The Epistle reading for today is<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nBrethren, God has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens the heart of whomever he wills. You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” But who are you, a man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me thus?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for beauty and another for menial use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the vessels of wrath made for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for the vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? As indeed he says in Hosea, “Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people, ‘ and her who was not beloved I will call ‘my beloved.'” “And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people, ‘ they will be called ‘sons of the living God.'” And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved; for the Lord will execute his sentence upon the earth with rigor and dispatch.” And as Isaiah predicted, “if the Lord of hosts had not left us children, we would have fared like Sodom and been made like Gomorrah.” What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, righteousness through faith; but that Israel who pursued the righteousness which is based on law did not succeed in fulfilling that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it through faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written, “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone that will make men stumble, a rock that will make them fall; and he who believes in him will not be put to shame.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
This verse is speaking of the hardening of the Jews against the Gospel, which occurred very early.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Only a remnant would be saved – those who didn’t reject Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Calvinist Misuse<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Calvinists misuse this passage and apply it to individual election. They turn the meaning of the passage into a hidden mystery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Church Fathers properly place the responsibility on those who don’t exercise their free will towards faith in Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Augustine of Hippo AD\u00a0430<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\nHe enables the one on whom he has mercy to do good, and he leaves the one whom he hardens to do evil. But that mercy is the result of the prior merit of faith<\/strong>, and that hardening is the fruit of prior unbelief, <\/strong>so that we do good deeds by the gift of God and evil deeds because of his punishment. Yet in either case free will is not taken away from man, whether it is to believe in God, so that mercy on us might follow, or to disbelieve in him, so that punishment on us might be the result.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
John Chrysostom AD 407<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\nPaul says this in order not to do away with free will but rather to show to what extent we ought to obey God. We should be as little inclined to call God to account as a piece of clay is. We ought to abstain not only from complaining or questioning but from even speaking or thinking about it at all, and instead we should become like that lifeless matter which follows the potter\u2019s hands and lets itself be shaped in whatever way the potter wills<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Epistle reading for today is ST. PAUL’S LETTER TO THE ROMANS 9:18-33 Brethren, God has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens the heart of whomever he wills. You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” But who are you, a man, to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,17,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible","category-calvinism","category-reformed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1737"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1741,"href":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1737\/revisions\/1741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/douglasgilliland.com\/theology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}