There is a long-standing debate on the idea of freewill and God’s sovereignty. I believe in both: that both God is sovereign, and that people have freewill. Freewill is the reason why there is evil in world. If God is perfect, and man has freewill to reject perfection, it then follows that there will be evil.
Yet, God is sovereign. How can this be? Simple,God’s sovereignty is perfected by virtue of his omniscience. Logically prior to God’s creating decree, he already knows everything that could ever and would ever transpire. God is free to create or to not create; he is also sovereign over how to create. And God chooses to create free creatures that can make decisions over a spectrum of choices. Real choices, with real consequences. And God operates around all our decisions, to bring about his ultimate purpose. Therefore, God is 100% sovereign. His sovereignty is an inescapable consequence of omniscience. God does not have to control every single event in history to be “sovereign,” the way a lot of Calvinists would say.
It’s not that hard to understand. You do not even have hold to any particular view of the nature of time.
That is why God speaks and relates to us quite plainly and simply. He speaks with, and treats, us as though we have freewill. Because we do. Which means that man has the ability to believe or to not believe in God. And God works around our decisions to bring about his ultimate will.
Which is this:
“And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:40). God wants everyone to see the son and believe on him, to be saved. That is God’s will.
Deuteronomy 30
19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:
That is how you can understand Romans 9-11; which is a passage that a lot of determinists try to use to attribute meticulous control to God.
The reason why God so often uses the metaphor of sheep in the Bible is because God is corralling man into the truth. But man has the ability to resist and run away. This is the whole dynamic, the very most basic premise of the Bible.
When Paul says, “For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth,” he is not talking about a literal, direct call for some and not others. God does not unilaterally pick some and not others, from the womb, as Calvinists would have you believe. Instead, God knows who would believe and who would not believe. Before any good or evil is done, God loves all those that believe in Christ.
Because, “many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:14). How many are called? All men are called. “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else” (Isaiah 45:22). How can you be made chosen? By “the election of grace” (Romans 11:5). What is the election of grace? “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10:13).
Anyone who believes in Christ, is elected. Because, Christ is the elect.
Isaiah 42
1 Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.
John 6
27 Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed.
John 3
33 He that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true.
Jacob and Esau are symbolic of works versus grace. God chooses to have grace, instead of works. Because He, “will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion” (Romans 9:15).
Just like the story of Hagar and Sarah; Paul explained in Galatians, how they were an allegory of works vs grace. The same is true in Romans 9-11.
Romans 9
30 What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith.
31 But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness.
32 Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumblingstone;
They are not elect, because they sought election as it were by works. That’s why. God chooses to save everyone by Christ through faith. That is the election. You get in Christ by faith. The scope of individuals that are elect is arbitrarily inclusive, contingent only upon the decision of each individual. This is because God’s word is immutable. “My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips” (Psalm 89:34).
You do not have to submit yourself to fated determinism, because we do not understand God’s relationship to time. God is eternal. Therefore, his decision making and foreknowledge is mysterious.
This is the meat of the word. How man has freewill, and yet God is able to ordain things in the universe. That all men are capable of being saved, yet God foreknows the future.
Some people appeal to Calvinism to try and make sense of this, but they do so at expense of the truth, at the expense of the gospel. That is how I know 100% that Calvinism is wrong. Whatever view you adopt, the gospel reigns supreme. The gospel of grace is the basis of everything, so much so that Paul calls the election, the election of grace.
Typically, people anthropomorphize God’s ways. They think God has to literally look and see into the future, in order to know it. No. We do not have to define the means or the how. God does not attempt to explain his ways to us. Instead, God says:
Isaiah 55
8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Ultimately, God’s election and decree is logically declarative. That means God’s choice is to select people on the basis of faith, without regard to the means as understood by our finite minds. The condition of salvation is faith.
And what about Pharaoh? What about those whom he hardens? God does not harden man by literally hardening them. Because if he did, he would be a sinner. Because “for whatsoever is not of faith is sin” (Romans 14:23). And we are saved by the “faith of Christ” (Philippians 3:9). No, God indirectly hardens Pharaoh’s heart by performing miracles, by being good to Israel. That indirectly made Pharaoh react against God. God knew this would be, but there was no other alternative, it had to be done. Therefore, “whom he will he hardeneth” (Romans 9:18). And what guides God’s will?
Isaiah 46
10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:
11 Calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth my counsel from a far country: yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it.
12 Hearken unto me, ye stouthearted, that are far from righteousness:
13 I bring near my righteousness; it shall not be far off, and my salvation shall not tarry: and I will place salvation in Zion for Israel my glory.
God’s will is to bring Jesus Christ, who is salvation. So, he will have mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will, he hardens; so that he can ultimately have mercy on all that call upon him.
And when God hardens people, it is not for their ultimate destruction. Take for example Israel. In Romans 11 Paul says:
Romans 11
11 I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.
God hardens to achieve the ultimate goal of grace for all. And those whom he hardens still have ample opportunity to change their minds and be saved. When someone rejects the gospel and is hardened, that is not their final state. So long as man lives, he can believe and be saved. It is a matter of the will, whether they would like to have faith.
Romans 11
23 And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in: for God is able to graft them in again.
Do not be tricked by people who want to pigeon hole God into an archaic, outmoded, anthropomorphized, simpleton notion of “seeing the future.” That is stupid and unbiblical. And it comes at the cost of the gospel, which is most precious. Keep it simple.
Revelation 22
17 And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.