Lord Of All Salvation, The Sculptor And The Poet Is Still Creating (Rm. 9:19-29)

Dave Carlsen September 24, 2017

Romans 9:19-29

¹⁹One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” ²⁰But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” ²¹Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?

²²What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? ²³What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— ²⁴even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? ²⁵As he says in Hosea:

“I will call them ‘my people’ who are not my people;
and I will call her ‘my loved one’ who is not my loved one,”

²⁶and,

“In the very place where it was said to them,
‘You are not my people,’
there they will be called ‘children of the living God.’”

²⁷Isaiah cries out concerning Israel:

“Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea,
only the remnant will be saved.
²⁸For the Lord will carry out
his sentence on earth with speed and finality.”

²⁹It is just as Isaiah said previously:

“Unless the Lord Almighty
had left us descendants,
we would have become like Sodom,
we would have been like Gomorrah.”