“Who do you think you are?” That’s the question many people ask God, once they realize that He is the One Who takes the initiative in human salvation, the One Who chooses those on whom He will have mercy (9:18). We Americans are especially prone to insist upon our rights, and to assert that everyone should have an equal chance to succeed in life. Indeed, many of us are now going so far as to say that the government should guarantee not only equality but equity, making sure that not only opportunities but outcomes are the same for everyone.

And this very American way of thinking actually springs from a great amount of self-confidence – the belief that we ourselves, either individually or collectively are best suited to make the decisions about the things that are most important to us. This is why we are especially prone to embrace self-help philosophies and religions that are based on doing good deeds, just as many of Paul’s Jewish relatives sought to become righteous in God’s sight by keeping God’s Law (9:32).

But in today’s passage, Paul brings all of us up short. Instead of arrogantly demanding our rights and proudly insisting on our freedoms, he says we should see ourselves as nothing more than clay on the wheel of God, clay that God is free to form into whatever shape He pleases (9:20-21). For the fact is that God is the One Who created us all to display His glory either through His judgment or through His mercy (9:22-23).

Yes, we proud Americans tend to cry out to God, “Who do You think You are?” But in reality, He is the One Who should be asking us that question. For does it really make sense for a lump of clay to complain about the work of the potter who has molded it? Is it right for any creature to say that its Creator has made a mistake?

No, the only reasonable thing for any of us to do is to abandon our pride, to admit not only that we are sinners in need of a Savior, and not only that God in His holiness has every right to condemn us to Hell, but that God in His sovereignty has every right to determine who is saved and who is not. In other words, we need to place our life and our eternal destiny as completely in the hands of the Father as Jesus did when He went to the cross. For that’s really what it means to trust in God, to have the sort of faith that leads to true righteousness (9:30).

Romans 9:19-33 (ESV)

19 You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?”
20 But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?”
21 Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?
22 What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,
23 in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory–
24 even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?
25 As indeed he says in Hosea, “Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’ and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.'”
26 “And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.'”
27 And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved,
28 for the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay.”
29 And as Isaiah predicted, “If the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring, we would have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah.”
30 What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith;
31 but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law.
32 Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone,
33 as it is written, “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”