Romans 9 – Relation to Time

One reason we often struggle with passages of Scripture is our relationship to time. Often we will say “God did it” and we speak at the same time a true and unenlightening statement. The question we are often asking is not a “how” but a “why”. When “because God” is the finality of our answer it is easy to get into a circular argument in which God does things because they are good and they are good because He does them. So we learn that it is good because it is good. While true, this is not helpful in discovering the character of “good”.

In an eternal context everything that will happen has happened, and it all happened because God is. He is the beginning; He is the end. All things that happen, happen in and through Him.
In essence our entire experience is like a game that God decided to play (pardon this purely human argument, I don’t mean to make light of the entire human experience). The question then becomes, does God play a game in which He moves all of the pieces, or did He create a game in which he plays referee and the pieces move themselves, or is it some mix of both?
From a long-distance view (say 1,000 years or greater) it will appear as if God alone moves the pieces, because His hands will be seen constantly moving across the board and pieces will be flying around accordingly. This is the eternal view; and it is truth. God moves and the pieces follow suit. God is at work playing the game, moving pieces where He wants so that the end looks the way that pleases Him.

As we zoom in, however, we may find a somewhat different picture. Some of the pieces seem to move of their own accord, at times in line with God’s hand and at other times struggling against it. When we quickly zoom back out we may well find that they never succeed in moving contrary to God, but not for lack of effort!

So, how does this game work in which the reality seems to be both that God moves the pieces and the pieces have some ability to move themselves (even though they can only move with His help)? Who knows, but the only evidence we have, His revelation and our experience, suggests that it is so.

I see potential error enter into our understanding of God’s character when we choose to view through only the eternal or only the temporal view. Take a passage along the lines of Romans 9 where Paul quotes a passage in which God says that He raised up Pharaoh for the purpose of displaying his power and wrath. God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. It is quite clearly an eternal view of the matter; God’s hand moved, and Pharaoh moved accordingly. If we were to look at the temporal view we might well see that Pharaoh moved perfectly in step with God through that process; that he in fact wanted a hard heart. This is the way that same process is described in Romans 1 after all. People who knew God (this implies God had revealed Himself to them in a real and meaningful way, that they had been made awake or alive in some way… dead men after all cannot “know” anyone can they) chose to reject God. In accord with their wishes God gave them over to the desire of their hearts, hardening them as it were to His truth.

From an eternal view it would seem simply as if God had decided that those pieces should be hardened… but the temporal view says that they also wanted to be hardened.

In fact, one of the biggest ways that people seem to struggle against God’s hands and lose is in the matter of mercy. This is revealed both in Scripture and in our personal story. We did not want God. We did not long for righteousness. It is almost as if despite our great struggle against Him He was unwilling to relent and moved us to mercy. It is then quite impossible for us to imagine how someone would end up in a position to receive God’s wrath unless he moved them in the same way.

At this point I like to look back at the “rules” of the game, as established by the one who created it. Here are a few key rules that I find.

1. Winning is God’s glory increasing. Because of the great sacrifice that God made for us it is tempting to say that God’s love for us is the greatest love in the universe. This is not true, though, because His love for His own glory outstrips His love for us by far. The cross was not for our salvation as much as it was for His character. God’s character demanded that the cross happen… which is interesting just in itself, and gives us a clue as to what “winning” looks like to God.
2. Choice is required for one to be considered a “piece” on the board. I don’t know why this is, I just know that it is. Both angels (God’s servants) and humans (God’s children) are said to choose. This reveals that choice plays a key role in the game from God’s standpoint. So, in my mind our rules are incomplete unless we take that choice into account. Some say that choice died with the Fall, or that everyone made their choice in the Fall and God alone chooses after that. That position requires too much semantic dancing because of the great multitude of passages that speak of choice after Genesis 3. However it works, choice remains a part of the pieces in God’s game up to the very end.
3. God wins. This is both a matter of God’s strength and His character (which is somewhat saying the same thing because strength is a part of His character). Because God is who He is, He will win the game; His glory will be increased through it all and His will accomplished.
   

Given those rules we are left with a picture that combines the eternal and temporal view into some mysterious dance in which God’s will moves pieces as they also make choices to the result that in the end everything ends up both where it wants to be and where He wants it to go. Personally I am not sure I will ever fully understand that process on this side of eternity, and that is acceptable because I am convinced that God understands it, and it is His game afterall.