The Love of God, Part 5 A

God chooses. God determines destinies before men and women are born apart from anything You think that explosions are only destructive and never constructive. And you would probably say that only a deranged doctor would give rat poison to a patient.

And yet thousands of controlled explosions are what give power to the cars we drive, and doctors routinely prescribe a neutralized form of rat poison to help people with blood clots. Indeed, there are some things that common sense tells you should not go together, but with a closer look you can understand and accept why they do go together. With that in mind, on today's grace to you, John MacArthur will help you see how God can punish sinners for eternity and yet still be a God of love.

So follow along now. Turn to Romans chapter 9, if you can, as John continues his study titled, The Love of God. At first glance, a subject like the love of God may seem somewhat simple and easy to grasp, but upon greater reflection, as we have learned, it is profound and far-reaching and inexplicable and inscrutable at some points. Many people think that because God is love, and He is, the Bible says so, and they think that because God loves the world so much that He gave His only begotten Son to be the Savior of the world, that therefore God must love every person in the world with the same kind of love and to the same degree and with the same purpose in mind.

But that is not the case, as Scripture makes very clear. We have already learned two propositions. One is that God's love to the world is unlimited in extent. Secondly, we learned another very important proposition, and that is that God's love to the world is limited in degree. He loves them all, but not to the degree that He loves His own. It is His own, according to John 13, 1, that He loves eis telos in the Greek, unto perfection, or to the max, to the end, to the limit forever.

And we learned about that. Yes, God loves the world, but not like He loves His own, to whom, because of that love, He is merciful and gracious and forgiving, to whom He gives lavishly all good things. His love for His own is that inseparable, unbreakable, unconquerable, unchangeable, unwavering, unfading love that is impervious to all attacks and assaults. It is that kind of sanctifying, cleansing, purging, purifying love that leads to godliness. It is that limitless love that is for only and known only by those who belong to Him by faith.

And then there is a third proposition. God's love to the world is unlimited in extent. God's love to the world is limited in degree. And thirdly, God's love to the world is qualified by the demands of His glory. It is qualified by the demands of His glory. That is a very important statement.

I thought about it a long time before I stated it that way because there is so much at stake. God does not have an unconditional and unqualified love for the world. It is qualified, and it is qualified not by the demands of people, not by the demands of human reason, but by the demands of God's own personal glory. That is to say, God defines that love consistently with all of His other attributes. And it is precisely at this point that we have to realize that because God loves does not mean that He is obligated to an unqualified love of all people equally. He is not a prisoner of that love, or worse, He is not a prisoner of man's assumptions about that love, or man's wishes about that love, or man's desires for that love. Nowhere in Scripture will we find that God is an unqualified lover of all people equally.

He is not. God's love is qualified to the world, to all, and it is qualified by the demands placed upon Him for personal integrity. That is to be consistent with His nature. God does not love, God cannot love in a way that makes love unmixed, untouched, unmingled, or unaffected by, for example, wrath, judgment, justice, holiness, righteousness. In other words, God has to love in a way which is reflective of all of His other personal attributes. And that's what we're looking at as we come to Romans chapter 9. Here we have an incredible insight, a thorough and comprehensive insight into God, into the demands of God's glory that involve themselves in the saving enterprise. Obviously, if you have read the book of Romans, you know that by the time you have completed chapter 8, you have completed the greatest treatise on salvation ever penned. It's all about God-loving sinners and saving them through Jesus Christ. But when you come to chapter 9, you are introduced to a most important issue with regard to God's saving love.

And that is how God's saving love mingles itself with all other of God's attributes which must be considered in line with God's saving purpose. As you go back, for example, into Romans chapter 1, you will remember that Paul says in verse 16, I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile. In other words, God's love has sent a gospel message across the earth to every person, Jew and Gentile, that says if you believe, this gospel is the power of God unto salvation. It is then that God's love has extended to all men and provided for them a gospel invitation. So we could conclude when we come to the end of chapter 8 that the love of God has sent the gospel to the ends of the earth because God desires all to hear and believe, and that would be true.

But then the immediate question would come up. If God has provided a Savior for the world and a call to believe to the world, and God has provided a sufficient sacrifice on the cross for all the sins of all mankind, if it is God's desire that none perish, and if God wants the apostles to proclaim the truth from one end of the globe to the other, why is it that people aren't saved if it's God's will? That really is the question that leads to Romans 9, 10, and 11. Let's start in Romans 9 with the first five verses. And Paul's going to answer that here, and he starts to answer that by simply saying, look, I recognize that Israel's not saved, and I recognize it so profoundly and deeply that it causes me great sorrow and unceasing grief, and I could even wish myself to be damned forever if they would be saved.

That's how much I care. He is expressing really something of the grief of God, isn't He? You remember that God Himself cried tears through the eyes of Jeremiah over the unbelief of Israel, and Jesus Himself cried tears over the lostness of Jerusalem. The heart of God is grieved and sorrowful, and Paul is reflecting that as the messenger of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, as he calls himself. And he says the thing that makes it so sad is the Israelites are the ones, verse 4, who have the adoption, who have the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the temple, the promises, whose are the fathers, the patriarchs, and from whom comes the Messiah, according to the flesh who is over all God blessed forever, amen. In other words, they're the privileged people of all people.

So they make the greatest illustration of the point. If God has provided such a massive, marvelous scheme for salvation, and it's to touch the world, and it's far-reaching as an expression of God's great love, then why aren't people saved? And most particularly, why are not Jews saved? After all, they are not just people, they are the chosen people. They were given the adoption as God's sons. They were given the Shekinah glory to lead them.

They were given the covenants and the law and the temple and all the promises, and theirs were the great fathers, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and all the rest. And from whom came Messiah? Has God failed?

Has He failed at the point of impotence, indifference, dishonesty? Well, the answer is in verse 6, and this is where we want to pick up the text. But it is not as though the Word of God has failed.

No! The fact that all Jews are not converted does not mean God doesn't tell the truth or can't keep His Word or is too indifferent to bother about it. It does not mean God's Word has failed. Now it's one thing to say it doesn't mean that, but why or how?

Could you explain it? And he starts in verse 6 right on down through the rest of the chapter to explain it. And here's how he explains it. You have to understand God's saving power. You have to understand God's saving love.

You have to understand God's saving purpose and plan in complete accord with every other attribute He possesses. In other words, His love cannot spell the end of His wrath. His love cannot spell the end of His judgment, justice, vengeance, punishment, anger. Those are part of God as well. Those make up His character and His being so that whatever it is that God does with regard to love is perfectly mingled and in absolute harmony with every other attribute.

Now with that understanding, we can now see the rest of this chapter unfold. And I'm going to show you seven attributes of God that have to work in harmony with His love. Seven attributes of God are outlined here as Paul answers this issue and they work in perfect accord with God's love. First, He is glorified in His sovereignty. He is glorified in His sovereignty.

Verse 6, it is not as though the Word of God has failed. Here's the reason. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel. What?

What is He saying? He is saying there are two Israels. There is a descendant Israel, that's a natural Israel, that is the Jewish race that came out of the loins of Abraham who was the man God used to found the nation. There is that natural, physical Israel. But not all of that Israel is the true Israel.

In other words, within the natural Israel, there is a spiritual Israel. And that is what Paul was talking about in Romans 2, 28 and 29 when he said, it is not the one who is outwardly circumcised who is a Jew, it is the one who is inwardly circumcised who is a true Jew. But here Paul says, look, God never intended to save all Israel.

That's what he's saying. God's Word has not failed. It is not that He is impotent, indifferent or dishonest. God never intended all Jews to be saved in the first place, listen to me, because if God had intended all Jews to be saved, all Jews would be saved. That is a hard thing to understand, but that is exactly what Scripture says and that is consistent with the sovereignty of God. Verse 7 follows up, neither are they all children because they are Abraham's descendants. He says the same thing. They're not all spiritual children of God just because they descended from Abraham. Not everybody who is a Jew, not everybody who comes from the loins of Abraham was ever intended to be a child of God. And again he is saying the same thing and he offers proof.

Here's the first illustration. And in verse 7, he quotes out of Genesis 21, he quotes out of Genesis 21, 12. It goes way back to when God was first choosing Abraham and the nation and God said, through Isaac your descendants will be named. Now God made a choice when He chose Abraham, right? By the very virtue of choosing Abraham, He passed over everybody else. But then once He chose Abraham, He gave Abraham a wife by the name of Sarah. He made a promise that He would through the loins of Abraham bless.

And there would come not only a national Israel through the loins of Abraham, but there would come a calling or an election to spiritual salvation among those people. But God was selective because Abraham had two sons, did He not? The first born son of Abraham was named Ishmael. He was not born to Sarah, He was born to Hagar, a handmaiden, but nonetheless was the first born of Abraham. But God passed by Ishmael and the second son born to Abraham and Sarah was whom?

Isaac. And God chose Isaac. From the very beginning what the Apostle Paul is saying, look, not everybody who came out of the loins of Abraham was chosen by God. God passed by Ishmael and that's illustrative of God's sovereign selective process. He always purposed to choose.

Ishmael was excluded, was rejected. You say, well what does that do? It demonstrates God's sovereignty. It demonstrates that God is the ultimate chooser. He is sovereignly selective and that shows His majestic control of everything. Verse 8, that is, furthering this discussion, it is not the children of the flesh, that is the physical children of Abraham or Isaac, who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants.

In other words, He's just following up with the same idea. God has chosen people to be children of the flesh in the nation Israel, but not all the children of flesh are the children of the promise. The promise relates to spiritual reality, the flesh relates to physical. So again, He's simply saying God made a choice and His choice was, I'll pick a man, Abraham. Out of the loins of Abraham, he had two sons, I'll pick the second son, Isaac. Out of the loins of Isaac, if you will, there will be children of the flesh and out of the children of the flesh I will choose some to be the children of promise. Isaac really was a child of promise in the covenantal sense and out of his loins came both children of the flesh and of the promise. Then verse 9, for this is a word of promise, at this time I will come and Sarah shall have a son.

Now that verse 9 is quoting Genesis 18, 10, where God is saying I'm going to pick Sarah's son, not Hagar's. Why? Why did God do that? Ishmael was equally Abraham's son and the rite of primogenitor was recognized to be through the father and in some ways it didn't really matter who the mother was in patriarchal times, as you well know.

Why? Purely because God is sovereign. Purely because God selects because He is in charge. And this demonstrates His absolute, uninfluenced sovereignty.

It is a strong illustration of unconditional election in its most unequivocal expression. God said, I'm going to pass by Ishmael and Sarah's going to have a son and he's going to be the one. God made the choice. Abraham had two sons, several sons, only one was God's choice, Isaac.

Doesn't stop there. Isaac had two sons. Who were they? Jacob and Esau. Look at verse 10, not only this, there was Rebecca also when she had conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac. Verse 12, skip verse 11, down to verse 12, it was said to her, the older will serve the younger.

Hmm, who said that? God? Genesis 25, 23. God said, I'm picking, I'm picking the younger.

And that's not how it was. It should have been Ishmael by the right of primogenitor, the right of inheritance, the firstborn. It should have been Esau, remember when the children were born, the twins, Esau came out first and Esau really had the birth right, Esau had the right to the inheritance. But do you remember Esau treated it with disdain and when he was hungry one time swapped it for a meal with his brother Jacob. It should have been Ishmael and it should have been Esau. But it was Isaac and it was Jacob.

Why? Because before they were ever born, God said, I choose them. That's how it is. And what it demonstrates is God's sovereignty. Here you have unconditional choice, unconditional election if you like that word. And then the principle is articulated in verse 11. For though the twins were not yet born and hadn't done anything good or bad, in order that God's purpose according to His choice might stand, not because of their works, but because of Him who calls it was said to her, the older will serve the younger. In other words, God made the choice with no regard for either of those two young men, no regard for their conduct, their life, whether they were good, whether they were bad.

It had nothing to do with them. But purely and only on the basis of God's purpose according to His choice that He might make very clear early on in redemptive history that He was the one who made the choices. And that being a child of promise, being a child of God, being a true Jew, being really an Israelite in the heart was a divine issue and not a human one. So before the twins were born, as before Isaac was born, God said the older will serve the younger. That's because that's the way I want it in order to demonstrate that My purpose according to My choice will stand. The point is, what was God putting on display?

He was displaying His what? His sovereignty. He was saying, you are to worship Me and you are to adore Me and you are to honor Me and respect Me and you are to praise Me and to glorify Me. And in order to do that, you have to understand what is true about Me and it starts with recognizing that I'm in charge. I'm sovereign. God chooses. God determines destinies before men and women are born apart from anything in them. That is uninfluenced sovereignty. God is glorified in such sovereign selection, it shows His control, it shows His rulership and our God is a sovereign God. Then you come to verse 13, just as it is written, and that's quoting Malachi 1, 2, and 3, just as it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau what? I hated.

What? You mean the love of God? Is that selective? Yes, because the love of God, the love of God is subject, it is qualified by the demands of His glory. And God is glorified in His sovereign choices. You say, but it's awfully strong to say, Esau, have I hated? But listen, if God didn't hate, then we wouldn't understand His love. We wouldn't understand the magnanimity, the amazing magnanimity of sovereign love if there weren't hate. Sacrificial saving love is revealed when God's holy hatred is manifest. And God is going to put Himself on display forever to men and angels and we're going to see and we've already seen that God's love means something because God's hate means something. It is amazing to see God's love for unworthy sinners freely originating in His own holy will when He has every reason to hate us. But that's the glory of His sovereign love.

So God is going to be glorified in His sovereignty. He's going to make choices and those choices are going to involve whom He ultimately and eternally will love. He loves the world in one sense, but as I said, that turns to hate. He loves His own in an unbreakable love that cannot ever turn to anything but more love. So God is glorified then in His sovereignty and whatever His love is, it's going to exist within the framework of the manifestation of His sovereignty, which includes loving some and hating others.

That proves He's in charge. He makes choices. You're listening to Grace to You with John MacArthur, chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary in Southern California. And today he continued his current series on the love of God, showing you how the Lord can be gracious and yet still punish sinners for eternity. John, I've met people who flatly deny that it's possible for God to hate anything. After all, God is love. But as we saw today, God is both a lover and a hater, and true love implies a kind of hatred. So why is that concept so hard for even some mature believers at times to fully embrace?

Well, I think because there have been so many who have sentimentalized God, they've made God benign. If there's any theme that's missing today in contemporary Christian evangelical preaching, it's wrath. Where do you ever hear about the wrath of God? When is the last time you heard a sermon on hell, the fires of hell, eternal condemnation, eternal damnation? You barely hear sermons on sin, let alone hell and eternal wrath. So I think you have a society of people who go to churches that never, ever find out what the Word of God has to say about God's anger. And the Bible actually says God is angry with the wicked every day. And by the way, he doesn't just hate the sin. The Bible says he hates the sinner as well. The impenitent sinner will find that God's hate will turn into eternal punishment.

Being sentimental about that is tantamount to lying. You have to be honest, and there's such dishonesty in presentations of the gospel these days, as if the only message the gospel has was, your life isn't what it could be, Jesus will make it what it should be, and you'll be happy, and you'll be more fulfilled, and you'll be more satisfied. When the truth is you're on your way to eternal punishment, everlasting hell, conscious torment, and the good news is that you don't have to go there, because Jesus has offered himself as your Savior and your rescuer if you'll come to him.

Again, I just recommend to you, get a copy of the book. We've been talking about it every day, The God Who Loves. It's available from Grace to You.

Yes, this is a great book for any Christian. It looks at God's amazing acts of love throughout Scripture, showing you just how merciful God is, and why he deserves your worship. To pick up John's book titled The God Who Loves, get in touch today. Call our toll-free number, 800-55-GRACE, or go to the website GTY.org.

The God Who Loves also comes with a helpful section where John answers the most difficult questions people have about the love of God. Again, to pick up a copy, call 800-55-GRACE, or go to GTY.org. Also, let me remind you that Grace to You is supported by listeners like you, people who love the Word of God, who have been transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ, and who want to help take God's Word to people in your area and in communities around the world. To partner with us in ministry, you can mail your tax-deductible donation to Grace to You, Box 4000, Panorama City, California, 91412. You can also express your support when you call us, 800-55-GRACE, or when you visit our website, GTY.org. That is GTY.org. Now, for John MacArthur and the entire staff, I'm Phil Johnson, reminding you, watch Grace to You television this Sunday on DirecTV channel 378, that's NRB-TV, or check your local listings for Channel and Times, and then be here each day next week for another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You.