Romans 9:14–23

WHAT THEN SHALL we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15For he says to Moses,

“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,

and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”

16It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. 17For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” 18Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.

19One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?” 20But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ ” 21Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?

22What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? 23What 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.

Original Meaning

God Is Just Because He Acts for His Glory (9:14–18)

THE RHETORICAL QUESTIONS and emphatic negative response in verse 14 show that Paul reverts, appropriately, to the diatribe style in order to clear away objections to his teaching. He has taught that God chose Jacob and rejected Esau simply because it was his will to do so; nothing about them led God to act toward them as he did (9:10–13). The question “Is God unjust?” is a natural one to ask in response to this teaching.

Readers of Romans are sometimes puzzled that Paul does not appear to answer this question in verses 15–18. But if we properly understand the question, we will be able to see that he does, indeed, answer it. The key is to put the issue of God’s justice or righteousness in its biblical context. Determining right or wrong, what is just or unjust, demands a standard for measurement. That standard is ultimately nothing less than God’s own character (see comments on 3:25–26). God, therefore, acts justly when he acts in accordance with his own person and plan. This is precisely the point Paul makes in 9:15–18. The argument falls into two parallel parts, each with a quotation from the Old Testament (vv. 15 and 17) and a conclusion drawn from the quotation (“therefore,” vv. 16, 18).

(1) Paul first quotes Exodus 33:19, where God reveals to Moses a fundamental aspect of his character: He is free to bestow mercy on whomever he wishes. This means, Paul points out, that “it does not … depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy” (Rom. 9:16). What is the “it”? Probably, in light of verse 15, God’s bestowal of mercy on people.1 Receiving favor from God does not depend on anything a person can will or do, but only on God’s own will to show mercy. Note that Paul’s inclusion of both “willing” and “doing” supports our conclusion that he excludes faith as well as works as sources of election (see v. 12).

(2) A second quotation reinforces the freedom of God to act as he wishes, but now from a negative side (v. 17). God’s deliverance of his people from slavery in Egypt is a basic part of the story line of the Bible. God’s message about his mercy was originally spoken to Moses, the man God used to deliver his people (v. 15). Perhaps because of this reference, Paul now turns to Moses’ antagonist in the story, Pharaoh, and cites a word that God spoke to him (Ex. 9:16). The essence of the message is that God brought Pharaoh onto the stage of history (“raised [him] up”) to accomplish his own purposes, namely, to display his power and broadcast his name. By resisting God’s determination to release his people from captivity, Pharaoh forced Moses to work a series of miracles, culminating in the parting of the “Sea of Reeds,” to bring Israel out of Egypt. This display of God’s power became known throughout that part of the world (cf. Josh. 2:10).

Verse 18 draws the conclusion not only from verse 17 but from verses 15–16 as well. It summarizes the freedom of God as it has an impact on human beings in both a positive and negative way. As God’s message to Moses shows that he is free to show mercy to whomever he wants, so his word to Pharaoh shows that he is free to “harden” whomever he wants. Anyone familiar with the Exodus story recognizes the importance of the word “harden” in the Exodus account. It is because Pharaoh’s heart was “hardened” that he continued to resist God’s will in the face of increasingly spectacular miraculous displays.

The word “harden” (Gk. skleryno) refers to being in a state of insensitivity to God, his Word, and his work. The book of Exodus is not clear about the relationship between God’s decision to harden Pharaoh’s heart and Pharaoh’s own hardening of his heart. But the point is not all that important, since Paul clearly gives the initiative to God. But to what do God’s “having mercy” and “hardening” refer? The same options are available here as for the similar issue of God’s election in 9:7–13. Many think Paul refers to the roles of Moses (and Israel) and Pharaoh (and Egypt) in salvation history. But again, we think that what he says here has direct relevance to the issue of personal salvation. It is God who determines who is to be saved and who is to be kept in a state of spiritual blindness.

Bridging Contexts

THE HARDENING OF Pharaoh’s heart. God “hardens whom he wants to harden” (v. 18b) is arguably one of the most controversial claims in Scripture. Before we can discuss its theological significance, we must consider the Old Testament background that informs Paul’s assertion. The verb “harden” appears suddenly on the scene in verse 18. But the reader knowledgeable about Scripture will recognize that the Old Testament quotation about God’s purpose with Pharaoh in verse 17 is what sparks his use of the word. “Hardening” is, after all, a basic theme in the story of Pharaoh and the Exodus.

The author of the Pentateuch refers to the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart twenty times in Exodus 4–14. Three different Hebrew verbs are used (from the roots hzq, qsh, and kbd), translated by three different Greek verbs in the LXX (skleryno, which Paul uses in Rom. 9:18, katischyo, and baryno). What is particularly important for our assessment of the significance of Paul’s hardening theology is the interaction of God and Pharaoh in his hardening.

The first reference to Pharaoh’s hardening is a prediction God makes to Moses in Exodus 4:21: “The LORD said to Moses, ‘When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go’ ” (see also 7:3). In the narrative that follows, the hardening of the hearts of Pharaoh and his officials is put in three different ways. (1) Following the pattern of 4:21 and 7:3, God hardens the hearts of Pharaoh and his officials (9:12; 10:1, 20, 27; 11:10; 14:4, 8, 17). (2) Pharaoh hardens his own heart (8:15, 32; 9:34; 13:15). (3) Hardening is put in the passive, leaving it open who the initiator of the action might be (e.g., 7:13: “Yet Pharaoh’s heart became hard and he would not listen to them, just as the LORD had said”; see also 7:22; 8:19; 9:7, 35).

What are we to make of this evidence? Many interpreters argue that God’s hardening is but his judicial reaction to Pharaoh’s prior decision to harden his own heart. They note that God does not harden Pharaoh’s heart (9:12) until Pharaoh has first hardened his own heart (8:15, 32). This view is the critical assumption in the explanation of Romans 9:18 that I have frequently read in popular books on “Bible difficulties” and heard in sermons and lectures. God’s hardening of people is explained simply as his reaction to the decision of people to harden their own hearts.5

But apart from the problem of Paul’s “whom he wants to harden” for this view, it is not clearly supported in Exodus. For before Pharaoh hardens his own heart, we have two predictions that God will harden Pharaoh (4:21; 7:3) and three references to the hardening in the passive voice (7:13, 14, 22). As so often in Scripture, the implied subject of the passive verb may well be God.6 I think it safe to say, then, that the text of Exodus does not make clear the relationship between God’s hardening and Pharaoh’s own hardening. Both are clearly taught, but which preceded the other cannot be determined. What this means, then, is that we cannot assume a particular relationship between divine and human initiatives in hardening when we come to Romans 9:18. We will have to let that text speak for itself.

The imagery of God as potter. As we mentioned in the Original Meaning section, Paul’s allusion to God as the potter and human beings as the clay in verses 20–21 taps into a widespread Old Testament and Jewish tradition. This tradition may shed light on Paul’s purpose in using the imagery. The texts closest to 9:21 are Isaiah 29:16 and 45:9:

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”?

Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker,

to him who is but a potsherd among the potsherds on the ground.

Does the clay say to the potter,

“What are you making?”

Does your work say,

“He has no hands”?

But closest to Romans 9:22 are Jeremiah 18:6–10 and especially Wisdom of Solomon 15:7:

“O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?” declares the LORD. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it.”

A potter kneads the soft earth

and laboriously molds each vessel for our service,

fashioning out of the same clay

both the vessels that serve clean uses

and those for contrary uses, making all alike;

but which shall be the use of each of them

the worker in clay decides.

Interpreters evaluate the significance of these parallels in different ways. Some stress that at least two of the passages (Isa. 45:9 and Jer. 18:6–10) use the imagery to describe God’s right to use and to reshape nations as he chooses, which would provide yet more evidence that Paul is writing throughout this passage about God’s use of nations in salvation history rather than the salvation of individuals. But other texts (esp. Isa. 29:16) denounce the hybris of individual people who dare to question the ways of God. Paul may have been familiar with this passage from his knowledge (in oral form, of course) of the teaching of Jesus. For the Lord used a verse from this same context (29:13) to scold the scribes and the Pharisees (see Matt. 15:8–9; Mark 7:6–7). The fact is that the imagery of God as potter was so common that it is impossible to be sure which text or texts Paul may have had in mind (see also, e.g., Job 10:9; 38:14; Isa. 64:8; Sir. 33:13; T. Naph. 2.2, 4; 1QS 11:22). We must again, then, avoid reading into Romans ideas drawn from specific Old Testament or Jewish texts.

Contemporary Significance

THE DARK SIDE of election. I have argued that Romans 9:6–23 teaches that individuals become Christians only because God, by a free act of his will, chooses them and predestines them to faith and glory. Our turning to Christ in faith is a real decision we make and is essential if we are to be saved, but we only turn to Christ because God has elected us. Many good exegetes and theologians dispute this conclusion, finding it incompatible with the biblical teaching about the freedom of human beings and the call for all to respond in faith to the gospel. Many laypeople likewise react against the doctrine out of a sometimes vague sense that it is just not fair.

But if the idea of God’s unconditional election to salvation stirs controversy, imagine the level of reaction against the idea that God might also choose to send people to hell on the basis of his own sovereign decision. Yet we cannot avoid considering whether, indeed, Paul teaches this “dark side” of election, for three key texts in Romans 9:6–23 seem to suggest this idea:

“Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” (9:13)

Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. (9:18)

What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—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. (9:22–23)

In each of these, Paul seems to suggest that God chooses people to be damned just as he chooses people to be saved. Hence theologians, particularly of a Calvinist persuasion, speak of “double predestination.”

Is the idea really taught in this passage? I cautiously conclude that it is—although in a different form from what many Calvinists hold. As I have argued, the texts cited above all refer to or are applied to God’s work in the lives of individuals. God chooses certain individuals and rejects others on the basis of his own will (vv. 15, 18)—not on the basis of physical descent (vv. 8, 10), anything they do or will do (vv. 12, 16), or what they will (v. 16). It is “the God who calls” that determines the issue. But if God has unconditionally chosen some to be saved, the parallelism suggests that he also unconditionally destines others to wrath.

To be sure, interpreters argue that Paul disrupts the parallelism in significant ways. They claim that the hardening of 9:18, given the background of Exodus, is based on one’s prior self-hardening—a claim we have found to be dubious. More to the point is the difference in 9:22–23 between “objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction” and “objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory.” The latter text is clear: God himself “prepared in advance” those people who receive his mercy and attain glory. But Paul’s description of the “objects of wrath” is significantly different: He uses a participle that is middle or passive in form (katertismena). If middle, it could mean that these people “prepared themselves” for destruction;7 if passive, that they were “prepared” by their own sins8 or by God.9

Certainty is impossible here, but the change in construction may suggest that Paul views God’s election to salvation and predestination to wrath as different in some way (see below). This consideration is not sufficient, however, to overturn the overall impression that both human salvation and damnation are sovereign acts of God.

But before we conclude that the two acts are completely parallel, one other factor must be considered. Paul teaches that all people are involved in Adam’s sin and are therefore under a sentence of death because of their sin (Rom. 5:12–21). God’s decision to destine some people to wrath comes, we believe, after (in a logical sense) that sin.10 God’s “hardening,” then, does not cause spiritual insensitivity; it maintains people in the state of sin that they have already chosen. When God chooses people to be saved, he acts out of pure grace, granting a blessing to people who in no way deserve it. But when he destines people to wrath, he sentences them to the fate they have already chosen for themselves. It is perhaps for just this reason that we find the shift in construction in 9:22–23 and that Paul never uses the words “call” or “election” to refer to God’s decision to leave people in their sins and the wrath they deserve. For this same reason, I prefer not to use the expression double predestination, as if both God’s acts of predestination are of the same kind.

As we reflect on the contemporary significance of this doctrine, two points must be made. (1) As we noted above, the idea that God destines people to hell sparks strong reaction—and understandably. Most of us instinctively feel there is something unfair about God’s choosing to rescue some from sin and destining others to their fate. But at some point, we must look carefully at that reaction and decide whether it is justified. I was teaching a seminar some years ago in which I brought up this doctrine. As is always the case, the idea met a lot of resistance. One student in particular was very vocal, insisting that “God just couldn’t be like that.”

Now such a response may or may not be justified. If one is saying, in effect, “My years of study of the Bible have led me to a view of God that is simply incompatible with this doctrine,” I can understand and even sympathize. We can then enter into a dialog in which we seek to come to a mutual understanding about the relationship between Paul’s teaching about God in Romans 9 and the broader biblical perspective. The student may have to adjust his or her view in light of Romans 9, or I may have to adjust my interpretation of Romans 9 in light of the teaching of Scripture elsewhere.

But the student in that seminar was not reflecting that kind of objection. Rather, she was saying, in effect, “That doctrine just doesn’t fit my idea of what God must be like.” At that point a critical question must be asked: Where did her idea of God come from? She failed to cite biblical evidence, so I could only conclude that she was reflecting a picture of God drawn from her general culture and perhaps her own church tradition. But surely such ideas should not be allowed to stand in judgment over Scripture. If our belief in the authority of the Bible means anything, it means that we must submit to what the Bible teaches and bring our own perceptions and ideas into line with Scripture.

(2) This leads to my second point. While I have some of the same problems and questions with this doctrine that most believers have, I also think that it ultimately fits well into the biblical picture of God. Your God Is Too Small, the title of the popular book by J. B. Phillips some years ago, is a criticism that might be rightly made to many Christians and many churches. Out of pride in ourselves and our achievements and a culturally influenced belief in ourselves as “masters of our fate,” we have a hard time giving God his due.

Yet the Bible presents God as the one who plants and uproots nations (e.g., Isa. 40:12–31; Daniel), whose very word determines the fate of battles. He determines the outcome of every event in human history, from great to small. Particularly relevant to the issue we are considering is God’s sovereignty over even evil events. God, Scripture teaches, sent his Son to be crucified by sinful people (Acts 2:23); God determined that Judas would sinfully betray Jesus (e.g., Luke 22:22). Suffusing all of what Paul says in these verses about God’s sovereignty in election, and coming to the surface explicitly in Romans 9:20–21, is this biblical view of a God who acts with absolute freedom toward his creatures.

Paul’s emphasis at this point receives a lot of criticism from certain scholars. J. C. O’Neill, for example, calls Paul’s argument here “thoroughly immoral.”11 We hear in those words the reaction of arrogant humanity, protesting against any encroachment on our “rights” from God or anyone else. The same reaction easily invades the church, rendering our worship less than what it should be because our picture of God is not as high as it should be. Perhaps we can turn what can seem to be a problem into a virtue by allowing Paul’s presentation of the sovereignty of God in election and perdition to stimulate in us a new appreciation for the greatness and incomprehensible purposes of God.

Original Meaning

God Is Free to Use His Creatures as He Wills (9:19–23)

PAUL’S REASSERTION OF God’s sovereignty in salvation (v. 18) sparks another round of question and answer (the diatribe style again). Paul’s fictional sparring partner asks: “Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?” Paul again does not answer as we might expect. He offers no logical explanation of how God’s determinative will and human responsibility cohere. Still less does he suggest that God’s will is but his response to human decisions—as we would have expected him to say if, indeed, God’s will to save were based on foreseen faith. No, rather than taking the defensive, Paul goes full speed ahead with yet further assertions of the freedom of God to do as he wants with his creatures.

In addressing his sparring partner as “Man” (anthropos; lit., human being), Paul reminds him of his creaturely status. What right, Paul asks, does this created being have to question God’s ways and complain about how God has made him (v. 20)? Alluding to a rich Old Testament and Jewish tradition (see Bridging Contexts section), Paul uses the imagery of the potter with his clay to depict God’s relationship to human beings. As is the case with any analogy, the parallel is by no means perfect. Human beings, created in God’s own image, have the power to think and make decisions; they are far more than inert clay. But the analogy works well at the one vital point the apostle wants to make here: God’s right to fashion from the clay the kinds of vessels he wants. Some will be vessels of “honor” (time; NIV “for noble purposes”), others vessels of “dishonor” (atimia; NIV “common use”).

Paul uses similar language to describe the different roles believers have in the “household of God” (see 2 Tim. 2:20). So, again, he may be depicting the different roles people have played in salvation history.2 But the parallel with “objects of his wrath” and “objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory” (Rom. 9:22–23) suggest rather that he is thinking of God’s freedom to choose some people to be saved and leave others in their spiritual deadness.3

Paul concludes his excursus about God’s freedom to bestow and withhold salvation as he chooses with a final complicated question. We will forego here a survey of the many suggestions for untangling the complex web of Paul’s syntax.4 The NIV translation reflects the best option. It makes the following decisions. (1) Verses 22–23 form a question that has no direct answer (the NIV indicates the lack of sequel with the dash). The “What if” at the beginning suggests that Paul is saying, in effect: “What if God has acted in this way? Who will question God’s authority?”

(2) The word “choosing” (or “willing”) has a causal rather than a concessive function. Paul is not saying that God has been patient with sinful people even though he wanted “to show his wrath and make his power known” by subjecting them to punishment instantly (see NASB). Rather it is because God wants publicly to display that wrath and power that he has done so. By reserving the outward display of his wrath against sinners until the end of history, God is able to make his judgment all the more obvious.

(3) The third decision reflected in the NIV is to make verse 23 the larger purpose of God’s bearing with sinful people. God has tolerated sinners not only so he can display his wrath and power all the more clearly; he has done so especially in order to “make the riches of his glory known to the objects of this mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory” (v. 23).

Behind verses 22–23 is a Jewish tradition that questioned why God was waiting so long to judge sinners and establish justice in the world. The cry of the martyrs in Revelation 6:10 reflects the same basic question: “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” Paul answers this question by showing how God is using this time before the end to prepare for an even greater display of his powerful judgment and to bring glory to his chosen people. We find in these verses, then, one final contrast, echoing those that Paul has used throughout this passage:

“Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated” (v. 13)

“God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden” (v. 18)

“pottery for noble purposes and some for common use” (v. 21)

“objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory”/“objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction” (vv. 22–23)

The contrast between wrath and glory shows that Paul is writing about individuals destined for judgment on the one hand and individuals destined for glory on the other. Salvation is the issue. What becomes explicit in this last contrast is implicit in the others as well.

Bridging Contexts

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”?

Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker,

to him who is but a potsherd among the potsherds on the ground.

Does the clay say to the potter,

“What are you making?”

Does your work say,

“He has no hands”?

But closest to Romans 9:22 are Jeremiah 18:6–10 and especially Wisdom of Solomon 15:7:

A potter kneads the soft earth

and laboriously molds each vessel for our service,

fashioning out of the same clay

both the vessels that serve clean uses

and those for contrary uses, making all alike;

but which shall be the use of each of them

the worker in clay decides.

Contemporary Significance

“Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” (9:13)

Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. (9:18)