Think Wink.

I have been reviewing Greg Boyd’s arguments against the Calvinistic reading of Romans 9, namely that election is to eternal destiny. In argument #1 Boyd argued that this reading minimizes the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, that is God’s love. However, this is very dangerous in that it appears to minimize the fact that Jesus reveals God’s righteousness, holiness, and justice as well as God’s love, mercy, and grace. Calvinism has always argued that all is shown equally in Jesus. Piper will try to reduce all of these attributes (and there are many more to be sure) down to God’s honor and beauty, namely God’s glory and name. But he definitely goes too far in how he does so. Calvinists have not minimized the revelation of God, for as Paul says in Romans 9:22 God desires to show his wrath and make his power known and thus patiently endures vessels of wrath prepared for destruction along with displaying his riches of glory prepared for those vessels of glory. Calvinism has always sought that balance.

In argument #2, Boyd argued that God’s covenant fidelity to Israel was at stake. As Paul says, “But it is not as though the word of God has failed” (Romans 9:6). This statement assumes that Paul’s anguish over Israel’s being accursed and cut off from Christ–separate from God’s love in Jesus–even though they had those things listed in Romans 9:4-5 implies that God’s word has failed. God’s promise to be their God and to take them as his people, vindicating them at the eschaton as his people, has failed. But this does not mean salvation is at stake. Yet when one reads Boyd’s argument, he himself states that salvation is the issue and that being a Jew has no bearing upon it, only one’s faith. Faith alone marks a person out as a member of God’s eschatological people, those who have been united to Christ and will stand victorious on the day of judgment. The argument falls in on itself as well as divorces Romans 9 from its preceding context.

Now argument #3 is a very familiar argument. It has been addressed by Calvinistic theologians and exegetes for decades and yet it is still employed with no sign of interacting with the Reformed response. The argument is as follows,

The way Paul answered this objection also shows that his concern was with God’s relationship to a nation, not with individual salvation. Paul refuted the idea that God’s covenant promises had failed by showing that God’s covenant promises were never based on a peoples’ nationality or external obedience to the law. Rather, Paul argued, God had always exercised his sovereign right to choose whomever he wanted to choose.

Paul illustrated his point by referring to God’s choice of Isaac over Ishmael and Jacob over Esau, made without any consideration for their attributes or merits (9:8-13). Both examples underscore God’s right to choose whomever he wishes, for both choices were made ahead of time and both were wholly unexpected. Moreover, both choices reversed the role of primogenitor, both concerned individuals who were not exemplar in their character, and most surprisingly – and telling — Isaac was supernaturally conceived.

Again, the cited portion above fails to seriously wrestle with Romans 9:1-5 and its relationship to Romans 8. Romans 9 flows out of Paul’s discussion of Jesus Messiah’s eschatological vindication of his people–those for whom he was given and raised for as well as now intercedes. Yet the Jewish people, who had that which was listed in 9:4-5, remain cut off from Christ who is God and anathema. Did God’s promise, his word, fail? Paul’s answer is no because not everyone who is from Israel is Israel (Romans 9:6) and not everyone who is part of Abraham’s offspring is a child of Abraham (Romans 9:7).

Boyd is right when he says that Paul counters with God’s “sovereign right to choose whomever he wanted to choose.” Boyd is also right to note that God chose not according to merits or attributes of those who were chosen but according to God’s electing purpose (Romans 9:11-12). God can incorporate Gentiles into the people of Jesus Messiah and exclude Jews because of his sovereign prerogative. But what really gets me is where Israel’s vocation in history comes into the picture in Romans 9? Paul is speaking about the vindication of the people of the Messiah and why the Jews are not being incorporated into Messiah in light of their distinct advantages as Jews. Paul’s answer is the sovereignty of God. God’s electing purpose is the answer, namely that the Jews who are not believing and cut off from Messiah are not part of God’s elect.

Boyd references–though he does not quote–several OT texts and Romans 4:12-18. Now the reference to Romans 4:12-18 I must argue is off. That passage comes in the midst of Paul’s arguing that those who are to be justified must exercise the faith that Abraham exercised in Genesis 15:6. Those who do will inherit the world with Abraham. Paul is not arguing that Israel was to be a nation of priests to draw in the pagan goyim around them into covenant with and to worship Yahweh, the one true God.

The rest of the texts referenced I am not going to argue that they do not speak of Israel as a light unto the nations. But what do these texts have to do with the problem of the Jews being anathema and cut off from Messiah? How does this reading of Paul’s solution God’s word has not failed because of his sovereign right and electing purpose still stand answer such a problem?

But this also conflicts with argument #2. Is God’s word in salvation–which Boyd does state in argument #2–at stake or is it Israel’s vocation? Which one is it? If salvation is in view–as argument #2 needs to go ahead and admit–then vocation is not the issue. If vocation is the issue, then why is the application in Romans 9:30-33 that the Gentiles have found the righteousness by faith and that the Jews have not. Why does Paul then speak of justification found in confessing Christ as Lord and believing that God raised him from the dead, thus all who call upon the name of the Lord will be delivered? Why does Paul speak of the Gentiles being hardened at one point, now the Jews are so that the mercy of God could come to the Gentiles, and that the Jews will one day experience that mercy in Christ with the Gentiles? Why does salvation become the issue that Paul applies Romans 9:1-29 towards? Both arguments cannot stand together, even though apart they stand not at all.

I want to conclude with a quote by John Piper’s The Justification of God,

It is a remarkable and telling phenomenon that those who find no individual predestination to eternal life in Romans 9:6-13 cannot successfully explain the thread of Paul’s argument as it begins in Rom 9:1-5 and continues through the chapter. One looks in vain, for example, among those commentators for a cogent statement of how the corporate election of two peoples (Israel and Edom) in Romans 9:12, 13 fits together in Paul’s argument with the statement, “Not all those from Israel are Israel” (Rom 9:6b). One also looks in vain for an explanation of how the pressing problem of eternally condemned Israelites in Rom 9:3 is ameliorated by Rom 9:6-13 if these verses refer “not to salvation but to position and historical task.” I have found the impression unavoidable that doctrinal inclinations have severely limited exegetical effort and insight–not so much because the answers of these exegetes are not my own, but because of the crucial that simply are not posed by them” — The Justification of God, pg 58

Piper’s critique of this argument is spot on. Boyd’s argument of historical task does not maintain a single coherent thought in Paul’s letter to the Romans. It turns Paul’s thought into “exegetical mashed potatoes” (I believe I got that from Jame R. White). Paul becomes incoherent. This and the fact that argument #2 and #3 do not fit together creates and inconsistency in Boyd’s counter to the Reformed reading of Romans 9. And as one apologist is fond of saying, “An inconsistent argument is the sign of a failed argument.” Boyd would be better served to have started his counter argument in Romans 9:1-5 and then went on to Romans 9:6-23. But because he left out the context to Romans 9:6ff, his reading fails to adequately come to grips with what Paul is saying.

Objections to Calvinism Part 1 of 5

Objections to Calvinism Part 7 of 5

My Comfort in Romans 9