Studying His Word and His Works

Listen to the study here: Romans 9:20-24

Read here: Romans 9

Review

• Calvin on the theme of Romans: “Man’s only righteousness is the mercy of God in Christ, when it is offered by the Gospel and received by faith.” Romans 1:17 and elsewhere.
• IMPORTANT: Paul wrote the letter to the saints (1:7), and the letter is about the gospel, which is a reminder we need to preach the gospel to ourselves daily. 
• Luther: Simul iustus et peccator = At the same time, righteous and a sinner! Romans 3:23-25
• In Ch. 1-3 Paul shows us our unrighteousness, and God’s wrath against that, and then switches to Christ’s righteousness as our covering, the propitiation of our sins (Romans 3:25) as the final sacrifice for sin, fulfilling the promise to Abraham, who had faith before any works
• Faith being “counted” or “credited to our account” as righteousness is mentioned 11 times in Chapter 4! If “none are righteous” as Paul wrote in Romans 3:10, then this saving faith must be a gift from God.
• Ch. 5, We now have peace with God, access to God, and hope, because of what Christ did for us while we were weak(v. 6), sinners (v. 8), and enemies (v. 10). Christ did this “at the right time,” (v. 6), connecting Christ’s work on the cross and God’s plan of redemption to real history (not just a myth or legend).
• Atonement(5:6-11): Jesus satisfying God’s wrath for us through His sacrificial death on the cross.
• Ch. 5 and 6 describe federalism, this idea of one man making a difference, for righteousness (Jesus) or wickedness (Adam). 
• Ch 6 ended with lots of words pointing to the new road we are now on with Christ, the sanctification road.
  • Service is the key word, “slaves” used 8 times
  • “Present yourselves”(5), “Leads to”(5)
• Sproul: “our regeneration, our rebirth was the work of one Person, God. It was not a joint venture; but from the moment we take our first breath of regenerated spiritual life, it  becomes a joint effort.” the work of one Person is what salvation is about. The joint venture is what sanctification is about. Ch.6 ends and we continue into Ch.7 describing what this “sanctification road” looks like to walk down. We were on the sin road that leads to death, but now we are on the grace road that leads to eternal life.
• Chapter 8 is describing the assurance we have as Christians in salvation. Deus pro nobis – God for us. It is a reminder of God’s sovereignty over our salvation, and God’s infinite wisdom, in the creation, fall, redemption plan he has for not just us, but the whole world. Ultimately, God, not us, foreknows, predestines, calls, justifies and glorifies. There are many verses (Romans 2:4, John 3:16, etc) that point to God’s patience with everyone, His love for everyone, that none should perish (2 Peter 3:9), so I believe there is some free will in there somewhere, perhaps an ability to answer the call, or not. But, even if we answer the call, it is God who initiated. Even if we are crying out for God, “feeling our way to Him” like Acts 17:27 says, we are only doing this because He has already called. We are MORE THAN CONQUERORS, not on our own of course, but “through Him who loved us” from before time began. 
• Chapter 9 continues on the point of election, which, if you think about it, Paul has been discussing since Romans 1:1 when he said he was “set apart”. Paul continues to hammer the point that it is God’s free will, not ours, that matters most. It’s good to keep in mind the complexity of God, as he is not just electing, but he is doing a bunch of things simultaneously and eternally. He is electing, foreknowing, predestining, calling, justifying, glorifying, answering prayer, “giving them over to a debased mind” (Romans 1:28-32) while also being kind as a means to lead people to repentance (Romans 2:4), showing mercy to some and hardening others (9:18). It’s like God is working on an eternal and therefore infinite scale, but also an instantaneous and therefore infinitesimal scale. Pastor John Macarthur, who went home to Jesus in 2025, described this as a parallelism, God’s sovereign election running alongside the “whoever believes in Him will have eternal life” of John 3:16. It is Euler’s “every instant,” of God initiating, so the saved are always indebted to Him. And it’s also Paul’s “unceasing anguish” for the lost in 9:2, something we should ask God to give us, too. And something that clearly shows that God predestines us to a team, His team, and we are working with Him to save sinners. He’s just team captain and MVP. He gets all the glory!
  • Also remember that Paul references almost 50 OT verses in Chapter 9 alone. He is retelling Israel’s story in many places to serve as a reminder of God’s sovereign will over nations, but also individuals like Pharoah, Moses, Jacob and Esau, etc. Some want to say election is only about nations, or only individuals, but this is another both/and. 

Intro

• Key words: vessel(3), will of God, glory, use, known, wrath(2 each), power (1)
  • We overlap a bit here, diving back into verse 20 and studying Paul’s illustration of God as the infinite and sovereign artist and sculptor.
• Verses 20-21
  • If a human who makes pottery can make one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable (man’s free will), why do we get upset when God does the same thing(God’s free will)? Has the potter no right over the clay, as Paul illustrates here?
    • Here are some different translations of the second half of Verse 21:
      • NIV- some for special purposes and some for common use(this is a weak translation)
      • NASB-one object for honorable use and another for common use(also a weak translation)
      • NLT-one jar for decoration and another to throw garbage into.
      • ESV, KJV, NKJV-one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use.
      • Ka Baibala Hemolele(Hawaiian Bible)- one vessel to be respected, and another to be disrespected.
  • God made us in His image (Genesis 1:26-27, etc). These verses are a reminder of that. We are creative because God, the ultimate Creator, made us like him. He made us creative, too. We can make stuff! But we can’t make a planet, or a moose from nothing. We ALWAYS have to borrow God’s stuff to make our stuff.
    • We can make a clay version of a moose, which, as we discussed last time, doesn’t yell back at us, “why did you make me this way!”(V. 20). That would be absurd. What Paul is saying is that it is equally absurd and moronic to think we can respond to the CREATOR OF THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE in the same way! 
  • The difference between God and man is infinitely greater than the difference between the pot and the potter. God/man difference > potter/pot difference. I think our sin nature drives us to reverse this. To say the potter/pot difference > God/man difference. We want to bring God down to our level, always. And Paul knows this, which is why he is addressing it. It is easy for us to think it is absurd to think a clay moose would complain about being a moose. But we don’t think it is equally absurd for a human to complain to God, “why have you made me this way?”
  •  Mankind fell in the garden because of the temptation to have more power. Think about it, Satan tempted Eve with the opportunity to “be like God”(Gen 3:5). To have more power, in other words. And this was before the curse! God built the first humans with the ability to be tempted, but not with the curse of an inherent “sin nature,” a 100% assurance that they would indeed sin. That’s what we have, 0% chance of a sinless life. For Adam and Eve, it was more like a 50% chance. The curse brought that down to 0%. That’s what Paul described back in Romans 3, that none are righteous. That’s why we need Christ’s righteousness, to cover our sin nature. 
  •  So, think about this. If Adam and Eve, even before the curse, were tempted to be more powerful, aren’t we, who have the curse, even more likely to be tempted? Yes, I think so, which is why Paul is addressing this. We want that POWER, that ability to answer back to God and tell Him what to do. We act like it is unfair that our Creator is so much more powerful than us, that He is omnipotent and we are not. We long for the power differential to be 0, and we imagine this in our heads, which is why we get mad about God choosing the way He wants to. The power differential is more like infinity though. Yet, even though it’s more like infinity, we have an infinitely powerful God who answers our tiny little prayers. 
  • Sproul says these verses are NOT saying God creates people wicked and then punishes them for wickedness. That was the complaint Paul anticipated when writing Verse 19 (see the last study). No, His original intent was that creation was good and humans “very good.”(Gen 1:31).
    • Sproul: Scripture says that “somehow the lapse into sin, which produced a batch of fallen humanity and fragile, corrupt clay, was for His glory.”
      • Somehow. Sproul is saying he doesn’t understand how this works. IT IS OKAY for us to not understand all of God’s purposes! Sproul writes: “Why God allowed [the Fall] is something we cannot fully know.” But, that He did allow the Fall should serve as a reminder that His plan was never to create puppets and robots. He is sovereign, but not in THAT way. That is too simple, that is something humans would come up with in our small minds. The best we can do is manipulate and control, so we think that is what God is doing. What God does though, in His sovereign reign, is infinitely more complex and purposeful and glorious than what our imperfect and sin-cursed minds can conjure up.
        • Remember John Macarthur’s “parallel” idea. Simultaneously, God has predestined, but man is also responsible for sin and must answer the call. How those two things work together, I don’t know and don’t have to know perfectly. The Bible says that now, we see in a mirror dimly(I Cor 13:12), so don’t overthink it! Our thoughts don’t save us, Jesus saves.
          • Instead of asking questions like “why did you make me this way?“, maybe we should ask ourselves “why don’t I have Paul’s ‘unceasing anguish’ for the lost?” If this was all just 100% deterministic, God pre-programming everyone, then it would be silly for Paul to write emotionally about reaching lost souls, right? Right. Clearly, the Bible shows there is a big difference, a MASSIVE difference, between determinism and predestination. Review the Romans 9:1-13 study for more on determinism.
      • Sproul: “God has the authority and power to prevent anything from happening that does, in fact, happen. God can exercise His authority and power and sovereignty by stopping something from happening or by not stopping it. Those are God’s options always in every way.”
    • Regarding the end of Verse 21 and the honorable/dishonorable uses, Sproul says the honorable/dishonorable contrast is about God’s electing grace, which is made in light of the Fall. Think about it, if these categories were not made in light of the Fall, then it wouldn’t be grace but a dictatorship. “In light of the Fall” means the Fall and the curse on humanity happened, and God elects nations and individuals for honorable use out of this.
      • An incorrect view of this is called supralapsarianism, the belief that God had already elected certain people to salvation or condemnation, prior to the Fall. But if that were the case, then there would be no need for Jesus, no need for grace and mercy. Woah! That idea sounds way off.
      • Remember the last study on 9:14-20, where mercy and compassion were key words, situated right in the middle of Paul’s discussion of election and predestination that started at the end of Ch. 8. Again, there would be no need for mercy and compassion, or even law and justice, if God was, from eternity, picking people for Heaven and Hell. Why would He bother to set up the 10 commandments and other laws? It’s like anybody could do whatever they want and make up whatever laws they want since, from eternity, everyone was already destined to either Heaven or Hell. 
      • Also regarding the Fall, I don’t think we need to think God only had 2 plans, Plan A if Eve doesn’t sin and plan B if Eve does sin. It doesn’t say that in the Bible. Also, that is something our limited human minds would come up with, just two plans. Think about it, there’s actually an infinite number of scenarios here, not just 2. They could not have been tempted at first, and Satan had to do his deceiving like 30 times before Eve finally fell. They could have had several kids before they fell, God could have sent an angel to crush Satan before he had a chance to deceive, etc.
        • So the point is not that God had Jesus in mind in case Eve sinned. No, God is sovereign and omniscient and omnipotent and had EVERY scenario in mind. 
    • Connect this to I Cor. 15:42-47 and the resurrection from the dead. The “sown in dishonor” of v. 43 is along the lines of what Sproul is saying regarding honor/dishonor, that this distinction is in light of the Fall, that because of the Fall, “all are dishonorable” or unrighteous now, and it is only because of God’s merciful election that some are made honorable.
• Verse 22
  • There is nothing wrong with God desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power. Sproul says our culture doesn’t like to talk about a wrathful God, but Paul already covered that in many places, like 1:18, 2:5 and 8, 3:5, 4:15, and 5:9. See also 12:19 and 13:4-5.
  • What if God… Paul sets up a hypothetical situation of honorable and dishonorable vessels, which he will connect to Jews and Gentiles in verse 24. So, Paul is NOT saying this is exactly what God did, he is saying “what if” God did it this way. We know it’s hypothetical because the big point Paul has been making in Romans is we are saved by faith, not by Jew/Gentile, honorable/dishonorable or any other distinctions. We are ALL born dishonorable now. IF God wanted to do things in this more deterministic way, He could, but that’s not really predestination. We may not completely understand predestination this side of Heaven, and that’s okay!
    • Listen carefully to the what if here! God inspired Paul to write this letter, and He inspired him to write that we don’t understand God’s sovereignty completely. But we will understand some things. We don’t have to understand all of God’s infinite complexities, we just have to repent and believe in the Gospel (Mark 1:15). 
  • In Genesis 18, when God was about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham fell into the same sinful attitude we all have, of trying to equate God with us, that because we are unjust, God will be unjust. Or that because we are unrighteous, God will be unrighteous. But what Abraham was worried about is like worrying about whether God would send both true believers and nonbelievers to Hell. Of course God knows the difference between righteous and wicked. Jesus alone makes humans righteous, He alone can turn a vessel meant for dishonor into an honorable one. 
  • Have you ever had a time when you wanted to display your wrath and power? Nothing wrong with wanting to fight and win, if God can be glorified through it, but if it’s okay for you to release some wrath and power, then it’s infinitely more ok for God to do the same. Right?
  • Or, have you ever built something just to destroy it? I vividly remember doing this as a kid, building Lincoln Log houses and then launching a spring-loaded toy car into them to watch them fall. Verse 22 isn’t saying God builds and destroys this way, but IF he wanted to, He could! Did he preserve Noah and 7 others while allowing the rest to be destroyed? Did he rescue righteous Lot and destroy Sodom and Gomorrah and their inhabitants? Did He rescue Israel from slavery while allowing Pharoah’s troops to drown? Does He give people over to their sin who do not acknowledge Him as God nor are thankful? Aren’t we all vessels of dishonor prepared for destruction? Yes. 
    • Sproul directs us to read Psalm 2 here. Nations plot against God “and his anointed”(those He chose), and what is God’s response? He laughs. Psalm 2 ends with a connection back to pottery, that in His wrath he will “dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”
• Verses 23-24
  • the riches of His glory are bestowed on the elect.
    • Sproul writes that predestination is about this, the riches of His glory, of unfathomable grace and mercy(and compassion).
      • The vessels of mercy are people who receive this unfathomable grace and mercy. 
      • God’s plan from eternity was to glorify Himself. To make known the riches of His glory.
      • And not just for Jews, but Gentiles also, as Verse 24 describes.
  • Sproul also writes “He has made you a vessel of mercy that He prepared before the foundation of the world for glory.” But how do you reconcile this with what Sproul wrote earlier, that God’s electing grace is made in light of the Fall? It sounds like what Sproul is saying here is the Fall occurs in light of election, that from eternity there were already those destined to heaven or hell. But again, that can’t be or there would be no need for mercy and grace and the cross. I think maybe Sproul is “underexplaining” here, or, more likely, I’m not understanding Sproul completely, haha!
    • Maybe it will help to think about it like this. God knew you, before you were physically knit together in your mother’s womb (Jer 1:5). His original plan for humans was very good (Genesis 1), until sin entered along with death, its penalty. So, even though God knew you from eternity, you would now be “sown in dishonor,”  and the only way out was for God to call you out (v. 9:24). The original plan was for all to be “sown in honor”. Sin corrupted that plan.
      • God’s will was to give humans free will. He did not cause Eve to fall to temptation, but He did allow it, just like He allowed Satan to tempt Job, Jesus, etc. If God did not allow this, if everything really was “just wound up from the beginning,” then the universe would just be really dumb. There would be no opportunity to reveal His wrath or mercy; why would there be if it was just set in motion from the beginning? It’s like it was set in motion from the beginning, in a way that would maximize God’s glory to humans, and NOT in a way that there would be no opportunity for God’s wrath or mercy or power or glory to be displayed. 
  • Again, Sproul wrote that the doctrine of election and predestination is about the Verse 23 riches of His glory. He has said before that it’s NOT about how God “looks down the corridor of time” like some kind of psychic, rejecting those who choose to reject Him and saving those who choose to believe. I think Sproul dislikes this because it overemphasizes man’s free will. God is eternal, and from eternity he has ordained what will happen. He has elected, predestined things to happen, choosing Jacob over Esau to show His sovereignty and his ordination over all things, but more importantly, to show His glory.
    • His plan is to make His glory known through mercy and grace. That is what Verse 23 is saying. He prepared us beforehand. He called us. He’s not “peering down the corridor of time” to see if we choose him. He prepared us beforehand for His glory, not ours. That is what verse 23 is saying. This is what “effectual calling” means, which is a work of the Holy Spirit in us. The “calling that produces a result,” one that allows us to repent and believe in the first place. A calling that happens in our lifetimes, in real time and in real history. Not predetermined. We only choose to repent and believe because the Holy Spirit first did a work in us. This video by Sproul is good about effectual calling and “complacent” love, which we go into in Ch. 10. 
  • Later, in Romans 11, Sproul makes a great point: “Had God waited in heaven for us to turn from our sins and come to the cross, He would still be waiting. In His sovereign mercy and grace God does not wait for us to turn or incline ourselves; God brings us away from our disobedience to respond to Him.” In other words, if there were no predestination or election, or real-time “calling us” by God, there would be no salvation. Jesus saves!
  • Next time, we will continue looking at God’s sovereign choice, with an emphasis on Jews and non-Jews, a.k.a. Gentiles. Hosea will be referenced quite a bit. In Hosea, we learn how God told the Jews they were now “Lo-Ammi”, or “not my people” because of their sinfulness. In other words, because of their choices. Note again the parallel structure, God’s sovereignty in choosing Israel, man’s free will in sinfulness, and God’s sovereignty again in rejecting Israel as a nation. God always initiating. 
    • God chose Israel as a nation, He pulled “all who descended from Israel (9:6),” the whole nation, faithful and unfaithful alike, out of slavery. He set up a whole legal system to show them faith is what mattered and that no one could keep the whole law. And then he ended that system at the right time (Romans 5:6) with the One. Jesus. His Son, who kept the law, and whose righteousness now covers us as believers.
    • Soon, in Romans 11, we will learn God has one “olive tree,” built on OT believers, made up mostly of Israelites. He then destroyed that whole system, like the Verse 22 vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, starting with the temple veil torn at Christ’s death, and the entire Jerusalem temple being destroyed in AD 70, but preserving a remnant (9:27). The unfaithful are the branches that are cut off. The believing Gentiles are the wild olive shoots grafted in, adopted as sons, together with the remnant from Israel.
    • This olive tree is composed of vessels of mercy, prepared beforehand for glory. And none of this would make sense if it was all deterministic. No need for wrath, or mercy, if there were not parallel themes of God’s sovereignty and man’s free will.
    • And, we will get into the “olive tree” discussion more soon, that was a little bit of foreshadowing of what’s to come!
• Up next, Romans 9:25-10:4