When learning to drive a car, one needs to focus on where you are going — on what is in front of you. Certainly you should have an awareness of what is around you, on the periphery, but your eyes are focused on what is in front of you. So too here in this passage of Romans. To be sure, here we encounter some doctrines that are difficult to consider, but they are, in a sense, peripheral to what is central — the declaration that God is the merciful one and that salvation is a gift of His unmerited mercy.
