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ROMANS 9:21

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International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 21, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 40.

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ROMANS 9:21.

"HATH not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor?"
This verse, with its connected verses, has been by many greatly misunderstood, and so perverted, as though it taught that God arbitrarily, and without known reason, created some for perdition, and was fully justified in so doing, and that it was but irreverence and presumptuous rebellion to object to his doing it.
But if we turn to the passage in the eighteenth chapter of Jeremiah, which Paul evidently alludes to, and almost quotes, we find the thought is clearly this: "Has not the potter a perfect right to take the broken and cracked and marred vessel, and make it into a perfect one? And can anyone reasonably object to his doing so?" And it is an utter perversion of the expression, "fitted for destruction" (in verse 22), to suppose it means they were so fitted by him. On the contrary, the very idea is, "Who can object, if God, after long endurance of the vessels of wrath, fitted, not by him but their own sinfulness, for destruction—who can object, if God makes known the riches of his glory in making such vessels vessels of mercy, and fitting them for honor and glory and eternal life? Who can object if he makes those his people who were not his people, and those beloved who were not beloved, and those who were his enemies or rejecters to become the children of the living God."
The whole passage has reference to the calling of the Gentiles, and extending to them the same mercy and blessings that were freely offered to the Jews through the gospel, and there is not an intimation that God ever made anyone for destruction, but on the other hand, that he is freely offering salvation to everyone of mankind—to Gentile as well as to Jew—and doing all in his power to lead everyone to accept it.
The potter may make one vessel to honor, and another to dishonor, i. e., to less honor, but all are made for use.—Rev. Tryon Edwards, D. D., in New York Observer.