Erasing Hell by Francis ChanSample

“What if God…”

Now I want to approach the passage of Scripture that has caused me more confusion than any other: Romans 9. The text itself is not confusing. It’s fairly simple to understand. What makes it confusing is the “newness” of it. That’s a strange thing to say about something that was written almost two thousand years ago. But it’s a passage that isn’t preached often, so when believers come across it, many find themselves confused. We find ourselves asking, “Is this saying what I think it’s saying? If this is true about God, why hasn’t anyone told me this before?” Is it because we are embarrassed? Maybe we don’t want to admit that we believe in a God who is so free to do whatever He wants.

In this chapter, Paul asks a necessary question: What if?

What if? What if God decided to do this? What if God, as the sovereign Creator of the universe, decided to create “vessels of wrath prepared for destruction”? And what if He did so in order to “show his wrath” and “make known His power”? And what if it’s His way of showing those He saves just how great His glory and mercy is? What would you do if He chose to do this? Refuse to believe in Him? Refuse to be a “vessel of mercy”? Does that make any sense? Would you refuse to follow Him? Really? Is that wise?

Notice that Paul doesn’t explicitly say that God destroys sinners for the purpose of showing the world just how powerful He is. Rather, Paul simply raises it as a legitimate possibility. In other words, God may want to display His wrath and power by punishing sinners, or He may have some other purpose in mind. Either way, we must come to a place where we can let God be God. We need to surrender our perceived right to determine what is just and humbly recognize that God alone gets to decide how He is going to deal with people.

“What if?” is a probing question that forces us to face our inflated view of our own logic. It’s another way of asking: Just how high is my view of God?

* How high is your view of God?