Elf said:
Drew,
Your questions have already been pre-considered. You ask a question that many ask.
So here is your question: Romans 9:19 You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault?
Here is God's answer for you.Romans 9: 20 On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, "Why did you make me like this," will it?
21 Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?
22 What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?
23 And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory,
This reminds me of Job's conversation with God.
Your question is nothing new under the sun, and the answer is also the same.
Is this speaking of just the Jews and their nation and peoples?
Romans 9:24 even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles.
Go one and read the rest of the chapter. Whether we like it or not, the facts are there, explicitly.
Our choice, accept it of deny it. But we cant change the facts.
The "facts" are, I suggest, not at all as you seem to think.
Chapter 9 is Paul’s argument that God hardened some Jews (most of them, actually) in order that salvation can be extended to the Gentiles. There are a lot of subtle things in this passage, so I do not want to bite off too much. But one thing, I think, is beyond dispute. And it is this: the “vessels of destruction†can only be
Jews – Paul leaves us no legitimate way to see the “vessels of destruction†as all humans, whether Jew or Gentile, who have been pre-destined to loss. One simply cannot read the passage that way without ignoring and doing violence to Paul’s argument.
With that stake in the ground, the only way to read the passage as being about “pre-destination of individuals is to see God as pre-destining only
Jews to ultimate loss, since the vessels of destruction are clearly only Jews. And I doubt that position has any possibility of being true.
Now to specifically address part of the passage you posted:
Some argue that the following text from Romans 9 shows that Paul is focused on the matter of election of individuals to an eternal fate:
You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?" 20On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, "Why did you make me like this," will it?
The argument runs along these lines: Since Paul is referring to individuals, he intends the reader to understand that the issue is the election of individuals.
Note that in the phrase "
you will say to me then, Why does he still find fault", the "me" is Paul, the person making the argument. So the “me†pronoun would be singular even
if Paul were making an argument about groups. The singularity of the “me†pronoun does not, therefore, tell us anything of relevance.
Now consider the “you†in this phrase. Is this a person who is protesting his pre-destination to loss? No it is not. It is instead Paul’s
imaginary opponent in his debate – the person objecting to Paul’s point about the choices God makes. It cannot be
assumed to be the person protesting his own pre-destination. It could be such a person, but it could equally well be a person who disputes a point that Paul is making about pre-destination of
groups.
I grant that, in verse 20, Paul appeals to a singular model where Paul invites us to imagine a single person challenging God in respect to what has befallen him. This man is no longer Paul’s imagined opponent, but clearly one who God has pre-destined to something bad.
However, this does not make the case that Paul is talking about election of individuals. We know that he uses the singular to represent plurality in other contexts. In Romans 7, he does this very thing when he use the "I" and "me" construct to demonstrate the plight of Jews (plural) under Torah. So, the use of the singular here in the “o man†/ “me†of Romans 9 is not definitive.
I suggest that Paul uses the "O man" construct as a literary device to "personalize" the objection that
corporate Israel will have to its treatment. Note how this is consonant with the Israel focus suggested by the first verses of the chapter. In order to make his point accessible to the reader, Paul "puts a face" on corporate Israel by representing her by a single man,
just as in Romans 7 where the “I†represents Israel as a whole.
Note also the reference to moulding and the potter and recall that Old Testament precedent repeatedly has God moulding
Israel. Paul is keenly aware of this and is leveraging that precedent.
Besides, consider this allusion, from earlier in the same basic argument:
15For He says to Moses, "I WILL HAVE MERCY ON WHOM I HAVE MERCY, AND I WILL HAVE COMPASSION ON WHOM I HAVE COMPASSION."
Paul is quoting Exodus where the issue is God's showing mercy unto the Israelites as a
group. If predestination of individuals is on Paul’s mind, why does he bring up an example of God being merciful to a
group to make a point about election of
individuals?
Furthermore, there is "group-level" election in the Jacob / Esau account where the Old Testament references make it clear that the election in view involves the Edomites (a group) being chosen by God to be sub-servient to the Israelites (another group).
Furthermore, consider the Isaiah 29text that Paul quotes from in verse 20:
The Lord says:
"These people come near to me with their mouth
and honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
Their worship of me
is made up only of rules taught by men.
14 Therefore once more I will astound these people
with wonder upon wonder;
the wisdom of the wise will perish,
the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish."
15 Woe to those who go to great depths
to hide their plans from the LORD,
who do their work in darkness and think,
"Who sees us? Who will know?" 16 You turn things upside down,
as if the potter were thought to be like the clay!
Shall what is formed say to him who formed it,
"He did not make me"?
Can the pot say of the potter,
"He knows nothing"?
This is the
very text from which the "o man" text is drawn – and clearly a
pluralistic reading is intended.
