Romans 9:10–24

The Apostle next takes up the story of Isaac and proves the same principle by his two sons. With Abraham, a Jew might object that the two sons had different mothers. No one can object that way about the sons of Isaac. Jacob and Esau were both sons of Rebecca. If the blessing comes by natural descent, then the children of both sons would inherit the promises. But that would force the Jew to include the Edomites, the people descended from Esau. No Jew would do that.

There is more. Rebecca conceived by one man, Isaac. Here no one could dodge the point by saying the mother was a slave. Before the children were born, before they had done good or bad, God said the elder shall serve the younger. If the right comes by natural descent, you must let the Edomites in. If the Jew did not consent to this, he must consent to sovereignty in election.

In the first case the mother was different, even if the father was not. In His wisdom God saw a need to show His sovereign choice even more plainly. And that is what happened here. Esau had the same father and the same mother as Jacob, and the two were twins. No closer match between two people could be found than these two sons of Isaac and Rebecca.

Rebecca was the wife of Isaac the heir of promise. God had appointed her for him, and God sped Abraham's servant on his way to find her (Gen. 24). God, then, was in the birth of Isaac and the choice of Rebecca. Further, the conception of Rebecca was in answer to the prayer of Isaac's faith. He prayed for seed, and a double answer came; twins were in the womb of Rebecca.

So the apostle contrasts God's call with works, not with our faith. He does this to shut out a weak idea some writers have held: that God's choice is governed by seeing ahead which man would turn out better. Language could not contradict this more plainly. Esau had done no wrong to disqualify him, and Jacob no good to qualify him.

This shows us that God chooses because of what He is in Himself, not because of what men show themselves to be by their works.

Esau has no ground for complaint. God chose Jacob before he was born. But God did not say "Esau I have hated" until long after Esau was born, and not until Esau's character, and the character of his descendants, had been shown in full. (Mal. 1:3)

He proves to Israel that arguing against God's sovereign right to choose means giving up everything they have been given. For how did they get in? Was it by birth? No; for on that ground Ishmael and Esau had the precedence. Was it by works? No; for they made the golden calf. How then? Simply by God's sovereign mercy. Well then, if God is sovereign, He can show mercy to whoever He wants. And blessed be His Name, because that opens the door for us poor Gentiles — the nations outside Israel.

The Apostle next takes up the story of Isaac and proves the same principle by his two sons. With Abraham, a Jew might object that the sons had different mothers. No one could raise that objection about the sons of Isaac. Jacob and Esau were both sons of Rebekah. So if the blessing comes by natural descent, the children of both sons would inherit the promises — and then the Jew would have to include the Edomite. No Jew would do that.

The apostle contrasts the call of God with works, not with our faith. He does this to shut out the weak idea, held by some, that God's choice is governed by seeing in advance that one person is better than the other. Language could not contradict that idea more plainly. Esau had done no wrong to disqualify him, and Jacob no good to qualify him. But before either twin was born, God in His sovereign will chose that the older should serve the younger.

The purpose of God is according to election i.e. according to God's sovereign choice. This principle 'abides'. It is 'not of works' — neither works done at the moment God chooses, nor works done later: it is 'not of works' at all! ... It is 'of Him who calls'. Here is the true source, origin and centre of God's purpose and election: it is in 'Him who calls' — in God Himself.

Election, then, is distinct from foreknowledge, though based upon it. God's election, or choice, is not a blind, random drawing of lots... He chooses in the full light of His foreknowledge. So no sinner who truly wants to be saved finds the door shut against him because he is not one of the elect. His very desire is the fruit of the Spirit's work.

Verse 13 has caused difficulty. But that statement comes from the book of Malachi. Those words were written long after both men had fully shown what was in them. Verse 12, by contrast, records what God said before their birth.

Nothing shows this more fully than the choice of the younger son before either was born. When the younger son is chosen after birth — as with Joseph or David — people can say that his actions or his natural character earned him that preference. The important principle is that none of them have any claim at all.

Here we see their history on earth marked out beforehand. It is all the more striking because the unborn children had the same mother as well as the same father — they were twins... So God showed His sovereignty to be as free as it is sure to faith. This disproves descent by birth, on which the Jews based their exclusive title... His word made the point sharper still by declaring that "the older will serve the younger," and this with a view to the nations they would become.

There is then an election which distinguishes between the children of the promise and the children of the flesh. Once again you must allow the sovereignty of God. Without it, all is over with you since Sinai, where you broke the covenant of the Lord... So there is no unrighteousness with God. You have no room to complain, if He acts toward the Gentiles in the same sovereign mercy which He has shown to you.

Like many others, you confuse two distinct passages of Holy Scripture. God did not say, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated," before the children were born. He said it hundreds of years later, after the real character and daily ways of each man had come out fully. Before the children were born He said only this: "the older shall serve the younger." It is more than a sad mistake to represent God as hating a man before he was born. In Amos 1:11 we read, "For three transgressions of Edom, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because he pursued his brother with the sword and cast off all pity, and his anger tore perpetually, and he kept his wrath forever." Do we not have here ample grounds for the divine hatred?

Esau had done no wrong to disqualify him, and Jacob no good to qualify him. But before either twin was born, God chose by His own sovereign will that the greater should serve the lesser. Such was His purpose. Their works had nothing to do with the matter and count for nothing here. Everything rests on the caller, God Himself.

There is no ground here for the absolute rejection which Calvin draws from this passage. Genesis 25 does not hint by a single syllable at hating the unborn Esau. Man hastily infers the rejection of one from the choice of the other. This is unfounded. Out of two who have no claim, to choose one for a higher place is an act of will. But to show favour in one case is not to condemn the other. In themselves both were born in sin, and no doubt grew up in sins. That is what makes a man liable to condemnation, which turns on man's sins, not on God's purpose... The love to Jacob was free; the hatred had moral grounds in Esau.

Long centuries after both men had lived out their lives and formed their characters, God said, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." Jacob, with all his many faults, was a man of faith, and comes into blessing on the ground of grace. Esau, with many natural excellencies, had no fear of God, and misses the blessing though he was the older son by natural descent.

The evidence Malachi gives is drawn wholly, not from God's action towards Esau himself, but from God's judgments on his descendants: "I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert." And in other Scriptures we find that these judgments came on them because of their unrelenting hatred of Israel.

But now go further down in your history, and you come to Jacob and Esau. If you go by descent, you must let in the Edomites on the same terms as yourselves... so your mouth must now be closed as to descent. God's own words stop it: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." He has chosen, by His sovereign right, to bless you, and your blessing depends on that alone... If we ask, "Is there unrighteousness with God?" and truly call Him into question, we are seeking to judge God instead of letting God judge us.

To these arguments the flesh may object that to choose one and not the other is unrighteous. Is there, then, unrighteousness with God? Far from it, says the Apostle. To answer this objection he points to one case in Israel's history. There it is plain that God acted in sovereign grace, and yet no one could charge Him with unrighteousness. He recalls the terrible sin of Israel when they made a golden calf and worshipped it. There can be no question about the unrighteousness of that act. They had broken the first command, and the penalty was death. Righteousness could have destroyed them all.

If we start to ask, "Is there unrighteousness with God?" and really mean to call Him into question, we are trying to judge God, instead of letting God judge us. Whenever someone questions the sovereignty of God, the soul is saying, in effect: I am the one to judge God, and God is not to judge me.

The truth is that Israel was ruined at the foot of the mountain, the very place where they had promised to obey everything God commanded. And what did God say to Moses? "I will have mercy," and so on. So the sovereignty they disliked when God showed mercy to the Gentiles turns out to be everything to the Jew.

Mercy is an attribute of God Himself, part of the character of God which showed itself when sin came into the world. In Romans 9:14 we find it stated clearly and with care. Verse 16 guards it: blessing "is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs." Man says, "I will, I run, and so I get blessing." No; that is not the way. Mercy is the root; after mercy follows the will, then the running, then the doing of His commandments.

But here a warning note is struck. God's sovereignty is like a two-edged weapon. God may show it in mercy. He may also show it in carrying out judgment. With Israel, guilty of the sin of the golden calf, He showed it in mercy. With Pharaoh, He showed it in hardening that king.

But did you ever think it through, or find out where this statement about God's love was written? It is found, as we have already seen, in the last book of the Old Testament — Malachi. God does not record these words until thirteen hundred years after the men named had passed off the scene.

Do you think that God is less just than you? "What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means!" (Rom. 9:14). Is He less compassionate than you? He has revealed Himself in Jesus, and He "is rich to all who call upon Him" (Rom. 10:12). If He is sovereign, it is in compassion and mercy, while judgment is His strange work. We may rejoice and be glad in the first. The second we do not understand, so we leave it to Him who will do right in all things.

To answer this objection, the Apostle points to one case in Israel's history. There God plainly acted in sovereign grace, and no one could charge Him with unrighteousness. He recalls the terrible sin of Israel when they made a golden calf and worshipped it. Of the unrighteousness of this act there can be no question. They had broken the first command, and the penalty was death. Righteousness could have destroyed them all. But what did God do? He fell back on His sovereignty and said, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." God falls back on the very principle the Jew objects to. Without it, all Israel would have been destroyed.

History and prophecy alike showed that the blessing of Israel hangs on God's sovereignty... So the very sovereignty they disliked when God showed mercy to the Gentiles proves to be everything to the Jew.

Ruth the Moabite is a striking instance in Old Testament times of God's mercy shown outside the limits of Israel, the nation the Lord chose out of all others to be His own people. In this impressive example, the Lord acted on His own right to show favour where, when, and how He pleased.

Once the shared guilt and ruin of every creature has been proved, justice is no longer the question in any display of God's favour towards them... By its very nature, mercy is controlled and directed by the will of the One who shows it. Nothing deserving in the person draws it out. Human misery is itself the natural effect of God's judgment against sin, so it cannot force mercy to act. We must look for its deep and blessed spring in the mystery of the love of God — in God Himself, whose name is Love.

How blessed then for Israel that it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy! Romans 9:16 states this principle in general terms: the question is not man's desires or efforts, but God's will. Besides, when we come to the facts of the case, we find that man neither wishes nor seeks for mercy. It is too late, then, for man to talk of rights. The truth is that man himself is all wrong, and righteousness rests on God having His rights.

God's sovereignty is like a two-edged weapon. He may display it in showing mercy. He may also display it in executing judgment. In Israel's case, when they were guilty of the sin of the golden calf, He displayed it in mercy. In Pharaoh's case He displayed it by hardening that king.

In truth, God's sovereignty is always on the side of mercy. Some people fix on one side of the truth and deny another that Scripture states just as strongly — that man is responsible to God. They sometimes go so far as to say that God elects the lost to be damned. Never was there a greater mistake.

Only God can really say "I will". The moment God said that, the death of Christ became a necessity. How could God carry out His will which involved the showing of mercy apart from the cross?

When was it that He said to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion"? It was when, on grounds of bare righteousness, Israel ought to have been cut off. God then drew back, so to speak, into His sovereignty, to spare Israel. Righteousness would have condemned them as they stood around their golden idol. How blessed then for Israel that it does not depend on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy! Romans 9:16 states this principle in general terms. The question is not man's desires or efforts, but God's will. Besides, when we come to the facts of the case, we find that man neither wishes nor seeks for mercy. It is too late, then, for man to talk of rights.

The words may hint at Isaac's well-known wish, which came to nothing, and at Esau's efforts to gain by the hunt, which failed too. They may hint at Jacob as well, who was faulty enough to lose everything by his trickery — except that sovereign mercy secured the promise to him. It is certainly the conclusion of grace against man's empty confidence in his own will and effort.

Man will have no mercy on himself. Man goes marching to everlasting woe. We can see thousands around us doing this — old and young… "So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy." This is grace, the free favour of God. He shows mercy to the man who has no mercy for himself. It is not man, the sinner, who chooses God. God chooses the sinner… God has chosen those who never would have chosen Him.

God, by His Spirit, does for us or in us what we never would, or could, do for ourselves or by ourselves. The work from first to last is God's.

But here comes a warning. God's sovereignty is like a two-edged weapon. He may display it in showing mercy. He may also display it in carrying out judgment. With Israel, guilty of the sin of the golden calf, He displayed it in mercy. With Pharaoh, He displayed it by hardening that king.

Let us by the grace of God firmly hold both of these great facts. God is sovereign in how He acts in grace. Man, though fallen, is a responsible creature, and God addresses him as one… So let us accept both, even if for now we cannot see far enough to work out how they fit together.

But to whom is God pleased to show mercy? Certainly not to the self-righteous mockers, who by their very attitude deny their need of mercy. It is to the repentant — those who confess themselves sinners and call on the Name of the Lord in their extremity… God has sovereign title to show mercy, and man must bow to this divine sovereignty. Indeed, can anything do more good for man than being subject to his Creator?

If mercy has declared itself, and He has spared us, we must still never forget that His estimate of what we are stands on record… The rainbow in the cloud declares His faithfulness to His promise. We stand on the ground of MERCY, and if we forget it, He does not… We look at the cloud; God looks at the rainbow. What grace is here!

Then he treats all the history of Genesis as the word of God. He cites the account in Exodus too, first as declaring that God spoke to Moses, and then as to the history of Pharaoh. And here it is as Scripture says it. This is for Paul the same as God saying it.

God never makes a man bad. Pharaoh was already bad, and his resistance to God's most striking appeals made him worse. God brought him into the open. He raised him up from among men to such a height that his downfall would tell on consciences far and wide throughout the world.

Had Pharaoh been one of the common people in Egypt, his stubborn heart would not have been brought publicly into evidence, but God raised him to a place of eminence... Every fresh expression of Pharaoh's stubborn will only brought out some fresh expression of the mighty power of God, and his pursuit of Israel only brought before men the mighty power that could dry up the Red Sea, save His people, and destroy Pharaoh and his host.

Mercy had been within his reach, but he refused it again and again. God warned him six times about the folly of resisting Him, sending terrible plagues, but each time he hardened his heart. (Exodus 7:13 should read, "And Pharaoh's heart was hardened (or strong) so that he did not listen." The Lord did not harden him in judgment until chapter 9:12.) Then came that terrible word: "Indeed, for this cause I have raised you up, to show in you My power." If people despise privilege and mercy, God hardens their hearts, and uses them as beacon lights of His power and wrath.

The hardening of Pharaoh's heart was largely brought about by the very mercy shown to him... The sun that melts the ice may harden the clay. It is the same sun that does both.

If the word of God forms our minds, we shall find that God always holds man responsible. He judges and condemns him for his own sins, and not by any predetermined decree.

Israel's natural enemies drew this conclusion: the king was judged justly, because he had hardened his heart against the God of Israel. That holds whatever the Lord's secret purposes may have been, as Moses knew them.

When God did raise up Pharaoh, the world at large was sunk in idolatry. Pharaoh was the head of what was probably the most idolatrous nation on the face of the earth. He also held a place where God's sovereign power, displayed in his case, would travel far and wide among the nations. Was there no goodness shown in the very fact that He was executing judgment "against all the gods of Egypt"?... In the case of Rahab, added to, no doubt, by other testimonies, we see how much it accomplished.

If God had dealt in righteousness, all Israel would have been cut off. Nothing but the sovereignty of God could be a door of escape... this, on the side of mercy; on the side of judgment, Pharaoh served as an example. He was the enemy of God and of His people. He treated the claims of God with contempt and lifted himself up in pride against Him: "Who is the Lord, that I should obey him? I will not let his people go."

God had already shown the mercy in His dealing with Israel after they made the golden calf, and the hardening in the case of Pharaoh. The Apostle reasons from both facts to defend the sovereignty of God. That sovereignty lets the Gentiles in while Israel is set aside, and it is still the only foundation for Israel's own hopes… History and prophecy alike showed that Israel's blessing hangs on God's sovereignty. Israel was ruined at the foot of the mountain, where they had promised to obey all that God commanded… The very sovereignty they disliked when it was shown in mercy to the Gentiles is proved to be everything to the Jew.

Both were wicked — Israel and Pharaoh. Righteousness would have condemned both. He has mercy on one, and hardens the other, where plain righteousness would have condemned both. This is sovereignty. He proves Himself not only righteous — the day of judgment will prove that — but proves Himself God. This matters more than anything to us all: without it no one would be saved.

In setting up the golden calf, Israel did wickedly, and God in sovereignty showed mercy. Pharaoh also did wickedly, and God judged him. Where does the sovereignty of God come in here? Is it not seen in this, that again and again God acted in sovereign mercy by removing the plagues? But this mercy only became the occasion of Pharaoh hardening his heart.

It is true that God hardened Pharaoh's heart. But He did so only after Pharaoh had shown extreme and staggering arrogance by saying, "Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice…?" (Ex. 5:2). And He did so only after Pharaoh had hardened his own heart again and again. In fact, the Spirit uses two different words in the original language and says no fewer than seven times that Pharaoh hardened his heart (Ex. 7:13, 14; 7:22; 8:15, 19, 32; 9:7) before saying that God hardened the heart of Pharaoh (Ex. 9:12).

God never made any man bad. But He may, and in some cases does, give people up to the consequences of their own folly and evil. That is, He hardens in judgment those who make light of His grace and reject it… Pharaoh grew more wicked the more patience God showed. In the end God, whom he had despised, blinded him in judgment and made him an example. All are responsible. Sin destroys the ability to obey God, not the responsibility.

Hardening came on him as a judgment, and in the end utter ruin. So then He has mercy on whomever He wills, and He hardens whomever He wills. On a large scale, it was so with Israel (Isaiah 6), and it will be so with Christendom (2 Thess. 2). Man is wicked and rejects God. God then, in His sovereign wisdom, can and does give men up to hardness… Notice too that while God hardens whom He will, He does not make men wicked; but He may take a wicked man to make an example of His justice in his case.

Let every rebel against God beware, in case Pharaoh's fate becomes his own… People may say, if that is so, "Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?" Did not Pharaoh resist God? Have you not resisted and refused God? "Who are you, O man, to answer back to God?"… Did not Pharaoh fit himself for destruction? The same is true of every sinner.

"Why does He still find fault?" Who has resisted His will? If God hardens a man, how can the man help himself, and how can God find fault with the man? The Apostle's first answer to this objection is a very direct one. He asks, "Who are you to find fault with God?"

boulema only occurs in Acts 27:43, translated "purpose," and Romans 9:19, "will."

Here it is not simply righteousness, but power exercised according to His will. It is the objection of man, based on the impossibility of resisting. God's sovereign exercise of His will is really no answer on man's part to the guilt of the exercise of his own. But man uses it that way, because if God does what He pleases, man pleads it as an excuse: it rests with God, so why blame man? The apostle does not argue about how unreasonable this is, but, as is most fitting, puts God in His place and man in his.

When God says "But who are you, O man, to answer back to God?" notice how man's voice falls silent. There are no more objections. God has the final word.

The objection seems to rest on how absolutely the apostle had just stated both God's mercy and His hardening. The unbroken will of man uses this to resolve every question of good and evil into the divine purpose. But this is only a human conclusion. It loses sight of God's moral glory and of the creature's responsibility. So it goes against the most basic truths, and would destroy all truth, holiness, and righteous judgment.

Scripture never says that sin was God's purpose. But man, fallen under sin, is the platform where He does display His ways, His counsels, and even Himself. God did not make any man to be evil. But from all of them — who are evil already — He does choose according to His sovereign will. He shows mercy to some, not all, though all are no more guilty than the some may have been. It would be perfectly just to destroy all. But if it pleases Him to spare whom He will, who can tell Him not to?

To say no to Him would be to claim to stand above God. It is really an attempt to judge Him. Now whenever a sinner is converted, he feels and owns the just judgment of God... yet he never gives up in despair. He looks and cries — feebly at first perhaps, but with growing earnestness — for mercy.

Undoubtedly the purpose of God does stand, and there is no creature that does not in the end serve His will... Take the cross itself as the plainest and most unanswerable example. But should this weaken our moral judgment of the creature's wickedness? Does it deny that Satan and man are responsible for all they do against Him, or that both must be punished for it? ... God has His determinate counsel and foreknowledge. The Jews played their evil part, the Gentiles theirs.

If God hardens a man, how can the man help himself, and how can God find fault with the man? The Apostle's first answer to this objection is very blunt. He asks, "Who are you to find fault with God?" Suppose you do not understand — is God to give you an account of His matters? We have to remember that we are only men and that God is God, and we do well to give Him His place as God. God is the One who forms. Man is the thing formed. Shall the thing formed complain to the One who forms, "Why have you made me like this?"

It has the sense of "yes, indeed, if you talk of that."… Romans 9:20, "Ah, indeed, you talk of calling God in question; who are you then?"

If the creature is to be allowed to judge the Creator, there is an end of all government in the vast universe of God. So we hear men daring to pronounce judgment on the ways of God. They undertake to decide what is or is not fit for God to do. One great question always comes first: "Who is to be judge?" Is man to judge God, or is God to judge man? If man judges God, there is no God at all. If God judges man, then man must bow his head in reverent silence and admit his utter ignorance and folly.

Men may reason and argue on and on. Why did God permit sin to enter? Why did He not at once destroy Satan and his angels? Why did He allow the serpent to tempt Eve? Why did He not hold her back from eating the forbidden fruit? In short, the hows and whys are endless. But the answer is one.

Does the potter not have absolute power over the clay? He may make one vessel for honour, or, if he wills, a vessel for dishonour. In this way the Apostle establishes God's absolute right to act as He will, without giving man an account of His matters. The illustration of the potter asserts God's absolute right to do as He pleases in the strongest way. Yet it does not teach that God has made any vessel for dishonour. The illustration only asserts and maintains God's rights.

The purpose of God does stand. In the end every creature serves His will… But should this weaken our moral judgment of the creature's wickedness? Does it deny the fact that Satan and man are responsible for all they do against Him, or that both must be punished for it? So Peter charges the men of Israel with the guilt of crucifying the Messiah… How different is the holy and perfect word of God! Everything is in its place — not one side only, but both.

Man may think his question is quite reasonable, little realizing the actual deceit in it. But it is completely dishonourable. God closes the discussion with a strong statement of His sovereign right to do as He pleases. If man, like a stubborn child, will not learn by instruction, God tells him at once who is in authority… man's voice is silenced: there are no more objections. God has the final word.

Man complains about God's righteousness when it touches him. He dislikes just as much the grace that justifies others freely and absolutely. This is what the question comes down to: is God to judge man, or is man to judge God? The apostle's answer has three parts. First, he maintains in all its strength the right of the sovereign God — the authority He has to do just as He will with His creatures.

The language is holy and bold, yet it never leans to one side or the other... The apostle does not say that God has used the right which He clearly has; but God's title stays whole... How seldom do those who talk about rights seem to think that God has any! They are taken up with themselves, with man: God is in none of their thoughts. Yet if any rights deserve respect, surely His come first — His sovereign will gave us our being and everything we have.

Notice, it is not a statement, but a question — "Has the potter no right over the clay?" and so on. Is God not sovereign? It does not say that He has made some for dishonour.

While the illustration of the potter asserts in the strongest way God's absolute right to do as He pleases, it does not teach that God has made any vessel to dishonour. The illustration simply asserts and maintains God's prerogatives.

Nothing can surpass the power and grandeur of the words of Romans 9. They lay all human pride low. They show how completely man depends for blessing on God's sovereign mercy. The illustration of the potter makes plain that everything depends on sovereign power. Out of the very same lump that supplies vessels to dishonour, He chooses to produce vessels to honour.

In Jeremiah 18 we see God's ways with the nations. In Romans 9 we learn something of His ways with individuals. Every individual, like every nation, is a marred vessel in the hand of the Potter. We have all become marred by sin, and by taking our own evil way. Some, like Israel, will not listen to the word of God through His servants, the word of mercy proclaimed in the gospel. God has the power to make these marred vessels into vessels of wrath. Others, like the people of Nineveh, listen to God's message and turn from their evil ways to Him, and God makes them vessels of mercy.

Further on in chapter 9 we read of the potter's power over the clay to make vessels to honour and to dishonour. It speaks of God's patience with vessels of wrath, fitted for destruction. But it never says God fitted them for destruction. It says only that He endured them with much patience. Yet in the next verse, where it speaks of vessels of mercy, it says plainly that God prepared them beforehand for glory.

The vessels of wrath fitted themselves for wrath, by their own sins. But God prepared the vessels of mercy, for in truth no man prepares himself for glory. Grace alone does His work for those He has chosen.

In Romans 9:21 Paul asked whether the potter has power over the clay. In 2 Timothy 2:20-21 we have the other side of the matter. There Paul sets out not the sovereignty of God, but the responsibility of the Christian.

In the entire answer there are three propositions. First, the apostle maintains, in all its strength, the right of the sovereign God — the authority He has to do just as He will with His creatures. Does the potter not have power over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honour and another for dishonour? Next, he comes to the facts. He shows us that God, even when He meant to show His wrath and make His power known, endured with much long-suffering vessels of wrath fitted for destruction — vessels which He did not fit, but had long endured. Thirdly, there is the revelation that He had prepared vessels of mercy beforehand for glory.

God's purpose was to display His wrath in this evil world and to make known His power where men easily and willingly forget Him. But the way He chose was admirable and worthy of His nature. There was nothing arbitrary about it, but "much long-suffering."… Could man then fairly charge God with having no compassion for him, or with being quick to mark his sins? It is impossible for a holy God to share in evil or be indifferent to it! But He does not quickly blot these rebellious creatures out of this life, though they make the world a field of constant war against what they know of God. Instead, the whole history of the world since nations began is the fullest proof that God endures.

He made His power known, not by fitting the vessels of wrath for destruction, but by enduring them with much longsuffering.… God endured the Amorites of old with much longsuffering until their sins came to the "full" and they had fitted themselves for destruction. Then the judgment fell (Gen. 15:16).

The vessels of wrath are said to be "fitted for destruction." But it is neither said nor implied here, or anywhere else, that God fitted them for it. They were fitted by their sins, and most of all by their unbelief and rebelliousness against God. But when we hear of the faithful, the wording is completely different: "vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory." The evil is man's, never God's. The good is His and not our own.

The word katartizo (Rom. 9:22) means to correct, repair, mend; then in its participial form, fitted, prepared. The word does not suppose a decree of God, but a work of man.

Look at Matthew 25:34. Here the King says to those on His right hand, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." Now contrast the words to those on His left hand: "Depart from me, you cursed." He does not say "of my Father." Then comes "into the eternal fire prepared" — not for you, but — "for the devil and his angels." Romans 9 speaks the same way… The grand truth of election is fully established. The repulsive error of reprobation is carefully avoided.

Once you allow that all blessing rests on the sovereignty of God, the Gentile must come into the blessing as well as the Jew.

There is a difference here, small but very real, and no reader should overlook it. Of the vessels of wrath it says "fitted for destruction." But it is neither said nor implied here, or anywhere else, that God fitted them for it. Their own sins fitted them, and most of all their unbelief and rebellion against God. When we hear of the faithful, the wording is quite different: "vessels of mercy, which He has prepared beforehand for glory." The evil is man's, and in no case is it from God. The good is His and not our own.

It is striking to see how Scripture guards against the repulsive doctrine of reprobation. Look, for example, at Matthew 25:34. There the King says to those on His right hand, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." Contrast with this the address to those on His left hand: "Depart from me, you cursed" — He does not say "of my Father" — "into the eternal fire prepared" — not for you, but — "for the devil and his angels." So also in Romans 9. The grand truth of election is fully established; the repulsive error of reprobation is carefully avoided.

He picks up and fashions vessels of mercy, in which He will display His riches of glory. Vessels of mercy! Poor, wretched sinners, who could do nothing but own their guilt and shame, and be debtors to mercy alone. Oh, to think that He prepares such — by His grace — for glory!

In connection with His redeemed saints, called "vessels of mercy," God will make known "the riches of His glory." This is not simply a single attribute of God. It is a term so broad and full that time and space would not allow us to list such riches. In these riches the vessels of mercy receive an eternal inheritance, and its wonder and joy will never fade. What comfort and peace it brings our souls to know His supreme majesty at work in counsels so glorious — counsels in which we, poor redeemed sinners, have such a part.

Not the saints, but God prepared the vessels of mercy for glory. More exactly, He prepared them beforehand with glory in view. It was not their own preparing while on earth, with God's part starting only when the glory arrives. It was His doing. No one doubts that by grace they became obedient and holy, and so morally like Him. But the Holy Spirit saw fit to speak here only of God's preparing of the vessels of mercy beforehand for glory.

God's own power forms and fits these vessels for His presence, and makes them fit to be the companions of His own dear Son. Even now, as they pass through this world, the saints of God carry a wonderful heavenly treasure in their earthen vessels... but soon what God has worked within them will be enshrined in a "house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." ... Among the ruins of the old creation God is working in new creation. He is forming and shaping the vessels that will display His glory and the surpassing riches of His grace in the ages to come.

From the moment God falls back on His own sovereignty the ground is as open for a Gentile as for a Jew. God is not sovereign if He may not choose whom He pleases. If He is sovereign, then it is only natural that His sovereignty should show itself where it would stand out most. The call of the Gentiles gives that occasion. If they were the worst — and they certainly were utterly degraded — then for that very reason they were the fittest objects for God to show His sovereign grace upon.

The apostle now begins a new section of the letter, Romans 9-11. Its main aim is to show how God's call of Gentiles and Jews together fits with the special promises made to Israel. In doing this he tears down the empty pride of those who rested on nothing but a line of natural descent from Abraham. He proves that special promise has been God's principle from the first. He points to sovereign mercy as the only hope for a people such as even Israel had shown themselves to be.

He is sovereign in Himself, preparing for glory "even us," says the apostle, "whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles." He forces the Jew to admit that God is sovereign. If not, the Jew must let in the Ishmaelites and the Edomites, and admit that he himself would have been cut off — all but Moses and Joshua. Then he shows that God uses this sovereignty to call Gentiles, who had no claim by promise, and Jews, who had forfeited theirs.

The moment God falls back on His own sovereignty, the ground is as open to a Gentile as to a Jew. God is not sovereign if He may not choose whom He pleases. And if He is sovereign, it is only natural that His sovereignty should show itself where it can be seen most clearly. The call of the Gentiles gives that occasion. If they were the worst — and they had truly sunk that low — then for that very reason they were the fittest objects for God's sovereign grace.

Grace takes for granted that the Jews are as worthless as the Gentiles, and so it goes out and calls in from Gentiles as well as from Jews. Distinctions have their place while there is still hope for man and the testing goes on. It is different once the testing of the most favoured has ended in guilt beyond repair and ruin beyond help. Then the door opens for mercy. He calls in grace, freely to all and closed to none — from Jews certainly, but from Gentiles too.

Vessels of mercy! Poor, wretched sinners, who could do nothing but own their guilt and shame, and be debtors to mercy alone. Oh, to think that He prepares such people — by His grace — for glory! And that this wonderful grace reaches out, not to sinners of the privileged Jews alone, but of the outcast Gentiles also!

It is a call that comes from mercy, and yet mercy that shows no favouritism. It can take in both Jews and Gentiles — yes, souls from every nation under heaven — mercy available for all who will have it. But the call spoken of here is the call that sinks into the soul. It works repentance. It makes us own our need of mercy and receive it with thanks, in Christ Jesus.

Of the vessels of mercy, Scripture says plainly that it is God who has "prepared" them for glory (v. 23). But of the vessels of wrath it does not say that God prepared them, or fitted them, for destruction. It says only that they are "fitted for destruction" (v. 22). Pharaoh, unbelieving Israel, and all who refuse to believe have fitted themselves for destruction. But this does not stop God from showing His abundant mercy.