Romans Chapter 9 DOES NOT Disprove Freewill but Actually Reinforces It. Looking At The Context Of The WHOLE Book of Romans

This article is part 2 or a continuation of my last article entitled "God HAS Given Us Freewill. It IS Revealed In The Bible"
Please click here to read that first article.

On that last article I chose to not discuss Romans Chapter 9 (which contains verses which the Calvinists use as their strongest arguments AGAINST the belief of freewill) because that chapter contains such a lot of material and raises too many objections/questions to cover within the general topic of the last article. Quite honestly it needs a separate article all of its own. Therefore, this article serves that purpose.
Romans 9-11 go together

I will now try to show how Romans chapter 9 DOES NOT deny freewill but actually reinforces it when you consider everything in its rightful context.  What I have written today on this article (14 Sept. 2012) is the results of my initial investigations and study. I may add other material to this article as/when I find more.

Anyway, long introduction, but here now is the article.




Anyone with an honest heart will have to admit that if Romans chapter 9 is saying that no-one has freewill, then that chapter sits isolated from the vast majority of the Bible which teaches otherwise.  I follow the golden rule that if some isolated verses (or even a chapter) seems to say something contradictory to the rest of the Bible then it must be US who are interpreting that particular passage incorrectly. We should NEVER make a doctrine out of isolated passages – very dangerous.

Let us look at the context of Romans 9. First, who was Paul writing to? Was it Jews or Gentiles? It appears primarily Jews but also to Gentiles. Why did Paul apparently swap his line of thought in Romans 8 and insert chapters 9-11 before continuing on again in ch 12?

Some say it was a digression. Actually, if you were to read all the chapters 1 to 16, you will actually see that chapters 1 to 8 were a build up or foundation to the main thrust of his message, i.e. chapters 9-11 are the KEY to
 the whole book. If the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write the Book of Romans as part of the inerrant Word of God, then it cannot possibly be a digression because that would not imply inspiration. Therefore, ch’s 9-11 are in the exact right place for a purpose to tell us something.

Therefore, you CANNOT make interpretations from just chapter 9 without getting it into the context of the whole book of Romans. Please bear in mind that when Paul uses the word “you” he is mostly referring to the corporate body of Christ and to other groups of people and not just to individuals. If we bear that in mind it immediately changes the idea that individuals are pre selected without any freewill on their part.

God had always pre ordained that the gentiles would also become attached to the redeemed people of God. The church was a mystery to all (apart from God) in the OT and that God was going to bring Jews and Gentiles alike (who put their faith in the Messiah Jesus) into a united kingdom of God.

Therefore YES the gentiles (as a corporate body) were predestined to become a part of God’s kingdom. This was the thrust of most of Paul’s writings and was no different throughout the Book of Romans.

Remember Paul was called to be an apostle to the gentiles and often had to explain God’s purposes for the gentiles to the Jewish Christian community. Paul demonstrates throughout book of Romans that God ‘s eternal plan was to save every people’s group – not just the Jews.


In Romans 9 when Paul talked about the potter, he was probably reminded by the Holy Spirit of Jeremiah 18. Jeremiah 18 is all about God’s chosen people in the OT – the Jews and how God wanted to mold them but they would not let Him.

That is interesting. If God does not give them freewill, then how could they prevent God from molding them if it is God’s Will to mold them? I encourage you to read the whole chapter. In the same way Jesus said to Israel “how often I would have gathered you together as a hen gathers her chicks, but you would not”. Again THEY chose to reject God out of free will.

Here is a portion of Jeremiah 18 (verses 3-12):

“So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. Then the word of the LORD came to me.

He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the LORD. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel. If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted,10 and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it.

“Now therefore say to the people of Judah and those living in Jerusalem, ‘This is what the LORD says: Look! I am preparing a disaster for you and devising a plan against you. So turn from your evil ways, each one of you, and reform your ways and your actions.’ But they will reply, ‘It’s no use. We will continue with our own plans; we will all follow the stubbornness of our evil hearts.’”

Let us look again at Romans 9:20-24:
“But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?

What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?”

That passage is talking about God’s choice to choose the gentiles, as a collective group (not specifically as individuals) to become the objects of mercy and that the unbelieving Jews, as a collective nation (not specifically individuals) would experience God’s wrath for rejecting Jesus. That is again emphasised in Ch 11.

Here is an excellent video with David Pawson giving us a short history lesson into the context of why Paul wrote chapters 9 to 11. It is part 4 within a whole sermon, but the part most applicable to this article. Although I cannot accept some of David Pawson's theology (because he doesn't believe in the eternal security of the believer and a number of other things) he is very informed regarding the background behind the writings in the bible. His sermon is simply that - a background to the Book of Romans. For that reason I recommend that you watch this video. This video, together with what I have written above SHOULD conclusively prove that Romans 9 is NOT teaching against freewill at all.