Romans 9:16-29 “Vessels of Mercy”

The following is the twenty-third week’s lesson. God’s elect are saved; those who reject God’s grace are condemned.

Romans: 9:16 So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. ^17 For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.” ^18 Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.

^19 You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?” ^20 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?” ^21 Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?

^22 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, ^23 and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory, ^24 even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?

^25 As He says also in Hosea:

“I will call them My people, who were not My people,
And her beloved, who was not beloved.”
²⁶ “And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them,
‘You are not My people,’
There they shall be called sons of the living God.”

^27 Isaiah also cries out concerning Israel:

“Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea,
The remnant will be saved
²⁸ For He will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness,
Because the Lord will make a short work upon the earth.”
^29 And as Isaiah said before:
“Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed,
We would have become like Sodom,
And we would have been made like Gomorrah.”

God uses those who reject him to further his kingdom among his elect.