man still responsible?
Paul does not write that God said this to Pharaoh. He writes that Scripture said it. One writer traces how Paul quotes Genesis and Exodus:
Then he treats all the history of Genesis as the word of God. He cites the account in Exodus too, first as declaring that God spoke to Moses, and then as to the history of Pharaoh. And here it is as Scripture says it. This is for Paul the same as God saying it.
The phrase does not mean God made a man evil. It means He lifted an already defiant man high, so that his fall would be seen by all:
God never makes a man bad. Pharaoh was already bad, and his resistance to God's most striking appeals made him worse. God brought him into the open. He raised him up from among men to such a height that his downfall would tell on consciences far and wide throughout the world.
Another writer draws out why the position mattered so much:
Had Pharaoh been one of the common people in Egypt, his stubborn heart would not have been brought publicly into evidence, but God raised him to a place of eminence... Every fresh expression of Pharaoh's stubborn will only brought out some fresh expression of the mighty power of God, and his pursuit of Israel only brought before men the mighty power that could dry up the Red Sea, save His people, and destroy Pharaoh and his host.
The order of events in Exodus matters. Mercy reached Pharaoh first, and the hardening from God's side is dated late:
Mercy had been within his reach, but he refused it again and again. God warned him six times about the folly of resisting Him, sending terrible plagues, but each time he hardened his heart. (Exodus 7:13 should read, "And Pharaoh's heart was hardened (or strong) so that he did not listen." The Lord did not harden him in judgment until chapter 9:12.) Then came that terrible word: "Indeed, for this cause I have raised you up, to show in you My power." If people despise privilege and mercy, God hardens their hearts, and uses them as beacon lights of His power and wrath.
Another writer explains how mercy itself could harden him:
The hardening of Pharaoh's heart was largely brought about by the very mercy shown to him... The sun that melts the ice may harden the clay. It is the same sun that does both.
If a decree alone fixed the outcome, no one could blame Pharaoh. One writer answers that charge:
If the word of God forms our minds, we shall find that God always holds man responsible. He judges and condemns him for his own sins, and not by any predetermined decree.
The same writer notes that even Israel's enemies reached the same verdict:
Israel's natural enemies drew this conclusion: the king was judged justly, because he had hardened his heart against the God of Israel. That holds whatever the Lord's secret purposes may have been, as Moses knew them.
The verse names a wider aim: God's name told out everywhere. The same writer finds goodness even in this judgment:
When God did raise up Pharaoh, the world at large was sunk in idolatry. Pharaoh was the head of what was probably the most idolatrous nation on the face of the earth. He also held a place where God's sovereign power, displayed in his case, would travel far and wide among the nations. Was there no goodness shown in the very fact that He was executing judgment "against all the gods of Egypt"?... In the case of Rahab, added to, no doubt, by other testimonies, we see how much it accomplished.
Pharaoh is only half of it. On Israel's side, sovereignty was the one door of escape left open:
If God had dealt in righteousness, all Israel would have been cut off. Nothing but the sovereignty of God could be a door of escape... this, on the side of mercy; on the side of judgment, Pharaoh served as an example. He was the enemy of God and of His people. He treated the claims of God with contempt and lifted himself up in pride against Him: "Who is the Lord, that I should obey him? I will not let his people go."
- Defiance first. Pharaoh had already refused to obey the Lord or to let His people go. God found him a rebel; He did not make him one.
- Raised, not made evil. "Raised up" means lifted high, so that a private stubbornness became a public lesson.
- Hardened afterwards. Mercy and warning came first. God's own hardening comes later in Exodus, after repeated refusal. The writers agree that the man stays responsible.
- Power on display. Every fresh act of Pharaoh's will drew out a fresh act of God's power, until the Red Sea settled the contest.
- The Name travels. The goal of the whole account was God's name told out through all the earth — and the case of Rahab shows how far the report reached.
So then, to whom he will he shews mercy, and whom he will he hardens.
Here Paul sets God's freedom to show mercy beside His freedom to harden. Two real cases stand behind the words: God spared a nation after open sin, and He ruined a king after open defiance. Is such a God still righteous?
The verse is a summary. Israel's own history had already shown both halves of it.
God had already shown the mercy in His dealing with Israel after they made the golden calf, and the hardening in the case of Pharaoh. The Apostle reasons from both facts to defend the sovereignty of God. That sovereignty lets the Gentiles in while Israel is set aside, and it is still the only foundation for Israel's own hopes… History and prophecy alike showed that Israel's blessing hangs on God's sovereignty. Israel was ruined at the foot of the mountain, where they had promised to obey all that God commanded… The very sovereignty they disliked when it was shown in mercy to the Gentiles is proved to be everything to the Jew.
The two cases are not one innocent and one guilty. Strict justice would have condemned the nation and the king alike.
Both were wicked — Israel and Pharaoh. Righteousness would have condemned both. He has mercy on one, and hardens the other, where plain righteousness would have condemned both. This is sovereignty. He proves Himself not only righteous — the day of judgment will prove that — but proves Himself God. This matters more than anything to us all: without it no one would be saved.
God showed Pharaoh real kindness first. He lifted plague after plague, and that mercy only made Pharaoh harder.
In setting up the golden calf, Israel did wickedly, and God in sovereignty showed mercy. Pharaoh also did wickedly, and God judged him. Where does the sovereignty of God come in here? Is it not seen in this, that again and again God acted in sovereign mercy by removing the plagues? But this mercy only became the occasion of Pharaoh hardening his heart.
Exodus records the order, and the count is exact.
It is true that God hardened Pharaoh's heart. But He did so only after Pharaoh had shown extreme and staggering arrogance by saying, "Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice…?" (Ex. 5:2). And He did so only after Pharaoh had hardened his own heart again and again. In fact, the Spirit uses two different words in the original language and says no fewer than seven times that Pharaoh hardened his heart (Ex. 7:13, 14; 7:22; 8:15, 19, 32; 9:7) before saying that God hardened the heart of Pharaoh (Ex. 9:12).
The word "hardens" does not mean God makes anyone evil. It means He gives a man up to his own folly, and the man stays responsible.
God never made any man bad. But He may, and in some cases does, give people up to the consequences of their own folly and evil. That is, He hardens in judgment those who make light of His grace and reject it… Pharaoh grew more wicked the more patience God showed. In the end God, whom he had despised, blinded him in judgment and made him an example. All are responsible. Sin destroys the ability to obey God, not the responsibility.
Pharaoh is not the only case. The same thing happens to whole peoples.
Hardening came on him as a judgment, and in the end utter ruin. So then He has mercy on whomever He wills, and He hardens whomever He wills. On a large scale, it was so with Israel (Isaiah 6), and it will be so with Christendom (2 Thess. 2). Man is wicked and rejects God. God then, in His sovereign wisdom, can and does give men up to hardness… Notice too that while God hardens whom He will, He does not make men wicked; but He may take a wicked man to make an example of His justice in his case.
One objection comes at once: if God hardens, why does He still blame us? The answer turns the question back on the person asking.
Let every rebel against God beware, in case Pharaoh's fate becomes his own… People may say, if that is so, "Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?" Did not Pharaoh resist God? Have you not resisted and refused God? "Who are you, O man, to answer back to God?"… Did not Pharaoh fit himself for destruction? The same is true of every sinner.
- Both guilty — justice condemned Israel at the golden calf and Pharaoh in Egypt alike. Mercy is the only reason their stories differ.
- Mercy first — God lifted plague after plague before He judged Pharaoh. The kindness Pharaoh despised is what hardened him.
- He hardened himself — Exodus says seven times that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. Only then does it say God hardened it.
- God's act, man's fault — hardening is a real judgment, but God never makes a man bad. Sin destroys the ability to obey, never the responsibility.
- Still true today — the same pattern ran through Israel, and writers warn that Christendom will follow it. So the verse is a warning before it is a puzzle.