The Pastor Who Couldn't Sleep

2:07 AM. The Desk Lamp Is On.

He has been staring at the same verse for forty-five minutes.

The Greek is open on his left, the ESV on his right, his sermon notes in front of him. His notes are careful. His notes are pastoral. His notes are, he is beginning to realize, not actually what the passage says.

He has been preaching at this church for nine years. He has preached through Romans before — twice, in fact — but he has never preached through this chapter. He has always skipped it, or covered it in a single Sunday's overview, or turned it into a sermon about God's heart for Israel that does not require anybody to stay awake through verses 14 through 23. This time he promised the elders he would preach the whole thing. Six weeks on Romans 9.

Tomorrow is week one.

He reads verse 11 again. "Though they were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad — in order that God's purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls — she was told, 'The older will serve the younger.' Just as it is written: 'Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.'"

He rubs his eyes. He tries the commentary again.

The commentary says: Paul is here speaking of corporate election, not individual election. The commentary says: This is about nations, not persons. The commentary says: God loves everyone equally, and the word "hated" is Semitic hyperbole meaning "loved less."

He has believed the commentary for nine years.

Tonight, sitting alone with the Greek in front of him, he is not sure he still does.

Something in him begins to speak. He is not sure where the voice comes from. It might be the Spirit. It might be his own exhausted honesty finally refusing to help him anymore. The voice asks the first question.

The Voice: Why are you still awake?

Him: Because I have to preach this in seven hours.

The Voice: That is not why you are still awake.

Him: Then why am I still awake?

The Voice: Because you finally read it without the commentary talking over it. And you heard what it said.

Him: I heard what Paul seems to say. I didn't hear what it actually means.

The Voice: That's an interesting distinction. When did you start making it?

Him: Seminary.

The Voice: What were you taught in seminary?

Him: That Romans 9 is about nations. That God's election is corporate. That Paul is not talking about individual salvation, he is talking about God's covenant purposes with Israel as a people.

The Voice: Who taught you that?

Him: Dr. Hartley.

The Voice: And Dr. Hartley read Greek.

Him: He did.

The Voice: And you respected him.

Him: I still do.

The Voice: Open the Greek. Look at verse 11 again.

He opens the Greek. He looks.

The Voice: What is the subject of the verb "hated"?

Him: God.

The Voice: What is the object of the verb "hated"?

Him: Esau.

The Voice: Is "Esau" singular or plural?

Him: Singular.

The Voice: A person or a nation?

Him: ...A person.

The Voice: Named, specifically, in the womb. "Not yet born." "Had not done anything good or bad." Before he was a nation. Before Edom existed. Before there was anything to correspond to the collective reading. Just a person. In a womb. Whom God, before he had done anything, had made a decision about.

Him: The nation of Edom came from Esau.

The Voice: Yes. But Paul is not citing the nation. He is citing the individual in the womb, in order to explain what God does before nations exist. Paul's whole argument depends on the fact that God made the choice before anything happened that could have justified the choice. If Paul meant to reference the nation, he would have referenced the nation. He didn't.

Him: The commentary says —

The Voice: The commentary is doing a lot of work, isn't it?

2:29 AM. He Pours Coffee. He Regrets It Immediately.

Him: Fine. Say it's individual. Say Paul is talking about individual persons. It's still not about salvation. It's about temporal roles. Jacob got the blessing, Esau didn't. That's not about heaven. It's about the birthright.

The Voice: Read to the end of the chapter.

Him: I've read the end of the chapter a hundred times.

The Voice: Read it again. Out loud. To yourself. Slowly.

He reads. He gets to verse 22: "What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath — prepared for destruction?" He gets to verse 23: "What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory." He gets to verse 24: "even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?"

He stops.

The Voice: What did you just read?

Him: Verse 24 applied it to us. To Jews and Gentiles. The objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory — is us. The church. Individual believers. He just ended the "birthright" reading in one breath.

The Voice: Yes.

Him: The "objects of his wrath, prepared for destruction" — Paul is putting that in the same sentence. The same grammatical structure. Same participle form.

The Voice: Yes. Katērtismena for the objects of wrath. Proētoimasen for the objects of mercy. One passive, one active. One "fitted" for destruction. The other "prepared beforehand" for glory. The aorist active proētoimasen has God as its clear subject. God Himself did the preparing. He prepared them in advance. He loved them before they were born, the way He loved Jacob before Jacob was born.

Him: But the "fitted for destruction" is passive. It doesn't have to mean God did the fitting.

The Voice: You're right. It doesn't have to. The passive is ambiguous. Notice what the ambiguity buys you.

Him: It buys me the possibility that the reprobate fit themselves for destruction by their sin.

The Voice: And is that an unreasonable reading?

Him: It is the standard Arminian reading.

The Voice: I did not ask if it was standard. I asked if it was unreasonable.

Him: It is not unreasonable.

The Voice: Good. So give them the passive. Let the reprobate fit themselves. Notice what is still left.

Him: God prepared the vessels of mercy.

The Voice: In advance.

Him: In advance.

The Voice: Which is what Paul has been saying since verse 11.

Him: Yes.

The Voice: Which is what the whole chapter is.

Him: Yes.

The Voice: And you knew this.

Him: I think I have always known this.

The Voice: Say it out loud. It will help.

Him: I have always known this.

2:54 AM. He Stops Calling It "the Voice" and Starts Calling It What It Probably Is.

Him: Okay. Let me try something. If you are right — if Paul is saying what I am finally admitting he is saying — why have I never preached it?

The Spirit: Why do you think?

Him: Because my congregation would hate it.

The Spirit: Maybe.

Him: Because I would have to re-work every altar call I have ever given.

The Spirit: Maybe.

Him: Because I would have to tell people that their decision did not save them. That their response to Christ was itself a gift. That before they did anything, God had already chosen them or not chosen them.

The Spirit: Is that a problem?

Him: It is a problem if it is not true.

The Spirit: And you have been assuming it is not true.

Him: Yes.

The Spirit: On what basis?

Him: On the basis that God is love. On the basis that God is fair. On the basis that if God chooses some and not others, God is a monster.

The Spirit: Those are three different objections. Let's take them one at a time. Is God love?

Him: Yes. 1 John 4:8.

The Spirit: Is God's love defined by Scripture or by you?

Him: ...By Scripture.

The Spirit: And when Scripture says God loved Jacob and hated Esau before either of them was born, is Scripture redefining your prior notion of love, or are you redefining Scripture?

Him: The commentary says "hated" means "loved less."

The Spirit: The commentary is working very hard.

Him: It's a Semitism. Jesus uses the same construction. "Unless a man hates his father and mother he cannot be my disciple."

The Spirit: Fine. Grant the Semitism. "Loved Jacob, loved Esau less." Does that make the problem easier or harder for you?

Him: Easier.

The Spirit: Why?

Him: Because "loved less" is not cruel. "Loved less" just means preferred.

The Spirit: Who did the preferring?

Him: God.

The Spirit: On the basis of what?

Him: Not their works. Paul is explicit. Not their works.

The Spirit: Not their faith either, then. If their works were not yet done, their faith was not yet believed.

Him: ...Right.

The Spirit: So God preferred one over the other, before either of them had done anything or believed anything. On what basis?

Him: On God's own basis. His own purpose. Paul says it: "that God's purpose in election might stand."

The Spirit: Then it does not matter whether "hated" means hated or only "loved less." Because the cause of the preference is the same either way. It is in God. Not in the creatures. The whole argument has been about who does the choosing, not about how strong the feeling is. You have been hiding behind the word hated when the argument was never about the word hated. The argument has always been about the word purpose.

Him: Oh.

The Spirit: And I think you just saw it.

Him: I just saw it.

3:14 AM. The Second Objection.

Him: It is not fair.

The Spirit: Is that your objection or Paul's?

Him: ...It is Paul's.

The Spirit: Verse 14. Read it.

Him: "What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all!"

The Spirit: Paul anticipated you.

Him: Paul anticipated me.

The Spirit: Keep going.

Him: "For he says to Moses, 'I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.' It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God's mercy."

The Spirit: And?

Him: That's it. That's the answer.

The Spirit: What is the answer?

Him: Mercy is not unfair. Mercy is not owed. By definition, mercy that is owed is not mercy.

The Spirit: Keep going.

Him: If God gave mercy to some and justice to none, that would be unfair. If God gave mercy to all, that would be grace universal. If God gave justice to all, that would be the end of the human race. What God has done is mercy to some and justice to the rest. No one gets less than they deserve. Some get infinitely more.

The Spirit: Is that unfair?

Him: No.

The Spirit: Say it again.

Him: No. It is not unfair.

The Spirit: What stood in the way of your believing this, for nine years?

Him: I think I have been mistaking fairness for equality.

The Spirit: Equality of what?

Him: Outcome. I have believed God was fair only if everybody got the same shot.

The Spirit: But everybody does not even start with the same "shot." Not in the geography they were born into. Not in the parents they had. Not in the hearing of the gospel. Not in the length of their life. Some people die in infancy. Some people die in nursing homes at ninety-eight. Not even time is distributed equally. Why is it the one area of salvation you have expected equality in?

Him: Because the alternative scares me.

The Spirit: Good. Now we are somewhere honest.

3:37 AM. The Third Objection.

Him: If God chooses some and not others, God is a monster.

The Spirit: Read verse 20.

Him: "But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God?"

The Spirit: Paul anticipated you twice.

Him: He did.

The Spirit: Why do you think Paul anticipated the monster objection?

Him: Because he had heard it before. He knew his readers would hear the doctrine of election and immediately think monster.

The Spirit: Which means what?

Him: Which means the doctrine Paul was teaching was election. If what Paul was teaching had been corporate election of nations, no one would have said "monster." The "monster" reaction is only available if Paul is teaching individual election.

The Spirit: Good.

Him: The objection's presence confirms the doctrine it objects to. If Paul had been saying what Dr. Hartley said he was saying, verses 14 through 24 would not need to exist. Paul would not need to say "is God unjust?" and "who are you, a human, to talk back to God?" because no one would be tempted to say either of those things about God's dealings with nations. The objections Paul anticipates are only the objections you raise if Paul is teaching unconditional individual election.

The Spirit: The objections are the proof.

Him: The objections are the proof.

The Spirit: And your own instinct to call God a monster, just now, in your own kitchen, at three in the morning — is the same instinct Paul's readers had. Which means Paul anticipated you.

Him: He did.

The Spirit: And his answer to you is the answer in verses 20 and 21. You are the clay. The potter has rights over his own creation. You are not the judge of the potter. You are the pot. A pot that objects to being a pot has already forgotten that its right to object was given to it by the potter.

Him: I have always hated that verse.

The Spirit: Why?

Him: Because it feels like God pulling rank. It feels like the conversation getting cut short.

The Spirit: Is that what it is?

Him: No. It's the only honest answer to an objection that was not actually an objection, but a demand. "Why does God still find fault? For who resists his will?" is not a question. It is an accusation. God's answer is not "let me explain myself." God's answer is "you have forgotten who you are speaking to."

The Spirit: Which is a mercy.

Him: Which is a mercy. Because if God had entertained the accusation, He would have had to meet me on my terms. And on my terms, I would have demanded my autonomy, and I would have walked out of the relationship with it, and I would have been eternally lost with my autonomy intact.

The Spirit: Instead —

Him: Instead He pulls rank. And the pulling-rank saves me.

3:58 AM. The Quiet Part.

Him: If this is true, my whole sermon is wrong.

The Spirit: Maybe.

Him: Not maybe. It is. I have a forty-five-minute sermon on my desk that explains this chapter away. Every move the sermon makes is a move designed to prevent my congregation from hearing what Paul is saying.

The Spirit: What are you going to do?

Him: I don't know.

The Spirit: Take your time.

Him: If I preach what I now think Paul is saying, my elders will fire me. Or they will try. Or the church will split. Or I will lose my credentials. Or my denomination will discipline me. Or my wife will ask what is wrong with me. Or —

The Spirit: Or —

Him: Or I will be faithful. Or my people will hear something they have never heard. Or some of them will see, tomorrow morning, what I just saw tonight. Or some kid in the third row who has been trying to earn his salvation his whole life will finally understand that his faith itself is a gift. Or some woman in the back who has been afraid God will give up on her will finally hear that God does not give up on His own. Or —

The Spirit: You know what to do.

Him: I know what to do.

The Spirit: What are you afraid of?

Him: I am afraid that if I preach this tomorrow, there is no going back. I will be a different kind of pastor by Sunday night. I will not be able to un-see the chapter. I will not be able to un-hear what you just said. I will be a Calvinist by the end of this sermon series, and I have spent my whole life telling people Calvinism is the theology of people who do not love their neighbors.

The Spirit: Is that what you think now?

Him: No.

The Spirit: When did that change?

Him: Somewhere around 2:54 this morning.

The Spirit: What do you think it is now?

Him: I think it is the doctrine of grace.

The Spirit: Say it again.

Him: I think it is the doctrine of grace. I think everything else is a covert doctrine of works. I think I have been preaching a covert doctrine of works for nine years. I think I have been telling my people that the decisive moment was their decision, and I think what I was actually doing was teaching them to trust themselves. And I think my whole pastorate has been a long, sincere, inadvertent diversion of their trust from the only place their trust is safe.

The Spirit: Who is their trust safe in?

Him: You.

The Spirit: Say it more precisely.

Him: The Father who chose them before the foundation of the world. The Son who died to purchase them and will not lose a single one. The Spirit who was sent to raise them from death, and who raises every one the Son died for, and who never leaves any of them once He comes to them. The three-personed God whose work is their salvation, from first breath to final glorification. Their trust is safe in Him. It is never safe in them.

The Spirit: And for nine years, you have been aiming their trust at them.

Him: Forgive me.

The Spirit: That was the first forgiven thing on your list tonight, and it was forgiven before you said it.

4:24 AM. He Writes a New Sermon.

He closes the old sermon. He opens a new file. He starts typing.

He does not get fancy. He does not add a hook. He writes what he actually believes, now, after four hours with the chapter and the Spirit and the commentary that has finally been put away.

He writes: Church, I need to begin today by telling you I have been preaching this chapter wrongly. Not because anyone told me to. Not because anyone misled me. Because I wanted the chapter to say something easier than what it says. I have been preaching the first nine chapters of Romans for two years, and we have finally reached the one I kept skipping. The one I kept explaining away. The one the whole letter has been driving toward, and the one I have been steering us around. Today we are going to read what Paul wrote. Not what I wish Paul had written. What Paul wrote.

He writes the new sermon for the next two hours. It is shorter than the old one. It is harder than the old one. It is more tender than the old one, because it spends more of its length on the mercy at the end of the chapter than on the difficulty at the beginning. It ends where Romans 9 ends — with the Gentiles being called who were not seeking Him, and the remnant of Israel being saved because the Lord of hosts left them a seed, and with the cornerstone laid in Zion in whom whoever believes will never be put to shame.

He writes the last line of the new sermon at 6:43 AM.

The last line says: If you are here this morning and the thought of God choosing you before you were born is terrifying — sit with it. That is the Spirit. He is teaching you what every saint has had to be taught. That the moment you thought you were reaching for God was actually the moment He was reaching for you, and you finally felt the hand on your back. He will not let you go. He never could. He never will.

He prints the new sermon.

He goes to bed for ninety minutes.

He sleeps.

"It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God's mercy."

ROMANS 9:16

Afterword, For the Reader Still Awake at 2AM

Maybe you are a pastor and you have been the man at the desk. Maybe you are not a pastor and you have just been the voice inside your own head, the one asking the questions the commentaries were supposed to answer. Maybe you opened Romans 9 tonight looking for a way out of the obvious thing it is saying, and the way out is not working anymore, and you are tired.

We will not tell you what to do. That is the Spirit's work, and He is better at it than we are.

But we will tell you this. The voice that has been asking you the hard questions tonight is not your enemy. It is not the Adversary. It is not the theology professor who broke your Sunday-school faith. It is the Hand that has been holding you since before you had hands to be held. He is not trying to steal your faith. He is trying to give you a deeper one. He is not trying to make you miserable. He is trying to move your rest from a moment you can never be sure of to a Person who cannot fail.

Do not run from Him tonight. Let Him finish the question. The answer, when it comes, will be gentler than you fear. It is not the monster you have been avoiding. It is the love that has been avoiding being avoided. It has come for you anyway. It will not give up.

And if you preach on Sunday, and you are afraid — remember: Paul wrote Romans 9 under inspiration. The Spirit is the one who asked you to read it. If He asked, He has already planned what comes after. Trust the Author. Preach the text. The rest is His.

Keep Going

• Romans 9, verse by verse — the whole chapter walked through slowly
• What the Bible actually means by election
• Why regeneration precedes faith — the New Testament's ordo salutis
• What happens when God calls a sinner to Himself
• Total depravity — why we could not have reached for Him on our own
• Is the faith itself a gift?
• The grammar of 1 John 5:1 and the order that changes everything
• Why every honest Arminian is a covert Calvinist at the decisive moment
• Calvinism and Arminianism, side by side
• If you've been listening to Flowers, here is a careful response
• If you're in the SBC and wondering about the 2012 Traditional Statement
• If you're in Stanley's orbit, here is a careful response to his theology
• For the pastor who has been that man at the desk — rest here
• The hands that have been holding you all along
• The God who never gives up on His own

The Love That Was There Before the Coffee Was Cold

He wakes up at 8:13 AM. He preaches at 10:00. He preaches what he wrote. Some of the people in his church stay. Some of them leave. Over the next year, the church is smaller in attendance and deeper in Christ, and the pastor who used to dread Romans 9 finds that he cannot stop preaching out of it. It turns out the chapter is not a problem to be managed. It is the engine of the whole letter, and once you put the engine back in, the car runs.

Ten years later, he looks back on the night of the interior dialogue and he knows what he did not know that night. He knows that the conversation with the Spirit in his kitchen was not the beginning of anything. It was an intersection. The road he was walking had been walked for him. The questions were answered before he asked them. The answers were prepared before he knew what he did not understand. The sermon was written, in a sense, before he was born — because the Word he was finally preaching was the Word that had been speaking to him his entire life, waiting for him to be honest enough to hear it.

He thinks, sometimes, about the kid in the third row that first Sunday. The one who was trying to earn his salvation. He knows the kid heard the sermon. He knows the kid came to him afterward and said, I have never heard anyone preach that way before. It sounds like you are saying I cannot save myself. He knows he said back, I am saying you cannot. And I am saying someone did. And I am saying you are not going to be able to ruin it.

He knows the kid cried.

He is still friends with the kid, who is now a man, who is now a pastor, who preaches Romans 9 every three years because he never wants to forget what he heard that morning.

The Hand that was reaching for the kid had been reaching for the pastor first. The pastor was the means. The Hand was the grace.

"We love because he first loved us."

1 JOHN 4:19