Bear in mind that the patience of our Lord means salvation—just as our dearly loved brother Paul also wrote to you with the wisdom given to him. He speaks about these matters in all of his letters. Some things in them are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist (as they also do with the rest of the Scriptures)—to their own destruction.”
2 Peter 3:15–16 TLV
If Apostle Peter struggled to understand Paul, imagine our difficulty 2000 years later! I am writing this short follow-up to my previous article on the same topic, and I promise to be brief this holiday season to clarify the teaching a bit. This clarification comes after hearing questions from readers and after having read back over my writing. Indeed, the topic deserves much more space and bears further discussion.
Perhaps this is where more clarity is needed, quoting my previous Substack:
Summing up the predestination language of Romans 8:28-30 and 9:11-18, Paul uses the “potter and clay” imagery of Isaiah 45:9-11 and Jeremiah 18:5-10 to elucide how God’s sovereign choice operates. Israel, as a blessing to the nations—being given “sonship,” covenants, and the bloodline of the Messiah has stumbled in their irrevocable calling. Next, God uses Gentiles to bless Israel (Gen. 12:3-4; Romans 11 olive tree).
Paul has been building his case for God’s sovereign choice at each turn in the lineage of Messiah—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who became the patriarch of the twelve tribes. He sums up this divine process of “election” by asking the question: “Is there unrighteousness with God (Romans 9:14b NKJV)?
Paul follows with God’s righteous and sovereign right to choose who he will harden and whom he shows mercy—sounds harsh, right? But he clarifies this statement and brings his case to its full conclusion, not on the doctrine of predestination, but on the Potter’s response to lumpy, unyielding clay, quoting Isaiah 45 and alluding to Jeremiah 18. And the example Paul uses is Pharoah, who continued to do what was in his heart to do; that is, persecute Israel. The same clay, should it yield and soften in the Potter’s hands, will become a vessel of mercy.
Herein lies Paul’s point about unyielding hearts,leading to the olive tree analogy
: After reading the prophet’s context behind Paul’s citation, it becomes clear that God does not arbitrarily choose whom he bestows mercy or destruction. Paul’s “predestination” and “election” language is not the substance of doctrinal formation. Using the potter-clay analogy borrowed from the prophets, he sums up his “predestination” and “election” language, making the point that God, like a potter, molds and makes the vessel according to the clay’s response to his handiwork. He isn’t choosing us as Wayne Grudem’s definition posits:
“We may define election as follows: election is an act of God before creation in which he chooses some people to be saved, not on account of any foreseen merit in them but only because of his sovereign good pleasure” (Systematic Theology, 818).
Rather, we are choosing him— “which will you choose, life or death, blessings or curses” (Deut. 30:19)?
My mother was a potter, sitting with me as a child and placing her hands over mine to teach me where and how much pressure to apply to the lump of spinning clay. It was the hard work of kneading and pounding the clay that made it pliable and fit for useful design. Sometimes, the clay didn’t conform, becoming slip added to a bucket of water. So it is with unyielding hearts in the hands of the Master Potter.
Holiday Blessings—