All of us have watched and admired the skill of the potter as he places a lump of clay on his wheel that is driven either by his foot, or now by electrical power, and with his thumbs and fingers draws up the revolving clay into the desired shape. To finish, his work is glazed and fired, i.e., baked in a furnace. The prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah were the first who used this art to illustrate the sovereignty of God: “Then I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something at the wheel. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter; so he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make. Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying: ‘Oh house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter?’ says the Lord. ‘Look, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.’” (Jer. 18:3-6). “Woe to him who strives with his Maker! Let the potsherd [piece of pottery] strive with the potsherds of the earth! Shall the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ Or shall your handiwork say, ‘He has no hands’?” (Isa. 45:9). “But now, O Lord, You are our Father; We are the clay, and You our potter; And all we are the work of Your hand” (Isa. 64:8). Centuries later, the apostle Paul would quote these prophets, but more on that later.
I suspect we have been asked, “How would you describe yourself?” in a job interview, or on an admission statement to a college or university. How would you answer this question? Let me make a suggestion. How about “clay in the hands of the potter”? I also suspect we wouldn’t do that, but that’s what you and I are, like it or not. Most people won’t say this because they don’t like it or believe it. In fact, they hate it! It makes them so insignificant, so small, so earthy. But then, neither do they believe in the Creator and that they are his creation. There are many people today, as there were in the days of the prophets and of the apostle Paul, who strive with their Maker and say that he has no hands or no power and ability to create. They’ve “exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator” (Rom. 1:25). Neither do they believe that He has spoken and told us from where we came. But he has. “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground,and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Gen. 2:7).
God’s activity in forming or shaping man did not cease with Adam but continues with each person. Job speaks to the point: “Your hands have made me and fashioned me, An intricate unity; Yet You would destroy me. Remember, I pray, that You have made me like clay. And will You turn me into dust again? Did You not pour me out like milk, And curdle me like cheese, Clothe me with skin and flesh, And knit me together with bones and sinews? You have granted me life and favor, And Your care has preserved my spirit” (Job 10:8-12). The Psalmist is equally clear: “For you formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for
me. When as yet there were none of them” (Ps. 139:13-16).
Following the fall of Adam and Eve, the Lord explained the consequences of that fall and what mankind could now expect: “In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread Till you return to the ground, For out of it you were taken; For dust you are, And to dust you shall return” (Gen. 3:19). The apostle Paul goes into greater detail: “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin and thus death spread to all men because all sinned. . . . Therefore, . . . through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation” (Rom. 5:12, 18). Throughout the OT, there are symbolic prophetic actions to portray the judgment of God upon man’s sin and rebellion. A familiar one to the ancient world was the shattering of a clay pot. And so God told the prophet Jeremiah to demonstrate God’s coming judgment upon Judah by breaking and shattering a clay jar that could not be mended (cf. Jer. 19). Earlier, the prophet Isaiah had described a rebellious people and God’s coming judgment as follows: “And He shall break it like the breaking of the potter’s vessel, Which is broken in pieces; He shall not spare. So there shall not be found among its fragments A shard to take fire from the hearth, Or to take water from the cistern” (Isa. 30:14). Ever since the fall, all belong to that same lump of fallen humanity in Adam. And of that lump, Paul goes on to say: “Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor? What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy which He had prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?” (Rom. 9:21-24).
Brothers & sisters, does not this apply today? Is this not also the Gospel and part of the Great Commission which we are to teach and preach? Here in Romans 9, Paul cites two biblical texts to explain why God is righteous in showing mercy to some while he hardens the hearts of others: “For He says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.’ So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharoah, ‘For this very purpose I have raised you up that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth’” (Rom. 9:15-17; cf. Ex. 33:19; 9:16). When God shows mercy, it is not a person receiving a reward earned by one’s own efforts, but God’s sovereign free grace extended to persons who are morally incapable of earning any favor (cf. Rom. 1:18-3:20). God owes mercy to none, so there is no injustice when mercy is not shown. Mercy is a divine prerogative; it rests on God’s good pleasure. That God should show mercy to any from the Adamic lump, and create vessels of honor from it, is the kindness of grace. That others should become vessels of dishonor is a matter of his sovereign prerogative and is itself a display of perfect justice towards them. This also belongs to the Gospel that people must hear, for it is from these vessels, all from the same lump, that God continues his work as the Great Potter. Not popular, but nonetheless true!
In creating vessels of honor, God is doing his work of salvation, making a new man, a new creation: “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:1-6). “Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us” (I Cor. 5:7). And isn’t it interesting that Paul also says we have this treasure, this glorious gospel message, i.e., that God gives new spiritual life through Jesus Christ and that this treasure has been entrusted to “vessels of clay” or “clay pots.” “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us” (II Cor. 4:7 ESV).
As a new lump of clay in the hands of the Potter, God has a purpose and a plan for you, and as the Potter, he has the power to carry out that plan, and there is no person or circumstance that can frustrate God’s purpose for our lives. God has an overarching purpose for all believers, which is to conform them to the image of his Son: “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren” (Rom. 8:29). God conforms his people to the image of Christ because Christ is the only one who is perfectly obedient to the will of God. That has always been God’s mold or standard for his people—obedience to his will. Obedience to the will of God brings honor and glory to God, as the apostle Peter writes: “But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light” (I Pet. 2:9). The Christian’s life is to be molded to the will of God. And God will fulfill that purpose. As the Psalmist says, “The Lord will fulfill His purpose for me” (Psalm 138:8 ESV),
Due to man’s fallen and sinful nature, he is not submissive to the will of God, but there are many ways through which God accomplishes this work of conforming (molding, making): adversities, trials, hardships, chastisements, etc., and this work continues until death. When God begins this work, and at what rate in the life of his chosen vessels, it varies with every individual, from childhood to adulthood and in between. But it is an ever-ongoing work. Sometimes it may be slow, seeming even to regress (backsliding) at times and, at other times, it progresses rapidly. We find in the Bible examples of such men and women who, in spite of their failures and shortcomings, are said to have walked with God. They go in God’s way, think God’s thoughts, and obey God’s commands (Enoch, Noah, Job, Jacob, the prophets, Ruth, David, Esther, Paul, Timothy, to name some). They saw themselves as clay in the hands of the Potter, to be molded and made after God’s will and to be conformed to the image of his Son. Is that the way you see yourself?
It is often difficult for us to appreciate the reality of God sovereignly doing as he pleases in our lives, because we do not SEE God doing anything. Instead, we see ourselves influencing or influenced, perhaps even controlling or being controlled by the actions of other people, but we do not see God at work. But, beloved, over all the actions and events of our lives, God is in control doing as He pleases—not apart from those events or in spite of them, but THROUGH them, molding and making. Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery, a malicious act, in and of itself. In due time, Joseph recognized that through his brothers’ actions, God was acting. He could say to them, “So now it was not you who sent me here, but God; and He has made me a father to Pharoah, and lord of all his house and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt” (Gen. 45:8). Joseph recognized the hand of God in his life, sovereignly directing all the events to bring about his plan for him.
Beloved, you and I may never have the privilege in this life of seeing an obvious outcome of God’s plan for us, as Joseph did. But God’s plan for us is no less firm, and its outcome is no less certain than was God’s plan for Joseph. God gave us this story of Joseph to encourage us and to teach us that we must learn to trust him. Because we know God is directing our lives to an ultimate end and because we know he, by his providence, is sovereignly able to orchestrate the events of our lives toward that end, we can trust him. We can commit to him not only the ultimate outcome of our lives, but also all the intermediate events and circumstances that bring us to that outcome. What does God have planned for you? For me? You and I do not know. But we know that God knows, and so for what is future, we can have good confidence that nothing can separate us from his love and care because we are so in his hand, that without his will we cannot so much as move (cf. HC #28).
This is why it’s comforting to know that we are clay in the hands of the Potter, and that we are a new creation in Christ, the Potter molding and making us after his will. And what is even more amazing is the fact that the Potter’s work is not a fragile or temporary thing. Rather, it is a work that will continue until it is complete, reaching its fullest maturity at the day of Jesus Christ: “Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6). The Potter is not dependent on the whims of chance to accomplish his plan, and there is no danger of his eternal intentions going unsatisfied. He always finishes what he starts.
Clay in the hands of the Potter: What a comforting thing that is! Is there anything you’d rather be? That’s what you are wherever you may live, or however long you may live, being molded according to the purposes of God. I close with the words of a very familiar hymn:
Have thine own way, Lord!
Have thine own way!
Thou art the Potter; I am the clay.
Mold me and make me after thy will,
While I am waiting, yielded and still.
Have thine own way, Lord!
Have thine own way!
Search me and try me, Master today!
Whiter than snow, Lord,
wash me just now,
As in thy presence humbly I bow.
Have thine own way, Lord!
Have thine own way!
Hold o’er my being absolute sway!
Fill with thy Spirit till all shall see
Christ only, always, living in me! AMEN.
Rev. Vernon Pollema
Bakersfield, CA