Hath Not the Potter

I have been doing much thinking lately on the Sovereignty of God. I love to contemplate what His Sovereignty is and to what extent it reaches. While I will never fully understand the depth of our great God, I want to try.

The past few months has afforded the opportunity to dwell upon God's Sovereignty in much detail. As we have specifically looked at His Sovereignty in Salvation, the light of the gospel has shown forth and divine truth has been proclaimed. Our specific topic has been Calvinism. Spurgeon called Calvinism a "nickname for the gospel." It does indeed summarize Scriptural truth accurately. In contrast, we have learned about Calvinism's arch rival Arminianism. As the man-centeredness of Arminianism has been exposed, Romans 9:6-23 has become clear to me. There is one phrase I cannot shake from my thoughts in Romans 9:21:

"Or does not the potter have a right over the clay..."

Do we even contemplate the Potter's right any more? I mean, the Potter created the pots. Why do we question His work? Why do we question how He made the pots? Why do we cringe at His creating a specific pot for His specific purpose to bring Himself glory? Does this show us anything about ourselves other than our sinfulness?

When we say things such as "my God is not like that..." or "my God would do this...," are we not just questioning the Potter and attempting to limit His right? Who are we to try to change the Word of the Potter to fit our thinking?

Let me see if I can put this into perspective. God is holy. He is perfect, pure, whole, and complete. He needs nothing. No created thing can add to Him. He is completely righteous and totally just. He is loving, gracious, and merciful. He is faithful and forgiving. We even know that His anger, wrath, and condemnation are in line with His character, which is holy! He says in Isaiah 48:11,

"For My own sake, for My own sake, I will act; for how can My name be profaned? And My glory I will not give to another."

Paul explicitly explains in Romans 9, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, how Salvation is God's choice, independent of individual effort. In fact, God Himself proclaimed His glory to Moses in Exodus 33:19, describing His goodness as His choice to "...be gracious to whom He will be gracious and to show compassion on whom He will show compassion." In other words, it is God's glory to choose to whom He will be gracious. This implies that the recipients are not worthy of His graciousness. If they were, He would not be glorified by choosing to be gracious and compassionate to them.

But our culture chafes against this. We agree that God is all of those things. As evangelicals we proclaim that God is at work in our Salvation. Yet some churches teach that our will must be included in our salvation. They proclaim that our God cannot work in us if we don't allow Him. They try to steal some of His Glory! However, He will not give His glory to another.

This brings me back to Romans 9:21. "Does not the Potter have a right over the clay...?" Does not the Potter have THE right, period? Who are we to question Him? We believe He is holy, righteous, just, loving, gracious, merciful, compassionate, etc. Yet we don't trust His word that His choice in the Salvation He provides is a reflection of His character? Why do we have to "protect" God from this? Are we afraid that He cannot defend Himself? Do we just forget that He created all that exists out of nothing? Yet we are concerned that He has not dealt righteously with His creation and with sin? No wonder the church in America is in such a pitiful state today.

We need to trust God at His word. We need to submit to Him and His word, not try to explain away things we don't understand. We need to rejoice in His Sovereign choice in salvation, knowing that it is a reflection of His perfect, holy nature. What glory is ascribed to God when we trust and obey!