Jeremiah 18:1 The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD saying, 2 “Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will announce My words to you.” 3 Then I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something on the wheel. 4 But the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter; so he remade it into another vessel, as it pleased the potter to make. 5 Then the word of the LORD came to me saying, 6 “Can I not, O house of Israel, deal with you as this potter does?” declares the LORD. “Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.
Israel had fallen into sin and was going to be sent into slavery. Of course they did not see the true nature of their sin and did not believe that God would and perhaps not even could do it. But Jeremiah was told to go to a potter’s house where he was going to see God draw out and set before him an acted out picture of the helplessness of the entire nation of Israel before Him. This is to say that as helpless as the clay is in the hands of a potter, so Israel was in the hands of the Divine Potter.
Israel was a nation that was elected and called out by God for a specific purpose, and that purpose was to be the way that God would bring the Messiah into the world. Not only that, but they were to picture what the Messiah would do in their laws and in their temple worship. They needed to see that they were not special because of who their bloodline, but they were special in a sense only because God had chosen them to be the people of God. As a potter could take a vessel and do with it what he pleased, so God could take a person or a nation and do with it as He pleased. Disobedient Israel was in the hand of God and He could do with it as He pleased.
Romans 9:14 What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! 15 For He says to Moses, “I WILL HAVE MERCY ON WHOM I HAVE MERCY, AND I WILL HAVE COMPASSION ON WHOM I HAVE COMPASSION.” 16 So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. 17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “FOR THIS VERY PURPOSE I RAISED YOU UP, TO DEMONSTRATE MY POWER IN YOU, AND THAT MY NAME MIGHT BE PROCLAIMED THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE EARTH.” 18 So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires. 19 You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?” 20 On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it? 21 Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? 22 What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? 23 And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, 24 even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles.
We can see how Paul used the teaching of the Potter and the Clay in his great teaching on the sovereign hand of God in election in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. God will have mercy on whom He will have mercy and He will have compassion on whom He will have compassion. The reason that Pharaoh was raised up was for the glory of God. Did Pharaoh have a real excuse or reason to complain? No, as God looked out upon all men from eternity (in His Divine plan), He was perfectly just to plan to harden some and have mercy on others as He pleased. As a potter has absolute right over the clay to make it as he wishes, so God has absolute right over human beings to demonstrate His wrath on vessels of wrath when He has prepared for destruction and to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy which He prepared beforehand for glory.
The beauty of Divine grace shines forth from the teaching of this text. There is nothing that a human being has ever done that could bring the God of all glory into his or her debt, but instead God is the One who is truly free. While human beings rant and rave about free-will in reference to themselves, this text shows that the Divine Potter is free to do with them as He pleases while they rant about their own freedom. Men are not free to elect themselves as they please, but the Divine Potter alone can elect to show mercy and compassion. Men are not free to extricate themselves from a sinful nature, but instead they are hardened or softened according to the Divine pleasure. While this teaching is ugly and hard to many, to others it is simply more beautiful than anything else. They are the ones who have experimentally found themselves to be dead in sins and trespasses without one thing in themselves to obtain merit from God. They have looked to Christ alone and the grace that is in Him by grace and have learned to adore the grace of God which was freely shown to them.
God Loves... Himself 
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