“Shut Up, He’s God”

“Who are you, O man, to answer back to God?”

In Romans 9, Paul teaches that God has mercy on whomever he wills and hardens whomever he wills. The apostle then notes a potential objection: “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” I’ve quoted the apostle’s response above: “Who are you to answer back to God?” In essence, God made you, and it is his right to do as he pleases with you. As the Gospel Coalition’s Justin Dillehay puts it, Paul “questions the critic’s right to even lodge the objection”.

The stock use of this verse is to silence all possible objection to the determinist view of God’s sovereignty in the salvation and damnation of individuals, and, frankly, all possible objection to anything else about five-point Calvinism. “Shut up, he’s God, end of story.”

Let me suggest that’s an argument in need of some serious biblical context.

Not Always God’s Way

Just as there are times when it’s reasonable for a parent to answer a child’s objection to obedience with the words, “Because I said so”, there are indeed theological questions to which “Shut up, he’s God” is the only answer we ought to expect. This is especially true when the underlying reason for God’s behavior lies in theological territory where man is not intellectually equipped to travel, or when petulant human presumption needs a vigorous slapping down.

Job ran into one of those situations when he objected to his own suffering with a long list of things he had done right (chapter 31). His mistaken notion was that a godly life should have exempted him from suffering in this world, and that God was somehow being unjust in allowing him to experience great pain and sorrow. I might more- or less-accurately paraphrase God’s four-chapter response with the words, “Shut up, I’m God.” Accordingly, Job shut up. Paul is doing something similar in Romans 9 when he silences a hypothetical objection to God using men and nations as he pleases in accomplishing his strategic purposes throughout human history.

But this is not always God’s way, as we find early and often throughout scripture. “Shut up, I’m God” is not the answer to everything we might ask about God’s mysterious ways with humanity. In many cases, the Lord graciously allows men not only to question his dealings, but to actually make counterarguments against what might be perceived as injustice.

Abraham and Sodom

One great example is Abraham’s intercession for Lot in Genesis 18. The patriarch begins by tentatively inquiring about what God intends to do to Sodom: “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?” The determinist answer to this question, as with all questions, is “Who are you, O man, to answer back to God?” But that’s not how God answers Abraham, is it? No, he graciously accommodates Abraham’s limited ability to comprehend his works, even when Abraham presumes to teach the Almighty morality: “Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?”

Again, the determinist might expect a response here along the lines of “Who are you, O man, to school the Almighty concerning justice?” This is emphatically not what we get in Genesis 18. In fact, the Lord precedes his debate with Abraham by announcing to his angelic assistants that he actually intends to explain his plans to a human being:

“Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.”

If I may parse the Lord’s reasoning here, he’s saying that in order to keep his promises to Abraham’s children, they need to follow his ways. To follow his ways, they need to be instructed in them. Effective instruction in the ways of God requires a certain amount of insight into his purposes. Thus, not just Abraham but all Abraham’s children by faith throughout human history get to read this account of the judgment of Sodom and of the Lord’s debate with Abraham prior to it.

Not “Shut up, I’m God”, is it? Not at all.

Moses and the Golden Calf

As with all biblical arguments, we need at least two witnesses to make a case, so let me cite another example, that of Moses in Exodus 32. Israel has sinned against God, and God proposes to annihilate the nation he brought out of Egypt and make a new one out of Moses instead. Moses presumes to question God:

“O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants.”

Now, if ever there were a “Shut up, I’m God” moment in human history, this has got to be the primest of prime candidates. A flawed human being questions the obvious. (“Why does your wrath burn hot?”) Good grief, they’re worshiping other gods as the One True God is writing their law! He then presumes to give counsel to the Almighty about how to proceed, and this (ungrateful wretch!) right after God offers to make a great nation from Moses.

What does God do about all this presumption from Moses, daring to question his ways? “The Lord relented from the disaster he had spoken of bringing on his people.”

Not “Shut up, I’m God”, is it? Not at all.

The Revealer of Mysteries

In fact, the “Shut up, I’m God” response to human inquiry in scripture is remarkably rare. Our Lord welcomes our struggles to understand what he is doing and to justify him before the world, even when they tie us in knots. He welcomes the chance to explain himself, not just to faithful hearts but to those deserving of no answer but the silence of heaven. Look at his gracious dealings with an angry Jonah, a perplexed Joshua or an exhausted and grieving Jeremiah. All involve lengthy explanations of what and why, revelations to which even servants of God are far from entitled.

God loves to make himself understood. He creates mysteries to reveal mysteries, not to stymie his servants. So then, what is it that all these situations (and others) in which God grants effusive explanations of his dealings in the face of human presumption have in common?

A couple of things:

• They put God in his right place. Abraham credited the Judge of All the Earth with righteousness. Moses reminded him he was a Promise Keeper. Joshua affirmed YHWH’s name was great. Jeremiah calls him “righteous”. Best of all, Jonah, the rebel prophet, calls him “a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster”. First and foremost, each understood who he was dealing with. They may have been mystified, angry or sad, but none doubted the essential goodness of God.
• Their intent was to justify God. Abraham’s intuition that God never judges the righteous with the wicked would later be confirmed numerous times in scripture, not just by Lot in Sodom, but by the ark in the flood, the judgments of Egypt that didn’t touch Goshen, the mark on the forehead in Ezekiel, and the plain teaching of the prophets. Moses was concerned with God’s testimony in Egypt, Joshua for his testimony among the Canaanites, Jeremiah with the appearance of injustice in delayed judgment on the wicked. Even Jonah justified God with his words; his problem was that he couldn’t bear to see mercy shown to his enemies.

No Further Explanation

If you want to understand God’s dealings, this is the way to approach him, acknowledging his revealed character and with the earnest desire for his glory squarely in view. To those who cannot bring themselves to come to God in such a spirit, or who assume the stance of judges, critics and self-justifiers, no further explanation is generally given. Perhaps to do so would be to cast pearls before swine.