Romans 9 and Radio Free Geneva Concluded

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A mighty fortress is our God. A bulwark never failing.

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I don't like Calvinists because they've chosen to follow John Calvin instead of Jesus Christ. I have a problem with them.

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They're following men instead of the word of God. Our helper he amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing.

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Hands standing on top of my feet, standing on a stump and crying out,

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He died for all those who elected, were selected. For still our ancient foe does seek to work us woe.

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His craft and power are great and armed with cruel hate.

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Well, first of all, James, I'm very ignorant of the reformers.

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On earth is not his equal. I think

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I probably know more about Calvinism than most of the people who call themselves Calvinists.

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Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing.

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For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever.

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Were not the right man on our side, the man of God's own choosing.

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Doomed before the womb, you ask who that may be. Christ Jesus, it is he.

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Lord, swallow off his name. Read my book. From age to age the same, and he must win the battle.

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And now from our underground bunker, hidden deep beneath Liberty University, where no one would think to look, safe from those moderate

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Calvinists, Dave Hunt fans, and those who have read and re -read George Bryson's book, we are

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Radio Free Geneva, broadcasting the truth about God's freedom to say to his own eternal glory.

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And welcome to Radio Free Geneva. We continue the series that we have begun, responding to Steve Gregg on Romans Chapter 9.

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A fellow came into our chat channel last evening and noted that there was a lengthy discussion of Romans Chapter 9 that I had not played in the series on Calvinism.

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And it was in the last MP3. And so I verified that today.

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And so we have more to listen to from Steve Gregg. Not a whole lot new, to be honest with you.

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And I must confess, finding the discussion broken up in various and sundry portions of the series makes it very difficult to respond to exegetically.

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And I think it's indicative of the fact that Mr. Gregg, his exegesis is flawed because he does not see the connection between the section he's dealing with and what came before.

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His main argument is this isn't about personal salvation, has nothing to do with personal salvation. Paul doesn't even raise the issue.

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Well, as long as you look at 9, 11 or so and following, as if it has no connection to Chapter 8 and to the question of 9, 6, and 7, then

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I can see why you would say that. But that, of course, is the problem. And that is indicative of the things we're struggling with.

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There are a couple of folks on the forum over at Steve Gregg's board who decided to question my scholarship because I haven't bothered to listen to every single thing

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Steve Gregg has ever done. I guess there's two MP3s in his Romans series on Romans 9.

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And though I've listened to 13 hours of this material, and I doubt many other people have, and Mr.

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Gregg has admitted he hasn't read a single one of my books, I'm the one lacking in scholarship because I didn't catch that one.

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Obviously, with folks like that, there's nothing you could possibly say. I haven't seen anything on the forum of any responses to any of the issues

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I've raised. It doesn't seem anybody there does this thing called exegesis, but what can you say?

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You do the best that you can possibly do. So, be that as it may, what

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I'm going to do is I'm going to hit this section. We're going to play it for you. And I did say we would take phone calls.

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It's going to take a while to get through this, but if there are people who really want to respond today, we'll queue you up.

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That's how they say it in England. We'll get you in line, and we'll go as long as we need to go, or at least till no more than 20 after, if we have to, to give you an opportunity to defend what

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Steve Gregg has had to say. Okay, so let's, with that, get to it. We want to play everything. I think when we add this all up, it'll be like 45 or 50 minutes worth of his material we've allowed to be played.

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But this time, I'm going to respond to it as we're going along, because, well, we just sort of need to do it that way.

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Romans 9. Romans 9. Not before we start.

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At least listening to this, this was after the 40 -minute mark on the last one. Evidently, you know,

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I listened to these while I was writing, and evidently, I just, I missed that one. So I listened to 12 and a half hours instead of 13, and now

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I've listened to all of it. And either that, or I fast -forwarded, or started, stopped it.

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I don't know what happened, but I didn't catch this part. But listening to it did help me to, help even me, to understand better what he's saying about the objector.

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And there's nothing new here. All he's doing is repeating what's enforced in Marston, the book from the 1970s promoting

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Arminianism. Nothing new here at all. Unfortunately, the refutation of that material found in Piper's book does not seem to have gotten into Mr.

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Gregg's hands. And so I'd like to read that to you, and that'll give you a background to hear what he's going to be having to say here.

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On page 189 of The Justification of God, second edition by John Piper, has the objector in Romans 9 .19

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interpreted Paul correctly? I've assumed with most commentators that the objection in Romans 9 .19

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is based on a sound interpretation of Romans 9 .18. That is, Paul agrees with the objector that no one can resist

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God's will, and that nevertheless God still finds fault, as God did with Pharaoh, etc. What Paul rejects is the presumptuous objection which the opponent registers to this divine action.

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But there are a few scholars who do not agree with that the objection of 9 .19 is based on a correct interpretation of 9 .18.

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In 1888, James Morrison argued that the objector fails to discriminate and thus reads into Paul's theology a meaning for hardening which

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Paul did not intend. Morrison counters, God, it is true, has to do with men's hardness of heart.

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Insofar as the hardness is penal, it is right that God should take to do with it.

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But if it be penal, it must come after transgression. And if it comes after transgression, surely it is right.

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In other words, the objection of 9 .19 is without force because it fails to realize that he hardens whom he wills, and 9 .18

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really means he punitively hardens those who first commit transgression. Before we respond to Morrison's interpretation, let us get before us a more recent but similar explanation.

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In 1973, R. T. Forster and V. P. Marston published an exegetical critique of the Augustinian -Calvinistic explanation of God's strategy in human history.

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Their interpretation of Romans 9 .19 goes as follows, God's strategy, page 80, Paul's critic had willfully misunderstood the gospel of grace in Romans 3.

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Likewise, he takes out in Romans 9 that Paul is saying that God's will for an individual is irresistible.

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Paul has pictured God as moving in history. He has mercy on whom he will, and whom he will he hardens. Yet Paul does not say here or anywhere else that God's plan or will for an individual is irresistible, and Luke in his inspired text plainly says that they are not.

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By the way, that's the Luke 7 text that actually has nothing to do with irresistible grace.

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But anyways, we have seen that the Exodus story, to which Paul alludes, is far from implying any irresistible will.

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It is true that God will ultimately achieve his plan for the world in spite of those who resist it. But the individual still has his own moral choice of whether or not to reject

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God's plan for him. The question of Paul's critic in Romans 9 .19, why does he still find fault for who can resist his will, is based on a flagrant misunderstanding of Paul's teaching.

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You will see very, very clearly, and I can't be completely critical here because maybe he did say it, but it's painfully obvious that even some of this language has been borrowed.

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This is exactly where Greg has gotten his material. This is the book he's taken it from, and he's presenting it in his presentation.

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I go back with Piper. One would suppose that if Romans 9 .19 represented a blatant misunderstanding of Romans 9 .18,

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as Morrison and Forrester and Marston claim, Paul would very simply have set the objector straight and removed the bogus stumbling block.

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Thus, Murray, following Calvin, is right to argue that, quote, if in the matter concerned, the determinative will of God were not ultimate, if the differentiation of verse 18 were not due solely to God's sovereign will, then the apostle would have had to deny the assumption on which the objection is based.

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This he does not do, end quote. Forrester and Marston are pressed by the weight of this argument to give a unique and wholly improbable interpretation of Paul's response in 9 .20.

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They argue in the following way, quote, and listen to this carefully. Yet Paul's angry reply,

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Nay, but O man, who are you that replies against God, itself demonstrates the stupidity of such a misrepresentation.

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How could the man reply against God if, as he supposed, he could not resist God's will? Therefore, Paul says, nay, rather, you yourself are resisting it now, end quote.

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That's exactly what Steve Gregg is saying. Notice that Piper identifies this as a unique and wholly improbable interpretation of Paul's response in 9 .20.

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I continue with Piper. What is evident from this remarkable construction is that the objector of Romans 9 .19

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understands Paul much better than Forrester and Marston do. For when they ask rhetorically, how could a person reply against God without resisting

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God's will? The objector could very simply answer, because my reply is a fulfillment of the hardening will of God.

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In other words, Forrester and Marston have not grasped, as well as the objector, that Paul sees Pharaoh's resistance of God's commands as a fulfillment of God's hardening decree.

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They view God's will in such a way that if God says to Pharaoh, let my people go, and Pharaoh says no, then we have proof that men can and do resist

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God's will, and the objector has erected a bogus difficulty that does not really exist in Paul's theology. Against this interpretation stands first, as we have seen, the fact that Paul, unlike Morrison and Forrester and Marston, and I guess we can throw in Steve Gregg, does not give the slightest trace of disagreement with the objector's interpretation of Romans 9 .18.

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On the contrary, his response in 9 .20 -23 not only affirms, but heightens, if that is possible, the absoluteness of God's sovereign will in disposing all things.

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Secondly, the conclusion of our own exegesis in chapter 9, that is the same exegesis that I gave, if it is correct, confirms that objector's interpretation of Romans 9 .18,

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not Forrester and Marston's, or Steve Gregg's. Accordingly, when Paul rebukes the objector, he accuses him not of misconstruing

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Romans 9 .18, but of presuming to question the rightness of God's dealing. It is precisely because the objection has the character of insolence, rather than anguish, that Paul responds so sharply.

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To be sure, Pharaoh said no to God's command that he send the Israelites into the wilderness. This can reasonably be called resisting

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God. But this is so obvious to everyone that it is utterly implausible that the objector would be affirming that no one has ever resisted

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God in this sense. Everyone has. But Paul's point was that even this resistance is in one sense willed, using the

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Greek term thellae, Romans 9 .18, by God as hardness. The objector sees clearly what Paul is saying.

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God wills that Pharaoh resist God's own commands. This fact has compelled both exegetes and systematic theologians to speak of God's will in two different senses.

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These two senses have sometimes been designated as God's signified will and effectual will, or as God's revealed will and secret will, or as his will of command and his will of decree.

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What is important for us here is to note that it is the second member of each of these pairs which the objector says cannot be resisted.

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Indeed, this is a necessary and legitimate inference from Paul's teaching, Romans 9 .14 -18.

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Perhaps Paul chose the unusual word boulamai in 9 .19b, although he had used thellae in 9 .18,

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to stress that what cannot be resisted is precisely the effectual will or decree of God.

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Probably the will referred to is the prothesis of Romans 9 .11, which stands firm because it is established apart from works 9 .12

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and before Jacob and Esau were born 9 .11. Therefore, what the objector correctly sees is that God, not man, holds final sway even in the lives of unbelievers.

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But his premise is that unless man has the power of self -determination over or against God, his evil acts cannot justly be faulted, i .e.,

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he cannot be judged as a sinner. From this premise, he opposes Paul's description of how God acted with Pharaoh, and by implication the way he acts with all people in all times.

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In all likelihood, the historical reality behind this formerly familiar objection is the same Pharisaical standpoint countered by Paul in Romans 9 .11

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as described and located by Gerhard Meyer, etc., etc. I again refer you to John Piper's fine work on that, a work that is not cited to my knowledge whatsoever in any of Steve Gregg's materials.

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Verses 17 through 22. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, the

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Scripture says to Pharaoh, even for this same purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you.

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And this showing of power in him means by judging him with the ten plagues in the days of Moses, that's what it's referring to.

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God shows his power in Pharaoh by judging him. So God says, I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be declared in all the earth.

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Therefore, Paul says, he has mercy on whom he wills, and whom he wills he hardens.

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You will say to me then, why does he still find fault? For who has resisted his will?

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But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, why have you made me like this?

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Does not the potter have power over the clay from the same lump, to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?

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What if God, wanting to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy which he had prepared beforehand for glory?

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Now this is thought in many cases to be one of the most powerful passages on individual, unconditional election in the

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Bible. I pointed that out before. The earlier verses about Jacob and Esau are thought to be among the most pointed verses toward the unconditional nature of election in the scripture.

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In fact, they are said to be R .C. Sproul said it was these verses that made a Calvinist out of him when he was resisting it. He was not eager to be a

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Calvinist, but he was won over by these verses. It's rather sad that he was won over by a

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Calvinistic interpretation of these verses, since that interpretation does not fit the context and is not even the most reasonable way of understanding the passage, nor of harmonizing it with the rest of scripture.

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I pointed out earlier, so I will not dwell on it now, that the discussion of Esau and Jacob is clearly not a discussion of individual election for salvation.

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And of course, I will just simply point out that we demonstrated that Mr. Gregg has ignored the fact that Paul is answering a question.

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And Mr. Gregg's interpretation ignores that question, ignores the reality of demonstrating that not all those who are descended from Israel are

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Israel. This is the issue of the remnant. He raises the issue of the remnant later on, but does not recognize that his national privilege interpretation and remnant do not fit together.

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The remnant are those who are the true worshippers of Jehovah. All of national Israel had the national privileges, but the remnant were those who are regenerate and had a relationship with Jehovah.

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So, to even recognize the remnant issue later on, militates against the nation's only interpretation that is provided elsewhere.

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God does not say and Paul does not say that Jacob was saved and Esau was lost.

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This may be true, but it doesn't say so, and that's not the issue being discussed. What is being said is that God chose

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Jacob over Esau when they were both in the womb. He does not say, Paul does not say what they were chosen for.

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But he quotes two scriptures in the Old Testament that tell us what his meaning is. He quotes Genesis 25, 23 and Malachi 1, 2, and 3.

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In both cases, a preference of Jacob over Esau is affirmed.

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But in both cases, that passage has to do with the nation that came from Jacob, namely

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Israel. And we saw of course that the context in which the apostle is using it is he is making application to the time in the womb, to the individuals, and he has no discussion anywhere.

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If he wants to talk about the word salvation is nowhere in here. Well, if you go back to 9 .6, it is. If you go back to 8 .29

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and following, it is. That's the context. That's the flow. Where is this stuff about national privilege? Where do you find that anywhere in Romans 9?

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Where's the national privilege here? I can't find it. Where is it? It's just being asserted. Well, it's here.

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It's right there. Where? What national privilege of Israel over against Edom is discussed here?

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I can't see it, but we keep hearing about it. And the nation that came from Esau, namely

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Edom. So that in essence, the verses are talking about God's preference of the nation of Israel over the nation of Edom.

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For what? Yeah, that certainly explains how all Israel is not Israel.

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If you ask me, well, Paul, my main objection to your entire gospel presentation just culminated in Romans 8 and if God is for us, who can be against us?

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And all these people in Christ and the elect and who can bring a charge against God's elect?

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My objection to all that is that the majority of the Jews do not accept your message.

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And if my response was, yeah, but Israel had some great privileges over Edom, is that a response?

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That's the kind of apologist that Paul is being turned into here. For what reason?

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Because we don't want a free God whose grace actually saves.

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That's the whole reason. Well, certainly God didn't choose the nation of Israel to go to heaven and the nation of Edom to go to hell in total.

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Because many Israelites are children of the devil, according to Jesus, and end up in hell.

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To be an Israelite doesn't guarantee salvation, but it does mean you're in the chosen people. At least it did in the Old Testament times.

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Because God chose Israel for something, but not necessarily for inevitable salvation. He chose them to be used as a functioning entity for His purposes on earth.

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Which is nowhere discussed in Romans 9. Functioning entity. Remember where we are.

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Look at the center part of Romans 9. The previous part of Romans 9 and into Romans 8 is about what?

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Sanctification. Glorification. Justification. Calling. Is that about national privilege?

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I don't think so. Who will bring a charge against God's elect? Is that national privilege?

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No, not by that. Let us go after Romans 9. Let's go to all the texts that follow after starting in verse 24.

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It's about the remnant. God has left Himself a remnant. And Romans 9 ends then with the

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Israelites have stumbled. They haven't found what? Righteousness. Because they pursued it by what?

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As if it were by law rather than by faith. So Romans 9 ends with salvation. Romans 9 begins with salvation after Romans 8.

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But when we get to the middle part where God's freedom is emphasized, all of a sudden we have national privilege.

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That's what we're getting here, folks. Temporal use of a nation is what's being chosen here. God chooses one nation.

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He's going to use a nation. And He chooses this one, not that one. And He does so without any basis of merit on the part of the progenitors of that nation.

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He just decides to favor this family and not that family with a special calling.

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But that calling is not essentially a calling to salvation. Because one who is not of Israel could be saved and a person who is in Israel could be lost in terms of eternal salvation.

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Many Jews are lost and in hell today and many Gentiles are saved. Even Edomites got saved.

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There's a very good reason to believe that Job was an Edomite. Of course, none of this really has anything to do with the point because no one was trying to say that these are all just nations and that it's just taking up time here.

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...suggests this in Scripture. And he was certainly saved and a godly man. So in saying that God chose the nation of Israel over the nation of Edom, it is not even discussing the question of individual salvation.

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That is not on Paul's mind. It is not part of his discussion. It wasn't in Romans 8 and the beginning of Romans 9.

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He doesn't pick it up right after this in Romans 9 and continue it and talk about righteousness and salvation and faith and law. It's just this one part where all of a sudden

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Paul completely forgot what he was talking about. The discussion in chapters 9 -11 of Romans is about Israel as an entity and their significance and the nature of God's choosing of Israel.

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He is not trying to settle Calvinistic points against Arminian points here. He is not even discussing those issues.

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He is talking about the nature of God's sovereign choice of Israel, who he chose, who he did not chose, to fill the role that Israel filled.

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Now, he talks about Pharaoh there and you see, sometimes Calvinists say, you know, you can't make this just a message of corporate election of Israel.

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We've got the issue of salvation here of individuals because it says Moses, verse 15. He says to Moses, that's an individual, or of Pharaoh, verse 17 he speaks.

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These are individuals. But of course, the fact that they're individuals is irrelevant. Jacob and Esau were individuals too.

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But in the context, they represent leaders of nations, heads of ethnic groups.

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See how the overriding principle, the only, I would submit to you that the only reason why

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Mr. Gregg, Forrester Marston, and Arminians in general, attempt to adopt this kind of understanding of Romans 9, it's obviously because they can't allow this to stand.

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I mean, God can't be free to harden whom he wills and to mercy whom he wills because of free will.

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Since we know free will is true, it has to be true, our entire philosophy is based on it, then we take that and we disconnect this text.

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Even though we're talking about Jacob and Esau in the womb, we want to extend that out to nations somewhere down the road and national privilege, which

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Paul never even raises the question and doesn't even use that language. Here is the overriding utilization of a tradition, defense of a tradition, that results in the overturning the text, literally upside down.

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And the things that are said of them pertain not to them as individuals, because when it says the older shall serve the younger, that is

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Esau shall serve Jacob, that never did happen. And this is where, again, Mr. Gregg is wrong.

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He is completely wrong. Genesis 27 .40 even makes the reference that he will serve him, but the point is that once he sold his birthright, that he becomes the servant of Jacob.

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And so when he tries to make a false prophecy, he can't have anything to do with it. And realize all this is an argument against Paul's own interpretation of these texts.

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The applications that Paul makes is the argument that he is actually making. He is actually going against Paul. Esau, the man, never, ever, ever served

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Jacob, the man. And if that's what God is predicting, God missed it. Way off. Of course,

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I would argue that given Steve Gregg's position, where I see him not really having any means of defending his position against open theism, maybe

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God did get it wrong. Maybe, you know, Esau was supposed to serve, but he just chose not to.

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Because remember, if you weren't listening before, Mr. Gregg made it plain that even Paul could have said no.

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And I think, if you listen really closely here, he's going to basically say that Pharaoh could have as well.

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So if Pharaoh, if the hardening of Pharaoh was based upon Pharaoh's previously hardening himself, which is what he says, then

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God could not deliver the people the time he desired to deliver the people. Even though he had prophesied beforehand that he would deliver the people to a certain time, if in point of fact

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Pharaoh's will is supreme over God's will, then he might have had to try two, three, four, five times before he could find a good enough

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Moses and a good enough Pharaoh to make this thing work. And so the whole foundation of biblical prophecy is simply wiped away.

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You cannot even begin to trust it, and that's why I really have said many, many times, his position cannot defend itself against the attacks of open theists.

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But if God was saying the nation of Edom would serve the nation of Israel, then that historically came true and therefore obviously it's what he did mean.

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There is no statement here speaking of individual election. Now as far as Moses is concerned,

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Moses was the leader of Israel. Pharaoh was the leader of Egypt. We're still talking about a tension between two peoples, two nations.

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Even though, and he's going to mention, he recognizes that the Moses quotation is from Exodus 33.

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He's going to go back to Moses and say, ah, see, he was going to make a people out of Moses, so it's all this people, people, people stuff.

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But the problem is the I will show mercy and have compassion whom I have compassion, that section is where God says that he has known

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Moses, he has known his name, he has chosen to reveal himself to him in a way he did not reveal himself to the people of Israel.

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The section that's quoted is actually in reference to the personal singular revelation of God's glory to Moses and not the people of Israel at all.

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God did not choose Egypt to bless, he chose Israel to bless. He revealed this fact to the man,

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Moses, who is their leader. In fact, in the context, when God said to Moses, I will have mercy on whomever

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I will have mercy and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion, if one would look at the context of that, it was in the context that God said in Exodus 33 that he's going to wipe out

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Israel because of their worshiping the golden calf and make a new nation out of Moses. In which context did

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I will have mercy and whom I will have mercy? In other words, the context was of the personal revelation of God's glory to Moses which was not revealed to the people of Israel.

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It's completely blew it. In the context of saying, Moses, I can replace them with your family and your people make a great nation out of you.

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I can in other words have mercy on your people, your nation instead of on them if I want to.

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He's still talking about choosing a people group in the sense they chose the nation of Israel to accomplish certain purposes that God was working out in history and is now working out through the church.

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It was a choice of people that God was going to use to accomplish his purposes.

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The discussion is not about election for salvation. Likewise the business about Pharaoh. God hardened

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Pharaoh. True. But I discussed this in an earlier lecture. I won't go as deep into it as I would like.

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Again, I don't really too often get tired of talking about these things but I just don't want to use up my time.

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The fact of the matter is the judgment on Pharaoh was not about a man being reprobated by God to go to hell.

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I'm not denying that Pharaoh went to hell but that's a separate issue. The judgment on Pharaoh was a judgment on his nation,

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Egypt. True. However, again, why was it that he lifted that man up?

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And could Pharaoh have avoided God's decree? Could God have been frustrated in the demonstration of his power and his might and the proclamation of his name at that point in time in history?

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It sounds to me like Greg would say, yeah. If Pharaoh had just chosen to be, if he had just not hardened his heart at first then

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God would have had to demonstrate his power in a different way or at a different time with a different Pharaoh, etc.,

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etc. That's an incoherent and unbiblical view of the knowledge of God and the decree of God and God's purposes in this world.

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God judged Egypt by hardening Pharaoh. God judges a nation many times by giving them corruption in their leadership.

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Now, this doesn't mean, and it certainly doesn't say, that God picked

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Pharaoh, a neutral individual, and foreordained that he would be a bad guy. There is no such thing as a neutral individual.

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We're all in Adam. We fell in him. The biblical description is enemies of God, not neutral individuals.

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And therefore, from birth, he hardened him against God to make sure that he'd be a bad guy. Didn't have to, because we're already spiritually dead in Adam.

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No, the hardening of Pharaoh occurred late in life. After he'd made many moral decisions, he'd picked a path.

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He'd become a tyrant, an oppressor, a murderer, before God ever hardened his heart. And it sounds to me like Mr.

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Greg has a rather Pelagian view of the nature of man at that point. The hardening of Pharaoh's heart by God, that, in the

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Bible, the word hardened in Hebrew means strengthened. Pharaoh chose his course, and God strengthened him in that course.

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Basically made him frozen in that state. If Pharaoh had never made that decision himself,

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God couldn't have frozen him in his position. God couldn't have? Again, difficult to say at this point.

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Just listening to this doesn't sound like Doctrine of Original Sin even comes into play here, or maybe even is believed.

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Hard to say. Don't know. It's like when I was a little kid. Now listen to this. This sort of illustrates it for me, because here you have the illustration of what it means that God couldn't have hardened

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Pharaoh in this way. My mother would say, what if your face froze in that condition? The implication is if your face froze in that position, and you had to live with the consequences of having an ugly, distorted face, it'd be your fault.

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And this was intended as a motivator not to make such faces. Of course, no one ever suggested the face would freeze that way.

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It's kind of a silly thing to say. But the implication was this. You make a funny face, if your face froze in that condition, and you had to look like that for the rest of your life, whose fault is it but your own?

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Your face can't freeze in that position if it never is put in that position by you. Pharaoh's heart could never have been strengthened or hardened in the position it was in if he had not previously postured his heart in that position.

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And God found him in that state and hardened him in that state as an act of judgment.

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God found him in that state? What, had God gone on vacation? And came back and said,

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Wow! Look at this guy! He's hardened his heart. I guess

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I can use him now. Again, it sounds to me like we've got some

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Pelagian open theism running around here, and I'm not sure how you put this together with those clear texts that talk about God is the creator of all things and knowing all things future and past, and not just passively, but because he is the creator.

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It does not say that God picks people to damn or to make sinners out of.

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He does not foreordain that they sin, but he does foreordain that sinners will experience certain judgments.

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And the hardening of Pharaoh's heart was not a reprobating of Pharaoh from birth, it was a judgment of Pharaoh for acts he had already committed.

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So, evidently, God does, he makes decisions in time based upon what people do, and so he changes.

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And, again, it sounds like we're dealing with a proto -open theist here. And more than that, it was a judgment on his nation.

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As the leader of the nation, what Paul is pointing out is that God chose the nation of Israel over the nation of Edom.

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Later, he chose the nation of Israel over the nation of Egypt. And he even almost chose the people of Moses descent over the people of Israel, but Moses interceded and God didn't do that.

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Which also raises questions about the unconditionalness of choice, since Moses' intercession is the only thing that kept

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God from doing what he said he was going to do. That's open theism. I'm sorry, but that as far as I can tell, that's a promotion of open theism.

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See, I mean, God won't do it, and Moses interceded, and so, you know. And people go, well, yeah, it sounds like that.

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And you go, um, excuse me, hello, are you seriously suggesting that the biblical presentation, taking all the

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Bible and everything it teaches, is it God who just got all upset, and Moses was much more calm than God?

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And God got talked out of what he was going to do by a much more merciful and level -headed

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Moses? Or might it just be that maybe all this stuff that God keeps putting

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Moses through is to change Moses rather than God? You know?

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When you stand up for someone, when you intercede for someone, it sort of changes your viewpoint of that someone?

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You know? Maybe that's what's going on there? Amazing. Destroy Israel and make a new nation out of Moses. Obviously, intercession changed it.

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But the point here is this is not a scripture that teaches that God makes people into sinners.

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God makes people into sinners. Well, you know, if you believed what the Bible teaches about being an Adam and fallen in Him, you wouldn't have to worry about that part, because then

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God doesn't have to do that. Look at the rest of the scriptures that we read here in Romans 9. Romans 9. He has mercy on whom he wills, and whom he wills he hardens.

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Okay, God does harden who he wants to, but who does he want to harden? He hardens, as a judgment, people like Pharaoh, who were wicked people, as a judgment on their wickedness.

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Now, what was the actual reason for the hardening given by the Apostle Paul? Which we don't hear here.

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Is so that my name might be made known, power demonstrated, you know, the stuff about God.

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But of course, Arminianism is all about man, not about God. God becomes the great responder. And so, instead of God's purposes being fulfilled at his time in history, what do you have?

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You have God dependent upon the actions of the man as to whether he's going to be able to fulfill his will or not.

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This is not a statement that he chooses to make people wicked. It has nothing to do with that. ...range of consideration in the passage.

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Verse 19, you will see... Now, by the way, that sounded like I edited something. I didn't. That's just, that's exactly how it came off the web.

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I don't know if they had a recording problem, or they, it was a tape, and they switched it over, and I don't know.

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But that's just, you can go check his website if they're still there, and that's just the way it was. ...say then to me then, why does he still find fault?

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For who has resisted his will? Now, this double question presupposes a certain logic.

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That if I can't resist God's will, then he couldn't very well find fault with me, right? Okay, here comes the re -explanation of what we've already heard on Romans 9 .19.

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I may not... Having read all of Piper on this already, I may not interject anything at this point, because we've already,

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I think, demonstrated where the problems are here. By the way, 877 -753 -3341 877 -753 -3341 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number.

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I am certain that there are a number of folks out there who are, at least a couple who are going to be posting on Steve Gregg's board about how unscholarly and everything else

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I am. Now's your chance, guys. If you're going to sit there and hide behind your keyboard, you're wasting your opportunity here.

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Now's your opportunity to get online and explain where I went wrong in my exegesis and in my refutation of Steve Gregg.

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877 -753 -3341 If I'm doing exactly what

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God ordained I would do, then how can God blame me for it? Now, there's a certain logic in that, and many people think that Paul wants to demolish that logic, because Paul answers it saying,

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But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing form say to him who formed it,

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Why have you made me like this? Now, here's how I in earlier years understood

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Paul's argument here and how most Calvinists and a lot of other people understand it. Even people who aren't Calvinists sometimes almost feel urged to become

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Calvinists from this particular verse. I think that's just because it's so plain and clear.

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Here's what I thought Paul was saying. Paul was saying, you might think there's a certain logic in the suggestion that if God has ordained that I sin, he can't find fault with me for sinning.

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And though that may sound like a logical conclusion, you have no right to challenge

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God. Who are you to challenge God essentially? It may seem logical that God cannot justly punish you if he's the one who ordained your misbehavior.

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If no one has resisted his will and everything they do bad is God's will for them to do, then God shouldn't punish. Hey, who are you to call

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God on the carpet about his decisions? In other words, Paul would be saying, Well, you know, that does sound logical, but we don't have any right to challenge

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God's justice here. Because we're like a pot and he's like a potter. We just don't have any rights in this matter to ask

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God for an explanation. Now, let me just stop just for a moment and remind you that the fundamental essence of Paul's response in 20 and following is to emphasize the ontological difference between the creator and that which is created.

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And in fact, even though he's going to try to go back to this idea of the lump of clay is

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Israel, and we're back to national stuff here, and then the remnants, not recognizing the remnants, the elect anyways, and then not recognizing that doesn't fit because then when

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Paul applies this, he talks about us, Jews and Gentiles, which doesn't fit in any of this stuff. But anyway, the essence of the response is to point out,

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Oh man, who are you who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to him who molded it.

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Now, that is personal. That is direct. That is creator and creation, not creator and nation.

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Okay? And the force of it is to put man in his place and for man to recognize that he who is formed by God and what's the rest of the thing formed will not say to him who formed it.

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Why did you make me like this? It's not the nation will not say to the God who formed it.

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It's the thing formed will not say anything. It's that ontological difference that is so clear, so compelling.

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That's why the vast majority of interpreters, the interpretation he's presenting is unique and off the wall at its best as Piper described it.

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And if God is doing something that seems kind of bad, doing something that seems kind of illogical, seems kind of unjust, well, hey, who do you think you are to call

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God? We're not his judge. He's our judge. Well, I would certainly agree that I am not God's judge and that he is my judge.

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I don't feel like I have the right to challenge God. And if God indeed is doing something really, really weird and seemingly unjust and wicked and unfair, but if in fact he is doing that, then

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I'm going to have to just live with the confusion and say, well, I don't know why he does that, but I'm not going to call him into question on it. That's fine. I'm willing to let

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God be God, but is that what's being said here? Is Paul saying, yes,

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God is seemingly unjust, but just keep your mouth shut. Sit down.

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You've got no reason to pipe up against God here. Which, of course, is not the interpretation that I or almost anybody else have offered to recognize the ontological difference.

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In fact, he's going to present another canard, another straw man in saying that basically the Calvinist view is that Paul is rebuking the idea that we should think logically.

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No. We're rebuking the idea that man and God are on the same level. We're rebuking the idea that we should think in such a way that we can actually put

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God in the dock, that we can take the potter and demand that the potter give an answer for why he makes the pots the way he makes the pots.

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Okay? That's what's irrational and has nothing to do with our thinking logically at all.

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Well, that is, of course, how some people, maybe most people, understand this. However, look at it.

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He says, you will say to me, then, why does he still find fault?

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For who has resisted his will? Now, the question, who has resisted his will is clearly a rhetorical question.

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It implies no one has resisted his will. So, why does he find fault? Right? That's what it means.

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And the context is what in Romans 9 .18? So then, whom he wills, he mercies, and whom he wills, he hardens.

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Okay? Scleruni, by the way, means to harden. You know, multiple sclerosis, arterial sclerosis, hardening.

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That's what it's all about. And the point is that in Romans 9 .18, he has mercy on whom he wills, and he hardens whom he wills.

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The whom he wills is a consistent, two different actions based upon his will. And so, the objection has to flow from that, not from any other external consideration.

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No one resists God's will. Why does he find fault? My previous understanding of this passage thought that Paul was affirming the second statement, but not the first.

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Namely, that in fact, no one does resist God's will. In fact, God hardens whom he wants to harden, so his mercy will him.

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He chooses some to be reparated, chooses some to be vessels of wrath, and no one can resist his will.

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Fair enough. But, we have no right to say, why does he find fault? And therefore,

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I thought there was, Paul was denying us the right to be logical. Because it is logical. If no one resists his will, how can he find fault?

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That's a logical question. It's not logical if you recognize the ontological difference between the potter and the pots.

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And so, if his previous interpretation was that far off, well, it really hasn't improved much going the other direction, once he ran into Forrester Marston, but still, he never really did have a sound understanding of the text.

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I thought Paul was saying, yes, no one does resist his will, but to be logical and say,

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God can't find fault is not our prerogative. We're not allowed to be logical. So just be quiet and shut up, you fool.

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Who are you, oh man? Cancer against God. Now, that's what

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I thought of it, but I now understand it differently, because I understand the verses preceding it differently than I did.

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I do not believe that Paul affirms that no one has resisted God's will.

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It would be the case, of course, that if no one could resist God's will, that it would be strange and seemingly wrong for him to find fault with him.

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The objector's reasoning is right, but the objector's premise is wrong.

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You know, if you have a wrong premise, but reason flawlessly from that premise, you'll come with a wrong answer, even if your logic was perfect.

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If you have the right premise that you start with, and reason with perfect logic, you will always reach a valid conclusion.

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But if your premise is wrong, your logic may be perfect, but your conclusion wrong.

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What I understand here is this. The objector that Paul is quoting is not reasoning wrongly.

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He's reasoning with a commendable, seamless logic. The problem is his premise is wrong.

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The premise is, no one has resisted God's will, therefore the logical conclusion is, God shouldn't find fault.

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Well, but he does find fault, so the conclusion is wrong. Therefore, either the logic is wrong, or the premise is wrong.

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Do you understand what I'm saying there? If you reach a wrong conclusion, it's either because you reasoned wrongly from a right premise, or reasoned rightly from a wrong premise.

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Either the reasoning is wrong, or the premise is wrong. These objectors are wrong, but in what sense?

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Why do they think God can't find fault? They've either reasoned wrongly from a right premise, or reasoned rightly from a wrong premise.

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In this case, their premise is what's wrong. They are thinking that Paul is saying that no one has ever resisted

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God's will. That's their premise, and they reason rightly from that, that if that is so, then

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God can't find fault. Now, Paul does not accuse them of bad reasoning, invalid reasoning, or wickedness in even choosing to reason.

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Reasoning is okay. God says, come, let us reason together. There's no sin in reasoning. What he points out to them is their premise is mistaken.

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Their premise is, no one has resisted God's will. His answer is, well, who are you?

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You're answering against God. Isn't that a form of resisting God's will, to answer against God, to challenge

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God? If God says a certain thing and you say it ain't so, isn't that resisting Him? And, of course, this is the exact position that was cited by Piper, refuted by Piper, and is being presented here.

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There is nothing in the text that identifies the answering back to God as being the same as resisting the will of God, because the will of God is what was expressed in, he hardens whom he hardens, and he mercies whom he mercies.

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And it is not of our questioning that that's going to determine who's hardened and who is mercied.

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And so, there's a complete disconnect here. This is desperation eisegesis, but it's about the best they can come up with.

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If God's commanding you to submit and you don't submit, isn't that resisting God? And it's clear to me now that what

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Paul is doing is challenging their premise, denying their premise, because of the parallel phraseology.

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Yeah, he's going to deny their premise by then continuing the same thing he said in Romans 9, 18, that leads the objection, and that is that it is

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God who from one lump makes vessels for honor and dishonor. Now, he's going to try to get around that too. He's going to jump out of, and if you really want to see how desperate someone is, what we're going to hear in just a moment, is when he gets to the vessels of honor and dishonor, he's going to jump out of Romans, and he's going to go and go to a completely different context in 1

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Timothy, where Christians are being exhorted to make themselves vessels of honor, and he's going to assume they're the same context.

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Well, same words. Well, yeah, but it's a totally different context, a completely different application, and try to get around it that way.

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But we see, again, hopefully, you have seen, when I was able to walk through this text,

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I was able to start in Romans 8, and I was able to walk straight through, allowing the language to speak for itself, the text to interpret itself, straight on through, without ever having to basically jump off of a cliff, and run off to another text to hear, well, this can't mean this because of this, and it can't mean that because of that.

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Don't have to do that. The text is beautifully consistent and harmonious with itself if you just, you know, allow it to, if you just happen to believe everything that it's saying.

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He could have represented the objector as saying, how can he find fault because no one has resisted his will?

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But instead, that latter part, he phrases not no one has, but who has resisted his will? It's a rhetorical question, and it means no one has, but it's interesting how he phrases it.

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He phrases the objection in this form, who has resisted his will? And his answer is, who are you? You are doing so.

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You wonder whether a man can resist God's will? Who could possibly do it? Well, look at yourself. Who are you?

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You're doing it right now. You're playing against God. You know, it's what Paul is saying here.

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Of course, Paul never once identifies this as resisting his will. Not in that context, in any way.

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That would overturn the whole conclusions he had just come to, and everything came up to this. And by the way, none of this has to do anything with nations, does it?

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No, it doesn't. Yes, people do resist God's will. It is not predetermined by God that people will not resist his will.

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You're doing it right now. You're playing against God. You're doing something very wrong, very invalid.

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But what you're doing invalid is not reasoning that if God predestines all things, then he's to blame.

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That would be a valid reasoning. You're starting with the wrong assumption. Namely, that no one resists his will.

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And I can prove right now that people do. You're doing it as you speak. As you make this objection, you're resisting God. But then the

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Calvinist, when I say this, comes back and he says, wait a minute, wait, wait, wait. If, indeed,

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Mr. Arminian, Steve, if, indeed, Paul's reasoning in the earlier verses is as you say, namely, that Paul is not talking about individual choices and individual elections, but he's talking about corporate election of nations and so forth, then why would the objector come up with this thought that no one has resisted his will?

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And that is an excellent objection. If all that's being discussed here is that God has the right to choose

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Israel over Egypt, then it does not follow that the objector would even raise this.

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And, of course, the objector is the one that Paul has heard over and over again. So how do we get around that? And that God couldn't find

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Paul. In other words, the very fact that the objector is expected to make this mistake proves that Paul's earlier discussion would lead, possibly, to that mistaken notion.

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Now, how about that correct notion? In other words, the objector would not see immediately that Paul's talking about nations instead of individuals, and therefore, maybe he's not.

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Well, I mean, a Calvinist can desperately try to make this objection, but the passage speaks for itself, what it's saying.

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All I can say is that Paul is not affirming that the objector is hearing him right. In fact, the objector is reaching a wrong conclusion.

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Paul is saying that God has sovereignly chosen certain nations and certain men as founders of nations to be honored as vessels of God's use in temporal purposes in history.

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Honored as vessels of God's use in temporal purposes in history.

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Yeah, I find that in the text, don't you? I mean, I find vessels of honor, but they're then described as being unto glory and salvation there in 9 .24.

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And dishonor is vessels of wrath. And this national privilege stuff, boy,

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I tell you, once it gets stuck in your brain, you just keep inserting it everywhere. An objector may extrapolate from that, since God hardened

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Pharaoh's heart, since God chose Jacob and passed over Edom. One may extrapolate from that further than they're entitled to.

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I guess all things must be determined by God then. No one does anything against his will. Wait, don't go so far.

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I'm not saying that. Even though I said it in Ephesians 1 .11, I'm not saying it here. You are resisting his will, so that proves very well that that's not what

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I'm saying. You see, that a detractor could misunderstand Paul is not unthinkable.

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Throughout the book of Romans, Paul is saying, but you will say then, or one will say then. And he raises an objection that someone will raise who misunderstands what he's just said.

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And he answers it. This happens in chapter 3, it happens in chapter 6. What shall we say then? Shall we sin? I mean, he had just said that when the law entered, sin abounded that grace would abound them more.

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Oh, okay. Well, then if sins abounding cause grace to abound, then should we continue in sin that grace may abound? No, he says.

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You're misunderstanding my point. Paul is continually aware of the way in which his point might be misunderstood.

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And he anticipates the objection and answers it. He is talking here about God's sovereign, unconditional choice of Israel over other nations that he might otherwise have chosen, like Edom or Egypt or some other.

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Even though his conclusion is going to be, even us, the vessels of glory, even us, whom he also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles.

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Now, who might that be but the elect of God unto salvation? Even of Moses' people that he could have made a great nation from, as he promised

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Moses he would, if Moses would have allowed it. But, you know, God chooses a nation over another nation.

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For what? Not for individual salvation, but for other purposes, the purposes that Israel was there to fulfill.

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It is wrong for an objector to extrapolate from this that God makes all the choices for all individuals about eternal destiny.

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If that were so, indeed, he couldn't find fault with people for their sin, but he doesn't do that. Interestingly enough,

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Steve Gregg right here is saying the objector was right. Now, he interprets the objector differently, but in any meaningful contextual reading, an exegetical reading, he agrees with the objector that if Romans 9 .18

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is true and God hardens whom he hardens, because remember, Steve Gregg, he does not harden whom he hardens. He does not harden whom he wills.

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He hardens only those who harden themselves first. He does not have the right to harden someone for his own purposes.

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And so, he, in essence, because he rejects the fundamental essence of Pauline theology in regards to the sovereignty and freedom of God and man's deadness and sin, ends up, in essence, saying that's right,

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God would have no basis for judging because man has to have an autonomous free will for there to be judgment.

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Now, of course, the fact that all died in Adam, and that death therefore reigns even over infants who do not sin the same way that Adam did seems to have gotten lost.

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I think Romans 5 was before Romans 9, isn't it? Last time I checked, new math gets me all confused. So, I think 5 still comes before 9, but Paul was before new math anyway, so I guess we're okay.

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And the very raising of the objection proves that he doesn't do that, because no one could raise such an objection to God if God's will was so irresistible as that, as Paul is saying.

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Now, he does say God endures vessels of wrath, in verse 22, that are prepared for destruction.

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This is interesting. Listen to this, because the application that Paul makes here when he talks about the potter's right over the clay to make from the same lump one vessel for honor abuse, another for common use, and then the parallel goes right into that.

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What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?

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Please note that the first part of that verse is basically going to disappear, because the idea that God has a purpose, and that that purpose involves the demonstration of His wrath and the making of His power known is not a part of this kind of theology.

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They just don't have a foundation for it. When God's simply responding to man, you know, why would

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God even want to demonstrate these things anyways? By the way, I realize what time it is. I said we'll go long enough. We've got one caller on hold.

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877 -753 -3341 We're almost done with Steve Gregg's presentation. I want to get all of it in, so those folks over on his forum can't accuse me of trying to hide the one thing

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I couldn't answer. That would be the one thing we'd get. We won't hear a response to any of this, but there was one thing he said in tape number 47, that you can't answer, that's why

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I didn't play it on your program. That's what we're going to get. Yeah, He endures them. That doesn't mean

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He makes them into vessels of wrath. Now when it says the potter has the right to take one lump and make one vessel for all.

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Did you hear what he said? He endures them. Doesn't mean that he made them. So the potter makes vessels of wrath, prepared for destruction, and the entire section of although willing to demonstrate, and I prefer the

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ESV here, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power.

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That was his purpose. And you see, Steve Gregg can't handle that because that's not his purpose. And God can't accomplish

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His purpose unless man allows Him to do so. He can't harden Pharaoh's heart unless Pharaoh first does so.

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A vessel of dishonor is a person who chooses to be dishonorable and therefore God can't make

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His wrath and His power known until man enables Him to do so.

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That is the theology that's being presented. ...another for dishonor. What Paul is saying, he's alluding back to Jeremiah chapter 18 verses 1 -6 where God told

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Israel that they were the clay and He was the potter. In that particular active parable Jeremiah saw a potter working with clay and the vessel was marred on the wheels so he started over with another one.

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Okay? The lump of clay in Jeremiah and also in a similar passage in Isaiah Isaiah 45 -9 and Isaiah 64 verses 6 and 8 compare

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Israel with a lump of clay and God is the potter. Paul is using the same imagery. Israel is the lump.

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The nation of Israel is the lump. And Paul says that the potter has the right to make from one lump from the same lump, that's

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Israel, two vessels. Now notice, to limit the lump to only

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Israel is to miss the entirety of the point because what was one of the applications that leads directly up to this and is explained by it.

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Is it not Pharaoh who is not of Israel? Is it not

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Esau who is not of Israel? I mean again, that's where this oh national privilege, oh that's not that now, oh no this is just Israel you go back to these, well you know in the

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Old Testament it was only used of Israel so therefore in the New Testament it can only be used that way. You wouldn't have a single Messianic prophecy in the

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New Testament that would actually be valid if you continued to use that kind of exegetical interpretation. It wouldn't work.

01:00:02

And I bet you dollars to donuts if we go and I ain't going to spend my time doing this but if we went to his online files and looked up some

01:00:10

Messianic prophecies he would not apply this kind of, well it has to be the same context as original and so if the original was just limited to Israel then it has to be limited here even when

01:00:21

Paul applies to the Jews and Gentiles within one verse. That is, in the nation of Israel, just as he chose from the family of Isaac one branch of the family that is

01:00:32

Jacob's and not Esau's to be the people through whom he would carry forth his purpose in the earth so in the family of Israel generally, the lump which is

01:00:42

Israel, God has the right to make two different vessels that is, have two branches of the family one of which he uses for honorable purposes, the other he does not and in the context those that he uses for honorable purposes are the elect the remnant, those in Israel who receive

01:01:00

Christ are the vessel that he uses for honorable purposes those that are

01:01:09

Jews who reject Christ, they belong to that other part of the lump that is made into a vessel for dishonor but whether the individuals choose to be in this vessel or that vessel is not discussed there

01:01:23

Did you catch that? The vessels are clearly individuals in the text because God's wrath is upon them, but now you get in a vessel by your free choice by your free will, see?

01:01:35

I mean, the whole emphasis of the text is the potter and the clay and the power and the freedom and man, as long as you've got that free will idol going, you can read it into anything, you know,

01:01:49

I've said many times when I first read Norman Geiser talking about John 6, 44 where's the free will of man?

01:01:55

There is no text it doesn't matter how clear it is or how compelling it is, you can, as long as a man wants to find a way to keep himself to where he has the right to control

01:02:11

God by his sovereign, powerful will well, you know, there's just no stopping him.

01:02:16

But the choice of being a vessel of honor or not is in the individual's choice how do

01:02:22

I know that? Well, the same author Paul II Timothy Okay, okay, here we go we're almost done here, and then we'll and again, only got one caller right now where's all the people that can demonstrate how loopy

01:02:35

I am what's, I don't understand I mean, it's after 8 o 'clock at night back east 877 -753 -3341

01:02:44

I mean, you know, there we go we got one more line ringing, let's get those folks online and we'll try to get you in by 20 after because that's when we're going to wrap things up so anyway here comes the leap the leap is going to be we're going to leave

01:03:00

Romans 9 and we're going to jump over to II Timothy and the section where Paul is exhorting

01:03:09

Timothy therefore if anyone cleanses himself from these things, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified useful to the master, prepared for every good work now flee from youthful lust and pursue righteousness faith, love, and peace with those who call on the

01:03:24

Lord with a pure heart so there's the context actually should have gone back to verse 20 now in a large house there are not only gold and silver vessels but also vessels of wood and earth and ware and some to honor and some to dishonor and notice there's nothing here about the potter there's nothing here about answering objections to Romans 9 .18

01:03:43

he mercies whom he wills and he hardens nothing like that at all instead it is an exhortation to sanctification that it should be the desire of the regenerate person's heart to cleanse himself and to walk as Jesus walked and all the rest of this stuff so we're going to leap out of one subject and leap into a completely different context and a completely different exhortation why?

01:04:06

to get around what Romans 9 actually says in 2 Timothy 2 verse 20 2

01:04:14

Timothy 2 .20 Paul said but in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay some vessels for honor and some for dishonor same language you find in Romans 9 go on therefore verse 21 if anyone cleanses him same language but not same context just because you the word

01:04:38

God is the same in praising God and saying that there's a God of this world or saying that just because it's the same word doesn't mean it's in the same context himself from the latter he will be a vessel for honor sanctified, useful for the master prepared for every good work now what does

01:04:57

Paul say here? there are vessels for honor and vessels for dishonor who decides what individual will be which?

01:05:08

if anyone cleanses himself from the latter he will be a vessel of honor Paul gives the impression very profoundly that an individual has the choice of deciding to be a vessel of honor or not it involves cleansing himself from certain things but if he does those things he will be a vessel of honor and of course

01:05:27

I would argue that there is no person who has ever chosen to make themselves a vessel of honor outside the work of the

01:05:34

Holy Spirit of God in their hearts because we're enemies of God and of course these are exhortations to people who are saved in the first place therefore

01:05:40

Paul could not very easily be saying in Romans 9 that the vessel of honor is an individual that God chooses for that purpose of being a vessel of honor and the vessel of dishonor is an individual that God chooses for that in Paul's argument in Romans 9 now did

01:05:57

I miss where you establish the identity of context between these two texts?

01:06:04

I must have missed it it must have been I was watching Rich or something because I missed where the absolutely essential thing you would have to do to demonstrate these are the same context are being put together, right?

01:06:17

because they're not the same context so you can't just go over there and say oh he's used this language oh now

01:06:23

I'm going to read it over here but you do when you're really desperately avoiding the clear meaning of the text he's talking about a lump of clay in the illustration the lump of clay is the ethnic

01:06:33

Israel and from that lump he makes two vessels not a zillion of them not individual there's two categories even though in 2

01:06:44

Timothy the vessel wasn't individual I can't even keep the parallel going that way the context is so completely different there's a vessel of honor and all who receive

01:06:54

Christ in Israel are those who are honored they are part of the honorable in Israel okay we're running out of time and I think anyone who says we have not been completely fair in letting

01:07:06

Steve Gregg present his position is well just not someone I can really reason with I think we've been very very very fair in providing a tremendous amount of time and interacting there with so let's get to our callers while we have time to get to them let's go to Lawrence hi

01:07:21

Lawrence I have a brief comment and maybe a question that I think may help the listeners understand some points you've raised

01:07:33

I'll start with my question actually do you see Jeremiah 18 6 -11 where the image of the potter is used and there seems to be a lot of interaction between the two a sense that God might change his mind as being relevant to Romans 9 and then

01:07:53

I would be curious to actually hear you discuss Luke 7 -30 even briefly you did mention the text earlier and I think many listeners would like to see how that is relevant to Romans 9 and I'll stop here and let you first of all any

01:08:13

Old Testament citation that the apostle uses and we mentioned this last Thursday when we started Romans 9 it is his interpretation of the text his use of the text and how it fits into his argument that determines how it's being used in the

01:08:28

New Testament you don't go back to the Old Testament and go well this was only about ethnic Israel and therefore a

01:08:34

New Testament writer could not make any broader application in the New Testament that would of course overthrow for example the gospel going to Gentiles that as I just mentioned overthrows every

01:08:44

Messianic prophecy as having any relevance to Jesus because it's original context was about somebody else and so you have to look at what the

01:08:51

New Testament writer is doing with the text and how it fits into his argument and so when he uses the potter and the clay he uses that not in the context sorry for whatever

01:09:00

Mr. Greg was saying of ethnic Israel he utilizes that in a much broader context of God as creator and we as the thing formed he himself provides that context in Romans 9 20 when he says the thing formed will not say the one who formed it why did you make me like this and he does that in the context of someone accusing

01:09:20

God of injustice because it's his will that is supreme and not man's will so whatever else you do if you go back and say well in Jeremiah the application there is calling for people to repent and so maybe there is this freedom or something that we really can't see if that's not what

01:09:40

Paul is bringing across and placing into his argument then we're actually arguing against Paul to go back to those texts and say oh no no

01:09:48

Paul you can't use it that way the same thing with Acts chapter

01:09:53

Luke chapter 7 it's interesting to me that in the text that I read a little bit earlier from John Piper and I would very highly recommend to those who haven't dealt with this book that they need to get hold of it ironically one of the footnotes to what

01:10:15

I read earlier says quote they are referring to Acts 7 30 a pillar text in their view after Jesus prays for John the

01:10:22

Baptist we read quote when they heard this all the people and the tax collectors justified God having been baptized for the baptism of John but the

01:10:29

Pharisees and lawyers rejected the purpose of God for themselves not having been baptized by him end quote this text falls far short of proving that an individual can frustrate

01:10:38

God's purposes for him Forrester and Marston assume that quote for themselves end quote modifies quote the purpose of God end quote as indeed the

01:10:48

RSV might suggest but the Greek word order makes it more probable that it modifies rejected so I Howard Marshall Luke page 299

01:10:55

I Howard Marshall by the way is no Calvinist thus Luke is saying that the plan of salvation preached by John the

01:11:01

Baptist was accepted by some and rejected by others the text cannot prove one way or the other whether God ordains some individuals irresistibly to eternal life for Luke's view on that see

01:11:11

Acts 13 48 which by the way if anyone listened to our discussion earlier in Radio Free Geneva of Steve Gregg's position we took what he had to say in regards to Acts 13 48 apart let's continue on with Sean.

01:11:28

Hi Sean Hello Sean. Hey there Dr. Wyatt How you doing?

01:11:33

Alright I was actually just thinking this is about the third time I've called you from about as many states and it's good to finally be on the same side of you.

01:11:43

Okay I was noticing of course the same thing that you were talking about how he's completely destroying the text by refusing to go through it in a systematic fashion.

01:12:01

I noticed especially verse 20 that his twist on the objector it doesn't even seem to jive with the latter part of that same verse

01:12:15

In regards to You see what I mean? Nay but O man who art thou that replyest against God and he puts that as meaning by your very reply you're frustrating the will of God but then how does that really fit with shall the thing formed say to him that formed it why hast thou made me thus

01:12:36

Exactly I don't know if you addressed that earlier when I wasn't listening for probably about 10 -15 minutes or something like that but it's just ridiculous when it not only can't mesh with the entire chapter but can't even mesh with the one verse if that makes sense

01:12:58

Oh it does and I did bring that out I did mention the fact that what he's stating here is not derived from the text it is forced upon the text by the exegetical necessity of trying to avoid the sovereignty of God that's found in these verses and so you can't find where the national emphasis disappears and the personal comes in and why salvation is in the first part of Romans 9 the end of Romans 9 but it's not in the middle and all the rest of this stuff and yeah that's why

01:13:29

I started off giving an exegesis of the text last week was to allow people to see just how consistently and harmoniously these texts can flow and it's the same thing in John 6 here in Romans 8 and 9 in Ephesians chapter 1 there's one side that can simply come to these texts and allow them to speak for themselves and allow the crescendo to build from the meanings of the words and the grammar and you can just let it flow along in this powerful thing and the other side quite honestly has to say well let's start over here and let's look at this and maybe we can jump over here and in fact end up using the

01:14:08

Old Testament to try to argue against Paul because in essence what they're trying to say is well it couldn't be how

01:14:15

Paul is taking this because the original context wouldn't substantiate that and as I've tried to say and I said last week and used the illustration of Islamic apologists, actually it was

01:14:26

Tuesday I made this application I was listening to Jamal Badawi and he was in essence saying oh none of these

01:14:31

Messianic prophecies were originally about Jesus well since Jesus wasn't around at that time, duh!

01:14:37

but the point is he's basically saying and they could never be there could be no greater fulfillment, there could be nothing greater than the initial application and that unfortunately is the same type of argumentation that's being used here

01:14:49

James' quote in the Synod of Acts 15 or things like that Right, so that kind of an approach is a demonstration of the fact that we basically have someone here who doesn't want to deal with what the text is actually saying they have a theology already established and now we're doing everything we possibly can to get around it and one of the reasons we deal with this is let's face it trying to argue nations and things like that, people need to be aware that these are the objections that are going to be made, this is

01:15:21

Forrester and Marston if someone goes out, if they go to Amazon if they go someplace else and they're looking for an exegetical

01:15:27

Armenian defense that's about all there is once you've gotten through this honestly folks, there's really not much left out there that people come up with that actually still try to pretend they believe that the

01:15:39

Bible's the word of God you've got all sorts of liberals who don't believe the Bible's the word of God and they'll reject the inerrancy of scripture and inspiration and all the rest of that stuff that's a whole other ball game, most of the time you're not arguing with them about a predestination to election you don't have any basis for doing it anyways because they don't believe the

01:15:52

Bible but for people who want to pay that lip service to the inspiration of scripture and want to believe it's still consistent with itself that's about the best you're going to get is

01:16:01

Forrester and Marston, these types of guys and so if we've heard it now and we've responded to it then most people will be ready to respond themselves last question for a program called

01:16:15

Radio Free Geneva starting with A Mighty Fortress, wouldn't you think maybe

01:16:21

Psalm 46 or maybe one of the Geneva tunes for Psalm 100 or 124 or something like that, just a thought alright, thanks

01:16:29

Sean well you know I'm not shocked that the regular

01:16:37

Armenians at Steve Gregg's forum, though I know they're listening, I'm not shocked that they aren't on the phone lines, for the obvious reason

01:16:47

I think that we've tried to fairly allow

01:16:54

Steve Gregg to present his own position and he's presented the position that he got from Forrester and Marston and I don't believe that his study of Sproul certainly was deep enough to have led him to Piper and to the issues that we've raised and so I'm not shocked by that but there it is, we've presented the information,

01:17:20

I would invite people to consider it to go back, maybe listen to the exegesis of Romans 9 consider what it means and make application because the whole reason we do this is not just that we can have arguments about biblical passages but whether God is free and whether God is sovereign will not only impact how you present the gospel and whose glory you present it it will impact every element of the

01:17:48

Christian life, it will impact when you go to the hospital and someone's dying it will impact how you live your life, it will impact how you do your education it will impact every element of your life and that's why we discuss these things so we'll see you next time on The Dividing Line God bless

01:19:16

God bless God bless