In a similar way vessels of wrath are vessels that are conceived in God's wrath and designed to be the bearers of the righteous indignation of the Most High forever.
This interpretation is corroborated first of all by the fact that in the text vessels of wrath are the very opposite of vessels of mercy; and the latter phrase signifies not merely men that are historically the objects of the mercy, the saving mercy, of God, but men that are ordained in mercy from eternity. The parallel expression, vessels of wrath, must, therefore, be interpreted in a similar fashion. It refers to men whom God has sovereignly known in wrath and whom in His wrath He shapes into vessels unto dishonor in time. And secondly, that this is indeed the correct interpretation is also clear from what is added to the description of these vessels of wrath in the text. They are vessels of wrath fitted unto destruction. The meaning of this latter addition is plain. It signifies: to be so constituted that the end must necessarily be destruction. The vessels of wrath are so constituted that their entire makeup and design and institution serves the purpose of reaching that end of destruction. If we abandon the figure of the vessel, the meaning is that there are men so instituted as to their personality, their power and talents, their position in the world, and their place in the whole of the works of God, that everything tends to their destruction, serves the purpose of leading them not to temporal destruction, but to eternal desolation. Unto this they are fitted. And the question arises naturally: fitted unto destruction by whom? Of course, also here the Arminian is bound to say that men fit themselves unto destruction. That God is sovereign also in the determination of the destruction of the wicked, that, although it remains true that the wicked deliberately seeks his own destruction and walks in the way into eternal desolation,
this end is nevertheless sovereignly determined by God, so that there is no accident, the Arminian does not understand and does not want to admit. Everything depends on, is contingent upon the determination of the will of man, according to him. But this explanation is so wholly contrary to the entire context, that I need waste no words to expose its fallacy. If we really desire to submit to the Word of God, if we do not sinfully distort the plain meaning of the words of Scripture, the meaning which the text yields can only be that God fitted these vessels unto destruction. And well may the people of God rejoice in this truth, for it means that all the Pharaohs and all the Nebuchadnezzars and all the Neroes and all Hitlers and Stalins, all the destroyers on the earth, and all the persecutors of the Church, all the haters of Christ and His cause and His people in the world, are absolutely under the control and in the hand of God's sovereign power. According to Arminianism, it is the will of the wicked that rules and that determines the history of the world. According to Scripture, however, the wicked is but the ax with which God hews and the saw which He draws. We are absolutely safe; according to God's eternal thoughts and counsel, all the wicked of the earth are so instituted that they but tend to destruction. Fitted unto destruction they are in God's eternal wrath; for Esau hath He hated.
Predestination: The Heart of the Gospel 9 God's Sovereign Dealings
