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.
Comments