I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.--Romans 9:15
In these words the Lord in the plainest manner claims the right to give
or to withhold His mercy according to His own sovereign will. As the
prerogative of life and death is vested in the monarch, so the Judge of
all the earth has a right to spare or condemn the guilty, as may seem
best in His sight.
Men by their sins have forfeited all claim upon God;
they deserve to perish for their sins--and if they all do so, they have
no ground for complaint. If the Lord steps in to save any, He may do so
if the ends of justice are not thwarted; but if He judges it best to
leave the condemned to suffer the righteous sentence, none may arraign
Him at their bar.
Foolish and impudent are all those discourses about
the rights of men to be all placed on the same footing; ignorant, if
not worse, are those contentions against discriminating grace, which
are but the rebellions of proud human nature against the crown and
sceptre of Jehovah.
When we are brought to see our own utter ruin and
ill desert, and the justice of the divine verdict against sin, we no
longer cavil at the truth that the Lord is not bound to save us; we do
not murmur if He chooses to save others, as though He were doing us an
injury, but feel that if He deigns to look upon us, it will be His own
free act of undeserved goodness, for which we shall for ever bless His
name.
How shall those who are the subjects of divine election sufficiently
adore the grace of God? They have no room for boasting, for sovereignty
most effectually excludes it.
The Lord's will alone is glorified, and
the very notion of human merit is cast out to everlasting contempt.
There is no more humbling doctrine in Scripture than that of election,
none more promotive of gratitude, and, consequently, none more
sanctifying. Believers should not be afraid of it, but adoringly
rejoice in it.
C.H. Spurgeon
http://makariotes.blogspot.com
