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J_Edwards said:
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Speratus syas

Romans 9:21 says God has the authority from one lump to make one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor. Isolated from other verses, there is nothing here that says that God makes a vessel of honor or a vessel of dishonor.

These verses are not isolated. What of Esau (Rom 9:11, 13)? Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God! Proverbs 16:4 states,“The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil” and Peter concurs, saying "A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence; for they stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed" (1 Peter 2:8) and again, "But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption" (2 Peter 2:12). Jude sums up this decree of reprobation saying, "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, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ" (Jude 4). All these men were made from the same lump, and thus, if as you say the reprobabte had a "will" in what happened to themsleves, then so would the elect, but this does away with (1) election, (2) the sovereignty of God, (3) salvation by grace alone,... i.e. the whole Gospel.


1. Romans 9:10-13 refers to events post-fall. The righteousness of Christ is not imputed in the womb to sinful Esau but it is to Jacob by faith in the coming Savior.
2, Prov. 16:4 says God made all things according to His plan. It does not say God caused the wickedness of any thing. God pronounces His creation "very good" in Gen. 1:31. The wicked remain under His government for the day of evil.
3. In 1 Peter 2:8, we see God foreordained their disobedience but the verse does not say God caused their sin of stumbling at the word.
4. 2 Peter 2:12 does not say that God caused the corruption of the false teachers wherein they were beasts to be taken and destroyed.
5. No one has argued against the foreordination of events described in Jude 4.
6. Fallen men from the same lump have no free will to do good or to do evil. Thus, (1) election, (2) the sovereignty of God, (3) salvation by grace alone are preserved.