Archive for October 17th, 2008
John Murray:
22–24 These verses are an unfinished sentence (6 Luke 19:42; John 6: 62; Acts 23: 9). Literally the Greek terms are “but if” and their force is properly rendered by ‘what if’, as in the version, or, as Sanday and Headlam observe, “like our English idiom ‘what and if.’” Understood thus the three verses are an expansion and application of what underlies the analogy appealed to in verses 20b, 21. If God in the exercise of his sovereign right makes some vessels of wrath and others vessels of mercy what have lve to say? It is a rhetorical way of reiterating the question of verse 20.
The interpretation of these verses may more suitably be discussed in the order of the following details.
1. “Vessels of wrath” and “vessels of mercy” are best regarded in terms of verse 21. The potter makes vessels for certain purposes. So here the vessels are for wrath and mercy. It is true that they are vessels deserving wrath but this cannot apply in respect of mercy to the vessels of mercy. Hence both should be taken in a sense that can apply to both. This view is to the same effect as that of Calvin who says that vessels are to be taken in a general sense to mean instruments and therefore instruments for the exhibition of God’s mercy and the display of his judgment.
2. The participle “willing” has been interpreted in two ways: “because willing” or “although willing.” In the former case the thought would be that because God wishes to give more illustrious display of his wrath and power he exercises his longsuffering. In the latter case the meaning would be: although God wills to execute his wrath he nevertheless restrains and postpones this execution from the constraint of longsuffering. In the one case longsuffering serves the purpose of effective display of wrath and power, in the other case longsuffering inhibits the execution of the just desert. In favour of the latter it could be said that according to 2:4 God’s longsuffering is a manifestation of the goodness of God directed to repentance and could hardly be represented as the means of promoting the demonstration of God’s wrath. Before reaching a decision on this question other considerations bearing on the interpretation of verses 22,23 have to be taken into account.