NOTES for Rom 9:19-21

The apostle mentions here the mystery of God's providence. And the chief mystery here lies in where, when, and why God considers it necessary to intervene in a situation or, conversely, to leave everything to the natural course of events. We recall here the story of the Exodus when, on the one hand, God hardened Pharaoh's heart (Ex. 7:3, 9:12, 10:1, 10:20), and on the other, Pharaoh himself hardened his heart (Ex. 8:15, 8:32). The question, of course, is not cruelty, but hardness, stubbornness, unwillingness to yield. It turns out that it is still not God who hardens Pharaoh's heart; Pharaoh does this himself. Could God have intervened and changed the situation?

In principle, He certainly could have: everything is in His power. But why, then, did He not do this? And can a person be blamed when God Himself leaves him to the mercy of fate? Paul does not answer this question directly. He only mentions the potter and the vessel made by him. God knows everything about man just as the potter knows about the clay with which he works, and man is wholly and completely in His power just as clay is in the power of the potter. Only the vessel can hardly understand why the potter intended it for this or that use.

And with respect to God's plans, including those concerning himself, man knows no more than a vessel knows about the potter's plans. A person simply cannot know more about them for objective reasons, because of that difference between God and man which remains even when God throws a bridge over the abyss separating man from Him. That is why no one among people is able to understand why in some cases God intervenes in a situation and actively changes it, while in others He as it were remains aside and leaves everything to the natural course of events.

Only one thing is obvious to the apostle: his own people, faced with the Messiah who had appeared in the world, proved no less stubborn than Pharaoh before the God of Israel. Why does God not intervene and change anything right now? Unknown: this is the mystery of God and the Jewish people, the mystery of their relationships, known to God alone. Paul only hopes that the situation will not remain this way forever and that someday the day of conversion of his people will come, when they will accept the Messiah.