Romans 9:24Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Likewise, can anyone complain when the all-knowing and just God manifests some men as "vessels of wrath prepared for destruction," such as the rejected Jews?

Over others He manifests the riches of His glory, as over "vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory" (Rom 9:22-23). The Apostle adds that this means us, the chosen.

He says of us, "whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles," in accordance with the prophecies of Hosea and Isaiah (Rom 9:24-29).

The Apostle later expresses this directly in verse 22. He says that the Hebrews, by their own quality, deserved only to be wholly destroyed, like defiled vessels. Yet God spared them according to His mercy and for the higher purposes of the divine economy.

In that economy the Gentiles also were to receive a consoling share. They proved to be vessels just as fit for the higher purpose as those Jews who were directly prepared for the great honor of being chosen, namely, believers in Christ.

The Apostle's main thought here is the same as in the earlier examples, especially the last one. Everything lies within the power of God. No one can resist it, nor even answer back to it.

The creature must submit in silence and reverence to his Creator and Provider. According to Saint John Chrysostom, the Apostle's aim here is simply to persuade the hearer to submit to God in all things.

He must demand from Him no account in anything. "As the potter makes what he wishes from one and the same lump, and no one contradicts him, so do not question God or pry into Him.

Do not ask why, among men of one and the same people, He punishes some and rewards others. Rather, revere Him and imitate the clay. As it submits to the potter's hands, so submit to the decree of the Ruler of the universe.

He does not act without purpose or at random, even if you do not comprehend the mysteries of wisdom. Yet it does not depend on the potter alone that, from the same lump, one thing is made for honorable use and another for low use.

Rather, it depends on the voluntary use made by those who use the object. So here too the matter depends on free choice. As Pharaoh became a vessel of wrath through his own lawlessness, so those who were saved became vessels of mercy through their own piety.

If the greater part belongs to God, we nevertheless contribute something small from ourselves. Though one must both will and strive, one must rely not on one's own struggles, but on God's love for mankind.

So the Apostle says elsewhere concerning himself: 'Not I, but the grace which was with me' (1 Cor 15:10). Why, then, are some vessels of wrath and others vessels of mercy? By their own choice.

Yet God, in His boundless goodness, shows mercy to both. He had mercy not only on those who were saved, but also on Pharaoh as far as was possible. Both those who were saved and Pharaoh enjoyed the same longsuffering.

If Pharaoh was not saved, this was wholly by his own will."

The previous discourse concerned only the Jews, but here the Gentiles are also mentioned. If God called those prepared beforehand, then the Gentiles too were prepared beforehand. This compels us to broaden the Apostle's preceding thought and extend the example of pottery to the Gentiles also. In that case, by the clay mixture one must understand the whole human race as it existed before Christ's coming.

It was clay in the hands of God, from which He fashioned for Himself vessels of mercy, in order to make them vessels of glory. He worked on the Jews more closely and directly, not only through reason and conscience, but also through His manifestations, through the sending of Angels and Prophets, through the giving of the Law, and through His wondrous providence over them. He worked on the Gentiles through reason and conscience, through the traditions that remained among them about what existed before the division of tongues, through reports that reached them about what God was doing among the Jewish people, and through a certain hidden providential guidance.

Since God Himself acted in this, one cannot doubt the success and fruits of divine action. Where is the indication of this? It is in those who believed the Gospel. The preaching called the prepared vessels of mercy. Since those who heeded this calling were not only Jews but also Gentiles, it follows that there were prepared ones both here and there. Even if we cannot explain how this was done with the Gentiles, the fact that it was so must not be doubted on that account.

One may only ask: the apostolic calling gathered the prepared vessels who were present. But the preparation had been going on throughout all the preceding time. At first it concerned all men together, and for more than two thousand years it proceeded separately, that is, for the Jews in one way and for the Gentiles in another. How, then, were the vessels of mercy prepared at that time brought into glory?

They were brought in the same way, through calling. The Lord, having descended into Hades, preached to the spirits of those who had lived before and departed. All who had previously been prepared as vessels of mercy heeded the calling and entered the rank of vessels of glory. Their final preparation was accomplished by the holy Forerunner, who had appeared there two or three years before the Lord and Savior.

Such a providential arrangement of God concerning men aroused no perplexity among the Gentiles. They only received it reverently, offering grateful praises to God and marveling at the incomprehensible wisdom of God in His providence for men. But some of the Jews, despite the preceding explanations of how the promise had not failed even though Gentiles too were called, still could not easily free themselves from the questions that arose in them: how can this be? We are God's people, and those are not God's people.

The Apostle finally calms such people by citing prophecies about this. It is as though he says: this has only now been revealed, but it was appointed to be so from the beginning. It was foretold at the same time as it was prepared beforehand. I intended to explain this to you by the preceding reasonings, showing that it is not foreign to God's counsels if He separates the unworthy from the inheritance of the promise given to their fathers. But if this is unclear and unconvincing to you, I will cite prophecies about it. Do you believe the Prophets? Then believe that if the Gentiles now enter Christ's flock, while many Jews remain outside God's sheepfold, this happens not by the error of the preachers, but by the direct will of God.

Thus, in the prophetic predictions cited, one may see a second proof that the promise has not failed through the calling of the Gentiles and through the failure of some Jews to enter the inheritance. The Apostle cites prophecies in two senses: one concerning the calling of the Gentiles, and another concerning the failure of many Jews to enter the inheritance. Concerning the calling of the Gentiles, the Apostle cites two passages from the Prophet Hosea, but from one prophetic discourse, the first.