Apologetics Session 15 - Soteriology - Part 3

Gratitude for God’s Word and for the Teacher

Father, we thank you so much for being here today to study your word, to thank you, Lord, for our brothers here in Christ. We thank you, Lord, for Matt, who took time away from his family to come and teach us, Lord.

Put your hand on him, and I pray you open up our hearts and our minds to the things that we're gonna discuss tonight, Lord. We ask this all in your name, Jesus, amen.

Amen.

Review of Soteriology and the Debate Over Election

All right, so we had a little break last week from the congregational meeting, but if anyone's forgotten, we're in the Doctrine of Salvation, soteriology. We have gone through, just as a way of review, we've gone through the definitions, we've gone through the tenses, justification, sanctification, glorification.

We've gone through a bit of Greek study of the words, the different root words for soteriology. We've talked a bit about atonement, its definition, some false views of atonement. We've gone through the correct view of atonement, or the historically Christian view of atonement, and we've gone through God's one condition of salvation, which is, anyone?

Anyone?

What was the question? God's one condition for salvation.

So, uh.

Sola scriptura, sola fide.

Sola fide, thank you, faith. We talked about why God has conditioned salvation on faith alone. We talked about what saving faith looks like. We asked the question about the role of repentance and the role of the blood and the atonement, and whether or not there is such a thing as carnal Christianity.

We talked a bit about lordship salvation, and some of the views of Dr. Eddie Woods, who was sort of the core, the bulk of the material that I was presenting here came from a seminary-style class that he was doing.

And we talked about some of the differences between him and, say, Dr. John MacArthur, and some of the views around carnal Christianity, which, for any of you who might be new or don't know, it's can you be truly and genuinely saved and still live a life of sin willfully and sort of with intent living a sinful lifestyle but still be actually justified.

And so we sort of ended with, I think, the general consensus in here. Certainly my view is that a carnal Christian, I don't see that as a legitimate category. There's obviously the unsaved, there's the young, the ones who are newly saved, who are a bit immature in their faith, and then there are those who are more mature and are being sanctified, but sanctification is not optional.

It's something that naturally happens as, you know, if you've got a true conversion. So that's kind of where we left it off, and that kind of covers the basis of soteriology. The one thing that we purposefully left to the end, because it's probably the most hotly debated part of soteriology is essentially the doctrines of election versus free will.

And Pastor preached on this, how many, was it three Sundays ago? And it's funny because I did a bunch of studying on this to prepare for this session, and my hope is that I will talk for roughly half the class, and then the latter half of the class we can just talk amongst ourselves about this topic.

But before I get started, one of the things I hadn't done as of two Sundays ago is read Pastor's book called Boxing with Calvin. I actually sat on the beach yesterday and read the whole thing, so. So actually Pastor writes in a pretty easy way, it's pretty easy to follow his stuff, but he sort of formed it all, the reason it's called Boxing with Calvin, he formed it as a boxing match between election and free will, and the first six chapters are essentially looking at the different sort of tenets of election, specifically the TULIP, the TULIP, what's it called?

An acronym, thank you, thank you. For some reason that slipped my mind. Yeah, the acronym, and going through pros and cons for both, and sort of scoring it like a round. And then the latter half of the book is looking at debates between theologians at different points in history.

It's a really good read, I highly recommend, after this, if you have not read that, that you go and read it. I think Pastor Jeff does a really good job of kind of laying it out. He doesn't hide his lean on where he sits on it, but I think he gives a pretty objective case for both sides, and go for that.

One of the things, the reason I bring this up, one of the things that he lays out in the introduction of his book, and that I also lay out in the beginning of this discussion, is that this is an in-house debate.

So the doctrine of election, and the doctrine of, I forget what you call it, doctrine of free will, but the idea of free will, and the idea of election is an in-house debate. Regardless of where you fall on this side, or that side of the argument, it doesn't call into question necessarily your salvation, right, depending on who's making the arguments.

But this isn't like a core thing where if you don't believe in election, then you're not truly saved, or something like that. It is an in-house debate, and it has been an in-house debate for centuries.

That doesn't demean its importance. It doesn't mean we shouldn't debate it. It doesn't mean we shouldn't analyze scripture, and that we shouldn't actually try and derive meaning from the words of scripture, and actually study it.

So it's an important debate, but it is an in-house debate. So we should certainly be respectful, obviously, and we should not sort of impugn people's actual salvation just because of different verses that you may interpret differently.

That said, we should actually take a look at it. So in this debate, also, since it has been debated for centuries by theologians that are far more learned, and far more intelligent, I don't think that I certainly will be able to solve it for everyone here, and I don't know that we're all gonna walk out of here agreeing, and that's totally okay.

So it's been raging for centuries, and your eternal destiny won't be determined, even though Jack may think it is, based on how you walk out of here. So let's go through. I'm gonna go through election.

The point of the talking part of this is that I'm gonna go through kind of the basis for each of these views, some proof texts for each of them, and then we can start the discussion, and I'll let you know how I see things, and I have a number of metaphors that I use in these discussions that I'm sure I'll share with all of you as part of this.

Calvinism, Reformed Protestantism, and the TULIP

So election. Sometimes you hear this called Calvinism. That's really because of John Calvin, and the alternate view of will, you'll sometimes hear being called Arminianism, which is after Jacobus Arminius.

We'll talk about that. So Calvinism and election, you can kind of interchange, and Arminianism and free will, you can kind of interchange. So Calvinism is named after John Calvin, and it's a theological stance that emphasizes the sovereignty of God and the authority of the Bible.

It's a major part of the Reformed tradition, or Reformed Protestantism. So sometimes the word Reformed confuses people. It doesn't mean they were Reformed from it. The word Reformed comes out of the Reformation, right, when you talk about Luther and the Protestant Reformation.

That's where Reformed tradition and Reformed Protestantism comes from. So sometimes people hear Reformed, and they think it was corrected or fixed, which it kind of is if you think about the Reformation, but it can trip people up.

The major point of controversy with Calvinism is the doctrine of election or predestination. Sometimes people refer to it as predestination, and the doctrine holds that God is sovereign over all and predestined the elect for salvation.

It holds that man's total depravity prevents him or her from choosing God, and without the working of the Holy Spirit, we would continue to choose sin over God and such. So again, absent the working of the Holy Spirit, our nature is oriented away from God, and therefore our free choices are always in that direction, right, and that only through the working of the Holy Spirit can our position shift to being oriented towards God.

You'll sometimes hear the term five-point Calvinism or four-point Calvinism or three-and-a-half-point Calvinism, and what the points are referring to is the acronym TULIP. So TULIP stands for the T is total depravity, the U is unconditional election, the L is limited atonement, which is usually the most problematic one for people, the I is irresistible grace, and the P is perseverance of the saints.

So total depravity holds that people are not by nature inclined to love God, but rather to serve their own interests and to reject the rule of God. So through this, all people by their own faculties, by their own mind, are unable to choose to trust God for their salvation and be saved.

So the term total in this context refers to sin affecting every part of a person, not that every person is as evil as they potentially could be, but that they're essentially in bondage to sin, they are a slave to sin, they are controlled by their sin nature.

So total depravity is a pretty important part of election because what it's positing is that you're in bondage to sin and therefore cannot orient yourself towards God. So unconditional election, second part of TULIP, and we're gonna go in a little bit more detail here later on, but I just wanna get the meaning, the definitions of these out there so people can understand it, it'll inform the discussion.

So unconditional election asserts that God has chosen from eternity past those whom he will bring to himself, not based on foreseen virtue, merit, or faith in those people, but rather it's his choice, unconditionally grounded in his mercy alone, God has chosen from eternity to extend mercy to those he has chosen and to withhold mercy from those he has not chosen.

The chosen receive salvation through Christ alone, those not chosen receive the just wrath that is warranted for their sins against God. That's an important part. It's not that, and we're gonna talk about some of the objections to things like this, but it's not that God is punishing people that don't deserve it.

Everyone is deserving of punishment. And so if God chose to send the entire world to hell, that would be just because we've all sinned against him. So it's wrath that is warranted for our sins against God.

And then the mercy that he's extending to those that he has chosen, the elect, is just that, it's his mercy, it's his choice. So limited atonement, limited atonement asserts that Jesus' substitutionary atonement, we talked about substitutionary atonement, propitiation, God standing in between, or Jesus standing in between God's wrath and us, right, basically absorbing that in our stead.

Jesus' substitutionary atonement was definite and certain in its purpose and what it accomplished. This implies that only the sins of the elect were atoned for by Jesus' death. This is what people trip up on a ton, right?

It says, did Jesus die for the world or did he die for the elect, right? Calvinists do not believe, however, that the atonement is limited in value or power, but rather that the atonement is limited in the sense that it is intended for some and not all.

So that's not to say that Jesus' blood isn't powerful enough to cover the sins of the world, but only that it was effective. So this, sometimes you hear the term sufficiency versus efficiency. So sufficiency says that his blood was sufficient for all the sins of the entire world.

It had the power to pay for all of those sins. But efficiency, was it effective for all of the sins of the entire world? Or was it effective only for the elect? And so limited atonement posits that it's only effective for the elect.

It's sufficient for all, but effective for some. And the way Pastor Jeff puts in his book is, if there were a dozen worlds of humans, his death and blood would be powerful enough to pay for all the sins of all those worlds, not just our world, but all those worlds if there were humans on other worlds.

Little bit of a sci-fi thing, but I thought it was cool. So it's that powerful. It's immeasurably powerful, but it was only effective for those that God had chosen. All right, so that's limited atonement, and that's usually the one people trip up on the most, because it's, and we'll get into some of the objections in a bit.

So the I is irresistible grace. This is probably the second one people have trouble with. Irresistible grace asserts that the saving grace of God is effectually applied to those whom he has determined to save, right?

That is the elect, and overcomes their resistance to obeying the call of the gospel, bringing them to saving faith. This means that when God sovereignly purposes to save someone, that individual certainly will be saved.

And we'll talk about some of the objections to this later on, but effectively, this is saying that once the Holy Spirit has worked in your life, once God has worked in someone's life, and from eternity past, he elected that person to be saved.

They will be saved. He, the all-powerful God of the universe, will not fail to save that person, right? And that's one of the counter-arguments to it, which is God's intent, and whether or not he can fail if he wants to save someone.

And then the last one that rarely anyone has any problem with is perseverance of the saints. And what this asserts is that God is sovereign, and his will cannot be frustrated by humans or anything else.

Those whom God has called into communion with himself will continue in faith until the end. So this is the, it's not security, right? This is the once saved, always saved. So you're not going to lose your salvation.

And we'll talk a bit about some of the differences between Calvinism and Arminianism, and whether or not some of these things make sense given the context. We're actually gonna spend a bunch of time looking at some verses as well, because all of this is read out of the Bible, right?

And there are proof texts on both sides. I'll give you my own perspective of it later on as well. So that's Calvinism in a nutshell, right? People have studied this for a long time. That's essentially Calvinism in a nutshell.

So just to go through, everyone's totally depraved, can't choose God, right? They are blinded, they are in bondage, they are oriented, they're in open rebellion against God, willful open rebellion against God.

And that God unconditionally elected some to salvation, worked in their life to orient them towards himself. That Jesus' atoning sacrifice covered the sins of that group of elect. That once the Holy Spirit has worked in your life, you are elected for salvation and God's sovereignty will ensure that you are in fact saved and that you will never lose your salvation.

So that's Tula. All right, so the counter to Calvinism is Arminianism. This is also the free will argument. These are the most famous, I guess, folks that have argued these points. But Arminianism was named after the Dutch theologian, Jacobus Arminius, so it's Jacob, U .S.

It's the first name. Jacobus Arminius. Arminianism holds that sinners who hear the gospel have the free will to accept or reject God's offer of saving grace and that no one is excluded from God, from the possibility of salvation, except those who freely exclude themselves.

But true historical classic Arminianism includes the belief that this free will to repent and believe unto salvation is itself a gift of God through prevenient, I can't pronounce this word, prevenient grace.

Thank you, thank you, Jack. Stumbling over my tongue here. This view allows for a Christian to subsequently reject God's gift of salvation and thus lose their salvation. So I can choose of my own free will.

I hear this gospel and God working through others to share this gospel with me. There is a working of the Holy Spirit to put people in my life and for me to hear the gospel and then of my own free will I choose to believe that Jesus died for my sins and I accept that free gift.

But because I have the free will, I'm a free will creature, right? I can then choose at a later time to reject this. We've seen some of this or examples that you could, if you take the free will approach, then you could see things like there were recently Christian music artists who say they no longer believe, they believed for decades and now they no longer believe.

There's I'm sure people in our lives that have walked away and the question is were they ever really saved or is this just a case of they accepted it and then they rejected it later on. So this brings us to kind of the great debate, which is what I named this section, which has been going on for centuries and there are just lions of the faith that have gone back and forth on this stuff.

And Jeff actually in his book, Boxing with Calvin, actually goes through six of them, six sort of great debates. So again, I'm not gonna recap his book, I just recommend you go read it. But it goes through some of that stuff.

So hardcore reformers, so this is just the term we use for people who hold to reformed belief, hold to five point Calvinism. So this is the full tulip. But some others that are less hardcore but still lean towards the Calvinistic side may land somewhere in between, so they may accept four points instead of five points or something like that.

Those who espouse free will generally stop short of the possibility of losing one's salvation. So a lot of, especially current day people who believe the free will side of things will say, but you can't lose your salvation.

So I believe in free will, I believe once saved, always saved, but I believe it's your free will, I believe it's man choosing God, I believe that God's free gift is for all the whole world, but you can't lose your salvation once saved, always saved.

So you'll see kind of, I hate to use this term, but a spectrum of belief all the way from five point Calvinism to full Arminianism where you can lose your salvation. You'll find people kind of all over that spectrum.

You'll see people that are like four pointers, three pointers all the way to free willers that kind of believe in predestination, but they take like a corridor of history view, and then you'll get beyond the people that are full on free will, you can lose your salvation at any time.

So some of the common arguments or questions against each view are, I've listed just a few here, which we can talk about in our discussion session. So people who object to Calvinism, a lot of times they'll say things like, well doesn't this make God unfair by picking winners and losers, right?

It's out of my hand, how's that fair? What if I'm not one of the elect, how could, I can't choose it, it's not my fault, it's unfair. I'm not gonna answer these questions, I'm just gonna posit them for now and we'll talk about them.

So one of the questions is, doesn't this make God unfair? Another one says, doesn't this make the Christian an automaton who's forced into choosing salvation? So this gets into the irresistible grace one.

So limited atonement, right? The unconditional election is really kind of the first one, and then you get into irresistible grace on this one. They say, well then Christians are just automatons. They didn't have a choice.

God chose them, therefore they had to choose him. It wasn't their choice, they're just robots. Another one that is kind of almost born out of fear is, what if one of my family members isn't one of the elect?

Like, I don't want any of my family members to go to hell, of course I don't, but what if my son, my daughter, my sister, my brother is not one of the elect? What if one of my parents isn't one of the elect, right?

Another one is, these are all against Calvinism, we'll get to the free will ones. What's the point of evangelism? If it's all predestined, why witness? I'm saved, God's gonna take care of it, why should I witness to people?

And then lastly, the last kind of argument that I just documented, there's lots, trust me, there's lots, but how can God punish someone who didn't elect, how is that fair? He didn't elect them, they had no opportunity to choose him.

How is that fair? He's gonna send them to hell? He didn't pick them. Some of the arguments against Arminianism, or free will, is doesn't the act of choosing Christ, so this is the free will where I choose God, and I hear the gospel, I choose God, doesn't the act of choosing God, or choosing Christ, warrant merit, and thus become a good work?

It's my free will. I, of my own free will, rolled my sleeves up and chose Christ, is that not a work? Is that not an act deserving of grace and mercy, deserving of reward? One of the other arguments against free will is how can God fail to woo someone to salvation?

If God is all-powerful and desires to bring someone to himself, and legitimately, he wants to bring someone to himself, how can he fail to do that? He's all-powerful, he's the God of the universe. If he wants to bring you to himself, why can't he do that?

So another one, does this mean God's power is limited to man's will? Is man's will elevated above God's will? Is man's will supreme? If God's will is to bring the world to himself, which we're gonna talk about John 3, 16, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, right, that whosoever should believe in him should not perish but have everlasting life, right?

Is man's will superseding God's will in that free will argument? Because man has to choose God? And then lastly, how can God lose someone he previously saved? If God has, working through the Holy Spirit, brought salvation to your hearing, you've chosen him, how can God then lose you, right?

Again, elevated man's will above.

Even the sealing of the spirit of a person. Does that mean the person is sealed one day and then all of a sudden unsealed the next day?

Right, like how does that work in the free will? Because a strict reading of free will, right, is that you can lose, strict Arminianism or free will is your salvation is not secure. Now, most free willers don't believe that.

Just, most free willers don't buy into that, but I'm trying to present both extremes as well as all the spectrum in the middle. Okay, so with that sort of groundwork, let's look at some scripture. Given the amount of time, I'm gonna just read these scriptures, but you're welcome to turn to them if you'd like.

So the first one's gonna be Matthew 20, 28, and then John 10, 15 is gonna be the second. So the heart of the debate is the extent of Christ's atoning work on the cross. Both Calvinists and Arminians would attest to the sufficiency of the atonement to cover the sins of the world.

So again, I said, you know, God's, neither side believes that God's or Christ's blood was insufficiently powerful enough to save everyone. So again, this is an in-house debate. We all believe that Christ was divine.

We believe that, you know, his atoning sacrifice is the mechanism through which we are saved, we are justified, right? So we're all good. We're all in the same camp here. We're just arguing kind of mechanics here, right?

So, you know, since they both would attest that it covers the world, the question really becomes the effectiveness, right? Is it effective only for some, or is it effective for all if we would just choose it?

So some of the proof texts for Calvinism, we'll start with Matthew 20, 28. This is Jesus speaking, and he says, even as the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many.

Jesus is God. He could use any word he wanted here, right? He didn't say for all. He said for many. So that in itself is a limiting word. It does not denote that, or connote that it's everyone that he gave his life for.

But again, we need to look at the context of scripture as a whole. I think that's gonna be kind of a theme for my thinking. My thinking is, you know, again, I'll repeat it again. I can do all things through a verse taken out of context.

So if I take any one verse, I can try and twist it to mean what I want it to mean, but we have to kind of look at the totality of scripture and kind of put all of this in context. So John 10, 15 is next, and this is also Jesus.

It says, just as the father knows me, and I know the father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. So if you think about in times, which we'll get to in probably four weeks or something, you think about the sheep and the goats, right?

Those who are saved and those who are unsaved, right? So here he's talking about, he's laying down his life for the sheep, right? So it's a group of people. It's not everyone. Acts 20, 28 says, pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.

So again, the flock, right? Ephesians 5, 25, husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. So again, reference to the church, to the saints, to the saved. This is a big one in Pastor Jeff's, this next one, John 6, 44 is a big one.

He has a chapter. It was really cool the way he laid it out. He basically took like a verse that was election and a verse that was free will and was like saying, these two verses are in the ring, battling it out.

So again, really good read. John 6, 44, no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day. We'll read that again. No one, no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him, right?

I mean, this is Jesus speaking. Those are strong, strong words, right? Unless the father draws, now you can, how does that drawing work? You can kind of think about that, but like this is a strong statement.

The last one, and I will raise him up on the last day. John 6, 65, and this is also Jesus, and he said, this is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the father. Again, no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the father.

This is pretty clear election talk.

What verse was that again?

That's John 6, 65.

65, thank you.

And I'll, this whole document's going to you guys, so after tonight's session, so you'll, I actually put the verses in, you know, red letter and everything right in the document, so. John 15, 16, also Jesus speaking.

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide and that whatever you ask my father in my name, he may give it to you. You did not choose me.

If there ever was an argument against free will, there it is. You did not choose me. Now some people want to say, well, he's talking to the disciples who he chose as his disciples, so of course that's what he's talking about, but you know, you have to think that God did inspire this word and that, you know, especially when you're talking about words that Jesus spoke, he could have phrased anything how he wanted to phrase it.

He obviously knows the beginning from the end and could have foreseen, you know, arguments and avoided them. Matthew 6, I'm sorry, Matthew 16, 16 through 17, Simon Peter replied, you are the Christ, the son of the living God.

This is the who, who do you say that I am. And Jesus answered him, blessed are you, Simon Bargerna, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my father who is in heaven.

Right?

It is a, it is God's working in us, not our own will that is recognizing these things. It's, it's, it's God. Acts 13, 48, and when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord.

And as many as were appointed to eternal life believed. Not as many that has heard, not as many that were jumping up and down and rejoicing, as many as were appointed to eternal life.

Right?

Again, really strong election vibes going on here.

Right?

Romans 8, 28 and through 30. And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose, very famous. For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

And those whom he predestined, he called. Those whom he called, he justified. And those whom he justified, he also glorified. So again, we use this in kind of the soteriology talking about justification and sanctification, and glorification rather.

But again, this is a very, you know, he foreknew, he knew you before you were born. He knew you before anyone was born. He predestined you before you were born, before anyone was born. He called you, he justified you, and he will glorify you, right?

So again, this is, again, very strong election vibes going on. This is a bit of a long one, but I feel like it's important to read it. It's Romans 9, 6 through 24. I didn't feel like cutting any of it out, but I'm a decently fast reader.

But it is not as though the word of God has failed, for not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring. But through Isaac shall your offspring be named.

This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise. Children of the promise are counted as offspring, for this is what the promise said. About this time next year I will return and Sarah shall have a son.

And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not born, though they were not yet born, and had done nothing, either good or bad, in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works, but because of him who calls.

I'm only up to verse 11 there, but again, had done nothing wrong, had done nothing, either good or bad, right? In order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works, but because of him who calls, she was told the older will serve the younger, as it is written, Jacob I love, but Esau I hated.

This is talking about Jacob and Esau when they were, before they were born, before they had done anything, and the Jewish tradition at the time was that the older received the blessing, the younger served the older, right?

It was a sort of a strict firstborn kind of thing, and this was obviously keeping it on its head, and it was talking about, it was talking about, but the important context for this is that this was before they were born, this was before they had done anything, committed any sin, right, done any good work, and God had already decided, he had already predestined that Esau would serve Jacob.

And then it says, what shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part, right? They've done neither good or evil, God has already decided that one he loves and one he hates, is there injustice on God's part?

By no means, for he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. That's another famous verse, but the meaning back here is, he's God, he created the universe, he is perfectly holy, perfectly just, perfectly righteous, he gets to choose who to have compassion on and whom to have mercy on.

Verse 16, so then it depends not on human will or exertion, again, really strong lecture vibes here, it depends not on human will or exertion, so not works and not human will, but on God who has mercy.

So the scripture says to Pharaoh, for this very purpose, I've raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth. What did he do to Pharaoh? What did he do to Pharaoh's army, right?

And he says the reason here is to show his power, it's for his glory, it's for his renown. 18, thank you. So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whoever he wills. It says that he hardened Pharaoh's heart, right?

Remember that when you were talking about the Jewish exodus, said he hardened Pharaoh's heart. So he has mercy on whom he wills, he hardens whom he wills. You will say to me then, why does he still find fault?

Right, if he hardened someone, why does he find fault? For who can resist his will? But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? So again, I'm gonna finish reading this, but election has a very high view of God, and God's sovereignty.

Like, it is a very, and it's not to say that people who believe in free will don't think highly of God. I'm just saying that, you know, if you're talking about levels here, right, it is, we are the creature, he is the creator.

He is the all-powerful God of the universe. He is the holy, righteous, right, judge. He gets to choose who he wants. And we have nothing to say back. We have nothing to say back, because we're all sinners.

We're all in open rebellion, and we all deserve nothing but death and hell. And so for God to show mercy to any of us is an unfathomable act of mercy. Even if he chooses one out of the history of the world, it's an unfathomable act of mercy, because all of us deserve nothing but death and hell.

Right, so it says, yeah, so who can resist his will? And who are you, oh man, to answer back to God? What will, will what is molded say to its molder, why have you made me like this? Has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?

So again, getting back to God's sovereignty, he can choose how to use his creation, because he created it, and he has authority over it. What if God, desiring to show his wrath to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, right?

So predestined to be destroyed to demonstrate his power for his purpose. In order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, right? You're getting a compare and contrast here, right? He prepares vessels for destruction to show his power, and also to demonstrate how merciful he's being to those he has mercy on, right?