The Potter, the Clay, and the Doctrine of Reprobation

"Who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, 'Why have you made me like this?' Has the potter no right over the clay to make of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?" (Romans 9:20-21).

"Now in a great house, there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work" (II Timothy 2:20-21). 

The first text above, Romans 9:20-21, is one of the classic prooftexts for the biblical doctrine of reprobation, the understanding that God has chosen the nonelect to remain in unbelief, and receive the judgment of damnation in Hell. The Apostle did not create this analogy, but rather borrows it from Isaiah 29:16: "You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay, that the thing made should say of its maker, 'He did not make me': or the thing formed say of Him who formed it, 'He has no understanding.'" And Jeremiah 18:6: "'O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done?' declares the Lord. 'Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.'"

People who hold to any level of Pelagianism avoid Romans 9:21, as they do, in fact, the entire chapter. To say that God claims the right of creator to use His creations as His glory requires is to deny any amount of sovereignty in humans. Yet, just as Satan offered Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:5, the semi-Pelagian advocates an autonomy in men, as if we were self-created and self-redeemed. 

God knows nothing of such autonomy, but, instead, claims the same sovereignty over His human creations as the potter claims over the clay, to make some into vessels of honor, that is, of holiness and blessedness, and others into vessels of dishonor, that is, into holders of wastes to be shattered and discarded (See Leviticus 6:28, 11:33, etc.). 

The Sovereignty of God Over the Days of Our Lives

"Your eyes saw my unformed substance; 

In Your book were written, every one of them, 

The days that were formed for me,

When as yet there was none of them." 

- Psalm 139:16 

In this verse, David praises God for that which so many modern evangelicals reject, His sovereign planning of the intimate details of our lives. In verse 6, he even says, "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me." But the American evangelical responds by squawking, "Free will! Free will! Free will!" with the same cadence and lack of thought as the seagull at the beach. If there were thought in their kneejerk response, they might recognize that their objection is the same that Satan offered Adam and Eve in their temptation (Genesis 3:5), i. e., the illusion of autonomy.

The problem for these devotees of their Saint Pelagius is that their holy invocation of "free will" is not biblical. The verse above is just one example to the contrary. Another that I like is, "I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, 'My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all My purpose'" (Isaiah 46:9-10). And this verse provides the key, which is missed by too many professing Christians. The Bible includes God's absolute sovereignty in His nature as the unique living God. A god without sovereignty is not the God of the Bible, and, therefore, is a mere idol of men's fantasy. 

The Deity of Jesus Proven from Hebrews

"Of old You laid the foundation of the earth, 

And the heavens are the work of Your hands. 

They will perish, but You will remain; 

They will all wear out like a garment. 

You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away, 

But You are the same, and Your years have no end." 

- Psalm 102:25-27 

The verses above were penned by the Holy Spirit through an unnamed poet. We are told of him in the subtitle only that he was "one afflicted," but not by what. It continues, "when he was faint and pours out his complaint before the Lord." Indeed, the psalm is full of pathos, and we should be encouraged by that example. Jesus is ready to hear all of our human emotions, not just happy ones, as is sometimes suggested by popular TV preachers. 

These verses are then quoted in Hebrews 1:10-12, and explicitly applied to the Son, that is, to Jesus in His divinity (verse 8), in His role as co-Creator with the Father.

In the original passage, we are given no specific information to which divine Person the passage is addressed. In isolation, it could be taken as addressed to the Father. However, we have a hint, made explicit by the author of Hebrews, that it is addressed to the preincarnate Son because the psalmist explicitly addresses his complaints to Jehovah (verse 1), the name by which He was known to His Old Covenant people. However, the sects can pretend not to see that, whether to support the Arianism of the Jehovah's Witnesses or the tritheism of the  Mormons or the Sabellianism of the Oneness Pentecostals, or any other denial of the full deity of Christ. 

Yet, when we look at the quote in Hebrews, all of those quibbling voices are quelled, as that author makes explicit what is implied in the original: the Lord of whom the Psalmist speaks is none other than the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. 

The Gift of Justification: Freely Given

"The righteousness imputed in justification is a gift - a free gift. The basis of justification is a gift: the lifelong obedience and the death of Jesus Christ. The content of justification is a gift: the righteousness of the substitutionary in life and in death of Jesus Christ. The divine act in the sinner's consciousness is a gift: declaring the sinner righteous. The faith by which the sinner receives the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ is a gift. All is a gift, according to grace, gratuitously given." 

- David Engelsma, "Gospel Truth of Justification," p. 327, emphasis in the original 

In the paragraph above, Engelsma describes the central distinction of biblical Christianity, contrasted with both false doctrines and false religions, that true salvation is attained externally to the believer, and then given to him. Every false expression of Christianity or of other religions will, in some way, make its version of salvation based on some action of the individual, an internal basis. The contrast is absolute and uncompromisable. 

The difficulty here is that bit of Adam which remains in us. Adam alone lived under the covenant of works, the promise of salvation based on his obedience. It has, therefore, been passed down in our spiritual DNA to continue to want to contribute something of ourselves toward our salvation. However, Adam also passed to us his fallen nature. When he fell into sin, he lost for himself and for us anything inherent to us that would have merit in God's eyes. 

The bad thing about being sinners is that we have nothing within ourselves to give to God as payment for justification. The good thing about being sinners is that it is exactly for such helpless sinners that the Gospel is given: "I am not shamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes..., for in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, 'The righteous shall live by faith'" (Romans 1:16-17, incorporating Habakkuk 2:4). Exactly where I am helpless, the biblical Gospel provides my lack by free grace. In what way is it free? In that I need not, and cannot, contribute anything to gain it. Was there a cost? Yes, and a great cost, for it cost the Son of God's suffering and bleeding on the Roman cross.  

Our Covenant Heads: The First Adam and the Last Adam

"Because He is the covenantal head of elect believers, He [Jesus] may be and is their righteousness with God by faith alone in Him. Because He is the covenantal head of elect believers, the obedience of these believers need not be, may not be, and is not their righteousness with God. For their obedience to be their righteousness with God would be to dispossess, displace, disregard, and disgrace the head of the covenant, who is Jesus the Christ. It is the precise purpose of Galatians 3 to establish that the precious but contested truth of justification by faith alone in Jesus Christ has its ground in the covenantal headship of Jesus Christ."

- David Engelsma, "Gospel Truth of Justification," p. 303

The Apostle Paul describes a parallel and contrast between Adam and Jesus in Romans 5:12-21. 

First, he tells us of Adam in verse 12: "Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned..." Theologians refer to this as the Covenant of Works, which God made with Adam, and, through him, with all his posterity. All of Adam's descendants, excepting Jesus alone, were represented by Adam. If Adam had fulfilled that covenant by perfect obedience during his period of probation, then not only he, but that posterity also, would have been confirmed in eternal life. The condition to be met in that covenant was perfect obedience. For how long? We aren't told. However, for some length of time. But Adam failed, taking himself and his posterity into death, both spiritual and physical. 

Then Paul tells us of a separate covenant between the Father and the Son, for which the application to us has been called the Covenant of Grace. "But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's [i. e., Adam's] trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for [a different] many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following man trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous" (Romans 5:15-18).

Thus, Paul points to two covenants, one headed by Adam, the other by Jesus, whom he calls "the last Adam" in I Corinthians 15:45, and contrasts their effects. One renders men sinners while the other renders men righteous, not inherently, but rather by the imputation of the nature of the heads of the respective covenants. 

Modern Americans have a problem with covenant theology, because we do not live in a covenantal society. We believe that each person determines his own fortunes in life. Yet we same Americans are happy to talk about Jesus as our savior. We will gladly accept the imputation to us of His righteousness. However, we rarely accept the other side of the same coin, the imputation of Adam's fall. The two concepts follow the same covenantal logic, but they fall on our ears very differently. Yet, to accept the one necessarily implies the other, as I wrote here. 

Faith in Faith Will Never Face Down Life's Storms

"The truth is that the faith by which alone the elect sinner is justified is a knowing and trusting that renounce works and working for righteousness... The faith that renounces works and working for justification is true faith. Whatever supposed 'faith' insists on working for righteousness is, thereby, exposed as a false faith. No one is justified by a false faith." 

-David Engelsma, "Gospel Truth of Justification," p. 190

We have all seen TV shows and movies in which the solution to some tragedy is stated, "Just have faith." That is all the encouragement we are given, without any statement of faith in whom or in what. That is because our humanistic age believes in faith in faith as a form of salvation without God. It is also stated as "just believe in yourself." It is a type of secular religion. 

That is not at all the way the word is used in the Bible. 

After her brother Lazarus died, Jesus said to his sister Martha, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die" (John 11:25-26). "Believe" here is used as a synonym for "have faith." There is nothing here like "just have faith." Rather, Jesus comforts Martha by telling her to have faith in Him. In other words, her comfort is to come, not from her faith, but from Jesus, the object of her faith. 

And that is exactly where modern secular religion fails. By separating faith from its object, secularism posits the power in the commitment of a person's mind, not in the power of one outside that person who has actual authority over events. 

Remember the story of Jesus and the storm (Mark 4:35-41): "On that day, when evening had come, He said to them, 'Let us go across to the other side.' And leaving the crowd, they took Him with them in the boat, just as He was. And other boats were with Him. And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. But He was in the stern, asleep on a cushion. And they woke Him and said to him, 'Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?' And He awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, 'Peace! Be still!' And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. He said to them, 'Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?' And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, 'Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?'" 

The disciples were in a small fishing boat on the Sea of Galilee, and a severe storm blew up, threatening to capsize the boat. Jesus, unperturbed, lay sleeping in the back of the boat. The disciples woke Him, pleading for His help. And what was His answer? Just believe in yourselves? Just have faith? No, His response was to command the storm to cease. Why? Because their salvation from impending death was not within themselves. It was only because they believed in Him that they survived that day.