It Is Not of Him That Wills, but of God That Shows Mercy (Romans 9:16–19)

Rom. 9:16. So then it is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that has mercy.

That is, the selection to the inheritance of the promise is the work not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that has mercy. To understand whence these terms, “he that wills and he that runs,” came, one must turn to what precedes. The discourse concerns the selection of Jacob and the rejection of Esau before their birth. This decision of God was based upon His foreknowledge that one was worthy of it, and the other unworthy. Each vindicated this through his life and through his character. Yet according to the course of events, it should have been Esau who received the promise of inheritance, and Isaac had already resolved to do so and had already sent him to “hunt and bring him venison” and prepare food, so that, having eaten of it, he might bless him. Had this come to pass, the word of the Lord would not have been fulfilled, that the greater should serve the lesser, for in blessing Esau it would have stood: “be lord over your brother” (Gen. 27:29). But the word of God can never lie. God instructed Rebekah to arrange things so that the blessing of the firstborn should go to Jacob, and the words prepared for Esau became his. Thus what God, by His foreknowledge, had judged, no one could change, even if someone deliberately strove against it, as opposed to this example where the normal course of human affairs ran against it. Here was one who willed—Isaac—and one who ran—Esau—yet the matter was arranged not by the will of him that willed, nor by the labour of him that ran, but by the mercy of God who had mercy. Having recalled this circumstance, the Apostle said: “not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that has mercy.” Whomever God judges worthy of mercy, no one shall wrest it from him; yet mercy is bestowed not without discernment, but upon the worthy. We adduce this circumstance in expounding these words to show whence these terms, “he that wills and he that runs,” arose—because it is palpably evident in that circumstance; but one may also understand the connection of the discourse thus: God is said to have mercy on whom He will; whom He will have mercy on must be, by God’s righteousness, worthy thereof. From this someone might conclude: therefore all here depends upon good resolutions of the will, from “him that wills,” and from appropriate labours in fulfilling those resolutions, from “him that runs.” The Apostle forestalls: no, not from this. To will—let one will—and to run—let one run: without this one cannot; yet still the final decision of the matter belongs to God’s mercy, or grace, which strengthens the willing and gives strength to fulfill it. Whoever commits his lot to God’s mercy even with all his desire and labours, he is found worthy of mercy before God. And this mercy crowns him.

It may further appear that, according to the Apostle’s thought, all depends upon mercy and the goodness of the God who has mercy, while man’s own participation, be it or not, matters not at all. But this can only appear so. The Apostle did not say: “not from willing, nor from running,” but: “not of him that wills, nor of him that runs,” to show that willing and running are not excluded, but only to urge that he that wills and he that runs ought not to base his hope upon this alone, and much less claim any rights thereby. Blessed Theophylact writes: “Here the Apostle appears to abolish free will; but truly does not. We say of a house that it is the work of the craftsman. Although the craftsman needs both material and helpers in its construction; yet, insofar as it depends upon him, we say he built the whole house. So also of God we say that all is His work, though God has need of our willing. He works, He also gives crowns, He judges; therefore we say that all is God’s work.” The same we read in Oecumenius: “One must will and run and employ all one’s strength in action; yet one must remember that without the will of God neither he that wills nor he that runs shall attain the goal, if the help of God come not. God has mercy upon and wills that one be saved who himself wills to be saved.”

However one may understand the words set forth, they must have worked a startling effect upon the Jews—to terrify the unbelieving, and to fill the believing with joy. The latter is evident of itself; and the Apostle had not them in view, but the former. He proves here that if there are now unbelievers, this does not mean that “the promise has made none effect,” but that they have shown themselves unworthy of it, like Esau. The objectors might say: The Jews desire and run, they read the Law, they perform all the services, they bring sacrifices. Why then are they excluded from the inheritance of the promise? The Apostle says, as it were: Esau too had seemingly the right to the inheritance; but since his soul was of another character, he did not receive it. So also these Jews should seemingly be heirs of the promise; but since they do not have the soul required of the heirs thereof—that is, a believing soul—it is not given to them. Having felt such a driving home of the point, the unbelievers must have felt a strong impulse to look more carefully into what was happening and to understand what the God ready to have mercy upon them demands of them; but an even stronger impulse must have come to them from the example mentioned immediately after.

Rom. 9:17. For the scripture says to Pharaoh, For this very purpose have I raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be published abroad in all the earth. Ex. 9:16.

God says in Scripture to Pharaoh: “For this very purpose have I raised you up,”—that is, brought you forth from among others, displayed you as an ensign. Or—“raised you up,” ἐξήγειρα, as it were, raised you from the dead, in the sense: kept you alive. God commanded that it be said to Pharaoh that from the first his resistance would have cost him his life, but that he has been preserved thus far and shall yet be spared for the purpose that the power of God might be shown upon him. Thus he was already dead as one condemned to death, and if he lived, it was by God’s will for special purposes, as one alive from the dead. Or—“raised you up”—set you up against Myself, made it so that you have been resisting Me always. This is the same as in the following verse: whom “he will” God “hardens.” God did not by His power harden Pharaoh or stir him to resist Himself; on the contrary, He did all things to dispose Pharaoh to voluntarily let the Jews go, but he kept resisting. Plague after plague God sent upon him and upon Egypt; he softened for a moment, then hardened again, saying: “I know not the LORD, and Israel I will not let go.” Ex. 5:2. His hardness grew, and with it the punishing signs increased, until this hardened foe of God was drowned in the depths of the sea. The power of God was shown triumphantly upon him, and the glory of God’s name was spread abroad throughout all the earth, as Rahab confessed, saying: We have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea Josh. 2:10. Oecumenius says: “Pharaoh suffered through his own wickedness, what he suffered. God wished to save him, whence He was so long-suffering, giving place for repentance. And who would not marvel at God so long-suffering?” Blessed Theophylact writes: “For this very purpose, says God, have I raised you up—that is, displayed you, O Pharaoh, so that through you the power of Mine might become known and many would restrain themselves, hearing of My name as righteous and mighty throughout all the earth.” Ambrosiaster reasons thus: “This Pharaoh, guilty of such many evils that he was not worthy to live, became so hardened in evil that he would not amend, thinking that despite everything he would live or that God, against whom he had sinned so greatly, dared not deal out to him a dread punishment. Wherefore he heard from God: ‘For this very purpose have I raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be published abroad in all the earth,’—that is, so that all nations might understand that there is no God save Him who is the God of the Jews. And he is called raised up (suscitatus—as if resurrected) because before God he was already dead, and obtained time only to appear to be alive, so that there be one upon whom to shower so many plagues and so many kinds of terrible torments, ending in his death; and all nations, not knowing the true God, struck with fear through this, confessed with great amazement that He alone is the true God, from whom proceeded such plagues. Thus ancient physicians, upon men condemned to death, learned to help the living, by dissecting and examining what was hidden within man, to learn the causes of diseases and turn the suffering of the dying into the salvation of the living.”

But the meaning of this passage is evident of itself; what is not evident is only why the Apostle mentioned this circumstance. Blessed Theophylact writes: “As out of those who made the calf some were saved and others punished, when God alone knew who was worthy of salvation and who of punishment, so though there were many other wicked men, yet to God’s wrath one Pharaoh was subjected.” He sees here too a new example of the singling out of one from many, only not for mercy, but for punishment. In the course of the discourse this is entirely consistent. This example could naturally have come to the Apostle’s mind by contrast with the foregoing discourse. He had spoken of mercy, and the thought of punishment came to mind. Yet it seems that the Apostle deliberately chose the example of Pharaoh to bring home to the unbelieving Jews a sense of what awaits those who resist God’s arrangements. From the earlier examples it is clear that God selects the worthy and rejects the unworthy. This should have shown the Jews that if there are among them those cut off from the blessings of the promise delivered by the Saviour, the cause of this is they themselves—they make themselves unworthy of it through their stubborn unbelief. Now by the example of Pharaoh he brings them to see what may and shall happen to them if they remain in their stubbornness. Pharaoh resisted, and perished. Beware lest the same happen to you! St. Paul does not explain it in this way, but causes the Jews themselves to guess it. Had he himself explained it thus, it would have worked less upon the Jews than when they themselves guess it—not all, of course, but those who do. And the whole discourse of the Apostle proceeds so that he points only to what proceeds from God, passing over in silence that His determinations are in accord with the disposition of men, in order that, by pointing out this so evidently and having convicted the Jews themselves of guilt, he may not drive them from him or arm them against the truth. If then they themselves divine what the Apostle intended to suggest, they cannot but take it to heart and ponder it, and this is a great step toward faith. We speak of the unbelieving. But they that believed surely drew from this the greatest confirmation of their faith.

Rom. 9:18. So then he has mercy on whom he will, and whom he will he hardens.

This is the conclusion from all that has been said—not from the last examples alone: the sparing in the wilderness, when He said: “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy”—and the hardening of Pharaoh—but also from the first: the selection of Isaac and Jacob with the rejection of Ishmael and Esau. The word: “hardens” should not be understood to mean that God by His power produced hardness in the hearts of the disobedient, like Pharaoh, but rather that the disobedient by nature, under the action of God’s mercies, themselves, through their wickedness, do not soften, but more and more harden themselves in their stubbornness and disobedience. Gregory of Nyssa writes: “That the Egyptian tyrant was hardened, this should not be understood in the sense that God deliberately by His power implanted hardened resistance in his soul; but that this came about because his will, through its inclination toward evil, would not receive the word intended to soften his hardness” (in Oecumenius). Basil the Great says: “God hardened Pharaoh by long-suffering and by the remission of plagues, intensifying his wickedness, so that, when his evil grew to its full measure, God’s judgment upon him might be seen as righteous” (in Oecumenius). Blessed Theophylact writes: “What means: ‘hardens’? On the face of it, this seems absurd. But it is said of God that He hardened Pharaoh’s muddy heart as the sun hardens mud. In what way? By long-suffering; for He makes it hard by showing long-suffering toward him. Here something like this happened: when someone has a wicked servant, and treats him with kindness. The more kindly he treats him, the worse the servant becomes—not because he teaches him wickedness, but because the servant takes advantage of his lord’s long-suffering to increase his own wickedness, because he despises his long-suffering.”

But as God “has mercy” on those worthy of mercy, and though they sin, yet they repent or are foreseen to be going to repent, so also He “hardens,” we must understand, those who are unworthy and, when they sin against God, not only do not repent but are even more stubborn against Him. Oecumenius writes: “God has mercy on him worthy of mercy, and the hard-hearted and disobedient He leaves to be hard. For the present time is not a time of final judgment, but of voluntary effort and free life. ‘Hardens’ stands in place of: suffers to remain hard, yielding to their will.” Or “hardens,” by contrast with the word: “has mercy,” may be replaced: does not have mercy, rejects, deprives of blessing and of inheritance of the promise.

From all the examples and reasonings adduced it is clear that God declares His promise to the worthy and makes heirs thereof those also who are worthy; while the unworthy are not touched by the promise; wherefore neither are they made its heirs. In this is direct proof that though now many of the Jews have not entered into the inheritance of the spiritual goods promised to their fathers, yet through this the “promise has not made none effect.” Such is the import of the promise: only the worthy can inherit it; if there are those not inheriting it, it is plain they are unworthy. The Apostle expresses this by tracing all to God: whom He will He has mercy, whom He will He hardens,—suggesting “that men should not demand account of God” (Blessed Theophylact). He is always right, acting according to His will, which is always both righteous and good. In the present case they show themselves unworthy because they do not believe. If they had believed and were yet cut off, the promise would have failed; but since they are cut off because of unbelief, the promise stands, “has not made none effect.” No one compels them not to believe—they themselves do not believe. They are themselves therefore guilty that they are cut off from the goods promised in the Deliverer. Let them believe, and they shall enter into the inheritance thereof. But from the fact that they persist in unbelief, it does not follow that the “promise has made none effect.” And let them not lull themselves with the promise, but rather take into account the dread example of Pharaoh, whose stubbornness brought him to the plague of drowning in the sea, and let them fear lest they too come to something like it.

Rom. 9:19. You will say then to me, Why does he yet find fault? For who has resisted his will?

In explaining that, despite the alienation of many Jews from the blessings of the Saviour promised in the promise, the “promise has not made none effect,” the Apostle, in proof thereof, set forth the firm foundation that not all “are of Israel which are called Israel.” By this he showed that in the determination of the fate of persons and nations there are two agents: the will of God and the will of man. When the latter accords with the former, then God’s determination is fulfilled upon those who manifest it; but when it does not accord, it is not fulfilled—in other words: the promise is fulfilled upon the worthy, but not upon the unworthy. But in the last two examples of the determination of men’s fate, the Apostle, for his own purposes, fixed attention chiefly upon the first agent, that is, God’s will, yet he did so in such a way as not to obscure the second agent, that is, man’s will, which is worthy, by its disposition, of mercy or wrath; on the contrary, he made it clear to be understood. Nevertheless, the question proposed itself naturally, especially after the concluding: “whom he will he has mercy on, and whom he will he hardens.” If all is from God, even those dispositions of will displeasing to Him—why then does He find fault? For who has resisted His will? The disapproved man, therefore, is not guilty when God makes him such; for he is not such of himself. “If ‘whom he will he has mercy on, and whom he will he hardens’—then human disposition depends on His will. If this be truly so, then He does not justly lay punishment on those who sin; for it is impossible to resist what pleases Him” (Blessed Theodoret). “He willed and hardened, and the hardened man sinned: how then can He accuse and punish him?” (Blessed Theophylact).

This objection appears to arise from the Apostle’s preceding words only in appearance. For, as has been noted, although in the last verses he referred all chiefly to God’s will, he did so in such a way as to make one understand the participation also of man’s will, or the worthiness and unworthiness of men. Wherefore he could say: you have misunderstood my discourse. But he yielded to the objectors: let all be from the will of God, which no one can resist; but from this very fact it follows that you do not dare to object; for a creature ought to obey God in silence. How then do you dare to object?