Woe to the one who quarrels with his maker; John 15:16.

Title: Woe to the one who quarrels with his maker; John 15:16.

 

Rom 9:20 On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to [or contradicts] God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, "Why did you make me like this," will it?

 

Man has free will and that alone creates inequality. Man cannot blame his mistakes, failures, and decisions on perfect and incorruptible God.

 

No one can say to God, Why have you made me this way? because mankind has his own free will. Man is a free agent, he has self-determination. So the answers to the rhetorical question is an obvious no.

 

Mankind under the influence of Satanic thinking is always trying to conform God to his human thinking rather than accepting God in terms of divine revelation. Man is always trying to bend God to his own thinking and then saying, “This is God’s will.”

 

The quotation from Isaiah 29:16, which Isaiah applied to the nation, Paul applies to then individual Jew.

 

Isa 29:13 Then the Lord said,

"Because this people draw near with their words

And honor Me with their lip service,

But they remove their hearts far from Me,

And their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote,

 

Isa 29:14 Therefore behold, I will once again deal marvelously with this people, wondrously marvelous;

And the wisdom of their wise men shall perish,

And the discernment of their discerning men shall be concealed."

 

Isa 29:15 Woe to those who deeply hide their plans from the Lord,

And whose deeds are done in a dark place,

And they say, "Who sees us?" or "Who knows us?"

 

Isa 29:16 You turn things around!

Shall the potter be considered as equal with the clay,

That what is made should say to its maker, "He did not make me";

Or what is formed say to him who formed it, "He has no understanding"?

 

Isa 45:8 "Drip down, O heavens, from above,

And let the clouds pour down righteousness;

Let the earth open up and salvation bear fruit,

And righteousness spring up with it.

I, the Lord, have created it.

 

Isa 45:9 "Woe to the one who quarrels with his Maker —

An earthenware vessel among the vessels of earth!

Will the clay say to the potter, 'What are you doing?'

Or the thing you are making say, 'He has no hands'?

 

Isa 45:10 "Woe to him who says to a father, 'What are you begetting?'

Or to a woman, 'To what are you giving birth?'"

 

Isa 45:11 Thus says the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker:

"Ask Me about the things to come concerning My sons,

And you shall commit to Me the work of My hands.

 

Isa 45:12 "It is I who made the earth, and created man upon it.

I stretched out the heavens with My hands,

And I ordained all their host.

 

In this context Paul has combined the doctrine of God’s perfect integrity with the reality of man’s arrogance and his ignorance to establish the true issue of omniscience feeding facts into the computer of divine decrees.

 

It is not the elect or the foreordained who attains spiritual maturity to whom Paul directs these remarks, but in context he is speaking to the condemned Jew who has rejected Christ as saviour, who has refused the Shekinah glory and is now grasping at straws in an attempt to justify his error.

 

To blaspheme and malign the perfect wisdom and justice of God is the irrational act of a desperate person.

 

Irrational because of after having made hundreds of free will decisions, culminating in judgement, God is blamed and maligned. This is the attempt of a desperate person trying to shift the responsibility from their erroneous decisions and blaming it on the sovereignty of God. Paul uses debater’s technique to refute this blasphemy and to shift the responsibility right back to human free will where negative volition has manufactured its own hardness of heart.

 

Isaiah reveals to us that God has authority over individuals and Jeremiah reveals to us that He has authority over nations.

 

Jer 18:5 Then the word of the Lord came to me saying,

 

Jer 18:6 "Can I not, O house of Israel, deal with you as this potter does?" declares the Lord. "Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.

 

Jer 18:7 "At one moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to uproot, to pull down, or to destroy it;

 

Jer 18:8 if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the calamity I planned to bring on it.

 

The nation to be destroyed is evil by their own determination, but they can make the determination to turn from evil and be spared judgment.

 

Jer 18:9 "Or at another moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to build up or to plant it;

 

Jer 18:10 if it does evil in My sight by not obeying My voice, then I will think better of the good with which I had promised to bless it.

 

The nation to be blessed has avoided evil by their own self-determination, but they can turn to evil and be judged.

 

Notice how God’s nation is warned through the prophet.

 

Jer 18:11 "So now then, speak to the men of Judah and against the inhabitants of Jerusalem saying, 'Thus says the Lord, "Behold, I am fashioning calamity against you and devising a plan against you. Oh turn back, each of you from his evil way, and reform your ways and your deeds. "' 

 

Though it is up to the individual nation to turn to evil or to turn away from evil, God knows exactly what they are going to do in His omniscience.

 

Jer 18:12 "But they will say [omniscience], 'It's hopeless! For we are going to follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.'

 

The understanding of the AC will answer the question of why this stage called the earth is used as a place to display free will and subsequent blessing or judgment.

 

Jeremiah’s prophecy would come true a few years later when Nebuchadnezzar would burn the city to the ground and take captives to Babylon in 586 B.C.

 

Rom 9:21 Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use, and another for common use?

 

 “right” – evxousi,a[exousia] = authority, freedom to act, freedom to be creative. God alone has the authority to bless or judge based on the creatures free will decisions.

 

Mankind cannot compete with God when it comes to authority. He is the creator. Next to him mankind is as dumb as a post. Job got a taste of this after he had repeatedly diminished the character of God.

 

Job 38:3-4

"Now gird up your loins like a man,

And I will ask you, and you instruct Me!

"Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?

Tell Me, if you have understanding,

 

Job, as a believer, in fact as the greatest believer on the earth, accused God of being unfair. What did Job fail to understand? AC.

 

Job didn’t do anything wrong and initially he accepted it as from God, but didn’t know the reason for it. After his three friends asked him what he had done to deserve such suffering, he started to defend himself and plead and content with God.

 

We have two different words used for the substance of the potter. We have “clay” which is the wet clay of the potter and then we have “lump” which refers to anything mixed with water, used 5 times in the NT, four of which refer to dough and here a mixture of the potter’s clay with water.

 

The vessel refers to a household vessel that could be used for something common, and every day use, or it could be manufactured for something very honorable.

 

Isa 64:8

But now, O Lord, Thou art our Father,

We are the clay, and Thou our potter;

And all of us are the work of Thy hand.

 

We have the correct translation of ek plus the ablative from the attributive use of the intensive pronoun autos = from the same.

 

 “from the same mixture” = all are fallen creatures in Adam having a soul within a body contaminated with the OSN.

 

What makes the difference to the potter is what is going to be placed in that vessel or body.

 

 “vessel” – the body. What determines the type of vessel is what it will hold, and in this analogy it will hold a soul of an unbeliever, a loser believer, or a winner believer.

 

A vessel may be for holding household water. It doesn’t have to be beautiful, it just has to not leak. But if that vessel is destined for something important and valuable then the potter crafts something extraordinary.

 

The placed in each vessel has free will. Honor or dishonor is determined by that free will and not by God. God determines the circumstances of your vessel based on your own decisions in time that He foresaw in EP.

 

It is the soul that determines honor or dishonor. Your outward beauty and symmetry or lack of is of no consequence.

 

What God will determine [Sovereign will] or allow [Permissive will] based on positive or negative decisions is the conditions and circumstances of a person’s life.

 

However:

Don’t ever be so arrogant as to think that you know what circumstances God is going to chose for you or others. God gives promises about the future, but not details.

 

This is the trap of the false thinking that, “I’ve been good so I’ll have no problems,” or “I’ve been bad so I’m going to have nothing but problems.” God deals with us based on grace and His perfect wisdom, accomplishing all His good pleasure. God is not a God of confusion. If you are under divine discipline He will make it known. If you are under suffering for blessing then He will make it known. If you’re being blessed by God He will make it known. If you are being blessed by the world system because you are ignoring God then He will make it known. Knowing these things does not imply your response since anyone can still ignore God, even when He’s shouting.

 

In the OT more details were given because the people of the promises were a nation. In the NT hardly any details about the future are given. We are the age of no prophecy. Only one event is told to us about the future and that is the Rapture, and even that, we have no clue when it is going to occur. No prophecy has to be fulfilled before Jesus Christ returns for His Church.

 

Rom 8:13 for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die [temporal death – circumstances of which are not given]; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live [life beyond dreams – no circumstances].

 

Rom 8:28 And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

 

Now, going back to all the work we have done up to this point, what is going to make the soul one of an unbeliever, loser believer, or winner believer? Is it not the person’s free will? Is it not his or her own independent self-determination?

 

God foresees the type of soul and molds the life accordingly, just like the potter knows what will be in the vessel he is about to make.