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"The Vessels Of A Potter"
"Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel
unto honor and another unto dishonor?"—Ro 9:21.
In our text you will note what the
Apostle here calls attention to, that from the same lump of clay the skilled
potter can make a graceful ornament—a vase, for instance, for the mantel and
for the holding of flowers, or a loving cup, or a ewer for the carrying of
water, or a slop urn, a receptacle for filth. All of these vessels are useful,
hence in one sense of the word they are all honorable, all valuable.
Nevertheless there is a dignity, an honor that belongs to the vase, the cup,
the ewer, that does not attach to the slop urn. The clay is the same for all of
these, but the choice or election as to which shall be which is with the potter.
This is the lesson of our text. It points us to God as the One who has begun
the good work in us, and who, if we submit ourselves to Him properly, will
complete that good work unto the Day of Jesus Christ, when it shall be finished
in the First Resurrection in the Millennial Morning.
The Apostle declares that as the potter has the power or right to make such
vessels as he may please, so God has the right or power to do what He will with
His creatures. As to what the great Divine Potter will make of the human clay
must be left to Himself; and only as we learn the real character of God can we
judge of what would be His good pleasure in respect to the varieties of His
handiwork. Knowing Him as we do—as He reveals Himself in His Word to us—as a
good God who delights not in iniquity, but delights in the truth, and all of
whose works glorify Him, we have this assurance that His work is perfect, and
when brought to completion the variety of more honorable and less honorable
vessels of His creation
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will all be found to His praise. The remainder He will destroy—all that will
not be praiseworthy, all who refuse to have His good work accomplished in them.
So, then, we may expect that eventually God’s great work in humanity will show
a variety of vessels, some to more honor and some to less honor; but that
amongst His works will be none evil, none devilish, none bad. The Scriptures
nowhere intimate that Satan and his associates, the demons, are adversaries of
God because they were created thus. On the contrary they tell us that, while
God’s work was perfect, these fell from their first estate of harmony with God
by disobedience to Divine regulations—in other words, that they defiled
themselves.
Similarly our race, the Scriptures inform us, was created perfect, upright, in
the image of God, in the person of Father Adam. The sin, the imperfection, the
blemish we see, we are distinctly told is not the work of God, but the work of
the Adversary and the penalty for disobedience.
"OUT OF THE SAME LUMP"
The Apostle is not discussing the good angels nor the fallen ones, but merely
mankind. Adam and his race are the clay in the hands of the Potter in the
Apostle’s illustration.
The unfitness of this human clay for any purpose through Adam’s disobedience is
the teaching of the Scriptures, but they also teach us that God Himself
provided the great remedy for the healing of this unfitness, so that now as the
great Potter He can deal with the clay and fashion it as it has pleased Him. It
is from this standpoint that the Apostle discusses the subject, the standpoint
of redeemed humanity.
Of the same lump, of the Adamic family, the Lord made choice first of all of
the nation of Israel, Abraham and his seed. That lump of clay was specially
mixed, ground, reground and made more and more plastic during the centuries in
which they were specially under the Divine handling, to make them ready for the
moulding
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and shaping influences of the Holy Spirit, which came at Pentecost. Indeed,
vessels of a certain kind, quite honorable, too, were formed during the Jewish
Age, as the Apostle points out to us in Hebrews 11, when recounting those whose
lives were shaped by their faith in God and in His promises. Honorable vessels
were they—Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and all the Prophets. But really the great
work, and in some senses of the word the first work of the great Potter, began
with our Lord and His Apostles and has proceeded throughout this Gospel Age.
During this time the Divine Potter has been making His artistic vessels, the
vessels to the highest honor—vessels of glory, honor and immortality. These
vessels of glory and honor are represented in the Scriptures under various
names—members of the Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ, the Lamb’s Wife, the Little
Flock, the Heirs of God, the heirs of the Abrahamic Covenant promise, the more
than conquerors. Of these the Apostle writes, "Beloved, now are we the
sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when
He shall appear we shall be like Him." These, then, are pertinently
mentioned in our text as—
"VESSELS UNTO HONOR"
The great Potter will not exhaust His skill in His preparation of these vessels
of honor; but having use also for other vessels to lesser honor—vessels, however,
of great usefulness in His plan and purpose—He will proceed during the coming
Age to the preparation of these other vessels, and their preparation indeed
will proceed much more rapidly than has the work of this present Gospel Age.
Why? Because, first, the work that is now in progress is a much more delicate
one, requiring special skill and care, as each vessel of honor receives
peculiar shaping and forming for its own position of honor in the Heavenly Kingdom.
On the contrary, the work of the coming Age in dealing with humanity in general
as clay will be along more mechanical lines; as, for instance,
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articles of utility for menial service not only receive less care at the hands
of the potter, but are turned out very largely by machinery which the potter
merely superintends.
So it will be with the great Potter in the handling of the human clay during
the Millennial Age; the machinery, the patterns, the grinding of the clay,
etc., will all be very largely accomplished in advance of the introduction of
the Millennial Day, and the shaping of humanity under the laws of the Kingdom
will be a uniform and a comparatively rapid work. General laws will govern, and
each will make his progress as he conforms to those laws.
Now, however, the Lord deals with His Church as with sons. He considers our
frame, He deals with us not according to the flesh, but according to our
individual minds, spirits, intentions of heart. Each son, each vessel of the
class now being developed, has his own special fitting and preparation, his own
special place in the glorious Kingdom to which he has been invited. It is God
that worketh in us, not only to produce the new mind, the consecrated heart,
through the promises of His Word, but also works in us to do, to accomplish so
far as in us lies, His good pleasure. The same influence, the exceeding great
and precious promises of God’s Word, operate by faith upon these special
vessels of honor now being produced under the Potter’s hands.
"THE FLAMES SHALL NOT HURT
THEE"
Not only does the choicer product of the ceramic art receive a special moulding
and shaping of the potter; but after all of its lines and curves have been
studied carefully and fashioned it is specially fired, burned. Indeed, it is
not exposed to the flames at all, but is carefully covered with an earthenware
case or sagger. How this speaks to us of the special moulding and fashioning
care with which the Heavenly Father deals with every son whom He receiveth
during this Gospel Age, forming, shaping, transforming, conforming the lines of
his character
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likeness in harmony with those of the great Pattern which He has set for us.
And this transforming work is not done by might or by power, by force or
compulsion, but "by My Spirit, saith the Lord."—Zec 4:6.
The fiery trials which must try these for their perfecting, for the fixing of
their character, for their completion, are all subject to the Divine
supervision, and the assurance is given us that all things shall work together
for good to these because they love God and because they have been called
according to His purpose to be vessels of highest honor and kingly glory with
their Redeemer during His Millennial Reign. These, styled the Lord’s jewels or
precious ones, whose number will be completed and who will be gathered at the
beginning of His Second Advent, have required a long time for their
development—more than eighteen centuries—notwithstanding the fact that they are
in all but a Little Flock, 144,000, who will stand on Mount Zion, having their
Father’s name written in their foreheads. The Apostle inquires, Shall the clay
say unto the potter—
"WHY HAST THOU MADE ME THUS?"
The intimation of the Apostle is that the clay, whether formed by the potter
into a vessel of honor or one of less honor, has no right whatever to complain.
Whatever the potter shall do to the clay will be an honor to the clay.
Without the exercise of his power and skill it would never be anything more
than clay; and to be made into a vessel of more or less honor would be a
blessing indeed. Hence the bulk of humanity with whom the Lord will deal during
the Millennial Age and by the machinery and laws of the Millennial Kingdom,
will be shaped and fashioned along the lines of restitution to human perfection,
will have no cause whatever to complain or murmur against the great Divine
Potter that they were not elected vessels of highest honor and distinction—that
they were not of the Elect Church, called during this Age to be the Bride of
Christ and Joint-heir with Him in His Kingdom.
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On the contrary, mankind will have everything to be thankful for, and so the
Scriptures indicate that eventually every knee will bow and every tongue
confess, to the glory of God, His work of grace, truth and restitution.
They declare that ultimately, when the plans of the great Potter shall be fully
accomplished, every creature in Heaven and in earth shall be heard ascribing
praise and thanksgiving, honor, dominion, majesty and might to Him that sitteth
on the Throne and to the Lamb.—Re 7:12; 5:12,13.
That great Millennial Day and its great work of fashioning humanity according
to the designs of the great Creator will be very different in many respects
from the present Age; but instead of a fiery trial for each individual, Satan,
the great Adversary, will be bound for the thousand years and be permitted to
deceive the nations no more until the thousand years are finished. The
grinding, humbling and preparing of the human clay for that glorious epoch are
being accomplished now, when the forces of evil through the reign of Sin and
Death are causing the entire human family to suffer, to groan, so that the
Apostle speaks of the world as a "groaning creation"—groaning and
travailing together in pain, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of
God.—Ro 8:19,22.
The manifestation of the sons of God signifies the manifestation in glory of
the vessels of honor which the Lord is now preparing, His Little Flock, the
Church.
When these shall shine forth with Jesus in the glorious Kingdom of the Father,
the world’s groaning and travailing in pain shall be ended; for the Adversary
will be bound and the curse will be lifted. Henceforth none shall suffer except
for his own wilful wrongdoing, and the restitution processes of moulding and
fashioning mankind shall gloriously progress throughout that epoch.
But will there come any burning day and fiery trials upon those of the
Millennial Age? Yes, we answer; the Scriptures clearly point out that at the
close of that Day
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the whole earth will become a furnace of trial to humanity in general. The
Scriptures inform us that Satan will be loosed from his prison-house and go
forth to tempt, to try, to test, all those that dwell upon the whole earth,
whose number will be at that time as the sand of the sea—thousands of millions.
The test will be applied to all; for it is the Divine purpose that such should
be tested. Those in perfect accord with the Potter will stand the test, and
prove their characters to be strong, crystallized by this test, while others
not in fullest harmony with the great Potter shall be melted under the fiery
trial of that time. The proportion of those who will stand to those who will
then fall is not indicated in the Word of God; and we must not be wise above
what is written. It is sufficient for us to know that every true and loyal
member of the race, redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, will have the
fullest opportunities for becoming a vessel of the Lord to some honorable
purpose and service if he wills, and that those whose wills are not fully
submissive to the Lord will be ultimately destroyed from amongst the people and
not be preserved for torture. —Re 20:7-10.
"VESSELS OF WRATH FITTED FOR
DESTRUCTION"
Following our text, which speaks of the vessels unto honor and unto less honor,
the Apostle speaks of vessels of wrath, saying, "What if God, willing to
show His wrath, and to make His power known, endured with much long suffering
the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction; and that He might make known the
riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had afore ordained to
glory, even us?"
The Apostle’s showing that the fact that God has refrained from manifesting
outwardly either His love for the Church or His wrath against evil doers is no
argument against the lesson He is teaching. It is true the riches of God’s
grace for the Church called to glory and being prepared for glory has not yet
been made manifest,
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but this is no proof that this will not be made manifest in His own due time.
Similarly, the fact that the Lord has denounced those who love and work
iniquity, but has not yet manifested His opposition to them and is not now
fighting against them, but really allowing them in many respects to
prosper—this is no argument against the ultimate fulfilment of His designs. He
awaits the revelation of His glory in the Church, and of His wrath, His
displeasure, against those who are His opponents. But the tarrying time both of
glory and of wrath is sure to end, and the purposes of the Lord are sure to be
accomplished.
We have seen who constitute the vessels of glory, that they are the very Elect,
the saints, the Royal Priesthood of this Age. Who then constitute the vessels
of wrath fitted for destruction? The answer will be apparent to all familiar
with the potter’s art—they are the vessels which, after experiencing the
potter’s care and skill, prove defective, blemished, unfit for his use. These
represent such as receive the grace of God in vain, or such as the Apostle
describes as dogs who return to their vomit, as sows that return to their
wallowing in the mire after being washed.—2Pe 2:20-22.
This same class St. Paul describes in Heb 6:4-6; 10:28-31, as falling away from
the grace of God after they had received mercy and forgiveness, and the
begetting of the Holy Spirit and instruction from the Lord, being made
partakers of the Holy Spirit. For such, the Apostle says, "There remaineth
no more a sacrifice for sins—nothing but a certain fearful looking forward to
judgment and fiery indignation which would devour them as adversaries"
—utterly destroy them as vessels fitted for destruction.
We are to remember, however, that these vessels fitted for destruction include
none of those whose hearts are right toward God, and whose difficulties are
merely of weakness of the flesh through heredity, besetments and temptations.
No; the Lord has made full provision for these, and all their blemishes
according to the
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flesh are covered from His sight. He is dealing with them not according to
their flesh, but according to their spirits, their minds, their wills, their
intentions. So long as they are at heart the Lord’s and seeking to fight the
good fight of faith and to have His will accomplished in them, so long they are
His; and nothing shall by any means pluck them out of His hand.
The vessels fitted for destruction are not condemned because of any
unintentional weakness, but because of disloyalty of heart through pride or
ambition or intentional preferences for sin. The decision of the Lord in
respect to both of these classes will be manifest at the close of this Age,
when the vessels fitted for destruction will be recognized as having gone to
the Second Death, and when the vessels of mercy fit for glory shall shine forth
as the sun in the Kingdom of their Father as joint-heirs with their dear
Redeemer.
"VESSELS OF A POTTER DASHED TO
PIECES"
Our Lord (Re 2:27), pointing to the time of His Second Advent and the
establishment of His Kingdom, declares that the nations of that time will come
under the rule of His iron rod, under the Reign of Justice and Divine Law, and
that they all shall be dashed to pieces as potters’ vessels. In many respects
this is a different figure from the one we have just been discussing.
Nevertheless there is a relationship, as we will show. While the Lord as the
great Divine Potter has been moulding and fashioning the vessels of mercy and
of glory to be the Kings and Priests of the world during the coming age, the
Adversary has undertaken to be a potter, and, cooperating with human tendencies
and ambitions, has created some wonderful vessels. These are found in high
positions in Babylon, in the Church and in the seats of popes, cardinals,
bishops, kings, princes, financial magnates, etc., etc. The work of the
Adversary seems to be much greater, much more glorious, much more honorable,
than the work of God, who, describing His vessels of
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mercy, declares that amongst them are not many wise, not many learned, not many
great, not many noble, not many rich, according to the course or judgment of
this world.—1Co 1:26-29.
On the contrary, Satan has found and exalted many of the rich and worldly great
as his vessels. The kingdoms of this world make a great show in many respects,
a show of power, a show of strength, a show of virtue. But from the Lord’s
standpoint they are all unfit for His purposes, are in His way. He purposes the
establishment of the Heavenly Kingdom as instead of these, and in the context
under consideration shows that when His time shall come for establishing His
Little Flock, for establishing the Reign of Messiah and his faithful saints,
the Royal Priesthood, the power shall be exercised in the hands of the great
Redeemer, which will utterly dash in pieces all the existing institutions, that
seem so great and so wonderful, those vessels of the Adversary potter. They
shall be broken to shivers. The Holy Spirit foretold this long before our
Redeemer’s birth, using through the Prophet David the very same words. (Ps
2:9.) The Prophet Daniel refers to the same great events, and calls that period
of dashing to pieces earthly institutions a Time of Trouble such as never was
since there was a nation; and our Lord, after quoting that prophecy,
supplements it with the statement, "No, nor ever shall be." (Da 12:1;
Mt 24:21.) He thus gives us His assurance that the Time of Trouble upon the
whole world, which is nearing, which will wreck present institutions and
establish the Kingdom of God, will be the end of all such troublous times—the
poor groaning creation shall never again pass through such an experience.
The Apostle Paul, pointing down to this same Time of Trouble and to the
overthrow of present institutions in conjunction with the establishment of
God’s Kingdom, tells us that that will be the time for the inauguration of the
New Covenant, under which God will have mercy
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upon the whole world of mankind and forgive the transgressions of the past that
are properly attributable to Adamic weaknesses, and begin through Christ the
glorious work of restitution, in harmony with all things spoken by the mouth of
all the holy Prophets since the world began. (Heb 12:18-29; Ac 3:19-21.)
He says that the introduction of this New Covenant will correspond to and be
the antitype of the introduction of the Law Covenant; that as in the
introduction of the Law Covenant there were fearful sights and sounds, the
voice of trumpets and of words, and the entire mountain shaking until all the
people were in fear, so the antitype of this will be still greater, when not
only the social structure (the earth) would be shaken, but also the
ecclesiastical structure (the heavens). He declares that all things that can be
shaken will be shaken, and then adds that we, the Gospel Church, the vessels of
mercy prepared for glory, will receive the Kingdom which cannot be shaken,
intimating that all other things will be shaken and overthrown. Our Kingdom
alone will stand the tests of that time; in it alone God will be well pleased,
and its influence will then begin to be felt throughout the whole earth, to the
glory of God and to the blessing of mankind.
Seeing that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought
we to be? Seeing that present earthly institutions will come to naught very
shortly because not pleasing to the Lord, what should be our course?
Ah! as the vessels of mercy being
prepared for glory, we should see to it that we are fully submissive to the
moulding and fashioning influences of the great Potter, that our words and
thoughts and doings be all conformed to harmony with His perfect will, that we
be so thoroughly plastic in His hands that He can form us into vessels of the
highest honor and glory and usefulness in His Kingdom for which we pray,
"Thy Kingdom come!"
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