Or, When Pots Talk Back
Scripture: Romans 9:19-23
Date: February 26, 2023
Speaker: Sean Higgins
One of my favorite books, probably the book that I’ve highlighted more per page than any other, is The Supper of the Lamb by Robert Capon. It’s ostensibly a cookbook, but he gets a running start toward the recipe section by providing some reasons for rejoicing in all the things God has given us to cook, eat, taste, enjoy. Near the end of the first chapter Capon wrote this:
“In a real world, nothing is infinitely bad. Even the devil, insofar as he exists, is good. What he does wrong with his existence is all small compared with what God does right about him.” (Location 130)
It doesn’t mean that the devil is a good being, or acts good; of course the devil doesn’t. But God’s purpose for the devil must be toward good. It’s a provocative statement, but is it a true statement?
Solomon wrote,
The LORD has made everything for its purpose,
even the wicked for the day of trouble.
(Proverbs 16:4 ESV)
And isn’t this sort of sovereignty necessary for Romans 8:28 to be any good? “All things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.” Solomon said “everything,” Paul said “all things.” Capon, while not inspired, brought the application all the way to the devil himself. God has purpose and it is good.
There are thematic reasons to recognize verse 23 as the end of the paragraph beginning in Romans 9:19. The ESV ends the question at verse 24, but modern Greek texts put a question mark at the end of verse 23; that seems appropriate for the subject shift from a general principle about God’s sovereignty back to the particular application about so many Israelites being cut off from Christ. Romans 9:22-23 provide perhaps the most simple, most deep, most eternal end of God’s sovereignty in His creation of the cosmos and His ruling of history. This is the end for which He made the devil, Pharaoh, Judas, Hitler, and Fauci. Here is the reason for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the explanation for evil in a world governed by a sovereign and good God (theodicy), the telos of all things, including a vindication for reprobation.
We’ve spent a good amount of time showing that the question about God’s fault finding (verse 19) could have been answered by saying that men are at fault. Paul, though, is raising the problem of men, such as Pharaoh, who do God’s will and are hardened for it. Paul hits a barrage of rhetorical questions back over the net, and the first one is stated in such way, and even riffs off Job in a way, showing that accusing God is not a good place to be (verse 20). Especially as a pot, God has ultimate/absolute/supreme power over us as our Potter. He has the “right” and authority to pinch off pieces of clay to make whatever He wants. He makes “out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use” (verse 21).
The last rhetorical question in verses 22-23 is a two-step revelation of God’s purposes using two types of pots, with a subordinate purpose on its way toward showing the Potter’s ultimate purpose.
The Potter is showing off His work, His work shows off His character. You may remember when we began to look at verses 14-18 that we appraised that God is great and greatly to be praised, that all His attributes belong with His name that is above all names, and that each of His attributes are infinitely excellent. He is, for example, the epitome and embodiment of love, not just the etymology/source for love. We proclaim His excellencies (1 Peter 2:9) because He has shown them to us excellently.
God’s “eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world” (Romans 1:20). But driving spinning planets around in their elliptical plane and directing shooting stars through space is not the pinnacle of His power. And His creation of time and markers of time does more than let men measure their days in the world.
What if God, desiring to show His wrath and to make known His power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,
The what if isn’t a hypothetical; it’s not maybe God did or maybe God didn’t. The what if is a category buster for pots. “What did you think, O pot, that you had a better idea for how God should be or show Himself off? What do you have to say about it?“
God’s righteousness is His commitment to show off His excellencies. There is no greater truth or reality to know than God Himself. When we have Him we have good (Psalm 16:2). This includes seeing His wrath, His indignation. God’s wrath is infinitely excellent wrath, and He desires to show it off. How would He do it?
Likewise He desires to make known His power. “God is exalted in His power” (Job 36:22). His power created and upholds the universe, and His power raises up rebels in the story. “The Scripture says to Pharaoh, ‘For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you’” (Romans 9:17). Verse 22 reiterates this purpose.
God desired to demonstrate His great wrath and power, as well as His patient endurance. Do you know God is called “the God of endurance” by Paul in Romans 15:5? Endurance, long-suffering, patience is one of God’s greatest characteristics. It is one of His tools; He’s so patient with sinners that such kindness on His part should lead to repentance (Romans 2:4). “Count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote” (2 Peter 3:15). He wants us to know and praise His patience, He wants us to share His endurance.
How does He develop endurance in His people? Through suffering (Romans 5:3-4; James 1:2-3).
the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. (James 1:3-4 KJV)
Perfection is patience. God’s patience is perfect. How could God show off perfect patience? We think our 2020 was bad, God knows all the truth of how bad it is and works good from it. It takes every wicked conspiracy from all the vessels of wrath throughout time for God to make known His excellent endurance.
So vessels of wrath prepared for destruction are good in so far as they demonstrate God’s excellencies of wrath, power, and patience.; God has prepared or “fitted” some; they are “being prepared” (passive voice). 1 Peter 2:8 “they stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.” God is showing off His glorious wrath and making known His great power, through perfectly patient endurance.
What if God’s purpose ended there? We would still be pots in no position to question the Potter’s power. But for as praiseworthy as His wrath and endurance of rebels is while they store up the full measure of wrath, that praise is not the highest end. Vessels of wrath make vessels of mercy even more a demonstration of His glory. Desiring to show His wrath is a subordinate end, with His ultimate end in verse 23.
in order to make known the riches of His glory for vessels of mercy, which He has prepared beforehand for glory?
That God reprobates some to judgment makes His election of some to salvation even more humbling. The contrast is not capricious, it is gracious. God is who He is, God is glorious above all, and in His glory He has purposed to share the riches of His glory. Nothing can separate the vessels of mercy from the love of God for His own glory to be shared with us in Christ. We are prepared beforehand for glory. “He chose us in [Christ] before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before Him…according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved” (Ephesians 1:4-6).
Do you believe in the Beloved? Then you are beloved vessel of mercy. And the Father of glory has given you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened to know the hope He has called you to and the riches of His glorious inheritance (Ephesians 1:17-18). You know more than Job, and most of the men in the Bible, about God’s purpose.
The devil, in so far as he exists, makes God’s mercy to Christians more gloriously known. The wicked for the day of trouble, in so far as they are made by the Lord for His purpose, make God’s mercy to Christians more gloriously known. Hell, in so far as it exists as a place of conscious and eternal torment on vessels of wrath, makes God’s mercy more gloriously known to you who cling to Christ and are delivered from death and promised an eternal inheritance in God’s presence.
These verses are not only for scholars, and their consequences are anything but superficial. Vessels of wrath cause real destruction on their way to destruction. Vessels of wrath sometimes threaten and slander and kill vessels of mercy, treating them as sheep to be slaughtered (Romans 8:36). Suffering and damage and hurt are real. Endurance is not an afternoon at the beach without a sun umbrella. Yet these truths are to inform our feelings in the fear of the Lord and faith in Him. God is not uncomfortable or apologetic about His purpose, and it is good for us to know His purpose.
When we are in these discussions about the existence of evil and God’s sovereignty, we can always turn to the cross. There we see love and mercy meet, yes. But there we also see sovereignty and sin meet; “this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men” (Acts 2:23; see also 4:27-28). At the cross we see God Himself, embodied in the Person of the Son, enduring evil that He Himself ordained. When it comes to evil and vessels of wrath, God has skin in the game. Leviathan may be a plaything for God (Job 41:1, 5), but the cross was no game. It was full of His patience, His providence, His power, and His purpose to make known the riches of His glory for His people.
If the Potter purposes to show off His patience with vessels of wrath, don’t freak out; here is a call for the patient endurance of the saints. Since the Potter purposes to share the riches of His glory with you vessels of mercy, then tell someone about His excellent mercies and show kindness and mercy to one another.
May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 15:5–6, ESV)