Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Romans 9:19
Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
(B) Is Man responsible?
19. Thou wilt say then ] St Paul is still, as so often before, writing as if an opponent were at his side. How vividly this suggests that he had himself experienced the conflicts of thought which indeed every earnest mind more or less encounters! But conflicts do not always end in further doubts. Difficulties, often most distressing ones, must meet us in any theory of religion that is not merely evolved from our own likings; and difficulties are not necessarily impossibilities. At one point or another we must be prepared to submit to fact and mystery.
yet ] Q. d., “why, after such statements of His sovereignty, does He go on to treat us as free agents?” Here is the second head of objection. God’s justice was the first; now it is man’s accountability.
who hath resisted ] This is not the place to discuss the profound problem here suggested. It must be enough to point out (1) that St Paul makes no attempt to solve it. He rests upon the facts ( a) that God declares Himself sovereign in His mercy; ( b) that He treats man’s will as a reality: and he bids us accept those facts, and trust, and act. (2) The contradiction to the hint that “ no man hath resisted ” lies, not in abstruse theory, but in our innermost consciousness. We know the fact of our will; we know the reality of moral differences; we know that we can “resist the Holy Ghost.” On the other hand, the truth of God’s foreknowledge is alone sufficient, on reflection, to assure us that every movement of will, as being foreseen, could not be otherwise than in fact it is. And this is exactly as true of the simplest acts and tenderest affections of common life, as of things eternal: in each emotion of pity or joy we move along the line of prescience, a line which thus may be regarded as, for us, irrevocably fixed beforehand. But meanwhile in these things we feel and act without a moment’s misgiving (except artificial misgiving) about our freedom. Just so in matters of religion; but the special relations of sinful man to God compel these plain and even stern statements of the truth of God’s action in the matter, even in the midst of arguments and pleadings which all assume the reality of our will.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Thou wilt say then unto me – The apostle here refers to an objection that might be made to his argument. If the position which he had been endeavoring to establish were true; if God had a purpose in all his dealings with people; if all the revolutions among people happened according to his decree, so that he was not disappointed, or his plan frustrated; and if his own glory was secured in all this, why could he blame people?
Why doth he yet find fault? – Why does he blame people, since their conduct is in accordance with his purpose, and since he bestows mercy according to his sovereign will? This objection has been made by sinners in all ages. It is the standing objection against the doctrines of grace. The objection is founded,
- On the difficulty of reconciling the purposes of God with the free agency of man.
(2)It assumes, what cannot be proved, that a plan or purpose of God must destroy the freedom of man.
(3)It is said that if the plan of God is accomplished, then what is best to be done is done, and, of course, man cannot be blamed. These objections are met by the apostle in the following argument.
Who hath resisted his will? – That is, who has successfully opposed his will, or frustrated his plan? The word translated resist is commonly used to denote the resistance offered by soldiers or armed men. Thus, Eph 6:13, Take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand (resist or successfully oppose) in the evil day: see Luk 21:15, I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay or resist; see also Act 7:10; Act 13:8, But Elymas …withstood them, etc. The same Greek word, Rom 13:2; Gal 2:11. This does not mean that no one has offered resistance or opposition to God, but that no one has done it successfully. God had accomplished his purposes in spite of their opposition. This was an established point in the sacred writings, and one of the admitted doctrines of the Jews. To establish it had even been a part of the apostles design; and the difficulty now was to see how, this being admitted, people could be held chargeable with crime. That it was the doctrine of the Scriptures, see 2Ch 20:6, In thine hand is there not power and might, so that none is able to withstand thee? Dan 4:35, he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou? See also the case of Joseph and his brethren, Gen 50:20, As for you, ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Rom 9:19-20
Thou wilt say then unto me, why doth He yet find fault?
The proper attitude of man towards Divine mysteries
The full spirit of this part of Pauls reply may be brought out by considering it as addressed to the objector–
I. As a man. Considering the appeal in this light, it impresses a lesson of great practical importance, namely, to beware of arraigning, with irreverent rashness and self-sufficiency, the procedure of the Divine Being, as represented to us by Himself. Nothing, surely, can be more unbecoming in any creature. Nothing can mere strikingly display the sad predominance in the human heart of that aspiring pride which was originally infused by the tempting assurance, Ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil. The folly, indeed, of refusing to admit whatever does not come within the limit of our comprehension, can be equalled only by its impiety. There must be parts of the Divine procedure whose principles and reasons are beyond the depth of even archangelic intellects. It is a maxim of essential importance, on all such subjects, that we should not allow that which we do know to be displaced from our confidence by that which we do not know. We have the fullest assurance of the righteousness of the Supreme Ruler. Surely, then, we ought not to allow ourselves to be startled into scepticism because, in His revealed procedure, we may find particulars, the secret of which we are unable fully to penetrate. Shall we, then, on the one hand, question the prescience of God, because we may be at a loss fully to discern its consistency with the freedom and accountableness of man?–or, on the other hand, shall we loose men from their moral responsibility, and convert them into mere irresponsible pieces of machinery, because we may not perfectly discern the link of harmony between mans accountableness and Gods foreknowledge? And especially when we recollect that the mystery of mysteries is not a doctrine, but a fact–not a discovery of revelation, but an event independent of revelation altogether–which revelation does not originate, but which it finds, and on which it proceeds–the existence of moral evil itself under the government of the infinitely Holy and Good! There is no denying the fact; but the mystery of the fact has baffled the wits of the wisest from the beginning till now. Shall we, then, refuse the remedy, because we cannot fully explain why the evil itself was permitted to exist?
II. As a sinner. Who art thou?–not only a creature, short-sighted, and ignorant, but a guilty, condemned creature. How unspeakably unreasonable and presumptuous is the language of the objector when regarded in this light? And here we might introduce anew, with augmented force, the proper terms for such a creature in presenting himself before the God with whom he has to do. Of whom ought he, then, to think? Should it not be of himself? Of what ought he to think? Should it not be of his own transgressions and his own deserts? He has an account of his own–what to him are the accounts of others? Is he to stand out against the justice of God in his own sentence, till he sees whether God deals with others exactly as He does with him? What has he to do with others? As a sinner, he stands at the bar of heaven, charged with his own guilt, and has to answer for himself. If there be any ground on which he can impeach the righteousness of the Judge in his own sentence, let him advance his plea. But if he himself, as a sinner, is justly condemned, is not the posture that becomes him that of a suppliant for mercy? Oh, if instead of replying against God, by presuming to pick faults in His general administration, each sinner would but look to himself–ponder his own guilt–and in the name of the one Divine Mediator, cast himself at the feet of his Judge with the brief petition of the publican, all then would be well. He should find mercy, as sure as God delighteth in it; and, because He delighteth in it, has provided for its honourable exercise. (R. Wardlaw, D.D.)
Truth not to be tampered with
No man has any right to make that which he believes to be the truth of God any less exacting, less sharp or clear, because he thinks his fellow-men will not accept it if he states it in its blankest and baldest form. I read an incident in a newspaper the other day that seems to illustrate this point. A tired and dusty traveller was leaning against a lamp-post in the city of Rochester, and he turned and looked around him and said, How far is it to Farmington? and a boy in the crowd said, Eight miles. Do you think it is so far as that? said the poor tired traveller. Well, seeing that you are so tired, I will call it seven miles. The boy, with his heart overflowing with the milk of human kindness, pitied the exhausted traveller, and chose to call it seven miles. I know that I have seen statements of the truth that have dictated the same answer. Never make the road from Rochester to Farmington seven miles when you know it is eight. Do not do a wrong to truth out of regard for men. (H. W. Beecher.)
Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God?—
Presumption rebuked
Observe–
I. The temerity of man. He arraigns–
1. Gods perfections.
2. Procedure.
3. Government.
II. Its merited reproof. Such conduct is–
1. Impertinent.
2. Wicked.
3. Foolish. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
Pride–in dictating to God
The petty sovereign of an insignificant tribe in North America every morning stalks out of his hovel, bids the sun good-morrow, and points out to him with his finger the course he is to take for the day. Is this arrogance more contemptible than ours when we would dictate to God the course of His providence, and summon Him to our bar for His dealings with us? How ridiculous does man appear when he attempts to argue with his God! (C. H. Spurgeon.)
God does not reason
A gentleman examining some deaf and dumb children wrote up the question, Does God reason? One of the children immediately wrote underneath. God knows and sees everything. Reasoning implies doubt and uncertainty; therefore God does not reason.
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 19. Why doth he yet find fault?] The apostle here introduces the Jew making an objection similar to that in Ro 3:7: If the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory, that is, if God’s faithfulness is glorified by my wickedness, why yet am I also judged as a sinner? Why am I condemned for that which brings so much glory to him? The question here is: If God’s glory be so highly promoted and manifested by our obstinacy, and he suffers us to proceed in our hardness and infidelity, why does he find fault with us, or punish us for that which is according to his good pleasure?
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Here he obviates a third objection or cavil. The first was, that God is unfaithful, Rom 9:6; the second, that God is unjust, Rom 9:14; now the third is, that God is severe and cruel. Some might object and say, If God, in those courses which he takes with men and sinners, doth follow only his own will and pleasure, and all things are done thereafter; why then doth he complain of sinners, and find fault with them? It seems it is his will to reject them; and who hath resisted, or can make resistance thereunto? It seems to be a common saying amongst the Hebrews, that None can withstand God: Rom 9:2; 2Ch 20:6, and elsewhere.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
19. Thou shalt say then unto me,Why“Why then” is the true reading.
doth he yet find fault? forwho hath resisted“Who resisteth”
his will?that is,”This doctrine is incompatible with human responsibility“;If God chooses and rejects, pardons and punishes, whom He pleases,why are those blamed who, if rejected by Him, cannot help sinning andperishing? This objection shows quite as conclusively as the formerthe real nature of the doctrine objected tothat it is Election andNon-election to eternal salvation prior to any difference of personalcharacter; this is the only doctrine that could suggest the objectionhere stated, and to this doctrine the objection is plausible.What now is the apostle’s answer? It is twofold. First: “Itis irreverence and presumption in the creature to arraign theCreator.”
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Thou wilt say then unto me,…. That is, thou wilt object to me; for this is another objection of the adversary, against the doctrine the apostle was advancing: and it is an objection of a mere natural man, of one given up to a reprobate mind, of an insolent hardened sinner; it discovers the enmity of the carnal mind to God; if is one of the high things that exalts itself against the knowledge of him; it is with a witness a stretching out of the hand against God, and strengthening a man’s self against the Almighty; it is a running upon him, even upon the thick bosses of his bucklers; it carries in it the marks of ill nature, surliness, and rudeness, to the last degree:
why doth he yet find fault? The objector does not think fit to name the name of “God”, or “the Lord”, but calls him “he”; and a considerable emphasis lies upon the word “yet”: what as if he should say, is he not content with the injustice he has already exercised, in passing by some, when he chose others; in leaving them to themselves, and hardening their hearts against him, and to go on in their own ways, which must unavoidably end in destruction; but after all this, is angry with them, finds fault with them, blames, accuses, and condemns them, for that which they cannot help; nay, for that which he himself wills? this is downright cruelty and tyranny. The objector seems to have a particular regard to the case of Pharaoh, the apostle had instanced in, when after God had declared that he had raised him up for this very purpose, to make known his power, and show forth his glory in all the world, still finds fault with him and says, “as yet exaltest thou thyself against my people, that thou wilt not let them go?” Ex 9:17; and yet he himself had hardened his heart, and continued to harden his heart, that he might not let them go as yet; and when he had let them go, hardened his heart again to pursue after them, when he drowned him and his host in the Red sea; all which in this objection, is represented as unparalleled cruelty and unmercifulness; though it is not restrained to this particular case, but is designed to be applied to all other hardened persons; and to expose the unreasonableness of the divine proceedings, in hardening men at his pleasure; and then blaming them for acting as hardened ones, when he himself has made them so, and wills they should act in this manner:
for who hath resisted his will? This is said in support of the former, and means not God’s will of command, which is always resisted more or less, by wicked men and devils; but his will of purpose, his counsels and decrees, which stand firm and sure, and can never be resisted, so as to be frustrated and made void. This the objector takes up, and improves against God; that since he hardens whom he will, and there is no resisting his will, the fault then can never lie in them who are hardened, and who act as such, but in God; and therefore it must be unreasonable in him to be angry with, blame, accuse, and condemn persons for being and doing that, which he himself wills them to be and do. Let the disputers of this world, the reasoners of the present age, come and see their own faces, and read the whole strength of their objections, in this wicked man’s; and from whence we may be assured, that since the objections are the same, the doctrine must be the same that is objected to: and this we gain however by it, that the doctrines of particular and personal election and reprobation, were the doctrines of the apostle; since against no other, with any face, or under any pretence, could such an objection be formed: next follows the apostle’s answer.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Why doth he still find fault? ( ?). Old verb, to blame. In N.T. only here and Heb 8:8. Paul’s imaginary objector picks up the admission that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. “Still” () argues for a change of condition since that is true.
Withstandeth his will ( ). Perfect active indicative of , old verb, maintains a stand (the perfect tense). Many have attempted to resist God’s will (, deliberate purpose, in N.T. only here and Acts 27:43; 1Pet 4:3). Elsewhere (Mt 6:10).
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Hath resisted [] . Rev., more correctly, with – standeth. The idea is the result rather than the process of resistance. A man may resist God ‘s will, but cannot maintain his resistance. The question means, who can resist him?
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “Thou wilt say then unto me,” (ereis moi oun) “Therefore, (or in light of this) thou wilt say to me,” you will question my inspired explanation of God’s sovereign will and choosings, as if both he and I were below your mentality.
2) “Why doth he yet find fault?” (ti eti memphetai); “Why does he (God) still find fault?” Why does God make men bad, then find fault with them? Men still question God’s goodness and justice, a thing that reflects their own limitation of knowledge, goodness and justice, and obedience, Act 2:23; Jas 1:13.
3) “For who has resisted his will?” (to gar Boulemati autou tis anthes teken;) “For who has resisted his counsel?” The term “counsel” indicates that God counsels, directs, instructs, and commands men to righteousness, before he “hardens” them in their course of rebellion and obstinacy, as in the case of Pharaoh, and many rebellions in Israel. Pro 1:22-33. The very use of the term (Gk. Boulemati) which means “council” or to “counsel,” not (Gk. thelo) meaning “high, holy will,” indicates that God’s high holy will to harden men personally is only after they have rejected his “counsel-will” for them. With this Bible concept none should stumble at God’s sovereign will and acts of even judgment.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
19. Thou wilt then say, etc. Here indeed the flesh especially storms, that is, when it hears that they who perish have been destined by the will of God to destruction. Hence the Apostle adopts again the words of an opponent; for he saw that the mouths of the ungodly could not be restrained from boldly clamouring against the righteousness of God: and he very fitly expresses their mind; for being not content with defending themselves, they make God guilty instead of themselves; and then, after having devolved on him the blame of their own condemnation, they become indignant against his great power. (302) They are indeed constrained to yield; but they storm, because they cannot resist; and ascribing dominion to him, they in a manner charge him with tyranny. In the same manner the Sophists in their schools foolishly dispute on what they call his absolute justice, as though forgetful of his own righteousness, he would try the power of his authority by throwing all things into confusion. Thus then speak the ungodly in this passage, — “What cause has he to be angry with us? Since he has formed us such as we are, since he leads us at his will where he pleases, what else does he in destroying us but punish his own work in us? For it is not in our power to contend with him; how much soever we may resist, he will yet have the upper hand. Then unjust will be his judgment, if he condemns us; and unrestrainable is the power which he now employs towards us.” What does Paul say to these things?
(302) The clause rendered by [ Calvin ] , “ Quid adhuc conqueritur — why does he yet complain?” is rendered by [ Beza ] , “ quid adhuc suecenset — why is he yet angry?” Our common version is the best, and is followed by [ Doddridge ] , [ Macknight ] , and [ Stuart ] The γὰρ, in the next clause, is omitted by [ Calvin ] , but [ Griesbach ] says that it ought to be retained. — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
Text
Rom. 9:19-29. Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he still find fault? For who withstandeth his will? Rom. 9:20 Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why didst thou make me thus? Rom. 9:21 Or hath not the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor? Rom. 9:22 What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering vessels of wrath fitted unto destruction: Rom. 9:23 and that he might make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy, which he afore prepared unto glory, Rom. 9:24 even us, whom he also called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles? Rom. 9:25 As he saith also in Hosea,
I will call that my people, which was not my people;
And her beloved, that was not beloved.
Rom. 9:26 And it shall be, that in the place where it was said unto them,
Ye are not my people,
There shall they be called sons of the living God.
Rom. 9:27 And Isaiah crieth concerning Israel, If the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, it is the remnant that shall be saved: Rom. 9:28 for the Lord will execute his word upon the earth, finishing it and cutting it short. Rom. 9:29 And, as Isaiah hath said before,
Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed,
We had become as Sodom, and had been made like unto Gomorrah.
REALIZING ROMANS, Rom. 9:19-29
422.
Who would express the thought of Rom. 9:19?
423.
If God is so powerful, why doesnt he destroy the Jews, or anyone else who opposes him? Is this the thought of Rom. 9:19?
424.
One of our greatest needs is to understand, with our hearts, the nature of God. Is this what Paul is saying in Rom. 9:20?
425.
How could the clay speak to the potter? Why then is the figure in Rom. 9:20 b used?
426.
If God makes us honorable or dishonorable, are we responsible? Note please in answering this the meaning of honorable.
427.
What period of time and what event is referred to in Rom. 9:22?
428.
In the case cited in Rom. 9:22, who was responsible for the condition of the vessels?
429.
Does the foreknowledge of God relate to the reason for mans action?i.e., does man act because God knows how he will act? Does God influence the actions of man? If so, in what way?
430.
In what sense were Christians (saints in Rome) afore prepared unto glory?
431.
How does God call out a people for his name? cf. Rom. 9:24.
432.
The quotations from the prophets prove two great points. What are the points they prove?
433.
We become the people of God by a definite process. What is Gods part? What is mans part?
434.
Note carefully the words that discuss the beautiful relationship man has to God. cf. Rom. 9:25-26
435.
Isaiah indicated how many Jews would be saved. How can we harmonize this with the thought, All Israel shall be saved in Rom. 11:25-26?
436.
In this difficult section remember that the Christians in Rome understood this letter. You are no different than they. Define Rom. 9:28
437.
What was the seed left by the Lord? cf. Rom. 9:29
Paraphrase
Rom. 9:19-29. But thou will reply to me, Since God is to cast off the Jews, why doth he still find fault? By destroying them, he might easily have put an end to their provocations. For who hath resisted his will?
Rom. 9:20 Nay, but, O man, who art thou that arguest to the dishonor of God? Is it reasonable for the thing formed, who hath its being merely by the will and power of its maker, to say to him who made it, why hast thou made me thus?
Rom. 9:21 To use the argument whereby God formerly illustrated his sovereignty in the disposal of nations, Jer. xviii. 6. Hath not the potter power over the clay, to make, of the same lump, one vessel fitted to an honorable use, and another to a meaner service?
Rom. 9:22 Yet, not to rest the matter on Gods sovereignty, if God, willing to show him wrath for the abuse of privileges bestowed, and to make known his power in the punishment of such wickedness, hath upheld, with much long-suffering, the Jews, who, because they are to be destroyed, may be called vessels of wrath fitted for destruction, where is the fault?
Rom. 9:23 And what fault is there, if God hath long preserved these vessels of wrath for this other purpose; that he might make known the exceeding greatness of his goodness on the objects of his favor, whom, by his dealings with the Jews, he had before prepared for the honor of becoming his people?
Rom. 9:24 Even us whom, instead of the Jews, he hath called his church and people, not only among the Jews, but also among the Gentiles, because we have believed the gospel.
Rom. 9:25 This need not surprise the Jews: It is agreeable to what God saith by Hosea, I will have mercy on her that had not obtained mercy; on the ten tribes whom I cast off for their idolatry: and I will say to them which were not my people, Thou art my people; I will call the Gentiles my people.
Rom. 9:26 The calling of the Gentiles is foretold by Hosea still more plainly: And it shall come to pass, that in the countries where it was said to the idolatrous Gentiles, Ye are not my people, there they shall be called the sons of the living God; the heirs of immortality, by believing the gospel.
Rom. 9:27 Besides, the rejection of the Jews at this time is not more contrary to the promises, than the rejection of the ten tribes who were carried into captivity by the Assyrians, a rejection almost total; for Isaiah lamenteth concerning Israel, that though the number of the children of Israel, who are carried away captives, be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them shall return.
Rom. 9:28 For, as the same prophet adds, Rom. 9:22. finishing and executing speedily this rejection, according to the righteous threatening of God, certainly the Lord will make their rejection a speedy work upon the land of Israel.
Rom. 9:29 And as Isaiah hath said before, (chap. Rom. 1:9), Unless the Lord of Hosts had left unto us a very small remnant of our nation, we should have become as Sodom, and been made like to Gomorrah, we should have been utterly destroyed as a nation.
Summary
But if God makes men what he pleases, why does he still find fault with them? He does not do so, He finds no fault with them for being what he makes them, but only for their own voluntary wrong. Again, in these choices, Gods creatures should not presume to question him. They must take for granted that he acts justly. He has the absolute right to do what he does, and since he cannot do wrong, he must not be questioned.
But God, though determined to punish evil-doers in the end, has always borne long with them. Surely none can say this is unjust. He may do as he pleases. And that he might show the abundance of glory he has to bestow on those who prove themselves worthy of it, he called his disciples both from among the Jews and the Gentiles. He has thus shown himself perfectly impartial.
God did no injustice in choosing the Jews at first and in rejecting the Gentiles. Neither now does he do any injustice in choosing the Gentiles and rejecting the Jews. He has always intended to accept those who obeyed his Son, whether Jews or Gentiles, and to reject all the rest. This he long ago foretold both by Hosea and Isaiah.
Comment
c.
Third Objection Stated and Answered. Rom. 9:19-29
(1) Objection Stated. Rom. 9:19. Paul is very patient with the prejudiced mind of the Jew. We find the apostle in the next verse inferring that the Jew would certainly place the wrong construction upon what he has just said. He has established the fact that in the Old Testament period God exercised his absolute sovereignty in certain worldly choices. Not one word was said about Gods choices concerning eternal life, but from the questions of the Jew, Why doth he still find fault? For who withstandeth his will?, we can see that the Jew supposed Gods selections related to eternity as well as this world. Rom. 9:19
(2) The Holy Spirit did not even deem this position worthy of consideration. So repulsive was it when viewed in its true perspective that to offer an answer would have been to entertain a thought that was totally out of harmony with the position of man and the character of God. Indeed, it would have been even as Paul stated. It would present the awful spectacle of a mere creature of dust arguing with the eternal Creator. The case is presented in the words of Isaiah (Isa. 29:16; Isa. 45:9), Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why didst thou make me thus? Isa. 9:20
239.
What false construction was placed upon Pauls words by the Jews?
240.
What was evidently the Holy Spirits estimate of the third objection?
241.
What illustration or analogy is used to show the absurdity of the objection?
This idea of man criticizing Gods choices is utterly preposterous. Even if he did foreordain or predetermine every soul by external acts for heaven or hell (which of course we know he didnt) we would have absolutely no right to question his justice. The relationship of man to God is as the potter to the clay: Or hath not the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor? Rom. 9:21
To ascertain the meaning and extent of the words honor and dishonor, all we have to do is to look back upon those vessels of honor, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and realize that the honor was purely of this earth and had to do with Gods choice of men who would be best suited to carry out Gods purpose through his children in the world. The honor bestowed upon them by God had nothing to do with their eternal destinies. And those vessels of dishonor, Ishmael, Esau and Pharaoh, were dishonored in a way which is the exact opposite of the way the other three were honored. Rom. 9:21
Over against the facts just stated and in addition to them is the following thought: What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering vessels of wrath fitted unto destruction: . . . Paul now adds this thought: You could not understand the selection of God in the cases just cited. Yet you agree to the justice in them, If you could not understand that, what will you say to the longsuffering of God with the sin of man? We all know that those who are wicked should be and will be punished, and Jehovah assents to this and is willing that it should be so. But are they who have fitted themselves for destruction, such as Pharaoh, punished immediately, or soon after their rejection of righteousness? We know that God is long suffering with them and withholds his punishment to the intent that they might repent (cf. Rom. 2:4-5). This is all true, we know, but WHY? Oh, they are speechless before the mercy of Godthey have no answer. Well, how then can they be so egotistical as to question any of those decisions which are exclusively Jehovahs? Rom. 9:22
Rom. 9:23 presents a reason for the action described in Rom. 9:22. The purpose of Gods longsuffering with the wicked is that in thus acting he can manifest the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy. How can this be? It is easy to see that if the judgment of God fell immediately upon the wicked, there would be no time for them to repent, and thus would there be torn up some potential wheat along with the tares (Mat. 13:28-30). He withholds his judgment even as he states that he might make known the riches of his glory (referring to the eternal glory in contradistinction to destruction) upon the vessels of mercy which he afore prepared unto glory . . . How was this accomplished? It was surely not done in an arbitrary way. We know this is true from what we have already studied on the subject. Then how? It seems to us that God long ago prepared (before the foundation of the world) a plan whereby man, if he were obedient to Gods plan, could inherit heaven, that all those who were called by the gospel and were faithful to the plan of God were thus afore prepared unto glory. Rom. 9:23
242.
What is the meaning of the words honor and dishonor in Rom. 9:21?
243.
Explain the analogy of Rom. 9:21-22.
243.
Explain how the riches of Gods glory are shown in the lives of the saints by his long suffering with sinners.
Now comes the out-and-out statement of what has formerly only been directly inferred. What has been the purpose in all that has been said in this chapter? Has it not been to demonstrate to the Jews the reasonableness of their rejection in relation to the economy of God? If then the Jew is rejected, who is accepted? The answer is: all those in Christ Jesus. Whom does that include? Here we have the answer: . . . even us, whom he also called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles. The statement just quoted is the latter portion of the repudiation of the question in Rom. 9:19, but it also contains the conclusion to the whole matter. Rom. 9:24
Paul, having established the reasonableness of Gods rejection of Israel, now quotes from the prophets to show that they looked forward to this very circumstance. The first quotation is found in Hos. 2:23. It says that the time is coming when those that are not now accounted people, i.e., the Gentiles, will be called and considered as Gods people, and those which are not his beloved (the Gentiles again) will be then beloved. Again another prophet is summoned to speak on behalf of this truth. Hear Isaiah as he speaks: And it shall be, that in the place where it was said unto them, ye are not my people, there shall they be called sons of the living God. The place referred to simply means among the Gentiles generally. Rom. 9:25-26
245.
Explain how the vessels of mercy were afore prepared unto glory.
246.
How does Rom. 9:24 form a conclusion to all that has been said in this chapter?
247.
What do Rom. 9:25-26 add to the argument just given?
There are two great facts to be established in this section: (1) that the Gentiles are to become the children of God; (2) that only a remnant of the Jews will be saved or finally become the true children of God. The first point was well established by the whole discussion from Rom. 9:1-24. The quotations from the prophets corroborate it. The fact that only a remnant of Israel would be saved must have surely suggested itself to the mind of the thoughtful Jew; but now we find the full proof of this from their own prophet Isaiah. And Isaiah crieth concerning Israel, If the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, it is the remnant that shall be saved. This prophecy is self-explanatory if we understand what has just been said. Rom. 9:27-28
The final word of Isaiah on the thought of a mere remnant being saved is found in Isa. 1:9 : Except the Lord of Sabaoth (Lord of Hosts) had left us a seed (speaking prophetically of those Jews who would accept Christ) we (the nation of Israel) had become as Sodom and had been made like unto Gomorrah. That is, in the sight of God, if the small number of Jews that had accepted Christ would have failed to do so, God would have considered the Jews as extinct and condemned as Sodom and Gomorrah. What a need was there then and is there now for the nation of Israel to accept the Messiah! Rom. 9:29
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(19-21) These verses contain the third part of the vindication, which is based upon a possible extension of the objection. Not only might it seem as if this absolute choice and rejection was unjust in itself, but also unjust in its consequences. How can a man be blamed or punished, when his actions are determined for him? The Apostle meets this by a simple but emphatic assertion of the absolute and unquestionable prerogative of God over His creatures.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
4. No reply can be made against God for all this; for it accords with the universal principle of an equitable Free Probation, (19-23.)
For it accords with the law of a responsible probationary free-agency that, as a potter may, according to the temper shown by the clay, prepare the vessel for honour or for dishonour, so God, according to the temper and showing of a free-agent, may assign him to mercy or wrath.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
19. Thou me The Jew and the apostle are now face to face.
Why find fault? The Jew’s question, divested of its petulant words, is this: Since in our downfall, typified thus by Pharaoh’s overthrow, God, as you say, has it all his own way, why does he hold us Jews responsible?
Calvinists often tell us (as Barnes on the passage) that this is the very objection that Arminians make against Calvinism. Very true, we reply, and it is to a false Calvinistic view of the matter that the Jew objects. He understands that Paul is a predestinarian in his putting of the case, and against that putting his query is perfectly just. And Paul will reply, not by denying the validity of the objection to the fatalistic view, but by denying that the fatalistic view is the one he puts. So, after reproving the petulance of the phrase and spirit of the Jew, he proceeds to show that he himself maintains a doctrine of true equitable free-agency.
Really, the Jew assumes that by Paul’s view his own rejection was willed by God, and his sins as condition to his rejection. Had the apostle, indeed, said, “God has decreed your downfall, and foreordained your sins as the means to it,” the Jew’s question would have been just. But Paul, quite the reverse, maintained the non-necessity of any fall at all. He defends God’s right to establish a system of broad unlineal free-agency and of salvation conditioned upon faith in Christ, in which, as Israel himself is potentially included, there is no necessity for Israel to fall. Apostacy is Israel’s own free, undecreed, unforeordained, unwilled act; and Paul is writing this epistle to prevent that act.
Who resisted will? The Jew’s premises are, God willed my sin and downfall; my sin and downfall fulfil his will; the question then is, How I am to blame? If the premises are true, his question is irresistible.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘You will say then to me, “Why does he still find fault? For who withstands his will?” ’
He opens with a theoretical argument, although no doubt one he had heard many times, that of someone who says, “(If God hardens whom He will) why does he still find fault? For who withstands his will?” The idea behind the argument is that if God is sovereignly responsible for men’s decisions, no blame can be laid on men for how they respond to Him. All they are doing is fulfilling His will. Thus it would be unfair of God to find fault with them.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
God Has The Sovereign Right To Do What He Chooses, And To Save Whom He Will (9:19-29).
Paul does not hide from the consequences of what he has been saying. He rather defends it by appealing to God’s absolute right over human beings, and then to Scripture. He sees the doctrine of God’s sovereignty as closely aligned with his argument that God has for the time being rejected the majority in physical Israel, while saving those within Israel who are believers in Jesus as the Messiah
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Silencing the reasonable objector:
v. 19. Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth He yet find fault? For who hath resisted His will?
v. 20. Nay but, O man, who art thou that replies against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
v. 21. Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor?
Paul here introduces the objection, not of a humble seeker after truth, but of a truly modern faultfinder, who prides himself upon his intellect and logic. Hearing that God withdraws His gracious hand from the hardened sinner, such a one might ask, why does God go on finding fault? For His expressed will, who will withstand? The blasphemous objector presents the thought that, if God seriously wanted to manifest His grace and mercy to all men, He certainly could do so. And who could resist Him? The answer is implied: No one! If God employs His sovereign majesty and glory in the performance of any work, His almighty power will always bring the attempt to a successful conclusion. But God does not choose to deal with men in this manner in the matter of their salvation. He works through the means of the Gospel and the Sacraments, without any arbitrary application of sovereign power. If a person, therefore, consistently rejects the means of grace and refuses to heed all the attempts of God, in whatever way shown, then his self-hardening is justly punished by the withdrawal of God’s grace, and he has only himself to blame for his damnation. God is not responsible for evil, and the blame for a person’s hardening cannot be laid to His charge.
The apostle, therefore, does not even choose to show the fallacy and foolishness of the opponent’s argument, but introduces a counter-question containing a distinct reproof for the irreverent spirit with which men judge the acts of God: Yes indeed, man, who are you that reply to God? How will any mere man dare to call God to account or to question His justice? Man’s insignificance and weakness in comparison with the perfection of the great God is so great that even the suspicion as though He were in any way guilty of injustice is irreverence and presumption. Surely the thing formed will not say to him that formed it, Why do you make me thus? Or has not the potter power over the clay out of the same lump or mass to make one vessel to honor, the other to dishonor? The apostle places an alternative before the eyes of his opponent, either to recognize the absolute authority of God in silence, or to make the preposterous claim that the potter has no power over the clay which he uses to form vessels therefrom. The figure employed by the apostle is one often found in the Old Testament, and in similar thought connections, Isa 29:16; Isa 45:9; Isa 64:7; Jer 18:6. The very thought that a vessel made by a potter should object to the form and to the intended use for which it is designed seems so foolish that no answer is necessary. But just as preposterous it is, according to Paul’s argument, for any person in the world to call God to account for the manner in which He governs the world. God, as Creator and Sovereign, has the right to have mercy upon whom He will, and to harden whom He will, in the sense as shown above. The apostle does not go beyond that fact, nor does he enter the realm of speculation. He wants no conclusions drawn that tend to provoke rebellion. Note: For a Christian to indulge in speculation regarding doctrines which God has not revealed in His Word is not only a waste of time, but very often leads to a false understanding of the truths that are plainly set forth in the infallible Book of God.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Rom 9:19. Why doth he yet find fault? This objection is put a little differently, ch. Rom 3:7. There it is, “If God’s faithfulness is glorified by my wickedness, why am I condemned as a sinner.” Here it is, “If God for his own glory determines to suffer us to go on in hardness and infidelity, why does he find fault with us?” See the reply in the next verse.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Rom 9:19 . An objection supposed by the apostle (comp. Rom 11:19 ) which might be raised against Rom 9:18 , not merely by a Jew, but generally.
] in pursuance of the .
] logical, as in Rom 3:7 , and frequently: If He hardens out of His own determination of will, why does He still find fault? That fact surely takes away all warrant from the reproaches which God makes against hardened sinners, since they have been hardened by the divine will itself, to which no one yet offers opposition (with success).
. . . .] ground assigned for the question, .
] Who withstands? whereby, concretely, the irresistibility of the divine decree is set forth. The divine decree is exalted above any one’s opposition . According to the present opinion of Hofmann (it was otherwise in the Schriftbew . I. p. 246 f.), the opponent wishes to establish that, if the words , be correct, no one may offer opposition to that which God wills , and therefore God can in no one have anything to censure . But thus the thought of the question would be one so irrational and impious (as though, forsooth, no sinner would be opposed to God), that Paul would not even have had ground or warrant to have invented it as an objection. That question is not impious , but tragic , the expression of human weakness in presence of the divine decree of hardening.
On the classical (more frequently ), the thing willed, i.e. captum consilium (only here in Paul), see van Hengel, Lobeck, ad Aj . 44. Comp., as to the distinction between and (Eph 1:11 ), on Mat 1:19 .
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
Rom 9:19-21 . Third part of the Theodice: But man is not entitled to dispute with God, why He should still find fault. For his relation to God is as that of the thing formed to its former, or of the vessel to the potter, who has power to fashion out of a single lump vessels to honour and dishonour .
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
DISCOURSE: 1886
GODS SOVEREIGNTY NOT TO BE ARRAIGNED BY MEN
Rom 9:19-24. Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? 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 we thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? 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: and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
THERE are some persons so partial to, what we may call, the high doctrines of the Gospel, that they can scarcely endure to hear any thing else: they are like persons whose taste is vitiated by strong drink or highly-seasoned food; they have no appetite for any thing which does not savour of their favourite opinions. This is a great evil in the Church, not only as injuring the souls in whom it exists, but as tending exceedingly to strengthen the prejudices of others against the doctrines which are so abused. Those who are thus disposed towards the deep things of God, fancy themselves edified, merely because their corrupt taste is gratified: but their edification is not real and scriptural; for, if it were, it would incline them to receive with meekness and humility every word of God; whereas they treat with contempt every thing which seems to savour of plain practical religion. We regret exceedingly that such persons exist: but we must not, on their account, run into an opposite extreme, and keep these doctrines altogether out of sight: we must not shun to declare unto men the whole counsel of God. Whatsoever is revealed in the sacred records must be brought forth in its season: nor are we at liberty to withhold from men any thing that may be profitable unto them. We therefore address ourselves to every subject in its place: though on such subjects as that which is before us, we would do it with fear and trembling, conscious how unable we are to do justice to it, and fearful lest by any means we should make it an occasion of offence to those who are not prepared for the investigation of it. The sovereignty of God is to the proud heart of man an unpalatable subject; but in the passage before us we are called to vindicate it against the objections of those who are disposed, like the Jew in our text, to contend against it.
To place the matter in its true light, we shall consider,
I.
The point at issue between the objector and St. Paul
[St. Paul had strongly intimated, that the Jews were now to be rejected from the Church of God, and that the Gentiles were to be admitted into it. This he knew was a most offensive subject to the Jews; and therefore he had shewn, both from Gods word to Moses, and his dealings with Pharaoh, that God had a right to communicate his blessings, or execute his judgments, in such a way as should conduce most to his own glory. The Jew, not convinced, is represented as declaring, that, if God exercise his sovereignty in this way, the blame of mans condemnation must be transferred to God himself, since it was impossible for man to resist his will.
That this was the jet of the question between them, is evident; for to this end St. Pauls arguments had tended; and nothing less than this could have given rise to such an objection: to this also the answer of the Apostle directly applies. The objection, it is true, did not fairly arise out of St. Pauls statement: but the Jew took occasion from his statement to found his objection upon it: and to the question, thus stated, we must now reply.]
II.
The Apostles determination of it
St. Paul hearing such a blasphemous objection as this, Why doth God yet find fault? for who hath resisted his will? replies to it,
1.
In a way of just reprehension
[Who art thou, O man, that repliest against God? Consider thyself as a creature; What right hast thou to sit in judgment upon God? Dost thou understand all his counsels? Art thou able to fathom the depth of his wisdom? Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection? How canst thou presume thus to arraign the conduct of thy God, and to condemn him that thou mayest be justified? What wouldest thou think of thine own child, if he, whilst yet a child, should stand up and accuse thee as unwise and unjust, in the most deliberate exercise of thy counsels? or, What wouldest thou think of a peasant who should presume thus to sit in judgment upon the counsels of a minister of state? Art thou then authorized to arraign the conduct of thy God?
But consider thyself as a sinner, and how atrocious does thy conduct then appear! Thou who mightest justly have been consigned over to perdition the first moment thou hadst sinned, dost thou complain of thy God as unjust and tyrannical, if he dispense to others the blessings which thou hast refused to accept? Impious wretch! As well might the clay rise up against the potter, and condemn him for having fashioned it according to his own will.]
2.
In a way of sound argument
[Two things St. Paul proceeds to substantiate against his objector: the one was, That God had a right to dispose of every thing according to his own sovereign will and pleasure: and the other was, That in the way he had hitherto disposed of them, and had determined still to dispose of them, he was fully justified.]
Let us consider these assertions more fully
[A potter, it is acknowledged, has a sovereign right over his clay: and so has God over all the works of his hands. When he formed angels, was he bound to furnish them with all the faculties they possess? and, having formed them, might he not have annihilated them again, and consigned them over again to their former non-existence? When he formed man and beast of the same clay, might he not have given higher faculties to the brute creation, and less to man? or might he not have reduced man immediately to the state of the beasts, without doing any injury to man? Is not this, in reality, what God is doing every day, as it were, before our eyes; bereaving one and another of his mental faculties, and reducing him to a state far below the beasts? It is evident, that God may of the same lump make one vessel to honour, and another to dishonour, either in their first creation, or in their subsequent use and destination.
The same also we may say in relation to the eternal states of men, if only we consider them, as they really are, one vast mass of guilt and corruption. When Adam fell, God was at liberty to leave him as he was, in all his guilt and corruption, or to redeem him from it, and to make him a vessel of honour by his new-creating power. When God chose Abraham out of the whole world of idolaters, he was at liberty to have chosen others besides him, if he had been pleased so to do, or to have restricted the blessings of his covenant to Ishmael and Esau, instead of limiting them to Isaac and Jacob. If he had seen fit to do this, whom would he have injured? or who would have had any right to complain? Whom did he injure when he chose the Jews? Did he by separating them from the rest of mankind, and granting exclusively to them the ordinances of his grace, do any injustice to the Gentile world? or, now that he is pleased to send his Gospel to the Gentiles, does he do any injustice to the Jews? In favouring us with the full light of revelation, does he injure the millions of Mahometans and Pagans who are less favoured than ourselves? In like manner, if he send to some of us fuller opportunities of instruction than to others, or richer communications of his grace, is he not at liberty to do so?
Let it be remembered, that the question is not, Whether God shall punish an innocent person, or a guilty person beyond his deserts? That could receive no other answer than that given by the Apostle, Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. But the question is, Whether, when all mankind are in a state of guilt and condemnation, God may not have mercy on whom he will have mercy? And to this question we reply by asking another, May He not do what he will with his own [Note: Mat 20:15.]?
But let us turn to the latter part of the Apostles answer; wherein he asserts confidently, that if we attend carefully to the way in which God has disposed of men, and has determined still to dispose of them, he is, and ever must be, justified.
God has determined to get himself glory upon all mankind, whether they will it, or not. He will be glorified both in them that are saved, and in them that perish.
What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and make his power known, endure the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction? is he not at liberty to do so? Take, for instance, Pharaoh. If God had pleased, he might have cut off Pharaoh on his first refusal to let the people of Israel go; or at any one of the ten successive plagues: but he was not obliged to do so: he was surely at liberty to spare him, and exercise forbearance towards him, and to remove in succession the different plagues from him, and to give him space for repentance, till he had filled up the measure of his iniquities, and was quite ripe for those signal judgments that had been denounced against him. In like manner, the Jews might justly have been cut off, when they renounced their allegiance to God, and worshipped the golden calf. God might, without any impeachment of his justice, have executed then the threatened judgment of destroying instantly that rebellious nation, and raising up another from the loins of Moses. But he saw fit to exercise mercy towards them, and to impart to them yet more abundant communications of his grace and favour. Surely in this he did them no injury. So also under all their provocations in the wilderness, during the space of forty years, and under all their apostasies from him in the land of Canaan for the space of fifteen hundred years, he might, if he had seen fit, have destroyed them: and, to say the least, he did them no injury in bearing with them, till, by the crucifixion of their Messiah, they had filled up the measure of their own and their fathers iniquities. Gods fore-knowing how much they would abuse his mercies, was no reason why he should not exercise mercy towards them: for by his forbearance his mercy was displayed; and by their accumulated guilt and aggravated condemnation his indignation against sin, and his power to avenge it, were more conspicuously displayed. The same we may say in reference to any person or number of persons; God is not bound to cut them off the moment they sin against him: he may continue to cultivate the barren fig-tree year after year, if he be pleased to do so, in order to shew more clearly its incurable sterility, and his own justice in its final excision. Thus, I say, He may act towards the vessels of his wrath.
So also he may pursue a similar line of conduct towards the vessels of mercy, in order ultimately to make known upon them the riches of his glory. He was not compelled to bring out Abraham from his family and his country, while he was yet a child: he was at liberty to leave him bowing down to stocks and stones, like all the rest around him, till the hour which he in his secret counsels had appointed for his effectual calling was arrived. Nor, when God called Abraham, was he compelled to call all other Gentiles at the same time: he was at liberty to leave them to their own ways till the times of the Messiah, in order to shew more fully, that the world by wisdom knew not God, and that, if left to themselves, nothing but universal ruin must ensue. St. Paul tells us, that God, in his secret counsels, had separated him as a chosen vessel, even from his mothers womb: yet had God left him for many years to his own hearts lusts, and to the perpetration of the most enormous wickedness. Was God unjust in this? Was God bound to convert him before? Was he not at liberty to leave this man to the dictates of his own deceived conscience, that he might gain the more glory in his conversion, and shew forth in him all long-suffering, for a pattern to all who should hereafter believe in him to life everlasting [Note: 1Ti 1:16.]? The dying thief too,Was not God at liberty to let him go on as he did to the latest hour of his life, that he might shew in him what divine grace and mercy could effect, even at the eleventh hour? God would have done no injury to any of these, if he had never so distinguished them by his power and grace: nor, in having so distinguished them, has he done any injury to others, either to Pauls companions in his journey, or to the other thief upon the cross. It was thus that our blessed Lord acted in reference to Lazarus. When called to come and heal him, he staid till he had been dead four days on purpose that, by raising him after so long a time, his own power might be the more abundantly glorified [Note: Joh 11:6; Joh 11:15; Joh 11:40.]. And did he any wrong in this?
But if our proud hearts be yet disposed to rise up against God, and reply against him, the extraordinary caution with which St. Paul gives his answer must silence us for ever. Between the vessels of wrath and the vessels of mercy he makes this striking distinction; that the vessels of wrath fit themselves for destruction, but the vessels of mercy are prepared for glory by their God [Note: See the Greek.]. The judgments executed on the ungodly, at whatever period they are inflicted, are brought on them, not by any absolute decree of God, but by their own wilful and obstinate continuance in sin: but the blessings imparted to the godly are solely the fruit of Gods sovereign grace and mercy. They who perish must take all the shame to themselves; and those who are saved must give all the glory to their God.
The manner in which the Apostle states his argument, should not be altogether unnoticed. What if so and so? Who has any thing to reply against it? Is there any thing in it contrary to reason? let him bring it to the test of reason. Is there any thing contrary to Scripture? let him consult the passages to which I now refer him, and he shall see, that this very mode of dealing towards all mankind, whether Jews or Gentiles, is precisely that which all the prophets have taught us to expect at the hands of God [Note: ver. 2527.]. He has, for his own glory, left the Gentiles for two thousand years, and taken the Jews for his peculiar people; and now, for his own glory also, will he for a season leave the Jews, and take the Gentiles. In this matter, neither the one nor the other have any claim upon him: in taking the one and leaving the other, he did no injustice formerly: and in now abandoning those whom he formerly took, (more especially since they have filled up the measure of their iniquities,) and in taking those whom he then left, he does no injustice now: but in both he is, and will be, glorified: he even in this world glorifies, both in the one and in the other, his patience and long-suffering, and forbearance; but, in the world to come, he will glorify his perfections upon both of them in a more appropriate way;on the vessels of wrath, his power; but on the vessels of mercy, his free, and sovereign, and unbounded grace.]
Having investigated with care the Apostles answer, we will conclude with suggesting,
III.
The proper improvement of the subject
The subject offers many important hints,
1.
To objectors
[These, alas! are a very numerous body, even in the Christian world. Favoured as we are above the rest of the world, it might be hoped that we should be the last to arraign the sovereignty of Almighty God. Yet amongst us there are many who will dispute against the doctrines of grace, precisely in the way that the unbelieving Jew is represented as doing in our text. One would be ready to suppose, from the confidence with which they urge their impious objections, that they had been the secret counsellors of the Most High. They determine, without any hesitation or doubt, what will, and what will not, consist with the Divine attributes.
Beloved brethren, this is not the way in which it becomes frail dust and ashes to proceed: and if you will presume thus to reprove God, you must answer it at your cost [Note: Job 40:2.]. Be assured that such conduct ill becomes you, and is most offensive to your God [Note: Job 40:8.]: and your wisdom is to forbear all such impiety in future [Note: Job 40:5.]. Go to any person deeply versed in sciences of any kind; and he will tell you paradoxes without number which you cannot understand, which yet he knows to be true, and is able to prove, if you had sufficient knowledge of that particular science to comprehend him. Know then, that God also, if he have revealed what appears paradoxical to you, can fully reconcile his own declarations, and will do so in the eternal world; though, if he were now to do it, you would not have capacity sufficient to discern the truth and excellence of his communications. Be assured, that, as the heavens are high above the earth, so are his thoughts and ways high above yours.
But there are many among those who pretend to vindicate the ways of God, who are scarcely less worthy of reproof than those who presume to condemn them. There are many who speak of the deep things of God, as if they were as plain and easy and intelligible as the simplest truth that can be mentioned. They dwell exclusively on these great and hidden mysteries, and leave all the plainer doctrines of repentance, faith, and obedience, as low matters, unworthy of their attention, and as unprofitable to any good end. Nothing pleases them but what brings immediately to their view the Divine decrees: and of these they speak in a way that the Scriptures by no means authorize. They draw conclusions from partial statements, without giving due weight to things which God himself has spoken on the opposite side: and then they vindicate with unhallowed boldness and confidence what they themselves have put, as it were, into the mouth of God. This was the very conduct of Jobs friends; and justly were they rebuked by God for their presumption. They took partial declarations of God, and then put their own unqualified construction upon them, and deduced from them inferences which they were never intended to bear. In this way they bore down righteous Job as an ignorant self-deceiver. But God declared that they had not spoken the thing that was right, as his servant Job had done; and required them to humble themselves for their folly and impiety. Let not any of you ever subject yourselves to the same reproof: for Woe to him, saith God, that striveth with his Maker [Note: Isa 45:9.]. It becomes you, doubtless, to investigate, and as far as possible to understand, every truth of God: but, in things so infinitely beyond the reach of human intellect, it becomes you to be humble, modest, diffident: and in things respecting which the most pious men may differ in their judgment, it becomes you cheerfully to concede to others the liberty which you arrogate to yourselves. And we are well persuaded, that mutual candour and forbearance among those of opposite principles, would do infinitely more towards the bringing all to just views, than all the angry contentions of violent partisans.]
2.
To all persons without exception
[You, brethren, have other things to do than to be wasting your time about unprofitable disputes. You are all at this very moment vessels of wrath, or vessels of mercy: you are now, even whilst I am speaking to you, under the hands of the Potter. You are actually upon the lathes, preparing and fashioning, either for vessels of honour, or vessels of dishonour. The question that most concerns you is, for which you are preparing? and how you may know for which you are destined? In order to ascertain this, you need not look into the book of Gods decrees, but simply examine the state of your own hearts. For what are you preparing? Are you diligently seeking after God from day to day? Are you living by faith upon the Lord Jesus Christ, washing daily in the fountain of his blood, and renewed daily by the operations of his Spirit? Are you progressively advancing in the enjoyment of his presence, the performance of his will, and the attainment of his image? Are you, in a word, beginning to live the life of heaven upon earth? This will mark you vessels of honour: and the want of this is sufficient to stamp you vessels unto dishonour. It is not necessary that you should be committing any flagrant sins in order to constitute you vessels of wrath: it is quite sufficient that you are not growing up into Christ as your living Head, and devoted altogether to his service and glory. Let these inquiries then occupy your mind, and trouble not yourselves about the secret things which belong only to your God. Whether you are pleased with the Potter or not, he is going on with his work; and in a short time he will cut you from the lathe, and fix your everlasting destinies. But, blessed be his name! He is able to change both your form and use: and, if you call upon him, he will do it; and he can do it as easily as a potter can mar the clay which has been formed only for a degraded use, and fashion it into a vessel of the most dignified description. Whilst you are upon the lathe, nothing is impossible: and who can tell but that you have been suffered, even to this hour, to fit yourselves for vessels of wrath, in order that God may be the more glorified in the change that shall be wrought in you? Yes, perhaps the hour is now come for Sauls conversion: perhaps this is the hour when he has decreed to humble you in the dust before him, and to make you a vessel of honour that shall display, almost beyond all others, the riches of his glory? O lift up your hearts to him, and pray, that at this time his grace may be magnified in you, and that you may be monuments of his love and mercy to all eternity.
But perhaps with others the hour is come, when the measure of your iniquities shall be filled, and when, like Pharaoh, you shall be made signal monuments of Gods wrath and indignation. What a fearful thought! The Lord grant that it may not be realized in any of you. But beware! His mercy and forbearance will have an end; and that end may be much nearer than you expect. Let not one hour more pass unimproved: but seek ye the Lord while he may be found, and call upon him whilst he is near.
As for you who have reason to hope that you are already vessels of mercy, O! bless and praise your God. Remember, ye were taken from the same mass of clay, as others, who bear a very different shape. Remember, too, to whom you owe the distinction that has been conferred upon you. Had you been left to yourselves, you would have been in as degraded a state as any. It is God, and God alone, who has made you to differ, either from others, or from your former selves. Give him then the glory of his rich and sovereign grace, and seek daily to become more and more vessels of honour, meet for your Masters use [Note: 2Ti 2:20-21.].]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
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 honor, and another unto dishonor? (22) What if God, willing to show 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 Hosea, 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. (27) Isaiah also crieth concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved: (28) For he will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness: because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth. (29) And as Isaiah said before, Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we had been as Sodom, and been made like unto Gomorrah. (30) What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith. (31) But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. (32) Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumblingstone; (33) As it is written, Behold, I lay in Zion a stumblingstone and rock of offense: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
The doctrine is here supposed to be taken as granted. God’s sovereignty shall no longer be disputed, saith the daring sinner. Be it so, if it must be so. But why doth he yet find fault? Here’s impudence to the full. Here’s practical contempt of God, worse, if possible, than even denying his very Being! But in what a beautiful way and manner hath the Apostle taken the question, and answered it. How conclusive and satisfactory is the similitude of the Potter and the clay, in relation to forming vessels of what shape, figure, form, or usefulness he pleaseth. And who ever ventured to call in question the Potter’s power, or the Potter’s wisdom, when exercising his pleasure, in making one vessel to honor, and another to dishonor? There is however this difference (and to which the figure could not reach,) between the Almighty Potter in his ordinations, and the earthy Potter in his. The vessel and the clay are both the Lord’s own, for the earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; all are his by creation, first forming the clay, and then man out of it. So that had God, when he made man from the earth, made any other creature instead of man, there would have been no injustice done! for the earth, and the man made out of the earth, were both equally the Lord’s. But this could not be the case with the earthy potter. The clay he made his vessels from was already made to his hands, and not his. And his formings could be no other than clay, however one vessel might be designed for honor, and another for dishonor, Isa 64:8 ; Jer 18:1-6 ; 2Ti 2:20-21 .
Reader! I detain you over these verses, and over this doctrine altogether, only to make one or two observations from the whole. And, first, I beg you to remember that God’s sovereignty stands just where it did from everlasting, after all that hath been said of it, or written against it. God is not accountable to his creatures for his conduct. It is enough to know that God cannot do wrong. He is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works. His sovereignty is one of his distinguishing attributes. And that sovereignty is founded in perfect rectitude. Let the pride and arrogancy of men or devils cavil at it, the answer is the same, My counsel (saith Jehovah) shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure, Isa 46:10 .
Secondly, It is one among the many precious signs of grace in the heart, when the mind and affections are brought over to the conviction, not only that God’s sovereignty distinguisheth his Almighty character, but that all the Lord appoints is right. A child of God, when seeing anything which appears to him mysterious in the divine administration, concludes, that it is his defect, and not the Lord’s, which renders it so. I was dumb, (said one of old, under some sharp exercise,) I opened not my mouth, because thou didst it, Psa 39:9 . All must be right, and all cannot but be finally well, for it is the Lord’s doing. This is a blessed frame of mind, when we not only bend to the Lord’s appointment, but bend with holy faith and satisfaction. I cannot discover God’s path, but I am sure that God’s ways are right. His sovereignty is my security.
Thirdly, When we behold the great mass of men rejecting the sovereignty of God with the scriptures of God in their hand, and having all the advantages of the ordinances of the Gospel, we awfully discover how far our nature must be sunk in rejecting the counsel of God against their own souls. The very truths of God, when brought before such a character, only serve to discover yet more and more his natural enmity to God, and the aversion he hath to God’s gracious decrees by Christ. On the other hand, where the heart is brought to the unceasing acknowledgment of the divine Sovereignty, there a conviction accompanies it of being taught of God. Paul had no sooner God’s Son revealed in him, than immediately he conferred not with flesh and blood, Gal 1:15-16 . And Paul here gives his unqualified belief to the purpose of God according to election, verse 11 (Rom 9:11 ).
I must not dismiss this subject, before that I have first called the attention of the Reader to that sweet and precious conclusion Paul makes, from the doctrine of election, in the inducing holiness of life and godliness. The Apostle, speaking of the properties of distinguishing grace, saith, that except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we should have been as Sodoma, and been made like unto Gomorrah. The Prophet, before the Apostle, had many ages before declared, that the remnant of Jacob, that is, the seed of Christ, should be in the midst of many people as a dew from the Lord, as showers upon the grass, Mic 5:7 . And thus the Church of Christ is in every age distinguished. For while the earth, in the unawakened nature of Adam, is like the dry barren heath of the desert, which knoweth not when good cometh, the droppings of grace upon the heritage of God makes it flourish and blossom as the rose. And it is the Church which preserves the world from instantly perishing. If all the Lord’s family were gathered out, as Lot and his household were, from the cities of the plain, destruction would soon follow, Gen 19:23-24 . So that the doctrine of election is the very doctrine of godliness. The Lord preserveth the world for the Church’s sake. And the holiness of the Church in Christ, is the sole cause wherefore the world standeth. The same day in which Noah entered into the ark, the flood came and destroyed the world by water, Gen 7:16-17 . The same hour in which Lot went out of Sodom, the Lord rained down fire from heaven and destroyed them all, Gen 19:22 . Oh! how sure is it, that the earth oweth its present continuance to the lives of the faithful in the land. And how very sure also, that the doctrine of election is a doctrine according to godliness. As he who hath called his people is holy, so are they holy in all conversation and godliness. Reader! may the Lord give a gracious apprehension of these things, that we may both give diligence to make our calling and election sure. For, (saith the Apostle,) if ye do these things, ye shall never fall. For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly, into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, 2Pe 1:10-11 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
19 Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
Ver. 19. Why doth he yet find fault ] Queritur, Complain, saith the Vulgate; which interpretation deceived Aquinas, as if it had been written Quaeritur. Be sought for.Luk 15:8Luk 15:8 . Gregory the Great and others, for Everrit, swept away, read Evertit; destroyed, which mistake produced many groundless glosses.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
19 .] Thou wilt say then to me (there seems no reason to suppose the objector a Jew, as Thol. after Grot., Calov., Koppe, al.: the objection is a general one , applying to all mankind, and likely to arise in the mind of any reader. The expression seems to confirm this), Why then doth He yet find fault ( as ch. Rom 3:7 , assuming your premises, ‘ if this be so :’ at the same time it expresses a certain irritation on the part of the objector: ‘exprimit morosum fremitum,’ Bengel. has a stronger sense than mere blame here: Hesych [79] interprets it , , : see the apocryphal reff. Thol.)? For who resists (not, ‘ hath resisted :” , like , is present , see Winer, edn. 6, 40. 4. b, and compare , 2Ti 4:6 ) His will (i.e. if it be His will to harden the sinner, and the sinner goes on in his sin, he does not resist but goes with the will of God)? Yea rather ( , see reff., takes the ground from under the previous assertion and supersedes it by another: implying that it has a certain show of truth, but that the proper view of the matter is yet to be stated. It thus conveys, as in ref. Luke, an intimation of rebuke; here, with severity: ‘that which thou hast said, may be correct human reasoning but as against God’s sovereignty, thy reasoning is out of place and irrelevant’), O man (perhaps without emphasis implying the contrast between man and God, for this is done by the emphatic following, and we have unemphatic in ch. Rom 2:1 ), who art THOU that repliest against (the seems to imply contradiction, not merely dialogue: see besides reff., , Job 13:22 , BC [80] ) GOD? implying, ‘thou hast neither right nor power, to call God to account in this manner.’
[79] Hesychius of Jerusalem, cent y . vi.
[80] The CODEX SINAITICUS. Procured by Tischendorf, in 1859, from the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai. The Codex Frederico-Augustanus (now at Leipsic), obtained in 1844 from the same monastery, is a portion of the same copy of the Greek Bible, the 148 leaves of which, containing the entire New Testament, the Ep. of Barnabas, parts of Hermas, and 199 more leaves of the Septuagint, have now been edited by the discoverer. A magnificent edition prepared at the expense of the Emperor of Russia appeared in January, 1863, and a smaller edition containing the N.T. &c., has been published by Dr. Tischendorf. The MS. has four columns on a page, and has been altered by several different correctors, one or more of whom Tischendorf considers to have lived in the sixth century. The work of the original scribe has been examined, not only by Tischendorf, but by Tregelles and other competent judges, and is by them assigned to the fourth century . The internal character of the text agrees with the external, as the student may judge for himself from the readings given in the digest. The principal correctors as distinguished by Tischendorf are: A, of the same age with the MS. itself, probably the corrector who revised the book, before it left the hands of the scribe, denoted therefore by us -corr 1 ; B (cited as 2 ), who in the first page of Matt. began inserting breathings, accents, &c., but did not carry out his design, and touched only a few later passages; C a (cited as 3a ) has corrected very largely throughout the book. Wherever in our digest a reading is cited as found in 1 , it is to be understood, if no further statement is given, that C a altered it to that which is found in our text; C b (cited as 3b ) lived about the same time as C a , i.e. some centuries later than the original scribe. These are all that we need notice here 6 .
Notice, that the answer to the objector’s question does not lie in these Rom 9:20-21 , but in the following (see there); the present verses are a rebuke administered to the spirit of the objection, which forgets the immeasurable distance between us and God, and the relation of Creator and Disposer in which He stands to us. So Chrys., , , ; , , . , . , . , . , . , . , . . , , . Hom. xvi. p. 614. Similarly Calvin: ‘Hac priori responsione nihil aliud quam improbitatem illius blasphemi retundit, argumento ab hominis conditione sumpto. Alteram mox subjiciet, qua Dei justitiam ab omni criminatione vindicabit.’
Shall the thing formed (properly of a production of plastic art, moulded of clay or wax) say to him who formed it, “Why madest thou me thus ?”
These words are slightly altered from Isa 29:16 LXX, (om. A [81] ), ; , ;
[81] The CODEX SINAITICUS. Procured by Tischendorf, in 1859, from the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai. The Codex Frederico-Augustanus (now at Leipsic), obtained in 1844 from the same monastery, is a portion of the same copy of the Greek Bible, the 148 leaves of which, containing the entire New Testament, the Ep. of Barnabas, parts of Hermas, and 199 more leaves of the Septuagint, have now been edited by the discoverer. A magnificent edition prepared at the expense of the Emperor of Russia appeared in January, 1863, and a smaller edition containing the N.T. &c., has been published by Dr. Tischendorf. The MS. has four columns on a page, and has been altered by several different correctors, one or more of whom Tischendorf considers to have lived in the sixth century. The work of the original scribe has been examined, not only by Tischendorf, but by Tregelles and other competent judges, and is by them assigned to the fourth century . The internal character of the text agrees with the external, as the student may judge for himself from the readings given in the digest. The principal correctors as distinguished by Tischendorf are: A, of the same age with the MS. itself, probably the corrector who revised the book, before it left the hands of the scribe, denoted therefore by us -corr 1 ; B (cited as 2 ), who in the first page of Matt. began inserting breathings, accents, &c., but did not carry out his design, and touched only a few later passages; C a (cited as 3a ) has corrected very largely throughout the book. Wherever in our digest a reading is cited as found in 1 , it is to be understood, if no further statement is given, that C a altered it to that which is found in our text; C b (cited as 3b ) lived about the same time as C a , i.e. some centuries later than the original scribe. These are all that we need notice here 6 .
Or (introduces a new objection, or fresh ground of rebuke, see ch. Rom 2:4 ; Rom 3:29 ; Rom 6:3 ; Rom 11:2 ) hath not the potter power over the clay (the similitude from ref. Isa. In Sirach 36 (33) 13, we have a very similar sentiment: . . And even more strikingly so, Wis 15:7 ; ( . [82] [83] [84] ), ( A [85] ) ( B [86] 3a , [87] 1 ) (om. [88] ) , . See also Jer 18:6 ), out of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour (honourable uses) and another unto dishonour (dishonourable uses. See ref. 2 Tim. The honour and dishonour are not here the moral purity or impurity of the human vessels, but their ultimate glorification or perdition . The Apostle in asking this question, rather aims at striking dumb the objector by a statement of God’s undoubted right, against which it does not become us men to murmur, than at unfolding to us the actual state of the case. This he does in the succeeding verses; see above, from Chrys. and Calv.)?
[82] The MS. referred to by this symbol is that commonly called the Alexandrine, or CODEX ALEXANDRINUS. It once belonged to Cyrillus Lucaris, patriarch of Alexandria and then of Constantinople, who in the year 1628 presented it to our King Charles I. It is now in the British Museum. It is on parchment in four volumes, of which three contain the Old, and one the New Testament, with the Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians. This fourth volume is exhibited open in a glass case. It will be seen by the letters in the inner margin of this edition, that the first 24 chapters of Matthew are wanting in it, its first leaf commencing , ch. Mat 25:6 : as also the leaves containing , Joh 6:50 , to , Joh 8:52 . It is generally agreed that it was written at Alexandria; it does not, however, in the Gospels , represent that commonly known as the Alexandrine text, but approaches much more nearly to the Constantinopolitan, or generally received text. The New Testament, according to its text, was edited, in uncial types cast to imitate those of the MS., by Woide, London, 1786, the Old Testament by Baber, London, 1819: and its N.T. text has now been edited in common type by Mr. B. H. Cowper, London, 1861. The date of this MS. has been variously assigned, but it is now pretty generally agreed to be the fifth century .
[83] The CODEX EPHRAEMI, preserved in the Imperial Library at Paris, MS. Gr. No. 9. It is a Codex rescriptus or palimpsest, consisting of the works of Ephraem the Syrian written over the MS. of extensive fragments of the Old and New Testaments 2 . It seems to have come to France with Catherine de’ Medici, and to her from Cardinal Nicolas Ridolfi. Tischendorf thinks it probable that he got it from Andrew John Lascaris, who at the fall of the Eastern Empire was sent to the East by Lorenzo de’ Medici to preserve such MSS. as had escaped the ravages of the Turks. This is confirmed by the later corrections (C 3 ) in the MS., which were evidently made at Constantinople 3 . But from the form of the letters, and other peculiarities, it is believed to have been written at Alexandria, or at all events, where the Alexandrine dialect and method of writing prevailed. Its text is perhaps the purest example of the Alexandrine text, holding a place about midway between the Constantinopolitan MSS. and most of those of the Alexandrine recension. It was edited very handsomely in uncial type, with copious dissertations, &c., by Tischendorf, in 1843. He assigns to it an age at least equal to A, and places it also in the fifth century . Corrections were written in, apparently in the sixth and ninth centuries: these are respectively cited as C 2 , C 3 .
[84] The CODEX SINAITICUS. Procured by Tischendorf, in 1859, from the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai. The Codex Frederico-Augustanus (now at Leipsic), obtained in 1844 from the same monastery, is a portion of the same copy of the Greek Bible, the 148 leaves of which, containing the entire New Testament, the Ep. of Barnabas, parts of Hermas, and 199 more leaves of the Septuagint, have now been edited by the discoverer. A magnificent edition prepared at the expense of the Emperor of Russia appeared in January, 1863, and a smaller edition containing the N.T. &c., has been published by Dr. Tischendorf. The MS. has four columns on a page, and has been altered by several different correctors, one or more of whom Tischendorf considers to have lived in the sixth century. The work of the original scribe has been examined, not only by Tischendorf, but by Tregelles and other competent judges, and is by them assigned to the fourth century . The internal character of the text agrees with the external, as the student may judge for himself from the readings given in the digest. The principal correctors as distinguished by Tischendorf are: A, of the same age with the MS. itself, probably the corrector who revised the book, before it left the hands of the scribe, denoted therefore by us -corr 1 ; B (cited as 2 ), who in the first page of Matt. began inserting breathings, accents, &c., but did not carry out his design, and touched only a few later passages; C a (cited as 3a ) has corrected very largely throughout the book. Wherever in our digest a reading is cited as found in 1 , it is to be understood, if no further statement is given, that C a altered it to that which is found in our text; C b (cited as 3b ) lived about the same time as C a , i.e. some centuries later than the original scribe. These are all that we need notice here 6 .
[85] The CODEX SINAITICUS. Procured by Tischendorf, in 1859, from the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai. The Codex Frederico-Augustanus (now at Leipsic), obtained in 1844 from the same monastery, is a portion of the same copy of the Greek Bible, the 148 leaves of which, containing the entire New Testament, the Ep. of Barnabas, parts of Hermas, and 199 more leaves of the Septuagint, have now been edited by the discoverer. A magnificent edition prepared at the expense of the Emperor of Russia appeared in January, 1863, and a smaller edition containing the N.T. &c., has been published by Dr. Tischendorf. The MS. has four columns on a page, and has been altered by several different correctors, one or more of whom Tischendorf considers to have lived in the sixth century. The work of the original scribe has been examined, not only by Tischendorf, but by Tregelles and other competent judges, and is by them assigned to the fourth century . The internal character of the text agrees with the external, as the student may judge for himself from the readings given in the digest. The principal correctors as distinguished by Tischendorf are: A, of the same age with the MS. itself, probably the corrector who revised the book, before it left the hands of the scribe, denoted therefore by us -corr 1 ; B (cited as 2 ), who in the first page of Matt. began inserting breathings, accents, &c., but did not carry out his design, and touched only a few later passages; C a (cited as 3a ) has corrected very largely throughout the book. Wherever in our digest a reading is cited as found in 1 , it is to be understood, if no further statement is given, that C a altered it to that which is found in our text; C b (cited as 3b ) lived about the same time as C a , i.e. some centuries later than the original scribe. These are all that we need notice here 6 .
[86] The CODEX SINAITICUS. Procured by Tischendorf, in 1859, from the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai. The Codex Frederico-Augustanus (now at Leipsic), obtained in 1844 from the same monastery, is a portion of the same copy of the Greek Bible, the 148 leaves of which, containing the entire New Testament, the Ep. of Barnabas, parts of Hermas, and 199 more leaves of the Septuagint, have now been edited by the discoverer. A magnificent edition prepared at the expense of the Emperor of Russia appeared in January, 1863, and a smaller edition containing the N.T. &c., has been published by Dr. Tischendorf. The MS. has four columns on a page, and has been altered by several different correctors, one or more of whom Tischendorf considers to have lived in the sixth century. The work of the original scribe has been examined, not only by Tischendorf, but by Tregelles and other competent judges, and is by them assigned to the fourth century . The internal character of the text agrees with the external, as the student may judge for himself from the readings given in the digest. The principal correctors as distinguished by Tischendorf are: A, of the same age with the MS. itself, probably the corrector who revised the book, before it left the hands of the scribe, denoted therefore by us -corr 1 ; B (cited as 2 ), who in the first page of Matt. began inserting breathings, accents, &c., but did not carry out his design, and touched only a few later passages; C a (cited as 3a ) has corrected very largely throughout the book. Wherever in our digest a reading is cited as found in 1 , it is to be understood, if no further statement is given, that C a altered it to that which is found in our text; C b (cited as 3b ) lived about the same time as C a , i.e. some centuries later than the original scribe. These are all that we need notice here 6 .
[87] The CODEX SINAITICUS. Procured by Tischendorf, in 1859, from the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai. The Codex Frederico-Augustanus (now at Leipsic), obtained in 1844 from the same monastery, is a portion of the same copy of the Greek Bible, the 148 leaves of which, containing the entire New Testament, the Ep. of Barnabas, parts of Hermas, and 199 more leaves of the Septuagint, have now been edited by the discoverer. A magnificent edition prepared at the expense of the Emperor of Russia appeared in January, 1863, and a smaller edition containing the N.T. &c., has been published by Dr. Tischendorf. The MS. has four columns on a page, and has been altered by several different correctors, one or more of whom Tischendorf considers to have lived in the sixth century. The work of the original scribe has been examined, not only by Tischendorf, but by Tregelles and other competent judges, and is by them assigned to the fourth century . The internal character of the text agrees with the external, as the student may judge for himself from the readings given in the digest. The principal correctors as distinguished by Tischendorf are: A, of the same age with the MS. itself, probably the corrector who revised the book, before it left the hands of the scribe, denoted therefore by us -corr 1 ; B (cited as 2 ), who in the first page of Matt. began inserting breathings, accents, &c., but did not carry out his design, and touched only a few later passages; C a (cited as 3a ) has corrected very largely throughout the book. Wherever in our digest a reading is cited as found in 1 , it is to be understood, if no further statement is given, that C a altered it to that which is found in our text; C b (cited as 3b ) lived about the same time as C a , i.e. some centuries later than the original scribe. These are all that we need notice here 6 .
[88] The CODEX SINAITICUS. Procured by Tischendorf, in 1859, from the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai. The Codex Frederico-Augustanus (now at Leipsic), obtained in 1844 from the same monastery, is a portion of the same copy of the Greek Bible, the 148 leaves of which, containing the entire New Testament, the Ep. of Barnabas, parts of Hermas, and 199 more leaves of the Septuagint, have now been edited by the discoverer. A magnificent edition prepared at the expense of the Emperor of Russia appeared in January, 1863, and a smaller edition containing the N.T. &c., has been published by Dr. Tischendorf. The MS. has four columns on a page, and has been altered by several different correctors, one or more of whom Tischendorf considers to have lived in the sixth century. The work of the original scribe has been examined, not only by Tischendorf, but by Tregelles and other competent judges, and is by them assigned to the fourth century . The internal character of the text agrees with the external, as the student may judge for himself from the readings given in the digest. The principal correctors as distinguished by Tischendorf are: A, of the same age with the MS. itself, probably the corrector who revised the book, before it left the hands of the scribe, denoted therefore by us -corr 1 ; B (cited as 2 ), who in the first page of Matt. began inserting breathings, accents, &c., but did not carry out his design, and touched only a few later passages; C a (cited as 3a ) has corrected very largely throughout the book. Wherever in our digest a reading is cited as found in 1 , it is to be understood, if no further statement is given, that C a altered it to that which is found in our text; C b (cited as 3b ) lived about the same time as C a , i.e. some centuries later than the original scribe. These are all that we need notice here 6 .
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Rom 9:19 ff. But human nature is not so easily silenced. This interpretation of all human life, with all its diversities of character and experience, through the will of God alone, as if that will by itself explained everything, is not adequate to the facts. If Moses and Pharaoh alike are to be explained by reference to that will that is, are to be explained in precisely the same way then the difference between Moses and Pharaoh disappears. The moral interpretation of the world is annulled by the religious one. If God is equally behind the most opposite moral phenomena, then it is open to any one to say, what Paul here anticipates will be said, ; why does he still find fault? For who withstands his resolve? To this objection there is really no answer, and it ought to be frankly admitted that the Apostle does not answer it. The attempt to understand the relation between the human will and the Divine seems to lead of necessity to an antinomy which thought has not as yet succeeded in transcending. To assert the absoluteness of God in the unexplained unqualified sense of Rom 9:18 makes the moral life unintelligible; but to explain the moral life by ascribing to man a freedom which makes him stand in independence over against God reduces the universe to anarchy. Up to this point Paul has been insisting on the former point of view, and he insists on it still as against the human presumption which would plead its rights against God; but in the very act of doing so he passes over (in Rom 9:22 ) to an intermediate standpoint, showing that God has not in point of fact acted arbitrarily, in a freedom uncontrolled by moral law; and from that again he advances in the following chapter to do full justice to the other side of the antinomy the liberty and responsibility of man. The act of Israel, as well as the will of God, lies behind the painful situation he is trying to understand.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Rom 9:19-26
19You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?” 20On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it? 21Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? 22What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? 23And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, 24even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles. 25As He says also in Hosea, “I will call those who were not My people, ‘My people,’ And her who was not beloved, ‘beloved.'” “26And it shall be that in the place where it was said to them, ‘you are not My people,’ There they shall be called sons of the living God.”
Rom 9:19 “who resists His will” This is a perfect active indicative, which emphasized a settled fact with continuing results (cf. 2Ch 20:6; Job 9:12; Psa 135:6; Dan 4:35). The diatribe continues. Logically, following Paul’s diatribe is the best way to outline and understand Paul’s thought. See chapter introduction, B., 1. God’s will needs to be seen on two levels. The first is His redemptive plans for all of the fallen human race (cf. Gen 3:15). These plans are unaffected by individual human choice. But on the second level, God chooses to use human instrumentality (cf. Exo 3:7-10). People are chosen to accomplish His plans (both positively, Moses, and negatively, Pharaoh).
Rom 9:20-21 This imagery is taken from Isa 29:16; Isa 45:9-13; Isa 64:8 and Jer 18:1-12. The metaphor of YHWH as a potter was often used for God as creator because mankind comes from clay (cf. Gen 2:7). Paul drove home his point of the sovereignty of the creator by the use of three more questions-the first two in Rom 9:20 and the third in Rom 9:21. The last question returns to the analogy of God’s positive choice in Moses and negative choice in Pharaoh. This same contrast is seen in
1. Isaac – Ishmael, Rom 9:8-9
2. Jacob – Esau in Rom 9:10-12
3. the nation of Israel and the nation of Edom in Rom 9:13
This same analogy is developed to reflect Paul’s contemporary situation of believing and unbelieving Jews. God’s positive choice is ultimately expressed in the inclusion of believing Gentiles (Rom 9:24-33)!
The grammatical form expects
1. a “no” answer to the question of Rom 9:20
2. a “yes” answer to the question in Rom 9:21
Rom 9:22 “if” This is a partial first class conditional sentence which is assumed true from the author’s perspective, but with no grammatical conclusion. Rom 9:22-24 are one sentence in Greek. Rom 9:22 expresses the redemptive character of God. God is a God of justice. He will hold humanity accountable for their deeds. But He is also a God of mercy. All humans deserve to die (cf. Rom 1:18 to Rom 3:21). Justice is not good news! God’s character is primarily mercy, not wrath (cf. Deu 5:9-10; Deu 7:9; Hos 11:8-9). His choices are for redemption (cf. Eze 36:22-33). He is patient with sinful mankind (cf. Ezekiel 18). He even uses evil for His redemptive purposes (e.g., Satan, Pharaoh, Witch of Endor, Assyria, Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, and in Romans 11, unbelieving Israel)!
NASB”willing to demonstrate His wrath”
NKJV”wanting to show His wrath”
NRSV”desiring to show his wrath”
TEV”wanted to show his anger”
NJB”is ready to show his anger”
God demonstrates His wrath to make known both His power (cf. Rom 9:22) and the riches of His glory (cf. Rom 9:23). God’s actions always have redemptive purposes (except Gehenna, which is the final isolation of incalcitrant unbelief and sin).
“vessels of wrath” This term continues Paul’s metaphor of the clay from Rom 9:20-21. They obviously refer to unbelieving human beings who God uses to further His plan of redemption.
NASB, NKJV”prepared”
NRSV”are made”
TEV”doomed”
NJB”designed”
This is a perfect passive participle. The word is used in the papyri (Moulton and Milligan) of something prepared for its full destiny. Rebellious unbelief will have its day of justice and consequences. However, God chooses to use unbelievers to accomplish His wider, inclusive, redemptive purposes.
M. R. Vincent, Word Studies, vol. 2, says “Not fitted by God for destruction, but in an adjectival sense, ready, ripe for destruction, the participle denoting a present state previously formed, but giving no hint of how it has been formed” (p. 716).
“destruction” See Special Topic at Rom 3:3.
Rom 9:23 “to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy” This purpose clause shows God’s eternal intent (i.e., mercy). The verb is an aorist active subjunctive. God made His riches known in sending Jesus!
Paul often refers to the riches of
1. His kindness and forbearance and patience, Rom 2:4
2. His glory to vessels of mercy, Rom 9:23
3. His grace, Eph 1:7
4. the glory of His inheritance, Eph 1:18
5. His grace in kindness toward us in Christ, Eph 2:7
6. Christ to the Gentiles, Eph 3:8
7. His glory, Eph 3:16
8. the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory, Col 1:27
“which He prepared beforehand for glory” This same truth is stated in Rom 8:29-30 and Eph 1:4; Eph 1:11. This chapter is the strongest expression of God’s sovereignty in the NT. There can be no dispute that God is in total charge of creation and redemption! This great truth should never be softened or finessed. However, it must be balanced with God’s choice of covenant as a means of relating to human creation, made in His image. It is surely true that some OT covenants, like Gen 9:8-17; Gen 15:12-21, are unconditional and do not relate at all to human response, but other covenants are conditional on human response (i.e., Eden, Noah, Moses, David). God has a plan of redemption for His creation, no human can affect this plan. God has chosen to allow individuals to participate in His plans. This opportunity for participation is a theological tension between sovereignty (Romans 9) and human free will (Romans 10).
It is not appropriate to select one biblical emphasis and ignore another. There is tension between doctrines because eastern people present truth in dialectical or tension-filled pairs. Doctrines must be held in relationship to other doctrines. Truth is a mosaic of truths.
There is surely mystery here! Paul does not draw the logical conclusion to unbelievers prepared (kataptiz) for wrath (Rom 9:22) and believers prepared (proetoimaz) for glory (Rom 9:23). Is God’s choice the only factor or is God’s choice based on mercy for all, but some reject His offer? Does humanity have any part in their own future (cf. Rom 9:30 to Rom 10:21)? There are overstatements on both sides (Augustine – Pelagius). For me the concept of covenant unites them both with the emphasis on God. Humanity can only respond to the initiatives of God (e.g., Joh 6:44; Joh 6:65). But for me, God’s character is not capricious, but merciful. He reaches out to all conscious human creation made in His image (cf. Gen 1:26-27). I struggle with this context. It is so powerful, yet it paints in black and white. Its focus is Jewish unbelief, which results in Gentile inclusion (Romans 11)! But this is not the only text on the character of God!
“glory” See note at Rom 3:23.
Rom 9:24 This verse shows that the object of God’s promise is wider than just racial Israel. God has shown mercy on mankind based on His choice. The promise of Gen 3:15 is related to all mankind (because there are no Jews until Romans 12). The call of Abraham related to all mankind, Gen 12:3. The call of Israel as a kingdom of priests related to all mankind (cf. Exo 19:5-6)! This is the mystery of God, which was hidden, but is now fully revealed (cf. Eph 2:11 to Eph 3:13; Gal 3:28; Col 3:11).
Paul’s assertion in Rom 9:24 will be illustrated by a series of OT quotes (Rom 9:25-29).
1. Rom 9:25, Hos 2:23
2. Rom 9:26, Hos 1:10 b
3. Rom 9:27, Isa 10:22 and/or Hos 1:10 a
4. Rom 9:28, Isa 10:23
5. Rom 9:29, Isa 1:9
Rom 9:25-26 In context this passage is from the Septuagint (LXX) of Hos 2:23 (with some modifications) and Rom 1:10, where it referred to the Northern Ten Tribes, but here Paul refers to Gentiles. This is typical of NT authors’ use of the OT. They saw the church as the fulfillment of the promises to Israel (cf. 2Co 6:16; Tit 2:14; 1Pe 2:5-9). In context the passage in Hosea refers to faithless Israel. If God could restore the idolatrous Northen Ten Tribes, Paul saw this as evidence of the love and forgiveness of God that would one day even include the idolatrous pagans (Gentiles).
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
find fault. Greek. memphomai. Only here, Mar 7:2. Heb 8:8.
will. App-102.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
19.] Thou wilt say then to me (there seems no reason to suppose the objector a Jew, as Thol. after Grot., Calov., Koppe, al.:-the objection is a general one, applying to all mankind, and likely to arise in the mind of any reader. The expression seems to confirm this), Why then doth He yet find fault ( as ch. Rom 3:7, assuming your premises,-if this be so: at the same time it expresses a certain irritation on the part of the objector: exprimit morosum fremitum, Bengel. has a stronger sense than mere blame here: Hesych[79] interprets it , , : see the apocryphal reff. Thol.)? For who resists (not, hath resisted: , like , is present, see Winer, edn. 6, 40. 4. b, and compare , 2Ti 4:6) His will (i.e. if it be His will to harden the sinner, and the sinner goes on in his sin, he does not resist but goes with the will of God)? Yea rather (, see reff., takes the ground from under the previous assertion and supersedes it by another: implying that it has a certain show of truth, but that the proper view of the matter is yet to be stated. It thus conveys, as in ref. Luke, an intimation of rebuke; here, with severity: that which thou hast said, may be correct human reasoning-but as against Gods sovereignty, thy reasoning is out of place and irrelevant), O man (perhaps without emphasis implying the contrast between man and God,-for this is done by the emphatic following, and we have unemphatic in ch. Rom 2:1), who art THOU that repliest against (the seems to imply contradiction, not merely dialogue: see besides reff., , Job 13:22, BC[80]) GOD?-implying, thou hast neither right nor power, to call God to account in this manner.
[79] Hesychius of Jerusalem, centy. vi.
[80] The CODEX SINAITICUS. Procured by Tischendorf, in 1859, from the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai. The Codex Frederico-Augustanus (now at Leipsic), obtained in 1844 from the same monastery, is a portion of the same copy of the Greek Bible, the 148 leaves of which, containing the entire New Testament, the Ep. of Barnabas, parts of Hermas, and 199 more leaves of the Septuagint, have now been edited by the discoverer. A magnificent edition prepared at the expense of the Emperor of Russia appeared in January, 1863, and a smaller edition containing the N.T. &c., has been published by Dr. Tischendorf. The MS. has four columns on a page, and has been altered by several different correctors, one or more of whom Tischendorf considers to have lived in the sixth century. The work of the original scribe has been examined, not only by Tischendorf, but by Tregelles and other competent judges, and is by them assigned to the fourth century. The internal character of the text agrees with the external, as the student may judge for himself from the readings given in the digest. The principal correctors as distinguished by Tischendorf are:-A, of the same age with the MS. itself, probably the corrector who revised the book, before it left the hands of the scribe, denoted therefore by us -corr1; B (cited as 2), who in the first page of Matt. began inserting breathings, accents, &c., but did not carry out his design, and touched only a few later passages; Ca (cited as 3a) has corrected very largely throughout the book. Wherever in our digest a reading is cited as found in 1, it is to be understood, if no further statement is given, that Ca altered it to that which is found in our text; Cb (cited as 3b) lived about the same time as Ca, i.e. some centuries later than the original scribe. These are all that we need notice here6.
Notice, that the answer to the objectors question does not lie in these Rom 9:20-21, but in the following (see there);-the present verses are a rebuke administered to the spirit of the objection, which forgets the immeasurable distance between us and God, and the relation of Creator and Disposer in which He stands to us. So Chrys.,- , , ; , , . , . , . , . , . , . , . . , , . Hom. xvi. p. 614. Similarly Calvin: Hac priori responsione nihil aliud quam improbitatem illius blasphemi retundit, argumento ab hominis conditione sumpto. Alteram mox subjiciet, qua Dei justitiam ab omni criminatione vindicabit.
Shall the thing formed (properly of a production of plastic art, moulded of clay or wax) say to him who formed it, Why madest thou me thus?
These words are slightly altered from Isa 29:16 LXX,- (om. A[81]), ; , ;
[81] The CODEX SINAITICUS. Procured by Tischendorf, in 1859, from the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai. The Codex Frederico-Augustanus (now at Leipsic), obtained in 1844 from the same monastery, is a portion of the same copy of the Greek Bible, the 148 leaves of which, containing the entire New Testament, the Ep. of Barnabas, parts of Hermas, and 199 more leaves of the Septuagint, have now been edited by the discoverer. A magnificent edition prepared at the expense of the Emperor of Russia appeared in January, 1863, and a smaller edition containing the N.T. &c., has been published by Dr. Tischendorf. The MS. has four columns on a page, and has been altered by several different correctors, one or more of whom Tischendorf considers to have lived in the sixth century. The work of the original scribe has been examined, not only by Tischendorf, but by Tregelles and other competent judges, and is by them assigned to the fourth century. The internal character of the text agrees with the external, as the student may judge for himself from the readings given in the digest. The principal correctors as distinguished by Tischendorf are:-A, of the same age with the MS. itself, probably the corrector who revised the book, before it left the hands of the scribe, denoted therefore by us -corr1; B (cited as 2), who in the first page of Matt. began inserting breathings, accents, &c., but did not carry out his design, and touched only a few later passages; Ca (cited as 3a) has corrected very largely throughout the book. Wherever in our digest a reading is cited as found in 1, it is to be understood, if no further statement is given, that Ca altered it to that which is found in our text; Cb (cited as 3b) lived about the same time as Ca, i.e. some centuries later than the original scribe. These are all that we need notice here6.
Or (introduces a new objection, or fresh ground of rebuke, see ch. Rom 2:4; Rom 3:29; Rom 6:3; Rom 11:2) hath not the potter power over the clay (the similitude from ref. Isa. In Sirach 36 (33) 13, we have a very similar sentiment: . . And even more strikingly so, Wis 15:7; ( . [82] [83] [84]), ( A[85]) ( B[86]3a, [87]1) (om. [88]) , . See also Jer 18:6), out of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour (honourable uses) and another unto dishonour (dishonourable uses. See ref. 2 Tim. The honour and dishonour are not here the moral purity or impurity of the human vessels, but their ultimate glorification or perdition. The Apostle in asking this question, rather aims at striking dumb the objector by a statement of Gods undoubted right, against which it does not become us men to murmur, than at unfolding to us the actual state of the case. This he does in the succeeding verses; see above, from Chrys. and Calv.)?
[82] The MS. referred to by this symbol is that commonly called the Alexandrine, or CODEX ALEXANDRINUS. It once belonged to Cyrillus Lucaris, patriarch of Alexandria and then of Constantinople, who in the year 1628 presented it to our King Charles I. It is now in the British Museum. It is on parchment in four volumes, of which three contain the Old, and one the New Testament, with the Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians. This fourth volume is exhibited open in a glass case. It will be seen by the letters in the inner margin of this edition, that the first 24 chapters of Matthew are wanting in it, its first leaf commencing , ch. Mat 25:6 :-as also the leaves containing , Joh 6:50,-to , Joh 8:52. It is generally agreed that it was written at Alexandria;-it does not, however, in the Gospels, represent that commonly known as the Alexandrine text, but approaches much more nearly to the Constantinopolitan, or generally received text. The New Testament, according to its text, was edited, in uncial types cast to imitate those of the MS., by Woide, London, 1786, the Old Testament by Baber, London, 1819: and its N.T. text has now been edited in common type by Mr. B. H. Cowper, London, 1861. The date of this MS. has been variously assigned, but it is now pretty generally agreed to be the fifth century.
[83] The CODEX EPHRAEMI, preserved in the Imperial Library at Paris, MS. Gr. No. 9. It is a Codex rescriptus or palimpsest, consisting of the works of Ephraem the Syrian written over the MS. of extensive fragments of the Old and New Testaments2. It seems to have come to France with Catherine de Medici, and to her from Cardinal Nicolas Ridolfi. Tischendorf thinks it probable that he got it from Andrew John Lascaris, who at the fall of the Eastern Empire was sent to the East by Lorenzo de Medici to preserve such MSS. as had escaped the ravages of the Turks. This is confirmed by the later corrections (C3) in the MS., which were evidently made at Constantinople3. But from the form of the letters, and other peculiarities, it is believed to have been written at Alexandria, or at all events, where the Alexandrine dialect and method of writing prevailed. Its text is perhaps the purest example of the Alexandrine text,-holding a place about midway between the Constantinopolitan MSS. and most of those of the Alexandrine recension. It was edited very handsomely in uncial type, with copious dissertations, &c., by Tischendorf, in 1843. He assigns to it an age at least equal to A, and places it also in the fifth century. Corrections were written in, apparently in the sixth and ninth centuries: these are respectively cited as C2, C3.
[84] The CODEX SINAITICUS. Procured by Tischendorf, in 1859, from the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai. The Codex Frederico-Augustanus (now at Leipsic), obtained in 1844 from the same monastery, is a portion of the same copy of the Greek Bible, the 148 leaves of which, containing the entire New Testament, the Ep. of Barnabas, parts of Hermas, and 199 more leaves of the Septuagint, have now been edited by the discoverer. A magnificent edition prepared at the expense of the Emperor of Russia appeared in January, 1863, and a smaller edition containing the N.T. &c., has been published by Dr. Tischendorf. The MS. has four columns on a page, and has been altered by several different correctors, one or more of whom Tischendorf considers to have lived in the sixth century. The work of the original scribe has been examined, not only by Tischendorf, but by Tregelles and other competent judges, and is by them assigned to the fourth century. The internal character of the text agrees with the external, as the student may judge for himself from the readings given in the digest. The principal correctors as distinguished by Tischendorf are:-A, of the same age with the MS. itself, probably the corrector who revised the book, before it left the hands of the scribe, denoted therefore by us -corr1; B (cited as 2), who in the first page of Matt. began inserting breathings, accents, &c., but did not carry out his design, and touched only a few later passages; Ca (cited as 3a) has corrected very largely throughout the book. Wherever in our digest a reading is cited as found in 1, it is to be understood, if no further statement is given, that Ca altered it to that which is found in our text; Cb (cited as 3b) lived about the same time as Ca, i.e. some centuries later than the original scribe. These are all that we need notice here6.
[85] The CODEX SINAITICUS. Procured by Tischendorf, in 1859, from the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai. The Codex Frederico-Augustanus (now at Leipsic), obtained in 1844 from the same monastery, is a portion of the same copy of the Greek Bible, the 148 leaves of which, containing the entire New Testament, the Ep. of Barnabas, parts of Hermas, and 199 more leaves of the Septuagint, have now been edited by the discoverer. A magnificent edition prepared at the expense of the Emperor of Russia appeared in January, 1863, and a smaller edition containing the N.T. &c., has been published by Dr. Tischendorf. The MS. has four columns on a page, and has been altered by several different correctors, one or more of whom Tischendorf considers to have lived in the sixth century. The work of the original scribe has been examined, not only by Tischendorf, but by Tregelles and other competent judges, and is by them assigned to the fourth century. The internal character of the text agrees with the external, as the student may judge for himself from the readings given in the digest. The principal correctors as distinguished by Tischendorf are:-A, of the same age with the MS. itself, probably the corrector who revised the book, before it left the hands of the scribe, denoted therefore by us -corr1; B (cited as 2), who in the first page of Matt. began inserting breathings, accents, &c., but did not carry out his design, and touched only a few later passages; Ca (cited as 3a) has corrected very largely throughout the book. Wherever in our digest a reading is cited as found in 1, it is to be understood, if no further statement is given, that Ca altered it to that which is found in our text; Cb (cited as 3b) lived about the same time as Ca, i.e. some centuries later than the original scribe. These are all that we need notice here6.
[86] The CODEX SINAITICUS. Procured by Tischendorf, in 1859, from the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai. The Codex Frederico-Augustanus (now at Leipsic), obtained in 1844 from the same monastery, is a portion of the same copy of the Greek Bible, the 148 leaves of which, containing the entire New Testament, the Ep. of Barnabas, parts of Hermas, and 199 more leaves of the Septuagint, have now been edited by the discoverer. A magnificent edition prepared at the expense of the Emperor of Russia appeared in January, 1863, and a smaller edition containing the N.T. &c., has been published by Dr. Tischendorf. The MS. has four columns on a page, and has been altered by several different correctors, one or more of whom Tischendorf considers to have lived in the sixth century. The work of the original scribe has been examined, not only by Tischendorf, but by Tregelles and other competent judges, and is by them assigned to the fourth century. The internal character of the text agrees with the external, as the student may judge for himself from the readings given in the digest. The principal correctors as distinguished by Tischendorf are:-A, of the same age with the MS. itself, probably the corrector who revised the book, before it left the hands of the scribe, denoted therefore by us -corr1; B (cited as 2), who in the first page of Matt. began inserting breathings, accents, &c., but did not carry out his design, and touched only a few later passages; Ca (cited as 3a) has corrected very largely throughout the book. Wherever in our digest a reading is cited as found in 1, it is to be understood, if no further statement is given, that Ca altered it to that which is found in our text; Cb (cited as 3b) lived about the same time as Ca, i.e. some centuries later than the original scribe. These are all that we need notice here6.
[87] The CODEX SINAITICUS. Procured by Tischendorf, in 1859, from the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai. The Codex Frederico-Augustanus (now at Leipsic), obtained in 1844 from the same monastery, is a portion of the same copy of the Greek Bible, the 148 leaves of which, containing the entire New Testament, the Ep. of Barnabas, parts of Hermas, and 199 more leaves of the Septuagint, have now been edited by the discoverer. A magnificent edition prepared at the expense of the Emperor of Russia appeared in January, 1863, and a smaller edition containing the N.T. &c., has been published by Dr. Tischendorf. The MS. has four columns on a page, and has been altered by several different correctors, one or more of whom Tischendorf considers to have lived in the sixth century. The work of the original scribe has been examined, not only by Tischendorf, but by Tregelles and other competent judges, and is by them assigned to the fourth century. The internal character of the text agrees with the external, as the student may judge for himself from the readings given in the digest. The principal correctors as distinguished by Tischendorf are:-A, of the same age with the MS. itself, probably the corrector who revised the book, before it left the hands of the scribe, denoted therefore by us -corr1; B (cited as 2), who in the first page of Matt. began inserting breathings, accents, &c., but did not carry out his design, and touched only a few later passages; Ca (cited as 3a) has corrected very largely throughout the book. Wherever in our digest a reading is cited as found in 1, it is to be understood, if no further statement is given, that Ca altered it to that which is found in our text; Cb (cited as 3b) lived about the same time as Ca, i.e. some centuries later than the original scribe. These are all that we need notice here6.
[88] The CODEX SINAITICUS. Procured by Tischendorf, in 1859, from the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai. The Codex Frederico-Augustanus (now at Leipsic), obtained in 1844 from the same monastery, is a portion of the same copy of the Greek Bible, the 148 leaves of which, containing the entire New Testament, the Ep. of Barnabas, parts of Hermas, and 199 more leaves of the Septuagint, have now been edited by the discoverer. A magnificent edition prepared at the expense of the Emperor of Russia appeared in January, 1863, and a smaller edition containing the N.T. &c., has been published by Dr. Tischendorf. The MS. has four columns on a page, and has been altered by several different correctors, one or more of whom Tischendorf considers to have lived in the sixth century. The work of the original scribe has been examined, not only by Tischendorf, but by Tregelles and other competent judges, and is by them assigned to the fourth century. The internal character of the text agrees with the external, as the student may judge for himself from the readings given in the digest. The principal correctors as distinguished by Tischendorf are:-A, of the same age with the MS. itself, probably the corrector who revised the book, before it left the hands of the scribe, denoted therefore by us -corr1; B (cited as 2), who in the first page of Matt. began inserting breathings, accents, &c., but did not carry out his design, and touched only a few later passages; Ca (cited as 3a) has corrected very largely throughout the book. Wherever in our digest a reading is cited as found in 1, it is to be understood, if no further statement is given, that Ca altered it to that which is found in our text; Cb (cited as 3b) lived about the same time as Ca, i.e. some centuries later than the original scribe. These are all that we need notice here6.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Rom 9:19. , as yet) even still. This particle well expresses the peevish outcry. To the objection here put, Paul answers in two ways. I. The power of God over men is greater than the power of the potter over the clay, Rom 9:20-21. Then II. He answers more mildly: God has not exercised His power, not even over the vessels of wrath, Rom 9:22.-, His) It is put for, of God, and expresses the feeling, by which objectors of this description show their aversion from God.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Rom 9:19
Rom 9:19
Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he still find fault? -Then some will say: If all are hardened or forgiven according to the will of God, why does God find fault with any ?
For who withstandeth his will?-[God does not make men just what they are and then find fault with them for being what he makes them. Morally, men make themselves what they are, which at the first is generally what they should not be. For this only God finds fault with them. It is true that God sometimes makes choice, as in the case of Jacob and Esau; but he finds fault with no one for being what his choice makes him. God sometimes hardens men, as in the case of Pharaoh; but he finds no fault with them for being hard when he hardens them. He found fault with Pharaoh for hardening his heart and wickedly resisting his will.]
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Thou: Rom 3:8, 1Co 15:12, 1Co 15:35, Jam 1:13
Why doth: Rom 3:5-7, Gen 50:20, 2Ch 20:6, Job 9:12-15, Job 9:19, Job 23:13, Job 23:14, Psa 76:10, Isa 10:6, Isa 10:7, Isa 46:10, Isa 46:11, Dan 4:35, Mar 14:21, Act 2:23, Act 4:27, Act 4:28
Reciprocal: Job 33:12 – thou Job 40:2 – he that reproveth Psa 115:3 – he hath Ecc 6:10 – neither Ecc 7:13 – who Isa 29:16 – as the potter’s Isa 43:13 – I will work Eze 16:63 – and never Rom 3:7 – why yet Rom 9:15 – I will have
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
-20
Romans 9:19-20. To criticize God for using his divine right of choice would be like a vessel complaining against the one who formed it. It would be similar to the foolish argument about deliberately sinning in chapter 6:1, 15.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Rom 9:19. Thou wilt say then unto me. This verse states a further objection, growing out (then) of what has already been said. It is not necessary even here, where the answer is so sharply personal, to regard the objection as uttered by a Jew. For it will arise, wherever there is any such notion of God, however derived, as admits the possibility of His being the author of evil in man, or what amounts to the same thing, denies His righteousness, because there is a theoretical difficulty in reconciling our responsibility with His free will. The difficulty is an ontological one: Given an infinite free will, how can there be other free wills.
Why doth he yet find fault? Some good authorities insert then, here also, referring to the previous discussion. Yet, this being the case, that whom He will He hardens (Rom 9:18).
For who resisteth his will. The word is peculiar, meaning the thing willed, but implying deliberation. Resisteth is better than hath resisted; and the question implies the helpless ness of the objector, and acknowledges the Almightiness of God, but at the expense of His rectitude, since it virtually makes Him responsible for mens sins.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Here the apostle brings in the unbelieving and rejected Jews making an objection against God: “If the case be thus, that God doth sometimes, and that justly, leave abdurate sinners to harden themselves, why is he offended at it, and complains of it? If God hardeneth us because he will, why doth he find fault with us for our hardness of heart? For who hath at any time resisted his will? How is it in our power to avoid being hardened, it it be his will that we should be hardened?”
Learn hence, That guilty sinners are full of hard thoughts of God, and very prone to think the divine dispensations unreasonable, if not unrighteous; but upon false and mistaken grounds: Why doth he find fault? Who hath resisted his will? To this objection the apostle returns a very smart answer, saying, Who art thou, O man, that repliest against God? Shall, &c.
In which answer, Observe, 1. A vehement objurgation or reproof.
2. A substantial vindication of the righteousness and wisdom of God in his proceedings with men.
Note, 1. The objurgation or reproof, drawn up in an interrogative form, which argues great intenseness of mind in the person speaking: Nay but, O man, who art thou?
As if the apostle had said, “What bold and unheard-of presumption is this, that man, blind and ignorant man, guilty, sinful man, obnoxious to wrath and eternal death, that he should undertake to reprove and censure, to judge and condemn the actions and dispensations of the most high and holy God, as if they were crooked and perverse, defective either in justice or wisdom!”
Learn hence, that it is no less than horrid and horrible presumption for so weak, sinful, and worthless a creature, as man is, to contest or dispute with the most high God about the wisdom or righteousness of any of his ways: O man, who art thou that repliest against God?
Note, 2. How the apostle vindicates the wisdom and righteousness of God in his proceedings with men in general, and against the Jews in particular; showing that there is no more cause to make this objection against God for rejecting the unbelieving Jews, and showing favour to the believing Gentiles, than for the pitcher to contend with him that formed it, why he made it of such a shape, and not of another figure; or for the clay, when it is marred and broken, to complain of the potter for making of one part of it a vessel unto honour, and the other unto dishonour.
Learn hence, That men who have made themselves obnoxious to the justice of God by a long-continued course of sin and disobedience against God, (as the unbelieving Jews here spoken of evidently did,) have no cause either to complain of God’s severe proceedings against themselves, or of his favourable dispensations towards others. What just cause had the Jews, rejected for their own unbelief and hardness of heart, to murmur against God for showing mercy to the Gentiles, who submitted to the terms of mercy?
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Rom 9:19. Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault As if he had said, Because I affirm concerning God, that whom he will he hardeneth, thou wilt say, Why then doth he yet find fault with, or complain of, such persons, that they continue disobedient! For who hath resisted his will Who hath been, is, or ever will be, able to hinder that from coming to pass which God willeth shall come to pass? Here it must be observed, that when the apostle saith, Whom he will he hardeneth, he doth not suppose any purpose or decree to be formed by God to harden any man, without his having previously committed those sins which he might not have committed: and having resisted the strivings of Gods Spirit, and abused the light and grace whereby he might both have known and complied with the divine will; but, at the most, only a purpose to harden those who first voluntarily harden themselves. Nor do his words suppose that they, who are actually hardened by God, have no capacity or possibility left them, by means of that grace which is yet vouchsafed to them, of recovering themselves from the state of hardness in which they are, and yet of turning to God in true repentance and reformation of life. Although then the will of God be, in a sense, irresistible, yet if this will be, 1st, To harden none but those who first voluntarily harden themselves, by known and wilful sin; and, 2d, To leave those whom he doth harden in a capacity of relenting and returning to him, being furnished with sufficient helps for that purpose, so that if they do it not, it becomes a high aggravation of their former sins; certainly he hath reason to reprove and complain of those who are, at any time, thus hardened by it.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Vv. 19-21. Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who can resist His will? Much rather, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the vessel of clay say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Or hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor?
The word then proves that the interlocutor accepts the answer made to his first objection (Rom 9:14), but that he starts from it to raise a new one. The , yet, after , signifies: yet, after hardening me. The verb , to find fault, to speak with anger, applies to the perdition with which God threatens sinners who are hardened by Him. When He hardens any one, God cannot ask that he should not harden himself. The question, Who can resist His will? literally signifies, Who hath resisted, or rather Who resisteth?…For the perfect of the verb and its compounds has really the sense of the present: I have placed myself there, and continue there. It is therefore clear that the question: Who is he that resisteth Him? signifies: Who is he that can resist Him? Hofmann thinks that the interlocutor means: Who, in this case (that of my hardening), hath resisted God? Answer: Nobody; for in hardening myself I have done nothing but obey Him. This meaning is not impossible; it is ingenious, but more far-fetched than the preceding.
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he still find fault? [That God actually and always does find fault with sinners is a fact never to be overlooked, and is also a fact which shows beyond all question or peradventure that God abhors evil and takes no positive steps toward its production. Even in the case cited by Paul, where God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, the act of God was permissive, for else how could the Lord expostulate with Pharaoh for a rebellious spirit for which God himself was responsible? (Exo 9:17; Exo 10:3-4) Again, let us consider the case in point. If God hardened Israel by positive act, why did his representative and “express image” weep over Jerusalem? and why was the Book of Romans written?] For who withstandeth his will? [Since Paul is still justifying God in formulating a gospel which results in the condemnation of Jews and the saving of Gentiles, this objector is naturally either a Jew or some one speaking from the Jewish standpoint. This fact is made more apparent in the subsequent verses, for in them the apostle appropriately answers the Jew out of his Jewish Scriptures. The objection runs thus: But, Paul, if God shows mercy to whom he will, and if he hardens whom he will, then it is he who has hardened us Jews in unbelief against the gospel. Why, then, does he still find fault with us, since he himself, according to your argument, has excluded us from blessedness, and made us unfit for mercy? This reply implies three things: 1. God, not the Jew, was at fault. 2. The Jew was ill used of God, in being deprived of blessing through hardening. 3. The rewards of saints and sinners should be equal, since each did God’s will absolutely in the several fields of good and evil where God had elected each to work. To each of these three implications the apostle replies with lightning-like brevity: 1. It is impious, O man, to so argue in self-justification as to compromise the good name of God. 2. It is folly for the thing formed to complain against him that formed it. 3. Rewards and destinies need not be equal, since, for instance, the potter out of the same lump forms vessels for different destinies, whether of honor or dishonor. But it must be borne in mind that in the last of these three brief answers the apostle aims rather, as Alford says, “at striking dumb the objector by a statement of God’s indubitable right, against which it does not become us men to murmur, than at unfolding to us the actual state of the case.” Let us now consider the three answers in detail.]
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
Rom 9:19-29. The Divine Sovereignty in Judgment.
Rom 9:19 f. The hard saying just enunciated provokes the question, Why does He blame, if the hardening is His doing and none may resist His will? Paul forgoes the obvious retort, that Gods hardening is a judgment on hardness of heart (cf. Rom 2:5, etc.), that Pharaoh (and Israel now) did resist God (cf. Act 7:51, etc.); he assails the spirit of contradiction: Nay, surely, O man, who art thou who repliest against Godthe thing formed saying to its fashioner, Why didst thou make me so? (see Isa 45:9). Such questions cast on God the responsibility for our miscarriages: whoever is to blame, He is not.The forming of Rom 9:20 is the shaping, not the creation, of the instrument.
Rom 9:21. The potter has a right over the clay, to make a vessel for honourable or ignoble use, from any part of the lump he chooses. He has his reasons, but those reasons are for himself. What right, says the Jew, has God to cast away sons of Abraham? The right, answers Paul, of the potter, from which there is no appeal.
Rom 9:22 recalls Rom 9:17 : Supposing God, resolved to make an example of His punitive wrath, has borne long with evil-doers, rendering their doom in the end more terrible, who will gainsay Himin Pharaohs case, or (to read between the lines) in Israels?
Rom 9:23 f. And supposing He did this of purpose to make known His glorious wealth of mercy . . . in us, for example, whom He has called from amongst both Jews and Gentiles? The suggestion is that Gods punitive judgments have mercy, somewhere, somehow, for their aim (Rom 11:30 ff.). The vessels of anger were chosen suitably, as well as sovereignly: Gods displeasure found, not made, them fitted for destruction. The antithetic clause, which He prepared beforehand for glory (cf. Rom 8:30, Eph 2:10), associates God with all that leads to the happier choice, without denying mans co-operation (cf. Php 2:12 f.).Throughout Paul asserts the challenged right of God to deal judicially with Israel; he is not denying mans freedom in order to safeguard Gods sovereignty, but maintaining Gods freedom against Jewish presumption.The sayings drawn from Hosea and Isaiah in Rom 9:25-29 reveal the disregard of previous status with which God calls into favour the once rejected and selects a remnant while rejecting the mass. Isa 10:22 f. and Isa 10:19 remind Israel how summary Gods ancient judgments had beenyet leaving a seed to revive out of the waste.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
SECTION 30 YET GOD HAS REASON TO FIND FAULT
CH. 9:19-23
Thou wilt say to me then, Why does He still find fault? For who is resisting His will? O man, at any rate, who art thou that answerest again to God? Shall the moulded vessel say to him that moulded it, Why didst thou make me thus? Or has not the potter authority over the clay, out of the same lump to make one part a vessel for honour, and another for dishonour? Moreover, if God, desiring to show forth His anger and to make known His power, has borne, in much longsuffering, vessels of anger made ready for destruction, in order that He may also make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy which He before-prepared for glory
Rom 9:19. A last objection, suggested by Rom 9:18. The mention of Pharaoh implies that his case is parallel to that of the unbelieving Jews; and suggests that God will harden them and through their hardness accomplish His purposes. The Jew replies, Why then does God, after hardening me, still (cp. Rom 3:7; Rom 6:2) find fault, i.e. continue to blame me for sins resulting from hardness inflicted by God? The force of this objection lies in the second question, which suggests that no one is resisting His will. If this suggestion can be made good, if it can be proved that sinners are altogether passive in the hands of God, it will be difficult to understand how He can blame or punish them.
Rom 9:20. Paul indignantly cuts off both questions by reminding the objector that in asking them he sets himself up against God, and by bidding him look at himself and consider who it is that does this. For God has declared that He does find fault with and will punish, for their sins, all unbelievers: and Paul will show that the man before us ought to be the last in the world to call in question Gods right to do this.
Shall the moulded vessel say to him that moulded it? word for word from Isa 29:16, LXX. In Rom 9:19, the moulded vessel of clay is calling the potter to account.
Rom 9:21. Further development of the argument underlying this last question.
The potter: same word in Jer 18:2-3; Jer 18:6, LXX.: in Hebrew it is cognate to the word rendered moulded in Rom 9:20.
The clay: same metaphor in Isa 64:8. The potter is under no obligation to the clay; and therefore may justly make, even out of the same lump, vessels for honour and for dishonour.
Vessel: same word in 2Ti 2:20-21; Joh 19:29; Rev 2:27; Rev 18:12; Act 9:15; 2Co 4:7. In the Gospel, God declares that from the common mass of mankind He will, by sovereign election, take a part, viz. believers, and cover them with glory: and this verse implies that He will use another part, viz. those who reject the Gospel, to advance by their deep debasement His sovereign purposes. To object to this, is to deny the potters right over his own clay.
Paul has shown that we have no right to ask the questions in Rom 9:19; but he has not answered them. He has not explained why God still finds fault; nor disproved the implied assertion that no one resists His will. But he has suggested a complete explanation and disproof. For Rom 9:21 recalls at once Jer 18:6-7 : cannot I do with you as this potter does as the clay in the potters hand, so are ye in My hand. Just as Moses and Pharaoh were parallels to men in Pauls day, so were the men of Jeremiahs day. Because of old God resolved to bless Israel, they thought it impossible for Him to punish them. God asks, Do you deny Me the right of doing what this potter does? He changed his purpose when the clay resisted; cannot I do the same? Now evidently, although the potters second and lower purpose has been accomplished in the clay, He can still find fault: for the clay has resisted his original purpose. Gods primary purpose for Israel was that they should be saved through Christ. This purpose they resisted. And God formed a second purpose, viz. that through their unbelief and destruction His name may be glorified. The accomplishment of the secondary purpose does not free them from blame for resisting His primary purpose of mercy. Again, in Jer 18:8; Jer 18:11 God says that even now He will revert to His first purpose of blessing, if Israel will repent. And, as we read in Rom 11:23, God is ready to pardon and bless the Jews of Pauls day. Consequently, it is not only their fault, and a result of their resistance to Gods purpose, that He formed the purpose of dishonour, but it will be their own further fault if this second purpose is accomplished.
Notice that to Jeremiah God speaks of the clay as a whole: for He refers to the destiny of the nation as a whole. But Paul refers to the salvation of individuals; and therefore speaks of different kinds of vessels from the same lump.
We see now that, while apparently cutting off the objection as one which we have no right to make and one to which he will not condescend to reply, Paul has really, by pointing to the potter and his clay, suggested a complete reply. The parallel is so exact and the reply so complete that we cannot doubt that Paul intended to suggest them. He holds up a mirror in which the Jews may see with their own eyes that they are resisting Gods purposes, and are justly exposed to blame and punishment.
Gods words to Jeremiah prove that the accomplishment of purposes which are entirely Gods may yet in Gods sovereign wisdom depend entirely on the conduct of man. They also justify us in thinking of His purposes as successive; although in themselves they are eternal and therefore simultaneous. Only by looking on them as successive can we in any measure comprehend the primary and secondary purposes of God.
Rom 9:22. Further description of the man who replies to God, making still more evident the folly of his reply.
To show-forth: recalling the same word in Rom 9:17.
Desiring etc.: a definite purpose of God. For His anger is an essential element of His nature; and its manifestation is for the good of His creatures. And, along with His anger against sin, punishment makes-known His power to crush all opposition.
Has borne: as men bear a burden, i.e. refrained from at once destroying something unpleasant to Him.
In much longsuffering: recalling Rom 2:4. God not only delays punishment but takes active means to lead sinners to repentance.
Vessels: as in Rom 9:21.
Of anger of mercy: whom God views with anger or mercy: so Eph 2:3, children of anger.
Made-ready: elsewhere, e.g. 1Co 1:10, in a good sense. Their preparation for their destiny was complete. By whom they were made ready, Paul leaves us to infer. Since they were hardened by God, they were by Him made ready for destruction: and since their hardening was a punishment of their own resistance, they had, by rejecting the Gospel, made themselves ready. Every act of sin makes the sinner more fit for perdition.
Destruction: see note on p. 87. {Rom 2:24}
We have here a second answer to the question in Rom 9:20, Who art thou? The objectors are not only clay marred in the hand of the potter but are already objects of Gods anger, made ready, by their own sins and by the hardness which follows sin, for destruction. If Rom 9:21 recalls Jer 18:1-12; Rom 9:22 recalls Jer 19:1-13. Now Gods nature moves Him to punish all sin and to crush all resistance, and thus to make known His anger and power. But He holds back His righteous anger, in order that the wicked may repent and live. Yet while refusing to repent, they complain that He finds fault with them.
Rom 9:23. Another purpose of Gods forbearance.
Riches: recalling Rom 2:4.
Of His glory: as in Eph 1:18; Eph 3:16. It is the valuable abundance of the manifested splendour which belongs to God. His forbearance is prompted by a desire to show mercy to men, to prepare them in the present life for a splendour to be bestowed in the life to come, and thus to make known the infinite resources and the grandeur of His own nature.
Before-prepared: so Eph 2:10 : in contrast to made ready for destruction. Throughout life everyone is preparing for destruction or for glory. The preparation for glory, being entirely a work of God, is expressly attributed to Him: whom He before-prepared.
The sentence occupying Rom 9:22-23 is broken off at the word glory, to make way for a further account of Gods treatment of the vessels of mercy: cp. Rom 5:12; Rom 7:12. We may supply from the foregoing, Shall the objects of such forbearance call Him to account?
The men who ask why God finds fault with them are men justly condemned, as Paul proved in Rom 1:18; Rom 3:20, for their own sins, whom God might justly destroy at once. To do so, would manifest His righteous anger and great power. But so great is His longsuffering that He permits them to live, and uses means for their salvation. He spares them because He has purposes of mercy, because He wishes to prepare men whom He will cover with His own abundant glory. Therefore He prolongs the worlds probation. Can men whose life is spared only because God forbears to act on principles of mere justice, and forbears because of His purpose of mercy to mankind at large, can such men reply to God when He declares what He will do with them? With more justice might a prisoner who but for the kings respite had been put to death complain of prison fare.
How appropriate was Pauls reference to Pharaoh and to the men of Jeremiahs day will appear when we remember the fearful storm which, as Paul wrote these words, was already gathering, soon to burst in overwhelming fury on the house of Israel.
Fuente: Beet’s Commentary on Selected Books of the New Testament
9:19 {16} Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
(16) Another objection, but only for the reprobate, rising upon the former answer. If God appoints to everlasting destruction, such as he wishes, and if that which he has decreed cannot be hindered nor withstood, how does he justly condemn those who perish by his will?
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
4. God’s mercy toward Israel 9:19-29
Next Paul dealt with a question that rises out of what he had just argued for, namely, God’s freedom to extend mercy to whom He will. Is it not logical that if God is going to show mercy to whom He will, in spite of human actions and merit, that human actions really provide no basis for His judging us? Is not the basis of judgment really God’s will rather than human actions?
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Paul posed the question in this verse and then answered it in the verses that follow.