Reflections on Salvation, #2: “Vessels of Wrath” (Romans 9-11)

Philip Nalangan, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. No changes made.

Saint Paul’s Letter to the Romans is a masterpiece. It is deep, powerful, subtle, and beautiful. I will be writing a number of posts about various sections of the letter, off and on, for as long as I feel I have something to write on, and as long as the Lord wills it. Chapters 9 through 11, in their own unique way, are utterly fascinating to me. Here, in my initial post, I want to focus on a distinction brought forward by a proper interpretation of Romans 9-11. I will continue to write on chapters 9-11 for at least a few posts.

Now, for the distinction. The distinction is between what I will call temporal-eternal punishment, and eternal punishment.

Many of us know the meaning of eternal punishment. In the words of Fr. John Hardon’s Modern Catholic Dictionary, eternal punishment is “The unending penalty suffered in hell by the evil spirits and the human beings who die in mortal sin.” This is in contrast to temporal punishment — which, looking at the phrase itself alone, suggests punishment which occurs in time, has an ending, or is bound to our current life in this world. Fr. Hardon’s Dictionary defines it as “The penalty that God in his justice inflicts either on earth or in Purgatory for sins, even though already forgiven as to guilt.”

So temporal punishment, then, regards those whose guilt is forgiven, but must also endure certain painful purifications to prepare them for heaven — whether on earth or in Purgatory. But what about the penalty suffered by those who labor under the guilt of mortal sin, but are still alive in this world?

This is temporal punishment, insofar as it occurs in time and pertains to the current life. But it is also eternal punishment, insofar as it pertains to those whose guilt has not been forgiven — and those who will remain under punishment eternally if they do not repent before death. That’s why I call it, “temporal-eternal punishment.”

What does this all have to do with Romans 9-11?

Romans 9-11 is fundamentally about the role of the people of Israel in the plan of God. At the time that he wrote the letter, St Paul had apparently received questions about the Jews. Why were the chosen people of God not accepting their Messiah in larger numbers? Isn’t the time of the Messiah supposed to be a time of restoration? What about the prophecies that God will gather and restore the scattered tribes of Israel? Is God not faithful to His people? Has God abandoned them?

St. Paul answers no, God has not abandoned His people; He is faithful to His promises; He is, in fact, gathering in the lost tribes and bringing restoration in Jesus the Messiah. Using strings of Old Testament prophecy, he shows that all this is happening according to the established pattern of the Sacred Scriptures. The Lord remains faithful to His people through the remnant of the Jews that do accept Jesus, and through the missionary work to the nations. As the Gentiles come to faith in the Messiah of Israel, so too do the lost northern tribes of Israel, since they were scattered and lost among them, no longer identifiable as Israelites. Likewise, the Jews remain the object of God’s love, and Paul’s (and hence the Church’s) prayer and missionary work. They will be able to return to God’s favor if they do not remain in unbelief.

Now, that’s quite a lot to throw out! But we won’t linger on these things here. I will write about them at another time. But St. Paul, in the process of giving his answers, speaks in strong terms of judgement about the Jews that have rejected Christ. “Children of the flesh” they are, “who fell,” who have “stumbled over the stone that causes stumbling”, who “were hardened” with “a spirit of deep sleep, eyes that should not see, and ears that should not hear”; “vessels of wrath made for destruction,” patiently endured by God that he might “show his wrath and make known his power.”

In the course of the history of the interpretation of such passages, many have tied them firmly to a doctrine of predestination to eternal damnation. This is due to Romans 9’s clear teaching that those who come to believe in Christ come to believe by God’s sovereign will: “It depends not upon a person’s will or exertion, but upon God, who shows mercy … He has mercy upon whom he wills, and he hardens whom he wills” (9:16, 18). The focus here is not on human merit or demerit, but “God’s elective plan” (9:11). Thus, the “vessels wrath made for destruction” are presumed to be infallibly destined, by God’s inscrutable will, to eternal torment.

A problem with this interpretation is that the same people that St. Paul refers to as “vessels of wrath made for destruction” (the unbelieving Jews of his time), he expresses hope for, and in multiple ways.

First, he asserts that he prays for their salvation (10:1). He also recounts a plan that unbelieving Jews might become “jealous” of the salvation of the Gentiles, so that “some of them” might be saved through belief in Jesus (11:11-14). And using the image of an olive tree, he asserts that they are branches “broken off because of unbelief,” which may be grafted back onto the tree “if they do not remain in unbelief” (11:17-24). Also, St. Paul declares of them that “by virtue of the mercy shown to [Gentile Christians], they too may receive mercy” (11:31). Finally, whereas in Romans 9 Paul says that God has patience with the unbelieving in order to make known his wrath and power, he had already declared earlier, in Romans 2, that God’s patience with the wicked is meant to give them time to repent.

This establishes the unbelieving Jews of St. Paul’s time as firmly belonging to the category of those under what I called “temporal-eternal punishment.” They do not share the gift of spiritual life but are under the wrath of God — in fact, they are “vessels of wrath.” And yet, they are not enduring strictly “eternal” punishments yet. Their punishments may yet be shown to be temporal, time-bound, “if they do not remain in unbelief.”

It is no accident that in the ending section of chapter 11, St. Paul declares that God’s providence regarding His people, and the whole world, is aimed at mercy: “God delivered all to disobedience, that he might have mercy upon all” (11:32). He then praises the mysterious depths of God’s wisdom that none of us can fully understand.

In the end, the strong words of judgment used about unbelievers (“vessels of wrath made for destruction”) remain. And the modesty of St. Paul’s phrase about saving “some of them,” remains. These and other considerations in Romans and throughout the bible — most notably the Lord’s teaching on “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit — are sobering. To remain faithful to God’s Word and the Sacred Tradition, we must embrace this sobriety and avoid wild, presumptuous speculations.

But hope remains, even for those who can, at the current time, be described as “vessels of wrath.” That is why the Lord sends us to “all the world’ to preach the Gospel.