In that, Paul continues:
By no means! 15For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." Literally, I will mercy and compassion whom I will compassion. These are verbs, not nouns. Thus things like voice, mood, and tense are important. Parse them and look at the
relationships. If there was any synergism involved, there would be a middle voice or passive voice. These are active and indicative. Paul is talking about God's sovereignty
in election with respect to the question of individual salvation. Again, if you make it about the fulfilment of the promises in Christ and, by extension, faith in Christ as the
basis for inclusion in those promises, you have only moved the issue back one step. You have not answered the question that Paul asks, which is why do some believe and not others.
It's not "why do some from then to the present believe and die in Christ, and others die in unbelief (or seem to come to faith, but "draw back unto perdition"; which is a whole other can of worms with what "perseverance" is about!)
Ben E. says this is a comparison between the hardened Jews who were not turning to Christ that Paul is praying for to be saved. In part, that may be true, but the citation
is given as an illustration of God's mercy to Moses verses God's judgment of Pharaoh. The point isn't to draw a parallel, it is to illustrate God's mercying whom He will
mercy and compassioning whom He will compassion.
On the one hand, God shows mercy to Moses, and on the other, God raises Pharoah up to demonstrate God’s power. God hardened Pharoah's heart in order to demonstrate His power over the Egyptian gods and Pharaoh himself who was believed to be a god.
It does however serve as an illustration of the mercy of God and the reprobation of others, FOR A PURPOSE. The parallel isn't Pharoah/Jews...It is Pharaoh/no mercy, Moses/mercy; Isaac/love; Esau/hate. Why did God have mercy on Moses and Isaac and not have mercy on Pharaoh and Esau? Foreseen faith? Foreseen wickedness? Why did God call Moses and Isaac over Pharaoh, Moses step-brother, and Esau, Isaac's biological brother? In order to demonstrate His power and work out His purpose. What is this purpose? Salvation. What is it's grounding? Faith? No. Christ? No, He's the means, but not the ground of election itself, which Paul has already stated is His theme here. Wickedness? No. It is mercy, not a noun, a VERB. It is God's mercying and God's compassioning. This is not the extension of mercy (noun) in Christ to all who will believe. This is God mercying whom He will mercy and compassioning whom He will compassion. Thus, it, election, is not about, e.g., is unrelated to the one who wills (the believer) and the one who runs (the unbeliever), and since, faith is not morally neutral, and the text mitigates against anything good or evil in the person elected or reprobated. this rules out a libertine act of faith as the basis of election.
And "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. "Mercy" means more along the lines of "beneficience" to one "under someone's power", whether it is from the penalty of their own sin or not. 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. Furthermore,
as one studies the gruesome fall of Jerusalem in AD 70, and how this fulfilled much of scriptural prophecy regarding the judgment of Israel; it becomes quite clear that THIS was the immediate "wrath" and "destruction" the passage is referring to, and which the Israelites were the "vessels" of! The "vessels of mercy": the Christian Church composed of people of all nations (including Jews who crossed out of the former group!), was spared this horrific event, and continued on with God's grace to the present.
Now comes the illustration of the potter's freedom? Why? Well, who determines the pots' design? Who are the lumps? Is Christ the lump taken from Isaac? No, there are two lumps. Christ and the promise are not even in view.
Paul knows exactly what the next objection from the listener must be:Who personally can resist the will of God? Now: why make that objection is Paul is only talking about nations here? Why worry “who” personally can resist the will of God if Paul’s argument so far is about nations and not about individuals? How does this question make any sense at all if Paul means, “What nation can resist his will”? An especially in the context of his reply: 20But who are you, O man, to answer back to God?Paul cannot be
talking about corporate election if the thing making the objection is the personal individual.
Of course, the objection can come, “Well, Paul is talking to some person, right? Isn’t he just responding to the hypothetical reader just like anyone might in raising the objections to his point?”
I say: sure. It is possible if you do not read the rest of the verse:
Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why have you made me like this?"
Paul is here making it clear that the individual has objected, but that it is the individual that has been molded and is subject to God’s purpose.
21Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honored use and another for dishonorable use? 22What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels
of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory-- 24even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? 25As indeed he says in Hosea,"Those who were not my people I will call 'my people,'and her who was not beloved I will call 'beloved.'" 26"And in the very place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,'there they will be called 'sons of the living God.'"
The text here is clear. Paul is talkiing about individual salvation (vs. 1 - 6). Those INDIVIDUALS called from the Jews and Gentiles, all of whom were SOVEREIGNLY
mercied, e.g. made for honored use and the rest reprobated, e.g. made for dishonorable use. Did these pots determine their own destiny? Is there a middle voice verb here?
No, the participle "prepared" is a PASSIVE participle. This clinches the issue. If there was synergism here, then there would necessarily be some contextual hint that these pots had a hand in their designation. Nope, they didn't.
...we cannot read the end of Romans 9 and consider that this is about God’s apparent injustice in saving Gentiles, but is about how God’s promise is fulfilled in
spite of some Jews not being saved. He grounds this is the election of God (9:11) and then cites examples to show God's sovereignty in the matter of mercy/compassion and reprobation and the goal of doing both as a display of His glory, and then concludes with a discussion of the potter's freedom.
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. 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, so this is why Jesus and the apostles were often harsh to them, criticizing their "stubbornness". 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 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 chapter 11, saying "You will say then, 'the branches were broken off that I might be grafted in'. Well, because of
unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be high-minded, but fear".* 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.
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)
In connection with this then, is this passage teaching that God "raises" each non-elect person for the specific purpose of sending him to Hell "in order to make known the riches of his glory" to the saved and "proclaim His name throughout the earth"? NO, we don't even know who will finally end up in Hell here on earth, so that wouldn't "show" anybody anything. Or better yet; what about the tribesmen way off in the bush who have never even been seen by Christians. If they never hear and are lost, then did God "raise" them too, like Pharaoh, for our sake? We do not even know they (as individuals) exist! How are they "raised" up, then? ("raise" meaning brought into a believer's path for a specific purpose). So clearly, this passage is not suggesting any such thing. As for the idea that the "riches of His glory" in reprobation is to be made known to the redeemed in Heaven, the context is clearly a display of God's power in the present world, so this passage must be a specific earthly example of God's purpose. Israel is the whole focus of the chapter, not "all the people who will be in Hell". Since nobody knows who will ultimately die in their sins, there is no such "group" designated, as there would be no point in discussing it. Israel is who Paul says he wished he could be accursed for in v.3, not some new "hardened" group consisting of Israelites and every other non-Christian.
*Even if you could argue that God grafts them in by unconditional election/irresistable grace, still this conclusively shows that those who are "hardened" or "cut off" are not necessarily eternally reprobated/preteritioned. It's a general category regarding the group. Verse 32 then explains both chapters by saying that the very reason He concluded all in unbelief in the first place was so he can have mercy on all, (give all a chance to come to Him) not have mercy only on some and leave the rest trapped.