Romans 9:14-18, God's Mercy Cannot be Earned

The Explanation (v. 15–18)

Salvation by mercy, not justice (v. 15–16)

God’s mercy cannot be earned (v. 16)

The “so then” now introduces an inference from the Exodus quotation in v. 15. The subject of this verse needs to be supplied and it seems that ‘election’ fits as the best choice in the context.[1] The verb “depends” also needs to be supplied.[2]

Here a person’s will/desire and a person’s efforts/works/running are used to summarize the entire being. Now Paul is not speaking against willing or running since both are a vital part of the human experience of God. Paul often uses the imagery of running elsewhere in encouraging the faithful in perseverance (1 Corinthians 9:24; Philippians 2:16). But Paul is pointing out that they play no role in election (Dunn, 553). There is absolutely nothing on the part of the individual that can determine the allocation of God’s mercy; it is solely up to God. This is a natural inference from the previous quotation. By arguing that election is not a matter of righteousness but mercy, and mercy by definition being a discretionary action, leaves the conclusion that there is nothing that can be done to merit God’s compassion.

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[1] Other suggestions include ‘the choice,’ ‘mercy,’ ‘the matter generally,’ ‘God’s mercy’ (Cranfield, 2:484), ‘participation in the mercy of God/salvation’ (Llyod-Jones, 160), all of which are better than ‘everything’ (Barrett, 173). In the context Paul is addressing the subject of God’s righteousness in unconditional election and in the previous verse he has used a quotation from Exodus to demonstrate that mercy is the issue at hand and not justice. The ideal subject for his inference then would be ‘the mercy of God’ but Paul concludes this verse with "God who shows mercy" making the reading ‘the mercy God…depends on God’s mercy.’ The next best choice contextually is ‘election’ or ‘salvation.’

[2] The verbs here (τοῦ θέλοντος…τοῦ τρέχοντος…τοῦ ἐλεῶντος θεοῦ) are classified as Genitives of Source (or origin) implying a translation that supplies phrases of ‘derived from,’ ‘out of,’ or ‘dependent on’ (Wallace, 109–10).