Is God Fair?

January 15th, 2025
by Dr. D. Lance Waldie

Romans 9:18-19 So then [God] has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires. 19 You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?”
In v. 17 Paul spoke of God having hardened the heart of the Egyptian Pharaoh during the days of Moses. Looking back, it was not the only time God did such. For example, when the Israelites entered Canaan to take the land by God’s divine order, “Joshua waged war a long time with all these [Canaanite] kings. There was not a city which made peace with the sons of Israel except the Hivites living in Gibeon; they took them all in battle. For it was of the Lord to harden their hearts, to meet Israel in battle in order that He might utterly destroy them, that they might receive no mercy… (Josh. 11:18-20, italics mine). As He did with Pharaoh’s hardened heart, God took the hardened hearts of the Canaanites and judged them through Joshua.

Also in the NT, Paul says, “That which Israel is seeking for, it has not obtained, but those who were chosen obtained it, and the rest were hardened” (Rom. 11:7). Likewise, “God has not destined [Christians] for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. 5:9). So, by grace God has destined some for salvation, leaving the rest for judgment.

Does this mean that God predestines some for wrath? Not at all. God simply leaves those He did not elect in the sinful condition in which they were born (cf. Rom. 5:12ff.) for His justice. All unredeemed mankind are “like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed in their destruction” (2 Pet. 2:12). In other words, God simply leaves those He did not elect to their sin. They thus remain in their rebellion against God awaiting His final judgment. In this, God is just.

Although God is loving and merciful, when He commanded Joshua to utterly destroy the Canaanites, He did not seem merciful or loving; instead, He appears angry and cruel to the carnal-minded man. Many of these protest Paul’s doctrine, saying, “Why does God still find fault? Who can resist His will?” Truth is, their worldly logic reasons in accordance with their own ignorance and rejection of Christ. So when Scriptures like Romans 9 are read, the unbelieving soul judges God with a finite and depraved mind that is arrogant and haughty, believing that they can stand before God and judge Him for His actions. These kinds of folks tend to judge God according to their preconceived ideas of how they think He should act. But because of their own depravity, they are only able to reason as animals and creatures of instinct.

Of course many who oppose this doctrine of God’s sovereignty are self-righteously attempting to defend God’s justice. The problem with these critics is that they ignore the fact that all humans deserve only one thing from God: justice, leading to eternal condemnation. After all, if God’s justice was without mercy, no human would ever be saved. It is no wonder, therefore, that the Almighty God must choose some to be saved while leaving the rest to divine justice.

Food for Thought

No one can fully comprehend the revelation of God’s sovereign predestination of some and His judgment upon those who are left to themselves. We can only accept what God has given to us by faith and acknowledge that He is God, we are not. Only Christians understand that all humans deserve rejection by God. So we can rejoice in seeing Him pour out His mercy on we who believe. Our testimonies of His grace attest to His power and our weaknesses. Even our faith is attributed alone to His grace. Jesus said, “All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out” (John 6:37). So it is to God’s glory that He save some but not all. It is also to God’s glory that He harden those He has not chosen to save. And it is to God’s glory that His sovereign will be praised, not scorned, by His elect ones.