Dennis Tuuri

# SERMON TRANSCRIPT – REFORMATION COVENANT CHURCH
Pastor Dennis Tuuri

**Romans 9:1-24**

In chapter four of the sermon text. Romans chapter 9, verses 1-24. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

I say the truth in Christ. I lie not. My conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself a curse from Christ from my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom pertaineth the adoption and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises, whose are the fathers, and of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.

Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel, neither because they are the seed of Abraham are they all children? But in Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, they which are the children of the flesh. These are not the children of God. But the children of the promise are counted for the seed. For this is the word of promise. At this time will I come, and Sarah shall have a son.

And not only this, but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac, for the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth. It was said unto her, “The elder shall serve the younger.” As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.

What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then, it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in thee, that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.

Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will, he hardeneth. Thou wilt say that unto me, why does he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? Nay, but oh man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor?

What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much long suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction? And that he might make known the riches of his glory, and the vessels of mercy, which he had of old prepared unto glory, even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles.

Let’s pray. Father, we pray you would by your spirit help us to understand these things. Give your speaker clarity, Lord God, in speech. And may we cleave to your scriptures in this important doctrine of reprobation. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.

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Years ago, I had a boss who was a Jehovah’s Witness. He drove me home. He was a really neat fellow, too, by the way. Moral and upstanding, but you know, reprobate. He drove me home one day after work—I mean, I really did like him—and he saw in our living room a Christmas tree and he said, “Oh, I see you have a Nimrod bush.”

They don’t look kindly on Christmas trees. They refer back to Nimrod and the idolatry of trees, etc. Of course, I’m sure that if you have Christmas trees in your home, you’re not worshiping them. R.J. Rushdoony has talked about how the Christmas tree really is a stylized tree of life and the balls are symbolic fruit, fruit of the spirit being represented therein, etc. There’s nothing wrong with having a Christmas tree.

It is a little odd to have it in the worship sanctuary. However, but I’ll be able to go around it. Okay. I’ve chosen a good Christmas theme as we approach the Christmas season here. One I’m sure you’ve heard a lot of sermons on at Christmas time. Reprobation. Next week, we’re going to talk about covenant children, which is a little more directly related to the advent, the incarnation of our savior as a child. And then on Christmas Sunday, we’re going to talk about the death of Christ and show as we begin the doctrine of definitive atonement the implications of atonement, Christ coming, his advent to die on the cross for the elect and what that death is linked to and we’ll see a tremendous group of scriptures to point us to joy during our Christmas season for what God has accomplished through the incarnation of our savior.

But today, reprobation. Reprobation. I want to begin and I have on your outlines provided some definitions of reprobation. Before we get to that, just briefly I’m going to try to each as we go through for each head of doctrine as we go through the cannons of Dort, we’re doing God’s election, the divine election and reprobation. When we go to definitive atonement, I’ll start a new set of taking it to the living room as we work through several sermons on that topic.

The idea is that as long as we’re in this particular head of doctrine, I’ll have these things at the top to help you be reminded each week if you’re not reviewing them during the week of the things we’ve talked about so they kind of get down into our souls and memories to discuss them in our living rooms with our children, friends, etc.

Golden chain, Romans 8:29 and 30 things linked starts with foreknowledge, with love of God’s people. The basis for unconditional election is really God’s absolute sovereignty in all things. Don’t want to restrict it to salvation. Unconditional election itself, we looked at their definition of it from the cannons of Dort and looked at Ephesians 1 and memorization of Ephesians 1 would be a tremendous thing to do for these fundamental doctrines of the faith of God’s sovereignty particularly as it relates to election.

And then we talked about assurance based on Romans chapter 8 leading up to those last portions of Romans 8 that we have now hopefully after singing the song three or four times begin to commit to memory at least in the style which it was put into metrical form at Geneva during the time of Calvin. That’s where that song comes from. And I think it’s very important to us to memorize scripture. It’s also important to us, I know it may be a little odd, I know it is for some of you to sing songs that are written that old and that differently from the way we sing today, but you know, it’s real easy to sink into a comfortableness with our present contemporary situation. And we don’t want to do that. We want to gain a value from the past. And so that’s one of the reasons we do this.

I’ll mention that I’m going to quote from one of the reformers today, and it is amazing to me, always is amazing when I read these reformers from the 1500s on different doctrines how well they thought through things. It’s like they must have had different genetic material going on, you know, compared to us. Tremendous blessing of men.

John Knox said—that I heard this from Doug at his conference in Idaho—it was as if God rained men from the sky, godly men, reformers who understood the scriptures. There were that many guys around, many of which you’ve never heard of and yet were tremendous men. We’ll talk today about one of those fellas just briefly. But the reformation was a tremendous period of reformation both in terms of doctrine, music, benevolences, etc. So we’ll be doing that and by way of review then those things and if you want more review, listen to the tape or go back and look at your outlines to review these things as well.

But let’s move on then today to the doctrine of reprobation. This is articles number 15 and 16. Hopefully you’ve also got a handout there with the actual verbiage from the cannons of Dort relative to the doctrine of reprobation. And then there’s also the rejection of errors paragraph 8, I believe it is, that’s there for you as well to show you what they wrote on this topic.

And what I want to do then is talk first of all of reprobation, of what it consists. And we’ll start with that with a series of quotes and then we’ll move on from there. So let’s start with that. And this first one is from John Owen.

Reprobation is the eternal purpose of God to suffer many to sin, leave them in their sin and not giving them to Christ to punish them for their sin. That was from a catechism produced by John Owen.

The Protestant Reformed Church had a catechism that I came across on the internet and they have two questions and these would be good ones for you to teach your children to memorize. For instance, what is the decree of election? The eternal, sovereign, and gracious good pleasure of God to save to eternal glory some men through the means of faith in Christ.

What is the decree of reprobation? The eternal sovereign and righteous good pleasure of God to condemn others to eternal damnation on account of their sin.

And you see the commonality of the first portion of their answers. We’ll talk about that a little later in the sermon. And then finally a statement from Reverend Van Baron of the Protestant Reformed Churches—the PRC. Howard L. is a member of a PRC church back in Illinois before he moved back. And Van Baron says that reprobation is that eternal will, good pleasure, or purpose of God according to which he determined that some of his moral, rational creatures would be cast into hell forever on account of their sins. That this fact would serve the cause of Christ and redound to God’s glory alone.

Perhaps a bit more of a biting definition, and I didn’t include it in your outline, but I’ll read it. It’s brief. This is from Herman Hoeksema, who really was the founder of the Protestant Reformed Churches. Hoeksema said that taken by itself, reprobation is the decree of God in which he has determined as sovereignly as in election that some individuals should not enter eternal glory but are destined for destruction. Thus, it should be and can be expressed.

So that’s an introduction to what this doctrine teaches. Now, why do we think the scriptures teach this? Well, again, here I’m going to talk a little bit I’ll quote several times today from this reformer named Jerome Zanchus who lived in the late 1500s contemporary with other great reformers. Zanchus is an interesting case. His work was not written in English and one of the Wesleys put out information on their Arminian views and they quoted Zanchus—one of the Wesley brothers did in this text—as support for an Arminian position that they held. As a result of that, Augustus Toplady, who lived in the late 1800s in England, who gave us several fine songs that we sing at this church—”Dead to Mercy Alone” I believe is one of Toplady’s songs—fine English Calvinist, Toplady wrote letters to Wesley and also then published a tract opposing Wesley. What Toplady did was translate all of Zanchus’s work then on this topic and I think this was how reprobation was included into English.

So through the improper quoting of it by a man who is heterodox, not orthodox in his position relative to salvation, God uses that to get Zanchus’s work brought back into the English tongue and to be used for us. And I came across Zanchus’s work on reprobation on the internet again and it’s an excellent work.

Zanchus says first of all he says that you know this concept of being foreordained to condemnation—that’s a short version of what reprobation is—that some men are foreordained to condemnation. And Zanchus says we can—this is a logical deduction from the rest of the idea of predestination and election. If God’s elected some to salvation, then a logical deduction without any scripture at all tells us that means he has decided to pass over or not call others to salvation. Instead, that he has put them on the road to condemnation.

So that’s logical deduction. Secondly, Zanchus says is that God is sovereign in whom he sends the gospel to. We’ve talked about that in the proclamation of the gospel. You know, I’ve given you—actually I don’t have these quotes on your outline, but if you look at Matthew 10:5-6, Mark 16:15, Luke 24:47, if you looked at those, you’d see that the message of the gospel isn’t taken to everybody. Of course, at first it’s restricted just to Israel or the Jewish people. And only after Christ’s resurrection that the gospel goes out to all the world. So the proclamation of the gospel only goes to particular people that God sovereignly chooses.

In the Old Testament, it was Israel alone that really had the revelation of God. That’s what Paul said in Romans 9. While there may have been some people in other countries, there were—in general, God’s proclamation of the gospel was limited to some people and not to other people. So that’s a picture too by inference of God’s reprobation of these people that he decides not to send the gospel to. We saw that in Acts in the missionary journeys. Well, Paul would want to go here and the spirit would say, “No, you got to go over here.” So these guys don’t get the gospel yet. Okay?

And as Zanchus says that God is equally the Lord and sovereign disposer of the end to which the means lead as of the means which lead to that end. Both one and the other are his and he most justly, nay, as he most assuredly will do what he pleases with his own. So God is the sovereign disposer of means as well as ends. And if he is sovereignly decided, as he has, to give the means to only certain people that he doesn’t give them to other people. And so reprobation is inferentially drawn from that.

Additionally, Zanchus says from John 17, our savior refers to two groups of people. He takes all the people in the world and says there are two groups. There are those in the world and those that God has loved and brought out of the world. There are those he’s loved and those he hasn’t loved. In other words, and so by inference, we have the doctrine of not just election, but the doctrine of predestination.

Now, but now to go to the actual biblical text from it on your outline, you’ll see that first I’ve got the word reprobate. Jeremiah 6:30, Romans 1:28.

In Jeremiah 6:30, we read this. The bells are burned. The lead is consumed of the fire. The founder melteth in vain. For the wicked are not plucked away. Reprobate silver shall men call them because the Lord hath rejected them. Reprobate silver because the Lord has rejected them.

The term reprobate—the Hebrew term and then the Greek term in the New Testament that is correlative to that—talks about those that people are in the Old Testament the prophets referred to unbelieving Israel as having being impure in terms of being a metal. So they’re like dross is the idea. The reprobate, like dross and the idea is that they’ve been discovered to be dross through a particular test. So God does this evaluation process. They don’t pass the test. They’re dross and they’re then burned up in the fire instead of being purified. Okay. So that’s the picture of being a reprobate—is in time and history, God says you didn’t pass the test, you’re dross and you’re not silver.

In the same sense, it talks in Romans 1:28, for instance, where it said that in Romans 1:28, it talks about those who again because of their rejection of God are given over. We read this: even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient, being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, etc. So he gives them over to reprobate mind because they failed the test.

Okay? And they aren’t able to discern actually themselves what is good metal or bad metal. What is metal versus dross? So reprobate is someone who doesn’t pass the test and is dross.

But for the purposes of this doctrine, we want to go back a little bit further and then say, well, the doctrine of the decree of reprobation doesn’t just happen in terms of an evaluation in time. It refers to God of eternity deciding that these people would be of a reprobate mind. Okay? And so that’s what we want to move on to a consideration of.

And I’ve listed some texts there. 1 Peter 2:8, for instance, we read in beginning at verse 7 in First Peter, what then? Israel has not obtained what it seeks, but the elect have obtained it and the rest were blinded. Just as it is written, God has given them a spirit of stupor, eyes that they should not see and ears that they should not hear to this very day. So it tells us from First Peter that they’re there because their eyes were blinded. Then they quote from David from the Psalms.

Let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a recompense to them. Let their eyes be darkened so that they do not see and bow down their back always.

So there’s this darkening or blinding that God does in terms of a particular group of people pointed out for us in 1 Peter 2:8 and following.

Proverbs 16:4 says, “The Lord has made all for himself, yea, even the wicked for the day of doom. Even the wicked for the day of doom.” And so we see that God has declared these people. He made the wicked for the day of doom.

In Jude we read: Beloved, whom I give all diligence to write unto you the common salvation. It was needful for me to write you and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. Now listen, for there are certain men crept in unawares who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, destroying or denying the only Lord God and our Savior Jesus Christ. So these men were those who were ordained to this condemnation of old—of eternity in other words—by God. And sovereign reprobation again.

And I don’t think this is on your outline. Matthew 13:11 which the cannons of Dort actually quote: the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven have been given to you but not to them. God doesn’t give it to them. In other words, he withholds his hand from giving this knowledge and grace to certain people. And again in Matthew 11:25-26, I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth because you have hidden these things—actively hidden these things—from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children. Yea father for this was your good pleasure.

So we have there for the good pleasure of God from of old he has decided certain men he’s condemned them to reprobation and then historically he hides these things from some and reveals it to others and they then demonstrate their impurities by their own sin and they fail to meet the test and are then declared reprobate. So that’s the historical progression that’s given to us.

Then as I said, the Lord has made all for himself, even the wicked for the day of destruction or the day of doom. So these are all good texts.

The clearest, however, is the text we read as our sermon text from Romans chapter 9. And let me read this quote from Van Baron again, the PRC minister. He says: “Possibly the clearest statements concerning reprobation can be found in Romans 9. There we read of Jacob and Esau that before they were ever born or had done good or evil, God said, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. And then of Pharaoh, whose heart God had hardened, so that he would not let Israel go from Egypt. We read, “Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.” And then Romans 9 mentions also that those whom he will, he hardens, and it speaks of vessels of wrath fitted under destruction.”

So it talks about Jacob and Esau. It talks about God’s sovereign reprobation of Pharaoh. And it talks about vessels of wrath fitted for destruction.

Now to quote Zanchus on Romans 9: “By all the rules of antithesis that he rejected the others as early as those he accepted.” In other words, if his election of the believer is seen as from all eternity, then his rejection—that is parallels that—must also be from all eternity. And then he quotes from Romans chapter 9.

“So the children being not yet born neither having done good or evil that the purpose of God etc.” He says from the example of the two twins Jacob and Esau the apostle infers the eternal election of some men and the eternal rejection of all the rest. The latter—it said the father loved even as he loved Christ himself, verse 23 of that chapter. But he loved Christ according to verse 24 of Romans chapter 9 before the foundations of the world.

Okay. So the idea is God loved Jacob and he hated Esau and there are they’re made corollary—the hate and the love—and the love for Jacob is the love that he has for the savior, the father does, and that love exists from before the foundations of the world. So if the love for Jacob is this love of God in all eternity based on his love for the son then the hatred of Esau is likewise must be put back into the eternal councils and decree of God even if we didn’t have the text from Jude chapter 4 etc.

So you see the biblical rationalization, the biblical argumentation for this decree of reprobation that we have used and shown in the definitions both from Dort, John Owen and the Protestant Reformed Church.

Let’s look at Romans 9 now one more time. So turn your—please open your scriptures to Romans chapter 9. We’ll go over this very briefly but we do want to go over it because this is really as we say the strongest place where we can infer this doctrine from.

It’s a funny thing about Romans 9. People like to avoid this chapter and you know it’s properly understood. We don’t want to avoid this doctrine. Probably understood. It’s a very important doctrine as we’ll get to later in the sermon. But any event, okay, Romans chapter 9, he begins by saying that he feels badly for his brothers according to the flesh. And then in verse six, he puts the correct interpretation on this.

He says, “But not all are Israel who are of Israel.” You know, we can feel badly for members of our family, for instance, of the flesh, because this as well, we can feel badly for members of our family who might be raised in the context of the church. And yet, demonstrate they were given like Israel was, you know, the covenants, the promises, the scriptures, etc. They’re raised in the context of covenantal truths. And yet they demonstrate they’re being reprobate by their rejection of Christ as they mature into adulthood.

We can feel very badly for them, but we don’t want to misunderstand by that somehow God had messed up because Paul says, “No, not all are Israel who are Israel. Not all the flesh of the physical lineage from Abraham are those who are Israel.” So he then he goes on in verse 7 to say, “Neither because they are the seed—that is the physical descent of Abraham—are they all children?” And that’s a tremendous, by the way, statement against the dispensational view of God’s blessing upon the Jews today. Whole different issue. Don’t want to go down that rabbit trail, but it’s a very important distinction to make.

That is exactly the problem that Israel had was because they thought that either because they lived in the land of Jerusalem, whether they came from that mixed multitude in Egypt or not, or because they came the physical lineage of Abraham or because they were circumcised, they had natural privilege based on that. And to assert that Jews today have natural privilege somehow with God because of them being Jewish is crazy. It’s just totally wrong. I hope I don’t get you off thinking on that now. But that’s what Paul addresses here is that distinction.

In Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is they which are of the children of the flesh which are not the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted for the seed. Okay. And then down he gets—then from he’s talking about Israel and non-Israel. He’s talking about the visible manifestation of the reprobation of some members of visible Israel because of their rejection of Messiah. He’s saying these really aren’t Israel. After the flesh, they are after the historical lineage. They are, but in terms of the faith, they are not Israel. And I feel badly for them, but they’re not Israel. They’re not the children of God.

And then he says he then draws these corollaries to Israel. And he says he then talks about Jacob and Esau. And he says, “The children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand not of works but of him that calleth.”

And note there that he says that it is that the reprobation of Esau—as we get to the text here—is for the purpose that the election of God might stand. You see reprobation—and I’ll repeat this theme several times today. Reprobation is subordinate to election. Reprobation serves election. And here we see that the reprobation of Esau is given so that God’s election might stand. But nonetheless, it is a reprobation of Esau that is pictured for us.

As it is written, Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated.

And there are some of us in the church who have been going through—Richard mentioned this Friday night at our council meeting. There are some of us in the church who are going through “As for My House” that got devotional material that several families are using and the providence of God in the middle of this series on unconditional election. Here we are being directed by the study material to go back to Genesis and read the story of Jacob and Esau and Jacob’s life and Esau, etc. And I think that the fellow that puts up the material is a little tough on Jacob. I’m not sure that Jacob is anywhere near as bad as a lot of commentators make him. Obviously he did some things wrong, but I don’t think that’s the overall picture of Jacob. The overall picture is one of righteousness in the context of very trying times.

Nonetheless, nonetheless, as you read those stories, it is clear that Jacob is not blessed because he is somehow worthy of blessing. It points Esau and Jacob as being equally, you know, culpable in terms of their actions. But it points God’s promise then is really heightened and illuminated for us that Jacob is the chosen one, the elect one in Christ essentially. Okay? You see, it really points out if you’ve been paying attention to the reading, go back and read the history of Jacob in the book of Genesis and Esau and you’ll see that God clearly—Paul understood this based upon his understanding of the stories of Jacob and Esau.

You take any two people. Take David and you see that election is not because he’s a great guy. Horrific sin in David’s life. Now, he did was after God’s own heart, fruit of God’s spirit for David. But of himself, he kills, sleeps around, etc. You see? And so those Old Testament stories are not given where Jacob and David are not given ultimately that Jacob and David might be models for us. They’re given that we might understand that it is of God’s sovereign election to bring blessing to some and to have them then respond with love for him who first loved them.

So Paul talks about these—the reprobation of Esau in relationship to the election of Jacob and then he answers the question what shall I say then is there unrighteousness with God forbid. God can’t be just if this is true again here Zanchus in his commentary—I won’t read all of it he had some excellent things to say about this he said that God is not unjust in representing some. Neither can he be so. For the Lord is holy in all his ways and righteous in all his works. Psalm 145.

Scriptures teach reprobation. Scriptures teach that God is holy in all his works. Righteous in all his works. That’s enough for me. But Zanchus goes on then to talk about some things. He says, “Well, you know, an unjust guy, a tyrant is somebody who doesn’t rule in relationship to law.” But God isn’t like that. Reprobation is based upon the law-breaking nature of fallen man. We’ll see that in a minute here that he reprobates men based on their works.

Now, it’s true that he’s determined and decreed to do this, but the scriptures never want us to take away the doctrine of reprobation from the sinfulness of man and the justice of God poured out against people that deserve justice. Okay? God isn’t a tyrant. He doesn’t ignore his law. Everything he does is in relationship to that law, whether it’s the election of some based on the lawkeeping of the Lord Jesus Christ and him meeting the righteous demands of the law and the curses of the law for us or whether it is the pouring out of wrath on those who have violated the law and so suffer directly in their flesh.

So Paul answers the criticism. Yeah, don’t get me that God is not just. He says God forbid. No. He says to Moses, I’ll have mercy and compassion on whom I’ll have mercy. You see, he puts the emphasis if you’re going to talk about justice. Hey, don’t talk about whether it’s just to send somebody to hell because the guy that’s going to hell has spit in God’s face every day of his life. He hates God. God is totally just to send him to hell.

Let’s talk about God’s compassion and that is of his sovereign disposition to pardon some and not unjustly, but based on the justice of the Lord Jesus Christ. He turns the tables here on the argument and talks about the mercy and compassion. Not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of the God that showeth mercy. Clear demonstration throughout this text, the sovereignty of God and electoral reprobation.

Scriptures saying to Pharaoh, “Even for this purpose, have I raise thee up that I might show my power in thee and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.”

Reprobation of Pharaoh was talked about here. But look again what the emphasis is. The reprobation of Esau is put in the context that election might stand. And the reprobation of Pharaoh is put in the context that the deliverance of God’s people might be demonstrated through all the earth. They’d read those songs about the hills the rivers clapping and the hills leaping for joy because of God’s of his people. That’s the focus. The focus is the election. Reprobation is a small thing down here that serves that election. You see, so Paul says here, reference to Pharaoh.

In verse 18 again, he has mercy on whom he will have mercy and he will harden those whom he hardens. And notice that we talked about election. We’ll talk about it more when we get to the way that God draws men. But God softens the heart. He makes the heart pliable. He turns the heart not boom sometimes boom but there’s a softening of man’s heart that God accomplishes sovereignty of his work in election and in reprobation there’s a hardening of that heart it’s kind of a contrast pointed out for us then in verse 19.

Oh verse 19, thou say unto me who doth that find fault or who hath resisted his will?—question everybody wants to answer or everybody wants to ask and we want to give them answers we want to go to long theological and philosophical explanations to explain away this thing about who can resist his will or to answer it that way. But look at the way Paul answers it and the way we are given by divine example here of how we should answer such questions.

He says it’s illegitimate to ask such a question. Don’t talk like that. He says close your mouth. Nay, but oh man, who art thou that repliest against God? He doesn’t even answer the question. Says, hey, this is God we’re talking about. Okay, don’t ask such silly questions as why don’t we just go ahead and sin or who can resist his will etc.

God goes on now to talk—Paul goes on to talk about these things and he uses this again this question to bring up another example of reprobation. Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor? That’s sovereign reprobation and election there.

What if God willing to show his wrath and to make his power known endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction and that he might make known the riches of his glory and the vessels of mercy which he had of old prepared unto glory.

Now several things here. One: he forms these pots—that means he takes them, he makes them, he brings them into existence, form, model, mold—it’s his active work. That’s the divine decree of reprobation not just an analysis of what happened without him looking—he decreed it to come to pass. He formed them. Secondly, notice here again that reprobation serves now two things are mentioned: the manifest patience and grace of God by letting them continue on in life for a long time and also serves then the vessels of honor.

Look at verse 23. Endured with much long suffering the vessels of wrath that are destruction. He says the context for divine reprobation is God’s patience toward those reprobates. And secondly that he might make known the riches of his glory and the vessels of mercy. See there the thrust there—he does mention also to show forth his wrath. There is a divine demonstration of God’s wrath that’s accomplished through reprobation. But then he highlights the patience and endurance of God and he highlights the vessels of honor. And so again reprobation serves election.

And then finally notice here that what Paul has done—I mean not particularly germane to reprobation. But look at what he’s done here. He started with Israel. He moved of his day and age, two groups, true Israel, not true Israel, divine electoral reprobation. He moved then to explain this occurrence by looking at Jacob and Esau, by looking at Pharaoh and the people of God delivered from Pharaoh, and by looking at vessels of wrath and vessels of glory. You see, so he draws out three sets showing divine election and divine reprobation, showing in each of the reprobation serves election. And he draws all of that in the contemporary history of Israel.

What’s going on there? Why have they rejected Messiah? Why did they put him to death? They were chosen to do so. Jesus says of Judas, “Well, didn’t I choose you all? And yet, what is the devil?” You know, you read that, you think, “Oh, yeah. I guess he messed up. He tried as hard as he could.” But one guy went bad. That’s too bad, isn’t it? You normally read it that way, don’t you? It’s easy way to fall into. But what he says is—I think what he’s saying is that Judas’s chosen also Jesus Judas has chosen be the secondary means of God whereby according to his determinant for council and knowledge, the Lord Jesus Christ be crucified. Reprobation of Judas serves election of men to the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So divine election, reprobation are both taught in these things. Reprobation serves election. And for our purposes today, Romans 9, these other verses clearly teach that the scriptures speak of divine reprobation as we have defined it and as we’ve read these historic definitions.

Okay. So now let’s go through the specifics of it.

Okay. First of all, only some are elected to salvation and others are passed by. This is what this is—now I’m following the outline basically of the cannons of Dort statement. As you can tell, others are passed by by having eternally decreed to leave them in their sin and misery. And notice here he leaves them in their sin and misery and reprobation and condemnation are tied to their particular actions. There is a sense in which he does not possibly condemn these merely because that he has not chosen them but because they have sinned against him.

And I’ve given you verses there you could read about that—God is not the author of sin. They make that clear as well in the cannons throughout. And as Zanchus points out, the scriptures say that sin entered the world by one man. Makes man the author of sin. There’s your proof text for God not being the author of sin. Sin didn’t enter the world, the active work of God. It enters the world through man. That’s where the secondary means of God are pictured at. Okay. But anyway, so they—he does this out of justice.

Again, as we said, earlier.

Secondly, he does not provide them saving grace.

Third, he condemns and punishes them forever. Okay? So he doesn’t give them saving grace. He doesn’t choose them and instead he actively condemns and punishes them eternally as well as temporally in this life. Again here we are want to think of the language here of the cannons and of some verses that God just permits this stuff. But you know the permission of a sovereign God an absolutely sovereign God. His permission is stronger than what our language says about it.

Again, to quote Zanchus, his permission is a positive, determinant act of his will. Zanchus says, as Augustine, Luther, and Bucer have justly observed, God says in Matthew 25, go ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. God has determined that the reprobate—angels, ministers, messengers of Satan, included at least covenantally under their covenantal head, the rebel, the one who despises God, Satan, and his messengers are angels. These people go into everlasting fire, eternal torment and damnation in hell. No annihilation, no purgatorial that results in everybody being saved. No stopping of all existence at the point of death. Not annihilation after a long period of suffering, eternal, everlasting punishment.

The hell that is described in the scriptures is horrific. It is painful. I don’t know that what designations of it are literal or symbolic. It doesn’t make any difference. The fact is that the reprobate are eternally condemned and tortured in the fires of hell. That’s what the scriptures teach. These are vessels of wrath fitted to eternal destruction. That is God’s condemnation of them. That’s what reprobation is.

Now, what is its commonality with election? It is based upon God’s sovereign, most just, irreprehensible, and unchangeable good pleasure. Again, just as election is based on his good pleasure. Revelation 4:11, the angels cry out, “Thou art worthy, oh Lord, to receive all glory and honor and power. For thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are, and were created.” For thy pleasure, it is the good pleasure of God to decree some to reprobation. It is also eternal. It is unchangeable. As a result, people can’t escape reprobation. Not that they would want to. It is specific. There is a determinate number of people and a particular designation of people that God makes determinately and specifically to reprobation. And it provides a demonstration of the divine attributes of God and the divine attributes of his wrath as we saw in Romans chapter 9.

Now this is very important again to quote Zanchus. The punishment of the non-elect was not the ultimate end of their creation. The ultimate end of the creation of the non-elect is not their punishment. The ultimate end of the creation of the reprobate is the glory of God. The glory of God. Okay. He says it is frequently objected to us that according to our view of predestination, God makes some persons to purpose to damn them. But this we have never advanced. Nay, we utterly reject it.

It is equally unworthy. The Lord hath made all things for himself, even the wicked, for the day of evil. He doesn’t make people to damn them ultimately. He makes people for his pleasure. He makes people for himself. He makes people for his own glory. He makes people for the demonstration of his wrath and of his virtues. And it shares this with election.

On the other hand, it contrasts with election in that election is not based on our works. Whereas reprobation is tied directly to the works, the sinful acts of men, their covenantal sinfulness in Adam, but as well their specific acts of sinfulness. And so God is just in reprobating him.

Third, reprobation is a proper cause of fear to some. It is not to be feared, the cannons say correctly, by those who feel weakly as a result of God’s means a lively, a living faith in Christ, an assured confidence of soul, peace of conscience rather, an earnest endeavor after filial obedience, a glorifying in God through Christ. In other words, what they’re saying here is that these characteristics are felt weakly. It doesn’t say somebody who doesn’t have any of these things. It says somebody who has these things not as much as they would want, who experience these things weakly. Okay?

So, you may be one here who weakly experiences—not with strength, but actually have then in place a degree, although it may be small, the living faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, an assured confidence of soul, peace of conscience, an earnest endeavor after filial obedience. Filial means like a childlike obedience to God, to the parent, and a glorifying of God in Christ. If you have those things in evidenced in you, although weak, this doctrine is not supposed to be a matter of fear to you. Instead, the cannons direct correctly point us to what you are to do in this state.

You’re supposed to persevere in the use of means and wait patiently for a season of richer grace. All too many of us and we get rid of our Arminian views of salvation, but we maintain our Arminian views of sanctification and we get upset because we’re not sanctified as quickly as we ought to be. And we can either build bitterness toward God or it can build a doubt of our salvation that we’re not sanctified to the degree we want to be. And either one of those things, the cannons here want us to guard against.

We want to wait patiently on God. We don’t want to think that we can somehow by our works achieve sanctification and achieve that maturity that we want right now. And we don’t want to think that we can somehow push our children enough to where they can be sanctified that we want them to be right now. We’ve got to wait on the grace of the Holy Spirit. But on the other hand, we got to persevere in the use of means. You see how it both ways?

Again, Calvin was like, “Preach left, preach right.” Some of you doubt and God doesn’t want you to doubt. He wants you to persevere in the use of means. And he wants you to be patiently and wait for a season of grace. Some of you push yourselves and you get real dissatisfied. You get a little bitter against God. You get doubting your own salvation. Don’t do that. Apply the use of the secondary means—the reading of God’s word, communion of the saints, prayer, participation in the worship of the church, including the sacraments of the church. These are the means of grace. Apply yourselves to them and wait patiently that God might in his sovereignty again affect our sanctification.

We don’t want to be Arminian in our view of how we are sanctified. And then secondly, these doctrines not to be feared by those who seriously aspire to a greater degree of to be turned to God to please him only to be delivered from the body of death. Body of death—you know, death defiles. In the Old Testament death, touch a dead body, you get defiled by it. So we have a body of walk around a body of death. We defile things and God has changed all that for us. But nonetheless, there are still defilements that we produce around us. Okay. And that’s a cause of despair for us at times.

The cannons say, yeah, you may you may get fearful about reprobation because you’ve defiled something, you’ve touched. Maybe you’ve treated your wife improperly. Maybe you’ve treated your job improperly. Maybe you’ve treated your money improperly and brought defilement around you. But yeah, you—if there is a degree to which of course if that’s all you do, that’s different. But there if you have this to a smaller degree than you would like to be released or delivered from this kind of defilement, this kind of not pleasing him—then you don’t want to despair by this doctrine of reprobation and be fearful of it. You instead want to recognize that the perfect love of God casts out fear and so you want to—you want to bolster yourself up. Okay. You want to recognize you may be in that weakened state or you may be in that state that has not attained to the sanctification you want yet—either way don’t let reprobation be a cause of fear to you but rather continue to make use of the secondary means of God and examine your life to see if indeed you meet those criteria that are listed there that are based on the scriptures because there is a group of people that are supposed to fear the doctrine of reprobation.

The doctrine of reprobation is proper to be feared by those who regard not God and the savior Jesus Christ. You know the Psalms God is not in all their thoughts. The wicked they don’t have any regard for God or for Jesus Christ. And if the only time you have regard for God or Jesus Christ is in the formal attendance you make at Lord’s day worship services or at your formal prayers and the rest of your life God isn’t in all your thoughts, you ought to fear. You don’t want to take comfort in the things I just said about those who evidence these other things though in a weakened state.

If you have no regard for God or the Lord Jesus Christ and most of your life except your little, you know, religious observations, fear the doctrine of reprobation. Know that eternal damnation awaits for those who as men God test in life demonstrate the reprobation. You can’t, you know, the point here is that there’s a tension between the assurance of salvation we talked about last week and the prod to holiness, as we’ll talk about in a couple of minutes, the doctrine of reprobation is supposed to give to us. And you don’t want to get rid of that tension by becoming by engaging in what was called last week a carnal security.