Who are you to question God? Romans 9:19-24 V.19. For one to imply that he is free from the responsibility to accept God's offer of mercy and salvation, is to totally misunderstand the doctrine of the sovereignty of God. God being who He is, reads accurately what we think in our hearts. He knows "the thoughts and intents of our hearts." There are those who are fatalists and think if God has elected me then I will be saved, and if He has not, then He is responsible for me being lost. But the scriptures are plain that God "commands all men everywhere to repent." "Whosoever will may come" is God's word for us. "If any man enters in, he shall be saved," does not leave some without the opportunity to be saved. The refusal of people to respond to God's invitation is the reason they are lost. The door is open to all to come to Christ and be saved. Election is God's side of His sovereign will, working in salvation for lost sinners.
V.20. For a person to criticize God from his position of human reasoning, is the heights of arrogance. If a person seeks for some way to blame God for his hardness and rejection of God's grace, he is saying it is God's fault for not saving him. No one would or could be saved if God did not elect us, because "there is none that seeketh after God." People are lost because they are sinners and people are hardened because they are lost, not lost because they are hardened. How wrong it is for us who are created by God for His glory, to blame God for making us who we are in our sins and what we choose to be.
V.21. God’s wrath and mercy can be reversed depending on our rejection or acceptance of our Lord Jesus Christ as our personal Savior. People say, “Why would God reject anyone?” He is the Creator who has made us for His divine purposes, and He has the right to do what He wants in the same way a potter can mold clay to be the vessel he envisions for the purpose he wants and then make it the way he wants.
God has formed us by His sovereign will to fulfill His purpose. It is His right to make us capable of doing His intentions. He is free to decide under what conditions He will bless or condemn. He blesses those who trust and obey Him and punishes those who distrust His love, despise His grace, dishonor His name, and do evil. God is sovereign in the way He deals with people. Our existence depends on Him, and as the created person, we have no right to demand anything from our Creator. Any complaints we might have are a challenge made to the Almighty God and is similar to a dog howling at the moon in a challenge to turn out its light.
V.22. God is longsuffering toward “vessels of wrath” and does not want any to perish. Israel as a nation has never repented, even when the destruction of Jerusalem and exile happened. Believers in our Lord Jesus Christ, whether Jews or Gentiles, are the objects of God’s promised blessings. Israel will be restored as a nation to the Lord in the future. Presently, a whole new “kingdom of priests” comprises those who put their personal faith in Christ.
When God finishes judging Israel, a “remnant,” a comparatively small number will survive the wrath of God yet to come in the tribulation. Those will return to Israel as a nation, and a remnant of the Jews will accept Christ as the Messiah. A “remnant” of the Jews accepted Him at the beginning of the church age, and through them has come a blessing to many because of the Gospel message they preached “to the Jews first and also to the Gentiles.”
V.23. God’s word has not failed because His promises were to spiritual Israel. God’s ways are not unfair because He saves and judges both nations and individuals in a just and legal way. The church is composed of individuals who have repented and believed the Gospel. God’s sovereignty has predestined the church, and people are being added to it by faith as their own individual responsibility.
V.24. We know God is love, but He is also the Sovereign of the universe. We know God is holy and righteous, so we have no right to challenge His judgments. We know God is omniscient, so we are wrong if we complain about what happens to us or our calling in life. Rather, we should bow in reverence to Him and thank Him for making us as He chose to.
"Not My people." Romans 9:25-29 V.25-26. The context of Hosea refers to the spiritual restoration of Israel. The way Paul applies this text of scripture has to do with the principle that God is a saving, forgiving, restoring God who takes people who “are not My people” and makes them “My people.” It is the Gentiles who He is making His people in this passage by bringing them into a relationship with Him by sovereign grace. All are called, and all can respond because God does not arbitrarily have mercy on some and not on others.
Both Peter and Paul quote from the same passage in the Old Testament (Hosea), making it clear that not all of the Jews will be God's people. Believing Jews are those who refused the Gospel when it was presented to them, are not. The Gentiles who heard the Gospel after them are brought into the blessings of God along with those few Jews who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as their Messiah and Lord. Only a few Jews, comparatively speaking, would be saved as Isaiah had prophesied. So now, better than being called the people of God (the Jews as a nation), both Jews and Gentile believers are called "children (sons) of the Living God."
V.27-29. A small number from the great multitudes of Jews will survive, but the majority of people are Gentiles when God will make “short work” of those who refuse His offer of salvation when the time of judgment does come. Israelites are given a glimpse into the future when only a few of the population will survive to come into the blessings of the kingdom.
The conclusion of God's dealing in longsuffering and grace will come quickly once that day comes. God is "longsuffering, not willing that any should perish," but things will take place in rapid succession when His prophetic plans are put into action. The Great Tribulation will envelop the whole world in a rapid unfolding of events that will leave only a "remnant" that will be survivors.
God will intervene in His grace before the total annihilation of the human race takes place. The illustration used is of Sodom and Gomorrah as people who are only distant memories because of their iniquity. In His sovereign grace, God allows a remnant of Israel and the human race to survive the judgment of the Tribulation. If it weren't for God's elective mercy, every single person would die during that terrible time. We should be grateful that God has brought us into His family as children of the Living God.