For the scripture says to Pharaoh, For this very thing I have raised thee up from amongst [men], that I might thus shew in thee my power, and so that my name should be declared in all the earth.
God answers the charge that He is unfair in two ways. On one side stands mercy; on the other, power. This verse is the second half of that pair. What does it mean that God "raised up" a man, and is that man still responsible?
Paul does not write that God said this to Pharaoh. He writes that Scripture said it. One writer traces how Paul quotes Genesis and Exodus:
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.
The phrase does not mean God made a man evil. It means He lifted an already defiant man high, so that his fall would be seen by all:
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.
Another writer draws out why the position mattered so much:
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.
The order of events in Exodus matters. Mercy reached Pharaoh first, and the hardening from God's side is dated late:
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.
Another writer explains how mercy itself could harden him:
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 a decree alone fixed the outcome, no one could blame Pharaoh. One writer answers that charge:
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.
The same writer notes that even Israel's enemies reached the same verdict:
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.
The verse names a wider aim: God's name told out everywhere. The same writer finds goodness even in this judgment:
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.
Pharaoh is only half of it. On Israel's side, sovereignty was the one door of escape left open:
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."
- Defiance first. Pharaoh had already refused to obey the Lord or to let His people go. God found him a rebel; He did not make him one.
- Raised, not made evil. "Raised up" means lifted high, so that a private stubbornness became a public lesson.
- Hardened afterwards. Mercy and warning came first. God's own hardening comes later in Exodus, after repeated refusal. The writers agree that the man stays responsible.
- Power on display. Every fresh act of Pharaoh's will drew out a fresh act of God's power, until the Red Sea settled the contest.
- The Name travels. The goal of the whole account was God's name told out through all the earth — and the case of Rahab shows how far the report reached.
So then, to whom he will he shews mercy, and whom he will he hardens.
Here Paul sets God's freedom to show mercy beside His freedom to harden. Two real cases stand behind the words: God spared a nation after open sin, and He ruined a king after open defiance. Is such a God still righteous?
The verse is a summary. Israel's own history had already shown both halves of it.
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.
The two cases are not one innocent and one guilty. Strict justice would have condemned the nation and the king alike.
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.
God showed Pharaoh real kindness first. He lifted plague after plague, and that mercy only made Pharaoh harder.
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.
Exodus records the order, and the count is exact.
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).
The word "hardens" does not mean God makes anyone evil. It means He gives a man up to his own folly, and the man stays responsible.
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.
Pharaoh is not the only case. The same thing happens to whole peoples.
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.
One objection comes at once: if God hardens, why does He still blame us? The answer turns the question back on the person asking.
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.
- Both guilty — justice condemned Israel at the golden calf and Pharaoh in Egypt alike. Mercy is the only reason their stories differ.
- Mercy first — God lifted plague after plague before He judged Pharaoh. The kindness Pharaoh despised is what hardened him.
- He hardened himself — Exodus says seven times that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. Only then does it say God hardened it.
- God's act, man's fault — hardening is a real judgment, but God never makes a man bad. Sin destroys the ability to obey, never the responsibility.
- Still true today — the same pattern ran through Israel, and writers warn that Christendom will follow it. So the verse is a warning before it is a puzzle.
Thou wilt say to me then, Why does he yet find fault? for who resists his purpose?
Paul has just said that God shows mercy to whom He wills and hardens whom He wills. This verse is what man throws back at Him: if no one can resist God's purpose, then blaming anyone seems unfair.
The complaint sounds reasonable. If God does the hardening, the hardened man seems trapped. Then punishment seems unjust.
"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?"
The word rendered "will" here is unusual, and writers note how rare it is:
boulema only occurs in Acts 27:43, translated "purpose," and Romans 9:19, "will."
So the objector is not asking about God's wishes in general. He is appealing to God's fixed plan as something no one could resist.
This question does not come from a searching conscience. It comes from a will that wants cover.
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.
There is an irony inside the complaint. The man who says God has no right to find fault is at that very moment finding fault with God. When Paul replies, the exchange ends.
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 starts from two true statements: God shows mercy, and God hardens. It then folds everything else into them, including sin itself.
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.
So where does sin fit into God's purpose? Commentators draw a line.
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?
The objector sets himself above God. A converted man does the opposite.
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.
The clearest proof that God's purpose and man's guilt stand together is the death of Christ. God's purpose stood there, and the men who carried it out were still guilty.
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.
- Purpose. The "will" the objector appeals to is God's settled purpose. The word is rare. It appears elsewhere only in Acts 27:43, translated "purpose."
- Excuse. God does what He pleases, so man pleads that as cover for the guilt of doing what he pleases. It is an excuse, not a real question.
- Collapse. Fold good and evil alike into God's purpose, and you lose God's moral glory and man's responsibility. That deduction would destroy all truth, holiness and righteous judgment.
- Limit. God did not make any man evil; He chooses from among those already evil, and it would be perfectly just to destroy all.
- Proof. At the cross, God's purpose and man's guilt met in one event. That is why Paul silences the objector instead of debating him.
Aye, but thou, O man, who art *thou* that answerest again to God? Shall the thing formed say to him that has formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
The verse before raises the sharpest objection a person can bring against God. If God hardens whom He wills, how can anyone still be blamed? Paul does not explain. He answers with a question that puts the questioner in his place. Much of what this verse teaches lies in what it does not say.
The verse answers the objection raised just before it.
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?"
The verse opens with a small Greek word whose tone is hard to catch in English. It picks up the objector's own words and throws them back.
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?"
"Who are you" is a question about position, not intelligence.
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.
The same writer notes that one answer meets every question of this kind.
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.
"What is molded" and "its molder" lead straight into the potter and the clay. Readers often take the picture further than it goes.
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 objector wants God's sovereignty to swallow up his own guilt. Commentators are firm that Scripture keeps both sides standing.
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.
The question sounds fair to the man who asks it.
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.
- Question, not lecture. God meets the complaint of verse 19 with a question about who is speaking. The point is the questioner's place, not more information.
- Formed, not equal. The words "what is molded" and "its molder" put man on the creature's side of a line. He cannot cross it to sit as judge.
- Right, not decree. The potter picture asserts God's absolute right to act as He pleases. Commentators note it does not say He made anyone for dishonour.
- Both sides, not one. God's purpose stands, and man is still responsible. Scripture holds both sides and lets neither cancel the other.
- Silence, not stalemate. The endless "whys" meet one answer. The objections stop, and God has the last word.
Or has not the potter authority over the clay, out of the same lump to make one vessel to honour, and another to dishonour?
Paul has just answered the objector who asks why God still finds fault. Now he takes a picture from the workshop — a potter, one lump of clay, two very different vessels — and it raises the sharpest question in the chapter: does God make people for ruin?
One writer states the objection behind the verse, and shows where Paul's answer starts.
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.
One writer weighs how far this bold language goes, and how seldom people think God has rights at all.
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.
Much confusion comes from reading the verse as a report of what God has already done. One writer points to the form of the words.
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.
Another writer draws the same line between what the picture proves and what it does not.
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.
Both vessels come out of the same lump. So the clay itself cannot explain why they differ.
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.
One writer traces the picture back to the prophet Jeremiah, and applies it to individuals.
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.
The next verses show God exercising this authority — and the wording is not symmetrical.
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.
If God did not fit them for destruction, who did? One writer answers.
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.
The same image appears again in Paul's second letter to Timothy. There it serves a different purpose.
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.
- Right — the verse upholds God's title to do as He wills with His creatures. Is God to judge man, or man to judge God?
- Question — Paul asks; he does not assert. Scripture never says God made anyone for dishonour. The picture guards God's right and stops there.
- Lump — both vessels come from one mass, so the clay explains nothing. All of it is marred; only sovereign mercy makes a vessel of honour.
- Asymmetry — sin fits the vessels of wrath for destruction; God Himself prepares the vessels of mercy for glory.
- Response — sovereignty here, responsibility in 2 Timothy 2. Those who refuse the word of mercy become vessels of wrath; those who listen become vessels of mercy.
And if God, minded to shew his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much long-suffering vessels of wrath fitted for destruction;
Paul has silenced the objector with the potter's right over the clay. Now he turns from what God may do to what He has actually done — and everything turns on who did the "fitting."
Verse 22 is the second of three steps in Paul's reply to the objector. One writer sets out all three:
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 stated aim is to show His wrath and make His power known. The way He goes about it answers anyone who thinks Him hasty or harsh. (Where the ESV says "much patience" and "prepared for destruction," the older wording used below is "much longsuffering" and "fitted for destruction.")
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.
One writer shows where that power appears, and names a nation God waited on:
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 verse calls them vessels of wrath fitted for destruction. It never says who fitted them. Set beside the next verse, that silence is deliberate.
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 Greek word behind "fitted" points the same way:
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.
The same care shows up elsewhere, so it is no accident. One writer sets Romans 9 beside the judgment scene of Matthew 25, and rules out reprobation — the idea that God appoints some people to ruin:
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.
Paul is not satisfying curiosity about the lost. He is breaking the claim that blessing belongs to anyone by birth:
Once you allow that all blessing rests on the sovereignty of God, the Gentile must come into the blessing as well as the Jew.
- Endured, not engineered. God shows His power here not by fitting anyone for ruin, but by holding back. The verse names His way: "much patience."
- Endured how long. God bore with the Amorites until their sin was full (Genesis 15:16). The waiting has a limit, and then judgment falls.
- Endured, self-fitted. Vessels of wrath are "fitted" by their own sins; vessels of mercy God "prepared beforehand." The evil is man's; the good is His.
- Endured, never doomed. In Matthew 25 the fire is prepared for the devil and his angels — not for those on the King's left. Scripture holds election firmly and never turns it into a decree of ruin.
- Endured, so the door is open. If blessing rests wholly on God's mercy, no one holds it by birth. The Gentile comes in with the Jew.
and that he might make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy, which he had before prepared for glory,
Just before this, Paul spoke of vessels of wrath fitted for destruction. Here the sentence turns to a second group — vessels of mercy — and to what God means to show through them.
Paul's wording changes between verse 22 and verse 23. One group is fitted for destruction. God prepared the other beforehand for glory.
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.
Another writer finds the same care in the words of Jesus. It rules out reprobation — the idea that God made some people on purpose for ruin.
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.
The name Paul gives believers points to what they received, not to anything in them.
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!
The verse speaks of the riches of God's glory, not simply His 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.
When did this preparing happen?
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 is also at work now, shaping what will be shown later.
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.
This mercy is not kept for one nation.
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.
- Mercy, not merit. God names believers vessels of mercy — poor sinners who could only own their guilt and be debtors to mercy alone.
- Mercy prepares. The ruin is man's own doing. The preparing for glory is God's, done beforehand, and it was His doing alone.
- Mercy displays riches. God shows on these vessels not one attribute but the riches of His glory — an eternal inheritance whose joy never fades.
- Mercy reaches furthest. Because God acts as sovereign, the ground is as open to a Gentile as to a Jew. His grace shows brightest where the need was worst.
- Mercy ends in glory. God is shaping these earthen vessels now. Soon His work in them will be enshrined in a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.