Claudia_T said:
Romans 9:
11: (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth
12: It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger.
13: As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
14: What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.
15: For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
16: So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.
17: For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.
18: Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.
19: Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
20: Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
21: Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?
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:
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?
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.
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.
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 [SIZE=-1]CONTEXT[/SIZE]. 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. (Obviously, many Israelites have gotten saved, so this can't be treating individuals as vessels of wrath). The passage also mentions God's hardening of Pharaoh, but this is still not talking about salvation or [SIZE=-1]ETERNAL[/SIZE] 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!). 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; yet, possessing the Law (v.4), they should have known better.
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. But is it in the context of 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". So then what Paul is getting to nobody also should think is unjust. 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? Sinners who "chose to sin in Adam" (legally charged with the choice of a 'federal head') and are "allowed to go the way their 'totally depraved' nature takes them"? 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? Most Calvinists I argued with deny with a passion that God "makes" anybody that way (since they, through their federal head, really did it to themselves somehow); and if one of us even addresses that, they claim we are misrepresenting their position and don't know a thing about it. Yet the next verse clearly does credit God as "making" these "vessels" the way they are. And even to those who do confess God "makes" the reprobates that way, still, 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".
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).
"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?" T
HIS is what is being asked! 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.
http://members.aol.com/etb700/predestination.html
