Reflections on Lord’s Day 43 of 2019: “God’s Sovereign Choice”
On 10/27/2019, the sermon preached by Pastor Joe Rosales was based on Romans 9:6-13.
Man is corrupt to the core, Radically Depraved. The word radical means root. It doesn’t mean that man is as bad as he can be, but that every part of his being—including his legal standing before God—is affected and corrupted by sin.
The pastor also touched on the claim that the Old Testament God of wrath is different from the New Testament God of love, which is a very popular understanding of the Bible, even in evangelical churches. This is the ancient heresy of Marcion:
Marcion supposed two or three primal forces (ἀρχαί): the good or gracious God (θεὸς ἀγαθός), whom Christ first made known; the evil matter (ὕλη) ruled by the devil, to which heathenism belongs; and the righteous world-maker (δημιουργὸς δίκαιος), who is the finite, imperfect, angry Jehovah of the Jews….
He was chiefly zealous for the consistent practical enforcement of the irreconcilable dualism which he established between the gospel and the law, Christianity and Judaism, goodness and righteousness. He drew out this contrast at large in a special work, entitled “Antitheses.” The God of the Old Testament is harsh, severe and unmerciful as his law; he commands, “Love thy neighbor, but hate thine enemy,” and returns “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth;” but the God of the New Testament commands, “Love thine enemy.” The one is only just, the other is good. Marcion rejected all the books of the Old Testament, and wrested Christ’s word in Matt. 5:17 into the very opposite declaration: “I am come not to fulfill the law and the prophets, but to destroy them.” In his view, Christianity has no connection whatever with the past, whether of the Jewish or the heathen world, but has fallen abruptly and magically, as it were, from heaven. Christ, too, was not born at all, but suddenly descended into the city of Capernaum in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius, and appeared as the revealer of the good God, who sent him. He has no connection with the Messiah, announced by the Demiurge in the Old Testament; though he called himself the Messiah by way of accommodation. His body was a mere appearance, and his death an illusion, though they had a real meaning. He cast the Demiurge into Hades, secured the redemption of the soul (not of the body), and called the apostle Paul to preach it. The other apostles are Judaizing corrupters of pure Christianity, and their writings are to be rejected, together with the catholic tradition. In over-straining the difference between Paul and the other apostles, he was a crude forerunner of the Tübingen school of critics. (Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Volume 2: Ante-Nicene Christianity, pp. 485-86, Logos edition)
In a similar vein, Thomas Jefferson denounced the apostle Paul as “the great Coryphaeus, and first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus.”
The pastor also made a bold but biblical claim. Some say that it’s not fair for God to choose some and not others. But if God were truly fair, then everyone would be condemned to hell, for we are all guilty in Adam, rebellious sinners—criminals—according to God’s law. God hates the wicked, in both Testaments: “The boastful shall not stand in Your sight; You hate all workers of iniquity” (Psalms 5:5 NKJV).
“God is a just judge, And God is angry with the wicked every day. If he does not turn back, He will sharpen His sword; He bends His bow and makes it ready. He also prepares for Himself instruments of death; He makes His arrows into fiery shafts.” Psalms 7:11-13 NKJV
“Why is Your apparel red, And Your garments like one who treads in the winepress? “I have trodden the winepress alone, And from the peoples no one was with Me. For I have trodden them in My anger, And trampled them in My fury; Their blood is sprinkled upon My garments, And I have stained all My robes. For the day of vengeance is in My heart, And the year of My redeemed has come.
I have trodden down the peoples in My anger, Made them drunk in My fury, And brought down their strength to the earth.”” Isaiah 63:2-4, 6 NKJV
“I, the LORD, never change” (Mal. 3:6).
“He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” John 3:36 NKJV
“And I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, fear Him!” Luke 12:4-5 NKJV
“But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.” II Peter 3:7 NKJV
“…since it is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you, and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power.” II Thessalonians 1:6-9 NKJV
“…as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men also, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints, to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.”” Jude 1:7, 14-15 NKJV
“Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except Himself. He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses. Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.” Revelation 19:11-15 NKJV