Session 40 – Romans; Romans 9: Mark Lanier, 09/13/26

ROM 040_Romans_PODCAST_Lanier_081326
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[00:00:00] Oh, I'm so glad you're here. I'm glad to be able to teach Romans 9 again this week as we continue to plug our way through it. Uh, I was, uh, reading, uh, in the, the, the newspaper world about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch this week. I don't know if you know about this or not, but there's 1.8 trillion pieces of garbage floating around together, four times the size of the state of California.

They estimate it at 87,000 tons of plastic that are all just floating in this big, massive, uh, plastic island in the middle of the Pacific. They pulled a, a sea turtle out that had died, and they opened up the sea turtle's [00:01:00] stomach, and this is the ingredients inside the, the, the sea turtle's stomach. And the reason we've got all this plastic is because we have all this plastic.

Um, plastic. Uh Plastic. Um, a paper or plastic at the grocery store. Uh, the balloons that-- I mean, there's like... I think this balloon right here was from our kid's party. And it made it, you know, they float away. Well, eventually they kinda pop. Uh, th-there's-- Plastic is something we use ubiquitously. We use it everywhere.

Plastic's all over the place. You wanna die and take your body and have it opened up and have it... You have microplastics in your body. We have clothes made out of plastic. Plastic is all over the place. It's one of the [00:02:00] great inventions and, to some degree, curses of the last hundred-plus years. Now, back in Roman times, they didn't have plastic, but they still had a need to carry things around.

They didn't have cardboard. You wanted to get some milk, you didn't go get a plastic jug of milk. You didn't get a cardboard jug of milk. But you gotta get milk somehow, right? Right. This is an example of just an ordinary, everyday way we don't always read scripture understanding the culture and the time that it was written in.

We tend to interpret everything based upon our frame of reference. Now, back in those days, you didn't have a floating island of plastic, but boy, they had some other problems. They had their own pollution of sorts. This is a [00:03:00] picture of a Dressel twenty amphora jug. The Dressel twenty amphora jugs were made in Spain, and they were used oftentimes for carrying olive oil, because olive oil was imported into Rome from Spain, at least during the time of Paul.

In the next couple of centuries, more and more African, um, uh, um, olive oil was coming in. But this jug, seventy liters of oil it would hold. When you filled it with oil, it would weigh two hundred and seven pounds And a bunch of these jugs come in by ship. And we've got an idea of how the folks would carry it.

They would put it on a pole between two people, and they would carry it that way. Now, these jars, massive jars, would be used for olive oil. [00:04:00] They'd be used for wine. They'd be used for dates and other fruit that is in honey. And if you've got dates or even wine, you can recycle the jar. You just take the jar, eat it up, and refill it.

But n-n-n-n-no with olive oil, because olive oil seeps into the clay, and it turns rancid, and you can't use that again. And so what they would do in Rome is they would take these amphoras that come in on the ships, they would transfer out what oil they needed to, and then they would take these jars and they would smash them because they're of no use anymore.

And they would make shards of clay, or testa [00:05:00] is what it would be in, in Latin. And so they would have these shards in English, testa in Latin. And then they would take these and they would line them up very carefully to save space and build like Lego towers with them almost. Then about every couple of layers, they'd sprinkle some lime to take care of the rancid odor.

Say, "Wow, how do we know that?" Well, you can go over to Rome and climb Monte Testaccio, which is the mountain that they built out of these smashed up amphora jars. It's 11 stories high. I'm talking a hundred and fifteen feet tall. It's a kilometer all the way around the base. They've dug part of it out so you can see how carefully they stacked all of these [00:06:00] testas, these jars.

And then they would use, uh, semi-round bigger pieces to kind of as a retaining wall to help hold them back. Now, that's gonna become very relevant. That's something that we don't think about, but everybody in Paul's day knew about it And it's gonna help us better understand one of his metaphors and part of what he's got to say as we continue to look at Romans 9.

So I've divided class today into three sections. The first thing I want to do is I want to go back and look at some verses to make sure we're running on, on the right track here as we look at our new verses, which will start out with what the potter has a right to do with the vessels the potter makes.

And then if we've got time, we'll talk about two kinds of vessels. If we run out of time, I'll see [00:07:00] you next Sunday, God willing. But we're going to start out with what we've got thus far. And, and I, I get emails periodically from some of you, Dale Hearn, I won't mention your name, but I get emails from some of you either scolding me for a review or applauding me for a review.

Here's the situation we have I last taught Romans 9 two weeks ago, because last week we were in Turkey. So I'm asking you to remember something from two weeks ago. What's more, statistics say Miss Carolyn and my mom and my wife and my sister are the only ones who come every Sunday. The rest of you, uh, no.

About a third of you are here all the time. The other two-thirds rotate in and out. So I recognize that not all of you were here two weeks ago, and if you were, you probably forgot half of what I [00:08:00] said by the time you got out of the parking lot, which albeit that's 30 minutes after we're done. But- ... my goal is not simply to review.

Any time I'm teaching this material, I can only dig so deep. And so I dig so deep, and we get the treasure. But a review gives me a chance to dig a little deeper in the well, boy. I get a chance to go down for some more treasure. So don't simply think this is a review. It is a review, but it's more than a review because I'm adding some extra material.

It-- once, once you learn the basics of algebra, you can do a more complicated algebraic problem. Okay? Once you learn to read Go, Spot, Go- ... y- you can read a little bit more, you know. So that's where we are. Now, [00:09:00] what we're dealing with as we s- pull into Romans chapter 9 is an objection that Paul foresaw. And last week I got to his objection of: Is God unjust?

And it's Romans 9:14-18. But I don't even wanna start there with you this morning, because we're gonna see this, this is a letter Paul wrote. It's got a whole bunch of verses before where we are today, and he's gonna harken back in vocabulary to some of that. So I want us to go back to the end of chapter 8 for a minute and make sure we're understanding the context that's coming out here.

Paul said in Romans 8:35, "Who will separate us from Christ's love for us?" Will tribulation separate us from the love that Jesus has for us? Is he gonna quit loving you 'cause times are tough? No. [00:10:00] Um, if you're distressed, does he... You know, th- there's this song by Firefall, That's a Strange Way to Tell Me You Love Me, and that whole song is: Look, y- we're a couple, but you just keep telling me about how hard your life is, and I really don't wanna hear it.

I want you to talk about me. He doesn't have successful relationships, I might add. But that's not, I mean, d- is, is the fact that we whine all the time to Jesus gonna make him quit loving us? No. Is the fact that we're not popular in the world, and the world's persecuting us, is that gonna cause Jesus to quit loving us?

No. We don't have food? No. Nakedness? No. Danger? No. Sword? None of this, because in all of these things, we are more than conquerors because his love is not just, "Gee, I care about them," but he's weighing in on our behalf. [00:11:00] He's strengthening us for the task at hand. He's helping us through. He's giving us endurance.

He's giving us perseverance. It's not an ooey, gooey, gee, he feels love for us. It's an active love where he is stepping in when we're having tough times, we're having difficulties, and he's coming to our rescue. And that makes us more than conquerors, and we can be confident of that, Paul said, because it's not death, it's not life, not angels, not rulers, not things here, not things coming, not powers, not height, not depth, not anything else in all of creation will ever be able to separate us from God coming to our rescue and working for our good in Jesus Christ our Lord, period.

And so Paul has just given this magnificent, phenomenal, life-changing, [00:12:00] affirming attestation to the love of God. And then he knows someone's gonna say, "Yeah, well, he made a lot of promises to Israel, too, and those didn't seem to be working out all that well, did they?" And that's why he then gets to chapter nine and starts saying, "Well, now what about Israel?"

And Paul does not reply with

That, by the way, is Greek. Um-

The translation is . We do the same in English. Um, Paul is not at a loss for words. He's ready to answer the question. Paul's like, "Let me tell you about Israel." You can just see him dictating this part of the letter. And he says, "Don't think for a moment that the [00:13:00] Word of God has failed." God's promises about Israel have not failed.

We just gotta go back and read the, the map. If you think this is what God said, you might think He failed, but let's go back and examine what He really said, 'cause the Word of God's never failed

Point, Paul says, not all are des- who are descended from Israel belong to Israel. Now, this is not the word of God has failed, and this is doubly emphatic in the Greek. We talked about this. But the doubly emphatic was why when I'm translating this, my translation is, there is absolutely no way that the word of God has failed.

It can't happen. And he's slamming his fist down. He says, "Not all of the children of Abraham, not all are children of Abraham [00:14:00] just because they're his offspring." He was told specifically through Isaac shall your offspring be named. Now, he had Isaac, but before Isaac, he had Esau. I mean, uh, um, Ish- um, Ishmael.

Excuse me. It's Jacob and Esau. Mind blank. Um, he had Ishmael. Ishmael through his servant, or, uh, through Sarah's servant. But Ishmael's the firstborn. Isaac's son number two. And so Ishmael's firstborn. He's circumcised at the same day as Abraham. Abraham loves him. Abraham says to God, "Oh, that Ishmael might live before you.

Let Ishmael be the son of the promise. It's his right as firstborn. He's got the covenant sign with me." And God says, "Nope, it's going through Isaac," and God chose it

[00:15:00] So Paul says it's-- this means that it's not just the physical children of the flesh who are the children of God, it's the children of the promise. God said, "I'm promising it through here." So children of the promise are counted as offspring. And then he goes further and he says it wasn't just there, but look at the next.

When Rebecca had conceived children, one man, one mother, two kids, and even before they were born, before they could do anything at all, good or bad, so that God's purpose of election might continue, and continue not because of works, but because of God who makes the call. This whole thing is, is God reliable to stand up to His word?

Paul's saying, "Yes, He is." His word He has stood by vis-a-vis [00:16:00] Israel, because His word was always a word of promise, and it went through Isaac, and then it went through Jacob. Jacob I loved. Israel... I mean, Esau I hated. Now, we read this after two thousand years of people thinking about it and talking about it.

And I don't wanna disappoint you, so you can say, "Well, this doesn't apply to me," but I promise it applies to the person sitting next to you

Sorry, Miss Carolyn. This is a secret though. Nobody knows this We tend to be narcissistic, and we tend to think about ourselves, and we tend to read scripture and think, "What does this mean about me and my concerns and my issues?" more than we do first [00:17:00] trying to understand what it was written for. And that really becomes a problem when we get to some of these thorny passages, because we read this and it's like, "Okay, well, he loved Jacob.

Uh, he lo- he hated Esau." And, and never mind the fact that hated means something different. We talked about that two weeks ago. But y- y- you know, hated, hated means doesn't love as much, doesn't prioritize the same way. It's why when Jesus said, "You can't follow me unless you hate your mother and father and brother and sister," he's not saying hate them in the English sense of the word.

He's saying, "If you put them above me." Okay? It's a comparison word. So we read this, and we tend to think of it individually But there's a question that's here, and these have been-- God is making an election. He is choosing here. Well, what's he choosing about? What's Paul talking about? Is he talking about the historical role of the promise that came of deliverance, that through [00:18:00] the seed of Abraham would come one where all the nations of the world would be blessed?

Is he talking about the role of Israel in producing the Messiah? Is he talking about the role of Israel as a nation? Or is he talking about all of a sudden the salvation of Jacob and Esau? Well, I would suggest to you that at this point, he's clearly talking about the nation of Israel, and Esau represents the nation of Edom.

And if you go back to the passage itself that Paul's referencing in Genesis twenty-five, that passage in itself says, "Two nations are in your womb." Jacob and Esau are two nations. Two nations are in your womb. Two peoples from within you shall be divided. And, and if you read all the way through the prophets, the prophet Obadiah, one chapter [00:19:00] prophet, in verse six, "How has Esau been pillaged?"

Well, Esau's been dead fourteen hundred years. Esau represents the Edomites. "Because of the violence done to your brother Jacob." Well, Jacob's been dead fourteen hundred years, but he represents Israel. And so Paul's saying, though they were not yet born and hadn't done anything good or bad, that God's purpose of election might continue.

What's the election? That through you shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. The Messiah's coming through you, and he gets further and defines it further over time. But this is the purpose, prothesis, and this is, uh, a word that Paul's gonna keep using. So in Romans eight twenty-seven we've read, "He who searches hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the word of God."

Uh, Pastor Jarrett referenced this in his [00:20:00] sermon this morning. "We know," he continues, "that those... that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose." And again, prothesis So this question, what's Paul saying? That they are-- were elected, that Israel, the call on Israel was a call to produce the Messiah, a historical role.

But now he says there's a salvation element because he links it back to chapter eight. So now let's look at salvation and ask the question, is, is he talking about salvation on an individual basis, or is he talking about God has called to salvation the body of Christ?

We're looking here, Romans 9:13, "As it's written, Jacob I loved, Esau I [00:21:00] hated." We've got that. Let me skip through this. We don't need to review that. But we come here and, and the, the right question that can be asked, we'll come back to the salvation issue in a minute, the right question that can be asked is, well, is that fair?

Because God says he's gonna pick one, not the other. He's gonna have mercy on one and not the other. And so we ask, is that fair? Is it unjust of God to do this? And the point that Paul is making is, this whole sweeping story of history is one of God's mercy in Christ. Amen. And mercy is never owed. Yes. "Is that fair?"

is not the right question, but Paul still answers it. And so Paul says in verse 14, "Shall we say then, is there injustice on God's part?" [00:22:00] No. No. God says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy. I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." Now, if you just take that verse out all by itself and you read it narcissistically, then you're gonna sit there and say, "Well, I hope he's gonna have mercy on me."

I hope I'm one he gets compassionate with What about so and so? I can tell he doesn't have mercy on them. I don't either

You say, "Where's your compassion?" Uh, God doesn't have to have it, I don't either. I'm gonna be like God. I'll have compassion on whom I have compassion. Do we do that? No, that's to do a great disservice to this beautiful, carefully written narrative of Paul's. And when we [00:23:00] reach the, what may be the nadir of this, uh, if we read it the way N.T.

Wright does as a chiasm. If you don't follow that, don't worry, I don't have time to get into it now. We'll get into that in a few weeks. But we can't lose the thread of what Paul is saying. It's the reason the review is so important. Because what Paul's doing is he's telling Israel's story in response to the question of, is God not trustworthy because he gave his word to Israel and then he backed out?

Might God back out with us? That's the thread of the argument that Paul's making. So Paul's saying, "No, look. To the Israelites, here's their story." And it's

very typical, as I discussed weeks ago, in that era to say, "Let me appeal by telling you the story of Israel." And so he's doing that in these chapters. He says, "To [00:24:00] Israel belong the patriarchs." That's Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the 12. To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the DNA is the Messiah And then he says, "But not all children of Abraham, not all are our children of Abraham because they're his offspring."

So he's telling the story. Remember? They get the, they get the patriarchs, they've got the promise of the Messiah, but it's not all of the children of Abraham who are gonna have this It's the children of the promise. Trace the promise, not just the DNA. It's the children of the promise that are counted as the offspring.

So if we continue to follow this thread, Paul says, "Let me tell you about Sarah and Isaac," [00:25:00] verse nine. "Then let me tell you about Jacob and Esau," verses 10 through 13. "And then let's talk about Moses and Pharaoh and the Exodus," verses 14 through 18. You see, he's telling Israel's story here, and we've gotta keep that thread and understand where it's coming from, or we're gonna get all balled up in arguing over predestination and what a- what various medieval, post-medieval philosophers have said, and theologians.

And I'm not saying we don't address those issues, but that's not what Paul was writing about. He started this out with, "We're conquerors, and nothing can separate us from Christ's love." And somebody might object and say, "Well, what about Israel?" And then he's telling the story of Israel. But he says even with the story of Israel, understand it never depended upon human will.

It never [00:26:00] depended upon human exertion. It always depended upon God, who has mercy. We can trust and believe in God because He's the one who did it, and He fulfilled His word in bringing the Messiah from the offspring of Abraham, from the offspring of Isaac, from the offspring of Jacob, from the offspring of Judah, from the offspring of David.

And so he's walking through the Exodus here, and he says, "The scripture says to Pharaoh, 'For this very purps- purpose I've raised you up, because I'm gonna show my power in you. I want my reputation...'" That's what name means. "'I want my reputation to be proclaimed in all the earth.'" By the way, uh, Pastor Jarrett read one of my favorite passages about how the name of Jesus is above every name.

Nobody, when they understand what Jesus has done, when they see His CV, there is nobody who's got a better CV [00:27:00] A great name is to be desired more than great riches. He doesn't mean a really cool-sounding name like Methuselah. He's talking about your reputation. That's what your, your character, your tra- who you are, what you've done, your CV, this is it.

And, and God says, "I wanna show my power in you that everybody knows what I am and who I am, and I'm gonna do it by bringing these people out as I promised to Abraham I would after 400 years in Israel, and I'm gonna bring them out, I'm gonna give them the promised land, and I'm gonna bring the Messiah forth.

I'm gonna give them the law." And that's God showing his mercy And so he says, "He has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills." He's telling Israel's story here. He's not talking about Calvinism Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all [00:28:00] for talking about Calvinism. And there are passages, and I'm not even saying this isn't relevant to that discussion.

I'm just saying before we get there, we need to get it in context. And the context of this is Moses standing in front of Pharaoh. And you can read in there time after time after time after time, God hardens his heart. Or you can read Exodus 8:15, "When Pharaoh saw there was a respite, he hardened his own heart and wouldn't listen to him, as the Lord had said."

So it's not devoid of what Pharaoh's doing. God's not, "Oh, Pharaoh, you would like a soft heart, but I don't like you. So I'm going to harden your heart anyway and destroy your world because I'm arbitrary and capricious." That's not what [00:29:00] Paul's saying. So when we read it, we read it, and he does have mercy on whomever he wills, and mercy is not deserved, and no one has a right to it.

And he can harden whomever he wills. But the example Paul's using is of someone who hardened their own heart as well. So this question, is God unjust, is answered in part by mercy is never owed. Now it entitles the lawyer in me to stand up and say, "Objection, Your Honor. Is that fair?" And that's what we've gotten to thus far.

And this is where the next example comes in, and this is the potter's right. So Paul continues in verse 19 "So you might say to me," Paul says, "well, why does God still find fault?"

Who can resist his will? [00:30:00] Now here's where a number of scholars will say Paul is not simply talking about the nations, but he's transitioning here to incorporate individuals as well. And so if you read people like Doug Moo, great guy, great Roman scholar, great commentary. He's going to go one direction here where other scholars may go a different direction.

But Paul says, "You will say to me then, 'Why does he still find fault? Who can resist his will?'" Paul's answer: "But who are you, O man, to answer back to God?"

This word, antipokrinomenos, well, that's the, the participle form of [00:31:00] it, but it's a dispute talk. It's a compound word. It means basically to reply against. It's, um, um, we might-- I might have heard my dad say it this way: "Do not talk back to your mother."

It's the lawyer who has the audacity to say, "Your Honor, I'd like to call God to the witness stand. I've got a few cross-examination questions I wanna put in front of him." Um, don't, don't be that guy. Okay? Those you read about in the Book of Job. They're Job's friends, and they do things like Job 23:4

Let's take a moment and, uh [00:32:00] Job 23:4. Now Job's doing pretty good himself. Um, I gotta compliment Job. I, I'll slam his friends for a moment. Let's see if we can get Job up here Job answers and says, "Today also my complaint is bitter. His hand is heavy despite my groaning. Oh, I wish I knew where I could find God.

I might come even to his dwelling. I would lay my case before him, and I would fill my mouth with arguments."

I would learn what he would answer me and understand what he would say to me. Now, if we continue to flip and we look at Job 32 verse 12

Here is the friend Of [00:33:00] Job. Start with verse 11. He says, "See, I waited for your words. I listened for your wise sayings while you searched out what to say. I gave you my attention, but there was, in fact, no one that confuted Job, no one among you that answered his words. You don't say, 'We found wisdom.' God may vanquish him, not a human.

He's not directed his words against me, and I'm not gonna answer him with your speeches." And then you get to the end of Job, and in the end of Job, God comes down hard and says, "Who are you to be questioning me? Where were you when I hung the planets?" Where were you when I laid the foundations? Now, I think what Paul's doing here is Paul's not rebuking the question, but he's rebuking the [00:34:00] posture It's okay to ask God and bring God your problems.

It's okay to say, "God, I don't understand this." But don't ever turn that into back talk Who are you, oh man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why'd you make me like this?" Now That is straight out of Isaiah 29. If you look at, um, your English, you'll see, "Why have you made me like this?"

in quotation marks. And there's generally gonna be a little note that'll tell you down in the bottom that Paul's quoting from Isaiah If you look at the Greek text that the Greek editors put, it starts with the, the... Well, f- [00:35:00] I don't know how to explain it to you. If you'll go up three lines from the bottom, if you don't read Greek, you're in trouble.

Just count up three. After the semicolon, it starts in italics, and the italics is because it's quoting the Old Testament. And so if we look at this, you know, I've got a good friend who emailed me and said he's talking about a passage back in Genesis here. No, this is straight from Isaiah. He's quoting Isaiah here.

Isaiah specifically says, "Will what is molded say to its molder, 'Why have you made me like...'" And then this is, is a little bit different in the way Paul does it. But Isaiah 29:16, "Will what is made of its maker say, 'You didn't make me wisely?'" And if you look at it in the Greek, it's basically the exact same thing, and then Paul makes a change at the very end to make his emphasis [00:36:00] But the start of that Isaiah passage says, "Hey, Israel, you've turned this upside down."

The pot's got no right to be saying this to the potter. The potter gets to decide. Don't turn it upside down and let the pot make the call. And Paul's using this metaphor in the Old Testament prophets. Now, by the way, do you see what Paul's done telling the story of Israel? Starts out with the promise, Messiah will come through, and he does Abraham and Sarah and Isaac, and he does Jacob and Esau, and he's worked through the Exodus and Moses, and now he's into the prophets.

He's still telling Israel's story here, and it's quoted from Isaiah, but it's also strongly from Jeremiah. Jeremiah 18, look at the first six verses. The word that came to [00:37:00] Jeremiah from the Lord, s- "Arise, go down to the potter's house, and there I'm gonna let you hear my words." So I went down to the potter's house.

There he was, working at the wheel. And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand. Messed up. The clay didn't hold. My sister Catherine, are you here? Catherine can tell you. You go watch Catherine throw pots, okay? She's, uh, got her MFA in throwing pots and making ceramic sculpture.

And she will tell you that there are times where the clay doesn't do what it needs to be done, and your- pot or whatever you're making, uh, d- not gonna make. Well, she doesn't throw it away. She puts it back down on the wheel and reshapes it And that's what Paul's saying, the, or [00:38:00] Jeremiah's saying. The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in his hand, so he reworked it into another vessel as it seemed good to the potter to do Then the word of the Lord came to me and he said, "Oh, house of Israel."

Still talking about the nation of Israel here. "Can I not do with you as this potter has done?" declares the Lord. "Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel." Now, I don't have time, but if we dig back through here, next week maybe, you go back to Alexandria, Egypt, in 100 BC.

It's the second-largest city in all of the Mediterranean world of Rome, second only to Rome, and it is an awesome city. One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient [00:39:00] World is there, the lighthouse, and it's got the library of all libraries, and it has a massive population of Jewish intellectia, intellectia, intelligentsia.

It's got a massive Greek-speaking Jewish population. It is in Alexandria that the Jewish scriptures were translated into Greek, our Septuagint. And there it is from, it is from Alexandria that a contemporary of Paul's, Philo, a learned Jew, writes his material that helps us understand so many issues of Paul's day.

But I will tell you that out of that area, most scholars agree, there was a book produced called The Wisdom of Solomon. It is not... it was never part of the Hebrew scriptures, so since the [00:40:00] Reformation, it's not been included in the Protestant Bible. But it was included in the early Greek versions of the Bible, and so the Catholic versions of the Bible will have it in those apocryphal, in that apocryphal section.

Now, I-- take aside the idea that it's scripture, it is something that was very well known in Paul's day, and it's very clear as we're reading through here that Paul is using it to help explain this, and we better understand this when we read the Wisdom of Solomon, because Paul's constantly echoing back part of that as well.

Not because it's scripture. Paul doesn't say, "As it was written," like he does when he quotes scripture. It wasn't part of the Jewish Bible, but, or Jewish canon, I should say. But it's still a very well-known source that helps us. It's not, [00:41:00] by the way, written by Solomon. It was written somewhere between 100 BC probably and maybe 2025 AD, if it's that late.

But in the process of this, Paul's using very normal language. "Who are you, O man, to answer back to God?" Will what is molded say to its molder, "Hey, why'd you make me like this?" Doesn't the potter have, uh, has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?

The potter is sitting there at the wheel. The potter has the, the wheel going, and he's got his clay, and he's working it. Now, there was a Greek word, time in the Greek. [00:42:00] Time is something that's valuable, something that's esteemed, something of worth, something that's honorable, and it was used with pottery.

And this is a pretty good reconstruction of a really nice pot in Paul's day. That's a valuable pot. I mean, it's got a good finish to it. Look at all of the ornate little carvings into it. I think that's pretty good. But out of the same clay could some- come something that's not time, but a-time. A just means not.

Not valuable, not esteemed, like a bedpan

There are other vessels that are not esteemed as well. They had clay vessels for... You, how many of you have [00:43:00] Glad trash bags in your kitchen? They had Glad trash vessels of clay, time, w- that would get all the kitchen scraps, that would get all of the, the garbage. That was the bedpan under the bed at night And so Paul is writing here, and, and, and Paul's not writing for any reason except to help them understand what God's been doing through history.

I really like the way Tom Wright says this. Tom says, "We can't simply reject this passage as though Paul is talking about God and humanity in the abstract." This is just humanity in the abstract. God's gonna have mercy on who he has mercy, compassion on who he has compassion. It's just the abstract. He's talking about God's purposes, [00:44:00] not only with Israel, but much more importantly, through Israel, and God's promises of what he was gonna do through Israel vis-a-vis the Messiah.

He's-- He didn't fail He kept his word, and that's why we can rely on him to keep his word with us today. Yes. And yeah, he's, he- look, that doesn't mean it's all easy street. I mean, you go back and read the prophets, part of that stuff of the language, you know, the clay falls apart in the potter's hand. Do you know what they're talking about there?

Israel flat refused to follow the word of God the way God told them to. Amen. So what's he do? He reshapes it. He sends them into captivity in Babylon. Well, that wasn't fun. Not any big honor there. That's a whole lot closer to bedpan than it is fruit bowl[00:45:00]

But Paul says, and Jeremiah said, God's gonna reshape it, but it's not because God's promises is gonna fail. Israel could have been as deplorable as they wanted to be. They could have been a bunch of pagans, idol worshipers, selling their soul out to the powerful, not treating people right, totally disregarding the law of Moses, and God is still gonna bring the Messiah through them because the Word of God's not gonna fail.

Amen. And God did. And if he's gotta send them into captivity to purify their soul, he'll do it. Yes. But this is what God's doing. It's-- He's talking about God's purposes, not only with Israel, but much more importantly through Israel, and that's the potter's right to form and to shape, to get done what has to be done to redeem the people

Paul takes the metaphor a little further. Two kinds of vessels, he says. What if God, [00:46:00] desiring to show his wrath and make known his power, which by the way, I would suggest he was doing not only with Pharaoh, but he was doing in the day of Jeremiah with Nebuchadnezzar in captivity. What if God, desiring to show his wrath, to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?

And he's endured it in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he's prepared beforehand for glory. Pastor Jarrett today was preaching from, uh, the, the high priestly prayer of John 17, and he kept using, referencing that Greek word doxa, glory, because Jesus, you know, let me bring glory to [00:47:00] you as I've brought and shown your glory by doing what you've said.

And he's praying for us to have the glory of God in us. And he's praying for his apostles. And Paul's using that same word here, doxon, here in the end, that God, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he's prepared beforehand for glory This fits hand in hand with Jesus' high priestly prayer.

God is working, and he will, he'll sell Israel into captivity. Heaven's on a micro scale. He sold Joe- let Joseph get sold into captivity. And you go to Genesis 50, where the dad's died and the brothers are petrified about what's Joseph gonna do now. Is he gonna get rid [00:48:00] of us because Dad's dead? And Joseph says, "Look, guys, I'm not gonna cross the Lord.

You did it with malice in your heart, selling me into the slave traders, but God had a purpose. God was molding a rescue for us And Paul says, "This is God's prerogative. He's the potter"

All right, this continues next week. But I don't want you to lose track of the thread here 'cause the setup here is can we rely upon God? And Paul's answer is, "Let me tell you Israel's story." And he talks about Israel and the patriarchs, and he talks about Israel and the Exodus, and he talks about Israel and the prophets And as Tom says, [00:49:00] Paul is not here offering a theology of history in some grand developmental or Hegelian sense.

Now, if you don't read Hegel, I'm sorry, this is one of the problems of Tom Wright. He just assumes all of us are Hegelian scholars. He continues, "Nor is this a theory of predestination or a philosophical discourse about determinism and free will." I love this. This is a passage in which we discover that the living God has scratched his name on the hard rock of history, and we can go to the bank on it.

Or as opposed to N.T. Wright, not Tom Wright, me, I would say it this way: [00:50:00] Paul dealt with justification and salvation in the first section of Romans. Paul's not dealing with that in this section of Romans. Paul's explaining here the reliability of God in terms of Israel's history, because that's important to us who rely on God.

Make sense? All right, here are our points for home, and I'm excited to continue this teaching next week. We'll dig a little deeper into the potter verses, and we'll keep going. But bring your questions to God. He doesn't, doesn't recoil. Read Habakkuk. He has no trouble handling questions. Just remember your posture You don't do it as back talk Point for home two: remember God reworks his vessels.

The vessel was spoiled, he work- reworked it into another vessel. I like that. [00:51:00] Now, I, I don't wanna just take this and now do the narcissistic thing I told you we've gotta be careful not to do, but I'm gonna do it anyway, because I'll tell you, he's had to rework me a whole bunch But he does it with peoples too.

He did it with the nation of Israel. It's part of Israel's story, and it doesn't mean God's unreliable and doesn't keep his word. It's actually proof that he would keep his word because he did the hard things to do it. Point for home last: praise God from whom all mercy flows, because it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy.

Amen. So here's your lunch topic. How is this study helping you see things that you have seen, helping you see things you have seen? Well, that's just terrible I got up at 2:21 this morning to do this PowerPoint, and I clearly lost [00:52:00] it by slide 88. Here's your topic. Uh, has this study helped you look at things in a different way, maybe in some of these passages than you've seen before?

Think about that, and let me bless you in the name of Jesus. Father, in the name of Jesus, because of who Jesus is, because of what Jesus did through the blood sacrifice of Christ on the cross, through the Holy Spirit He sent to indwell within us, through the power of His resurrection and ascension and promise of His return, through the name, the actions, the character of Jesus, I ask you to bless all who hear this message.

Draw them closer to you. Mold them and make them after your will as the potter does the clay. This [00:53:00] is our prayer in Jesus. Amen.