The Potter’s Clay

The Potter’s Clay

Romans Chapter 9

The Human Condition

A continuing theme throughout the Letter to the Romans is a discussion of the human condition. Paul continually refers to the nature of “the flesh” contrasted with the nature of “the spirit”. There is also the contrast of created beings living in a world dominated by death as apposed to the Living God who created all things and has no beginning or end. The letter begins with the affirmation that gulf between man and God does exist, but that it is bridged by God alone, by grace through faith.

In considering the human condition, Paul offers a significant discussion of the role of the law. The law is holy, he says, but he strongly asserts in various ways that the law is not a means of salvation. No amount of adherence to the law can make us holy. Our salvation is through the gracious will of God, and not through any actions of our own. Having stated this, Paul then deals with many related questions. There is the question of those who lived before the law was given, those who lived between the time of the law and the time of the coming of Christ, and the status of the Gentiles, who never had the law. Also, Paul gives careful consideration to question of what we might properly call our religion, that is, the practice of our faith. The questions that arise in regard to our daily living include whether we may continue in sin, since the grace of God continues to abound, whether or not it makes any difference what we do, since we are unable to achieve righteousness by any action of our own, and whether or not we even have any choice in our actions, since the Lord, not constrained by time, has always known who will and who will not accept salvation.

In answer to these questions, Paul explains that though the coming of Christ was an event that occurred at a particular point in time, the plan of God for our salvation has always existed. Though we cannot achieve righteousness, by the grace of God our faith will be credited to us as righteousness. Having accepted the grace of God, we must now live as slaves to righteousness, abandoning our former slavery to sin. Though we remain mortals in a fallen world, nothing can separate of from the love of God that is ours in Jesus Christ. The Spirit intercedes for us; Christ is on the right hand of God pleading for our salvation; and God, who alone can judge us and whose judgment will certainly come to pass, is not eager to condemn us, but rather stands ready to justify us.

The Law, the Temple, and the Patriarchs

Having addressed these important issues, the one that still weighs on Paul’s mind is that status of Israel: the chosen people of the Lord. In Chapter 9, he begins an extended discussion continuing through chapters 10 and 11 which addresses this concern. In verses 1-5, Paul speaks from his heart of his love and pity for Israel, his own race, and presents a list of their various advantages. To mention three, they had been given the law, the temple, and the witness of the patriarchs.

Paul has already addressed the issue of the Jews and the law. The law was given as their religion, that is, the practice of their faith. They had instead made it the object of their faith: they believed they could attain the favor of God through adherence to the law. This type of exchange theology has not been limited to the Jews. We are all prone to this error in thinking. We begin by making the mistake that God is limited to our understanding: we begin to think that what we know of God is all there is of God. Once we begin to limit God to human terms, it becomes hard to distinguish the will of God from our own desires. We can believe that if we act in a certain way which we understand to be prescribed by God, then God must respond by granting not only our salvation, but material blessings, power over our enemies, and our proper recognition as the uniquely chosen people of God. It is so easy in abstract discussion to recognize this as arrogant idolatry, but it is not so easy to recognize in the very real terms of our daily lives.

In addition to the law, Paul says that the Jews had been given the Temple of God. Here again the people of God had subverted the intent of God. As early as the time of Moses, the people feared the presence of God. When Moses descended from Mount Sinai, his face was changed from being in the presence of God, and the people could not bear to look upon it. They established Moses as their high priest to intercede with God for them. God gave first the Ark of the Covenant, then the tabernacle, then the temple as a place for God to come and be among the people, but the people used all these as a means to separate God from their daily lives. Though they knew intellectually that God is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent, spiritually, they limited God’s presence to the temple, so much so that when they were exiled from their land and from the temple, they felt themselves cut off from God. This process of compartmentalizing is also not uniquely Jewish. We all at times act as though we can limit God to some aspect of our lives – that how we behave in church should be different than how we live our lives. When we try to make God smaller, it is difficult for us to rely solely on God’s presence and action in the areas of our lives where we are most at risk.

The Jews also had the special blessing of the patriarchs, the succession of great men of faith, with whom God dealt in a dramatic and inspirational manner, and through whom God earnestly desired to establish an eternal covenant with the people of Israel. God presented Israel with a unique and specific purpose, but the people began to believe that they were chosen because they were special, and not that they were special because they were chosen. We too can become trapped in the thought that our unique relationship with God is an exclusive relationship that sets us apart from all others. We rest in the thought that God is on our side, and forget that we are called to be on the side of God.

Paul is not alone in his anguish over the plight of Israel. Jesus cried out over the people who stoned the prophets, but whom he would gather as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings (Luke 13:34). It is sobering to think that both men were addressing the most deeply religious people of their day: people who had all the advantages offered by God, who studied their scriptures and earnestly sought the will of God for their lives, but who could not see that they had seriously and fundamentally erred in that pursuit.

Children of the Promise

In verses 6-13, Paul begins to revert back to his rhetorical style in previous chapters, wherein he makes some statement, gives his own voice to any possible objection or misinterpretation of that argument, and then refutes any such objection. His concern in this section is that the condition of the Jews might be interpreted not as a failure of man to live up to the purpose of God, but as the failure of God to carry out that purpose in man.

Paul’s immediate defense of this claim is to say that “Not all Israel is Israel” by which he means that not all the natural descendants of Abraham are among the chosen people. He points out that Ishmael, the son of Abraham by Hagar, was excluded from the covenant, and even though he was the twin brother of Jacob, who became Israel, Esau was also excluded. Moreover, the prophets had spoken of Israel being reduced to a small remnant, so that very few of the descendents of Israel would participate in the covenant of God.

Paul goes on to say that the spiritual children of Abraham are the “children of the promise.” Paul is not alone in this thinking. John the Baptist told the religious leaders who cam to his baptism that they should not delude themselves into thinking that they were special simply because they were children of Abraham, because could raise up children of Abraham even from the stones that lay all about them on the ground (Matthew 3:9). Also, the Apostle John says of Jesus that he gave us the right to become children of God – children not of natural descent, either by birth or adoption – but entirely by the will of God (John 1:11-12).

The Potter’s Clay

In verses 14-21, the voice of the objector is back in again in full strength, as Paul states that our salvation is not by any human means, either lineage, desire, or accomplishment, but entirely by the mercy of God, and then asks how we can be held accountable if everything depends on the will of God. Out of context, the verse Paul quotes from Exodus 33:19 may sound as if the will of God is capricious or arbitrary, but in context this statement is one of certain assurance, as it is part of an exchange between Moses and God, wherein Moses repeatedly asks for assurance that the Lord will be with him and the people of Israel on their journey. The Lord assured Moses that he would be with them, and that they would be secure in his compassion and mercy.

Paul’s next analogy can also be disturbing if we take it out of context, as he seems to portray us as inanimate lumps of clay, completely at the mercy of the potter to do with as he will. In context, we know that Paul has consistently represented God as a loving, patient God who bares our failures and our accusations with grace and mercy, but who has a definite plan for or lives – lives which he holds in his loving and capable hands.

Great Patience

Paul’s argument in verses 22-29 is somewhat difficult to follow. He begins by saying that God is willing and capable of showing his justified wrath to those who are prepared for destruction, but goes on to say that God acts with great patience and mercy, so that the objects of his wrath become objects of mercy. The Old Testament quotations in the passage show that even though the people of Israel may dwindle to the smallest of remnants, that remnant will be saved, and that God will call “his people” those who are not his people. Paul applies this latter thought both to the Jews who had rejected the choice of God, and to the Gentiles, whom the Jews had not considered the people of God.

The Stumbling Block

In verses 30-33, Paul clearly states the failure of the Jews and the success of the Gentiles. The Jews pursued righteousness, but depended on themselves to achieve this righteousness through adherence to the law. The Gentiles, in contrast, had not pursued righteousness, but had obtained it, not by any actions of their own, but by faith. Continuing to contrast God’s wrath and mercy, Paul presents Christ, the instrument of our salvation, as the stone that is the “head of the corner”. Those who put their trust in this stone are forever secure, but for many the stone is a stumbling block.

The ways of man are not the ways of God. In this present age we cannot fully understand the mind of God. By the grace of God, we can by faith come to know the love of God. Though God bears with great patience our entanglement in the self-centered logic of this world, there will come a time those who reject the love of God are themselves rejected. Paul’s attitude gives us a model to which we must compare ourselves. Have we become content in our salvation to the exclusion of all others, or have we become the new Israel, a priestly nation through whom all nations will be blessed?