- Aug 11, 2017
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Yes I have an answer for this from Romans 9. Your point is very compelling no doubt brother. And reading Romans 9:14-21 seems to support this interpretation as well. Until you get to verse 22.
“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.”
Romans 9:14-24 NASB1995
Why did God endure with much patience the vessels of wrath? Here is my answer.
“Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God,”
Romans 2:4-5 NASB1995
“But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.”
2 Peter 3:7-9 NASB1995
God uses the wicked to set examples and to show His might & glory to those of us who humble ourselves to Him and repent. But His kindness and patience towards the wicked and unrepentant is to give them time to repent so that when they stand before Him on Judgement Day they will have no excuse and be rightly deserving of His wrath and justice upon them. Just like in Acts 4:28 all those people whom God chose to use this way were set against Christ. We know that Pontiff Pilate and Herod were unrepentant and most of the Gentiles and a lot of the Israelites. I suspect that every person He chose to use in this plan were unrepentant and wicked. I don’t recall God using His humble servants in this way. I would say that this was another example just like what He did with Pharaoh to show His glory to His followers, perhaps even to the unrepentant in order to bring them to repentance.
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