Draw Me a Diagram: Romans 9
Tuesday, May 25, 2010 at 8:57PM 
See previous diagram and short explanation here.
Recently I spent a couple of weeks working through Romans 9 line by line, and I’d say it contains one of the more difficult-to-follow arguments in Scripture. One of the things I did to help me understand it was to make a simple diagram of the two parallel questions found in verses 21-23:
Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory…. (ESV)
I drew a chart lining up the question about the potter with the question about God it illustrates. I planned to scan my chart and upload the image, but I spied a large error in it, so rather than do the whole thing over, I’m going to line things up just like I did with the parallel statements in 1 Corinthians 1.
potter/God
right over the clay/
right over his creatures* (unstated)
make out of/
prepare for
same lump/
humanity* (unstated)
one vessel for honorable use/
vessels of mercy… prepared beforehand for glory
another [vessel] for dishonorable use/
vessels of wrath prepared for destruction
You’ll notice that there are parts of the questions that don’t line up perfectly. For instance, the potter doesn’t do any enduring of “the vessels for dishonorable use.” Like everything used to illustrate truths about God, the potter is like God in some ways, but not in every way.
But God is like the potter in that he has rights over his creatures similar to the potter’s rights over his clay. Just as the potter has the right to make different vessels from the same lump of clay, one vessel for a higher purpose than the other, God has the right to prepare his creatures for different purposes—on the one hand, the vessels of mercy for the purpose of glory, and on the other hand, the vessels of wrath for the purpose of destruction.
Stay tuned, because I’ve got one more diagram to show you later this week.
*Considered, I’m thinking, as fallen sinful creature, based on verse 18, where it says that “he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.” Having mercy presupposes sin, and so does hardening, since it’s a judgment on sin.
