Does God Show Mercy and Grace to the Reprobate?
Men love the god they conjure in their imagination. They naturally craft a god to their own preferences. It is popular, today, to configure this god as loving all people. It ends with god being a gentleman, hoping to win a popularity contest, something like a high school homecoming king.
It is the prerogative of the god-makers to present god in the most popular light. This makes their marketing schemes, on his behalf, a whole lot easier. When Christians fall into this trap, it is because they do not know their Bibles. Typically, they know a certain number of Bible verses, which they meld together in a way that produces this version of God…
God is love. He is merciful to everyone. God is gracious to everyone. He certainly does not want anyone to perish. In His love for the whole world, He sent Jesus, who judged no one and who receives anyone who will come to him by their own free will, making their decision to make Christ their Savior.
The above paragraph has truth, half-truth, twisted truth, and false statements co-mingled. Most Evangelicals would ascribe to this paragraph because the statement represents popular American Christianity. Although it is popular, it is not true, even though most of the clauses could be attached to Bible proof text. Isolated proof-texting is a problem we face in every theological question.
Our question would have an affirmative answer in most Evangelical minds. Sadly, this would just be their opinion, with no correlated scriptural support. To correct this wrong answer, it is imperative to define terms.
First, a reprobate is a person created by God, who is not chosen by God for salvation (Rom 8:30; 2 Thess 2:13). The reprobate’s name is not written in the Lamb’s book of life from before the foundation of the world (Rev 13:8; 17:8; 21:27). God has not predestined the reprobate to adoption as His child (Eph 1:4–5). God does not love the reprobate (Rom 9:13), as evidenced by the reprobate not loving God in return (1 Jn 4:19). The reprobate hates God (Rom 1:30), and God hates the reprobate (Ps 5:5; 7:11; 11:5), whose only heart intention is to do evil all the time (Gen 6:5).
Second, God distinguishes the elect and the reprobate in Romans 9. He loves Jacob but hates Esau, even before they were born (Rom 9:13). God decides who He will show mercy and who He will not show mercy (Rom 9:15). It is His prerogative and in accordance to His will (Rom 9:16). Those to whom the Potter (God) makes into vessels of wrath prepared for destruction (Rom 9:22) are contrasted with His making vessels of mercy prepared for glory (Rom 9:23).
Third, God’s grace is the clear catalyst in all of His work to save his people from their sins (Mt 1:21). It is His gracious choice in election (Rom 11:5) that determines who will receive Jesus Christ as their Savior (2 Thess 2:13; Titus 2:13), again according to His will, not man’s (Jn 1:12–13).
In order to make God look less terrifying to men, some have claimed that God gives grace to the wicked and unrighteous. They try to prevent His appearing to be a heavenly ogre. They say, “Look, God is so good to everyone.” This ultimately leads to the Arminian heresy, where men must decide whether God is good or not, and whether they want to believe in Him or not.
They have dubbed this conjecture “common grace.” It is customary to reference, God granting His providential care through sunshine and rain, etc. It is a sunny day for everyone, so God is gracious. The truth is: God is gracious, but the sunshine is a neutral prop in the physical and biological world. So is the rain and the rest of nature.
In God’s eternal good pleasure, He decreed a predetermined plan (Acts 2:23) that would be executed in His eternal purpose (Eph 3:11), which would be perfectly in alignment with His will (Eph 1:11). It was the eternal will of God that in the Creation and Fall, a duality would occur so that His glorious grace might be demonstrated to the line of the righteous (Rom 9:23), which would produce thanksgiving and gratitude not found in the reprobate, who ever live under the wrath of God.
The reprobate are ever-storing up more wrath for themselves, living with their sin nature (Eph 2:3), as opposed to the grace nature that controls the children of God. The reprobate continues in sin, that is, sinning in thought, word, and deed, all day long. The judgment or condemnation of all born into the race of Adam is declared in John 3:18. Man is simply waiting for his day to be sentenced to the second death (2 Cor 5:10; Heb 9:27), an eternal punishment in fiery hell in the lake of fire (Rev 20:14–15).
In God’s predetermined plan, the wheat and the tares would grow up together and only on the last day will the resurrection and separation finally occur (Jn 5:28–29). Until then, God’s anger is daily against the reprobate (Ps 7:11). This wrath never ceases to be pointed at the unredeemed (Rom 1:18). The reprobate are made by God, as the wicked for the day of evil (Prv 16:4).
Does the Potter have the right to do with the clay as He chooses? Mercy for some and no mercy for others, and grace granted to some but not to others. God has loved His only begotten Son from eternity, and those who are predestined and called to justification and glory are loved in Christ (Rom 8:30).
God loves His chosen people in election (Eph 1:4–5). Christ loved these people His bride, the church at the cross (Eph 5:25). The Holy Spirit sheds abroad within our hearts (Rom 5:5; 2 Cor 4:6), the light and love God has for us…His elect, redeemed, regenerate people — grateful recipients of His mercy and grace, exclusively bestowed upon us in Christ. The love, mercy, and grace of God are simply not found outside of His covenant of love with His eternal Son, in whom He is well-pleased.
David Norczyk
Spokane Valley, Washington
December 12, 2022
