I'd again like to say that I don't believe that Arminians are unsaved. I just don't believe that Arminianism is logically consistent with what the Bible teaches.
Here is an outline of what Paul teaches in Romans 9:19-21:
The first huge problem is taking a few verses out of Romans and acting like these verses stand alone from what Paul has been teaching throughout Romans. Paul’s letter to the Romans is used in even secular universities to show how to use logic to build premise on premise to your conclusion. It is: “Because this is true, then this must also be true” and so on. There is also the very best use of diatribes in teach found with Paul in Romans, which is also used in both philosophy and educational university class rooms. I say all this to point out Paul is perfectly consistent in Romans addressing the issue in Rome. Paul is not going off on some tangent talking about “free will”, which would be out of context for the rest of Romans.
Paul is really trying to resolve one huge main issue in this Large body of Christians in Rome and he is the very best person for the job, being a Jew of Jew (willing to give up his heavenly position to save Jews (Ro. 9:3 For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race) and the Apostle to the Gentiles. The huge problem Paul is addressing throughout the Christian Romans is the lack of fellowship between the Jewish Christians and the Gentile Christians. If Paul had established the Church in Rome, it would not have had this problem, since all his established congregations were missed Jew and Gentile. The Church in Rome was most likely established by Jewish Christians who left Jerusalem at the time of Steven’s stoning, so they knew nothing about Gentile Christians. During the reign of Claudius all the Jews were thrown out of Rome which would include Christian Jews. At that time, they would have come in contact with Gentile Christians and returned to Rome after Claudius allowed them to return and some must have gone to the Gentiles, but established separate meeting places, most likely outside the Jewish areas of Rome.
The overriding subject of Paul in all of Romans has to be kept in mind when interpreting what Paul is talking about in Romans 9. Scholars have divided up Paul’s letter which can be followed easily in the Greek, with Romans 9 being part of Romans 9, 10, and 11. Generally Paul is teaching in Ro. 9,10 and 11, that although the Jews are much better prepared for the Messiah and a moral Christian life, it has not helped them, over the Gentiles, to accept God’s salvation. Paul even goes on to say, it is his hope that the Gentiles accepting salvation might help bring the Jews back. All this teaching is done in the style Paul has been using which is diatribes (debates with an imaginary student to avoid making it just a lecture).
Preachers try to tell you what Paul is talking about in Romans 9, but look at Paul’s conclusion to what he has been talking about: Ro. 9: 30 What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; 31 but the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, have not attained their goal. 32 Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone.
The Jews being Jews (made for a very special purpose) became a stumbling stone to them and harder for them to accept righteousness by faith. This theme will be carried on in the next two chapters.
The whole of chp. 9 is pushing the idea the Jews and Gentiles are equal in the one area which counts: “righteousness”, which is also the idea pushed in chapters 9,10,and 11, which is also pushed in the whole letter to the Roman Christians.
