For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. Therefore it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. Paul is working through the hardest questions: How can God be just if he chooses some and not others? His answer: mercy is not earned. Mercy is sovereign.
I spent years trying to prove that I was worthy of God's attention. I served. I prayed. I tried to be good enough to deserve God's election. But this verse undoes that entire project. God doesn't have mercy because I'm meritorious. He has mercy because he's merciful. The categories are different. One is justice (giving what's deserved). One is mercy (giving what's not deserved).
The logical problem remains for me. If God's mercy is arbitrary, isn't he still unjust? But I'm learning that maybe I'm asking the wrong question. Maybe justice is one category and sovereignty is another, and they're not perfectly reconcilable in my limited mind. What I know is this: mercy has been shown to me. I didn't earn it. I don't deserve it. But it's real. So I'm learning to accept mercy rather than demand justice. Maybe that's the whole point.
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