Jeremiah 18 and, consequently, Romans 9 are typically used as primary arguments for God predestining those who will be saved and those who will not. This idea of God’s sovereign choice in terms of soteriology is then typically extended to include every atom and free agent being and doing exactly as God predestines. There are a number of difficulties with this interpretation.
Read Romans 9:6-33:
6 It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. 7 Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children. On the contrary, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” 8 In other words, it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring. 9 For this was how the promise was stated: “At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son.”
10 Not only that, but Rebekah’s children were conceived at the same time by our father Isaac. 11 Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: 12 not by works but by him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” 13 Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”14 What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15 For he says to Moses,
“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”16 It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. 17 For 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.” 18 Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
19 One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” 20 But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” 21 Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?
22 What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? 23 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— 24 even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? 25 As he says in Hosea:
“I will call them ‘my people’ who are not my people;
and I will call her ‘my loved one’ who is not my loved one,”26 and,
“In the very place where it was said to them,
‘You are not my people,’
there they will be called ‘children of the living God.’”27 Isaiah cries out concerning Israel:
“Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea,
only the remnant will be saved.
28 For the Lord will carry out
his sentence on earth with speed and finality.”29 It is just as Isaiah said previously:
“Unless the Lord Almighty
had left us descendants,
we would have become like Sodom,
we would have been like Gomorrah.”30 What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; 31 but the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, have not attained their goal. 32 Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone. 33 As it is written:
“See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes people to stumble
and a rock that makes them fall,
and the one who believes in him will never be put to shame.”
Notice that Paul is talking about pottery and clay – Paul is referring to Jeremiah 18. Paul’s argument in Romans 9 draws heavily on Jeremiah 18, so how we understand Jeremiah 18 will determine how we understand Romans 9:
This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: 2 “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.” 3 So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. 4 But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.
5 Then the word of the LORD came to me. 6 He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the LORD. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel.
The Lord takes Jeremiah to see a potter refashion a spoiled pot before saying he can do to Israel as this potter is doing to the pot. Since Augustine this has been used to support the idea that God controls every atom, and chooses who he is going to save and there’s nothing you can do about either – which is just slightly outrunning the scriptural evidence – and then this interpretation of Jeremiah 18 is then transferred into Romans 9 and particularly v22-23, that regardless of what the clay does God will fashion it into objects of mercy and objects of wrath as he chooses.
However, in studying Jeremiah 18:7-11 it becomes clear the text actually means the opposite:
7 If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, 8 and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. 9 And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, 10 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.
The Lord challenges Israel in that although their sin has spoiled them, God, as a master potter, can fashion them into a new vessel through their repentance: God responds to their pliable or hardened hearts/spoiled hearts accordingly – its not about God pre-planning from before eternity, or about foreknowledge, it’s about God’s ability to respond to Israel’s choices as he sees fit. Paul then recalls this prophetic act and argument in Romans 9.
The literary and historical context of Paul’s work shows that Romans 9 is not about salvation of individuals but rather about Jewish-Gentile relations. Paul was considering establishing a new base of operations in Rome and he was concerned for the Jewish Christians. Paul is saying that God can use the Jews or the Gentiles to bring about his plan of redemption for the world in the same way that God freely chose Jacob rather than Esau through which he would make available salvation to the world (through Jacob came the 12 tribes, and eventually Jesus of course). God is free to choose to use who he wants to do great things through. The Jews hardened their hearts and would not receive Jesus, the Gentile Christians remained pliable, they were not hard-hearted. Jeremiah 18 (and consequently Romans 9) teaches us that God responds to human decision, that if people repent God will hold off judgement, but if they were favoured and rebel God is free to remove his favour and bring judgement. Paul argues, if God is to now use the pliable Gentiles rather than the hard-hearted Jews who are we to argue? The question was never about salvation but about how God was going to bring about salvation. If we strip scripture of its historical context we also strip it of its meaning.
Why would God “endure with much patience” (Romans 9:22) if God was the one that decided to spoil the vessel? Why did Calvin and Augustine (and Piper) think it was just to present a God who designs most people to spend an eternity in hell and have no chance to do otherwise? And all the while God would be telling them that He loves them? That’s not the God we love and serve. God is the very definition of justice – we have a pale glimpse of it here on earth – yet even we understand that in order to be guilty of a crime we must have the ability to have chosen otherwise. We should remember that Calvin & Augustine were products of their own time and, just like them, we all have a responsibility to interpret scripture for the times in which we live.
There are other verses that talk about an God predestining an elect (Ephesians 1, for example). Did God choose a handful to save and choose the rest go somewhere else? No, God predestined that there would be an elect and it is up to you & I to choose whether to be in that group or not. God doesn’t decide that for us.
Thus some of the primary scriptural evidence for theistic determinism appears unsound.
–
Augustine, On Free Choice of the will (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1993).
Augustine, City of God, tr. Marcus Dods (nc: Digireads, 2009).
G. Boyd, Satan and the Problem of Evil: Constructing a Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy (Downer’s Grove: IVP, 2001).
F. Lindstrom, God and the Origin of Evil: A Contextual Analysis of Alleged Monistic Evidence in the Old Testament, (Lund: Gleerup: 1983).
J. Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960).
J. Piper, The Justification of God: An Exegetical and Theological study of Romans 9:1-23 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983).
J. Sanders, The God Who Risks: A Theology of Divine Providence, 2nd ed. (Downer’s Grove: IVP, 2007)
T. Schreiner, “Does Romans 9 Teach Individual Election unto Salvation?” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 36, no 1 (1993).
Related posts
Election and Depravity
“an God predestining an elect”
“an” before a vowel sound, “a” before a consonant sound.
Feel free to spot any typos in my blog posts, it can be a little game we play. Will keep us sharp, iron sharpens iron and all that.
Where would I be without you to point out rogue n’s. I am forever indebted to you.
You’re most welcome.
Hi Matt,
was strolling through the York Elim website and came across your sermon/lectures which in turn lead me to your blog. I have to be honest I am not so much interested in your grammar as your theology. Just wondering if you could tell me, since your whole theory seems to hinge on this point, do you think repentance is a work of man or a gift from God?
Hi Kenny,
Naturally I would disagree with the framing of the question. I would say that the ability to repent (repent = metanoia, to change one’s mind) comes from having God-given free-will. Thus repentance could not have been done without God giving us free will or without humans exercising that free will.
While repentance is something that humans do it is not a “work” (in the sense that work usually requires wages), but rather is an indicator of a persons turning to God and His ways. Thus humans repent but it is as meritorious as receiving a present and unwrapping it – should the giver of the gift thank the recipient for opening their hands to receive and unwrap the gift? (apologies if didn’t have in mind the usual reformed/calvinist twist on “faith alone”, thought I’d address in case)
Hi Matt,
thanks for the reply. I apologise for not framing the question naturally. And i didn’t have a reformed twist in mind, simply a biblical perspective. Whilst i do follow your logic in the answer I wonder if it ties with Scripture? Doesn’t Scripture itself, in places, speak of repentance as a gift rather than an ability? Scriptures along these lines being Acts 5: 31 where both repentance and forgiveness are spoken of as gifts from Christ Himself. Or Acts 11: 18. Or again 2 Tim 2: 25 which seems to posit not only that repentance is granted by God but that this leads to a knowledge of the truth that enables true free will.
I understand the philosophy of your position but it’s more how you tie that with Scripture that i am really interested to figure out. I am certainly not interested in a running debate digging trenches and the whole tribal mentality that goes with it. You are just the first person I’ve come across that has actually preached this stuff in a live church setting which means that the bible rather than just academia must come to the fore.
Blessings
K
Hi Kenny,
Long summer, sorry I’m only replying now.
I don’t see Acts 5:31 as having influence in debate about whether forgiveness is a God-given gift or a human ability. It looks as though God chose Christ’s death as a way of bringing about the possibility of forgiveness where there was none before – yet without human repentance there is no forgiveness either. I imagine it as two doors between us and God – one that he controls, and one that we control – through Jesus’ sacrifice, God has opened up the door he controls, through repentance we open the one that we control.
I would interpret Acts 11:18 in the same way. Without Christ’ sacrifice our repentance would not “lead to life” but to a locked door – the opposite of what I imagine Adam & Eve’s repentance brought about (if they had repented): their repentance would not be accepted.
2 Timothy 2:25 appears to be related to false teachers being corrected – rather than repenting for sin – again this seems to be about being granted repentance-that-leads-to-truth rather than just repentance.
Further – even if it did mean that God gave repentance or made them have a change of heart – none of the scripture you have mentioned say that God does it exclusively, ie, God could override our free will if he so chooses to occasionally bring about repentance, (though one would question how genuine that repentance would be) but that does not mean that we ourselves could not be repentant of our own free will too: It is a big leap to go from saying that there are examples in the bible where God gives repentance to people to saying that the only way one can be repentant is if God gifts it.
Again, sorry it took so long to reply.
Matt