“Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?” (Romans 9:21)
This verse, at least since Augustine, has been used as a proof text for God’s sovereignty over determining from all eternity who will be saved and who will be damned. Now, in my opinion (which, I know, doesn’t hold much water), Romans 9 doesn’t teach directly about the salvation and life details of each person, but about how God had every right to use whatever means he chose to bring his plan of salvation about. I don’t have time to go into the details of why I think that. I just encourage you to read that chapter, and prayerfully meditate over it a while.
But this is what occurred to me: So many of these past divines and theologians used this potter illustration that came from Jeremiah, Paul and others, and applied it as an analogy to how God has chosen from all eternity who will be saved (honored) or who will be damned (dishonored), and yet I realized that they haven’t been true to this analogy.
Firstly, there’s this inserted phrase “from all eternity.” The only place in the New Testament that phrase is given in some fashion is in Acts 15:18, where it is applied to God’s works, not man’s. When it comes to the mention of the word usually translated predestination, Paul and the other New Testament writers only go so far as to reach back to the “foundation of the world,” which seems to mean, as far back as before the original creation, or before the Fall, perhaps. And then it may be discussed, what has God actually predestinated? But I digress some.
If we apply to God this analogy of a potter working with a lump of clay and determining what will be made out of that clay, why is this analogy abandoned in the middle of applying it to God’s activity in determining the salvation of souls? They stick to God’s sovereignty in making a determination, then leave off and send the determining to all the way from eternity (past?).
Now, if we apply that to the potter we can come up with something rather absurd. Imagine a potter comes into his studio and says, “Today, I will make such and such a piece from this one lump of clay. In fact, years ago, even before I ever thought of becoming a potter, I had determined exactly what I will do with this lump of clay.”
If you heard a potter saying such a thing, wouldn’t you think he’s a little off his rocker? “Well, yes, of course,” you say, “he’s not God!” Yes, but to stick to the potter analogy, we should apply to God what the potter naturally would do as he works with the clay; in other words, his determining process.
If we ask, when does the potter determine what he will make out of this clay, the answer would be, while he is working with it! It is a present-time activity. He has some idea and hope for it as he pulls this lump of clay from his clay reserves, and his mind rolls an idea or concept around. But then he puts it on the wheel and starts to work with it. It is then he gets more of the immediate vision as he feels how the clay responds in his hands, and how he will respond to it.
So, in the same way, as God is walking with each person, prompting and pleading in every way available to “mold” him or her to honor, this person may respond favorably or resist, and God needs to determine at that present time how to respond to each human response.
Perhaps why this analogy is abandoned in the middle by so many teachers and preachers is because they are apprehensive to embrace the implications of a present-time activity by God. But isn’t that what the Holy Spirit is constantly portrayed in the New Testament as doing with each one of us?
Perhaps why this analogy is abandoned in the middle by so many teachers and preachers is because they are apprehensive to embrace the implications of a present-time activity by God. But isn’t that what the Holy Spirit is constantly portrayed in the New Testament as doing with each one of us?
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