PRAYER OF CONSECRATION
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Jesus, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body as a holy and living sacrifice to you.
Jesus, We belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
Romans 9:6–15 (NIV)
It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children. On the contrary, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” In other words, it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring. For this was how the promise was stated: “At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son.”
Not only that, but Rebekah’s children were conceived at the same time by our father Isaac. Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses,
“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
CONSIDER THIS
The Bible is at the same time both super accessible and very complex. Sometimes the plain reading is the right reading. Other times the plain reading can tend to obscure the better reading of the text. Chapter 9 is such a text. Over the centuries, the plain reading of this text seems to point to what has come to be known in church history as the doctrine of double election predestination—the notion that God has predetermined that some will be eternally saved while many more will be eternally condemned. Despite some of the smartest people in the room as its advocates, the doctrine inescapably posits a caricatured monstrosity of the God of Israel and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Consider these two verses as illustrative of the point:
“Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
All of this is too much to take on in the Wake-Up Call over morning coffee and I am perhaps unwise for even opening the door, yet the text being what it is I felt obliged to at least take a practice swing. It brings us to one of the general rules from our How to Read the Bible Better class. We must read the verse through the lens of the whole of the Bible rather than reading the whole of the Bible through the lens of the verse. In chapters 9–11 Paul takes us on an odyssey of biblical interpretation and understanding. For starters, he asks no less than twenty questions in these chapters. He quotes from the Old Testament some thirty times. The clincher, however, comes with the key term he repeats in some form eight times. That word is mercy.
The story of the Bible, which is the true story of the heavens and the earth, is the story of the unrelenting mercy of God—the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God—as the song says. It is the story of a God who calls out to his broken image bearers from the day we hid from him in the garden of his delight to the day he cried out from the cross, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do,” and “It is finished!” and every single day since. It is the story of a God who walked into the darkest night of his people and shattered the shackles of their slavery and—”split the sea so we could walk right through it, drowning our fears in perfect love”—as the song says.
This God, our God, is on a mission that can only be described with the word mercy. It is a mercy so comprehensively intense he has identified and bound himself up with us forever in history and eternity.
Say it with me church: “For God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)
God has thrown open the doors of his kingdom and invited everyone inside. The door is Jesus. And he ultimately chooses all who choose him. Though many will not choose him, he wills and works that all would. And he’s given us one job—to participate in this most merciful work of redemption.
THE PRAYER
Abba Father, thank you for your mercy, which is over all your works. Thank you for giving mercy a name: Jesus. Thank you for swinging wide the door of your kingdom to sinners like us who you are making to be saints like him. And thank you for imbuing us with Jesus’s very magnetism, the Holy Spirit, who draws people to you through us. More of that Holy Spirit! More! And thank you, like Peter said, that you are not slow to keep your promises but rather patient, “not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” We choose you, Jesus. I choose you. Thank you for choosing me. Praying in Jesus’s name, amen.
THE QUESTION
Did I come down too hard on the five-point Calvinists today? If so, I apologize. They really are some of the greatest Christians in history. Are you motivated to join the mercy mission of Jesus more now?
THE HYMN
We will continue our next hymn festival today with another of the greatest hymns of all time. #GHOAT! “The Church’s One Foundation.” It is hymn 388 in our Seedbed hymnal, Our Great Redeemer’s Praise.
For the Awakening,
J. D. Walt
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3 Responses
J D, although, I wasn’t raised Arminian, it makes a lot more since to me than either double predestination (Calvinism), or salvation via Divine election alone for those who are saved (Lutheran). I think the problem is the confusion over Divine determination and Divine foreknowledge. This post demonstrates that True Israel are those of the faithful Jewish remnant with whom God has grafted in believing Gentiles.
Here’s my swing . . . “Predistined according to the foreknowledge of God”
God offers a beautiful destiny to all people — a destiny paid for through the blood of Jesus. He has given people the freedom to choose or to reject that beautiful destiny of an eternal loving relationship with Him. God is eternal and “knows the end from the beginning.” His foreknowledge enables Him to foresee human choices before they are made. “God is love” so He hates the choices that people make that separate them from His eternal presence and love. He seeks to draw all people unto Jesus. He has mercy and compassion on all who will choose to humble themselves to receive His mercy and the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross.
Jesus said, “You didn’t choose me; I chose you” (John 15:16). Why me, not him? Why him and not her? Or, since God is patient, wanting all to repent, could it be that He has chosen everyone while in their mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13-14)? Every human, past, present, and future, is an image bearer of God. But everyone doesn’t believe, accept or acknowledge this truth. So, the unbelievers don’t think they are chosen because they don’t know. The veil is still in place (2 Corinthians 3:16).
Sin’s deceptions and distractions will offer all other philosophical sources for humanity to place their identity, value, and purpose in, anything other than Jesus.
Jesus is the only way because He is The Way. Jesus is the essence of life. He is the blueprint, the law of life, the path of life. God designed life (Colossians 1:15-17, John 1:14, Hebrews 1:2) through Jesus. He is the only way to live a life free indeed (John 8:36).
Staying 💪’n Christ