22 What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction?23 What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— 24 even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?
This passage follows directly on the heels of yesterday's passage. Yesterday we saw the obvious question to the doctrine of God's sovereignty and election. If God chooses who to save and chooses who to harden, how can He hold us responsible for a decision that we didn't make, that He made instead?
Paul's answer?
19 One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?” 20 But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” 21 Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?
MacArthur's interpretation of Paul's answer....
How can God send people to an eternal hell when He's the one that chose the saved? It's a hard question. And you know what the answer is? Shut up. You don't ask that question. You don't ask that question....You with your little infinitesimal, puny, pusillanimous, pea-brain...who are you to stand up and say, "Well, God, this doesn't seem fair." Who are you with your little tiny thimble full of information against the vastness of an eternal mind as big as the endless universe? Who are you that answereth God? Just because you can't figure it out and it appears to you to be unfair, who are you to reply against God with such blasphemy to accuse God of being unrighteous and unfair? Close your mouth. Close your mouth and realize that you know very little...very little. And if you don't understand how this is resolved in the mind of our compassionate merciful loving and gracious God, then it isn't that God's character should be mistrusted, it is that you don't have enough information. And if you want to know the truth, the information is beyond your ability to comprehend and that's why you don't get it, because there are hopeless, hopeless antinomies in Scripture that could never be resolved in the human mind.
Instead of that question, let me ask you a question, who are you to ask such a thing of God? Oh, absurdity. You have limited power to know. You have great power to forget. You have limited understanding. You have limited reason. Do you question God?...
We live by faith, see, not by logic, not by reason. Reason will take us so far and then it stops and we're out of the game. God is not answerable to finite sinful creatures. To entertain such a question is to establish man as a higher standard than God and say to God, "Look, God, You're not living up to my standard. It seems to me that you're off base here." That's absurd and yet we do that. It's arrogance of the worse kind, it's gross presumption to call God to account...
It's the picture of a potter and the clay......man is as far from comprehending the infinite mind of God as clay is from comprehending the mind of the potter. Be satisfied to let God be God. Be satisfied that God is righteous, God is holy, God is just, God is loving, compassionate, merciful. And don't bring God to trial at your court and act like the prosecution and the judge. Realize the limits of your computer. And if you start thinking about this, you'll blow your circuits. It's beyond you....
He has the right to do whatever He wants, He has the ability to do whatever He wants. He's like the potter and the clay. And He makes vessels as He chooses. A potter could make a beautiful dish or a trash barrel...it would be his choice....
I do not believe that God claims the right to create sinful damnable creatures in order to punish them. I do not believe that the Bible teaches that God creates occupants for hell. I believe the Bible very clearly says out of the Lord Himself that hell was created for the devil and his angels. God is not claiming the right to create damnable creatures in order to damn them, but He is claiming His right to deal with creatures who are sinful already as He wills. He pardons or punishes as He sees fit....
God doesn't create evil......But God reserves the right to do with already sinful creatures that which His own will desires.
And our passage today is Paul's analogy.What if? What of it? What if God makes some people vessels of mercy and some people vessels of wrath? Is God's glory displayed in His wrath? Yes. Is God's glory displayed in His mercy? Yes. Both are attributes of God.
Why did God allow sin?
Had there been no sin, He couldn't have displayed His wrath against sin and we wouldn't have known that element of Him. And He wouldn't have put Himself on display and there would have been a part of God lost to the display. So God allowed and endured sin for the purpose of revealing His holy wrath in its judgment and its punishment. And it had to be for God to be God fully revealed as God. And He couldn't have attributes that didn't have function....
You know why God allowed sin secondly? First of all, so that He could show His wrath, secondly, so that He could show His...what? His power. How does God show His power in sin? First of all, in judging sin. We see the wrath of God in His judgment on sin. And if you have any question about that, all you need to do is read the closing chapters of the book of Revelation and you will see the power of God. You will see the break up of the world. You will see the devastating plagues that He sends on the earth. You will see the great fiery judgments that He brings upon men. You will see all of the curses that sweep their way through that marvelous apocalypse of John. And you will see the great final conquering Jesus Christ coming on a white horse out of heaven and carrying a sword, blood-splattered garments as He comes to take the earth for His own possession and establishes eternal and glorious Kingdom, and you will see Him defeat the armies of the world. And God displays His power in judgment, doesn't He? And we see them all collected at the Great White Throne and God has the power to bring them out of the graves and to bring them before His tribunal and send them into the Lake of Fire forever, that's power...that's power.
And so, sin exists in order that God may demonstrate that part of His nature which is holy and against sin, reacts in violent wrath. And God has allowed sin in order that He might demonstrate His tremendous power as well as His vengeance and His power is seen in its ability to conquer all that attempts to conquer Him. Sin comes into the world attempting to conquer God, God conquers it and we see His power, we see His power no greater way than in His conquering sin in judgment and in the other hand, in salvation. Does God conquer sin through salvation? Oh yes...oh yes. On the cross did Jesus win a victory? Oh yes. Did He bruise the serpent's head? Oh yes. Did He finish the work of redemption? Oh yes. Sin has provided God a way to be displayed. His holy wrath is displayed, His tremendous power is displayed two ways, as He demonstrates His ability to judge evil and His ability to redeem from evil. So sin provides a means for God to be glorified. And isn't that the reason for everything? Isn't it? Isn't that it? Is there any other reason for anything than for God to be glorified? See, we think the reason for everything is for us to be happy. That's not the reason....
What if God endured sin in the world? What if God endured sinners in the world so that He might display His glory? What if? That's His prerogative, He's God. What if God chose to let His beautiful universe suffer the stains of the Fall, what if? If it gave Him opportunity to display His power, His holiness, what if? What if God is patient with sin? What if? If that allows Him to display Himself. What if, verse 22, He allowed vessels of wrath to be fitted to destruction? Oh what a statement...what a statement. Fearful...I..I hurt inside when I studied this. I just...my heart aches in this. Vessels of wrath fitted to destruction. Vessels of wrath so called because they will receive the anger of holy God. Vessels of wrath so called because they are objects of God's fiery judgment, they are fitted to destruction...It isn't that God made them sinners. It's that they're sinners, God to display His holy wrath fits them for destruction. God is not seen specifically as preordaining the destruction there, it's passive as I say, but it can be no other than God in the context....It is He that brings them to destruction but He didn't make them that way. He left them that way, if you will.
What if? What if God wanted to display the riches of His glory? And so verse 23 says, "Made vessels of mercy prepared for glory." Why did God save you? He saved me because I'm special. No. Why did God save you? He saved me because I sought it. No. Well He saved me because I wanted it. No. No He saved you and He saved me because He wanted to display His glory, and part of His glory is His mercy and His grace because when Moses said to Him in Exodus 33, "Show me Your glory...show me Your glory...show me Your glory," He says, "Okay, I'll let My mercy and My grace pass before you." And the reason people are saved is so that God may display His glory. His glory seen in His grace, His glory seen in His mercy, His glory seen in His compassion. And the reason that people are damned is that God may display His glory, the glory of His holiness, the glory of His wrath, the glory of His judgment, the glory of His justice, the glory of His power.
So what if He wanted to make vessels of mercy? Verse 24, "Even us." O blessed thought.....
Listen, when we learn about the sovereignty of God we just can't ask questions, folks. Because we can only go so far and then we're at the point where we start to question God and that is to bring God to our court as if we're the judge and that's a blasphemous thing.
This doctrine is not given to confuse us. This doctrine is not given to make us question God. This doctrine is not given to upset us. You know what this doctrine is given for? To make us thankful. Do you fall on your face before God and say, "O God, have mercy that You should have chosen me...that You should have chosen me, that You should desire through me to display Your glory in mercy and grace rather than in vengeance and wrath."...
So Israel's unbelief doesn't violate God's person. He's always kept His Word. He's always chosen some to mercy and some to judgment. Given mercy to some, and hardened others, it's not anything different....
You know what I also believe, having said all this? I believe anybody who wants to any time can come to Jesus Christ and receive Him as Savior. You say, "Now wait a minute, that doesn't...how does that fit together?" I haven't got the slightest. I don't know. But I know that there are passages that I can preach with all the passion in my heart that call people to Jesus Christ. And I know that I can preach from the depths of my heart, God is not willing that any should perish. And that God says in Ezekiel, "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked." Mysteriously incomprehensibly beyond searching out, beyond our understanding, beyond our ability to tap, there is also a truth in the Word of God that says that all of us whose hearts are turned to the Savior may come and that if we refuse Him the guilt is on us. And how God resolves that with these things, I'll never know until some day I know as I am known, but in the meantime I will never impugn God. In the mean time I will thank Him with every fiber of my being that He has redeemed me and chosen to display His grace and glory through me and not His wrath and glory....
Is the unbelief of Israel a blow against God's promises? No. God never promised to redeem every Jew, always a remnant. Is the unbelief of Israel a blow against God's character and person? No, He's always been revealed as a God who displays His glory on the one hand through mercy, on the other hand through wrath. Nothing is changed....
Now I realize that as we listen to things like this we find them hard to understand. We have grown up with an understanding of God strongly leaning toward His love and compassion because that's what we so desperately need. But we must also understand that God is a God of sovereignty, God is a God who is glorified in His judgment as in His grace. And when we look at us and say I'm saved, I have been prepared as a vessel of mercy, prepared before the world began, the awesomeness of that calling, the awesomeness of that choice should fill us with gratitude and wonder and empty us of pride, self-righteousness. But on the other hand, God is not willing that any should perish. Jesus looking over the city of Jerusalem burst into tears and wept and wept. And by the grave of Lazarus when He saw the results of sin, He was so troubled in His heart and He wept again, He sobbed. It's mystery...mystery that He's not willing that we perish, it's not His choice. And yet it is His choice. Is that paradoxical? Apparently it is to us, perfectly resolved in God's infinite mind with absolute justice. And anyone who questions God, anyone who questions God shows the folly of his own pride.
Tomorrow's scripture focus: Romans 9:25-29
1 comment:
Excellent post. Particularly that last paragraph.
Post a Comment