Dr Greg Boyd on Romans 9 and leaving Calvinism

Below is the video of Dr Greg Boyd's excellent sermon on Romans 9. The downloads for this sermon are available on the Woodland Hills Church website here.

He begins addressing Romans 9 at around 5:56 of the video, and at about 15:45 he shares his own testimony of how he left Calvinism.

Also see Dr Boyd's blog post: "How do you Respond to Romans 9?".

For more testimonies:

There are a number of testimonies from other former Calvinists I have come across and shared on this blog.  Here are the links to some those posts:

• Dr Clark Pinnock;
• Pastor Derwin Gray;
• Writer Ben Irwin;
• And of course, from my first post:
• Dr Scot McKnight, “Calvinism: My History 1”, Part Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, and Seven;
• Dr Leighton Flowers, “The five points that led me out of Calvinism”;
• Pastor Keith Coward, “Calvinist Pastor Turns from Calvinism to Arminianism after 20 Years as a Calvinist and Intensive Study”;
• Writer Zach Hoag, “Breaking Wesleyanabaptist: A Story of (Resistible) Grace”; and
• Pastor Austin Fischer, in his interview with Shane Blackshear and in his book, Young, Restless, No Longer Reformed: Black Holes, Love, and a Journey In and Out of Calvinism (or Google Preview).

Related Posts:

• Paul Eddy and Greg Boyd Explain the Corporate View of Election;
• NT Wright on Predestination, Election and Romans 9;
• Questions to ask as you approach Romans 9.

Reformed Theologian Emil Brunner on Romans 9 and the Double Decree

“How did our Fathers in the Reformed Churches

manage to teach this terrible theological theory

in the name of the Biblical Gospel?”

                                        -Reformed Theologian Emil Brunner,

Dogmatics, Vol 1, page 321

Here is an excerpt from Reformed Theologian Emil Brunner, Dogmatics, Volume 1, from chapter 23 entitled “Double Predestination”, where Dr Brunner confronts the typical Reformed--his own camp’s--understanding of divine reprobation in Romans 9. The whole book (along with the other volumes) is available online from Archives.org here. This excerpt comes from pages 328-334 (bold mine):

The Ninth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans is usually regarded as the "locus classicus" of the doctrine of a double predestination, and for this reason it requires very careful consideration. Hence it is extremely important to show very clearly the connexion of this chapter with the two which follow. They do not deal with the salvation and damnation of the individual, but with the destiny of Israel. Thus the point of view itself is entirely different from that of the doctrine of predestination. The "probandum" is not a "double decree", but, on the one hand, the validity of the divine promises to Israel, in spite of the hardening of heart of the empirical contemporary Jewish people; and, on the other hand, the reason for the defective development in Israel, namely, from the human point of view the self -righteousness of Israel, instead of the recognition of the Grace of Christ ; and, from the point of view of God, God's all-inclusive plan of redemption, which even the temporary rejection of Israel must serve.  

All this looks very different from the doctrine of a "double decree" by means of which a "numerus electorum" from all eternity is confronted by a "numerus reprobatorum" . The "nervus probandi", the main argument, is not the parable of the potter and the clay, but primarily the freedom of God in his Election and "hardening", and, secondly, the impossibility of making any claim on God. This freedom of God is balanced by the doctrine of righteousness through faith alone. Because Israel is self-righteous, it loses salvation; but if Israel abandons its self-righteousness and becomes converted, then it will receive salvation. When it seems, in the middle of the chapter, as though Paul will finally argue for a decree of rejection, then — quite apart from the detailed exegesis which we shall carry out in a moment — we should reflect that those who are here called "vessels of wrath", are the same as those who, in Chapter 11, will be represented as having finally been saved. Thus the fact that they are now "vessels of wrath" does not prevent them from being the "saved" at the end of the ages. So far as the details of this chapter are concerned, which has so often been used in support of the doctrine of predestination, the following needs to be said :  

(a) As in the whole context, so also in the example of Jacob and Esau, in the movement of thought of the Apostle Paul, this is not an argument in support of a "double decree", but it is an illustration of the freedom of God in His action in the history of salvation. When we read: "For the children being not yet born, neither, having done anything good or bad, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him that calleth ..." this does not refer to a double "decretum" , but to the freedom of the divine election. Here there is no question of the eternal salvation of Jacob and the eternal doom of Esau; the point is simply the part which each plays in the history of redemption. Paul wishes to show that God chooses the instruments of His redemptive action, the bearers of the history of the Covenant, as He wills. The theme of this passage is not the doctrine of predestination, but the sovereign operation of God in History, who has been pleased to reveal Himself at one particular point in History, in Israel.  

(b) Likewise in the following verses Pharaoh is simply an historic redemptive instrument in the hand of God, that instrument which, through its "hardening", must serve God's purpose. There is no question here of his salvation or condemnation. All the argument is concentrated on one point : God has mercy on whom He will, and hardens whom He will. The point of the whole is the freedom of grace.  

(c) Finally, we come to the critical main passage, verses 19-22, the point in the whole Bible which comes closest to a doctrine of a double decree — and yet is separated from it by a great gulf. The parable of the potter and the clay, taken from Isaiah 28:16 and Jeremiah 18:6, expresses the absolute right of God to dispose of His creature as He chooses. The creature has no right to claim anything over against God; He may do with it what He wills. He does not have to account for His actions to anyone. God is the Lord, and His authority knows no limits.  

The difficult verse is 22: "What if God, willing to show His wrath, and to make His power known, endured with much long-suffering vessels of wrath fitted unto destruction : and that He might make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He afore prepared unto glory ..." The sentence breaks off here. The whole phrase is a conditional question: If God does this, what will you say? The "vessels of wrath" which are here mentioned as the means of the divine plan of salvation, are the Jews. The passage does not say that they have been created as vessels of wrath, still less that from all eternity they have been destined for this, but that, on account of their unbelief, they are "fitted unto destruction" ["Ripe and ready to be destroyed." Moffat's Trans. (Tr.)].  Paul never uses the idea of the "wrath of God" save in the sense of the divine reaction to human sin and man's refusal to obey. There is no more reference here to a negative decree, or to a negative purpose in creation, than there is to a negative ultimate end; for in Chapter 11 it is said of the same Jews that after their temporary rejection has served the purpose of God, they will be restored to the Divine favour, as soon as they repent, and are converted. Paul never forgets for a moment the personal relation and that conditionalis divinus, that is, the Living God.  

In any case, the "vessels of wrath" mentioned in this passage are not the "reprobi" of the doctrine of Predestination. Here, indeed, there is no mention of individuals as individuals at all, but the whole People of Israel is being discussed, and the point is not that the "People" as a whole will be lost eternally, but that now, for the moment, they play a negative part in the history of salvation, which, in the future, after they have been converted, will become a positive one. The final issue of the judgment of wrath will be their salvation. Here, again, we notice that there is a remarkable "incongruity" between those "on the left hand" and those "on the right", as in Matthew 25. The "vessels of wrath" are designated by an impersonal passive, κατηρτισμένα εἰς ἀπώλειαν, they are "ripe for destruction". Thus it is explicitly stated that it is not God who has made them what they are. The linguistic phrase is deliberately in the passive, denoting a present condition, and can equally well be translated "ripe for condemnation". Over against them stand the "vessels of mercy" whom God "hath afore prepared unto glory". In the first case no active subject, and no indication of an act of predetermination; in the second instance, an active Subject, God, and a clear indication of eternal election. Thus even in this apparently clearly "predestinarian" passage there is no suggestion of a double decree! The examination of the statements of Scripture regarding this doctrine leads, therefore, to a completely negative result. There is no doctrine of a double decree in the New Testament, and still less in the Old Testament.

(4)

The doctrine of the double decree is, however, not only not supported by the evidence of Scripture, it is also impossible to equate it with the message of the Bible. It leads to an understanding of God and of man which is contrary to the idea of God and of man as given in revelation. It leads to consequences which are in absolute and direct opposition to the central statements of the Bible. Of course, the champions of the doctrine of Predestination have never admitted this, but, on the contrary, they have taken great pains to evade these conclusions, and to smooth out the contradiction; but in this speculative effort which, from their own standpoint, was inevitable, their process of argument becomes sophistical and contradictory. If God is the One who, before He created the world, conceived the plan of creating two kinds of human beings — non pari conditione creantur omnes, Calvin says explicitly — namely, those who are destined for eternal life — the minority — and the rest — the majority — for everlasting destruction, then it is impossible truly to worship this God as the God of love, even if this be commanded us a thousand times, and indeed at the cost of the loss of eternal salvation. Essentially, it is impossible to regard the will which conceives this double decree as the same will which is represented as Agape in the New Testament. All Calvin's arguments against these objections come to the same point in the end : these two conceptions must be kept together in thought, because both are stated in the Word of God. God is Love, that is the clear Biblical message; God has conceived the double decree, that is — according to Calvin's erroneous opinion — equally clearly, the Biblical message ; thus one must identify the God of the double decree with the God who is Love. But when we reveal the error in the second statement, the whole argument, which demands the impossible, falls to the ground. The Bible does not urge us to believe that the God whom it reveals to us as the God of love has created some human beings for eternal life and the rest for eternal doom. Equally inevitably the double decree contains a second consequence for the Idea of God which is in opposition to the Biblical message: God is then unmistakably "auctor peccati" . Zwingli drew this conclusion courageously, without "turning a hair", only making the excuse that the moral standard which is valid for us cannot be applied to God. This at least can be said, and in itself the idea is not contradictory. Calvin, on the contrary, is terrified of this conclusion, and calls it blasphemous. In point of fact, it is impossible to say of the God whom the Biblical revelation shows us, that He is the Author of Evil. But Calvin tries in vain to eliminate this conclusion from his doctrine of predestination. Here, too, his argument simply ends in saying: "You must not draw this conclusion!" — an exhortation which cannot be obeyed by anyone who thinks.

The consequences of the doctrine of predestination are just as disastrous for the understanding of Man as they are for the Idea of God. Predestination in the sense of the "double decree" means unmistakably: All has been fixed from eternity. From all eternity, before he was created, each individual has been written down in the one Book or the other. Predestination in the sense of the double decree is the most ruthless determinism that can be imagined. Before there was any world at all, before there was anything like time, causes, things, and creatures, it was already fixed — not only that there will be these two kinds of human beings, sinners who will be lost and sinners who will be saved, but also to which of both groups each human being, whom God will create, belongs. And here, indeed, we are not concerned with the milder exposition of the Infralapsarian theory — lapsus est primus homo quia Dominus ita expedire censuerat — that God does indeed (it is true) see all beforehand, but that He only wills one thing beforehand, the positive — no, eternal destruction is willed by God in exactly the same way as eternal salvation, and those human beings who are doomed to destruction have been created by God for this end in exactly the same way as the others have been destined for salvation. For every human being who thinks, and does not force his mind to accept sophistries, it is clear that the net result is that there can be neither freedom nor responsibility, that decision in the historical sense is only an illusion, since everything has already been decided in eternity. Calvin — and Calvin in particular, who cares so much about moral responsibility — tries to avoid this conclusion, but all his arguments are logically untenable, and all end in the postulate : we must hold both ideas together in our minds, since the Bible teaches both.  

Finally, the consequences for soteriology are no less sinister. If this doctrine be true, what use is it to preach the Gospel and to call men to repentance? He who is going to be saved will be saved in any case, and he who is doomed to destruction will in any case be lost. The summons to decision which all preaching contains is merely a trick, because decision is an illusion. All these absolutely devastating consequences of the doctrine of predestination for the Christian Faith and for the activity of the Church must, we feel, have been dimly felt by Calvin and the other theologians who held these views, but they did not allow them to obtrude. The fact that they must have been aware of them seems evident when we reflect that — with a few exceptions — they did not dare to preach this doctrine, nor to include it in the Catechism. It was "de facto" an artificial theological theory, an esoteric doctrine for theologians, which they did not dare to preach to the people as a whole. We can, however, only explain the fact that these theologians themselves believed that they were able to evade these conclusions, and that they did eyade them to the extent that they did not let them rob them of either their faith in the God of love or of their belief in human freedom and responsibility, by suggesting that in their own thought the true Biblical doctrine of Election and this false and unscriptural doctrine of predestination were continually being confused with one another. Because, in the genuine understanding of faith, they knew that Election and responsibility. Election and the Love of God, not only do not contradict one another, but that they are one, they were able to hold firmly to the doctrine of the double decree without drawing these conclusions from it. The harm caused by this doctrine was felt less in the sphere of Christian faith and life than in that of theological reflection, and indeed only in the comparatively tolerable form of the impossible sophistical argument. This had to be included out of — so-called — "loyalty" to the Bible. The fact that men were able to hold the doctrine of predestination with a good conscience was due to the unconscious confusion of Election and Predestination. Because they were aware that the doctrine of Election is the heart of the Bible, but did not perceive that this is very different from the doctrine of Predestination, the genuine sentiment regarding the doctrine of Election was transferred to that of Predestination. But the conflicts which this caused were made to some extent innocuous by the fact that the clear Biblical teaching prevented them from drawing the logical conclusions of the doctrine of Predestination. The logical impossibility of this situation was supported by the conviction that in so doing they were standing on the bedrock of Holy Scripture.

The whole book is available online from Archives.org here.

Also see:

• Roger Olson, “A Reformed Theologian’s Critique of Divine Determinism” -- it was from this post by Dr Olson that I first learned of Dr Brunner’s position;
• “Some Emil Brunner Sayings (from Dogmatics, Vol. I)”;
• “Favorite Theologian Revisited: Emil Brunner (Review of Alister McGrath’s Book: Part One)” and “Part Two”.

Related Posts:

• Emil Brunner on Providence, Determinism and Permission;
• Questions to ask as you approach Romans 9;
• Lesslie Newbigin, "that God created some men for the purpose of destroying them...is quite false teaching";
• Does a Corporate View of the Doctrine of Election lead to a more missional worldview?.

Questions to ask as you approach Romans 9 (with a little help from recording artist Flame) - Answering Calvinist Proof-texts, Part 3

*All scripture quotations are from NASB, unless otherwise noted.

In his song “Context”, Calvinist recording artist Flame says:

“exegesis is the careful systematic

study of scripture for the Christian this should be a habit

but to discover the original intended meaning

of the author to his audience is exegeting”

and:

“a text can never mean what it never meant before

to its original reader or author

so if you run into a difficult passage

and you know the Bible never contradicts itself

then turn the pages to a parallel passage

and just let the scriptures interpret itself”

I’ve used these quotes a number of times in Bible studies I’ve led, both as a Calvinist and later, to help new Christians understand what our first objective is as we come to a text.

As I've said before, Romans 9 was the passage that really led me into Calvinism, and later, the passage that held me there.

In this post I want to look at the two questions which challenged that understanding, and then at a third question which confirmed my new view:

(1) What was Paul's point?

(2) What did Paul’s 1st century audience think he meant?

(3) Are there parallel passages which could bolster our conclusion?

(1) What was Paul's point?

“but to discover the original intended meaning

of the author to his audience is exegeting”

The key which allowed me begin considering other interpretations was when I finally "arced" Romans 9 from beginning to end, rather than stopping around verse 23.

I wasn't alone in skipping over the last few verses of this chapter; in fact it seems to be a common problem among Calvinists. After considering verse 23 in his commentary on Romans, FF Bruce (who considered himself “an impenitent Augustinian and Calvinist” [1]) wrote:

It is a pity that in some schools of theological thought the doctrine of election has been formulated to an excessive degree on the basis of this preliminary state in Paul's present argument, without adequate account being taken of his further exposition of God's purpose in election at the conclusion of the argument (xi. 25-32). [2]

What immediately became clear to me as I arced was the relation of verses 30-33 to the preceding context. Verse 30 began as an inference (“what shall we say, then”) from Paul's thought throughout the rest of the chapter. 

Imagine you are reading an academic article, and you're really having trouble following the author.  You find yourself thinking, "What's your point?"  In this situation, you might well turn to the author's conclusion and find, "Ah ha, so that's what he's been getting at! That's what his argument has been moving towards".

If the author's conclusion contradicted what you had read in his preceding argument, you may rightly conclude that you had misunderstood what he had been saying, and you would re-read the preceding arguments to find out how they fit and build towards that conclusion. [3]

In Romans 9, Paul's conclusion is clear:

What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith; but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone, just as it is written,

“Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense,

And he who believes in Him will not be disappointed.” (30-33)

Paul is very clear regarding why some are saved while others are “separated from Christ” (v 3).  Those who are saved, “attained righteousness […] by faith” (v 31); those who are separated from Christ are separated because they pursued righteousness (or we might say, “pursued a right standing with God”) “as though it were by works” (v 32).

If instead Paul's argument had been, as the Calvinists claim, that "His promise gave expression to an 'electing purpose' (9:11) by which God aims to preserve his complete freedom in determining who will be the beneficiaries of his saving promises, who will be the 'Israel' within Israel (9:6b). His purpose is thus maintained by means of the predestination of individuals to their respective eternal destinies. [...] Within the context of Romans 9, this means that God maintains his sovereign 'purpose of election' by determining, before they are born, who will belong to the 'saved' among Israel",[4] Paul would have concluded and summarized his argument very differently. As another blogger noted, a Calvinist conclusion should read something like:

What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith unconditional election of individuals (with faith merely being evidence of an individual’s prior election); but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works had not been unconditionally and individually elected for salvation. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written, “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense; and whoever is irresistibly caused to believes in him will not be put to shame.” Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved have always been vessels of mercy, otherwise there is no hope for them. [5]

In particular, we would be left wondering why Paul brought up faith at all, if, as John Piper suggests, “Neither the bad willing/running of ‘works’ nor the good willing/running of faith had any influence at all on God’s decision to show mercy”[6] and “‘willing and running’ cannot legitimately be limited in such a way that some willing, like that act of trusting Christ, does ultimately determine God’s bestowal of mercy, namely, the mercy of salvation”[7] (I would point out however, that to trust/have faith in/rely on/believe is not always a type or subset of “willing”; compare, for example, John 1 where “believe” (v12) can be contrasted with both “the will of flesh” and “the will of man” (v 13).  Likewise, on the broader phrase "willing and running", we know from the testimony of the Lord Jesus himself that "to believe in Him whom [God] has sent" is the one "work" that God does require (John 6:28-29).)

The burden of proof, then, is on the Calvinist to explain how Paul's argument fits with his conclusion (and not to stop the exegesis at verse 23, mid-sentence!).

(2) What did Paul’s 1st century audience think he meant?

“a text can never mean what it never meant before

to its original reader or author”

After I saw the conclusion in verses 30-33, I knew I had to re-examine the argument that had led Paul there.  As I considered, it struck me to wonder, “How would the Roman Christians have understood the phrase in verse 11, 'God’s purpose according to His choice' (or “God's purpose of election” ESVUK)?” Would they have understood Paul to mean some pre-temporal decree of certain individuals to salvation?

In the context, Paul seems to be talking about God's purpose in choosing Isaac and Abraham, and choosing Jacob to continue that purpose. So what was his purpose in choosing Abraham?

We find a hint back in chapter 4, where Paul also talks about Abraham and God's purpose; there with regard to circumcision.  He says:

The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised." (v 11-12)

This led me to look into the Old Testament, to find out if there are any explicit statements there about God's purpose in choosing Abraham.  In fact, we have a very clear statement, and one which fits very nicely with both Romans 4 and Romans 9, in Genesis 18:17-19 (note also, that Paul actually quotes from this very same chapter in Romans 9:9!) bold mine:

The Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do,  since Abraham will surely become a great and mighty nation, and in him all the nations of the earth will be blessed? For I have chosen him, so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring upon Abraham what He has spoken about him.”

And in fact, we can see the fulfilment of this––that through Jesus all nations are blessed––stated in Romans 9:4, “and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever.” And in verses 24-26:

even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles. As He says also in Hosea, “I will call those who were not My people, ‘My people,’ And her who was not beloved, ‘beloved.’”

“And it shall be that in the place where it was said to them, ‘you are not My people,’ There they shall be called sons of the living God.”

I had to conclude, then, that the Roman Christians, fluent in the Old Testament, would have understood the choice/election of Abraham in verse 11 to be a reference to God continuing through Jacob and not Esau, his purpose to bless all nations through the Messiah.  This choice of Jacob was not based on anything Jacob had done, but was purely of God’s sovereign choice.  It had nothing to do with Jacob’s own eternal state, which would still be determined by his faith in God to bring about what He had promised, just as it was for Abraham (Rom 4:21).

As NT Wright put it:

This was never an abstract ‘doctrine of predestination’, attempting to plumb the mysteries of why some people (in general, without reference to Israel) hear and believe the gospel and others do not. Paul never encourages speculation of that sort. Rather, it was a way of saying, very specifically, that the fact of Israel’s election (starting with the choice and call of Abraham) had always been there to deal with the sin of the world; that Israel’s election had always involved Israel being narrowed down, not just to Isaac and then to Jacob, but to a hypoleimma, a ‘remnant’, a ‘seed’; and that this ‘remnant’ itself would be narrowed down to a single point, to the Messiah himself, who would himself be ‘cast away’ so that the world might be redeemed. [8]

(3) Are there parallel passages which could bolster these conclusions?

“so if you run into a difficult passage

and you know the Bible never contradicts itself

then turn the pages to a parallel passage

and just let the scriptures interpret itself”

I’ve mentioned a few parallels already, so here I will dig into verses 19-23:

You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?” On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory

When I first turned from Calvinism and began to email back and forth with one of my more studied Calvinist friends, I offered my alternative interpretation of these verses, to which he responded, “we need to walk through this. I cannot understand this text in any other way than to understand that God has indeed predestined before the foundations of the world that there would be vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, for His own glory.”

First, I had to point out to him the leaps my friend had made:

(1) There is no mention of "before the foundations of the world" anywhere in the passage; and

(2) He had moved from “God… endured with much patience” to “God … predestined … vessels of wrath … for destruction, for His own glory.”

Next, I questioned how he understood a few other New Testament texts which seemed to me to carry the same idea: Ephesians 2, Romans 2:4-5, 2 Peter 3:9 and 2 Tim 2:20-21.

In Ephesians 2:3-5 we see that we “were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy […] made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)” – in other words, we were vessels of wrath but became vessels of mercy.

In Romans 2:4-5, we see that God’s patience is meant to turn vessels of wrath into vessels of mercy; those who refuse to repent are preparing themselves for destruction:

Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God

Likewise in 2 Peter 3:9, “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.”

And 2 Tim 2:20-21, perhaps the clearest of all, says:

Now in a large house there are not only gold and silver vessels, but also vessels of wood and of earthenware, and some to honor and some to dishonor. 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.

As Calvinist Bill MacDonald wrote, against the common Calvinist view, "God does not prepare vessels of wrath for destruction, but he does prepare vessels of mercy for glory".[9]

FF Bruce takes much the same approach:

While Paul will allow no questioning of God's right to do what He will with His own, he lets his emphasis fall, not on God's wrath towards the reprobate, but rather the postponement of His wrath against men who have long since become ripe for destruction.  As has been pointed out earlier (2:4), the mercy and forbearance of God are intended  to afford men time for repentance; if, instead, they harden their hearts yet more, as Pharaoh did after repeated respites, they are simply storing up an increasing weight of retribution for themselves against the day of requital. [10]

Jeremiah 18, where Paul's illustration seems to have originated, also confirms this.  There, the Prophet Jeremiah watches a potter as "the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter; so he remade it into another vessel, as it pleased the potter to make" (v 4).  The Lord tells the Prophet:

“Can I not, O house of Israel, deal with you as this potter does?” declares the Lord. “Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel. At one moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to uproot, to pull down, or to destroy it; if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the calamity I planned to bring on it. Or at another moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to build up or to plant it;  if it does evil in My sight by not obeying My voice, then I will think better of the good with which I had promised to bless it. So now then, speak to the men of Judah and against the inhabitants of Jerusalem saying, ‘Thus says the Lord, “Behold, I am fashioning calamity against you and devising a plan against you. Oh turn back, each of you from his evil way, and reform your ways and your deeds.”’ But they will say, ‘It’s hopeless! For we are going to follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.’ (v 6-12)

If a vessel of wrath, prepared for destruction, "turns from its evil" it becomes a vessel of mercy.  And like in 2 Peter 3, God longs for it to be so: “Behold, I am fashioning calamity against you and devising a plan against you. Oh turn back, each of you from his evil way, and reform your ways and your deeds.” (v 11, and cf Romans 11:20 & 23)

Endnotes:

[1] FF Bruce, "Original Forward and Comments", in Paul Marston & Roger Forster, God's Strategy in Human History. (you can see his comments Google Preview here).

[2] FF Bruce, The Epistle of Paul to the Romans, p 190 [Bruce].  In John Piper's book, The Justification of God, which is generally considered the leading Calvinist exposition of Romans 9, he too stops his examination at verse 23.

[3] Dr Greg Boyd, in his excellent sermon on Romans 9, similarly argues that Paul's conclusion does not fit the Calvinist interpretation.

[4] John Piper, The Justification of God at 218 [Piper].

[5] Kingswood Hart, “New Calvinist Bible – Romans 8-11” (March 27, 2014), link.

[6] Piper supra note 3 at 153.  

[7] Ibid at 157.  However, in the next sentence, Piper correctly points out, “Faith is indeed a sine qua non of Salvation; Rom 9:16, therefore, necessarily implies that the act of faith is ultimately owing to the prevenient grace of God.” But then gets around this by stating, “But this is a theological inference, however true, beyond Paul’s explicit concern here. There is no reference at all to faith in Rom 9 until verse 30.”

[8] NT Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God. As quoted by Michael F Bird, “N.T. Wright on Election in PFG” (October 18, 2013), link.

[9] William MacDonald, Believer’s Bible Commentary, p 1719.

[10] Bruce supra note 2.

Related Posts:

• On Corporate Election;
• Dr Greg Boyd on Romans 9 and leaving Calvinism;
• Answering Calvinist Proof-texts, Part 2 - Acts 13:48;
• Answering Calvinist Proof-texts, Part 1 - John 6.