Whew! I've been away from here for a while, and didn't even notice all of this until today.
It's amazing that one side is challenged to exegete the chapter, and when they do, drawing upon the surrounding context (including chapter 11), they are accused of "atomizing it" or taking it piece by piece and jumping to another chapter, when the whole first part of the chapter has been removed from its context by the side making that charge.
Skandelon's long response on the last page was good and contained a lot of what I wanted to say. Still, I would like to add the same points in my own words from
my page: (sorry this is so long, but I edited as much as I could and it's all pertinent to what had been discussed so far):
Romans chapter 9 is the number one proof-text for the doctrine, since it discusses "vessels of wrath" (people made for "destruction"), and that God "has mercy on whom He will have mercy, and hardens whom He will harden". Then, anyone who questions why God would even create such a person, for instance, are blasted away with a quote of verse 20: "O man, who are you that replies against God?" In other words, this is the "truth" of God's sovereignty, so nobody has the right to question it, not even the poor "vessel of wrath" himself! But people don't even bother to check the CONTEXT. This passage is discussing Israel, a nation of people God was judging as opposed to Gentiles whom He was spreading His grace to, not individual people or everyone in a particular group being predestined for wrath as opposed to other individual people being elected for grace. The passage also mentions God's hardening of Pharaoh, but this is still not talking about salvation or ETERNAL punishment. Paul uses the example of Isaac, Jacob, Esau and Pharaoh to show how the people were chosen ("elected") by God for His purpose and not by their own will in the first place, and how God raised them up to show his power, and then hardens, all according to His will, and chooses others (and once again, individual salvation is not even mentioned.
The very context of Jacob and Esau from Malachi 1:1-4, 3:6, and even the original Genesis 25:12 account is discussing nations!). With both the Jews, as well as in later racism, people thought that their group was "chosen" by God over others because of some type of "superiority" they had within themselves, whether moral, intellectual, genetic, or otherwise. This is precisely what Paul is debunking, as the Gospel tells us there is no such superiority; for all have sinned and are under the same condemnation. Therefore, salvation must be purely by God's grace.
The Jews, of course, would be offended by this, and one of them might ask "why does He find fault" [i.e., with the people], and then Paul says "Who are you O man, to reply against God"? The Jews had been opposing the Gospel and the apostles all along, for among other things, criticizing the Jews for their hardness in rejecting Christ, as well as opening up to the gentiles; yet, possessing the Law (v.4), they should have known better. They had no right to question why God would find fault with
the people as a whole, but
as an individual, that person could still forsake his part of the national sin and repent.
Think about it: WHO, really, would ask Paul such a question in the first place? One of the "non-elect"? But who could know now that they are ultimately non-elect? Or is it just any arbitrary listener who happens not to like God's election process? Do you think the Jews would really care if all unbelieving Gentiles and apostate Jews were preordained to destruction?
They probably already believed that. Would Gentiles care whether individual Jews were "vessels of wrath"? If anything, some may have hastily presumed something like that, but then Paul corrects them, in ch.11:19, proving once and for all that they were not "offended" at Paul "teaching reprobation/preterition" in ch.9! But otherwise; what would that have to do with them? People back then were concerned primarily about themselves and their own group. No one thought about such questions like this as we do. The whole notion of the "dignity and worth of human beings" that makes people so offended at this doctrine now is more a modern Western mindset. A first century reader who just grasped the context regarding Israel and inheritance versus faith would get the point and have no reason to be so offended. But an Israelite in the Church who still had not fully submitted to the Gospel (as we see in the Gospels, Galatians and elsewhere), was another story. The Jews saw their national identity (physical inheritance) as an extension of themselves. It was everything to them, including their salvation. So to suggest they were no longer "chosen" in the sense they were used to was a great affront to them. But the entire Gospel is showing that "chosen" groups one had no choice belonging to did not solve the problem of sin, and thus could not save. Many such people did not even really love God. He was just their mascot and the doorman to Heaven (or national supremacy on earth) if they paid Him with their works, done purely in "the letter" in order to get themselves over. It was their stubborness that prevented them from admitting this (which meant that they too were sinners as much as they tried to keep the Law), so then they were hardened along with the rest of them, just like Romans 1:24 and 2 Thess.2:10-12. (not because God "decreed" the individuals to be initially stubborn in the first place).
Calvinists argue that the entire book of Romans is a "long argument on [individual] salvation, so why would he now be discussing groups?" Let's review the context by further examining the "why does He yet find fault; for who has resisted His will?" question.
WHAT is really being asked here? "Yet" find "fault" for what?
"Why would God unconditionally choose someone else and not me/[others], and save them by 'enabling' them to repent, yet leave me/[others] in this helpless state, dead in sin, unable to repent, yet still hold me/[them] responsible [i.e. 'find fault'] for my sin, and send me/[them] to Hell when I/[they] couldn't even 'resist His will' to place me/[them] in this state (before I[/they] were born, even) in the first place?". This is what people are asking Calvinists today, who then in turn simply project this into the text. [compare with Ransom's account of what the questioner is asking!] But is it in the context what the hypothetical person was asking Paul? It looks like it at first glance, and Calvinists assume so, so everytime someone questions or challenges "God holding helpless, 'totally unable' sinners responsible for their sin they couldn't repent of", the Calvinists just throw up the next verse as the quick magical answer. But "ability to repent" is not being discussed here. Neither is any inescapable state or fate. Paul had just mentioned Jacob, Esau and Pharaoh, These may be individuals, but what were they being used to illustrate? Step back another few verses: "not the children of the flesh are children of God; but the children of the promise are counted for a seed." (v.8) Paul argues that simply being "Abraham's children" does not make one a child of promise, because for one thing, Abraham had other children beside just the Jews. But God had declared that "In Isaac shall your Seed be called." (v.7) Being from Isaac also wasn't enough, because Esau also was his child. But God had still unconditionally chosen Jacob (v.12, 13), not because of any righteousness of his (Jews thought that their forefathers must have been chosen because of being more righteous, thus "works" rather than "Him that calleth"), for they were not even yet born when God made this decision.(v.11) So the whole point here is that it must be more than physical lineage from Abraham. The next step is that even being of Jacob's physical lineage is not enough.
To further demonstrate God's choice of men for these purposes was not "unjust" (v.14) Paul goes into the whole story of Pharaoh.
No Jew thought of what God did to Pharaoh as being "unjust" (after all, it was for their sake, and that's what mattered to them!) So then what Paul is getting to nobody also should think is unjust either. The whole context is two groups "the Children of the flesh", and "the children of promise". It says nothing about the individuals in either group being unconditionally elected or preteritioned into those groups. It just assumes two groups, and emphasizes that what many thought was the class that mattered (Jew as opposed to Gentile) was actually not the right one. Before one jumps to the clay "vessels", let's for once look more at the second part of v.20 (the beginning of Paul's answer to this question): "
Shall the thing formed say to Him who formed it , 'Why have you made me this way'?".
Made them what way? Predestined to Hell? Helplessly unable to repent, yet "held responsible" to repent and left in that state? Passed over for "saving grace" and therefore doomed to suffer the eternal "justice" for their sins? But once again, none of the above concepts are what was being discussed! (A reader would have no reason to even assume they were any of those things in the first place!). So you just can't say "Paul was answering the objection to God's unconditional election and preterition process"!
The focus is on "children of promise" as opposed to "children of the flesh". Calvinists also take these two groups of "children" as classes of predetermined individuals.
According to Ephesians 2:3, we all started out as "children of wrath" (which would be synonymous with "vessels of wrath", "sons of disobedience"(Col.3:6), "seed of Satan" (Matt.13) and also "children of the flesh" for the Jews), and John clearly defines "children of the devil" and "children of God" as "he that commits..." or "...does not commit [practice] sin" (1 John 3:8-10). Thanks to our "depravity" (sin from Adam), nobody is born in the latter state, and so the former, as an eternal state of condemnation, is not what God unconditionally "makes" anybody. This should prove once and for all that the question and Paul's answer have nothing to do with Calvinistic reprobation or preterition. God has declared that there are two groups: Physical Israel (which is in the same spiritual status as the rest of humanity) and spiritual Israel (Romans 2:28, 29).
So the real objection he is answering is: "
Why did God make us physical Israel only if that doesn't make us the true children of promise? As much as we try so hard to keep the Law He gave us, why is he still finding fault
or not accepting us as we are? Didn't He create us as His people? Could we have resisted His will
to create us this way, if this is not what He counts?" HERE is where Paul says "who are you to reply back to God?" He as "the Potter" sovereignly laid out a plan, involving two categories of people; the first had a purpose, but this purpose is not the salvation of the individuals in the group, but to pave the way for the second. It's this second group one must be apart of, and who are we to question this plan? (This still says nothing about a person's inability to cross from one group to the other. The people were stubborn and refused to give up their notion of inheritance, which they would have to do to become apart of the children of promise. This also would be analogous to modern unbelievers saying "Why are you saying one has to be a born-again Christian to be saved?". "Why does God find fault with me as I am? I'm a good person! I am a 'child' of his since he created me!["fatherhood of God, brotherhood of man" philosophy] He made me this way (by his own will), so he should understand!" But to them too, it's not "children of the flesh" who are counted, and not by our own self-justification!). All of this is apart of the theme or "long argument" Paul is making throughout the whole book of Romans.
This was the way the Church had read the passage for the first four centuries before the idea of unconditional "reprobation" was first posed.
Also, "vessels" is like a plural unity in this case— Israel consists of individual "vessels" as all creatures can be likened to vessels, but Israel as a whole was the "vessel", as shown in Isaiah 29:16 & 45:9 and Jer. 18:4-6ff & 25:34 which are the very passages Paul is drawing upon here. Further proof that even as individual "vessels", one is not preordained, in 2 Tim.2:20, 21, the 'vessels' of honor and dishonor are mentioned again, and a person chooses to be a vessel of honor, rather his choice being because he was preordained as a vessel of honor. And likewise, "mercy" and "wrath" must not be assumed to have only eternal meanings. People suffer mercy and wrath all the time here on earth, having nothing to do with whether they wind up saved or damned in the end. The passage does NOT say "He shall have
saving mercy on who He shall have saving mercy", but it is made clear elsewhere that it is offered to all. Ultimately, everyone was stubborn and deserved hardening, but God obviously doesn't harden everyone who deserves it. Every person who dabbles in perversion doesn't suffer what Romans 1 describes. But it was their choice to be in that position in the first place. Still, there was nothing stopping individuals in Israel, plus maybe even Pharaoh himself, (AFTER God's "purpose" was fulfilled), from eventually coming to faith. So this is the proper understanding of "vessels" and God "hardening or having mercy on whomever He will".
So we cannot just lift a statement out of its context like this and just move it over and apply it to something it was never intended for.
Calvinists I spoke to pointed to the verse "they are not all Israel, which are of Israel" and "children of the flesh, not children of God" (v.6ff) to try to prove this is talking about the "elect" and "non-elect" within Israel. But the distinction between those who obtained salvation and those who didn't was whether they sought it by faith or works. Verses 6 and 8 are simply supporting this, proving that faith is what makes one the faithful remnant, not physical inheritance. This is why Isaac is mentioned. All of the Jews were Isaac's seed also, but where Abraham represented the physical inheritance, Isaac was the child of promise through whom Christ came. Yes, there were both true believers as well as non-believers in Israel, and that's all this is saying; once again there is no assumption of preordained states of individuals. Lest one says "but faith was granted through 'election'", the passage pictures people having sought salvation. They did have choice.
The whole debate here was "faith" versus "inheritance", NOT "election" versus "free will"! So the plan of salvation and its carrying out is not of "blood" (inheritance); or "him who runs" or "the will of the flesh" (strives to be good through the Law); or of , "him who wills" or "the will of man" (human schemes and ideas of how to be saved; demanding from God), but of God who shows mercy. (v.10/John 1:13). None of this has anything to do with ability to believe.
This whole first part of the chapter is further interpreted by the last part. V.25-33 is discussing groups that did not pursue righteousness but found it, or who did try to pursue it through the Law but didn't. Paul is simply supporting his argument that in contrast to the Israelites thinking they were all automatically saved by inheritance, many if not most were not saved, because salvation is by faith, not going through the motions of following the Law. Meanwhile, gentiles who didn't even know God (let alone be trying to earn His favor) would be the ones who would in large numbers receive the Gospel, having no inheritance to pride themselves on. Why try to read anything else into this? The message of the New Covenant is that it is no longer the Law or physical inheritance, but faith, and neither some luck of the draw you could do nothing about, but in believing.
