Dear Friends,

Often Bible students fall into faulty interpretation when they allow a Biblical analogy to dominate or force their interpretation of the passage beyond the inspired writer’s use of the analogy.  The lesson should always control the analogy; the analogy should not control the lesson.  The lesson is master; the analogy is servant to the lesson.  In our study verses this faulty interpretation has on occasion caused quite sincere Bible students to force the potter-clay analogy into this master role, leading them to falsely conclude that God is fully as causative of sin as of righteousness; that He is as causative in the shaping of the moral character and conduct of the wicked as of the righteous.  No potter ever placed clay on the table and allowed it passively to take shape apart from his skilled hand.   

If we follow Paul’s language carefully, we reach several sound and Biblically supported conclusions.

 
1. God “…endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath.”  He did not make them vessels of wrath.  He is not responsible for their sinful, righteous wrath-deserving actions.  

2. To be sure, God will render the final verdict and execute the final sentence against the wicked on Judgment Day.  However, He is no where in the passage depicted as causative or responsible for their sinful state.  

3.  In distinct contrast with the vessels of wrath the passage depicts God as causative in shaping the vessels of mercy, “…which he had afore prepared unto glory.”  He endured the vessels of wrath with longsuffering; He prepared the vessels of mercy for glory.  In addition the potter’s shaping of the vessels of mercy indicates that God equips His chosen people, His elect, to be vessels of mercy, to demonstrate, both in this life and throughout eternity, to exhibit the glories of His grace and mercy.  Equipping or enabling a vessel for a certain use does not mean that the potter is subsequently causative in every subsequent use to which the vessel is employed.  While Scripture distinctly attributes our eternal life and the surety of our eternal state with God to God’s gracious mercy, it does not attribute every act of faith, obedience, and good works to God.  In regeneration God enables each one of His elect to perform noble actions that glorify Him, but He does not ordain, decree (causatively) , predestinate, or otherwise orchestrate every act of faith and good works so that a regenerate elect person’s faith and obedience are the result of God’s effectual, irresistible predestination.  The multiple exhortations of Scripture affirm both God’s enabling power communicated to us in regeneration, along with our personal responsibility—not to mention our accountability to God—for every act of faith and obedience that we may subsequently perform.  Occasionally advocates of this extreme view of predestination (or God’s decrees, or whatever term the advocate chooses) will use the logical fallacy of “red herring” to divert attention from their extreme and errant view of predestination by stating that their view, making God wholly and effectually causative in all their acts of faith and obedience, is necessary to “…give God all the credit and all the glory.”  No, all who seek to honor God with this term are not extreme predestinarians, but when these words are coupled with the idea, either directly or indirectly stated, that God is wholly and irresistibly causative in such acts of faith and obedience, the logical fallacy is present.  (The red herring logical fallacy aims to draw attention away from a primary point; it is a diversion.)  Seeking to give God all the glory for good draws the hearer’s mind away from the errant view and onto a near-universally appealing idea, giving God credit for good.  This red herring fallacy itself is faulty.  Do its advocates intend to imply that our willing, cognitive response to the teachings of Scripture and the exhortations of the gospel in some way gives God less credit than He deserves?  When Paul wrote regarding his calling to preach the gospel, he did not so much as hint that he had been effectually and irresistibly decreed (or predestinated) to preach, so he could not do otherwise.  Instead he wrote, “For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel! 17 For if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward: but if against my will, a dispensation of the gospel is committed unto me. 18 What is my reward then? Verily that, when I preach the gospel, I may make the gospel of Christ without charge, that I abuse not my power in the gospel.”  ( 1 Corinthians 9:16-18 )  Without question God equips us in regeneration to hear the gospel, to believe it, and to obey it, but He does not irresistibly and effectually cause our faith and obedience.  He commands us to obey in keeping with the ability He bestowed in regeneration.  Likewise in our study lesson, God shapes every one of His chosen vessels of mercy in regeneration for God-honoring “kingdom use,” but He then commands us to put our lives to such use.  He does not force it.  Paul uses the vessel analogy again to make this precise point, “If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work.”  ( 2 Timothy 2:21 )  We only fulfill our “kingdom use” when we purge ourselves from attitudes and actions of the flesh and devote ourselves to the Lord and to His use, not our own personal agendas or uses.  And make no doubt about it; when we so purge and devote ourselves to God, He, the Master of the house, receives the glory!  

The songs of heaven will wholly convey the theme of divine grace in our election and our redemption (The Biblical doctrine of redemption not only covers Jesus’ covering our sins at Calvary, but it also includes God’s “redeeming” our bodies from the grave on Resurrection Day. ( Hosea 13:14 )  Notice the preview of this redemption song in Revelation 5:9 .)  Our final and secure destiny in heaven does not rely conjointly on God’s grace and anything in us.  It is all of God!  However, Scripture consistently affirms the role of the believer’s will in acts of faith and obedience in this life.  In that aspect of our Christian experience Paul and other inspired writers can correctly affirm, “We then as workers together with him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain.”  ( 2 Corinthians 6:1 )    I added the bold lettering to focus the point made.  Such a synergy is never used in Scripture of our eternal redemption in which God works exclusively and comprehensively to accomplish our redemption.   

At the end of the day the incredible reality of God’s personal, individual election of undeserving humans to the eternal role of “vessels of mercy” is not an exclusive doctrine.  It is rather an amazingly inclusive doctrine.  Review John’s description of those who shall praise God for redemption in eternity (mentioned above; Revelation 5:9 ).  The true miracle is not that God chose some and not others, but that He chose any at all!  It is for this reason that the only way we can every understand, even remotely, the doctrine of election is when we perceive it as a function of divine mercy, not of divine justice.  

God bless,

Joe Holder

Vessels of Wrath—Vessels of Mercy

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?  (Romans 9:22-24)

            Scripture often introduces analogies to make profound points in simple ways that we may understand.  Humans, sometimes even preachers, tend to complicate things.  When God wants His people to clearly understand a thing, He simplifies it.  For example, Jesus encapsulated the Ten Commandments in two simple principles of life, loving God (first four commandments) and loving one’s neighbor (last six commandments) .  From the time Moses gave the Ten Commandments (around 1500 BC) till Jesus’ time, the Jews complicated God’s Ten Commandments, expanding them to something around eleven hundred rules that ordinary people were expected to remember and use to order their lives.  Analogy is not allegory.  It is a teaching tool to simplify a truth.  The analogy does not control the lesson taught; it merely simplifies the point and thus serves the lesson rather than controlling it.

            In our study passage Jesus used the potter-clay analogy to affirm the sovereignty of God in election.  Based on merit, what man deserves, one human is no more deserving of God’s election than another.  If human merit were a factor in God’s election, why would Paul have chosen Jacob and Esau to illustrate the doctrine?  Based on the Genesis account of their lives, neither man was a prize!  However, if Paul’s intent was to affirm that all humans are undeserving and that election is based on God’s mercy and sovereignty, he chose the perfect example in Jacob and Esau.

            The other point of the potter-clay analogy deals with God’s sovereignty.  Once we understand that no human merits God’s election any more than one piece of clay merits the potter’s special treatment more than another, we are on our way to understanding the Bible’s teaching on this doctrine.  As the potter has every right to reach over and pick up one piece of clay versus another, so God as the sovereign and righteous Governor of the universe equally has the right to choose whom He wished to choose for redemption.

            Once we establish these two points the analogy has served its purpose.  It should not dominate or control the greater lesson that Paul is developing in this context, God’s sovereign personal election of a people out of undeserving humanity to be redeemed for the praise of His glory.  Being either a Jew or a Gentile (in the Biblical sense of all non-Jews) in this point is wholly irrelevant; all humans, regardless of race or culture, are undeserving.  It is interesting that the ancient Greeks believed that the “gods” formed humanity out of dust, a rather amazing point of similarity between them and the Genesis account of creation.  However, they also believed that the gods formed Greeks out of dust from Greece , and that Greek dust was superior to any other dust in the world.  Thus they deviated from the Biblical account and attempted to make a case that they were superior to other humans because of their learning and culture.  Paul rejected both Jewish and Greek claims of superiority in favor of a universal principle of human sin—demerit, not merit.  ( Romans 3:9 and context; 1 Corinthians 1:22-24 )

            Many commentaries and sincere Bible students do egregious harm to this passage by forcing the analogy to govern the whole lesson.  What is their error?  They extend the potter-clay analogy of Verse 21 to verses 22-24 and imply that God equally formed the character of both the righteous and the wicked, that God is personally responsible for the moral temperament and deeds of the wicked.  The potter-clay analogy appears in Verse 21 and refers back to God’s sovereignty and man’s utter lack of merit in the process of God’s election of individuals to redemption and final, eternal glory with Him.  While Paul uses “vessels” in verses 22-24, he distinctly moves away from the potter-clay analogy in these verses.  The logical interaction between God and these vessels violates the role a potter plays with clay, as outlined below.  A potter actively shapes every pot that leaves his wheel, but in verses 22-24 Paul distinctly makes the point that God shapes the vessels of mercy but not the vessels of clay.  Sinful man, not God, is responsible for his sins!  Man cannot point the accusing finger at God on Judgment Day and claim that God caused him to sin, as would be the case if the potter-clay analogy governed the lesson developed in verses 22-24.

Sometimes this error is referred to as “double election.”  It holds that God is equally responsible for both the person and the deeds of the wicked and the righteous, alleging that this passage teaches that point.  Several months ago as I was reviewing a web site from a group that holds this view, I was shocked to read a post by a man who referred to a portion of Romans 6:17 .  Rather than quoting the whole verse and interpreting it in the flowing context of the sixth chapter of Romans, the man quoted only these words, “But God be thanked that ye were the servants of sin.”  Then he concluded, “Paul thanked God that the Romans were the servants of sin,” making his case that God was therefore equally the cause of sin in humanity and of righteousness.

            How could a serious Bible student reach such a conclusion from Paul’s words in our study verses?  They do so by forcing the analogy to rule the lesson rather than serve it.  Thus when they reach Verse twenty two, they continue the analogy.  Let’s see if this interpretation will work.

            Notice the verb forms in these verses.  

1.         When dealing with the “vessels of wrath,” Paul uses rather concise terms.  God “…endured with much longsuffering” these vessels of wrath.  Let’s see if such language intelligently applies to a potter as he surveys the clay from which he might complete his day’s work.  Does the potter passively “endure” a piece of clay, or does he put it on the table and actively mold it?  Such language is utterly nonsensical when applied to a potter and the clay with which he works.  No potter would approach his day’s work with the insane notion that he would merely “endure with longsuffering” the clay that he chose for the day’s activities!  In the passage God actively “endured” the vessels of wrath, but nothing in the passage even remotely indicates that He actively made them vessels of wrath.

2.         When describing the “vessels of mercy,” Paul shifts from “…endured with much longsuffering…” terminology to causative words, “…the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory….”  There can be no doubt; Paul affirms that God actively prepared the vessels of mercy for glory.

The contrast in the language that Paul chose between the vessels of wrath and the vessels of mercy clearly affirms that God is causative in the redemption of His chosen people; in this passage described as vessels of mercy, a beautiful vessel, made to contain and exhibit divine mercy for all eternity.  Paul’s language relative to the vessels of wrath as clearly disclaims any divine, causative activity in the sinful nature of these vessels.  God shall surely sentence them for personal, self-willed sins stubbornly and continuously practiced to eternal punishment, something they earned and justly deserved, not something that God caused in them.  If God caused these people to practice the sins for which they shall surely be judged and sentenced, then God deserves to face the sentence, not them, the point that Paul distinctly affirms in the first nine verses of the third chapter of Romans.  Paul will not affirm a principle and later contradict it!

            Perhaps it is a fine point, but it is a distinct point that we should consider in this context.  When we study passages that specifically deal with the final sentence to be pronounced by God, the righteous Judge of the universe, against the wicked, we always see Scripture affirm that the sentence shall be based on their personal sins committed.  Never—not even one time—does Scripture imply that they shall be judged based on something they did not do, or on an inherited nature that they received.  Always—always—Scripture bases the final sentence against the wicked on personal sins committed by them.  Paul clearly affirms this same truth in our study passage.
 

Description of the Vessels

            In the ancient Mediterranean world a vessel was known by the use to which it was put.  Paul affirms in his choice of descriptive terms that God shall have the last word, and a righteous word at that, in His disposition of equally undeserving humanity.  Scripture teaches that God shall use the vessels of wrath to demonstrate the glory of His righteous judgment against sin, and vessels of mercy to manifest the glory of His mercy and grace.

            While Paul distinguishes God’s role between the two kinds of vessels, he leaves no doubt that God shall have the last word regarding both kinds of vessels.  The vessels of wrath shall not in the end snub their nose at God and go their own way.  Scripture affirms ( Matthew 25:44 as just one of several examples) that the wicked shall attempt to rationalize and justify their sins, but the righteous Judge shall have the final word against them and their sins.  Their sentence shall be based on God’s judgment against their sins, not their personal assessment of their own conduct.  God’s law—originally given by God and literally “written in stone” by the finger of God—shall have the last word against them.  They shall enter eternal punishment, filled to the brim with God’s righteous judgment against their sins, God’s holy wrath against the sins they willingly chose to practice during their life.

            As we preview that final Day, we also see that the vessels of mercy shall display God’s righteous judgment, but in this case it is a divine judgment that was satisfied through God’s mercy in choosing, redeeming, and finally resurrecting and glorifying His chosen “vessels of mercy.  By the miracle of the Incarnation, by the life, suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ, the divine wrath due to the vessels of mercy was satisfied, leaving them with the eternal function of ever displaying God’s mercy and grace.  “…thou was slain, and hast redeemed us to God…” ( Revelation 5:9 ); these words crack open the doors of heaven and give us a brief preview of the chorus that shall be the eternal theme of the redeemed in heaven.  In Romans 6:23 Paul distinctly teaches that those who receive the sentence of eternal separation receive the just wages for their sins, while those who receive the blessed words, “Come ye blessed of my Father…” receive those words as a gift from God, not as wages earned.  Here Paul affirms that same truth by his distinction of vessels of wrath and vessels of mercy.  All songs in heaven shall be sung to the glorious Redeemer for His “unspeakable gift”!

            Thus in Romans 9:21 Paul uses the potter-clay analogy to illustrate God’s sovereignty in election and the utter lack of merit in all humanity.  Then in Romans 9:22-24 , while rejecting any divine causative involvement in original sin or any successive sins in humanity, Paul affirms that God shall use the “vessels of wrath” to demonstrate the glory of His righteous judgment and indignation against sin throughout all eternity.  Conversely, the lesson affirms the glory of God’s mercy and grace in the “vessels of mercy.”