continual glow of religious emotion.” That would not have been true and it would not have been a good thing. He means something that is true, whether we know it or not. The evil things of which we have been talking about can separate us, and often do separate us from the consciousness of God’s love. The great thing is that they do not separate us from God’s love itself.
And that love Paul very carefully defines. It is the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. That is, it is God’s saving love, the love of the Cross, the love which does in fact redeem from sin and death. It is from this love that nothing can separate us, for the very good reason that it is a love which is bestowed upon us, just as we are, living in a world of sin and death. It is where sin abounded that Christ came down and died. In his daring metaphor, Paul says, “he who knows no sin, God made sin for us.” Sin and death cannot separate us from the love, whose very purpose is to destroy sin and death.
The saving love of God in Christ would not be what it is, if it had no enemies to triumph over, no obstacles to overcome. Paul means that amidst all the swirling cross currents in life, in the seas that are too strong for us and seem to sweep us off our feet, there is a rock, and that rock is Christ, and there is our sure resting point, there is the power which prevents us from ever being dashed away from this love of a redeeming God. In the face of the uncertain future and the certainty and power of death, is the one who loved us and gave himself for us. When we are gripped by doubts and worried by our moods, we are to look through the wisps of mist that blow up from the surface of our life to the green hill where the inflexible Man of Sorrows died for us. When we feel our own sin rising up between ourselves and God, we are to know that it is the work of Christ to break down that wall, and to bring us rebels back to the Father.
IS THIS TRUE FOR US?
How do we known and what does it mean? Yes, it is true for anyone who by God’s grace accepts it. Let no one mistake it; the powers of evil are real, death is real, sin is real. Because of these things we, of ourselves, cannot draw near to God, and if we do not receive the victory at God’s hand, it is so much the worse for us.
It does not mean a bed of ease for anyone. It does not mean that we are lifted out of the world to some Empyrean where God dwells. It means that God is with us. It does not mean that we can make ‘a separate peace.’ That is not Christian peace. That is the peace of human beings who are being killed all the day long. We are referring to the peace of the Cross, where sin is defeated, and death is defied by the suffering servant and to which God’s answer is the glorious life of Resurrection. And a broken and contrite heart God never despises, and from such a heart his saving love in Christ can never be removed.6
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6. Editor’s Note: It might be wondered on the basis of several other sermons in these two volumes, how the content of this sermon comports with the affirmation that Christians can indeed fall away, and commit apostasy. One key to understanding what is being asserted here is that CKB is talking about things strictly from the Godward side of the equation—God does not withdraw his redeeming love, regardless of whether the individual is aware of it or not, regardless of whether sin or something else has separated that person from God, or from awareness of God. Notice the last sentence in the sermon which speaks not of someone in active rebellion against God, but a person with a contrite heart, i.e. someone who has not committed apostasy. In other words, this passage, as CKB says, is not about an “eternal security” insurance policy.
“GOD THAT HATH MERCY”—Romans 9.16
[Preached ten times from 12/26/87 at St. John’s College, Nottingham to 6/12/05 at Langley Park]
I allow myself to give you that text as a convenient summary of the paragraph that was read as the lesson, a paragraph which indeed many commentaries reckon as running not from vs. 19 but from vs. 14 to vs. 29.
Life isn’t fair, is it? We all say it from time to time, and I have been thinking about it a good deal for about a week. I came up from the Piccadilly Line of the London Underground, came up Escalator No. 4, and passed through the booking hall. If I had done this just four weeks later about to the hour, than I did, the escalator would have burned under me, the fireball would have burst through the booking hall, and you would have had to find a different lecturer and preacher for today. As it was, I passed through easily, carried on to the British Rail Station, and caught the train home to Durham. This was a piece of unfairness that was very nice for me. My leg was right in front of the wicket, but at the crucial moment the umpire sneezed, couldn’t see, and gave me the benefit of the doubt. Not out. But there are other people, people whose loved ones are dead, people who lie in hospital with horrible burns, who see the unfairness a different way. Why did it happen to them?
Life, is unfair. Some of you heard me refer to students of theology who know nothing of educational opportunities and privileges that we can take for granted. Is that fair? And now it seems that God is going to join in; he too is not playing fair. It is not perhaps surprising that the man that has been described as the greatest New Testament scholar of this century should write of this passage with which we are dealing, dealing with the image of the pots and the potter says: “It is a well-worn illustration. But the trouble is that a human being is not a pot; he will ask, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ and he will not be bludgeoned with silence. It is the weakest point in the whole epistle.”
All this you may, if you like, take as a complaint against the extreme unfairness of the lectionary in setting before me this most difficult of paragraphs. Of course if you do take it in that way, you will be wrong. It all adds up to the preliminary point, which we need to remember and to state explicitly before we can really get down to business, the point that we are not living in a perfect world in which we can expect everything to be worked out for our convenience and care. It is a long time since our ancestors were driven out of the Garden of Eden into an unfriendly world of thorns and thistles, sweat and pain. And as we proceed, the next thing to discuss is what Paul does not say.
WHAT PAUL DOES NOT SAY
He does not say that willing and running, decision and effort have no place in the Christian life. We know he cannot mean that for if he did, he would be contradicting what he says elsewhere. God himself encourages willing and doing (Phil 2.13). And running is one of his favorite images. In a race, everyone runs, but only one can win the prize; run so that you may get it (1 Cor 9.24). You were running well—who got in your way (Gal 5.7)? It is right that a Christian should will what is good; it is right that he should put into the achieving of it all the energy that an athlete uses as he strains every muscle to get to the tape. There is nothing wrong with willing with iron determination, nothing wrong with straining every nerve as we press towards the mark. Anyone who uses this text as an excuse for a slack effort has certainly gotten Paul wrong.
What Paul is saying is that if we so will, and if we so strive, we owe it not to our own strength of mind and character, but to the mercy of God, which lies behind all our willing and striving. The point is that we do not begin the operation. We do not will and strive in order to deserve and so to win God’s mercy, God’s favor. His goodness comes first, and our effort is a response to it. A response which he not merely elicits but makes possible.
IS GOD UNFAIR?
Granted that he starts the process that leads to salvation, does he arbitrarily start the process for some and not for others? At this point we have to remember the whole context in which our verse is set, the whole, that is, of Romans 9–11. To do this properly is out of the question; not to do it at all would mean to give up the attempt to understand what Paul is about and to give up the attempt to hear what Scripture has to say to us.
The first thing to say is that the story Paul has to tell is a long one. It is probably
