The Culture of Hope Founded on Faith
The Potter, Part 1
I once took a pottery class at our local community college where I learned about hand-thrown, wheel-thrown, and tooling techniques for work with clay. I also employed several glazing and firing techniques during my class. While I didn’t have to create the clay myself, I did do some clay amendment to recycle my badly made pots. It involved a lot of time under water followed by extensive kneading of the clay to reestablish cohesive and plastic qualities. Even then, flaws in the clay itself quite often resulted in failed projects. Needless to say, by the end of the class, my hands were very rough and work-worn.
The Bible employs the allegory of the potter and the clay a number of times, both in the Old Testament and the New Testament. The first one appears in Isaiah 41:25: “I have raised up one from the north and he shall come. From the rising of the sun shall he call upon my name. He shall come upon princes as upon mortar and as the potter treads clay.” The context of the passage is a castigation of Israel’s idolatry, the prophecy of Cyrus and Persian conquest of Babylon, and rounding the argument earlier in the chapter of the worthlessness of idols. At the time, clay for pots was trampled by foot to prepare it for both domestic and commercial use, a process that was meant to erase all vestige of prior forms and uses of the clay. The symbol of the trampling of the clay would be akin to destruction and devastation of a helpless Israel faced with the conquest of their Babylonian captors by an unknown overwhelming enemy bent on conquering and enslaving them .
Isaiah 64:8-9 is part of Isaiah’s prayer on behalf of the Jewish remnant who were allowed to return to Jerusalem: “But now, O LORD, You are our Father, we are the clay and You our potter. We all are the work of Your hand. Be not sorely angered, O LORD, neither remember iniquity forever. Behold! See, we beseech You, [that] we are all Your people.” Isaiah sees the remnant humbled into repentance by their conquest, subsequent subjugation, and beneficent return to their devastated homeland. He pleads on Israel’s behalf and in his prayer he prophecies both short-term and long-term outcomes for those who repent in obedience to God’s Word. In using the potter and clay allegory, he records recognition of absolute dependence and faith in God’s hand of mercy with no other recourse or control over our individual lives.
In Jeremiah 18, God tells the prophet to go down to the potter’s house where God would speak to him with an object lesson. “Then I went down to the potter’s house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter, so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it. Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying, ‘O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter?’ saith the LORD. ‘Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. At that instant I shall speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up and to pull down and to destroy it, if that nation against whom I have pronounced turn from their evil, I will turn from the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it, if it do evil in my sight that it obey not my voice, then I will turn from the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them” (Jer. 18:3-10). Continual disobedience on the part of Israel results in the prophetic allegory regarding an annulment of God’s covenant of protection for the Jews from Gentile oppression.
These are God’s chosen people who had slandered God’s faithfulness, rejected His plan for them, and repeatedly repulsed his protection for centuries. If His chosen people, by their refusal to repent, are subject to God’s judgement, how much more those old Testament Gentiles who were not His chosen people, or us now if we reject His plan for Salvation for all, both Jew and Gentile. Lamentations 4:1-2 bemoans the diminished state of Israel that was brought about by their own rebellious choices “How is the gold become dim! How is the most fine gold changed! The stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street. The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!” The potter allegory is no longer about God in this passage, but the humble maker of poor, everyday receptacles. The precious sons of Zion, metaphorically represented by fine gold and once useable in the sanctified Temple vessels for Worship, are described here as no longer honorable vessels but clay pots with no control over who uses them or whether they hold food or filth.
If we have learned nothing else from history, we know that no nation is permanent. We also know that God’s Word speaks the truth and God’s promises are faithfully and truly kept. When a nation repents and follows God, He blesses. And when a nation turns its back on God in idolatry and disobedience, He judges. He is the potter, the creator who built us to serve and know Him according to His manufacturer’s manual, the Bible. A nation consists of its people. In the Old Testament, prophets spoke out, wrote against, and pleaded with God over the sin in Israel. Since we, as born-again believers from both Jewish and Gentile backgrounds, are the recipients of God’s Grace in Salvation, it is our responsibility to be both the mouthpiece of God to the people and the intercessors with God for the people of our nation. 2 Chronicles 7:14 adjures us, then, that “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”
