Romans 9:19

Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he still find fault? [That God actually and always does find fault with sinners is a fact never to be overlooked, and is also a fact which shows beyond all question or peradventure that God abhors evil and takes no positive steps toward its production. Even in the case cited by Paul, where God hardened Pharaoh's heart, the act of God was permissive, for else how could the Lord expostulate with Pharaoh for a rebellious spirit for which God himself was responsible? (Exodus 9:17; Exodus 10:3-4) Again, let us consider the case in point. If God hardened Israel by positive act, why did his representative and "express image" weep over Jerusalem? and why was the Book of Romans written?] For who withstandeth his will? [Since Paul is still justifying God in formulating a gospel which results in the condemnation of Jews and the saving of Gentiles, this objector is naturally either a Jew or some one speaking from the Jewish standpoint. This fact is made more apparent in the subsequent verses, for in them the apostle appropriately answers the Jew out of his Jewish Scriptures. The objection runs thus: But, Paul, if God shows mercy to whom he will, and if he hardens whom he will, then it is he who has hardened us Jews in unbelief against the gospel. Why, then, does he still find fault with us, since he himself, according to your argument, has excluded us from blessedness, and made us unfit for mercy? This reply implies three things: 1. God, not the Jew, was at fault. 2. The Jew was ill used of God, in being deprived of blessing through hardening. 3. The rewards of saints and sinners should be equal, since each did God's will absolutely in the several fields of good and evil where God had elected each to work. To each of these three implications the apostle replies with lightning-like brevity: 1. It is impious, O man, to so argue in self-justification as to compromise the good name of God. 2. It is folly for the thing formed to complain against him that formed it. 3. Rewards and destinies need not be equal, since, for instance, the potter out of the same lump forms vessels for different destinies, whether of honor or dishonor. But it must be borne in mind that in the last of these three brief answers the apostle aims rather, as Alford says, "at striking dumb the objector by a statement of God's indubitable right, against which it does not become us men to murmur, than at unfolding to us the actual state of the case." Let us now consider the three answers in detail.]