The Potter and the Pot
If Romans 9 is the most troubling chapter of the Bible to most Christians, the illustration of the potter and the pots is the most troubling analogy. The unmitigated force of the King’s English makes the illustration particularly striking, especially with Paul’s prior statement about Pharaoh’s hardening:
17For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. 18Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. 19Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? 20Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? 21Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? 22What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: 23And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, 24Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles? (Rom. 9:17-24).
Many Christians throughout the centuries have taken the pot and potter metaphor to mean that man cannot resist God whatsoever. The upshot to this thinking is the belief that many men are damned according to God’s mysterious choice. In a chapter on Reprobation in his book, The Sovereignty of God (from which we quote a few lengthy passages below),Reformed thinker A.W. Pink explains how the Westminster Confessions implies that God chooses to send some people to hell. He follows up this statement with Calvin’s view of reprobation, and then adds some additional points of his own. Later, he explains the metaphor of the common pot upon the Potter’s wheel as man formed by the sovereign Potter into a vessel of damnation. Although in previous chapters we have already answered many of the arguments presented in the following quote by Pink, we will analyze some of them a bit further, and answer in more detail the claim by John Calvin that the word raised in Exodus 9:16 means appoint. All word emphases below are from Pink:
In the Westminster Confession it is said, “God from all eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably foreordain whatsoever comes to pass”. The late Mr. F. W. Grant—a most careful and cautious student and writer—commenting on these words said: “It is perfectly, divinely true, that God hath ordained for His own glory whatsoever comes to pass.” Now if these statements are true, is not the doctrine of Reprobation established by them? What, in human history, is the one thing which does come to pass every day? What, but that men and women die, pass out of this world into a hopeless eternity, an eternity of suffering and woe. If then God has foreordained whatsoever comes to pass then He must have decreed that vast numbers of human beings should pass out of this world unsaved to suffer eternally in the Lake of Fire. Admitting the general premise, is not the specific conclusion inevitable?
…We cannot do better now than quote from Calvin’s comments upon this verse (Romans 9:17). “There are here two things to be considered, —the predestination of Pharaoh to ruin, which is to be referred to the past and yet the hidden counsel of God, —and then, the design of this, which was to make known the name of God. As many interpreters, striving to modify this passage, pervert it, we must first observe, that for the word ‘I have raised thee up’, or stirred up, in the Hebrew is, ‘I have appointed’, by which it appears, that God, designing to show that the contumacy of Pharaoh would not prevent Him to deliver His people, not only affirms that his fury had been foreseen by Him, and that He had prepared means for restraining it, but that He had also thus designedly ordained it and indeed for this end, —that he might exhibit a more illustrious evidence of His own power.” It will be observed that Calvin gives as the force of the Hebrew word which Paul renders “For this purpose have I raised thee up,” —“I have appointed”. As this is the word on which the doctrine and argument of the verse turns we would further point out that in making this quotation from Exodus 9:16 the apostle significantly departs from the Septuagint—the version then in common use, and from which he most frequently quotes—and substitutes a clause for the first that is given by the Septuagint: instead of “On this account thou hast been preserved”, he gives “For this very end have I raised thee up”!
(Pink quote continued)
…First, we know from Exodus 14 and 15 that Pharaoh was “cut off”, that he was cut off by God, that he was cut off in the very midst of his wickedness, that he was cut off not by sickness nor by the infirmities which are incident to old age, nor by what men term an accident, but cut off by the immediate hand of God in judgment.
Second, it is clear that God raised up Pharaoh for this very end—to “cut him off,” which in the language of the New Testament means “destroyed.” God never does anything without a previous design. In giving him being, in preserving him through infancy and childhood, in raising him to the throne of Egypt, God had one end in view. That such was God’s purpose is clear from His words to Moses before he went down to Egypt, to demand of Pharaoh that Jehovah’s people should be allowed to go a three days’ journey into the wilderness to worship Him—”And the LORD said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all these wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go” (Ex. 4:21).
…Third, an examination of God’s dealings with Pharaoh makes it clear that Egypt’s king was indeed a “vessel of wrath fitted to destruction.”
…Fourth, God “hardened” his heart as He declared He would (Ex. 4:21). This is in full accord with the declarations of Holy Scripture—”The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the Lord” (Prov. 16:1); “The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water, He turneth it whithersoever He will” (Prov. 21:1). Like all other kings, Pharaoh’s heart was in the hand of the LORD; and God had both the right and the power to turn it whithersoever He pleased. And it pleased Him to turn it against all good.
(Pink quote continued)
…Finally, it is worthy of careful consideration to note how the vindication of God in His dealings with Pharaoh has been fully attested… Again; we have the witness of Moses who was fully acquainted with God’s conduct toward Pharaoh. He had heard at the beginning what was God’s design in connection with Pharaoh; he had witnessed God’s dealings with him; he had observed his “long-sufferance” toward this vessel of wrath fitted to destruction; and at last he had beheld him cut off in Divine judgment at the Red Sea. How then was Moses impressed?
Does he raise the cry of injustice? Does he dare to charge God with unrighteousness? Far from it. Instead, he says, “Who is like unto Thee, O LORD, among the gods? Who is like Thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders!” (Ex. 15:11).
…We must believe, therefore that the Judge of all the earth did right in creating and destroying this vessel of wrath, Pharaoh.
…IN CONCLUSION, WE WOULD SAY THAT IN FORMING PHARAOH GOD DISPLAYED NEITHER JUSTICE NOR INJUSTICE, BUT ONLY HIS BARE SOVEREIGNTY. AS THE POTTER IS SOVEREIGN IN FORMING VESSELS, SO GOD IS SOVEREIGN IN FORMING MORAL AGENTS.
…That which is most repellant to the carnal mind in the above verse is the reference to hardening—”Whom He will He hardeneth“—and it is just here that so many commentators and expositors have adulterated the truth. The most common view is that the apostle is speaking of nothing more than judicial hardening, i.e., a forsaking by God because these subjects of His displeasure had first rejected His truth and forsaken Him. Those who contend for this interpretation appeal to such scriptures as Romans 1:19-26—”God gave them up”, that is (see context) those who “knew God” yet glorified Him not as God (v. 21). Appeal is also made to 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12. But it is to be noted that the word “harden” does not occur in either of these passages. But further. We submit that Romans 9:18 has no reference whatever to judicial “hardening”. The apostle is not there speaking of those who had already turned their backs on God’s truth, but instead, he is dealing with God’s sovereignty, God’s sovereignty as seen not only in showing mercy to whom He wills, but also in hardening whom He pleases.
(Pink quote continued)
…Verse 18: “Therefore hath He mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth“. This affirmation of God’s sovereign “hardening” of sinners’ hearts—in contradistinction from judicial hardening—is not alone. Mark the language of John 12:37-40, “But though He had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on Him: that the saying of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake, LORD, who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of the LORD been revealed? Therefore they could not believe (why?), because that Isaiah said again, He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their hearts (why? Because they had refused to believe on Christ? This is the popular belief, but mark the answer of Scripture) that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.” NOW, READER, IT IS JUST A QUESTION AS TO WHETHER OR NOT YOU WILL BELIEVE WHAT GOD HAS REVEALED IN HIS WORD. IT IS NOT A MATTER OF PROLONGED SEARCHING OR PROFOUND STUDY, BUT A CHILDLIKE SPIRIT WHICH IS NEEDED, IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND THIS DOCTRINE.lii
At this point A.W. Pink explains the illustration of the pot and the potter. He does this because of his view of the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. Notice in the passage below that no attempt is made to correlate the pot on the potter’s wheel with the pot and potter metaphor found in Isaiah 29, 45, or Jeremiah 18:
(Pink quote continued)
Verse 19: “Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth He yet find fault? For who hath resisted His will?”Is not this the very objection which is urged today? The force of the apostle’s questions here seems to be this: Since everything is dependent on God’s will, which is irreversible, and since this will of God, according to which He can do everything as sovereign—since He can have mercy on whom He wills to have mercy, and can refuse mercy and inflict punishment on whom He chooses to do so—why does He not will to have mercy on all, so as to make them obedient, and thus put finding of fault out of court? Now it should be particularly noted that the apostle does not repudiate the ground on which the objection rests. He does not say God does not find fault. Nor does he say, Men may resist His will. Furthermore; he does not explain away the objection by saying: You have altogether misapprehended my meaning when I said ‘Whom He wills He treats kindly, and whom He wills He treats severely’. But he says, “first, this is an objection you have no right to make; and then, This is an objection you have no reason to make” (vide Dr. Brown). The objection was utterly inadmissible, for it was a replying against God. It was to complain about, argue against, what God had done!
(Pink quote continued)
Verse 19: “Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth He yet find fault? For who hath resisted His will?”The language which the apostle here puts into the mouth of the objector is so plain and pointed, that misunderstanding ought to be impossible. Why doth He yet find fault?Now, reader, what can these words mean? Formulate your own reply before considering ours. Can the force of the apostle’s question be any other than this: If it is true that God has “mercy” on whom He wills, and also “hardens” whom He wills, then what becomes of human responsibility? In such a case men are nothing better than puppets, and if this be true then it would be unjust for God to “find fault” with His helpless creatures. Mark the word “then”—Thou wilt say then unto me—he states the (false) inference or conclusion which the objector draws from what the apostle had been saying. And mark, my reader, the apostle readily saw the doctrine he had formulated would raise this very objection, and unless what we have written throughout this book provokes, in some at least, (all whose carnal minds are not subdued by divine grace) the same objection, then it must be either because we have not presented the doctrine which is set forth in Romans 9, or else because human nature has changed since the apostle’s day. Consider now the remainder of the verse (19). The apostle repeats the same objection in a slightly different form—repeats it so that his meaning may not be misunderstood—namely, “For who hath resisted His will?”It is clear then that the subject under immediate discussion relates to God’s “will”, i.e., His sovereign ways, which confirms what we have said above upon verses 17 and 18, where we contended that it is not judicial hardening which is in view (that is, hardening because of previous rejection of the truth), but sovereign “hardening”, that is, the “hardening” of a fallen and sinful creature for no other reason than that which inheres in the sovereign will of God. And hence the question, “Who hath resisted His will?”What then does the apostle say in reply to these objections?
(Pink quote continued)
Verse 20: “Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?”The apostle, then, did not say the objection was pointless and groundless, instead, he rebukes the objector for his impiety. He reminds him that he is merely a “man”, a creature, and that as such it is most unseemly and impertinent for him to “reply (argue, or reason) against God”. Furthermore, he reminds him that he is nothing more than a “thing formed”, and therefore it is madness and blasphemy to rise up against the Former Himself. Ere leaving this verse it should be pointed out that its closing words, “Why hast thou made me thus“help us to determine, unmistakably, the precise subject under discussion. In the light of the immediate context what can be the force of the “thus”? What, but as in the case of Esau, why hast thou made me an object of “hatred”? What, but as in the case of Pharaoh, Why hast thou made me simply to “harden” me? What other meaning can, fairly, be assigned to it?
It is highly important to keep clearly before us that the apostle’s object throughout this passage is to treat of God’s sovereignty in dealing with, on the one hand, those whom He loves—vessels unto honor and vessels of mercy, and also, on the other hand, with those whom He “hates” and “hardens”—vessels unto dishonor and vessels of wrath.
…Ere passing to the next verse let us summarize the teaching of this and the two previous ones. In verse 19 two questions are asked, “Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth He yet find fault? For who hath resisted His will?”To those questions a threefold answer is returned. First, in verse 20 the apostle denies the creature the right to sit in judgment upon the ways of the Creator—”Nay but, O man who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to Him that formed it, Why hast Thou made me thus?” The apostle insists that the rectitude of God’s will must not be questioned. Whatever He does must be right. Second, in verse 21 the apostle declares that the Creator has the right to dispose of His creatures as He sees fit—”Hath not the Potter power over the clay, of the same lump, to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor?”
(Pink quote continued)
…”Hath not the potter power over the clay of the same lump, to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?”Certainly God has the right to do this because He is the Creator. Does He exercise this right? Yes, as verses 13 and 17 clearly show us—”For this same purpose have I raised thee (Pharaoh) up”.
…ONE POINT IN THE ABOVE VERSE REQUIRES SEPARATE CONSIDERATION— “VESSELS OF WRATH FITTED TO DESTRUCTION”. THE USUAL EXPLANATION WHICH IS GIVEN OF THESE WORDS IS THAT THE VESSELS OF WRATH FIT THEMSELVES TO DESTRUCTION, THAT IS, FIR THEMSELVES BY VIRTUE OF THEIR WICKEDNESS; AND IT IS ARGUED THAT THERE IS NO NEED FOR GOD TO “FIT THEM TO DESTRUCTION”, BECAUSE THEY ARE ALREADY FITTED BY THEIR OWN DEPRAVITY, AND THAT THIS MUST BE THE REAL MEANING OF THIS EXPRESSION. Now if by “destruction” we understand punishment, it is perfectly true that the non-elect do “fit themselves”, for every one will be judged “according to his works”; and further, we freely grant that subjectively the non-elect do fit themselves for destruction. But the point to be decided is, Is this what the apostle is here referring to? And, without hesitation, we reply it is not. Go back to verses 11-13: did Esau fit himself to be an object of God’s hatred, or was he not such before he was born? Again; did Pharaoh fithimself for destruction, or did not God harden his heart before the plagues were sent upon Egypt?—see Exodus 4:21!
Romans 9:22is clearly a continuation in thought of verse 21, and verse 21is part of the apostle’s reply to the questions raised in verse 20:therefore to fairly follow out the figure, it must be God Himself who “fits” unto destruction the vessels of wrath. Should it be asked how God does this, the answer, necessarily, is, objectively, —He fits the non-elect unto destruction by His fore-ordinating decrees.96
Since A.W. Pink gives such strong affirmations of God’s sovereignty, it should not surprise us that toward the close of his essay he turns his attention to the problem of evil and man’s free will. At this point Pink has thrown his weight so far forward on the rocking horse of dialecticism (i.e., toward emphasizing the unilateral activity of an all-sovereign God), that he dare not throw his weight anywhere but backward. Hence, even though Pink has repeatedly been claiming that the Potter forms every moral essence of wrathful vessels designed unto damnation, man is now claimed to be responsible for how the vessel turned out. Thus, verses like Ecclesiastes 7:29 are now presented as proofs against the very arguments Pink himself had been making just moments before. Says Pink:
Having thus stated the doctrine of Reprobation, as it is presented in Holy Writ, let us now mention one or two important considerations to guard it against abuse and prevent the reader from making any unwarranted deductions: —…the doctrine of Reprobation does not mean that God purposed to take innocent creatures, make them wicked, and then damn them. Scripture says, “God hath made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions” (Eccl. 7:29). God has not created sinful creatures in order to destroy them, for God is not to be charged with the sin of His creatures. The responsibility and criminality is man’s. God’s decree of Reprobation contemplated Adam’s race as fallen, sinful, corrupt, guilty. From it God purposed to save a few as the monuments of His sovereign grace; the others He determined to destroy as the exemplification of His justice and severity. In determining to destroy these others, God did them no wrong. They had already fallen in Adam, their legal representative; they are therefore born with a sinful nature, and in their sins He leaves them. Nor can they complain. This is as they wish; they have no desire for holiness; they love darkness rather than light. Where, then, is there any injustice if God “gives them up to their own hearts’ lusts” (Ps. 81:12)!
…God does not (as we have been slanderously reported to affirm) compel the wicked to sin, as the rider spurs on an unwilling horse. God only says in effect that awful word, “Let them alone” (Mt. 15:14). He needs only to slacken the reins of providential restraint, and withhold the influence of saving grace, and apostate man will only too soon and too surely, of his own accord, fall by his iniquities.liii
One reason I cite these quotes is to show how persuasive Calvinist arguments can at first appear to the reader because of an author’s adamant and consistent argument. This is because readers do not usually take the time to critically process what they read. Nevertheless, my readers will see that most of A.W. Pink’s assertions in the above quotes have already been answered in earlier portions of this book. And yet I think that some further comments are advisable as a review and also as a rebuttal to certain other points raised by Pink in his support of Calvin.
First, Calvin’s explanation of Exodus 9:16 is offered as evidence of God’s sovereignty over Pharaoh. Pink notes that in Exodus 9:16 Calvin translates, I have raised thee up to mean, I have appointed thee, treating it as the true, and apparently only meaning of the Hebrew word. In fact, Pink states that “this is the word on which the doctrine and argument of the verse turns.” He does so without citing any real lexical evidence of the Hebrew word (’amad ), and without suggesting it could have any other meaning than appoint. There are, in fact, over 20 other possibilities according to Strong’s concordance. The word appoint is simply one of these in Strong’s long alphabetical list:
‘a prim. root; to stand, in various relations (lit. and fig., intras. and trans.):-abide (behind), appoint, arise, cease, confirm, dwell, be employed, endure, establish, leave, make, ordain, be (over), place, (be) present (self), raise up, remain, repair + serve, set (forth, over, -tle, up) (make to, make to be at a, (with-) stand (by, fast, firm, still, up), (be at a) stay (up), tarry.
The Hebrew word ‘amad (which Calvin takes to mean appoint), as it actually appears in the KJV Old Testament, is rendered as the following words: “stood” 171, “stand” 137, (”raise, stand…) up” 42, “set” 32, “stay” 17, “still” 15, “appointed” 10, “standing” 10, “endure” 8, “remain” 8, “present” 7, “continue” 6, “withstand” 6, “waited” 5, “establish” 5, misc. 42; (total) 521. The King James translators chose to render the Hebrew word ‘amad into the word “appoint” about 2% of the time in the Old Testament. ‘Amad is rendered as “raised up” in Exodus 9:16. Choosing appoint from what appears to be many word possibilities, Calvin builds huge inferences by then applying it irrationally, i.e., in such a way so that it contradicts other statements in the Bible. When abstractly considered apart from the biblical context, it is right to say that “raised” may mean appoint (again, when abstractly considered), but it must be pointed out that Calvin completely ignores Paul’s use of fully rouse in Romans 9:17 when quoting Exodus 9:16. Furthermore (as already noted), Paul even deviates from the Septuagint in order to use the word “exegeiro,” giving the word ‘amad a very particular meaning, one which Calvin and Pink obviously missed.
Incidentally, though in the last chapter I expressed my belief in the idea that the Enemy led Pharaoh to be fully roused, the mere decision of God to leave Pharaoh to himself as a fully roused ruler, regardless of whether the Enemy’s influence contributed to this state, would be enough to account for all that our argument demands (regarding God’s ‘hardening’ of Pharaoh’s heart) as laid out in the last chapter, if necessary. By accepting Ezekiel 33:11 at face value (”God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turn from his way and live”), we may say with confidence that God attempts to actively restrain a man from evil for a prolonged time and perhaps in some or many cases up to the man’s death. He does this by presenting to the man’s mind thoughts about what he should believe and do (i.e., encouraging the man’s proper conscience). Our suggestion about the Enemy, then, was not from any necessity, but from a desire to show the dovetailing richness of Scripture by appealing to other relevant and circumstantially suggestive passages. (In fact, in my opinion the passages together are circumstantially conclusive.) When Pharaoh demonstrated his preference for rebellion repeatedly, God finally walked away from Pharaoh. The result was that Pharaoh was then completely undistracted toward his commitment to evil, and so he became fully roused in his rebellion against God. Whether Pharaoh actually traveled his remaining path of rebellion with the Enemy for his companion may not be absolutely known, but if the Enemy was not present, we may say that Pharaoh’s own spirit proved equal to the task of fully rousing itself, i.e., at that point in which God stopped trying to repair the Egyptian king’s conscience.
For some may think our suggestion about the Enemy’s presence in the exodus narrative is taking too much license, and so this issue of appropriate assumption should be discussed here. For example, I recently talked with a Christian instructor who felt I was taking too presumptive an approach with Job 1. We had been discussing the opening scene in Job to determine if God had foreordained all history. I pointed out that God Himself said He had been incited by Satan to ‘ruin’ Job. The instructor, on the other hand, queried if God Himself had not thrown down the gauntlet to incite Satan, since God was the One who first broached the subject of Job. After all, he argued, if God foreknew how Satan would respond, wasn’t it God, not Satan, who started the whole chain of events that led to Job’s ruin? I responded by suggesting that God had probably waited until Satan had finished his accusations against believers to bring up the more faithful example of Job (we know from the New Testament that Satan accuses the brethren ‘day and night ‘ ). The instructor, in effect, replied that one ought not to make such presumptions where Scripture is silent. Of course, his concern (and one that I shared) is that people sometimes read into Scripture their own ideas and grant them an equal status to Scripture. And so for the rest of that day I thought upon the nature of presumptions and who it is that holds them. In the end I wondered if such instructors (or preachers, professors, etc.) who would lay against some of us the charge of presumption (when we are really only struggling to solve alleged contradictions in the Bible by demonstrating in these difficult passages a subtle, scriptural harmony along biblically internal and circumstantial lines), have ever themselves taught what it was, for example, that Jesus prayed on the one occasion when we are told that He spent all night in prayer before choosing His 12 disciples (Lk. 6:12-13):
12And it came to pass in those days, that he [Jesus] went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God. 13And when it was day, he called unto him his disciples: and of them he chose twelve, whom also he named apostles;
I imagine that every Christian teacher or pastor who has taught a lesson or given a sermon from this passage has assumed that Jesus prayed about which of His disciples should be the 12. Yet the Bible does not actually tell us what Jesus prayed about when He prayed all night. Shall we not, however, make the obvious inference that He prayed about who He should pick as His 12 disciples? Or again, have any of these instructors ever taught that the animal skins with which God clothed Adam and Eve following the Fall almost certainly came from animals that had been sacrificed by God to make an atonement offering for the guilty pair? Indeed, have they not presumed this idea as well, though, technically, Scripture is silent about it?
The point, then, is that Bible instructors, though not claiming that such presumptions are themselves Scripture, also make presumptions based on circumstantial evidence to explain the Scriptures and to bring harmony to them. While I would grant that the biblical implication about Jesus praying for which disciples He should choose is more plain than whether the Enemy augmented Pharaoh’s rebellion in Exodus 9, the latter suggestion is at least reasonable if we take Job 1—2 and 1 Kings 22 as circumstantial evidence. Interestingly enough, those who point out our circumstantially evidenced presumptions seem not to see the presumptions they hold which treat alleged contradictions in the Bible as though they were true. In fact, it appears to me that these latter presumptions are much more egregious. Indeed, if a paradigm-shifting presumption is being held by either party, it is by those who hold to the idea that God in some sense has predetermined every human happenstance of sin in the world, and that God in doing so should not be blamed, while man in doing so should be blamed. Thus, after being told that I should not presume that Satan had been accusing other brethren prior to when the Lord brought up the more faithful example of Job, the Bible instructor himself (unwittingly) presumed that God had thrown down a gauntlet in order to incite Satan, an assumption which meant that God had designed His own temptation at the hands of the Devil. “Temptation,” I say, because observe that Satan doesn’t say to God, “Remove your hedge of protection and let me touch all that Job possesses,” but rather that God Himself ought to touch all that Job possesses: (”But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.”) Thus, for the instructor to maintain his argument that God designed the activity of Satan was to assume, among other things, that God’s motive in mentioning Job was more than simply pointing out a truth regarding Job’s integrity. It presumes that God incited Satan so that Satan in turn would incite God. I hasten to add that such an interpretation is at odds with the plain language of God saying to Satan that He (God ) had been the one incited. The problem here is that the instructor equated God’s foreknowledge of all the world’s events with planning them all. This is indeed a presumption,97i.e., that because God foreknew how Satan would react, He must have therefore planned that the Devil so react. Accordingly, for the Calvinist, God foreordains not merely the ends of all history, but the means, as well. In fact, this was exactly the Bible instructor’s point, i.e., that God was absolutely sovereign and had to remain the Lord in all history. But again, to argue such a point from Job 1 is to argue that God wanted to be tempted. Someone may object here to say that the Bible teaches that God cannot be tempted with evil. However, this objection is incorrect. First, this statement (addressed more fully in a later chapter) refers to God’s willful ability to refuse temptation, not the theoretical impossibility of God sinning. Second, the Bible tells us that the children of Israel tempted the Lord (1 Cor. 10:9). Then thirdly, of course, there is also the commandment that Jesus gave Satan, “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God,” which implies He was being tempted.98
We will continue, then, to maintain that certain presumptions are admissible, certainly not as Scripture, but at least as plausible explanations, that is, if they stay within scriptural bounds in order to attempt a more harmonious understanding of certain difficult passages in the Bible, including not only the stories of Job and Ahab, but of Pharaoh, as well.
Observe presumably then, how Pharaoh, in becoming fully roused, may have believed that the Egyptian gods were in control of the situation despite what was happening. It may seem crazy to us that Pharaoh might still be trusting Egypt’s own gods to secure his rule by removing the plagues that affected Egypt, since Pharaoh himself had to make appeals to Yahweh for the removal of each plague; but again, man is prone to such contradictory thinking. Did not Ra, the Sun god, finally exalt himself to overcome the darkness of three days? Did not the Nile restore herself, though evil afflicted her for a time, etc.? Such conclusions would be in keeping with the then Mediterranean pagan belief about the nature of things: for in such cultures there was no simple concept as, say. one tripping over a stone while walking a path; rather, the stone had made its presence known. Even so, the Sun and Nile may have been regarded as having first hid, then subsequently revealed, themselves. Thus each of God’s stays of mercy may have been to Pharaoh simply another proof that he and the gods of Egypt were ultimately more powerful than the Plague-bringer. Sinful man always seeks a rationale to justify his stubbornness and contradictory thinking. (Compare Proverbs 27:22, which tells us: “Though you pound a fool in a mortar with a pestle along with crushed grain, Yet his foolishness will not depart from him.”) As if to answer Pharaoh’s assumption about the gods of Egypt (or, if our presumption is wrong, whatever wrong assumption it was which Pharaoh held was the reason he had remained king), God informs Pharaoh that the real reason he has remained behind as a ruler is because God has allowed it so that His power will be known and that His name might be declared in all the earth. In effect, God is willing to endure with much long-suffering (cp. Rom. 9:22) a pharaoh who has fitted himself for destruction, in order that He might have opportunity to bestow mercy upon all those who fear Him.
The result of God’s demonstration of His power was naturally aimed toward benefiting the children of Israel, but it also resulted in the Egyptians coming to know Him: “And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch forth mine hand upon Egypt, and bring out the children of Israel from among them”(Ex. 7:5). Indeed, Exodus 9:20 tells us that some of these Egyptians were already learning to fear the word of the Lord: “He that feared the word of the Lord among the servants of Pharaoh made his servants and his cattle flee into the houses”(i.e., to avoid the hail). Furthermore, when Israel finally left Egypt there was a “mixed multitude”that went out (Ex. 12:38), which means that some Egyptians exited Egypt with the Israelis. Apparently, some of the Egyptians had decided that Yahweh was God, or at least more powerful than the gods of Egypt. Because God does not prefer the death of the wicked, God would have preferred that the Egyptians had learned of Him through an obedient pharaoh. But since Pharaoh proved uncooperative, the Egyptians learned of God through the divine judgments brought upon their nation, as under the stewardship of Pharaoh.
In review, then, there appears to be a very solemn thought here regarding Pharaoh in Exodus 9:12. It is that God will no longer engage Pharaoh as he did previously. Verse 12 tells us, “And the Lord ‘hardened’ (honored, gave weight to) the heart of Pharaoh.” God had finally decided to allow Pharaoh to set in the cement of his choice. Thus, God ceases to strive with Pharaoh’s spirit toward the goal of repentance. What a solemn thought to picture God walking away from Pharaoh, leaving him to his just desserts. For such a divine vacuum the Enemy is always prepared to petition God for involvement. In fact, because the purposes of God and the Enemy are distinctly opposite, the Enemy cannot gain divine permission for special involvement to indurate an already stubborn man until God decides to suspend His own plan of striving against that man’s obstinacy. Until now Pharaoh must have had his private moments of reflection despite the many voices of magicians and servants he heard during the day. But presumably that time was over, and a lying spirit had come to coerce Pharaoh toward an even greater ferocity of rebellion with a constant onslaught of suggestion. Even as many Egyptians had followed Pharaoh out of the natural inclination which countrymen often have for their ruler, so too could Pharaoh now be expected to follow suit under the influence of his master, i.e., Satan, “the god of this world.” Thus, when granting this context, God’s withdrawal from Pharaoh can be said to have fully roused the king’s spirit. We may even grant that God ‘appointed ‘ Pharaoh to abide behind and suffer the consequences of his decisions as a fully roused ruler, so long as the Calvinistic baggage which so readily attends the average Christian’s association with the word ‘appoint’ is not applied, and if by ‘appoint’ we understand instead that God unilaterally decided to allow Pharaoh an undistracted, seared conscience.
Conversely, Calvin’s definition of ‘appoint’ is very different than the one we offer. In passing, let me say again that as long as one defines words like predestination, election, adoption, foreknowledge, etc. along the irrational lines of Calvin, one can never escape the Calvinistic model. This statement may seem too obvious to mention, but I found myself doing this very thing while writing this book and trying to define election along the irrational lines I had unwittingly always accepted. At one point I had been thinking at length about the doctrine of election and consequently found myself encountering a considerable amount of interpretative difficulties. Finally, I caught my error; I was defining the concept of election irrationally. I had been thinking to myself, “Now how is it that I choose God in such a way that God nevertheless chooses me irrevocably?” Such words as election, foreknowledge, predestination, adoption, etc., have incredibly strong Calvinistic associations for many of us Christians, and until we discard the irrationality of Calvin’s definitions we cannot arrive at the true, biblical meaning of these words. As for ‘election’ I came to correctly understand that God’s choice was not one where He ‘chose my choice,’ but rather one in which He ‘chose’ us in the sense of ’selecting’ those he knew ahead of time would agree to the conditions of His selection, i.e., that I be his child upon the condition of my faith in the work of Christ [and thus apart from works (Rom. 9:11)]. This is a choice He knew I would make according to His foreknowledge (1 Pet. 1:2). When considering the word ‘appoint,’ then, we must seek the true definition of the word, such as we have just given it regarding its appearance in Exodus 9:16 (granting for the sake of argument that the word ‘appoint’ should even be used in translation here). Again, though, when Calvin says that God ‘appointed’ Pharaoh, he means to define it with all the trappings of his particular brand of dialectical theology. Thus, for Calvin, Pharaoh is ‘appointed’ in the sense that God is fashioning the vessel, Pharaoh, along the exact lines of reprobation which God the Potter had predetermined before the creation of the world. All of Pharaoh’s history, including his ignoble end, is held by Calvin to be predestined by God, and Calvin believes it cannot be otherwise.
Such a Calvinistic definition of ‘appoint’ raises several other issues. First, there is the problem of God’s commands being divided against themselves. As we have already noted, on the one hand the Calvinist says that God hardens Pharaoh’s heart so that he (Pharaoh) will not let the people of Israel go. On the other hand, we have numerous statements where God tells Pharaoh, “Let my people go.” Thus the question is this: Which command of God shall Pharaoh’s history not be in accord? If Pharaoh’s history will be in accord with God’s command that he be hardened, then it is impossible for him to obey God’s command to let the children of Israel go. On the other hand, if Pharaoh obeys God and lets the children of Israel go, then his experience is not in accord with God’s decree that his heart be hardened. Such a dialectical expectation of Pharaoh is impossibly demanded of him under a Calvinistic interpretation, yet the Calvinist assumes that God has made it so.
There are perhaps two ‘explanations’ that the Calvinist can offer to solve his problem of why God would demand of Pharaoh an impossible response. The first is that man (in this case, Pharaoh) cannot disobey God’s ’sovereign’ will, but can disobey God’s ‘revealed’ will. We have already shown the irrational nature of this Calvinistic ‘explanation,’ but we should add here that such a dualistic response from the Calvinist was inevitable once he defined God in terms where God would have to be divided against Himself. A God who is double-minded and undependable in all His ways will of necessity have two opposing wills. So the Calvinist, while insisting that God is unified in His being, nevertheless manages to observe what he calls the ’sovereign’ (absolute) will of God and the ‘revealed’ will of God, and defines these two divine wills such that compliance with the one must mean non-compliance with the other. These form a natural contradiction because God’s sovereignty is claimed to be absolute, yet treated as limited, and let us remember how the Calvinist treats contradictions which support his particular doctrinal distinctives—he calls such contradictions non-contradictions. Accordingly then, the Calvinist’s description of God’s two opposing wills is called one unified will, and this non-explanation is called an explanation.
A second, or additional, ‘explanation’ the Calvinist may use to ‘explain’ the conundrum of how Pharaoh’s experience can accord with God’s two opposing commands, is to say that God is being sarcastic when he commands Pharaoh to let the children of Israel go. In effect, God is merely taunting Pharaoh to do that which he cannot do, i.e., as though God said, “Go ahead, Pharaoh, let my people go! Just see if you can do so in order to escape my judgment!” Our objection to this appeal to idiomatic expression is to ask why God would observe to Moses that “Pharaoh refuses to let the people go,” indicating that God’s command to Pharaoh was meant to be understood in its normal sense. To maintain this explanation of sarcasm, the Calvinist would have to add another ‘explanation’ and say that God was speaking idiomatically to Moses about Pharaoh ‘refusing’ to let the people go, i.e., as a humorous deprecation about Pharaoh’s inability. This then is how the contradiction would presumably be ’solved.’ Note that both non-determinists and Calvinists have to appeal to idiomatic language to maintain a consistent argument. It is not an honest assumption, then, to imagine that only the non-Calvinist needs to rely on idiomatic speech to resolve the alleged inconsistency of God’s character (e.g., as when the Bible tells us on the one hand that God strengthens Pharaoh’s heart to the disobeying of His command, yet elsewhere tells us that God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked). Thus, the Calvinist also must at times rely heavily on argument based on idiomatic language.
As a general observation, then, we should note that there are three ways theologians may handle an alleged contradiction in the Bible. Take the alleged contradiction currently under consideration, i.e., one in which the Bible states on the one hand that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart but on the other hand states that God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turn from his way and live. The first way a reader may handle such an alleged contradiction is to state flatly that the Bible does have contradictions as evidenced in this example, and therefore the Bible’s origin cannot be divine, or solely divine. This is the skeptic’s response. The second way a reader may handle an alleged biblical contradiction is to embrace the alleged contradiction as a contradiction, but call it a non-contradiction. This is the Calvinist’s response. The needed resolution is claimed to occur in the mind of a transcendent God whose ways cannot be fundamentally understood even by the believer (at least on this side of life). The third way a reader may respond is that which this book advocates ought always to be the way a Christian responds (whenever and wherever the Bible gives him the authority to do so), namely, that of believing an alleged contradiction to not be a rational contradiction, and therefore something to be examined further to see why the two statements are not in actual conflict. Such a resolution will be:
1) along the lines of idiomatic, sarcastic, figurative, or exaggerative language, or
2) no real conflict once the contexts of each statement are better understood, or
3) recognized as not really in conflict once rigorous logic is applied. An example of this sort is when one understands that “will not” can equal “can not” when “can not” means inability that is willfully caused.
4) A genuine mystery that remains despite a rigorous application of contexts and the historical-grammatical method. Generally speaking, this will be very rare.99
To return, then, to Calvin’s meaning of ‘appoint,’ we would say that Calvinists embrace the contradiction of a God who is not pleased at the death of the wicked but is pleased at the death of the wicked. (In fact, this is Calvinist apologist John Piper’s view as discussed in the Supplement at the end of this book.) Again, Calvinists are prone to call this contradiction a non-contradiction. In fact, they call this ‘apparent’ contradiction an antinomy, which presumably can only be resolved by:
1) an appeal to a higher logic understood only by God,
2) an idiomatic use of language so that what God says about the wicked in Ezekiel 33:11 isn’t really what it appears to mean, or
3) asserting that ‘the wicked’, since they are described as able to turn from sin, are the elect of God who have not yet had imparted to them a new nature to believe (i.e., the Calvinist’s definition of “regeneration”).
Because this theology alleging a divine Sovereign at odds with Himself never expressed this way by its adherents, of course) has been endorsed by notable thinkers, such as Augustine, Calvin, Luther, Edwards, etc. (and this despite its confusing nature to many Christians), the sad result has been centuries in which an irrational, indeed, immoral Church apologetic has merely exasperated the skeptics of Christianity who have repeatedly asked the same question—Why does evil exist if God is all-sovereign and good? Today, the Church’s presentation of the gospel is geared more for attracting those who manage to believe the gospel despite this oft-used, irrational (and therefore meaningless) apologetic of Evangelicals about the nature of God. The inevitable result is a certain dumbing-down of the Body, not to mention a failure to engage certain unbelieving skeptics who otherwise might conceivably have become defenders of biblical Christianity. Instead, these skeptics have been left to their own melancholy corner of the world to brood upon the meaninglessness of life, including the irrationality of Christianity. For today’s Church is one in which the gospel appeals more to those people to whom faith comes naturally. Indeed, today’s church is one in which its apologetics are all but assigned to a realm of unfathomable mystery, with the ‘happy’ result that the faith-filled don’t have to think very much about their dialecticism. And so the dumbing-down of the Church continues, as words like foreknowledge, election, predestination, adoption, etc., remain defined along irrational lines. And doubtless it is in this spirit that Calvin accepted the idea that God hates certain men, and so decided upon the word “appoint” in Exodus 9:16.
Pink’s Reasons for Supporting Calvin
In regard to embracing irrational definitions, we should examine the five points that A.W. Pink gives in defending Calvin’s view that God reprobated Pharaoh.
First, Pink concludes that Pharaoh did not die of natural causes or an accident, etc., “but by the immediate hand of God in judgment.” (Pink thus seems to think that Pharaoh received no mercy at any point). One wonders, however, what Pink means by “immediate[judgment ]?” Does he mean ‘immediate’ in the sense that God immediately killed Pharaoh after He witnessed the king’s enslavement of the children of Israel before He ever appeared to Moses in the burning bush? Or does Pink mean ‘immediate’ in the sense that God struck Pharaoh dead after the king refused to consider the initial miracle-sign of Moses? Perhaps by ‘immediate’ he means that God killed Pharaoh after one of the ten plagues. No, apparently, none of these are it. Apparently, Pink means ‘immediate’ in the sense that God caused Pharaoh to die with his host in the midst of the Red Sea after a very lengthy period of divine patience. (Yes, that seems to be it!) Perhaps it should be pointed out again that Pharaoh is not even said to have perished in the Red Sea. One of the most definite implications we have of Pharaoh’s fate is from Psalm 136:15, where Pharaoh and his army are said to have been “overthrown” in the Red Sea. Whether this refers to Pharaoh’s own person or merely to his power is a remaining question. Therefore even Pink’s assumption that Pharaoh died in the Red Sea is not necessarily correct, especially when one considers that the Israeli song of victory makes no mention of the death of Pharaoh specifically, but only of his horse.100While this may be a poetic metonymy for Pharaoh, perhaps the horse alone attended the Egyptian host as a symbol of Pharaoh’s presence, and so without actually jeopardizing the king.
Second, Pink claims that God raised up Pharaoh…preserving him through infancy and childhood…raising him to the throne of Egypt. It is clear from this statement that Pink understands “raised” in the normal English sense of raising a child. Hence, he believes that Pharaoh was “raised” from the cradle to adulthood and kingship, and likewise on through to destruction. Pink (like Calvin) thus entirely misses Paul’s point that Pharaoh was fully roused. He simply assumes the normal meaning of the English word given in Romans 9:17 and assumes this is the meaning in the Greek text. We would agree with Pink if, by ‘raised,’ it was understood that Pharaoh was raised in full spirit (of agitation), but obviously this is not Pink’s point, nor the KJV’s.
Third, Pink declares that Egypt’s king was indeed a ‘vessel of wrath fitted to destruction.‘ Toward the end of his essay Pink seeks support for this idea by citing like-minded “Dr. Hodge—perhaps the best known and most widely read commentator on Romans.” Despite this appeal, we have noted earlier the theological clarity that comes into view once it is understood that the Greek participle fitted, in the phrase, “fitted for destruction,” is spelled exactly the same way in the middle voice as in the perfect passive in Greek. This would mean a translation of fitted themselves for destruction. Pink makes no mention of this possibility, and neither does Hodge.
Fourth, in making the argument that the heart of the king is in the Lord’s hand, Pink is arguing that everyone’s heart is directed by God just like every king that has ever lived. We have already shown that Proverbs 21:1 cannot be arguing for universal applicability, i.e., or the extension of that thought as it might be applied to men in general.
Fifth, and finally, note the language Pink uses to support his argument for a Calvinistic interpretation:
…We must believe, therefore that the Judge of all the earth did right in creating and destroying this vessel of wrath, Pharaoh. …IN CONCLUSION, WE WOULD SAY THAT IN FORMING PHARAOH GOD DISPLAYED NEITHER JUSTICE NOR INJUSTICE, BUT ONLY HIS BARE SOVEREIGNTY. AS THE POTTER IS SOVEREIGN IN FORMING VESSELS, SO GOD IS SOVEREIGN IN FORMING MORAL AGENTS. (emphases Pink’s).
This is a lot of verbal nonsense, but for the sake of language itself we should observe Pink’s use of it. Note here that Pink is claiming 1) that God is the Judge of all the earth, and 2) that God formed Pharaoh as a moral agent, but in such a way (claims Pink) that it involved neither justice nor injustice. Our question, then, is as elementary as it can be: How can God be called a judge if in regard to Pharaoh He is not declaring what is just and unjust? Isn’t that what any judge does, i.e., declares what is justice and injustice? Isn’t that, in fact, the meaning of the word judge? As for Pharaoh, then, someone must be justly accused in Pharaoh’s sin, for otherwise Pharaoh would not be a vessel of wrath. Presumably, Pharaoh would naturally be responsible for his own sin. Yet this raises a dilemma for Pink (as it does for any Calvinist). For if Pharaoh is justly credited for his sin, then he is autonomous in deciding that moral content for himself, and that means God could not be truly sovereign nor rule (command into being) the activities of all men. On the other hand, had Pink said that God should be appropriately credited with Pharaoh’s sin (as the Creator and Destroyer of such reprobate vessels like Pharaoh, whose thoughts and intents He creates) that would mean the Almighty was responsible for the sinful content of Pharaoh’s heart. That, too, Pink cannot allow. Consequently, Pink is stuck with the old Calvinistic problem of wanting to say that God has ordained all that shall come to pass, yet not in a way where He has ordained sin. What is Pink’s ‘answer’? As a Calvinist Pink must keep man’s autonomy and God’s sovereignty in dialectical tension. This way it can be said that God chooses Pharaoh’s choices but not in a way where God chooses Pharaoh’s choices. This is why Pink’s conclusion (shown above) ignores the either/or biblical language which maintains God and man as distinctives, and uses instead the kind of both/and mystical gibberish which voids words of their meaning. Hence, Pink’s ‘Judge’ of all the earth is not judging at all (i.e., as Pink says of God in relation to Pharaoh, neither displayed justice nor injustice), and a vessel’s wrathful end is not said to be a result of any process involving “justice” or “injustice.” So, the vessel’s sinful content which makes it deserving of God’s wrath is not said to be caused by the vessel itself, much less by the Potter. Simply put, Pink’s theology on this point is wholly indefinite in meaning. How indeed, then, can even the content of the vessel be called sinful if no one has caused the content of the vessel? Whenever Christian thinkers have employed such doublethinking, it has always led to this kind of indefinite and inconclusive theology. Thus, Pink’s reason (if reason it be called) for a vessel’s damnation is an appeal to God’s ‘bare sovereignty,’ i.e., which by default is defined as an apparent no-man’s land of ethical neutrality (as though such a land could exist) where justice and injustice are not operative. This is Pink’s additional ‘either‘ which he brings into the discussion to solve the already present either/or logical problem that confronts him. In other words, it is his either/or OR either ’solution’. And thus do we properly understand Pink’s ’solution’ to be irrationalism. Pink’s wish for an ethical no-man’s land might indeed exist for plants, which do no good or evil, but such a ‘land’ cannot exist for men said to be moral agents. As Christ expressed it in an argument against even the possibility of neutrality, “He that is not against me is for me, and he that is for me is not against me.” There is no third possibility in a good God’s either/or universe, despite Pink’s Calvinistic longing for it. The only explanation Pink offers is a mystery involving God’s ‘bare sovereignty,’ as though somehow this phrase ([God’s] ‘bare sovereignty’) makes plain all the irrationality of his position which cannot allow justice on the one hand nor injustice on the other in any discussion about sin. As someone has said, “Calvinism sweeps all of its dirt under a rug called ‘God’s sovereignty.‘ ” Hence Pink leaves us in a paralysis of unknown definitions. What, then, is ‘God,’ or ‘man,’ or ‘justice,’ or ‘injustice,’ or ’sovereignty,’ or ‘wrath,’ or even a ‘vessel’? None of Pink’s readers nor Pink himself seem to know. The strength of Pink’s argument lies in his reader’s association of these words with their real meanings, for such meanings cannot be derived from Pink’s own descriptive use of these words. In other words (and to briefly review an earlier point), if I said, “I ate the apple I didn’t eat,” it is impossible for a hearer not to picture an apple in his mind, even though the statement was non-sensical and therefore absent of meaning in all of its grammatical components. Thus there is only an illusion of meaning which Pink believes is meaning, but only such meaning which he claims God can understand. Thus, Pink falls into that group observed by his contemporary, Sigmund Freud, i.e., that some men feel “obliged to speak of God’s inscrutable decrees.”
In short, whenever a Calvinist comes to expressing his conclusions, look for an increased ambiguity in language. Even though Calvinists will use religious and emotionally-charged terms, they have stepped away from a real discussion involving key definitions, such as that for sin. Sin is a problem for the Calvinist because it implies accountability and cause. Hence, Pharaoh is called a ‘moral agent’ and a ‘vessel of wrath,’ but conversely also just a ‘form’ which God engages in his ‘bare sovereignty’ apart from any ‘justice or injustice’. I really don’t think Pink himself understands how he discusses Pharaoh as though the Egyptian king were anything more than a plant. For it is with plants that one is neither just nor unjust. It is plants that are created and destroyed in their ‘forms.’ It is about plants that Pink’s supporters need not worry about giving a detailed explanation of what it means to be a ‘moral agent.’ Gone, in Pink’s summarizing but ambiguous fifth point, is the kind of dogmatic, B.B. Warfield type of statement about God “creating the very thoughts and intents” of men’s souls (such as Pharaoh’s). For Pink to invoke such forceful statements here would all but accuse God of sin, and now that a conclusion is being drawn, Pink, as a Calvinist, must back away from meaning-loaded language statements. We readers tend to miss this shift. The tendency for most of us is to read quickly, whether a light novel or a more serious work. Even in theological works readers often plunge forward when reading over a confusing statement, assuming the author will clarify his point in the next paragraph or two, or give other examples to show what he means. Consequently, little critical thought takes place when encountering the first conundrum. With Pink, as with any Calvinist author, readers progress from one irrationality to another and begin to assume, along with the Calvinist author himself, that consistency is proving the author’s point. As a result, Christians imagine that lofty things are being said about God, though they are not, and that responsibility is being laid at man’s feet for sin, though it also is not. What is offered instead is a confusing amalgam of statements: first, Pink justifies Pharaoh’s hardening on the basis that God is the ‘Judge of all the earth’ (emphasis added). One sentence later he denies the role of any justice and injustice in the damnation of Pharaoh (i.e., principles whose absence would obviously not necessitate a judge). A bit later he attempts to buttress the same claim about the absence of justice and injustice by saying that Romans 9:18 (”…and whom He will He hardeneth”) “has no reference whatever to judicial ‘hardening.’ ” How anyone can read through the exodus narrative and come away with the feeling that Pharaoh was not at least also judged, is truly amazing. Pink tries to convince us with a delay of doublethink. Rather than state in one thought, “God is a judge who is not a judge,” he divides his doublethink into two thoughts and uses language coyly. Thus, God is a judge. God does not employ justice nor injustice.
Conclusion of Pink’s Argument
Pink’s next comment stays consistent with his ad hominem/pro Deo approach of condemning man because he is man and exonerating God because He is God. From Pink’s comments I find that my prolonged searching and profound study into the difficulties of Calvinism has (according to Pink) been misguided, and that I should rather have had a childlike spirit of acceptance. Apparently such a spirit is necessary to understand the awe-inspiring doctrine of God’s arbitrary damnation of men. If Pink is right, some men (such as myself) have perverted what God reveals in His Word about reprobation:
Mark the language of John 12:37-40, “But though He had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on Him: that the saying of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke, Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? Therefore they could not believe (why?), because that Isaiah said again, He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their hearts (why?) Because they had refused to believe on Christ? This is the popular belief, but mark the answer of Scripture) that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.” Now, reader, it is just a question as to whether or not you will believe what God has revealed in His Word. It is not a matter of prolonged searching or profound study, but a childlike spirit which is needed, in order to understand this doctrine(emphases Pink’s).
Again, the NAS study version before me refers the reader of John 12:37-40 to the appropriate Old Testament passage, Isaiah 6:10. From John we learn that this Isaiaic passage is also a prophecy foretelling Israel’s rejection of Christ’s ministry. Beginning with Isaiah 6:9, God tells Isaiah to speak a message to the people:
9…”Go, and tell this people: ‘Keep on listening, but do not perceive; Keep on looking, but do not understand.’ 10Render the hearts of this people insensitive, Their ears dull, And their eyes dim, Otherwise they might see with their eyes, Hear with their ears, Understand with their hearts, And return and be healed.”
In verse 9 we see God instructing Isaiah what to say to the people:“Keep on listening, but do not perceive. Keep on looking, but do not understand.”Pink interprets this literally as do many non-Reformed commentators. For the latter group this leads to insuperable difficulties for obvious reasons. For Pink it is wonderful stuff. What better way for the Bible to prove that God hardens people than to show His successive commands for people to hear but not to obey? In verse 10 God furthers His instructions by telling Isaiah what to do, i.e., to render stubborn the hearts of the people, etc.
But the key to understanding Isaiah 6:9-10 is to realize that it reveals God’s exasperation with His people. As sometimes expressed in Jewish culture (as well as other cultures), there is a way of speaking which shows at the same time one’s disapproval and exasperation—namely, sarcasm. The whole tenor of the above two verses cannot be understood properly without realizing that this is the manner here in which God speaks. Lest someone should think that sarcasm is unworthy of a holy God, we have only to look at Christ’s own comment to those who wanted to kill Him: “I showed you many good works from the Father. For which of them are you stoning me?” In Isaiah 6:9 the effect of God’s sarcasm can be paraphrased thus: “Go tell this people, ‘By all means keep on listening! But whatever you do, don’t perceive. Yes! Great! Keep on looking! Just make sure you don’t understand!’ ” God then tells Isaiah to render their hearts stubborn. This instruction floats between sarcasm and literalness, for stubbornness will result, though hardly because of God! Thus, God is telling Isaiah to keep preaching, even though His word will inevitably result in more rejection by those already predisposed to receiving it contemptuously, as though God had made their hearts stubborn and not they themselves from their own responses. God slides back into a fuller tone of sarcasm toward the finish of verse 10 to again express His frustration. In effect, God tells Isaiah, “Make their hearts insensitive, their ears dull, and their eyes dim, because otherwise, well, they might actually believe! And horror of horrors—what would that mean except their healing!”
Sarcasm occurs when someone speaks in an ‘insincere’ tone of voice to show that he means the opposite of what he says. Again, the purpose of sarcasm is to make a statement while revealing one’s justified exasperation with the other party. That this clever form of expression has been used to great effect by Jewish people to our own day need hardly be stated. It is, in fact, a betimes characteristic of some of their humor even when self-deprecatory, and is also used on occasion in conversational and/or legal argument to great effect. As for the Bible, a few examples come to mind. Paul used sarcasm to make a point to those Corinthians who were puffed up with their own self-importance (1 Cor. 4:10): “We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are prudent in Christ; we are weak, but you are strong; you are distinguished, but we are without honor.”All of Paul’s phrases can here be presumably understood, at least at one level, as sarcastic double entendres, since Paul implies that a relative few Corinthians were of the noble class, and therefore (we suppose) in one sense were distinguished as nominally religious citizens of a sophisticated, cosmopolitan culture, though in another and truly spiritual sense the Corinthians in general (presumably the noble included) were hardly distinguished, as the Corinthians’ factious behavior so plainly showed.
The previously mentioned passage in 1 Kings 22 gives us another example of what also may have been sarcasm. There Micaiah appears to have answered Ahab in a manner which told the Israeli king he was being facetious. In effect, Micaiah may have been sarcastically affirming the voice of the false prophets, “Sure! That’s right, Go up to war. Not to worry. Victory’s already in the bag.” This invites the censure of the king. Thus, Ahab chides Micaiah for his tendency to be sarcastic (”How often have I told thee to speak only what the Lord has told you?”) If we are right in thinking that Micaiah was sarcastic, then he annoyed Ahab every time the king wanted to hear what the Lord’s prophet had to say. For what else besides sarcasm would have tipped off an exasperated Ahab that Micaiah was not really giving the word of the Lord? Actually, if Micaiah was speaking sarcastically, he was giving Ahab the word of the Lord, including the Lord’s exasperation! The only other explanation of Ahab’s comment against Micaiah is if the prophet had a reputation of being too timid to speak what the Lord wanted him to say. This is certainly possible, for despite their calling, prophets were sometimes afraid to give out God’s warning. Yet Micaiah’s parting exhortation to all present, that they should mark these words of the Lord, may argue against a general timidity in Micaiah.
Whenever the Bible student fails to recognize sarcasm in the Scripture, the inevitable result is an interpretation exactly opposite of what the Bible is stating. Similarly, to whatever extent the Bible student misunderstands sarcastic, double entendres (e.g., 1 Cor. 4:10) either all or half of the meaning will be lost. Isaiah 6:9-10 is generally of the former kind. As a result, Pink misunderstands the sarcastic point of the passage entirely. Far from these two verses supporting the Calvinistic claim that God ordains men into hardness, they actually teach that God’s reason for feeling exasperated is because His hearers will not respond as they should. Indeed, how else does one explain the oft-repeated description of God’s exasperation with His chosen people that runs throughout so many of the Old Testament prophetic books? Why all this upsetment on God’s part unless the prophets are assuming that the children of Israel can repent? Isaiah 6:10 is actually quoted five times in the New Testament, including John 12:37-40 which Pink cites. Again, one must always return to those Old Testament passages that are alluded to in the New Testament if one is to understand them properly.
Interestingly enough, the verses preceding John 12:37 describe the same kind of hard-heartedness among Christ’s hearers as was evident among Isaiah’s hearers. Both groups had long exposure to God’s revelation of Himself, and this condition appears to be a requisite for justified sarcasm. Unfortunately, these New Testament hearers were truly children of those of their fathers who were rebellious: in both instances of Isaiah 6 and John 12, it is Israel’s own hard-heartedness in the face of God’s overwhelming patience that leads the Almighty to speak with exasperated sarcasm. I have to essentially agree with a comment by a Christian counselor who once told me that sarcasm is the last step God often uses before He gives up trying to communicate to His people.101
The Potter And the Pot
Pink finally moves his discussion of reprobation to the Romans 9 example of the pot on the Potter’s wheel. Calvinists have gotten a lot of their doctrinal mileage out of this metaphor. According to Pink, the gist of Paul’s argument is twofold. The first is that God forms each vessel (i.e., man) to function exactly as He [God] wills (”Therefore hath He mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will he hardeneth”). The second argument Pink claims of Paul is that God is not answerable to man as to why He doesn’t form all men to avoid reprobation.
The problem with Pink’s interpretation of Romans 9:18-24 is that Pink fails to show how the same metaphor of the pot/potter is treated in the Old Testament. Such scriptures should naturally be considered, yet nowhere in Pink’s chapters on the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart and man’s alleged reprobation (nor in any of the writings or presentations of any of the Calvinist books or speeches I have personally read or heard) do I remember these Old Testament passages ever referred to in their contextual detail. Frankly, the evidence of these Old Testament passages is so damning to the Calvinistic view that I would think every Calvinist book would attempt an explanation of them. That they have not done so is simply a proof of how, even within Evangelicalism, error is propagated through biblical ignorance.
As already noted, the three most detailed examples of the metaphor of the pot on the potter’s wheel are found in Isaiah 29, 45, and Jeremiah 18. In Isaiah 29 God raises a serious complaint against Judah and Jerusalem because his people are making an appearance of worshipping Him, though really they have forsaken Him. They are talking the talk but not walking the walk, and so they have deceived themselves into thinking their worship is real:
13Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men: 14Therefore behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid. 15Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the Lord, and their works are in the dark, and they say, Who seeth us? and who knoweth us? 16Surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter’s clay: for shall the work say of him that made it, He made me not? or shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, He had no understanding? (Is. 29:13-16)
Notice the Forasmuch (v. 13)…Therefore (v. 14) construction of the passage. Forasmuch as men did evil, therefore God judged them. This chronological order of man’s reprobation aligns with Romans 1 and 2 Thessalonians 2. Men persist in their own stubborn disobedience after which God gives them up. Furthermore, the work of the Potter’s hand is making very specific willful comments directed against its Maker. Thus the rhetorical question of the prophet is not whether the Potter’s work can talk back to Him, but whether it ought to talk back to Him. Calvinists have over-literalized the pot/potter metaphor in Romans 9 because of assuming (while in the forward position upon the dialectical rocking horse) that the parable is stating that clay found in the real world cannot talk back to the Potter while on the Potter’s wheel—thus, man, as represented by the clay, cannot effect his will except as God decrees. Such an interpretation entirely misses the point, since the Old Testament itself uses the metaphor to present clay that is talking back to its Maker (cp. especially Isaiah 45, in which it states plainly that the pot is quarreling with its Maker). The point of the Old Testament is to show the assumptive absurdity of the clay’s argument (that God is weak and/or powerless to judge), not the impossibility of argument. The clay, after all, is a metaphor.
Similarly, the metaphor of the pot and the potter is used in Isaiah 45 to describe man in rebellion before his Creator. This chapter begins with a prophecy declaring that God will give the kingdom of Babylon into the hand of Cyrus, ruler of the Medes and Persians. In the process Cyrus will come to know that the God of Israel was responsible for giving him this particular victory, as well as other victories. Since God is the author of Cyrus’s victories, Cyrus’s rule is unable to be resisted. As Isaiah 45 progresses, Cyrus is shown to be a foreshadowing example of Messiah and His kingdom. Christ, too, will one day rule the nations with a rod of iron, and He too will not be overthrown in His position. In the meantime, by command or allowance, God sets up kings and kingdoms, and they are fully responsible to Him. In this regard Cyrus makes an interesting monarchial contrast to the Pharaoh of the exodus. Both Cyrus and Pharaoh were given considerable positions of stewardship, but only one of them acted responsibly. Historians have noted Cyrus’s reputation for generosity and kindness toward those he conquered, whereas the Bible shows Pharaoh to be cruel and obstinate toward the nation he enslaved. Whereas Cyrus came to understand that God was the One who had granted him power and authority, Pharaoh refused to acknowledge God in any genuine way. Thus, Pharaoh’s oppression compelled the visitation of God’s judgment upon Egypt. But again we would not agree with certain non-Reformed commentators who think Romans 9 is using the term ‘Pharaoh’ as merely a metaphor of the entire nation he ruled. Pharaoh is treated in Romans 9 as an individual, much like Jacob and Esau are treated earlier in the chapter, and not merely (though perhaps primarily) as the representative head of a nation. For example, the phrase, “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated,” is an Old Testament reference from Malachi 1:2ff, which refers to the nations which descended from these two men; yet Romans 9:16 states that the matter of salvation is not of him that desires, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. As for Jacob and Esau, these were individuals whose relationship with each other would be largely representative of the kind of struggle experienced by their respective descendents.102 Thus we ought not to follow certain (non-Reformed) scholars into concluding that the “vessels of wrath” refer only to nations, not individuals, as we have earlier noted. It should be observed further that Romans 9:17 is certainly speaking of Pharaoh as an individual. Moreover, it is Pharaoh the individual who serves as the example of divine judgment which prompts the skeptic’s question in Romans 9:19, which in turn prompts Paul’s general answer via the pot/potter metaphor in verses 20 and 21. But again, the chief question at hand is whether the vessels of wrath in the Old Testament are described as merely the recipients of God’s constructs upon them, or whether they are willful nations/persons acting in rebellion of their own accord. The answer seems plain enough in Isaiah 45:1-19 and Jeremiah 18:1-17:
1Thus says the Lord to Cyrus His anointed, Whom I have taken by the right hand, To subdue nations before him And to loose the loins of kings; To open doors before him so that gates will not be shut: 2“I will go before you and make the rough places smooth; I will shatter the doors of bronze and cut through their iron bars. 3“I will give you the treasures of darkness And hidden wealth of secret places, So that you may know that it is I, The Lord, the God of Israel, who calls you by your name. 4 “For the sake of Jacob My servant, And Israel My chosen one, I have also called you by your name; I have given you a title of honor Though you have not known Me. 5“I am the Lord, and there is no other; Besides Me there is no God. I will gird you, though you have not known Me; 6That men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun That there is no one besides Me. I am the Lord, and there is no other, 7The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the Lord who does all these. 8“Drip down, O heavens, from above, And let the clouds pour down righteousness; Let the earth open up and salvation bear fruit, And righteousness spring up with it. I, the Lord, have created it. 9“Woe to the one who quarrels with his Maker—An earthenware vessel among the vessels of earth! Will the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you doing?’ Or the thing you are making say, ‘He has no hands’? 10“Woe to him who says to a father, ‘What are you begetting?’ Or to a woman, ‘To what are you giving birth?’ 11Thus says the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker: ‘Ask Me about the things to come concerning My sons, And you shall commit to Me the work of My hands. 12It is I who made the earth, and created man upon it. I stretched out the heavens with My hands And I ordained all their host. 13I have aroused him in righteousness And I will make all his ways smooth; He will build My city and will let My exiles go free, Without any payment or reward,’ says the Lord of hosts. 14Thus says the Lord, ‘The products of Egypt and the merchandise of Cush And the Sabeans, men of stature, Will come over to you and will be yours; They will walk behind you, they will come over in chains And will bow down to you; They will make supplication to you: “Surely, God is with you, and there is none else, No other God.” 15Truly, You are a God who hides Himself, O God of Israel, Savior! 16They will be put to shame and even humiliated, all of them; The manufacturers of idols will go away together in humiliation. 17Israel has been saved by the Lord With an everlasting salvation; You will not be put to shame or humiliated To all eternity. 18For thus says the Lord, who created the heavens (He is the God who formed the earth and made it, He established it and did not create it a waste place, but formed it to be inhabited), ‘I am the Lord, and there is none else. 19I have not spoken in secret, In some dark land; I did not say to the offspring of Jacob, “Seek Me in a waste place;” I, the Lord, speak righteousness, Declaring things that are upright’ (Isa. 45:1-19).
1The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying: 2“Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause you to hear My words.” 3Then I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something at the wheel. 4And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter; so he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make. 5Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 6“O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter?” says the Lord. “Look, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel! 7The instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, and to destroy it, 8if that nation against whom I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it. 9And the instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it, 10if it does evil in My sight so that it does not obey My voice, then I will relent concerning the good with which I said I would benefit it.” 11Now therefore, speak to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, “Thus says the Lord: “Behold, I am fashioning a disaster and devising a plan against you. Return now every one from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good. 12And they said, ‘That is hopeless! So we will walk according to our own plans, and we will every one obey the dictates of his evil heart.’ 13Therefore thus says the Lord: ‘Ask now among the Gentiles, Who has heard such things? The virgin of Israel has done a very horrible thing. 14Will a man leave the snow water of Lebanon, Which comes from the rock of the field? Will the cold flowing waters be forsaken for strange waters? 15Because My people have forgotten Me, They have burned incense to worthless idols. And they have caused themselves to stumble in their ways, From the ancient paths, To walk in pathways and not on a highway, 16To make their land desolate and a perpetual hissing; Everyone who passes by it will be astonished And shake his head. 17I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy; I will show them the back and not the face In the day of their calamity.’ ” ( Jeremiah 18:1-17)
Notice the strong similarity between Isaiah 45:9 (”Woe to the one who quarrels with his Maker—An earthenware vessel among the vessels of earth! Will the clay say to the potter ‘What are you doing?’ “) with Romans 9:20 (”…who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, ‘Why did you make me like this,’ will it?”). The preceding verse (Is. 45:8) explains what prompts men to accuse God with such belligerent questions. It is, in fact, their resentfulness against God and His righteousness. They would not have God (”He has no hands”)nor His righteousness which drips down from heaven and pours itself out on the earth (”What are you doing?… What are you begetting?”). God’s righteousness is an effrontery to man because it shows the standard of measurement by which he (man) shall be judged. Man resists any outside system of accountability and wants to believe that his responses to life are always justified. And he wants to justify himself so that divine mercy can be regarded irrelevant. Putting the matter as a kind of financial metaphor, we might say that a man wants to be his own accountant, his own IRS, his own government, and his own judicial system. Naturally, then, man resents and replies against any other system. The Bible even indicates that a man’s death will not alter his rebellious attitude in this regard. Note those, for example, whom Christ said would make a reply against Him in the afterlife while still calling him ‘Lord’: “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then will I profess unto them, ‘I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.’ ” In effect, people will be saying, “Are we not righteous, Lord? Surely the good works we have done are also regarded favorably in Your system of reckoning, are they not?”
Jeremiah 18:1-17 likewise gives us the metaphor of the pot and potter to show how all vessels are subject to God’s standard of righteous judgment. The pot is found marred in the potter’s hand, not by the potter’s hand. Despite the strong language God uses in verse 6 (”Can I not, O house of Israel, deal with you as this potter does? declares the Lord. Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel”), the pot is not regarded at any time as unable in will to resist God, but unable in will to resist the judgment of God. This is made plain by the context. God says if a nation repents of its evil He will change His mind regarding the destruction He had thought to bring. Conversely, if a nation does evil He will reconsider the blessing He had intended to bestow. God is thus seen here as responding to what a nation itself decides will be its moral course. This manner in which God speaks of changing His mind does not affect the argument that God will respond according to what men do. God can change His intention despite His foreknowledge, for His foreknowledge is not tantamount to predestination (as Calvinists would understand and define predestination). At any rate, clearly, these pots are not void of exerting their will. This is made even plainer with the examples of Judah and Jerusalem who displeased God and were therefore admonished to turn back to Him. Their decision to remain rebellious is shown in Jeremiah 18:12 and echoes the same attitude of the belligerent vessel of Isaiah 45: “It’s hopeless! For we are going to follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.” Where, we ask, is the Calvinistic doctrine of divinely-appointed reprobation even suggested in all this?
As we turn again to the skeptic’s two-fold question in Romans 9:19 we find the following:
Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
The Calvinistic view of this verse is as follows: First, Paul responds rhetorically by telling the skeptic that he has no right to question God, i.e. “.Can the pot say to the potter, ‘Why have you made me thus? ‘ ” For the Calvinist, Paul’s response is the great period. End of story. End of apologetic. Paul is saying that God doesn’t have to answer the skeptic because the Creator doesn’t have to give an explanation to His creatures. Calvinists might cite the last part of the book of Job here in an attempt to support their argument. Elihu says that God cannot be questioned, and God Himself repeatedly rebukes Job by asking him to dare give a response to the Almighty’s doings. But in reality, the point of God’s rebuke of Job is that the orderliness of God’s creation does notably demonstrate God’s power and divine nature. Thus Job should have understood God’s divine nature and goodness as an observer of creation and not have imagined that God was the cause behind the chaos of his suffering, even when he had no other answer to explain the cause behind his trial. For Job to do so was to flirt with the doublethink that God was at the same time a God of order in creation and yet also a God of chaos who brought destruction in trial. In fairness to Job, it is probably right to assume that every man other than this unique servant of God would have understood the point even less if subjected to the same terrible circumstances.103
Second, the Calvinist claims that Paul furthers his argument by not refuting the skeptic’s assumption. Paul does not say, “No, you misunderstand me; you’re not stating the problem correctly.” Rather, Paul upholds the man’s own exasperated statement that man cannot resist God whatsoever.
Our first objection to the Calvinistic view is a straightforward one we have already given: If the verse is really stating that man cannot resist God whatsoever, why does Paul immediately respond in the very next verse by saying that the man’s reply is against God? That is, how can any man make a reply against God if no man can resist God’s will? Note that Pink at one point completely misses Paul’s follow-up statement that the skeptic’s reply is against God, claiming, “Nor does he [Paul] say, Men may resist His will” (emphasis Pink’s). What, then, does Pink think the word “against ” means! The point here is that the skeptic’s question as understood by the Calvinist cannot therefore be correct. Note, however, that there is no conflict if one takes the view that the skeptic is complaining about being unable to resist God’s will regarding divine judgment.
Our second objection to the Calvinist is that he misinterprets the pot/potter metaphor and also Paul’s statement that the thing created cannot ask questions of its Creator. In advancing his interpretation, the Calvinist has ignored at least three Old Testament passages about the pot and potter, all of which agree with each other in similar interpretation and take place in a similar context of judgment. Rather, we would say that to properly understand the two-fold question of the skeptic is to see how Paul answers it. As Jesus did so many times in His own ministry, Paul first gives an analogy and follows it with its meaning. Thus, Paul’s analogy of the pot and potter is really a kind of parenthetical illustration which is ultimately explained in verse 22: “What if God, willing to show his wrath and to make his glory known, endured with much longsuffering vessels of wrath who have fitted themselves to destruction; And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had before prepared unto glory…” If for a moment we eliminate some of the parenthetical thoughts found in Paul’s main answer, we can see that the apostle’s reply to the skeptic is: “What if (i.e., so what if) God endured vessels of wrath who were fitting themselves to destruction in order that He might show mercy to other vessels?” Paul’s reply, especially his use of the word “endured,” answers to the word “yet” in the skeptic’s question, “Why doth (God) yet find fault?” The skeptic is asking why God should still find fault with man if His will in judgment cannot be resisted? The skeptic’s argument is thus: Why does God continue to allow sin if He is truly upset about it and has the power to subject it to judgment? Why the delay? Why does He yet find fault? The skeptic’s question is not expressed in naivete or the genuine puzzlement of curious inquiry as Reformed (and non-Reformed) commentators sometimes suggest. Rather, the tone is accusatory and hostile, as Paul plainly understands by saying the skeptic is replying (that is, giving an answer) with an accusation that is against God. The skeptic’s question is thus a rhetorical challenge: Perhaps God is not even able to bring judgment! That Paul understands the skeptic’s reply to be antagonistic (i.e., “against God”) implies what the skeptic had, at the least, already concluded about God, i.e., that God, though powerful enough to judge, is unjust and perhaps even a sadist who delays judgment so that man might accrue additional judgment upon himself. If this is not the skeptic’s accusation, then it goes to the more fundamental claim that God is not able to bring man into judgment. Perhaps both accusations are implied, that God thinks to be sadistic, but will prove impotent in the end. If the latter (double accusation) is the correct interpretation, then the former of these two Satanic-like accusations is aimed at God’s motive: thus, delay equals sadism, not mercy. To this Paul replies that God is not obligated to bring immediate judgment since He desires to show patience to those vessels who in time will come to recognize their need for divine mercy.104 Thus, the vessels of wrath, which incline themselves to a greater judgment, is not God’s fault simply because God’s righteousness is at work in the world upon vessels of mercy. Indeed, Paul says that God has been extraordinarily patient with the vessels of wrath.
One wonders, then, why Calvinists claim that God ordains all things which come to pass according to His pleasure. Where, we ask, is God’s pleasure in the words “endure” and “longsuffering” when the Scripture tells us that God endured with much longsuffering vessels of wrath? It is simply not there. In fact, the idea that God endures vessels who are fitting themselves for destruction sounds to me like a Pauline observance of human freedom. Were I still a Calvinist, I would certainly trot out some explanation at this point along the lines of idiomatic expression. And while doing so, I might as well apply it wholesale to the voluminous prophetic passages in the Old Testament that show the same longsuffering God who endured sinners. The problem, of course, is that an appeal to an idiomatic expression to explain the words “endured” and “longsuffering” has the same result of misunderstanding sarcasm (cp. Isaiah 6:9-10)—it leads to an interpretation exactly opposite of what the Bible is really teaching. Which theology is here building irrationality upon irrationality in Romans 9 because of a willful ignorance of the authorial referred, Old Testament contexts which demand a straightforward understanding of phrases like “endured with much longsuffering?” The irony of Calvinism is that it begins with an illogical (dialectical) premise of a good God who shows arbitrary favoritism but then proceeds with ruthless logic to change the meaning of any Scripture that would contradict this premise. One is thus reminded of the technique of interpretation used by the early church thinker, Origen. As Renald Showers observes in his book, There Really Is A Difference:
…Origen developed a new method of interpreting the Bible. This method has been called the allegorical or spiritualizing method, and it stands in contrast to the literal historical-grammatical method. This permitted him to read almost any meaning he desired into the Bible, and it led him into heresy in certain areas of doctrine (for example, he rejected the idea of physical resurrection and believed in universal salvation for all human beings and fallen angels). Concerning this approach by Origen to the interpretation of the Scriptures, [Philip] Schaff has written,
“His great defect is the neglect of the grammatical and historical sense and his constant desire to find a hidden mystic meaning. He even goes further in this direction than the Gnostics, who everywhere saw transcendental, unfathomable mysteries…His allegorical interpretaion is ingenious, but often runs far away from the text and degenerates into the merest caprice.”liv
While Evangelical Calvinist believers do not reject the Resurrection or believe in universal salvation for all men, as Origen did, nor form all their statements by “merest caprice,” they nevertheless hold to a theology of mystical indefiniteness in their apologetics about the nature of God, man, good, and evil. This has led them to a technique of apologetic interpretation where idiomatic expressions are wrongly applied to certain biblical passages is a confusing theology where key terms are never defined or properly understood. Again, technically speaking, the apologetic of the Calvinist cannot lead to any meaning whatsoever. Words like ‘God,’ ‘man,’ ‘good,’ ‘evil,’ ‘justice,’ ‘injustice,’ etc. merely seem to have meaning in Calvinistic theology because all readers of Calvinistic treatises have previous associations of these words in other contexts involving real meaning which they have encountered in their pasts. (We have already seen an example of this in an earlier chapter, in the analogy of the two brothers, one of whom claims to have eaten an apple that didn’t exist.) So when the Calvinist says, ‘God is good,’ we understand that the Evangelical Calvinist is confessing to believe what every Evangelical believes, i.e., that the statement, ‘God is good’ is to be understood as a child would properly understand the word good in its normal sense. Yet the Calvinist has also embraced an interpretation of ‘good’ that makes it impossible to have a childlike understanding of the statement ‘God is good.’ Thus, Calvinistic language is being used in a similar way to how some people use the word ‘pantheism.’ The word ‘pantheism,’ as Christian apologist Francis Schaefer once observed, comes from two Greek words, ‘pan’ meaning ‘all,’ and ‘theism’ meaning ‘God.’ So, the word ‘pantheism’ literally means ‘all is God.’ But Schaeffer noted that the word ‘God’ actually means a hierarchical Being, and therein lies the problem with the word “pantheism,” for if one is saying that everything is God, then really nothing is God. Schaeffer thus notes that a better word would be “paneverything-ism.” But “pantheism” remains popular with its adherents because the ‘theism’ part of the word in ‘pantheism’ inspires a psychological reaction of acceptance, whereas the word ‘paneverything-ism’ inspires no one about anything.lv
Even so does the language of Calvinism entice its followers by reason of strong, emotional attachments which Evangelicals have made with words like ‘God,’ ‘man,’ ‘good,’ ‘evil,’ etc. In reality Calvinistic apologetics reduces the word ‘God’ into meaning nothing when it discusses its doctrine of the absolute sovereignty of God, for it does not refer to the one true God of the Bible anymore than it does to a flower or a building. A lie, in other words, has no reality except for its existence as a sinful act against God. Someone might ask why such a book as they are reading now would therefore bother to attack nothing. Well, of course, when I say that the Calvinist has defined God as nothing in his apologetics, I merely mean it is nothing of the truth. A lie is always something. It is sin, and sin is something, and something bad. It must be resisted for the same reason Christ bothered to reply to the lies of the Devil during the Temptation—for though Satan’s lies had no reality concerning the way things really were, they always had reality as sin and rebellion. Thus, it is only because of the shared terms used by Reformed and non-Reformed believers that this book has undertaken to argue as it does. The goal for all Evangelicals is to remember what Paul said about the language believers are to use: “Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another.”
96Nowhere in Pink’s discussion of Pharaoh’s reprobation does he mention that more than one Hebrew word for to harden is used in the Old Testament autographa, nor what implications such Hebrew words might have for the exodus narrative’s interpretation.
97And note that this presumption is based on defining the word ‘foreknowledge’ as meaning “divine, relationally intimate knowledge,” which is incorrect according to the lexical evidence of what foreknowledge means.
98That Jesus was led up into the wilderness by the Spirit to be tempted of the Devil is merely an expression to tell us that the Devil was allowed to tempt Jesus. The Devil only tempts man by God’s permission (not commandment). If it were otherwise, then when Jesus told the Devil not to tempt the Lord, He would have been at odds with the leading of the Spirit (if the Bible really meant to tell us that the Spirit wanted Jesus to be tempted by the Devil).
99The chief mystery I have personally found, relevant to the general debate addressed in this book, is God’s foreknowledge apart from divine determination. I personally think, however, that the lexical and contextual evidences are quite solidly in favor of the non-deterministic view.
100Similarly, Nehemiah 9: 9-10, as rendered by Young’s Literal Translation, does not state specifically that Pharaoh was among those who pursued the Israelites into the Red Sea, i.e., if the reader naturally understands the ‘them’ in verse 11 to refer to the Israelites (since them is stated as having their pursuers):
10 and dost give signs and wonders on Pharaoh, and on all his servants, and on all the people of his land, for Thou hast known that they have acted proudly against them, and Thou makest to Thee a name as [at] this day. 11 And the sea Thou hast cleaved before them, and they pass over into the midst of the sea on the dry land, and their pursuers Thou hast cast into the depths, as a stone, into the strong waters.
101After sarcasm, presumably chastisement.
102Observe that God says to Rebekah in Genesis 25:23, “two nations are in thee.” This does not mean that Jacob and Esau’s descendents were pre-existing souls waiting for ensoulment in history’s due course, as some might suggest, but merely that God foreknew that two nations would arise from these two unborn babies. Again, this is not language meant to be understood by strict, literal means.
103If someone here objects that orderliness is absent in creation, such as evidenced in the ostrich which God says He has bereft of even such wisdom as would prevent a mother ostrich from stepping on her own eggs (Job 39:13), we may say that death of any sort, even of an animal in its embryonic state, would not have been allowed by God in an unfallen creation, and that if there is a wisdom of God that has responded to the consequences of Man’s fall and creation in general, it is not one according to His original intention for His creation.
104even as the Prodigal son who, despairing, finally “came to himself,” i.e., came to his senses.
liiPink, Arthur W. The Sovereignty of God. [www.sovereign-grace. com/pink/chapter05.htm]; Chapter Five: “The Sovereignty of God in Reprobation.”
liiiPink, Arthur W. The Sovereignty of God. Chapter Five: “The Sovereignty of God in Reprobation.” [www.sovereign-grace. com/pink/chapter05.htm].
livShowers, Renald E. There Really Is A Difference! A Comparison of Covenant and Dispensational Theology. (Bellmawr, NJ: The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry, Inc., 2009. Ninth printing). p. 130.
lvSchaeffer, Francis A. The God Who Is There. (Downers Grove, Illinois: Intervarsity Press, 1968)