BRETHREN, he
has mercy upon whomever he wills, and he hardens the heart of whomever
he wills.
You will say to me then, "Why does he still find fault? For who can
resist his will?"
But who are you, a man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded
say to its molder, "Why have you made me thus?"
Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump
one vessel for beauty and another for menial use?
What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power,
has endured with much patience the vessels of wrath made for
destruction,
in order to make known the riches of his glory for the vessels of
mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory,
even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the
Gentiles?
As indeed he says in Hose'a, "Those who were not my people I will
call 'my people,' and her who was not beloved I will call 'my beloved.'"
"And in the very place where it was said to them, 'You are not my
people,' they will be called 'sons of the living God.'"
And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: "Though the number of the
sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be
saved;
for the Lord will execute his sentence upon the earth with rigor and
dispatch."
And as Isaiah predicted, "If the Lord of hosts had not left us
children, we would have fared like Sodom and been made like Gomor'rah."
What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue
righteousness have attained it, that is, righteousness through faith;
but that Israel who pursued the righteousness which is based on law
did not succeed in fulfilling that law.
Why? Because they did not pursue it through faith, but as if it were
based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone,
as it is written, "Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone that will
make men stumble, a rock that will make them fall; and he who believes
in him will not be put to shame."
