Romans 9:21-24: God’s Glory in Sin, Justice, and Mercy with Dale Partridge

In his sermon on Romans 9:21-24, Pastor Dale Partridge of King's Way Church addresses the challenging question of how God can condemn someone if their unbelief or hardening is according to His will. Partridge explains that questioning God's justice in this manner presupposes that humanity deserves mercy, when in reality, we only deserve wrath. Drawing parallels to the story of Job, he emphasizes that humans, as creations of God, are not in a position to question the Creator's decisions. This profound and humbling perspective highlights the concept of God's sovereignty and the mystery of His will, reinforcing the biblical notion that some aspects of God's plans and purposes remain beyond human understanding.

[-RM-]

Well, if I should ever find myself in Prescott, AZ...I know where I will be going for church service! Thank you for your faithful preaching of God's Word.

[jonathanrocha]

Hi there, the definition of glory in 22:45-52 is similar to Aquinas’ idea that Grace perfects nature. This is not coming from a Catholic btw. I’m simply pointing out the parallel.

[joshuamyers]

It could take hours to timestamp and refute most all of the points made in this video. Approaching this passage from the view of a calvinist and non-calvinist perspective is really like two people standing on opposite sides of a number 9 painted on the ground, one person is asserting that it is a "6" from their perspective, the other is asserting it is a "9".

Believe it or not, there are other ways of understanding these passages that fully defend God's goodness, His righteousness, His justness, His sovereignty etc, and are more consistent with the rest of scripture than reformed theology would teach. But to understand it that way, you have to read Romans from a 1st century Jew's perspective, and be very diligent in understanding all of the meaning in the Old Testament references (really go back and read whole chapters of those references for full context). Also you can really see these texts clearer if you remove the calvinist presuppositions first. Don't approach them just assuming that Total "Inability", or regeneration preceeding faith, or Faith being a gift, or unconditional election, or individual election, etc are all true... those doctrines were created after to try to put a deterministic lens over the text and make it all work philosophically, but they are not as rigorous as you might think.

It would also help to try to fully understand the concept of "Judicial hardening" and how it applies in these passages. Once you see judicial hardening in the Bible, total inability just doesn't make sense anymore. If we are already deaf, dumb, and spiritually blind and unable to respond to the Gospel, then what is the point of God judicially hardening people. Is he going to make them more dead than they already are? Is he going to make the blind even more blind?

Be diligent in really trying to define who is being spoken too, what is being predestined, what is being elected, and whether people are being chosen for service? Or for salvation/reprobation ? Also, a lot of biblical terms that Calvinists have defined in there doctrines (Foreknowledge, election, predestination, total depravity etc) may not actually mean what they teach that they mean, so that's why it's important to really try to define them in context as you read.

If anyone reading this wants to hear some other really good biblical perspectives walking through Romans 9 I would look for Mike Winger's videos on Romans 9 or go to Soteriology 101 channel and listen to how Leighton Flowers walks through Romans 9. He has a book related to this passage as well. Even if you don't agree, you might better understand some other good biblical perspectives on these tough passages. God Bless.