²² What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? ²³ And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory …

Pressing the point, Paul doesn’t let up. He turns the questioning back to the reader. Remember this use of questions is a literary device the apostle uses in his writings to advance his teaching. This time he uses a question to ratchet up the issue. It is as though God, through Paul, was rubbing the face of humanism into the mud, by bringing up what might be considered the worst possible case.

It might be pointed out that Paul is now speaking in hypotheticals–“What if …?” We cannot dismiss this quite so easily, for he treats the question seriously, with no sense of the question being out of bounds or irrelevant. Notice he presents the case of God’s consciously and purposefully creating “vessels of wrath prepared for destruction.” Whether you believe that He did or not, follow the argument closely (this is what is called double-predestination, which in summary form asserts that God chooses some to be saved, and chooses some to be damned). Regardless of whether we recoil at such a thought, if it turns out to be the case that God does do such a thing as create some people with the purpose of destroying them in His wrath, then how would you answer? In other words, if we push the argument of God’s sovereignty to its ultimate case we cannot escape the same conclusion Paul has made all along—as His creation, we have no standing before Him, no basis on which to judge His actions as morally right or wrong. We can either recoil and wallow in our offended pride or we can submit to Him humbly and contritely.

But, we must also first notice, God’s purpose is to “make His power known.” Second, He is patient, which brings to mind Peter’s teaching, “The Lord is … patient … not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). Third, in all this, God wants His glory to be clearly seen to those who are saved, “vessels of mercy.” There is comfort and assurance for those who have been justified, namely, that God has prepared us for His glory from eternity past (see Eph 1:4).

We must not miss the over-arching truth: we exist for God’s glory. Whether or not a person is saved does not constitute the central issue of God’s universe. His glory is the goal of all that He does. No more clearly is this seen than in those who are justified by His grace through faith, as we shall see next.

Lord, thank You for making the riches of Your glory known to me.