Romans 9

But he doesn't have to give the saving gospel to everyone.

In Romans 9.15, God says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I'll have compassion on whom I have compassion.

So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy.

So God can give mercy to whoever he wants, and he can also withhold mercy.

So it's not really an ecumenical council trend.

I'm just kind of curious, what would you say to like a Unitarian who had argued the same thing with the Trinity because it wasn't dogmatically defined until Nicaea?

difference is it was defined very clearly in Scripture so I would take him to something like Romans 9 5 which speaks about how the Christ is God over all but then not only is it affirming that Jesus is God also see a distinction between the Godhead and like John 14 verse 16 where Jesus says I will ask the father and he will give you another helper to be with you forever and So we see distinction in the persons of the Godhead, and yet unity as being the one God.

And so that's the Trinity.

You're not trying so hard in your mind that you're going to do good so that God is going to approve of you.

No. Romans 9, verse 16 says, So that means that our God-likeness is not based on human effort.

It is not based on your desire, but ultimately is as a result of God's mercy and his sovereign will.

It is a free gift from God granted us.

Uh, there's interesting questions.

We will do a question time in a bit, but I just wanna maybe address this from Saved, who says, "Salvation depends on God's mercy, not our will, Romans 9:16.

How is God choosing whom to save? Not favoritism.

None of us deserve salvation, so I'm curious how scripture answers this.

Thank you." Well, scripture actually tells us God can literally show mercy to those whom he wants to show mercy.

That's what Romans 9:15 and 16 says, so God can absolutely use discretion on who he shows mercy to, just like you can.

You can choose to show mercy to your neighbor by mowing his lawn.

You can do something kind for a neighbor without having to do it for every other neighbor.

Yeah.

And so he'll quote John 6:44, or he'll quote Romans 9 or quote Ephesians 1, and I'm just, you know, immediately just was like, "Okay, but have you considered this, this, and this?" And, and to Kokol's credit, he wasn't trying to argue with me in the, in the, the Chili's, but it, it, it-

[laughs]

... seemed to me, at least in the conversation, that some of the points that I was bringing up hadn't, he hadn't really dealt with at, at that level.

There's the whole mass of humanity, but God has eked or taken out of that mass of humanity a select few.

You see the same, you see, you see the same thing being taught in Romans 9 when it says that God is the potter and we are the clay.

And from this one same lump, all humanity, He makes vessels for honor and He makes vessels for dishonor.

And, and Sister Teresa, when you talk about being, losing salvation, you can't, because if you are a believer, that means that God has made you from before the foundation of the world to be a vessel of honor, and He also made others to be vessels of dishonor.

And in order to respect our free will, he's not gonna force you to remain within the order.

But it, when, if it gets to a point where God wants his order to be restored, and because of the free will of humanity, everybody's just doing their own thing, it's not crazy for God, who is the, he, like it's, the Romans 9 analogy is like he is the potter, and the potter forms the clay to make the clay do what it's supposed to do.

And if the clay s- if the clay disintegrates and becomes something that's not useful for the potter, the potter's going to completely destroy it and rebuild it together again.

I don't think that's crazy.