Who has resisted the will of God?

Introduction

Have you ever had an argument with someone and they turned that argument around back on you? They were clearly in the wrong, but somehow they made it all you fault. Some men have done this to excuse their infidelity when they say well my wife wasn’t loving enough or she was too frigid. When we jump into the next section of Paul’s argument we find his imaginary debate opponent arguing that its really God’s fault that Pharaoh and by inference unbelieving Israel were rejected and hardened. Can God really blame someone if they had no ability to do otherwise?

I think we all know that there is a element in which someone must be able to obey if we are going to punish someone. It would be unfair to tell a man who had no hands, you must pick up this book or we will punish you. It is for this reason that we don’t criminalize the mentally insane and the way we interact with the disabled out to be more charitable and kind. Many a father has provoked his child to wrath because he expected more than a kid could be reasonably expected to do. So we understand the injustice that the interlocutor is claiming.

The argument is really how can God blame anyone if all they ever did is what God set them up to do. After all who is powerful enough to resist God’s will. Is it really unbelieving Israel’s fault that they aren’t part of the people of God because God has this vast mysterious plan and they can’t fight against that? This passage brings up theological arguments about the sovereignty of God and human ability and responsibility. How can God be sovereign an still punish mankind? On what basis is man still help responsibility? After all the root word of responsibility is ability. We are going to approach this text by asking three different questions of the text:

Can mankind resist the will of God?

Who has a right to stand in judgment of God?

Why did God choose to work the way he did?

Let’s begin by reading through Romans 9:19-24.

Can mankind resist the will of God?

Romans 9:19–20 “Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? 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?”

Paul in his hypothetical dialogue with a Jewish opponent brings up the argument about the justice of God if mankind has no other choice than to do what God has decreed. In the following verses, we do not actually find a direct response to the question that has been asked; rather Paul answers with a rebuke. However, in his rebuke, Paul hints at his answer to the overall problem. Paul’s answer is essentially what right does man have to stand in judgment of God who created them. But I want you to notice one key word in this response: Paul says who are you to reply against God? To reply against here literally means to answer back or to answer with a contrary assertion. Basically it means to argue back with someone.

Any of you parents know what this is like: You tell your kids to do someone thing like take out the trash and they don’t want to do it. They begin to argue with you saying it so and so’s turn, or you never let me do this or that etc. When they argue with you, what are they doing? They are resisting doing what you told them to do. So here the arguer, says who can resist God’s will and yet in his very argument he is resisting God.

I want us to look at some verses that actually do show us that it is possible to resist God’s will.

Acts 7:51 “Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.”

Luke 7:30 “But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized of him.”

Matthew 23:37 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!”

Romans 10:21 “But to Israel he saith, All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people.”

So if man can resist God does that mean God is not really in control and sovereign over what happens in our lives? Most theologians have recognized that there are two senses in which we speak of the will of God: two wills as you might say. Theologians call them different things depending on their theological perspective, but there is some overlap between them. I prefer to call them God’s perfect will and his permissive will. There are somethings that God has decided and they will happen while their are other things that God allows to happen.

Illustration: Let’s say you are a teacher who honestly wants all of her students to pass their exams and do well; yet you know that not all the students are going to pass. You could cancel the exam or you could let it go forward even though you wish they would all pass. Your overall desire for the students is that they would learn and sometimes failing the test is part of that learning process. The teacher just like you and me have two different wills in that moment at work with one another.

AW Tozer gives on of the best illustrations on how these two things work together:

“An ocean liner leaves New York bound for Liverpool. Its destination has been determined by proper authorities. Nothing can change it. This is at least a faint picture of sovereignty. On board the liner are scores of passengers. These are not in chains, … they are completely free to move about as they will; … but all the while the great liner is carrying them steadily onward toward a predetermined port.”

God’s perfect will is the ocean liner (the boat). It will arrive where God sent it to arrive and when he sent it to arrive, but on the boat there are passangers who are free to move about as they wish. They can go swimming on the boat. They can eat on the boat. They could even hurt themselves on the boat. But one things is true that boat is going to get them all to where God sent the boat. So man can and does resist the will of God in all the areas where God has chosen to allow mankind that freedom; but his will, will be accomplished and cannot be twarted.

The point we ultimately have to get to here is that mankind is guilty on their own. Paul asked this question in another form earlier in Romans 3:5–6 “But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance? (I speak as a man) God forbid: for then how shall God judge the world?” How can God judge the world? The answer is that we have all sinned and gone out of the way. We have resisted and therefore are responsible before God.

Who stands in judgment against God?

Romans 9:20–21 “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? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?”

Paul’s response is more about our right to stand in judgement against God. The arguer just like many of us when we don’t like something God allowed in our lives seeks to find fault with God. Hebrews 3:8–11 “Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways. So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.)” The Jews in the wilderness set themselves up as judges over God. They said it were better for us to have stayed in Egypt. They said God had brought them out here to kill them. God hates us and has put corrupt rulers over us.

Pauls answer goes back to the fact that God has created us. A man who creates a tool has the right to do with it as he wishes. The next few verses are going to liken the people of Israel to a vessel. The word here is not speaking of a boat, but of a pot. Paul quotes two passages from Isaiah mashed together into one new passage. This passage is a reference to Isaiah 45:9 “Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? Or thy work, He hath no hands?” and Isaiah 29:16 “Surely 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?” In Isaiah God is saying that Israel has not right to question what God is doing. But the illustration is used pretty consistentently to refer to God’s decisions in relation to the nation of Israel.

What does the illustration of the potter deal with? Jer 18:1-19:15 gives us one of the most detailed versions of this illustration. focus in on vs 1-10

Notice that in this passage the potter is God Himself molding a vessel. The vessel is declared to be Israel in vs 6,7. Also notice that a vessel that is marred can be reformed again in vs 4. God has a plan for the nation of Israel and it may not make sense to them. They don’t have all the information they need to make sense of it. But even when we can’t make heads or tails of our life; do we have a right to set ourselves up in judgement against God.

vs 21 Doesn’t the potter have power over the clay? The word power here means authority. God has the authority to work how he wishes. In this verse he takes one lump which refers to the nation of Israel and he makes two vessels: one of honor and one of dishonor. You can take the same clay and make a beautiful vase and then use the left over clay to make a chamber pot. But God has taken of Israel and made two vessels: Believing Spiritual Israel and Unbelieving Physical Israel.

Why does God allow his plan to work out this way?

Romans 9:22–24 “What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?”

The final question is why would God do it this way? Why not just have a plan that included all of Israel? We are given three reasons in the text:

To show His wrath?

God wants to make his wrath known. This is actually more important than we realize. How many believe God is just the good old man upstairs? How many believe that God accepts us just the way we are and there will be no consequences for our sin? Even those who know what the bible says often live as if there are no consequences for sin. God wants to make sure everyone knows their is a consequence for unbelief.

There is a mercy even here. If you want someone to avoid getting addicted to drugs, it is helpful for them to see someone who is overdosed on drugs or languishing in the throws of withdrawl. Seeing the consequence can deter us from a course of action. Remember how Paul began the book Romans 1:18 “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;”

To make his power Known

Another purpose is so God’s power can be seen. God’s power to save or to destroy is specifically in mind in this passage. Destruction and mercy are contrasted. Those who are vessels of wrath (unbelieving Jews) will face destruction and those who are vessels of mercy (believing Jews) will experience the riches of God’s glory.

A lot of people debate the meaning of the words fitted and prepared in these verses. What does this mean? There is actually a contrast in the way God has dealt with these two groups of people. Those who are prepared (the vessels of mercy), God has actively been preparing them for glory. Most likely the word afore refers back all the way back to creation. Fitted on the other hand is a different type of verb: it is a middle/passive. We do not have middle voice verbs called by that name in English, but the idea is something you do to yourself.

Chrysostom an early Greek theologian said this about Pharaoh being fitted for destruction: “He is fully fitted indeed, but by his own proper self.” So he is claiming that Pharaoh fitted himself for destruction as he hardened his heart. In spite of all that God is showing his power by being patient.

Why would he be patient?

There are two reasons 1) we heap up more wrath to ourselves Romans 2:5 “But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God;” 2) God desires the vessels of wrath to repent Romans 2:4 “Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?” 1 Timothy 1:16 “Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.”

It is important to note that vessels of wrath can become vessels of mercy:

Ephesians 2:3–5 “Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)” We have already shown that Branches that have been cut off can be grafted back in from Romans 11:23 “And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in: for God is able to graff them in again.”

To make the riches of his glory known on the vessels of mercy

God could have taken all the vessels of mercy straight up to heaven, but he didn’t. I think God’s desire for mercy is seen here. He endured the vessels of wrath so that they could see his glory in the lives of the vessels of mercy if by chance they might repent. Paul claims this very thing in Romans 11:31 “Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy.”

Conclusion

There are two applications as I often have after a message:

The first is this, when God deals with you in a way that you don’t like what is your default response. Do you get anger, bitter, start complaining and arguing with God? This is a reminder that God knows what he is doing and a reminder of who we are. God is God and I am not. He is the creator; I am the created. There is a purpose behind everything he does and even though I may not understand it I can trust in Him. Don’t set yourself up as a judge over God.

Secondly, if you do not know Jesus as your savior, God has given you more time. It is not too late. What awaits you is destruction and hell if you resist. God is today calling out to you to repent and place your faith in Jesus Christ.