ROMANS: A Potter and His Clay (part two)

In the first part of our conversation, I stated that I believe we miss the entire point of Paul’s larger argument in this section of Romans because we immediately get hung up on theological projections that weren’t within the original conversation (e.g., God’s sovereignty/election, etc.). Paul’s larger conversation is about God’s willingness to show mercy. He is trying to speak to his Jewish listeners and tell them God has always been in the business of showering mercy and grace on people who don’t belong. The word of God has not failed them; rather, it has born witness to this truth throughout the ages.

This inclusion of the Gentiles into the fullness of God’s story and family is far from unfair; it is the very nature of who God is and always has been!

So we pick up where we left off:

One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ ”

When we read this passage in its previous light, we hear it talking about blame and our election or salvation. But I think the context of this conversation shows us that Paul’s imaginary rebuttal is asking a far deeper question. This Jewish audience is going to respond to God’s sovereign show of mercy to the Gentiles with this (reworded) rebuttal: “Then why does God ask us to follow Him and partner with Him and then hold us accountable to our actions … if He’s just going to throw open the floodgates of acceptance anyway? If God is going to pursue all men and all nations, then He’s ultimately going to have His way and our part in this story means nothing!”

But Paul tells this projected audience to remember their place. He is the Potter, and they are His clay. He knows why He makes vessels. He knows how He intends to use them and how He will accomplish His purposes with each vessel He creates.

Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?

What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction?

Paul reminds the reader that God has the right to use the same lump of clay to make vessels He will use as fine china, but also other vessels to store last night’s leftovers. He’s the Potter and He understands His own intentions.

Then Paul makes a startling statement I believe we have a tendency to misread because of the theology we project onto our interpretations. Paul says, “What if…? What if God chose to make some vessels that were prepared for destruction?” What if God chose to make vessels out of the clay, and we are sure they will be doomed to the garbage heap? Cracked and beaten up. Good for nothing. Worthless. What if God did this on purpose? These vessels Paul refers to are obviously a reference to the pagan Gentiles (“vessels prepared for destruction”).

But Paul says God wanted to “show his wrath and make his power known” and so He created those vessels and then “bore with great patience” those vessels prepared for destruction.

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—even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?

What if God did all of this on purpose in order to show us His glory and His mercy? What if God did all of this to show us (Jews and people on the “inside”), the objects of His mercy, whom He prepared in advance for glory — what if He did all of this to show us His incredible plan and the riches of His glory, to shower mercy and acceptance onto those “objects prepared for destruction”?

Scandalous.

Paul then quotes two major prophets who are announcing Israel’s failure to live according to God’s plan. Paul reminds them that they too have experienced what it means to be “objects prepared for destruction.” And they too know what it means to have God bear with great patience and shower His mercy on them. The story of Hosea is not a pretty one and the woes of Isaiah did not bear great tidings.

As he says in Hosea:

“I will call them ‘my people’ who are not my people;    and I will call her ‘my loved one’ who is not my loved one,”

and,

“In the very place where it was said to them,    ‘You are not my people,’    there they will be called ‘children of the living God.’ ”

Isaiah cries out concerning Israel:

“Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea,    only the remnant will be saved.For the Lord will carry out    his sentence on earth with speed and finality.”

It is just as Isaiah said previously:

“Unless the Lord Almighty    had left us descendants,we would have become like Sodom,    we would have been like Gomorrah.”

Paul will then begin to shift gears by pointing out this is the same trajectory the nations have been on with God. Those Gentile believers who worship in Rome have the same faith and have experienced the same acceptance of the same “good news” from God.

What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; but the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, have not attained their goal. Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone. As it is written:

“See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes people to stumble    and a rock that makes them fall,    and the one who believes in him will never be put to shame.”

Paul closes with an unbelievably brilliant gezerah shevah where he ties two different passages from Isaiah (8:14 and 28:16) using the theme of “stone” to do so. By creating this Isaiah quotation, Paul sets up the condemnation of Isaiah 8 — which says God has placed a stone that the people of Jerusalem will stumble over as a trap and snare — and he combines it with a prophecy that says those who trust in that stone will be saved. By making this “stone” Jesus, Paul is issuing an invitation to his Jewish audience not to be tripped up by this hard teaching of inclusion for the Gentiles, but to trust in Jesus. At the same time, Paul is alluding to the fact that these Gentiles are already trusting in Jesus and finding freedom and salvation. It’s a stunning textual move by Paul.

Indeed this will be a hard truth. For most of my readers, this is good news for them as Gentiles! And yet, for those Gentiles who call themselves believers and have found themselves in the community of faith for some time, there is a real opportunity for us to open our ears and consider whether we have swapped out some of the labels and the details for others things in our day and age.

Is God still the Potter? Does God still get to choose who He wants to shower mercy on? Even today, is the point we ought to be making to people not about a morality code, but about the person of Jesus? Are we really inviting people to put their trust in Him and find a justification by faith alone? Or do we too struggle with the “stone of stumbling” — the scandalous grace of Jesus? Do we too seek to make people pursue a righteousness that comes from behavior, rather than a righteousness that comes from God?

What if God is showering His grace on all of “those people” in our lives, just to remind us of what He’s up to? Forgiveness. Mercy. Acceptance.

A Potter is making His vessels.

ROMANS: A Potter and His Clay (part one)

It is very important that we cover the conversation about predestination before moving on because the entire topic seems to cloud our ability to read Romans 9–11 in context. Once we begin the Calvinism/Arminianism debate, we completely lose sight of the purpose of the letter to the Romans and what Paul has been talking about since the beginning of the letter!

Let us remind ourselves, Paul has been building a very reasoned, logical, systematic case for the acceptance of a “blended family” of God. This family is struggling to figure out the place of new Gentile converts, mature Gentile believers, and the Jewish presence which serves as the root of this community. Paul has argued that we are all a part of this family because of this faith that saves us. It is by the exact same faith that every single member of God’s family is justified and declared righteous before him. It is this justification which sets us free and does not allow condemnation to reign in any form in our hearts.

But this is a hard truth for Paul’s main Jewish audience (remember, Paul has already made multiple comments about his audience being people who are trained in the Law, as well as another comment coming up in chapter 11). This idea of the Gentiles being included and swept up by this scandalous grace would be a hard truth to swallow — not impossible, but difficult. To this audience, Paul continues:

I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit—that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh. They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.

Paul’s heart is full of love and breaks over his Jewish brethren who struggle to accept this gospel as they try to lead this new church. (Please, let us remind ourselves not to beat up  “those silly Jews” and to identify with the fact that those of us who are “well-seasoned believers” in the church fit in this same seat and struggle with the same things.) He breaks into a poetic benediction about the blessing of being God’s b’hor and the special calling they’ve had for centuries. It is their story to live and to tell! It’s their family, their adoption, their covenants, their law, their Text, their lineage, and their Messiah whom we speak of now!

But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. For this is what the promise said: “About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.” And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

I like the translation of the ESV here: “But it is not as though the word of God has failed…”  On the heels of this benediction, Paul says this is what the story of God has always been about. Going to the very beginning of the patriarchs and the founding of this family, Paul points out that God has always chosen to work through promise to bring the unlikely and the outsider in. Not only does He work through the b’hor, but He also works through the barren and the second-born as well.

Paul’s heart breaks for his people and he rejoices in their story — their story! But it is their story that is meant to point to the very struggle they are having.

It is usually at this point where everyone begins to lose their minds as Bible interpreters. Being all worked up about predestination, we immediately begin focusing our attention on God’s rejection, rather than the point of Paul’s (what I believe is obvious) argument! While we tend to focus on “Esau I hated,” what we lose in the theological jostling is the fact that Paul is talking about whom God accepts, not whom God rejects!

This entire argument is about Paul pleading with his Jewish brethren to accept the truth that God wants to show kindness to their Gentile counterparts. This passage isn’t being quoted because of Esau; it’s being quoted because of God’s choosing to validate his promises and work through Jacob. It is not about God’s rejection, but God’s compassion. This should be abundantly clear from the next paragraph:

What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”

Paul asks the Jewish audience if this inclusion of the Gentiles is unfair. By no means! For God gets to show kindness to anyone He desires. Notice that the quotation says nothing about rejection, only acceptance, mercy, and compassion. It is God’s prerogative to decide who gets to receive His kindness.

So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.

Again, we are usually so quick to run to God’s rejection, God’s hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, that we miss the greater point of Paul’s argument. Paul has just finished saying exactly what he said earlier in the letter. Man is not dependent on his own efforts to find God’s mercy and grace. This justification and acceptance comes from faith and is a reality because of the mercy of God.

If one remembers, they might think back to our conversation about God hardening Pharaoh’s heart and how it showed God’s relentless pursuit of those who might reject him. This passage isn’t speaking about God deciding who gets in and who is left out! This passage is pleading with all the folks who think they are “IN” to consider the kindness, the mercy, the reckless pursuit of a God who desires to bless all nations!

But this conversation isn’t over yet.