Is God impartial, or does he favour some people?

‘Respect of persons’ (Greek prosōpolēmpsia, G4382, literally ‘receiving the face’) is courtroom language: a judge who favours someone because of who he is, his rank, his nation or his bribe. Deuteronomy 10:17 has the same idea: God “regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward”. Romans 2:11 and Acts 10:34 deny that God judges like that: “in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him” (Acts 10:35). Abel is a case in point: his offering was accepted because he offered it “by faith” (Hebrews 11:4), while Cain’s “own works were evil” (1 John 3:12).

Romans 9 is about something else: God’s freedom to choose whom he will use in his purposes, and to whom he will show mercy, which no one can claim as a right. The words Paul quotes were first said of two peoples, “Two nations are in thy womb” (Genesis 25:23), and Malachi 1:2–3 says them of Israel and Edom. ‘Loved’ and ‘hated’ is a Hebrew way of saying ‘chose’ and ‘passed over’, as when Leah is said to be ‘hated’ when she was loved less than Rachel (Genesis 29:30–31). Showing undeserved mercy to some is not injustice to the rest, as the householder says in Jesus’ parable: “Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?” (Matthew 20:15).

Two other verses on the lists do not show favouritism either. The curse on Canaan (Genesis 9:25) is spoken by Noah, not by God; Keil and Delitzsch read it as prophecy of the history of the peoples descended from Noah’s sons, which still leaves room for each person’s own choices. Jesus’ saying, “whosoever hath, to him shall be given” (Matthew 13:12), is about hearing: those who receive his word are given more understanding, while those whose ears are “dull of hearing” lose even what they have (13:13–15).

Individual election

Many Reformed interpreters, Gill and Calvin among them, read Romans 9 as God’s choice of individuals for salvation. Even so, they hold that this is mercy freely given and not partiality in judgment, since no one is condemned except for his own sin.

Whether Romans 9 speaks mainly of peoples and their roles in history or of individuals and their salvation is debated between Calvinist and Arminian Christians.