Romans 9:20 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Nay but, O man, &c.— St. Paul shews here, that the nations of the world, who are by a better right in the hands and disposal of God, than the clay in the power of thepotter, may, without calling his justice in question, "be made great and glorious, or be pulled down or brought into contempt, as he pleases." That he here speaks of men nationally, and not personally, in reference to their eternal state, is evident not only from the beginning of this chapter, where he expresses his concern for the rejection of the Jews, and from the instances that he brings of Isaac, Jacob, Esau, and Pharaoh: but it appears also very clearly from the verses immediately following; where, by the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction, (keeping up the metaphor of the potter,) he manifestly means the nation of the Jews; who were now grown ripe for the destruction which God would bring upon them; and by vessels of mercy, the christian church, consisting of a small number of converted Jews, and the rest made up of Gentiles; who, together, were thenceforwards to be the people of God in this general sense, instead of the Jewish nation, Romans 9:24. The sense therefore of this and the following verses is this: "How darest thou, O man, to call God to account, and question his justice, in casting off his ancient people the Jews? What if God, willing to punish that sinful people, and to do it so as to make his power known and taken notice of, (and why might not he raise them up for that purpose, as well as Pharaoh and the Egyptians?)—What, I say, if God bore with them a long time, even after they had deserved his wrath, as he did with Pharaoh, that his hand might be the more eminently visible in their destruction; and that also, at the same time, he might with the more glory make known his goodness and mercy to the Gentiles; whom, according to his purpose, he was ready to receive into the glorious state of being his people under the Gospel?" See Locke.