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Romans 9.18-24
September 19th 2021
COVID Sept 5th 2021 Justin
All right, back to the discussion – and we are almost through the wilderness of Romans 9.
Three weeks ago we read and talked about verses 1-5 where Paul talked about his heart for Israel
He did this in the context of the message he was teaching that the Gospel was now going to the Gentiles.
Two weeks ago we read verses 6-10 where the privileges God bestowed upon the Nation of Israel are detailed, and where God “chose or elected” them as a Nation by and through choosing or electing, of His own free will and choice, “Abraham” (from among all people on earth at the time), “Isaac” (instead of His brother Ishamael), and “Jacob” (over Esau his brother).
Then we had a board discussion on freewill.
Then last week, we visited verses 11-13, which re-affirmed the principles of the week before dealing with God choosing what men He wanted, and then we launched into the meaty passages of 14-18, which say:
14 What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.
15 For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
16 So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.
17 For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.
18 Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.
After reading these verses we talked generally about the idea that because God says “He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy, and compassion on whom He will have compassion” in no ways means He created and/or chooses some people for hell and some people for heaven, as the determinists have alleged (along with five point Calvinists).
As a means to refute determinism, I proposed the following concepts:
First, we pointed out that God’s Love, manifested in and through His Son incarnate, is antithetical to the notion that God limits His love to only a certain number of people whom He capriciously chooses.
In fact, we know from 1st Timothy 4:10
That Jesus saved the whole world, not just some, as it says:
“For therefore we both labor and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, specially of those that believe.”
2nd, we said that from scripture we know that God’s love is in fact universal, that it is impartial (He is no RESPECTOR of persons), and that He desires all to “receive the gift His Son offers the whole world.”
I didn’t quote these passages last week, but consider them now:
1st Timothy 2:3-4 “For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior;
Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.”
Titus 2:11 “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men . . . “
2nd Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”
We also reiterated over and over that part of the problem of the “deterministic /Calvinist interpretation” of Romans 9 is that it assumes Paul is speaking of individual salvation. I suggested to you that this was not so.
I think we readily proved that Paul was addressing the fact that just as God had, of His own free will, chosen a nation to come through the line of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, He is now choosing a royal priesthood to come through the Gentiles – and not Israel! For what reason?
We see that it is His good will but Paul will also make it perfectly clear before this chapter is over that His ultimate good will is aimed at those who live by faith.
In verse six Paul rhetorically asks if the righteousness of God had failed, meaning had the promises God made to the Jews been rescinded? He then it asked if they had, was God now unrighteous? He answers his own query with, “God forbid!”
And from all of this we were able to see that Paul is using the Jews own respected history of God choosing them (with apparent capriciousness) to show the Jews that He now has the seemingly capricious right to choose Gentiles . . . based on the fact that they believe, while Israel has sought to establish favor with Him by and through their nationality and their own righteousness.
We also mentioned that throughout Romans 9, 10 and 11, Paul goes to great lengths to show that God’s goal had all along had been to reach out beyond the borders of Israel and win the
whole world.
We then jumped ahead and read the summary of all his thoughts which showed that Israel was set aside because they sought to reach and relate to God through their own works of the law while the Gentile nation was received because they have chosen to reach and relate to God through faith.
So, let’s continue to read from verse 19, where Paul seems to anticipates a retort that would certainly spring up in the face of this teaching and writes:
19 Thou wilt say then unto me, “Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?”
In other words, if his will is being done, how could God find fault with those who are doing what he wants?
How could anyone be guilty under the hand of the Master of Puppets, so to speak? Appears to be the question
How and why does he blame men, since their conduct is in accordance with his purposes?
And since he bestows mercy according to his will and hardens whom He will harden (as in the case of Pharoah), where is there fault? A couple of things to consider:
First, while God is certainly God, and He has the right to do as He wishes, I think there is some merit to this argument IF we believe that God causes/forces/makes people do His will. I mean, how could we trust, believe, hope, respect and love a God who has forced some of us to do evil and then punishes us for the evil we do?
Let’s step back and look at how scripture describes our God – that He is all good and all just to all people, that He IS love and that He does desire ALL to come to Him.
With this as our perspective – which is the Biblical perspective – let’s now consider the objection Paul seeks to head off at the pass.
First and foremost, the response Paul rhetorically provides is always the response of the faithless (guilty, sinful – whatever). Listen to what Paul says in verse 19, paraphrased in easier English:
19 Are you going to then ask, “How could God then find fault with me? If nobody can resist His will?”
Paul is preempting the argument that the Jew might make by proving that God can NEVER be held responsible even if He uses opportunities to His advantage to bring about His good pleasure.
Again, whether someone resists or supports God, His will will ultimately be done. He’s always in charge, and He is NEVER in danger of losing the war. However, His efforts are always just, right and good so therefore never forced, despotic, or evil – OR condemned or criticized.
2nd Chronicles 20:6 says:
“In thine hand is there not power and might, so that none is able to withstand thee?”
Daniel 4:35 says
“He doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?”
Psalm 115:3
“But our God is in the heavens: he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased.”
Remember the story of Joseph who was sold into Egypt?
That kid went through hell – tossed into a pit, sold into Egypt, thrown in jail as an innocent man, and what did he say to his groveling brothers who fearfully stood before him when they came to Egypt and he had been put in power?
Genesis 50:20 . . . as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.
So it was with the Jews having been chosen, so it is with every Gentile who believes.
And in the end, whether people are of faith or people are of great unbelief, His will is done as He uses their state of mind to bring about His expected end.
What we have seen is that His will has been exercised in different ways throughout Judeo/Christian history.
In the Garden of Eden, all avenues were available, and He was ready to respond. After the Fall, perhaps he became more hands on, stepping into the dark and arranging things to go the way He wanted with the situation at hand. Maybe when it came to gathering the Bride He sent a super abundance of His Spirit to those who he knew would bear their cross in faith, and remain pure, and then perhaps after everything was wrapped up from that former age and the Second Adam had victory over sin and death, and he was reconciled to the world, we all returned to living like Adam and Eve, and He opens all the avenues up of choice to us like He did to them, pulling back on His knowledge so all can freely choose to receive Him by faith and love – or not.
For those who do, Plan B called relationship is enacted and He becomes our God and we become His children.
But in verse 19, Paul speaks for the Jew, asking the question:
“Why does God then find fault? For who hath every been able to resist His will?
He goes on and what he says provides the second combination of punches a Calvinist will use from this chapter to prove predestination and no free will, saying:
Romans 9:19 Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth He (God) yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
20 No, but O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, “Why hast thou made me thus?”
21 Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor?
22 What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
23 And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,
24 Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
Now before we go verse by verse I think it is very important for us to actually read the context of the Old Testament term “potter” from which Paul uses here in his example.
Remember, Paul was a Jew of Jews, and was well versed in the Scripture, so his ability to speak with the Jews (though he was called by God to the Gentiles) was profound.
And here, addressing them about the fact that God has called the Gentiles now, he resorts to his knowledge of the Old Testament to support his teachings.
The imagery of the potter is found in a number of places in the Old Testament.
Psalm 2:9
Isaiah 29:16 Surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter’s clay: for shall the work say of him that made it, He made me not? or shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, He had no understanding?
Isaiah 41:25:
And perhaps more to the point Isaiah 64:8 also says, “But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.”
Lamentations 4:2 speaks of “The precious sons of Zion” how “they are the work of the hands of the potter!”
But the source I believe Paul draws from is found in Jeremiah 18:1-8. Now listen carefully to the context of this story and its meaning in Jeremiah:
1 The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,
2 Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words.
3 Then I went down to the potter’s house, and, behold, he (the potter) wrought a work on the wheels.
4 And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.
5 Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying, (Here’s the application)
6 O house of Israel, (nation of Israel) cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel.
7 At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it;
8 If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent (change my direction and mind toward them) of the evil that I thought to do unto them.
Okay. With that in mind, let’s get to verse 19.
Paul has just laid out that God will harden whom He will harden and have mercy on whom He will have mercy, and then in verse 19, he anticipates what the Jews will say in light of this teaching:
19 Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he God) yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
In verse 20-21 Paul answers this potential retort.
Now, what makes this difficult is Paul applies the illustration to a man – “O man,” a single individual – but he does this to illustrate how God works with both individuals and nations. So, let’s read again what Paul says back (verses 20-24):
20 Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, “Why hast thou made me thus?”
21 Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor?
22 What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
23 And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,
24 Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
First of all, and “SPEAKING OF THE NATION OF ISRAEL,” to bring about His overall will, God has the right to fashion them, his clay, however he saw fit. And this is precisely what he does, according to Paul. Paul asks:
“Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one object for special use and another for ordinary use?”
Just look at the Body today? Are some created or equipped to be used in one fashion and another created to be used in another? Absolutely.
AGAIN – we are talking about “use” here, (of the Nation of Israel first, and then of individuals). At the same time, we have to ask, is it the fact that God created some unto honor and some to dishonor that determines the outcome of our choice or is it how the created thing decides to respond with what they have been given.
Certainly God has created and equipped some with amazing attributes and others with apparently few gifts – but his creation is only part of the equation.
The other part of the equation, which is just as important in the outcome, is the choice of the created vessel.
Determinists seem to miss this point which flows out of Eden – God certainly created them and said that “they were good,” but He gave them the freewill to choose. And they chose badly. He created them right, they chose wrong.
But in order to explain God’s part of the equation, Paul asks:
What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the objects of wrath that are made for destruction; and what if he has done so in order to make known the riches of his glory for the objects of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory” (Romans 9:21-23).
The deterministic interpretation conveniently has Paul teaching that God simply fashions some vessels for destruction (in order to display his wrath and power) and other vessels for mercy (in order to display his mercy).
In other words, He “hardens the former and has mercy on the latter.”
Again, from the determinists, such hardening and mercy granted is NOT based on anything God finds of value or detriment in the thing created. It is simply based on God’s decision.
And if this position seems unfair, as it undoubtedly does to any thinking person, Paul’s response is given to prove their sentiment faulty, saying:
“[W]ho indeed are you, a human being, to argue with God? Can the thing that is molded say to the one who molds it, ‘Why have you made me like this?’” (Rom 9:20).
So, initially, the case for a deterministic interpretation of these passages looks strong.
However, to the Jews (who trusted in their national identity and/or external obedience to the law), the hardening of God appears arbitrary, capricious.
But, as Paul makes abundantly clear (throughout Romans chapters 9-11) that the hardening nor the mercy was arbitrary.
It was perfectly consistent with what we might call “the criteria of freewill faith” that God has always worked with in human beings.
Bottom line, throughout scripture, God gives mercy in response to faith and He hardens hearts in response to unbelief.
Listen – it is not the other way around.
People don’t have unbelief as the result of God hardening them first, and faith is not present as a result of God’s mercy.
We have faith and God is merciful.
We disbelieve and God hardens us more.
As a loving, just God, I would suggest He sovereignly gives all men and women exactly what they want – despite how they were created.
Here is where determinism loses great ground when compared with all of scripture. It cannot hold water in light of entire biblical context – especially when God made Adam and Eve Good but then then CHOSE bad.
Nevertheless, to Jews who remained convinced that their national identity and/or good works were the basis of God giving mercy, it now seemed like God was
arbitrarily hardening them and arbitrarily extending mercy to the Gentiles.
So let’s go back to the example Paul uses of the Potter and the Clay.
If we read what Paul says about the potter and the clay in light of its Old Testament background, Paul’s analogy of a potter working with clay does NOT imply that the potter unilaterally decides everything, as the deterministic interpretation of
Romans 9 suggests.
In fact, the Old Testament passages that makes the most use of the potter-clay analogy (the Jeremiah passages we read) the illustrations meaning is the exact opposite!
There the Lord has Jeremiah a potter who was working on a vessel that didn’t turn out right.
Verses 1-4 of Jeremiah 18 explain that the potter revised his plan and formed a different kind of vessel out of the clay.
Then in the application verses (4-11) the Lord said (with Him as the potter and Israel is the clay) he has the right and is willing to “change his mind” about his plans for Israel if . . . they would simply repent.
In this illustration, the Lord proclaims that whenever he’s going to judge a nation, he is willing to change his mind if the nation repents (and believes).
Conversely, whenever God announces that he’s going to bless a nation, he will change his mind if that nation turns away from him and He will curse them instead.
In other words, the point of the potter-clay analogy is not God’s unilateral, capricious control, but God’s willingness and right to change his plans in response to changing hearts.
This reciprocal relationship which we find all through scripture is often lost on five point Calvinists in their use of this reference by Paul to God and clay.
Perhaps most importantly, the passage fits perfectly with the point Paul is making in Romans chapters 9 -11.
While some individual Jews had accepted Jesus as the Messiah, the nation
as a whole had rejected Him, and thus rejected God’s purpose for them.
So even though God had previously blessed Israel, he was now hardening them based on their faithless rejection of His Son.
Ironically, and shockingly (as we mentioned a few weeks ago) the Jews were finding themselves in the very same position as their old nemesis Pharaoh, who, after hardened his heart toward
God, had God respond by hardening it further in order to use him for his own sovereign purposes.
I am convinced that had Pharaoh submitted, God would have worked His will through Him out in another way.
So, Paul was arguing that God was now hardening the Jews in their self-chosen unbelief as a means to further His sovereign purposes which was to reach the whole world with the good news – meaning the gentiles – and to install the Kingdom that He had planned from the foundation of the world.
And where he attempted to use their obedience to further His means He was now going to use their rebellion. When we read Romans 11 we will see that He accomplishes this by bring the non-Jewish world into a relationship with him by virtue of the hard hearts of the nation of Israel.
But we must remember that even in the case of the hard hearts of the nation of Israel, the sovereign potter remains flexible.
If the Jews (as a nation OR as individuals) would have abandon their unbelief – clearly God’s hardening is not determinative or irrevocable – and He as the potter will once again refashion his plan and graft them in, making them a new vessel, just as Jeremiah does.
Conversely, if the Gentiles abandon their belief and become prideful – clearly God’s mercy is not determinative or irrevocable – the potter will once again refashion his plan for them, harden them and cut them off (Romans 11:12-25).
In the end, we can see that the point of the potter analogy used contextually is the opposite of what the deterministic interpretation would have us believe.
To me Paul’s point is that the sovereign potter has the right to revise his plans in
response to the clay, which is exactly what God was doing to the nation of
Israel.
Listen, no matter how “arbitrary” or capricious His revisions may appear to Jews who have trusted in their nationality or good works, they are in fact perfectly wise and just revisions – based on His foreknowledge and will.
Hopefully this perspective sheds light on why Paul responds to the charge that God is unfair by quoting God as saying,
“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy.”
God is not suggesting that He despotically gives mercy or hardens people without any consideration of the free-will choices they make. In order to believe that we have to read into the text.
Again, as evidenced throughout all of scripture, God “chooses” to have mercy on are those who have faith, whether they are Jews or Gentiles.
Remember Rahab, the harlot non-Jew?
She chose to believe, is now mentioned in Hebrews 11 as one shown mercy due to her choice to trust. Same with the Syrophonecian woman.
And (LISTEN carefully) – the people God chooses to harden are those who don’t “strive for [righteousness] by faith but either renounce Him through doubt OR (or, or, or – and this is a big or) or those who seek to relate and be His according to works. This is a major point Paul is pointing out ALL through Romans.
He has proven through sound argumentation that the Gospel is now both available to all AND that it is COMPLETELY founded upon faith – and not national lineage or works of the flesh.
Anyone, since Christ has come, who looks to their own works of righteousness, will be hardened, while those who look to Him and seek Him by faith alone will receive mercy.
The warning, then, against legalism, cannot get more stern.
This is exactly why Paul (to the Jews who insisted that God must choose people based on their nationality or works) emphasizes God’s right to have mercy on whomever he wishes!
I cannot stress this enough in the face of our all holy, just, and merciful God – It is our choice that determines whether God will fashion us (the nation of Israel, or anyone else) into a vessel of mercy or a vessel prepared for loss.
This position also explains why, in verse 22, that Paul says that God “endured with much patience” the vessels he was preparing for destruction (Rom. 9: 22).
Why would God have to “endure with much patience” rebellious people if he was the one making them rebellious in the first place?
In relation to the Nation of Israel why would He say,
“All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people” (Romans 10:21 quoting Isaiah 65:2) if he was the one molding them to be disobedient?
And why would a God of love (made manifest in the Man/God of Jesus Christ) intentionally fashion people to rebel against him and bring destruction on themselves in the first place?
This imagery is not presented in the life and work and suffering of our Lord.
No, the potter endures with much patience the vessels and the destruction Paul was writing about was literal and headed their way. Why? Because His patience had run out.
And then we come to the summary of the chapter again!
Romans 9:30-32 What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith.
31 But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness.
32 Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumblingstone;
Now listen to what Paul says at the opening of Chapter 10:
Romans 10:1 Brothers, my heart’s desire and my prayer to God for them is, that they may get salvation.
2 For I give witness of them that they have a strong desire for God, but not with knowledge.
3 Because, not having knowledge of God’s righteousness, and desiring to give effect to their righteousness, they have not put themselves under the righteousness of God.
4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who has faith.
Hear verses 12-13
For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him.
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Hear Romans 11:22–23!
Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off. And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in: for God is able to graff them in again.
To read specific passages out of Romans 9 and Ephesians 1 ignores the context of all these other evidences:
Especially with the supremacy of God’s self-revelation in Christ.
One of the beautiful foundations that we have as believers in the Living God is His enduring love, His extreme longsuffering, His inordinate affection for fallen, sinful creatures like Man.
To replace this picture of God as Jesus Christ dying on the cross for undeserving sinners with the Calvinistic picture of a capricious, arbitrary deity defies all these moral and holy attributes all as a means to create some people (He is supposed to love) for hell and others arbitrarily for heaven outside their faith or lack of it is abominable!
It exchanges the picture of a beautiful God who reigns supreme with self-sacrificial love and flexible wisdom for a picture of a God who reigns by the arbitrary exercise of sheer power and indifference.
I absolutely affirm, with all my being, that our sovereign God “has mercy on whomever he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whomever he wants to harden” as a means to bring about His will.
“Whomever he has mercy” refers to “all who choose to believe” while the “whomever he hardens” refers to “all who refuse to believe.”
Comments / Questions
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PRAYER
Michael in Great Britain KIDNEY CANCER SURGERY this Wednesday, Justin Nielson and his family and wife Brooke, the Webster family (five currently with Covid) and any others out there who are struggling with their health and well being.
