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Jeremiah 18:3-6  So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel.  But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.  Then the word of the LORD came to me.  He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the LORD. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel.

One of the most unpopular doctrines in Scripture concerns the Sovereignty of God.  Augustine and Calvin stand out in Church history as fearless champions of this biblical truth – a truth that is so important to a proper understanding of the Covenant of Grace and the integrity of the whole of God’s written Word.

The reason it has been so unpopular down through the ages is not hard to see: it is at the heart of our fallen nature that we want to be in control.  This is what went wrong in the Garden of Eden at the very beginning.  Man was not content with just being like God – he wanted to be God, to be in charge of deciding what is right and wrong, what is best for him and what is not – what fruit he can eat and what he can’t eat.

Throughout Old Testament history nothing changes; as Jeremiah noted in the previous chapter, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (17:9)  Jeremiah was one of the most unpopular of all the OT prophets, and his uncompromising declaration of God as the “potter” who has the right, because he is God, to do what he pleases with each lump of “clay” was fundamental to his message as he warned God’s people of the coming Judgement.

Many professing ‘Christians‘ today have a similar problem with the Apostle Paul.  He uses the Prophet’s imagery as he explains the doctrine of God’s electing grace (predestination) to the believers in Rome: “Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?” (Romans 9:21)  Harsh as it might seem (because it attacks us at our most vulnerable point – our pride), it is one of the most comforting teachings in the Bible.  Notice what Jeremiah says: “But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.”  Sin has marred all our lives to the extent that we can hardly recognise the ‘image of God’ in us any more!  And we are unable to do anything about it.  But the Potter can!  As Paul said in another place: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17) Deo soli gloria!

“Whate’er my God ordains is right, here shall my stand be taken: though sorrow, need or death be mine yet I am not forsaken; my Father’s care is ’round me there, he holds me that I shall not fall, and so to him I leave it all.” (Samuel Rodigast)

 – Bruce Christian