What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. For Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” Therefore, God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” 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? As he says in Hosea: “I will call them ‘my people’ who are not my people; and I will call her ‘my loved one’ who is not my loved one,” and,“In the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘children of the living God.’” Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea, only the remnant will be saved. For the Lord will carry out his sentence on earth with speed and finality.” It is just as Isaiah said previously: “Unless the Lord Almighty had left us descendants, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrah.” What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; but the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, have not attained their goal. Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone. As it is written: “See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who believes in him will never be put to shame.”

Many parents have experienced their children say (with tears in their eyes) something along these lines: "That's not fair!" Maybe someone took the last cookie, or one child got to go to a birthday party that the younger sibling wasn't invited to. The child left behind cries out those words every parent knows all too well. And we don't grow out of this mindset. Even as adults, we think about the unfairness of our situation and difficult circumstances. It may even cause us to cry. The truth is that things in life aren't always fair. Life itself isn't fair. Some are born into wealth, and some are born into poverty. It's also important to understand that fair isn't always right. There is a vast difference between justice, rightness, and fairness. Justice is getting what we deserve, while fairness is everyone getting the same. God is not a god of same. Some get five talents, and others receive only one. Some are born with a brilliant mind, and others are born with diseases and cognitive disorders. The key is not what we have but what we do with what we have been given on this side of eternity. That is what matters to God.

Another idea related to this is mercy, which is also mentioned in the scripture. The mercy of God isn't always fair. God's mercy is not a human right. We are not entitled to mercy, grace, or forgiveness. God offers these things to humanity as a gift, but we have done nothing to deserve this gift, and if God were to withhold it, that surely would still be fair. Some may use this idea of God's wrath to declare that somehow God himself is unjust, unfair, or unrighteous. Paul answers this question strongly and says, certainly not! God clearly explains His divine right to give mercy to whomever He pleases. Remember what mercy is? Mercy is not getting what we deserve. God is never less than fair with anyone but fully reserves the right to be more than fair with individuals as He chooses. Jesus himself spoke of and explained this right of God in the parable of the landowner in Matthew 20. Paul's words in today's passage only echo the sentiment of Jesus himself. We are in a dangerous place when we regard God’s mercy towards us as our entitled right because if God is obligated to show mercy, then it is no longer mercy – it is forced. No one is ever unfair for not giving mercy because that person still received what they had earned and deserved. Paul uses the example of Pharaoh to make his point. Why did God harden Pharaoh's heart? Isn't that unfair? Not at all! God allowed Pharaoh in the days of Moses to rise to power so that God could show the strength of His judgment against Pharaoh and bring glory to Himself. Sometimes, God will glorify Himself through showing mercy, and sometimes, God will glorify Himself through a man’s hard-heartedness. Keep in mind that God never changed Pharaoh's heart or mind or took away his free will. He only hardened his resolve on what he had already decided in his heart so that God's glory and power would be displayed through the coming judgment. We should not think that God persuaded an unwilling, kind-hearted Pharaoh to be hardened towards God and Israel. In hardening the heart of Pharaoh, God simply allowed Pharaoh’s heart to pursue its natural inclination to its destructive end.

In Paul's explanation of this argument, which continues to this day, Paul imagines someone asking, “If it is all a matter of God’s sovereign choice, then how can God find fault with me for anything I do?" How can anyone go against God’s choice or what he has already determined in his mighty power?” Paul replies by showing how disrespectful such a question is. If God says He chooses, and if God also says that we are responsible before Him, who are we to question Him on either statement? God has the same right that any Creator has to his creation. Like an artist who paints a masterpiece, he has the right to frame and hang that painting on the wall or throw it into the fire and start over. Who are we to question what someone does with their own creation? We are only responsible for what we have been given responsibility for. God has given us the choice to either choose him or reject him, and we are responsible for the outcome and consequences of either choice. This is more than fair and an incredibly generous offer that we are in no way worthy of on our own merit. God always knows in his Omniscience that not all will accept this offer. Most will choose the wide road that leads to destruction. The few that choose the narrow road are known throughout scripture as the Remnant, the portion that remains faithful to God. Anyone has the right to choose to be a part of this remnant, so there is nothing unfair about it, but still, most will refuse because the Remnant is led by God, and most people don't want to have any gods besides themselves. In this way, any hint of what could be seen as unfairness is actually our own doing, and any wrath or judgment we might face is actually our own fault, not God's!