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Your Most-Asked-About Bible Verse · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  God is all sovereign, Amen, But in all sovereignty is he fair?
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  That topic of God's impartiality comes up on the podcast a lot. Is God
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  governed by objectivity or does his sovereignty somehow excuse a bias an unfairness in how
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  He works in this world and deals with each of us. Many episodes on
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  the podcast come at this essential question, which you can see in my episode
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  digests in the new Apja book if you have a copy, on pages three
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  fifty five to three sixty four, you'll see all the diverse ways that this
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  question has come up over the years. The fairness of God is such a
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  dominant theme for you, our listeners, that I was not surprised at all
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  to discover that Roman's nine twenty two is the most asked about verse in all
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  of the Bible in our inbox. No other verse has been asked about more
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  often in the inbox your emails to us in our eleven plus years of podcasting
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  than Romans nine twenty two. And this most asked about text happens to be
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  mixed up in our reading tomorrow. If you're reading along with us in the
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  Navigator's Bible Reading Plan, so to prepare for that reading in Romans nine tomorrow.
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  Here's one representative question from a listener named Leslie that captures the heart of
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  one hundred plus other emails that we have. Pastor John, Hello, I
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  could use your help in my struggle with Romans nine twenty two. It seems
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  to me to imply that those who are not elect are not even given a
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  chance to repent, since they were born for destruction. This right that many
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  people are created with no chance of ever being saved. I'm not surprised that
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  Romans nine is among the texts that people have the most questions about, because
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  my own history bore that out. Just recently, I've been perusing some of
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  my old journal entries from nineteen six seventy seven to nineteen seventy nine. I
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  was in my early thirties, and almost all of my discretionary time was spent
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  studying and writing about Romans nine, especially verses fourteen to twenty three. And
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  it may interest our listeners that this text, which is so problematic for most
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  of us, the text which highlights the absolute sovereignty of God over salvation as
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  clearly as forcefully as any other text in the Bible. This text was the
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  text God used in nineteen seventy nine, I could even date it December fourteenth
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  to move me from being an academic theologian after teaching six years in college,
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  to becoming a pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church, where I served for thirty three
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  years, and to become a pastor with a longing that God would use me
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  to save lost sinners from the cradle to the grave and to grow a strong
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  church that would send hundreds of people to the unreached peoples of the world in
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  world missions. So I'm saying, I'm bearing witness that the most controversial chapter
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  in the Bible with regard to the sovereignty of God and saving sinners was the
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  chapter that God used in those years to move me out of an academic dealing
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  with the Word of God into a frontline effort to save lost sinners and strengthen
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  the church and reach the nations. That's important, and I say it because
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  people think that if you believe in the absolute sovereignty of God over the salvation
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  of sinners, you would be disinclined to be a sole winning pastor and a
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  missions driven church. That's not true. It had the opposite effect on me,
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  as it did on William Carey, as it did on John Payton,
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  as it did on Adnarram Judson, and hundreds of other missionaries and pastors who
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  lay down their lives to reach lost people with the Gospel. There is such
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  a thing as hyper Calvinism, which is not historic Calvinism. It's always been
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  a tiny group who have twisted the Bible by their unbiblical logic to say that
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  the only people you should invite to Christ are those who give evidence of being
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  among God's elect So you don't share the Gospel indiscriminately like I do. You
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  wait and you look for signs among unbelievers that they might be elect. That's
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  absolutely wrong. It is not what Romans nine teaches or implies. It's not
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  what any other text in the Bible teaches or implies. The lover of God's
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  sovereignty, who is saturated with a big biblical view of God's power in saving
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  sinners, says to every human being, every human being, without exception,
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  words like these, Listen, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters.
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  You who have no money, come buy and eat. Why do you spend
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  your money for that which is not bread and labor for that which does not
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  satisfy. Come to the water of life, drink freely. Everyone, absolutely,
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  everyone who received Jesus Christ as the Son of God, crucified for sinners,
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  risen from the dead. Every one of you who puts your trust in
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  Him as your only and precious savior, will receive with him everything that God
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  has done through him, everything that God is for you. In him,
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  you will have it, all thing good with hell from you. If you
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  will have the Lord Jesus Christ, you have everything that he achieved, climaxing
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  in everlasting joy, in the presence of God. That's what you say.
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  That's what you say if people will let you talk, you know, a
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  full minute like that, That's what you say to every single human being.
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  Now Here are the words from Romans nine that cause people to stumble. Let
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  me say a word about them Verses eighteen following. So God has mercy on
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  whom he wills, and he hardens whom he wills. You will say,
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  then, why does he still find fault? In other words, we're not
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  asking a question Paul didn't ask. We're not sticking. Oh, I've got
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  a question, Paul that you never thought of. No, you don't.
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  For who can resist his will and Now, Paul did not say, well,
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  everybody can resist his will. We all have free will. Everybody can
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  resist his will. That's not the way he answer the question who can resist
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  his will? Verse twenty, Who are you, oh man, to answer
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  back to God? Now he did not mean by that question we should never
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  ask God questions. That's not what you meant. He meant you should never
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  react with disapproval when he answers, and he goes on, will what is
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  molded say to its molder? Why have you made me like this? Has
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  the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump,
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  one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use. What if God,
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  desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with
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  much patience the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known the
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  riches of his glory, for the vessels of mercy, which he has prepared
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  beforehand for glory. Now, Leslie asks, it seems to imply that those
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  who are not elect are not given a chance, even a chance to repent,
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  since they were born for destruction. Is this right? Many people are
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  created with no chance of ever being saved cause quote my answer, No,
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  that would not be a faithful biblical way of stating the situation. Let me
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  put beside each other two biblical truths that many people consider contradictory but are not,
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  and then I'll draw out of those two truths and implication for Leslie's statement.
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  The first truth is from all eternity, God has chosen from among the
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  entire fallen, sinful humanity people for himself, but not everyone. Thus this
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  selection is owing to no merit at all. In those chosen people, God
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  pursues their salvation not only by effectively achieving the atonement for their sin through Christ,
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  but also by sovereignly overcoming all their rebellion and bringing them to saving faith.
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  So that's the first truth. Here's the second. Everyone who perishes and
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  is finally lost and cut off from God perishes because of real, blameworthy self
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  exultation, sin, and because they are hardened against the revelations of God's power
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  and glory in nature or in the Gospel. No innocent people perish wsh Nobody
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  who humbly wants Christ for a savior is lost. No one is judged or
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  condemned for not knowing or believing or obeying reality to which they had no access.
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  All lostness and all judgment are owing to sin and rebellion against the revelation
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  that we have. That's the second truth. Now, what keeps those two
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  truths from being contradictory is this? The moral accountability of man is not destroyed
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  by the absolute sovereignty of God in salvation. Or to say it another way,
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  God's final and decisive governance of all things, including who comes to faith,
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  is compatible. It fits with all humans being morally accountable to God for
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  whether they believe or not. Now, we live in a world that by
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  and large refuses to embrace God's purposeful sovereignty in all things. That is Ephesians
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  one eleven. He works all things according to the council of His will.
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  People reject this largely because the only solution their minds can embrace for maintaining human
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  accountability is the presumption of ultimate human self determination otherwise known as free will.
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  But ultimate human self determination is not found anywhere in the Bible. Nowhere,
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  but God's sovereignty is, and man's accountability is, and nowhere are these considered
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  contradictory. Therefore, my response to Leslie's statement many people are created with no
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  chance of ever being saved. Is to say everyone is being wooed and invited
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  by God every day, either through natural revelation, the sun rising on the
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  good and the evil, or the rain falling on the good and the bad,
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  or through conscience, or they are being wooed and invited by gospel truth.
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  These revelations of God are their chance to be saved. It is a
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  real invitation. It is real precisely because if they humbled themselves and received God's
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  grace, they would be saved. Those who do that, those who humble
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  themselves and receive God's grace, they know that it was only the sovereign grace
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  of God that enabled them to believe. And those who don't do it know
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  that it is because of their own sin that they loved something else more than
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  God is why they didn't believe. There will be no innocent people in hell,
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  and there will be only forgiven sinners in heaven. Sobering and fair,
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  Thank you, pastor John for walking us through these texts and modeling for us
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  a Bible logic skill we need as we come across this text in our Bible
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  reading schedule tomorrow, we're on month three and about to read day fifteen tomorrow.
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  Jump in with us right now. We're using the Navigator's Bible Reading Plan,
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  which you can download online for free. And as you read your Bible,
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  if you come across something that you can't figure it out, even though
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  you've tried, ask Pastor John, email us aid, ask Pastor John at
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  Desiring Good at dot org. Again. If you are asking this question,
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  is God fair? You're not alone. It's when we get all the time
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  from many different angles, as you will see in the new ABJ book on
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  pages three fifty five to three sixty four. You can use that digest on
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  those pages to find the various other episodes in the archive that deal with the
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  fairness of God and speaking of God's complete sovereignty over all things. Should that
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  make me less prayerful? Another great question from you, where theology meets real
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  life practice. It's up next. I'm Tony Rank. You'll see you one day.