Contradicting God

• We are clay not potters; we are creation not Creator. Therefore we must come to God in humility.
• It is God’s prerogative to create as he purposes.

Why God?

• God purposes to show his wrath against sin.
• God purposes to make known his power in judgment.
• God purposes to make known the riches of his glory to those whom he saves.
• It is not unrighteous or unjust for God (vv14, 19), “desiring to show his wrath and make known his power” (v22) to have purposed Pharaoh to resist ten times and then have the Egyptian army destroyed in the Red Sea (or to condemn to hell those whom he chooses) if God’s purpose in all that was “in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy” (v23).
• God is right to work, even through both mercy and hardening, to display his glory.

Centering on God

• Having mercy on some and hardening others are not two equal sides of the same coin: wrath serves mercy for the display of God’s glory.
• Evil exists for the display of the riches of God’s glory.