Romans 9:14-18, God's Sovereignty over Pharaoh (part 2)

The Explanation (v. 15–18)

God is most glorified in the freedom of unconditional election (v. 17–18)

God’s sovereignty over Pharaoh as a type (v. 17)

There are a few key points to be drawn out from Paul’s quotation of Exodus 9:16. First, the fact that Pharaoh has been raised up[1] by God for a specific purpose indicates God’s sovereignty over not just those whom He gives His mercy to, but over those who reject it as well. The specific purpose which God used Pharaoh for was twofold: that God’s power would be displayed and that His name would be proclaimed, two parallel ideas.

It is important to realize that Paul modified his quotation of the LXX to use a very specific word for ‘power’ (δύναμίν). Some indication for the reason behind the modified quote is that the word for ‘power’ was used in Romans 1:16 where Paul is stating the theme of his epistle.[2] Paul understood the sense of the power of God in Exodus 9:16 in the same sense in which he used it in 1:16 — not as unqualified power, but saving power (Cranfield, 2:487).[3] A salvific or evangelical power is in line with the context of the Exodus passage, not an unqualified power, but a power directed toward the deliverance of God’s people.

This point is further emphasized with the parallel statement of God’s name being proclaimed. God’s named being proclaimed is not merely an advertisement to make Him more known, but is functioning specifically within the context of His saving mercy. In the comments on verse 15 above, the fuller quotation from Exodus 33:19 was presented in which the name of God being proclaimed is seen in accordance with His having mercy and compassion on whom He chooses. John Piper concludes on this specific verse, “It is the glory of God and His essential nature to mainly to dispense mercy (but also wrath, Exodus 34:7) on whomever He pleases apart from any constraint originating outside His own will. This is the essence of what it means to be God. This is His name” (The Justification of God, 67).[4]

Paul has just finished discussing how God’s mercy cannot be earned and is distributed at His will (v. 15–16). Paul then proceeds to discuss in essence the result of God operating in this manner: that all people, both those who receive His mercy (Jacob/Moses/receptive Israel) and those who reject it (Esau/Pharaoh/obstinate Israel) fulfill specific roles in the outworking of God’s plan of salvation. God alone determines the recipients of His mercy, and He makes that determination rightly.

“The showing of God’s saving power and the publishing abroad of His name, of His self-revelation, of His truth – this is the very purpose of God’s election of Israel. The implication of verse 17 then is that Pharaoh too, ‘this dark prototype of all the rejected Israel’, as Barth calls him, serves in his own different way the same gracious purpose of God, to the service of which Moses and the believing Israel have been appointed. He too is a witness, albeit an unwilling, unbelieving and ungrateful witness, to the saving power and truth of God” (Cranfield, 2:488).

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[1] Paul could be using "raised up" (ἐξήγειρά) in the sense of keeping alive, which would stand in opposition to the idea of cutting off, ἐκτριβήσῃ, in the previous verse of Exodus 9:15. This would also be in line with the original wording of διετηρήθης which is clearly used in the sense of ‘keeping alive’ throughout the LXX. Paul also uses similar language (ἤγειρεν…ἐξεγερει) in 1 Cor. 6:14. This could be used to argue for Pharaoh as someone who did indeed receive the mercy of God in a temporal sense rather than an eternal one, by being kept alive rather than immediately punished for his sins. This argument is unlikely. In the context Paul is speaking of God’s mercy in unconditional election, prior to birth (v. 11), not mercy toward specific sins during a person’s lifetime. Also, Paul’s inference from this passage, in verse 18 would seem to indicate Pharaoh as a person who rejects the mercy of God. Finally, if Paul did mean ἐξήγειρά in the sense of keeping alive, why even change the wording from διετηρήθης? Paul probably uses ἐξήγειρά in the more general sense in which it is found in the LXX in Jeremiah 50 [LXX 27]:41; Habakkuk 1:6; Zechariah 11:16; and in the 5^th century B.C. poet Cantharus, as well as Josephus. God’s sovereignty extends even over those who do not receive His mercy. What it does not mean is ‘for this purpose I have created you,’ (Lloyd-Jones, 168) which will be an important distinction in the interpretation of verse 18.

[2] The phrasing “to the Jew first” in Romans 1:16 also links that passage with chapters 9–11.

[3] Other similar references to the power of God include 1 Cor. 1:24 in which power stands in apposition to Christ, 1 Cor. 6:14 and 2 Cor. 13:4 speaking of the power by which Christ was raised and we now live, and also 1 Cor. 2:5, 4:20; 2 Cor. 4:7, 6:7; Eph 1:19, 3:7, 20; 2 Tim 1:8.

[4] Both Piper and Cranfield (2:488) note the parallels between Exodus 33:19 and Exodus 3:14 “I AM that I AM” though a further treatment of that relationship falls beyond the scope of this paper.