Is God Just as Sovereign over Damnation as Salvation?

00:00:00.000 | We're back.

00:00:04.400 | Thanks for listening to Ask Pastor John.

00:00:05.880 | I'm a longtime pastor and author, John Piper.

00:00:08.600 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:00:10.480 | Today's question is a bit technical, so bear with us, but it's a really important one,

00:00:14.320 | too.

00:00:15.320 | It's weighty.

00:00:16.320 | Here it is.

00:00:17.320 | "What active role does God play in both the redemption of sinners and in the perdition

00:00:21.600 | of sinners?"

00:00:22.600 | Casey asks it.

00:00:23.600 | Here's his question.

00:00:24.600 | "Hello, Pastor John.

00:00:25.600 | I was studying Romans 9, verses 22 to 23.

00:00:31.080 | I see that the Greek word Paul uses for 'prepared' in verse 22, 'katertismina', is different

00:00:34.080 | from the word he uses for 'prepared' in verse 23, 'proitoi misin'.

00:00:38.320 | The first root is artiso.

00:00:40.300 | The second is etymus.

00:00:42.080 | Additionally, the first is passive, the second is active.

00:00:45.760 | Can you explain the significance and meaning of why Paul would use different words and

00:00:49.280 | tenses here?

00:00:50.560 | Specifically, does this imply that the vessels of destruction were prepared differently than

00:00:55.240 | the vessels of mercy?"

00:00:56.520 | Well, first, for those who feel like this question is just too technical, they're going

00:01:02.160 | to click us off here right away, let me ask for just a couple minutes to show otherwise,

00:01:09.880 | because it relates to one of the most ultimate, important things you can ever think about.

00:01:16.760 | So what's at stake?

00:01:18.120 | What's at stake is how God's power and wisdom and justice and mercy are at work in those

00:01:25.560 | who finally perish and how they are at work in those who are finally saved.

00:01:34.200 | And few things could be more important than clarifying the relationship between God's

00:01:41.200 | sovereignty and the final destiny of human beings.

00:01:47.840 | The text—and I believe this—the text in all the Bible that comes closest to getting

00:01:55.640 | at God's ultimate design or purpose in His sovereign work in salvation and in judgment

00:02:04.700 | is Romans 9, 21 to 23.

00:02:07.440 | So I'm going to read it because this is what is being asked about.

00:02:11.640 | "Has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable

00:02:21.200 | use and another vessel for dishonorable use?

00:02:27.120 | If God, desiring to show His wrath and to make known His power, has endured with much

00:02:32.740 | patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known the riches of His glory

00:02:39.420 | for vessels of mercy which He has prepared beforehand for glory…"

00:02:44.240 | And then the sentence breaks off.

00:02:47.760 | And that's why most translations don't start with "if God desiring," they start

00:02:52.600 | with "what if God desiring," because they're implying rightly that if He has done it this

00:02:59.840 | way, then no legitimate objection can be raised.

00:03:05.160 | That's the gist.

00:03:06.160 | So here's the essential, amazing, ultimate statement being made by Paul about God's

00:03:14.000 | ultimate purposes.

00:03:15.560 | He's saying God aims to show—very important word—to show, especially for you, Tony,

00:03:23.080 | who wrote the book, right?

00:03:24.080 | Right.

00:03:25.080 | The spectacle.

00:03:26.080 | Everybody should buy Tony's book.

00:03:29.360 | God aims to show His wrath against sin and to show His power as supreme and to manifest

00:03:38.400 | His patience and His mercy, that is, all the riches of His glory, He aims to show these.

00:03:45.040 | That's His purpose in verse 22.

00:03:47.200 | That's the word used in verse 22, "to show," and this is why He created the world and is

00:03:54.160 | governing history and is saving and judging the world.

00:03:57.680 | All of these attributes are mentioned as part of God's plan—wrath, power, patience, mercy,

00:04:08.080 | glory.

00:04:09.320 | In other words, God's ultimate aim in salvation and judgment is to display and communicate

00:04:16.840 | to His creatures the entire range, the entire panorama of His attributes or His being.

00:04:25.880 | And I just want to pause here and say, oh, oh, the value, the value of grasping and believing

00:04:34.080 | that this is God's ultimate great goal in the universe.

00:04:38.240 | It changed my life totally 50 years ago to get a handle on God's God-centeredness in

00:04:45.800 | creating the world.

00:04:47.680 | No attribute of God that can be revealed for His glory shall be left in obscurity.

00:04:56.480 | His aim in creation and salvation and judgment is to reveal all the fullness of His glory,

00:05:07.040 | including the justice of His wrath and the beauty of His mercy.

00:05:12.200 | Now what Cayce is drawing our attention to in the question is that this revelation of

00:05:19.960 | the fullness of God's glory involves the demonstration of righteous wrath in judgment

00:05:27.200 | on one group of people and the demonstration of righteous mercy on another group, and you

00:05:34.480 | can see from the word "mercy" and "wrath" that neither deserve salvation.

00:05:42.640 | You wouldn't need mercy if one were good, and wrath means the other's not good.

00:05:48.120 | Neither's good.

00:05:49.440 | One group gets justice, the other gets mercy.

00:05:52.540 | Neither group gets worse than they deserve.

00:05:56.320 | And Cayce points out that the different description of the two groups in verses 22 and 23 of Romans

00:06:03.480 | 9, one group are vessels of wrath prepared or fitted for destruction, the other group

00:06:10.600 | are vessels of mercy which God has prepared beforehand for glory.

00:06:15.960 | And Cayce is pointing out that the Greek words for "prepared" or "fitted" in the first case

00:06:21.800 | and "prepared" in the second case are not only different verbs, but the first is passive

00:06:29.800 | and the second is active.

00:06:31.000 | Let me read it again so you can hear it.

00:06:33.560 | Vessels of wrath which are prepared or fitted, passive verb, for destruction, and then vessels

00:06:40.540 | of mercy which he prepared, active verb, for glory.

00:06:45.800 | And he asks why?

00:06:47.360 | Why different verbs and why active and passive?

00:06:51.200 | And my answer might be frustrating because I'm going to say I don't think we can be dogmatic

00:06:59.660 | about why, precisely why, Paul chose two different verbs which refer to preparing or fitting

00:07:10.560 | two different groups of vessels having similar meaning.

00:07:15.300 | One for destruction, one for glory, one passive, one active.

00:07:19.400 | So let me say what I think with a high level of certainty it does not mean, and then make

00:07:26.560 | a suggestion with less certainty about what it does mean.

00:07:31.840 | It does not mean—so the fact that God has a passive verb in fitting folks for destruction

00:07:37.440 | and an active verb in fitting them for vessels of mercy, it does not mean that God is not

00:07:46.120 | the ultimate decisive sovereign cause of the existence of the two groups.

00:07:53.200 | And the reason I say that is this.

00:07:55.500 | The entire context of Romans 9 points in the other direction.

00:08:01.740 | For example, verse 14, "Jacob I loved, Esau I hated," God active in both.

00:08:09.720 | Verse 18, "He has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills," God active

00:08:18.480 | in both cases.

00:08:19.720 | Verse 21, "The potter makes out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another

00:08:28.500 | for dishonorable use," God active in both.

00:08:31.600 | So I think it's clear that the decisive actor behind the passive verb "prepared for destruction"

00:08:39.360 | is God.

00:08:40.360 | The point of the verse is not to say, "God, God, prepared vessels of mercy for glory,

00:08:48.040 | but some other force prepared vessels of wrath for destruction."

00:08:52.360 | Verse 18 is clear.

00:08:54.800 | He has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.

00:09:01.060 | God is the decisive actor behind both kinds of vessels.

00:09:06.920 | Now that's what I'm high level of certainty, confident, that it does not mean, namely,

00:09:13.040 | that God isn't the decisive cause behind both vessels.

00:09:18.400 | But my suggestion for why there are two different verbs, one passive, one active, is this, that

00:09:27.360 | Paul does indeed believe that the work of God is different in the way vessels are fitted

00:09:37.080 | for destruction and the way they are fitted for glory.

00:09:42.640 | God is active and decisive in both, but not in the same way.

00:09:49.720 | The very grammar of verses 22 to 23 suggests this.

00:09:54.840 | The preparation of vessels for destruction is not God's ultimate goal.

00:10:01.600 | Verse 23 begins with, "In order that there are vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,

00:10:08.800 | in order that he might make known the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy," which means

00:10:14.280 | that the work of wrath and judgment on the vessels of destruction is serving a greater

00:10:20.960 | end, namely, making known the riches of glory for the vessels of mercy.

00:10:26.320 | God's ultimate aim is the revelation of glory for vessels of mercy.

00:10:32.560 | So God's ultimate act is not preparation for destruction, but preparation for glory.

00:10:40.960 | They are not equally ultimate and, I'm suggesting, not pursued in the same way, and that's what

00:10:48.840 | the two different verbs are pointing to.

00:10:51.720 | The passive verb in the phrase "vessels of wrath prepared for destruction" does not point

00:10:58.040 | to God's inactivity, but to the hiddenness, the mystery of his activity.

00:11:05.080 | God ultimately does the preparing for destruction, but he does it in complete holiness and justice

00:11:13.200 | and righteousness and wisdom in ways that we simply cannot fully fathom.

00:11:21.220 | That is, he does it without in any way compromising the moral accountability of his creatures,

00:11:29.440 | and they remain responsible for loving God over self, and he remains sovereign and holy

00:11:38.400 | over all their motives.

00:11:40.640 | God is really God, and man is really responsible.

00:11:46.120 | That's what I think is ultimately behind these two different verbs.

00:11:49.600 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:11:51.320 | That's very helpful.

00:11:52.320 | And thanks for mentioning my new book as well, "Competing Spectacles."

00:11:56.060 | As many of you know, I never intended to become a podcast host.

00:11:59.120 | I'm really just a writer.

00:12:00.820 | That's my training, my experience.

00:12:02.760 | I write books.

00:12:04.120 | But we started this little podcast six years ago and just tried it out for a year to cover

00:12:08.880 | Pastor John when he lived in Knoxville, and well, here we are, some 1,400 episodes later,

00:12:16.600 | and we're still podcasting and still writing books as well.

00:12:20.400 | Well, of those 1,400 episodes, one of the episodes that has really garnered a lot of

00:12:24.680 | attention over the past year is episode 1173, "My Midlife Crisis and Counsel for Yours."

00:12:33.180 | You may remember it.

00:12:34.180 | God has used that episode in a particularly powerful way, which has been evidenced in

00:12:38.520 | really a flood of emails from men in their midlife years wanting Pastor John even to

00:12:43.000 | talk more about it, and he will.

00:12:45.520 | We return to the midlife crisis theme when we return on Friday.

00:12:49.720 | We'll see you then.

00:12:50.360 | [music]

00:12:52.360 | [music]

00:12:54.360 | [music]

00:12:56.360 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Is God Just as Sovereign over Damnation as Salvation?

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