Featured Vessels of Mercy !

Pactum Salutis

 

The vessels of mercy are the vessels of wrath. No one else needs mercy but those of wrath.
MB

 

It's the truth you just can't see it.
MB

 

Kentucky... You and your big words... In Reformed theology, the pactum salutis has been defined as a pretemporal, intratrinitarian agreement between the Father and Son in which the Father promises to redeem an elect people. In turn the Son volunteers to earn the salvation of his people by becoming incarnate...by acting as surety of the covenant of grace for and as mediator of the covenant of grace to the elect. In his active and passive obedience, Christ fulfills the conditions of the pactum salutis...ratifying the Father's promise, because of which the Father rewards the Son's obedience with the salvation of the elect. And because of this the Holy Spirit applies the Son's work to his people through the means of grace.

Not the means of Faith... It is not our faith anyway that saves anyone, its the Faith of Jesus Christ... That is why its called Amazing Grace... How sweet the sound that saved a WRETCH LIKE ME!... Some of you brethren need to take a chill pill, we are ALL SINNERS... Saved we are but it still reigns in our body... The Apostle Paul explains it better than I ever could... Brother Glen

Romans 7:14 For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.

7:15 For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.

7:16 If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good.

7:17 Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

7:18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.

7:19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.

7:20 Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

7:21 I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.

7:22 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:

7:23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

7:24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

7:25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

 

Not according to how it's worded. You tend to visualize something that just isn't there. Like most Calvinist what you believe is your philosophy, not according to scripture.
MB

 

" What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
23 and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,
24 even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?" ( Romans 9:22-24 ).

I see this saying that God is willing to show His wrath and to make His power known...
and that He has endured with much patience the vessels of wrath that are fitted to destruction.

So that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy which He had prepared unto that glory...
They were us, the believers whom He has "called" ( summoned by the power of the Holy Spirit through His Gospel ),
Not Jews only, but also Gentiles.

To me, the vessels of mercy are definitely not the vessels of wrath, as they were each created for a completely different purpose...

God will not show His wrath to those that He has mercy on in the Judgment.

 

So far I see nothing terribly wrong with that, compared to how I understand the Scriptures, Glen.
In other words, I see the Father giving a people to the Son before the foundation of the world, and His Son saving them.

But according to the Bible, it doesn't have to, does it?:

" Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.
13 Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
14 For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.
15 What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.
16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?
17 But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.
18 Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.
19 I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness. " ( Romans 6:12-14 ).

If we as believers follow His commands, it will not reign in our bodies, my friend, and that is what I see this saying.

 

Dave, you and tyndale are speaking the same thing. We, now through faith, have the capacity to commit our members to the Spirit so that we obey the law of the Spirit. Yet, Paul acknowledges, both in Romans 7 and Galatians that our corrupt flesh fights against the Spirit who dwells in us so that we are ever struggling with this war in the heavenlies (see Ephesians 6).

The result is that God is ever sanctifying us.

 

" Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.
2 For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.
3 For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. " ( Hebrews 4:1-3 ).

 

The first three words in this passage is "What If God" These are the words Calvinism miss. This is a suppose example. It doesn't really mean that God is willing to show His wrath.
Maybe you'll notice the truth.
Rom 9:22 What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
Rom 9:23 And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,
Rom 9:24 Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
Rom 9:25 As he saith also in Osee, I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved.
Rom 9:26 And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people; there shall they be called the children of the living God.
The vessels of wrath were the Gentiles who were not a people of God. They were vessels of wrath because they didn't have any chance of mercy. But what you are saying is that Gentiles can't be saved.
MB

 

It's important to note in chapter 9 that Paul quotes from Malachi 1:2-3 about Jacob and Esau. There the phrase is best understood as "Jacob I chose and Esau I rejected." Paul has already spent 8 chapters telling us that those who have been given faith are justified in their faith. In chapter 8 he tells us that the elect are predestined by God. In chapter 9 he tells us who the elect are and explains why God did not fail or break his covenant with Israel. He tells us that the Sovereign God (the only being who has complete and overriding free will) not only condemns sinners, but even hardens their rebellious heart to show us that redemption only happens by the gracious choice of God to show mercy to whom he wills and to reject whom he wills.

Look at Romans 9:18 and connect it with Paul's statement in Romans 1:18-25. Paul is letting the reader know that the Sovereign God can take the heart that is already in rebellion against Him and He can seal the confirmation that such a person cannot choose God nor repent from their evil ways.

 

Paul is referencing Jeremiah 18, where God himself provides the answer:

Jer 18:6 O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel.
Jer 18:7 At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it;
Jer 18:8 If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them.

We ourselves were vessels of wrath before our salvation, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others (Eph.2:3) since He and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him (Jn.3:36) but we did repent (Jer.18:8) by believing on the Son of God, and so God had mercy on us, hence, vessels of mercy, because of God, who is rich in mercy (Eph.2:4).

Et voilà.

And there was a day when you all believed that, before you got "enlightened".

 

When God prepared the Gentiles to receive the gospel by opening that possibility to them (Acts 11:18), and so, after his rejection by Israel; as John had prepared Israel to receive Christ (Luke 1:17).
Sadly for now, concerning Israel: the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost (1Th.2:16).