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In our study of Romans last time we finished our Expanded Translation of Rom 9:22; "But, if as is the case, God willing to demonstrate his indignation, and to reveal his omnipotence, has endured with great patience vessels of wrath (unbelievers) have been equipped into destruction (the lake of fire)."
We noted that man's free will or self-determination can be used as preparation for eternal blessing or eternal condemnation. Free will and self-determination are the thoughts that result in decisions and actions. What a person thinks results in decisions and actions that prepares them for eternal blessing or eternal judgment from God.
When man expresses positive volition by believing the doctrine regarding the identity of the Lord Jesus Christ God equips him as a vessel of mercy by the imputation of God's judicial righteousness. God prepares him for God's glory through his own non-meritorious free positive volition.
However, when man expresses negative volition, as did the Pharaoh of Egypt his free will prepares him for destruction, and the destruction described in this verse is to being into the lake of fire.
Man will adjust to God's justice by believing in Jesus Christ or he will fail to adjust to God's justice by rejecting Jesus Christ. God's justice will always adjust to the situation.
The principle also works the opposite way. When a person rejects Jesus Christ as his personal savior then there is maladjustment to God's justice that is followed by God's justice providing what is necessary and compatible with His situation. That means discipline from God in time followed by eternal judgment from God in the lake of fire.
When mankind from his own free will chooses the work of Jesus Christ on the cross for salvation he becomes a vessel of mercy. God has mercy on his soul and immediately imputes to the believer the 40 assets that are required for an eternal relationship with God.
From then on, depending on his attitude toward God's Word of Truth, mercy intensifies and increases until a person can have the greatest possible happiness during his life in a sin infused biological body of death in the devil's world.
The issue is always absolute truth. God is absolute truth, Jesus is absolute truth and God's Word is absolute truth. Absolute truth is all that matters. One's orientation to absolute truth determines their situation. 2Cor 13:8;
When mankind from his own free will chooses his own truth and his own self-righteousness from his own works he rejects God's absolute truth and becomes a vessel of wrath equipped and prepared for God's last judgment.
That means that it is only man's rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ that results in his destruction in the lake of fire. While these choices are made God in His patience is longsuffering and His forbearance permits the unbeliever to continue to live, so God can demonstrate His power to him so he has another chance to change his mind.
God's power was demonstrated in the plagues so that many in Egypt and throughout the world were evangelized through the negative volition of Pharaoh who became a vessel of wrath from his own negative free volition.
God by his mercy keeps unbelievers alive in spite of themselves and uses them to advance His plan in spite of their opposition to believers in Jesus Christ who are God's vessels of mercy. God provides believers, His vessels of mercy the grace that they need to deal with all the adversity they will encounter during the process. 2Cor 12:9;
We see from this that God's plan does not depend on mankind; Ishmael, Esau and Pharaoh were all vessels of wrath. God endured them with great patience; they all saw God's power and His dynamics by His advancing of His plan through, over and around them but they still said no.
In other words, the principle is that nothing can stop the advance of God's plan. The unbelievers who are vessels of wrath have been prepared for their own destruction through their own free negative volition, first at God-consciousness and after that it branches out in many ways starting with gospel hearing, and in the case Pharaoh his confrontation with the Truth of God's Word of Truth from Moses.
Therefore the equipping or preparation of a vessel of wrath for the last judgment is the function of his own free will. Pharaoh was a vessel of wrath prepared for destruction by means of his own free consistent persistent negative volition. Even though he saw God's power demonstrated over and over again until he was completely overwhelmed by it he still said no.
Rom 9:23; is the continuation of the protasis of the first class condition. The protasis will go for three verses but there is no apodosis. This verse begins with the connective use of the conjunction "kai" (and).
It is followed by "hina" (in order that), the purpose clause with the aorist active subjunctive of the verb "gnorizo" (He might make known or understood).
It refers to the perception and inculcation of God's absolute truth. It is one of the stronger Greek words for learning something so that you have words in your soul. And the words are combined with other words to explain concepts and principles.
The thinking of doctrinal truth from the doctrinal truth you have stored in your soul is the greatest wealth in the world. Doctrinal Truth is your greatest value. So we have "And in order that He might make known, inculcated, or understood."
The verb is in the culminative aorist tense that views the event in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results. The result of understanding God's purpose gives people another chance to get with God's program by believing God's Word of absolute truth regarding he identity of the Lord Jesus Christ.
God's purpose is to make His plan known. The active voice: God produces the action of the verb. The subjunctive mood is a potential subjunctive that implies a future situation. It is used here to express a category of a purpose clause that in the Greek is described as a final purpose clause.
A final clause expresses a specific purpose that is the objective of the action of the verb. The object of the verb is the accusative singular of "plutos" (wealth or riches) with article "ho" (the) making it monadic as "the riches" describing a specific category of wealth or riches. In context it refers to true wealth or riches.
Everything in life depends on who you know and what you know so the most important thing in life is a relationship with Jesus Christ and doctrinal truth resident and circulating in the soul's frame of reference.
Next is the possessive genitive singular from "doca" (glory) referring to the riches that belong to God or God's attributes, plus the possessive genitive singular from the intensive pronoun "autos" (His) referring to God.
Most of the time "autos" is not used as an intensive pronoun. It is usually used as the third person singular personal pronoun but in this case it is intensive so we translate it as, "the riches of His glory."
Glory describes the results of possessing a relationship with Jesus Christ and God's Word of Truth that is most important thing in life because you become extremely rich when you have it.
Your relationship with Jesus Christ and His thinking that is the absolute truth of God's Word resident in your soul is what makes you extremely rich. By possessing doctrinal truth in the soul and possessing God's perfect judicial righteousness that is the predicate for direct blessing from God, God makes you extremely rich.
The "riches of his glory" describes the imputation of God's blessing to the mature believer who has the thinking of Christ as their thinking. God's judicial righteousness is imputed to all believers at salvation but that is only the potential for extreme wealth. Until there is capacity in the believer's soul from the PMA of doctrinal truth that is the mind of Christ it will remain a potential reality.
Imputed judicial righteous, union with Christ, and the filling of God the Holy Spirit is potential spiritual power. God's Word of Truth resident and circulating in the believer's soul transforms that potential spiritual power into active kinetic spiritual power. Heb 4:13; 2Tim 2:15; 2Tim 3:16-17;
Rom 9:23; Next is the preposition "epi" (on or upon) plus the accusative from "skeuos" (vessels. Then we have the descriptive genitive from "eleos" (mercy) mercy is grace in action.
God's justice imputes blessing to God's judicial righteousness that is grace in action, and "mercy" here actually refers to the imputation of God's blessing to the mature believer.
We have anarthrous construction with no definite article here that indicates the highest quality of the vessel so this refers to the mature believer who has capacity in the soul from thinking the absolute truth of God's Word.
Along with the accusative neuter plural from the relative pronoun "hos" (which) with the aorist active indicative from the compound verb "proetoimazo" ([pro = before; etoimazo = prepare so it means pre-prepare, prepare in advance, or ahead of time).
This explains that God knew in eternity past every decision every believer would ever make and He entered those decisions into His decree and at the same time He entered the logistical support that would be necessary to accomplish those decisions into His decree. The constantive aorist tense gathers up into one entirety the action of the verb.
This is the momentary action of God's omniscience feeding the facts about the believer into God's decree resulting in the printout in human history. The active voice describes God's decree as producing the action of the verb in eternity past when God provided for every need every believer would have.
The indicative mood is declarative regarding the action of the verb from the viewpoint of absolute reality. With this is a prepositional phrase, "eis" (for) "doca" (glory). This prepositional phrase stands out in clear contrast to the prepositional phrase "for destruction" for the unbeliever at the end of the previous verse. In this opposite situation it is describing "for glory" for the believer in Jesus Christ.
Expanded Translation Rom 9:23; "And in order that he might make known the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy, which he previously prepared for glory."
Believers in Jesus Christ are the only vessels of mercy and only vessels of mercy are qualified have the potential for glory. The qualified believer is the one who learns God's Word of Truth.
The riches of glory includes blessings in time to God's imputed judicial righteousness that is combined with capacity from the reality of doctrinal truth in the believer's soul that God has created as the target for His grace.
The imputation of blessing in time also establishes an a fortiori for eternal blessings for the believer that are imputed to the resurrection body at the believer's evaluation after the exit resurrection.
While God has provided many wonderful things for the believer as a vessel of mercy the unbeliever or vessel of wrath has created his own miserable destiny from his free volitional decision to reject God and Jesus Christ.
In the Greek having a protasis without an apodosis emphasizes the Jews who do not believe in Jesus Christ are only the biological descendants of Abraham so they are vessels of wrath. On the other hand the Jews who believe in Jesus Christ become vessels of mercy who are prepared for glory from eternity past.
The contrast between destruction and glory explains the burden that Paul has for his countrymen the Jews. Instead of depending on Jesus Christ for salvation his contemporary Jewish friends and relatives were depending on keeping the law, plus the fact that they were genetically related to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
We see here that the Jew without Jesus Christ makes himself into a vessel of wrath that is prepared for destruction by his own negative volition. In eternity past God prepared the riches of glory (divine blessing) only for believers like Abraham, Moses, and Paul.
There is no direct blessing from God, only cursing, for the Jew who rejects Jesus Christ as savior because as an unbeliever he is just like the gentile Pharaoh who is also a vessel of wrath prepared for destruction.
God originated the Jewish race for His glory but racial Jews missed out on God's purpose by their rejection of Jesus Christ, God's Shekinah glory.