Monthly Archives: May 2014

How the Gospel changes everything

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storms-sSam Storms (“Do the Work of an Evangelist,” 39, 1, April 2014), D. A. Carson had some interesting remarks on the nature of the Christian gospel.

“For some Christians, ‘the gospel’ . . . is something you preach only to unconverted people. The gospel merely tips people into the kingdom; transformation and sanctification are sustained by discipleship. Once people become Christians, then the work of life transformation begins, often buttressed by various discipleship seminars: ‘Biblical Leadership,’ ‘Learning to Pray,’ ‘What to Do with Your Money,’ ‘Christian Marriage,’ and so forth—none of which falls under ‘gospel,’ but only under post-gospel discipleship. In recent years, however, many preachers and theologians have convincingly argued that ‘gospel’/’evangel’ is the larger category under which both evangelism and discipleship fall. In the NT, gospel is not everything—it is not law, for instance—but it is a very big thing, precisely because it is the unimaginably great news about what God is doing in and through King Jesus, especially in and through his cross and resurrection. A careful reading of Scripture shows how often Christian conduct is grounded in the gospel itself. For instance, the gospel is to be obeyed (e.g., 2 Thess 1:8); certain behavior conforms to the gospel, while other behavior does not (1 Tim 1:10–11). Husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her (Eph 5:25)—transparently, this is a gospel appeal. In short, in the NT the gospel is preached both to unbelievers and to believers. It calls unbelievers to repentance and faith; it calls believers to ongoing faith and conformity to Jesus. In other words, gospel ministry includes but is not restricted to what we commonly call evangelistic ministry (note the two words, gospel and evangelistic, making the discussion confusing). Gospel ministry is ministry that is faithful to the gospel, that announces the gospel and applies the gospel and encourages people to believe the gospel and thus live out the gospel.”

I want to draw your attention to Carson’s observation that “a careful reading of Scripture shows how often Christian conduct is grounded in the gospel itself.” Here is why.

One of the distinctive theological emphases in Acts 29 is what we call gospel centrality. In our effort to unpack what this means, we want people to understand that the gospel “is not only the means by which people are saved, but also the truth and power by which people are sanctified; it is the truth of the Gospel that enables us to genuinely and joyfully do what is pleasing to God and to grow in progressive conformity to the image of Christ.” This is, at least in part, what Carson has in mind.

To be “gospel-centered” does not mean you consistently conduct an altar call at the close of every Sunday sermon! Gospel-centrality as we understand it in Acts 29 begins with the reality that the gospel is not simply the entry point into the Christian life but also the foundation and force that shapes all we do as followers of Jesus both in our daily lives and in our experience as the corporate body of Christ. The gospel, which is the good news of what God has graciously done in the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ to satisfy his own wrath and secure the forgiveness of sins and perfect righteousness for all who trust in him by faith alone, informs, controls, and energizes all we do, whether that be the dynamics of interpersonal relationships, marriage, work, our use of money, speech, parenting, mission, and all aspects of ministry in the local church and beyond.

Consider the following small sampling of how all of life and local church ministry are influenced when the Gospel is at the Center.

Our approach to suffering, that is to say, how to suffer unjustly without growing bitter and resentful is tied directly to the way Christ suffered for us and did so without reviling those who reviled him – “when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly” (1 Peter 2:23; see 2:18-25; 3:17-18).

Or take humility as another example. The basis for Paul’s appeal that we “do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit but in humility count others more significant than” ourselves is the self-sacrifice of God the Son in becoming a human and submitting to death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2:1-5 in relation to 2:6-11).

All of us know that as husbands we are to love our wives “as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25-33).

Why should we be generous and sacrificial with our money? Because, says Paul, “you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9; 9:13).

We are to forgive one another “as God in Christ forgave” us (Ephesians 4:32; Colossians 3:13).
We are to “walk in love” toward each other, says Paul, “as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us” (Ephesians 5:1-2).

We are to serve one another in humility as Christ served his disciples by washing their feet and eventually suffering in their stead (John 13:1-20).

The freedom we have in Christ, says Paul in Romans 14, is to be controlled in its exercise by the recognition that the weaker brother who might be damaged by our behavior is one for whom Christ died (Romans 14).

Paul encourages us to pray for all based on the fact that Christ “gave himself as a ransom for all” (1 Timothy 2:1-7)

If that were not enough, there are countless instances in the NT where we are directed back to the reality of the gospel and what Christ has done for us through it as the primary way to combat those false beliefs and feelings that hinder our spiritual growth. So, for example, . . .

When you don’t feel loved by others, meditate on Rom. 5:5-11; 8:35-39.

When you don’t have a sense of any personal value, read Mt. 10:29-31; 1 John 3:1-3.

When you struggle to find meaning in life, study Eph. 1:4-14; Rom. 11:33-36.

When you don’t feel useful, consider 1 Cor. 15:58; 12:7-27.

When you feel unjustly criticized, rest in the truth of Rom. 8:33-34.

When you feel excluded by others, rejoice in Heb. 13:5-6.

When you feel you have no good works, let Eph. 2:8-10 have its effect.

When you are constantly asking the question: Who am I? take courage in 1 Peter 2:9-10.

When you live in fear that other people have the power to destroy or undermine who you are, be strengthened by Heb. 13:5-6; Rom. 8:31-34.

When you don’t feel like you belong anywhere, take comfort from Eph. 4:1-16; 1 Cor. 12:13.

When Satan accuses you of being a constant failure, remind him of 1 Cor. 1:30-31.

When Satan tells you that you are an embarrassment to the church, quote Eph. 3:10.

When you find yourself bitter towards the Church and indifferent regarding its ministries, reflect on Acts 20:28.

When you find yourself shamed into silence when confronted by non-Christians, be encouraged with 2 Tim. 1:8-12.

When you find yourself experiencing prejudice against those of another race or culture, memorize and act upon the truth of Rom. 1:16; 2 Cor. 5:14-16; Eph. 2:11ff.; Revelation 5.

When you struggle with pride and boasting in your own achievements, be humbled by Rom. 3:27-28; 1 Cor. 1:18-25, 30-31.

When you feel despair and hopelessness, let Rom. 5:1-10 restore your confidence.

When you feel defeated by sin and hopeless ever to change, delight yourself in Rom. 7:24-25.

When you feel condemned by God for your multiple, repeated failures, speak aloud the words of Rom. 8:1.

When you lack power to resist conforming to the world, consider Rom. 12:1-2; Gal. 6:14.

When you feel weak and powerless, be energized by Rom. 16:25.

When you are tempted sexually, never forget 1 Cor. 6:18-20.

And again, when you find yourself saying . . .

I’m not having any impact in life or on others, be uplifted by 2 Cor. 12:9-10.

I feel guilty and filled with shame all the time for my sins, be reminded of Eph. 1:7.

I live in constant fear, be encouraged by Luke 12:32; Rev. 2:9-11.

I struggle with anxiety and worry about everything, don’t neglect the truth of Mt. 6:25-34; Phil. 4:6-7; 1 Pt. 5:6-7.

I am defined and controlled by my past, look to 2 Cor. 5:17.

I live in fear that God will abandon me, consider his promise in Rom. 8:35-38.

I can’t break free of my sins and bad habits, linger long with Rom. 6:6,14.

I’m afraid to pray and fear that God will mock my petitions, take heart from Heb. 4:14-16.

I carry grudges against those who’ve wronged me and live in bitterness towards them, reflect and meditate on Col. 3:12-13.

I can’t find strength to serve others, fearing that I’ll be taken advantage of by them, let Phil. 2:5-11; and Mark 10:45 have their way in your life.

I’m a spiritual orphan and belong to no one, rejoice in Gal. 4:4-7.

Each of these texts refers to the gospel of what God has done for us in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ and each text applies that gospel truth to the particular problem noted. These, then, are just a handful of the ways that the gospel affects all of life, all of ministry, and everything we seek to be and do and accomplish as Christians and as local churches.

Miscellaneous Quotes (101)

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quotes“Upon a life I did not live, upon a death I did not die; another’s life, another’s death, I stake my whole eternity.” – Horatius Bonar

“When you fail to distinguish Law and Gospel, you lose both.” – Tullian Tchividjian

“Only when we see that the way of God’s law is absolutely inflexible will we see that God’s grace is absolutely indispensable. A high view of the law reminds us that God accepts us on the basis of Christ’s perfection, not our progress. Grace, properly understood, is the movement of a holy God toward an unholy people. He doesn’t cheapen the law or ease its requirements. He fulfills them in his Son, who then gives his righteousness to us. That’s the gospel. Pure and simple.” – Tullian Tchividjian

“Ignorance of this distinction between Law and Gospel is the principal source of abuse which corrupted and still corrupts Christianity.” – Theodore Beza (John Calvin’s successor)

“That is the reason we have so many mushroom converts . . . why? Because their stony ground is not plowed up; they have not got a conviction of the Law.” – George Whitefield

“A low view of law always produces legalism; a high view of law makes a person a seeker after grace.” – J. Gresham Machen

“Prayer is the preview of God’s action.” – Mark Dever

“We persevere because we are preserved by our High Priest’s intercession.” – R.C. Sproul

“Your faith will not fail while God sustains it; you are not strong enough to fall away while God is resolved to hold you.” – J. I. Packer

“God is awesome; he doesn’t need you to be awesome. He wants you to be obedient.” – Matt Chandler

“Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is, no longer have the categories to understand it, no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories in their non-moral universe — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty.” – David Wells

“It is folly to think the Lord provides grace for every trouble but the one you are in today.” – C.H. Spurgeon

“In our day it’s worse to judge evil than to do evil.” – Os Guinness

“It seems unnecessary to remark that this does not, and cannot mean that the righteousness ofChrist is infused into the believer, or in any way so imparted to him as to change, or constitute his moral character.Imputation never changes the inward, subjective state of the person to whom the imputation is made. When sin is imputed to a man he is not made sinful; when the zeal of Phinehas was imputed to him, he was not made zealous. When you impute theft to a man, you do not make him a thief. When you impute goodness to a man, you do not make him good. So when righteousness is imputed to the believer, he does not thereby become subjectively righteous. If the righteousness be adequate, and if the imputation be made on adequate grounds and by competent authority, the person to whom the imputation is made has the right to be treated as righteous. And, therefore, in the forensic, although not in the moral or subjective sense, the imputation of the righteousness of Christ does make the sinner righteous. That is, it gives him a right to the full pardon of all his sins and a claim in justice to eternal life.” – Charles Hodge

“Let those be thy choicest companions who have made Christ their chief companion.” – Thomas Brooks

“God is not blind; neither is He capricious. For Him there are no accidents. With God there are no cases of chance events.” – R.C. Sproul

“Don’t seek a platform for the sake of the gospel if you’re not prepared to lose that platform for the sake of the gospel.” – Sam Allberry

“The atonement is a multifaceted event—Jesus is shown providing surety for our debt to God, mediating the enmity between us and God, and offering Himself as a substitute to suffer God’s judgment in our place.” – R.C. Sproul

“God promises the Christian heaven after death, not before it.” – John Blanchard

“Was He scourged? It was through His stripes that we might be healed. Was He condemned, though innocent? It was that we might be acquitted, though guilty. Did He wear a crown of thorns? It was that we might wear the crown of glory. Was He stripped of His raiment? It was that we might be clothed in everlasting righteousness. Was He mocked and reviled? It was that we might be honored and blessed. Was He reckoned a malefactor, and numbered among transgressors? It was that we might be reckoned innocent, and justified from all sin. Was He declared unable to save Himself? It was that He might be able to save others to the uttermost. Did He die at last, and that the most painful and disgraceful of deaths? It was that we might live forevermore, and be exalted to the highest glory.” – John Ryle

“He that serves God for money will serve the devil for better wages.” – Roger L’Estrange

“By His life, death, and resurrection, our Savior has conquered our enemies, and by His Spirit He has granted us to share in the victory.” – R.C. Sproul

“The very heart of worship, as the Bible makes clear, is the business of expressing, from the depths of our spirits, the highest possible honor we can offer before God.” – R.C. Sproul

“If the being of God ceased for one second, the universe would disappear.” – R.C. Sproul

“God in His providence hasn’t called us to watch history, but to shape history by praying in His Name.” – David Platt

“We may live in a culture that believes everyone will be saved, that we are ‘justified by death’ and all you need to do to go to heaven is die, but God’s Word certainly doesn’t give us the luxury of believing that.” – R.C. Sproul

Don’t follow your heart, lead it!

Addressing the Fourth Option of Jesus as Legend

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Lord, Lunatic…or Legend?

Tom Gilson, in an article entitled “The Gospel Truth Of Jesus – What Happens to Apologetics If We Add “Legend” to the Trilemma “Liar, Lunatic, or Lord”?” writes:

He did not leave us that option: he did not intend to.” Thus C. S. Lewis closes out his famous “Trilemma” argument on the impossibility of Jesus being a great moral teacher and nothing more. The argument is beautiful in its simplicity: it calls for no deep familiarity with New Testament theology or history, only knowledge of the Gospels themselves, and some understanding of human nature. A man claiming to be God, says Lewis, could hardly be good unless he really was God. If Jesus was not the Lord, then (to borrow Josh McDowell’s alliterative version of the argument), he must have been a liar or a lunatic.

The questions have changed since Lewis wrote that, though, and it’s less common these days to hear Jesus honored as a great moral teacher by those who doubt his deity. Today’s skepticism runs deeper than that. The skeptics’ line now is that Jesus probably never claimed to be God at all, that the whole story of Jesus, or at least significant portions of it, is nothing more than legend.

Christian apologists have responded with arguments hinging on the correct dates for the composition of the Gospels, the identities of their authors, external corroborating evidence, and the like. All this has been enormously helpful, but one could wish for a more Lewis-like approach to that new l-word, legend—that is, for a way of recognizing the necessary truthfulness of the Gospels from their internal content alone.

Lewis was always more at home looking at the evidence of the Gospels themselves than at the historical circumstances surrounding them. In one classic essay (variously titled “Fern-Seed and Elephants” or “Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism,” depending on where you find it) he delineates the Gospels as true “reportage” rather than fable, and concludes, “The reader who doesn’t see this has simply not learned to read.” Continue reading →

Reaching the YembiYembi Tribe

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Tim Challies writes:

This may well be the most moving and encouraging video I’ve seen in a long time. YembiYembi: Unto the Nations chronicles the work of modern-day missionaries Brooks and Nina Buser as they take the gospel to the unreached YembiYembi tribe in Papua New Guinea. It tells of their call to missions, their long labor, the remarkable response to the very first time they shared the gospel (and God’s kind providence in the moment), and the great celebration the day they delivered the very first complete New Testament. Watch it at this link and be encouraged!

What would “Unity” look like?

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Carl-TruemanCarl R. Trueman is a Christian theologian and church historian. He is Professor of Historical Theology and Church History and holds the Paul Woolley Chair of Church History at Westminster Theological Seminary. He asks all the right questions in an article entitled so may it be!’ seem somewhat curmudgeonly. Thus, when Peter Leithart opened last week’s discussion on the future of Protestantism by lamenting ecclesiastical disunity and expressing a desire for a visibly united church, there was an audible murmur of support and appreciation from the audience. I knew immediately I would emerge over the course of the evening as the nay-sayer.

I agree with Peter that unity is much to be desired. But two questions remain for me after the discussion and the various blog posts: What does this unity look like? And how do we get there? Claiming that God can slay and resurrect the church is true enough. He can also cure cancer by a mere act of his will. But, if diagnosed with such, I am still going to drive to the hospital to receive chemotherapy.

Peter offered an attractive and humorous vision of church unity, involving (among others) hierarchical Baptists, disciplined Anglicans, jolly Presbyterians, and practitioners of paedocommunion existing in harmony. The vision was humorous, though intended as more than mere jest, I think. The problem is that it cannot possibly be realized (and that not simply because the idea of a jolly Presbyterian is self-referentially incoherent): There can be no visible institutional unity in terms of liturgy or theology between Baptists and Paedobaptists, let alone between Baptists and practitioners of paedocommunion. Thus, the question: What will this unity look like in practice?

Peter did present a more practical vision of local churches talking and fellowshipping together. That already happens in many places, so I suspect he actually wants more, something with a definite liturgical and institutional expression. If that is the case, then numerous other questions arise, the first of which I posed on the night of the discussion: Where do we draw the boundaries for this fellowshipping into unity? Peter’s response seemed to be that we set the borders in terms of Nicene/Chalcedonian orthodoxy. That is a good answer in some ways, though it does appear to demand the relativizing of everything subsequent to that (and thus that Roman Catholics and Protestants regard that which gives them their doctrinal distinctiveness as basically negotiable).

That answer also leads to further, more pointedly practical questions: When do I close my church down and tell the people there to start attending another Nicene/Chalcedonian church in the locale? What precise criteria do I use for making that call? When does my church’s continued existence become an act of divisive schism (a question easy for Roman Catholics to answer, but what about Peter?). The town where I pastor has a Roman Catholic Church of impeccable Nicene orthodoxy. Do I serve any good purpose as a Presbyterian in that place? And if I do serve such a purpose now, what exactly is that purpose and when will I know that it has come to an end? (As an aside, this also points to the fact that, while Protestantism cannot be reduced to doctrine, doctrine is fundamental to its present identity and, indeed, to its very reason for existence in the first place).

There are questions here for Fred Sanders, too. At some point in the discussion, he stated that we should rejoice that the Eastern Orthodox Church spreads the knowledge of the Trinity. Indeed we should. But how much should we rejoice? Rejoicing in word only is not really rejoicing at all. Joyful action must surely be part of it. So do we rejoice to the point that Protestants cease to plant churches in parishes with Orthodox congregations? If not, why not? Or do we rejoice to the point where we even close down established Protestant churches in such parishes? The prioritizing of the doctrine of God over against the doctrine of salvation which seems explicit in Peter’s Nicene proposal and perhaps implicit in Fred’s attitude to Eastern Orthodoxy, is a move that I cannot make without ceasing to be Protestant and giving up all that makes me doctrinally distinctive. But should I nevertheless do so? Are the doctrinal differences over salvation simply not important enough for me to keep my church doors open when there is an Eastern Orthodox church across the street?

Discussions of church unity are so often an example of incontestably admirable aspirations combined with a complete lack of practical suggestions. Discussions of the future of Protestantism can tend that way too unless we ask the basic pragmatic questions of what we want to achieve and what steps we must take to achieve it.

The Nature of Hardening

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Sproul0003Some quotes from Dr. R. C. Sproul’s book, “Chosen by God:

“There are different views of double predestination. One of these is so frightening that many shun the term altogether, lest their view of the doctrine be confused with the scary one. This is called the equal ultimacy view.

Equal ultimacy is based on a concept of symmetry. It seeks a complete balance between election and reprobation. The key idea is this: Just as God intervenes in the lives of the elect to create faith in their hearts, so God equally intervenes in the lives of the reprobate to create or work unbelief in their hearts. The idea of God’s actively working unbelief in the hearts of the reprobate is drawn from biblical statements about God hardening people’s hearts.

Equal ultimacy is NOT the Reformed or Calvinist view of predestination. Some have called it ‘hyper-Calvinism.’ I prefer to call it ‘sub-Calvinism’ or, better yet, ‘anti-Calvinism.’ Though Calvinism certainly has a view of double predestination, the double predestination it embraces is not one of equal ultimacy” (p. 142; emphasis Sproul’s; italicized in the original).

“To understand the Reformed view of the matter we must pay close attention to the crucial distinction between positive and negative decrees of God. Positive has to do with God’s active intervention in the hearts of the elect. Negative has to do with God’s passing over the non-elect.

The Reformed view teaches that God positively or actively intervenes in the lives of the elect to insure their salvation. The rest of mankind God leaves to themselves. He does not create unbelief in their hearts. That unbelief is already there. He does not coerce them to sin. They sin by their own choices” (pp. 142-143).

“The dreadful error of hyper-Calvinism is that it involves God in coercing sin. This does radical violence to the integrity of God’s character. The primary biblical example that might tempt one toward hyper-Calvinism is the case of Pharaoh” (p. 143).

The Bible clearly teaches that God did, in fact, harden Pharaoh’s heart. Now we know that God did this for his own glory and as a sign to both Israel and Egypt. We know that God’s purpose in all of this was a redemptive purpose. But we are still left with a nagging problem. God hardened Pharaoh’s heart and then judged Pharaoh for his sin. How can God hold Pharaoh or anyone else accountable for sin that flows out of a heart that God himself hardened?

Our answer to that question will depend on how we understand God’s act of hardening. How did he harden Pharaoh’s heart? The Bible does not answer that question explicitly. As we think about it, we realize that basically there are only two ways he could have hardened Pharaoh’s heart: actively or passively” (p. 144).

“Active hardening would involve God’s direct intervention within the inner chambers of Pharaoh’s heart. God would intrude into Pharaoh’s heart and create fresh evil in it. This would certainly insure that Pharaoh would bring forth the result that God was looking for. It would also insure that God is the author of sin.

Passive hardening is a totally different story. Passive hardening involves a divine judgment upon sin that is already present. All that God needs to do to harden the heart of a person whose heart is already desperately wicked is to ‘give him over to his sin.’ We find this concept of divine judgment repeatedly in Scripture” (pp. 144-145).

“How does this work? To understand it properly we must first look briefly at another concept, God’s common grace …One of the most important elements of common grace we enjoy is the restraint of evil in the world…By his grace he controls and bridles the amount of evil in this world. If evil were left totally unchecked, then life on this planet would be impossible.

All that God has to do to harden people’s hearts is to remove the restraints. He gives them a longer leash. Rather than restricting their human freedom, he increases it. He lets them have their own way. In a sense he gives them enough rope to hang themselves. It is not that God puts his hand on them to create fresh evil in their hearts; he merely removes his holy hand of restraint from them and lets them do their own will” (p. 145).

“About the only restraint there was on Pharaoh’s wickedness was the holy arm of God. All God had to do to harden Pharaoh further was to remove his arm. The evil inclinations of Pharaoh did the rest.

In the act of passive hardening, God makes a decision to remove the restraints; the wicked part of the process is done by Pharaoh himself. God does no violence to Pharaoh’s will. As we said, he merely gives Pharaoh MORE freedom…We see the same kind of thing in the case of Judas…Judas was not a poor innocent victim of divine manipulation. He as not a righteous man whom God forced to betray Christ and then punished for the betrayal. Judas betrayed Christ because Judas wanted thirty pieces of silver…To be sure, God uses the evil inclinations and evil intentions of fallen men to bring about his own redemptive purposes. Without Judas there is no Cross. Without the cross there is no redemption. But this is not a case of God coercing evil” (pp. 146-147; Sproul’s emphasis is italicized in the original).

“In God’s ultimate act of judgment he gives sinners over to their sins. In effect, he abandons them to their own desires. So it was with Pharaoh. By this act of judgment, God did not blemish his own righteousness by creating fresh evil in Pharaoh’s heart. He established his own righteousness by punishing the evil that was already there in Pharaoh.

This is how we must understand double predestination. God gives mercy to the elect by working faith in their hearts. He gives justice to the reprobate by leaving them in their own sins” (pp. 147-148).

Vessels Prepared for Destruction

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PottersfreedomExcerpt from Dr. James White’s book “The Potter’s Freedom” (pages 211-214):

For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.” So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires. Romans 9:17-18)

The example of Pharoah was well known to any person familiar with the Old Testament. God destroyed the Egyptian nation by plagues so as to demonstrate His might and power in the earth, and key to this demonstration was the hardening of Pharoah’s heart. Before Moses had met with Pharoah the first time God told him:

When you go back to Egypt see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders which I have put in your power; but I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. (Exodus 4:21)

It was God’s intention to bring His wrath upon the Egyptians. God’s actions were not “forced” by the stubborn will of the Egyptian leader. God said He would harden Pharoah’s heart, and He did. Listen to the impudent response of this pagan idolater to the command of Moses:

And afterward Moses and Aaron came and said to Pharoah, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘Let My people go that they may celebrate a feast to Me in the wilderness.'” But Pharoah said, “Who is the LORD that I should obey His voice to let Israel go?” (Exodus 5:1-2)

Is this not what God said He would do? Will someone suggest that Pharoah’s heart is “soft” here? No indeed, and Moses well knew that God was behind this for when the Pharoah then increased the work load of the Israelites, Moses complained to God in Exodus 5:22. Why complain to God if, in fact, God had nothing to do with it and it was all just a matter of the Pharoah’s “free will choice”?

This provides the background of Paul’s citation of Exodus 9:16. The portion of truth that here stings the pride of man is this: it is more important that God’s name is magnified and His power made known than it is that any single man get to “do his own thing.” Pharoah was surely never forced to do anything sinful (indeed, God probably kept him from committing many a sinful deed). He acted on the desires of his wicked heart at all times. But he is but a pot, a creature, not the Potter. He was formed and made and brought into existence to serve the Potter’s purposes, not his own. He is but a servant, one chosen, in fact, for destruction. His destruction, and the process that led up to it (including all the plagues upon Egypt), were part of God’s plan. There is simply no other way to understand these words.

Paul then combines the fact that God showed undeserved compassion and mercy to Moses (Exodus 33) with God’s hardening of Pharoah’s heart (Exodus 5) and concludes that whether one is “mercied” or “hardened” is completely, inalterably, and utterly up to God. The verbs here are active: God performs these actions. He “mercies” whom He wills and He hardens whom He wills. The parallel between “mercy” and “hardening” is inarguable. We may like the “mercying” part more than the hardening, but they are both equally a part of the same truth. Reject one and you reject them both. There is no such thing as preaching God’s mercy without preaching God’s judgment, at least according to Scripture.

The passage reaches a crescendo in these final verses:

You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?” On 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? (Romans 9:19-20)

Paul knew well the objections man presents to the words he had just penned. If God has mercy solely based on His good pleasure, and if God hardens Pharoah on the same basis, all His own glory and honor, how can God hold men accountable for their actions, for who resists His will? Paul’s response is swift and devastating: Yes, indeed God holds man accountable, and He can do so because He is the potter, the one who molds and creates, while man is but the “thing molded.” For a pot to question the Potter is absurd. These words cannot be understood separately from the fundamental understanding of the freedom of the Sovereign Creator and the ontological creatureliness of man that removes from him any ground of complaint against God. Though already devastatingly clear, Paul makes sure there is no doubt left as to his point:

Or 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? What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles. (Romans 9:21-24)

The Potter’s freedom pulses through these words, flowing inexorably into the sea of sovereignty, rushing any would-be proponent of free will out of its path. God has the perfect right to do with His creation (including men) as He wishes, just as the Potter has utter sovereignty over the clay. Just as God had demonstrated His wrath and power by wasting idolatrous Egypt, so too He demonstrates He wrath upon “vessels of wrath prepared for destruction.” Are these nations? Classes? No, these are sinners upon whom God’s wrath comes. They are said to have been specifically “prepared for destruction.” That is their purpose.

Why are there vessels prepared for destruction? Because God is free. Think about it: there are only three logical possibilities here. Either 1) all “vessels” are prepared for glory (universalism); 2) all “vessels” are prepared for destruction; or 3) some vessels are prepared for glory and some are prepared for destruction and it is the Potter who decides which are which. Why is there no fourth option, one in which the pots prepare themselves based on their own choice? Because pots don’t have such a capacity! Pots are pots! Since God wishes to make known the “riches of His grace” to His elect people (the vessels prepared for mercy), there must be vessels prepared for destruction. There is no demonstration of mercy and grace when there is no justice.

The vessels of wrath, remember, like being vessels of wrath, would never choose to be anything else, and they detest the vessels that receive mercy…