The most remarkable, unexpected and awe-inspiring gift of God is His mercy. So much so that His very name which is a summary of His nature is rooted in His mercy (Exodus 33:19).
Throughout the book of Exodus, the children of Israel continued to woefully sin against God, but He remained faithful in extending them mercy. As wicked as they were, His mercy was even deeper.
It is in Romans 9, where the doctrines of God’s unconditional election and reprobation are taught, that God chooses to remind us of this mercy. When these doctrines are properly understood, they magnify God in all of His attributes and fill us with great wonder and awe as we grow in our understanding of His nature. God reveals His very nature in the midst of these great doctrines of the faith. In other words, it is in the essential nature of God to dispense mercy on whomever He pleases apart from anything in man or anything originating outside of His own sovereign will. This is the essence of what it means to be God. It is His very name.
