The Potter and Clay in Romans 9:21
Romans 9 is the core of Calvinism's doctrine of irresistible grace in the eternal salvation and condemnation of individual people, yet this chapter isn't even about eternal salvation! Paul's use of the potter and clay analogy is from Isaiah 29 that speaks of God's temporary hardening of Israel because of their sins. They blinded themselves with pride, so he blinded them further to ensure that his judgment would be carried out, with the intent that the nation would eventually repent and be restored.
From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).
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From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).
This content is free, but I accept contributions via Paypal at https://jaycarper.com/paypal.
Follow me on Truth Social: https://truthsocial.com/@AmericanTorah
Send me a friend request on The Torah Network: https://social.ttn.place/jaycarper
Follow me on Twitter: https://jaycarper.com/twitter
Connect with me on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/americantorah/
Transcript
00:00I'm back with another passage from Romans chapter 9, and I'm starting with verse 18.
00:10Therefore he has mercy on whom he wills, and whom he wills he hardens.
00:15You will say to me then, Why does he find fault?
00:17For who has resisted his will?
00:19But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God?
00:22Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, Why have you made me like this?
00:27Does not the potter have power over the clay from the same lump to make one vessel for
00:31honor and another for dishonor?
00:34What if God, wanting to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much
00:38longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and that he might make known
00:42the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy which he had prepared beforehand for
00:47glory, even us whom he called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
00:55This is another central verse that people go to to talk about the ideas of irresistible
01:01grace and predestination.
01:04This is pretty much the core of Calvinism, and I'm going to tell you that that is not
01:10what this passage is even about.
01:12It's totally the wrong topic.
01:20Irresistible grace is the idea that God has decided who's going to be saved and who's
01:27not, and you have no power to resist it.
01:31When God calls you, you hear the gospel, or whatever mechanism God uses, you cannot resist.
01:40Some people will quibble and say that you can resist, but just not successfully.
01:45Well, that's the definition of irresistible.
01:48If you cannot resist successfully, then that's irresistible.
01:52So that's just playing with words.
01:56But that's not what this is about.
01:58If you just read this passage, it certainly sounds that way.
02:02But Paul wasn't making up these words.
02:04He wasn't just making up a new theology or telling people something that wasn't already
02:08in Scripture.
02:10Everything that Paul taught was based in the Old Testament.
02:15This passage is no exception.
02:18Paul is deriving this metaphor of the potter and the clay from Isaiah 29.
02:24I don't want to read that whole chapter to you, because that would just be too long.
02:29But I do want to read some parts of it, just to give you an idea of what it's talking about.
02:33Isaiah chapter 29 begins,
02:35Woe to Ariel, to Ariel the city where David dwelt, and year to year let feasts come around,
02:41yet I will distress Ariel.
02:43There shall be heaviness and sorrow, and it shall be to me as Ariel.
02:48Ariel is a euphemism for Jerusalem, and God is pronouncing judgment against Jerusalem
02:54for all of their sins.
02:56You know, there was another place, I believe it's in Hosea, where God is, or I might have
03:01the reference wrong, I don't remember for sure.
03:03Where God is talking about the feasts of Israel, the Sabbaths and Passover and Sukkot, all
03:08of these festivals, and saying, it's all making me sick.
03:12I'm going to take away your festivals because you're not keeping mine.
03:16He told them how to do it, and they were keeping it for their own purposes, or totally
03:20the wrong way, the wrong spirit, thinking that just by going through these actions they
03:24were going to make themselves righteous.
03:27God was going to take away their opportunity to keep the feasts because they were doing
03:30it all wrong, not for His glory.
03:33Anyways, moving on in this chapter, going down to verse 9.
03:39Pause and wonder, blind yourselves and be blind.
03:42They are drunk but not with wine.
03:44They stagger but not with intoxicating drink.
03:47For Yahweh has poured out on you the spirit of deep sleep and has closed your eyes, namely
03:52the prophets, and He has covered your heads, namely the seers.
03:58So the people had blinded themselves in their sins.
04:02Just like Pharaoh who hardened his own heart first, the people of Jerusalem, the Jewish
04:07people had committed so many sins that they could no longer see the truth.
04:11And the chapter goes on to explain that the reason for this is their pride.
04:15They thought they could understand everything without reference to God, without consulting
04:20Him or His prophets.
04:23Let me read a little bit further on.
04:30Woe to those who seek deep to hide their counsel far from Yahweh, and their works are in the
04:34dark.
04:35They say, Who sees us, and who knows us?
04:38Surely you have things turned around.
04:40Shall the potter be esteemed as the clay?
04:42For shall the thing made say of him who made it, He did not make me?
04:46Or shall the thing formed say of him who formed it, He has no understanding?
04:56When we start denying God's authority, when we start denying that God knows what's best
05:00for us, we are definitely going to get into trouble.
05:05Got a little cloud up above that's starting to drop some rain.
05:11And that's what was happening to Jerusalem.
05:14Their teachers, their priests and prophets were saying, we know better than God, so we're
05:19going to do things our way.
05:21And so they blinded themselves, and in response, God hardened their blindness, so to speak.
05:29He made it deeper.
05:30He made sure that they couldn't get out of their blindness, and he did so by blinding
05:34the prophets.
05:35The prophets' main job is to call the people to repentance.
05:39Well he had decided he had to punish Jerusalem, and he had to teach them to rely on him, and
05:45if his judgment wasn't carried through, they wouldn't learn the lesson.
05:49So he blinded the prophets of Israel so they couldn't call the people to repentance.
05:56But he goes on in this chapter,
06:26God blinded Israel for a time, and this is in the New Testament also.
06:30It was only a temporary blindness for the sake of correction.
06:34They had to learn to rely on God, and so God blinded them so that they wouldn't see the
06:40truth and wouldn't repent until after the lesson had been administered.
06:46But ultimately, their restoration is guaranteed.
06:49God promised it.
06:50He promised that they would sin, he would blind them, they'd be punished.
06:55But the punishment would also drive them back to repentance.
06:59God promised that the same people that he exiled, the same people that he punished,
07:04were the ones he would call back to repentance and restore to the land.
07:08Not the same individuals, obviously, because they've all been dead for 2,000 years or more.
07:13But the Jewish people, the people of Israel.
07:16Not just the southern kingdom, but the northern kingdom too.
07:19God said they would all repent eventually and be restored.
07:22By all, again, I don't mean every individual.
07:25I mean the people as a whole.
07:28And that really gets to the point of why this is not about Calvinism.
07:32This chapter is not about any individual person's eternal salvation.
07:38It is about the calling of Israel, the certainty of their punishment, and the certainty of
07:44their restoration.
07:46God's callings are irrevocable.
07:49He called Israel to a specific role.
07:51He called Pharaoh to a role.
07:53He called Egypt and Rome to specific roles.
07:56And none of those people have any right to complain to God that they don't want to play
08:00that role.
08:02The individuals within those nations are free to repent.
08:06Yeshua died for them all, and he wants them all to repent.
08:12But once a nation is set on a course, God's going to see it through.
08:17And that's even true for individuals.
08:19If you deny God long enough, eventually he'll give you up to it.
08:25That's what Romans 1 is all about.
08:28Individual people deny him so long that they can no longer hear his voice.
08:32They blind and deafen themselves.
08:36But as long as you can still hear the call to repentance, you can choose to repent.
08:41You can put your faith in God and be restored, just like the people of Israel.
08:48This is Jay Carper from American Torah.
08:50Be blessed.