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…

What Just Happened? Rome’s Canonization of the Popes

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Protestant Ignorance

Sproul JrI remain, even in these feel good days, Rome still teaches a false gospel, still calls for the damnation of people like me who preach the true gospel. Now I am happy to confess that explaining the nuances that separate infusion from imputation, distinctions between justification and sanctification can require a bit of theological training and historical understanding. I’m sorry to confess that Christians generally have precious little of either. If we can’t see what the big deal is with a little contemporary modalism, if we want to open the tent wide to welcome in those nice Mormons, what chance do I have for making the case that Rome is outside the pale?

Our ignorance is likewise apparent in how we look at the recent canonization of Popes John and John Paul (13th and 2nd respectively). I fear we think that what Rome did was merely to give them a super-duper merit badge. We cheer politely, even if we are a little fidgety about Roman theology, in the same way we would cheer politely if our crazy uncle won the big horseshoe tournament at the state fair. The craziness we’re not sure about, but he’s kin and did well.

What Does Roman Catholic Canonization Mean?

These two forms of ignorance, however, come together. That we don’t understand the nuances on justification is why we don’t understand what just happened in the canonization. The church at Rome just determined that these two popes exceeded God’s expectations for obedience. These men not only were able to escape the punishment of purgatory, having no need to purge their sins, having already achieved the holiness necessary to enter heaven. Not only that, but all the merit they achieved which was beyond what was required was deposited, along with the merit of Christ, into the Treasury of Merit. This merit can become yours, via the purchase of indulgences.

How can Rome know this? They have a system for testing. All saints and only saints, escape purgatory. We know who the saints are, however, through a process of testing. In order to demonstrate that these men were saints, three miracles that resulted in prayers people prayed to these men, must be verified. Three miracle merit badges apiece, and then we know these two men went directly to heaven, without passing go or stopping for a quick burn in purgatory.

Sin, Grace & Mercy
I’ve had friends swim the Tiber, who have been trained in sound theology who went Roman Catholic. I’ve participated in careful, precise arguments over justification. I understand how someone could take a bad turn there. I am grateful for Rome’s fidelity on issues related to the incarnation and the Trinity, on the ancient creeds. I understand the hunger to be able to see the one true church, for it to have an address. But I can’t fathom how anyone could believe the silliness we’re all supposed to be celebrating. Rome actually insists that we believe that when these popes died, they wrote a check for more than they owed and calmly told God He could keep the change. Jesus, however, tells us the only way in is by beating our breast and crying out, “Lord be merciful to me, a sinner.” My prayer to our Lord is that He would tear down this high place, this lofty thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, that our every thought would be held captive to the obedience of Christ.

This post first appeared on rcsprouljr.com

Simul Justus Et Pecator

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if you will, merit at the bar of justice. Without His life of sinless obedience, Jesus’ atonement would have had no value at all. We need to see the crucial significance of this truth; we need to see that not only did Jesus die for us, He lived for us.

NOT ONLY DID JESUS DIE FOR US, HE LIVED FOR US
Roman Catholics call this concept a legal fiction, and they recoil from it because they believe it casts a shadow on the integrity of God by positing that God declares to be just people who are not just. In response, the Reformers conceded that this concept would be a legal fiction if imputation were fictional. In that case, the Protestant view of justification would be a lie. But the point of the Gospel is that “imputation is real—God really laid our sins on Christ and really transferred the righteousness of Christ to us. We really possess the righteousness of Jesus Christ by imputation. He is our Savior, not merely because He died, but because He lived a sinless life before He died, as only the Son of God could do.

Theologians like to employ Latin phrases, and one of my favorites is one that Martin Luther used to capture this concept. The essence of our salvation is found in this phrase: Simul Justus et pecator. The word simul is the word from which we get the English word simultaneous; it means simply “at the same time.” Justus is the word for “just.” We all know what et means; we hear it in the famous words of Julius Caesar in the Shakespeare tragedy: “Et tu, Brute?” (“You, too, Brutus?”) Et means “also” or “and.” From the word pecator we get such English words as peccadillo (“a little sin”) and impeccable (“without sin”); it is simply the Latin word for “sinner.” So Luther’s phrase, Simul Justus et pecator, means “At the same time just and sinner.”

THE PERSON WHO IS IN CHRIST IS AT THE VERY SAME INSTANT A SINNER AND JUST
This is the glory of the Protestant doctrine of justification. The person who is in Christ is at the very same instant a sinner and just. If I could be justified only by actually becoming just and having no sin in me, I would never see the kingdom of God. The point of the gospel is that the minute a person embraces Jesus Christ, all that Christ has done is applied to that person. All that He is becomes ours, including His righteousness. Luther was saying that at the very instant I believe, I am just by virtue of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. It’s Christ’s righteousness that makes me just. His death has taken care of my punishment and His life has taken care of my reward. So my justice is completely tied up in Christ.

In Protestantism, we speak of this as the doctrine of justification by faith alone, for according to the New Testament, the only means by which the righteousness and the merit of Christ can come into our accounts and be applied to us is by faith. We can’t earn it. We can’t deserve it. We can’t merit it. We can only trust in it and cling to it.