Romans 9.23-God Made Known The Riches Of His Glory Upon Vessels Of Mercy Which He Prepared In Advance For Glory
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Wednesday April 1, 2009
Romans: Romans 9:23-God Made Known The Riches Of His Glory Upon Vessels Of Mercy, Which He Prepared In Advance For Glory
Lesson # 316
Please turn in your Bibles to Romans 9:1.
This evening we will study Romans 9:23 in which Paul continues to advance and intensify his discussion of God’s sovereignty over Israel, which he illustrates in Romans 9:20-21 with the potter-clay motif.
In verse 22, Paul teaches that because God does choose to demonstrate His wrath and to make known His power publicly and explicitly through the gospel, He endured with much patience unsaved Israel in his day who are destined for eternal condemnation.
Now, in verse 23, Paul teaches that because God endured with much patience unregenerate Israel in his day, i.e. objects of wrath in order to make known the riches of His glory to the regenerate, i.e. objects of mercy, which He prepared in advance in eternity past for glory.
Then, in verse 24, he says that not did He make known His glory upon regenerate Israel but also to regenerate Gentiles.
Let’s read Romans 9:1-24 and then concentrate on verse 23 for the rest of the evening.
Romans 9:1-24, “I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple service and the promises, whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen. But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel; nor are they all children because they are Abraham's descendants, but: ‘THROUGH ISAAC YOUR DESCENDANTS WILL BE NAMED.’ That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants. For this is the word of promise: ‘AT THIS TIME I WILL COME, AND SARAH SHALL HAVE A SON.’ And not only this, but there was Rebekah also, when she had conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac; for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God's purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls, it was said to her, ‘THE OLDER WILL SERVE THE YOUNGER.’ Just as it is written, ‘JACOB I LOVED, BUT ESAU I HATED.’ What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! For He says to Moses, ‘I WILL HAVE MERCY ON WHOM I HAVE MERCY, AND I WILL HAVE COMPASSION ON WHOM I HAVE COMPASSION.’ So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, ‘FOR THIS VERY PURPOSE I RAISED YOU UP, TO DEMONSTRATE MY POWER IN YOU, AND THAT MY NAME MIGHT BE PROCLAIMED THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE EARTH.’ So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires. You will say to me then, ‘Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?’ On the contrary, 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? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles.”
Corrected translation of Romans 9:22:
Romans 9:22, “In fact, if-and let us assume for the sake of argument that because God the Father, as an eternal spiritual truth does choose to demonstrate His righteous indignation and in addition to make known publicly and explicitly His power, endured with much patience vessels destined for righteous indignation which are prepared for destruction and we agree that He has done so.”
Romans 9:23, “And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory.”
“And” is the “connective” use of the conjunction kai (kaiV), which connects the protasis of a first class condition that appears in Romans 9:22 with the obvious response from Paul’s audience and the hina purpose-result clause that follows kai and this response.
The protasis in Romans 9:23: “If and let assume that it is true for the sake argument that because God does choose to demonstrate His wrath and make known His power, endured with much patience vessels destined wrath, which are prepared beforehand for destruction.”
The responsive first class condition is “He has done so.”
“And” is the conjunction kai that appears at the beginning of verse 23.
This response goes with Paul’s statement in verse 23 so that together the response and the statement in verse 23 reads like this, “and He has done so in order to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory.”
“To make known” is composed of the conjunction hina (i%na) and the third person singular aorist active subjunctive form of the verb gnorizo (gnwrivzw) (gno-rid-zo).
The verb gnorizo appeared in Romans 9:22 where it meant “to make known publicly and explicitly” the power of God through the communication of the gospel, which Paul teaches in Romans 1:16 is the power of God for salvation.
Here in Romans 9:23, the verb gnorizo means “to make known publicly and explicitly” the riches of God’s glory through the communication of the gospel.
The conjunction hina is employed with the subjunctive mood of the verb gnorizo in order to form a purpose-result clause.
In Romans 9:23, this purpose-result clause introduced by the conjunction hina introduces the divine purpose and since that purpose never fails of fulfillment, it also points us to the result as well.
This indicates that by God enduring with much patience unregenerate Israel, He accomplished what He intended, namely it made known the riches of His glory to regenerate Jews and Gentiles.
Romans 9:23, “And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory.”
“The riches” is the articular accusative masculine singular form of the noun ploutos (plouto$) (ploo-tos), which is used in a figurative sense for God’s “infinite” glory.
In Romans 9:23, the noun ploutos presents an image of material wealth, which captures the infinite glory of God.
We will translate ploutos with the English adjective “infinite” since the noun doxa, “glory” functions as an “attributed genitive.”
This means that ploutos as the head noun rather than the genitive form of doxa, “glory” functions in sense as an attributive adjective.
In this construction, you can convert the noun to which it stands related into a mere adjective.
The adjective “infinite” refers to something that is “immeasurably great, indefinitely or exceedingly great, unbounded, unlimited, endless or immeasurable, inexhaustible.”
Therefore, in Romans 9:23, the noun ploutos defines God’s glory as “immeasurably great, indefinitely or exceedingly great, unbounded, unlimited, endless or immeasurable and inexhaustible.”
“Of His glory” refers to the manifestation of God’s character and nature in the sense that He is slow to anger and execute judgment and is gracious and compassionate to sinners by forgiving them all their sins.
Paul’s use of doxa in Romans 9:23 is recalling what the Lord taught Moses in Exodus 33:18-19 and 34:6-7a.
Exodus 33:18-19, “Then Moses said, ‘I pray You show me your glory!’ And He (the Lord) said, ‘I Myself will make all my goodness (divine perfection) pass before you, and will proclaim the Person of the Lord before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.’”
The Lord goes on to say in Exodus 34:6-7a.
Exodus 34:6-7a, “Then the Lord passed by in front of him (Moses) and proclaimed, ‘The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding grace and truth; Who keeps grace for thousands, Who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin.”
Paul’s statements in Romans 9:14-22 make clear that the noun doxa in Romans 9:23 refers to the manifestation of God’s character and nature.
God’s character and nature is manifested by the fact that He is slow to anger and in executing judgment and is gracious and compassionate to sinners by forgiving them all their sins when they trust in Jesus Christ as Savior.
The fact that God is gracious and merciful to Israel is mentioned in Romans 9:15-16 and 18.
The fact that God is slow to anger and in executing judgment is mentioned in Romans 9:22 that God endured with much patience vessels destined for wrath, which are prepared beforehand for eternal condemnation.
Romans 9:23, “And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory.”
“Upon vessels of mercy” is composed of the preposition epi (e)piv), “upon,” which is followed by accusative neuter plural form of the noun skeuos (skeuo$) (skyoo-os), “vessels” and the genitive neuter singular form of the noun eleos (e&leo$) (el-eh-os), “of mercy.”
The noun skeuos refers to an Israelite who is either regenerate as indicated by the word’s genitive adjunct eleos, “mercy.”
The noun eleos is related to the verb eleeo, which appears four times in Romans 9:15 twice, 16 and 18.
In these verses the verb eleeo which means, “to be gracious to” those sinners who exercise faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior since it translates the Hebrew verb chanan (/n^j*), which appears in Exodus 33:19 and means “to graciously give.”
This grace is in the form of the forgiveness of sins and being entered into an eternal relationship and fellowship with God.
By far the most common Hebrew term for which eleos is equivalent in the Septuagint is chesedh, “grace.”
Therefore, we can see that the noun eleos is related to God’s grace policy.
The other Greek New Testament word for grace is charis, which speaks of God’s grace policy towards sinners from the perspective that it is unmerited favor.
On the other hand, eleos speaks of God’s grace from the perspective that it is a reflection of His character and nature, which was expressed through the spiritual and physical deaths of Jesus Christ on the Cross and through the gospel by extending compassion to sinners and offering them the forgiveness of their sins.
Romans 9:23, “And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory.”
“Which He prepared beforehand” refers to the election of born-again Israelites in eternity past by God the Father.
God elected them before the foundation of the world in the sense that, in His foreknowledge, which is based upon His omniscience, He knew beforehand that they would accept Jesus Christ as Savior in time and therefore elected them to privilege.
“For glory” indicates that God the Father prepared in advance in eternity these born-again Israelites who are destined to be the objects of His grace for the purpose of glory in the sense of receiving and experiencing eternal life a resurrection body throughout all eternity.
Therefore, in Romans 9:23 continues his thought from verse 22 where he teaches that because God does choose to demonstrate His righteous indignation and make known publicly and explicitly His power through the presentation of the gospel, He endured with much patience unsaved Israel.
In verse 23, Paul teaches by God enduring with much patience vessels of wrath that it accomplished what He intended, namely, to make known publicly and explicitly the riches of His glory to regenerate Jews, which He prepared in advance in eternity past for glory, i.e. resurrection body.