The Potter and the Clay

This is the third of a three part series. I recommend that you read Apocalypto and The Babes of Nineveh before reading this post.


Thank you brave readers, to those of you who left a response to my last post. I'm pretty impressed with how easily you hit the nail on the head. The answer to the question that I posed in The Babes of Nineveh does indeed boil down to God's sovereignty.


Of course, to say that God is sovereign covers a lot of things with one overriding general statement. But there is a specific aspect of God's revealed, sovereign character that I think we have to grasp; in order to understand the dilemma that naturally occurs when we compare the outcome of God's dealings with the Ninevite babies and the Amalekite babies.


It is this: Yahweh is a choosing God.


Now, even if you are a Christian who rejects the idea of predestination, etc, hear me out here. I'm not trying to win a theological argument. I'm just pointing out what is obvious from the Bible. God's choosing nature is so woven into the fabric of Scripture that it is hard to think of Him as a God who doesn't choose. From the very beginning, we see that God chose Abram, later to be renamed as Abraham, as the father of His people. God chose Isaac over Ishmael. God chose Jacob over Esau. God chose the nation of Israel, not the other way around.

In all of the history of God's dealings with humanity, it is God who chooses whom He will reveal Himself to, or speak through, or use as a tool to accomplish His plan. It is God who chooses. There are plenty of verses that immediately spring to mind, like Isaiah 43:10,

"You are my witnesses,' says the LORD,
and my servant whom I have chosen,'"


So when you try to decipher how it is that God could bring wrath on the babies in Amalek, and spare the babies in Nineveh, you simply accept this fact: God chose to bring down wrath on one and show mercy to the other.


"But, duh!" you are thinking, "we already knew that! What we want to know, what we need to know, the question that keeps us up at night is: WHY????"


It is tempting to demand an answer to that question. Fortunately, God, through the apostle Paul, addresses this specific issue. Let's take a look at Romans 9. I'm going to go ahead and copy a pretty long section of Scripture, because all of it is so on topic. Usually I just give you a verse or two, but I feel like I would be cheating you if I did that here.

(The first verse where we pick up reading is referring to Rebecca, when she was pregnant with the twins Jacob and Esau.)

Rom 9:11 (for the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him who calls),

Rom 9:12 it was said to her, "THE OLDER SHALL SERVE THE YOUNGER."

Rom 9:13 As it is written, "JACOB I HAVE LOVED, BUT ESAU I HAVE HATED."

Rom 9:14 What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not!

Rom 9:15 For He says to Moses, "I WILL HAVE MERCY ON WHOMEVER I WILL HAVE MERCY, AND I WILL HAVE COMPASSION ON WHOMEVER I WILL HAVE COMPASSION."

Rom 9:16 So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.

Rom 9:17 For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, "FOR THIS VERY PURPOSE I HAVE RAISED YOU UP, THAT I MAY SHOW MY POWER IN YOU, AND THAT MY NAME MAY BE DECLARED IN ALL THE EARTH."

Rom 9:18 Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.

Rom 9:19 You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?"

Rom 9:20 But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, "Why have you made me like this?"

Rom 9:21 Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?


What I want you to focus on is found in verses 20 and 21. The gist of which is this--who do you think you are to question God? Doesn't God have the power to do whatever He wants to with His own creation?


It may be that we have a hard time letting God be God and letting us be...well, the creature. We want to demand that God satisfy OUR sense of justice and OUR sense of mercy. But according to the Bible, even our sense of what is fair is wrong.


Ezekiel 18:29


"Yet the house of Israel says, 'The way of the Lord is not fair.' O house of Israel, is it not My ways which are fair, and your ways which are not fair?"


This exact same sentiment is repeated in the book of Ezekiel 4 times! God is the one who is fair. It is we who have the wrong idea of fair and unfair. Even when it comes to those babies. Whatever God chose to do with them was perfectly fair, in God's perfectly fair judgment, and His perfectly fair sovereignty. If it seems unfair to us, then we are the ones with the problem, not God.


Exodus 34: 6-7


"And the LORD passed before him and proclaimed, "The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation."

I'm having some weird spacing issues with Blogger today. My apologies if this post looks odd.