The controversy concerning what Romans 9 says was not lost
on Paul’s original audience nor is it lost on any student of the Bible today.
As introduced earlier in our study of Romans 9-11, these passages, the truths
therein, and the applications thereof, are difficult to understand and harder
to digest. That said, no matter how difficult these truths may be, they must be
included in any biblically-informed understanding of the gospel. However, for
those who, like many, bring charges against God and question His ability to
choose His people based on His prerogative, Paul provides a defense in Romans
9:19-29. Today we are going to observe four elements of Paul’s defense of God’s
prerogative and come to understand who the People of God are and what they are/aren’t
able to demand.
a) The Potter is
Questioned-9:19
As Paul progresses in his presentation he continues to
employ a conversation with a hypothetical objector. In fact, in verse 1, verse
14, and now in verse 19, this objector brings charges against Paul’s salient
points and provide the apostle with an opportunity to further explain/defend
what he has introduced. These objections begin with a question that confronts
something that was presented immediately prior. In this latest case, the
objector asks “why does He still find fault?” (9:19). This inquiry is based on
what Paul has said about God’s prerogative in verses 14-18. If God is choosing
people and hardening others, some might ask “how can God fault those who refuse
Him?”
After all, “who resists His will?” (9:19b) or, put another
way, “who can go against what God has ordained?” This line of questioning was
inevitable and, continues to this day. Paul’s relatively clear presentation of
God’s freedom to choose who His people are remains just as provocative as it
must have been in the first century.
However, the way in which this question is framed takes on
different forms in our own context. Some might ask, for instance, "if God chooses
His people, are those whom He has chosen really free to make the choice in His
direction in the first place?" Others might ask, "if God doesn’t choose others,
are the unchosen not free to choose God if they wanted to?" Still others might
wonder if God’s sovereignty doesn’t erase human freedom altogether, leading to determinism.
b) The Pottery is
Cross Examined-9:20-22
Interestingly, instead of answering this question, Paul
rebukes the inquirer—“On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to
God?...” (9:20). There are two theories on what Paul is doing in answering this
way. First, some believe that he is harshly scolding those who would dare make
God answerable to humans (Mounce, Romans,
201). Others think that Paul is attempting to help this hypothetical objector
see how his question(s) are illegitimate in the sense that the creature has no
right to question to Creator. In either case, Paul’s retort highlights how
inappropriate it is for humans to demand exhaustive knowledge of what God has
left mysterious. In fact, the verb for “answers back” in this context carries
the connotation of talking back or expressing disapproval in response to
something done or said.
In an effort to illustrate how out of place it is for humans
to demands these kinds of answers, Paul asks the following, “the thing molded
will not say to the molder, ‘Why did you make me like this’ will it?” (9:20). In
other words, “Man has no more right to talk back to his creator than the pot to
the Potter” (A. M. Hunter, Romans, 91).
There were few household items that were more common than pottery
in the first century. Additionally, the Old Testament frequently uses the
imagery of a potter and clay to say something about God’s control over His
creation. Nearest to Paul’s statement here is Isaiah 29:16.
Isaiah 29:16-“… Shall the potter be considered as
equal with the clay, That what is made would say to its maker, ‘He did not
make me’; Or what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘He has no understanding’?”
(see also Isa. 45:9-10; Jer. 18:1-6; Job 10:9; 38:14).
In both Isaiah and Romans the author finds it unacceptable
that the product would prevail upon the producer to understand or know his internal
motivations.
After all “does not the potter have a right over the clay,
to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common
use?” as Paul asks in verse 21. He went out and bought the clay or made the
clay himself. As a result he owns the clay and can do as he pleases it. He does
not seek the guidance of the clay before molding it with his hands nor does the
will of the clay supervene over what the potter has purposed to make.
Similarly, God created the world and the people therein. He,
as a result, owns it all and can do as He pleases with it. In fact, the potter
and the clay imagery is not as figurative as it is a direct reference to
Genesis.
Genesis 2:7-“Then the Lord God formed man of dust
from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man
became a living being.”
There, man was literally formed by God’s hand from the
ground much like a potter forms a masterwork on the spinning table. Mankind
owes its very existence and survival to God and therefore, lays no claim to…well,…anything.
This includes an exhaustive understanding of the way God works in the salvation
process.
Applied to what Paul is saying here, He wonders why God (the
creator, owner, and director) could not make different things out of the same
substance as He wills (“make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use
and another for common use?”). Like a potter who fashions things for specific
purposes as desired (ornamental vessels and other for menial uses) God is free
to do the same. In fact, an example of the latter has already been offered in
the reference to Pharaoh earlier in 9:14-18.
However, rather than ending on a negative note and example,
Paul ends by once again highlighting the mercy inherent within God’s choosing
by raising a fourth question in response to the objection made earlier—“What if
God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make known His power,
endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?” (9:22). This
is where a lot of people miss the real essence of Paul’s analogy. Far from the
potter and pottery being a symbol of God’s active creation of vessels intended
for destruction, here, Paul suggests that God is willing to tolerate and, in
fact, redeem broken cups. After all, it was His intention to be a potter who
made only the greatest! However, as a result of sin (which, news flash, is a
result of PEOPLE’S FAILURE), only vessels of wrath prepared for destruction
exist (sinners deserving of condemnation). What was intended for perfection has
been broken and cracked –fitting only for the trash heap. However, God, while
perfectly justified in destroying the whole lot, chose to “endure with much
patience” such vessels. “’Objects of wrath’ are not summarily dismissed with no
concern for their lot as those not chosen. God’s sovereignty does not reduce
humans to helpless automatons. Although it was God’s will to show His wrath
against sin and make known His power, He nevertheless postponed action against
those who will someday experience His judicial displeasure” (Mounce, 202). Even
further, some of those wrathful objects will be redeemed!
Therefore, this passage is not a suggestion of God’s
choosing to see that some are destroyed as much as it is an argument for God
choosing some of what would be destroyed saved from such destruction.
Hallelujah!
c) The Purpose is
Revealed-9:23
Paul explains again as in verse 17-18, that the reason God
does this (and really anything for that matter) is to glorify Himself—“And He
did so to make known the riches of His glory” (9:23a). It is a glorious God who
shows mercy on those who do not deserve it. It is a glorious God who is
longsuffering and patient on those bent against Him.
Though God is glorified, as we learned in 14-18, in both
choosing some and hardening others, this glory is most acutely realized in the
lives of what Paul calls “vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for
glory” (9:23b). After all, these are those who receive what they do not deserve—grace
in spite of their sin. Such vessels live as examples of God’s unconditional
love and mercy. Paul says that these vessels—the people of God—were prepared
beforehand for this special capacity to glorify God. Much as Jacob was while in
the womb, these, as Paul has said in Romans 8 were “predestined,…called,…justified,…and
glorified” (8:30).
d) The Participants
are Identified-9:24-29
Chosen/hardened, vessels of mercy/vessels of wrath. These
are the distinctions that Paul has identified when it comes to the human race.
The people of God are those vessels of mercy that God has chosen for His
glorious purposes. But what kind of diversity is there in this special group?
Paul provides the answer in verses 24-29 when he provides three categories that
successfully identify what kinds of people God chooses to be vessels of mercy.
First among these are Jews and Gentiles—“Even us, whom He
also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among gentiles” (9:24).
This may have come as a surprise to some in Paul’s audience. Many in the Jewish
community believed that they had a monopoly on God’s affections and yet, Paul indicates
here that both Jews and Gentiles are chosen of God to be included among His
people. This means that God is not a respecter or race, ethnicity, geography,
or tradition. People of all kinds are chosen by God and welcomed into his
family.
The second category given in describing God’s people are
former outsiders. As He says also in Hosea, ‘I will call those who were not My
people, ‘My people,’ and her who was not
beloved ‘beloved’ and it shall be that in the place where it was said to them ‘You
are not My people,’ there they shall be called sons of the living God” (9:25-26).
Here, Paul quotes two verses from Hosea (Hosea 2:23 and 1:10). Hosea was a
prophet that was asked to marry a harlot and remain with her even after she left
him. This served as an illustration of God’s unconditional love for and
faithfulness toward his people who, on multiple occasions followed after other
God’s (cheating on their first love). One
of the things that Hosea reveals in his book is this: because God’s people (the
Jews) could not remain faithful, God would extend his grace to others (non-Jews)
and bring them into His family. Those formally on the outside looking in would
be welcomed to the table.
Jesus reiterates this pattern of accepting outsiders
throughout His ministry. He confronted a Samaritan woman in John 4, invited
himself over to Zaccheus’ house in Luke 19:1-10; dined with sinners in Matthew
9:10, and touched many who were ceremonially unclean, bringing healing not only
to their bodies, but also to their isolation.
The next term that Paul uses to describe the people of God
is “remnant”—“Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, ‘Though the number of the
sons of Israel be like the sand of the sea, it is the remnant that will be
saved; for the Lord will execute His word on the earth, thoroughly and quickly”
(9:27-28). Earlier Paul mentioned that not everyone who calls themselves Jewish
is really a spiritual member of God’s family.
Romans 2:28-“For he is not a Jew who is one
outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But he is a
Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the
Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God.”
Later Paul said that Jewish family heritage, titles, and
traditions matter very little when it comes to being among the People of God.
Romans 9:3-5-“For I could with that I myself were
accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen
according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as
sons, and the glory and the covenants, and the giving of the Law and the temple
service and the promises, whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ
according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever, Amen.”
Ultimately, the people of God have been and will continue to
be a chosen remnant of true believers that exist in a larger body of mere
professors.
God has always had a chosen remnant. For instance, Noah and
his family were a remnant used to save humanity from annihilation. It is when a
remnant doesn’t exist that real disaster ensues. This was the case in the story
referenced by Paul in 9:29—“And just as Isaiah foretold, ‘Unless the Lord of
Sabaoth had left to us a posterity, We would have become like Sodom and would
have resembled Gomorrah.”
In the tragedy of Sodom and Gomorrah, God was willing to
spare the city and her inhabitants if he found a remnant of faithful followers
therein. The size of the remnant that Abraham negotiates with God moves from 50
to 45 to 40 to 30 to 20 to just 10. However, God didn’t find a remnant of ten.
Only Abraham, Lot and their respective wives were spared as God rained down
fire upon this wicked metropolis.
Paul’s point in Romans 9 is that a remnant does exist among
the Jews of true followers of the Lord Jesus Christ and so long as there is,
salvation among the Jews would continue.
Who are among the chosen people of God? Saved Jews and
Gentiles, former outsiders, and a persevering remnant of faithful followers.
So What?
These elements of Paul’s defense of God’s prerogative
provide us with an understanding of who the people of God are. Are you among
these? Can it be said of your life that you belong to the people of God? Are
you a redeemed vessel of God’s glory or are you still a broken vessel, at risk
of being discarded? The good news today is this- “God although willing to
demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known” is enduring “with much
patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,” allowing them an
opportunity to respond positively to His gift of salvation? Do you need to take
advantage of God’s patience today?
For those who have accepted God’s grace but make demands on
understanding everything about God’s choice in the matter, remember exactly who
you are and who God is. You are a product of God’s creation and recreation—God is
the Creator and Savior. As such He is free to do as He pleases and we don’t
have the right to insist that He make explicit what He has left mysterious.
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