Witness Charles Hodge become the apostolic critic of Romans 9:19 while
he attempts to explain Paul’s response in Romans 9:20-21 (from his
commentary on Romans):
“The objection is founded on ignorance or misapprehension
of the true relation between God and his sinful creatures. It supposes
that he is under obligation to extend his grace to all. Whereas he is
under obligation to none. All are sinners, and have forfeited every
claim to his mercy; it is, therefore, the prerogative of God to spare
one and not another; to make one vessel to honor, and another to
dishonor. He, as their sovereign Creator, has the same right over them
that a potter has over the clay. It is to be born in mind, that Paul
does not here speak of the right of God over his creatures as creatures
but as sinful creatures, as he himself clearly intimates in the next
verses. … Are not these points on which the potter has a most perfect
right to decide for himself, and regarding which the thing formed can
have no right to complain or question? And so it is with God; the mass
of fallen men are in his hands, and it is his right to dispose of them
at pleasure; to make all vessels unto honor, or all unto dishonor, or
some to one and some to the other. These are points on which, from the
nature of the relation, we have no right to question or complain. … It
is not the right of God to create sinful beings in order to punish them,
but his right to deal with sinful beings according to his good
pleasure, that is here, and elsewhere asserted” (Charles Hodge).
We see that Charles Hodge would have wanted Paul to answer the objector like this:
“You don’t understand the relationship between God and
sinful creatures. Since we are all sinners, God has the right to save
some and leave others in the sin that they wilfully put themselves in
and justly punish them for it.”
“But
that’s not even close to what Paul said, is it? Instead, Paul appealed
solely to God’s sovereign authority to do what He wants with His
creatures. Also notice that Hodge restricts God’s right according to the
idol that Hodge has made in his own image. He says that it is NOT God’s
right to create sinful beings in order to punish them. So CHARLES HODGE
is the objector. HODGE is the one who says that it would be unjust for
God to find fault with and punish those whom He made to sin. Yes,
rather, O Charles Hodge, WHO ARE YOU answering against God?” (Christian).
This is so clear – at least to those who care more for the glory of God than for the praise of men.
A message for those who are like-minded with Charles Hodge:
“How are you able to believe, you who receive glory from
one another, and the glory which is from the only God you do not seek?”
(John 5:44)
