God Loves… Himself

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.”

Isaiah 64:6 For all of us have become like one who is unclean, And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; And all of us wither like a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. 7 There is no one who calls on Your name, Who arouses himself to take hold of You; For You have hidden Your face from us And have delivered us into the power of our iniquities. 8 But now, O LORD, You are our Father, We are the clay, and You our potter; And all of us are the work of Your hand. 9 Do not be angry beyond measure, O LORD, Nor remember iniquity forever; Behold, look now, all of us are Your people.

Possibly the most difficult thing (actually, impossible) for a human being to do is to come to the Supreme and Sovereign of the universe as clay. This implies that the clay has bowed from the heart all of its rights to its mind, heart, and all possessions to the Lord. This is to say that for a human being to come to God as clay it must deny self, die to self, and/or to be removed from the throne of the life of self. This is not just something that happens once, but is a daily if not hourly (or more) spiritual battle. The human clay must plead with the Lord for understanding of who He is and then of who the clay really is. This realization of who self is must include what self is by creation, nature, and then as before God in those. This will include recognizing that we are in the power of sin to the degree that God has hardened us in sin or simply that we can do no good apart from Christ. However one looks at it, all human beings are the work of His hand and He can do with us as He pleases. This is one thing to recognize in a theological statement, but it is quite another for the Spirit of the living God to bring it home to the depths of the soul. It will shake every foundation that one thought that s/he had. It can be very traumatic.

Before this realization comes home to a person, that person lives for self even if the person takes the name of Christian. The person may think that s/he trusts in Christ and obeys God, but when the realization of being clay comes home to the soul that person will realize that it may be the case that most if not all of the “obedience” it thought it had was really nothing but actions flowing from self-love. The soul may realize that it actually lived for self and loved self and all that it thought was obedience to God was nothing more than living out of self-interest and love for self. The soul that thought it was religious and a nice person now realizes that it was full of nothing but rebellion and idolatry as it lived for self and tried to use God in the service of self. The sinful nature that is so full of self will constantly act as if God is clay and is to be molded to the will of self and so religion is viewed as a form of manipulation in order to get God to give self what it pleases. Regardless of a person’s theological persuasion, it appears that self appears and tries to use God and religion to get what self wants.

In Isaiah 64 we see a pattern in verses 7-8. Isaiah has been awakened and sees that no one is really calling on the name of God, though indeed we can be sure that the forms of worship were being dutifully carried forward. Isaiah now sees that no one is arousing self to take hold of God, but he sees the reason why. It is because God has hidden His face from them and so delivered them into the power of sin. The reason why people were not praying is because God had turned His face from them and gave them over to the power of sin. Isaiah then comes the acute realization that he and the whole nation was in the hands of God to do with as He pleased, which is that the Lord had taught Jeremiah.

That acute realization that we cannot pray and we cannot seek the face of the Lord apart from humility and apart from being clay in the Potter’s hand is what we must strive for. Prayer meetings are mockery whether they last ten minutes or ten days apart from coming to the Lord as clay. It is this deep and disturbing realization that the most religious people will resist and flee from. This acute realization will drive all hope in the things and will of self from the heart and people will see that God is sovereign and they have no way of obtaining grace but in accordance with His good pleasure. After all, true prayer is seeking His face and praying for His will to be done, though indeed it seems as if the vast majority of attempted prayer is to get God to do what I/we want to be done.

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.”

Isaiah 64:6 For all of us have become like one who is unclean, And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; And all of us wither like a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. 7 There is no one who calls on Your name, Who arouses himself to take hold of You; For You have hidden Your face from us And have delivered us into the power of our iniquities. 8 But now, O LORD, You are our Father, We are the clay, and You our potter; And all of us are the work of Your hand. 9 Do not be angry beyond measure, O LORD, Nor remember iniquity forever; Behold, look now, all of us are Your people.

When a human being wants to come to the true God in truth, that person must come to God as He is and come as the person really is. The human being must come to the Lord as a creature that depends on God for all that it receives and as the One that all things happen as He pleases. The human being must come to the Lord as the supreme and sovereign Lord of the universe, but not only that the supreme and sovereign of each and every thing (regardless of how small) and of each and every thing that happens. The supreme and sovereign Lord is sovereign over the planets and yet of the smallest sub-atomic parts of the universe and even of every cell in the body.

The heart that has been hardened by God in sin can only be softened and humbled by the Lord who hardened it. No one can deliver him or herself out of the hand of God and no one can turn back what the Lord has done. As the potter takes a piece of clay and hardens it according to his will and the clay cannot overcome the potter, so the hand of the Sovereign Potter in hardening hearts cannot be overcome either. The soul must be awakened to its sin and know that even at that point it has been delivered into the power of sin and is the work of His hand. The only recourse is not to strive to be moral, but to seek the Divine Potter for repentance and faith. But once again, if the Divine Potter has hardened the heart, what mortal can possibly think that s/he can reverse that?

The poor sinner that has been awakened by grace in showing the sinner what s/he is must be aware that s/he can no longer consider that s/he can save self. It is God alone who can break the hard heart and give it eyes to see and ears to hear. It is God alone who can take the water of His Word and use it to soften the hearts of sinners. It is God alone who can humble and break the heart so that it can be a tender heart before Him. It is God alone who can take that humbled heart and bring life into the soul by regeneration.

If the poor sinner comes to God and thinks that it can humble itself and prepare itself for the Gospel or for salvation, that is a poor deluded soul. The sinner that has been truly humbled and broken by God is a sinner that has given up all hope in humbling itself and breaking itself. This sinner no longer looks to his own power or strength or its free-will to do what God alone can do, but it has been broken from any hope in its own will and it will no longer resist the humbling and breaking work that God alone can do. Now the soul seeks the Lord to do this work and cries out for God to tear pride from the heart at all cost, though indeed the heart fears when it prays that because it is not perfectly broken and conformed to His will.

When this soul has been worked on by God using the water of His Word and the Spirit to break the sinner and bring it low in order to make it a temple of the living God, the sinner knows that the power to awaken and arouse self to take hold of God is not in its power. Instead of that the sinner cries out that God would take hold of the sinner and deliver the sinner from all hope in self and all pride in self. For the sinner to truly come to the Divine Potter is for the sinner to give up on anything it can do for self and look to grace alone. The sinner has been awakened to see that it is indeed the work of the hand of God and it knows that for it to be a vessel of honor rather than a vessel of wrath that it must have the hand of God do this work as well. The Lord will tame the wild and proud at heart by breaking the vessel and using the water of the Word to reform according to Himself. It is grace.

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.”

Isaiah 64:6 For all of us have become like one who is unclean, And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; And all of us wither like a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. 7 There is no one who calls on Your name, Who arouses himself to take hold of You; For You have hidden Your face from us And have delivered us into the power of our iniquities. 8 But now, O LORD, You are our Father, We are the clay, and You our potter; And all of us are the work of Your hand. 9 Do not be angry beyond measure, O LORD, Nor remember iniquity forever; Behold, look now, all of us are Your people.

When a human being wants to come to the true God in truth, that person must come to God as He is and come as the person really is. The human being must come to the Lord as a creature that depends on God for all that it receives and as the One that all things happen as He pleases. The human being must come to the Lord as the supreme and sovereign Lord of the universe, but not only that the supreme and sovereign of each and every thing (regardless of how small) and of each and every thing that happens. The supreme and sovereign Lord is sovereign over the planets and yet of the smallest sub-atomic parts of the universe and even of every cell in the body.

The heart that has been hardened by God in sin can only be softened and humbled by the Lord who hardened it. No one can deliver him or herself out of the hand of God and no one can turn back what the Lord has done. As the potter takes a piece of clay and hardens it according to his will and the clay cannot overcome the potter, so the hand of the Sovereign Potter in hardening hearts cannot be overcome either. The soul must be awakened to its sin and know that even at that point it has been delivered into the power of sin and is the work of His hand. The only recourse is not to strive to be moral, but to seek the Divine Potter for repentance and faith. But once again, if the Divine Potter has hardened the heart, what mortal can possibly think that s/he can reverse that?

The poor sinner that has been awakened by grace in showing the sinner what s/he is must be aware that s/he can no longer consider that s/he can save self. It is God alone who can break the hard heart and give it eyes to see and ears to hear. It is God alone who can take the water of His Word and use it to soften the hearts of sinners. It is God alone who can humble and break the heart so that it can be a tender heart before Him. It is God alone who can take that humbled heart and bring life into the soul by regeneration.

If the poor sinner comes to God and thinks that it can humble itself and prepare itself for the Gospel or for salvation, that is a poor deluded soul. The sinner that has been truly humbled and broken by God is a sinner that has given up all hope in humbling itself and breaking itself. This sinner no longer looks to his own power or strength or its free-will to do what God alone can do, but it has been broken from any hope in its own will and it will no longer resist the humbling and breaking work that God alone can do. Now the soul seeks the Lord to do this work and cries out for God to tear pride from the heart at all cost, though indeed the heart fears when it prays that because it is not perfectly broken and conformed to His will.

When this soul has been worked on by God using the water of His Word and the Spirit to break the sinner and bring it low in order to make it a temple of the living God, the sinner knows that the power to awaken and arouse self to take hold of God is not in its power. Instead of that the sinner cries out that God would take hold of the sinner and deliver the sinner from all hope in self and all pride in self. For the sinner to truly come to the Divine Potter is for the sinner to give up on anything it can do for self and look to grace alone. The sinner has been awakened to see that it is indeed the work of the hand of God and it knows that for it to be a vessel of honor rather than a vessel of wrath that it must have the hand of God do this work as well. The Lord will tame the wild and proud at heart by breaking the vessel and using the water of the Word to reform according to Himself. It is grace.

 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.”

What does it mean for a person to come to the Divine Potter with the acute realization that s/he is nothing but clay in one sense, but also that one is a sinful lump of clay that deserves nothing but Divine wrath? This is one of the great battles of the soul that causes people to flee from the teaching of Scripture on the sovereignty of God. When one comes to the realization of this, it leaves one naked and helpless before God with nothing about self and nothing that self can do to move God to show mercy. When one sees that the only way for one to flee from sin is to petition the restraining grace of God, it is not comfortable. When one sees that his or her heart has been hardened by God, one sees that his or her heart can only be softened by God. When one sees something of the depth of the words of Jesus that no one can do good apart from Him, it is not comfortable and it throws one upon grace for justification and grace for sanctification as well. Justified sinners and unjustified sinners are in His sovereign hands and He can do with them as He pleases. So how does one come to the Divine Potter when one is clay?

Isaiah 64:6 For all of us have become like one who is unclean, And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; And all of us wither like a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. 7 There is no one who calls on Your name, Who arouses himself to take hold of You; For You have hidden Your face from us And have delivered us into the power of our iniquities. 8 But now, O LORD, You are our Father, We are the clay, and You our potter; And all of us are the work of Your hand. 9 Do not be angry beyond measure, O LORD, Nor remember iniquity forever; Behold, look now, all of us are Your people.

The proper way to come before the Lord is with humility and brokenness of mind and heart, but not just a shallow humility, but instead one that is consistent with clay being before the Divine Potter. It sees itself as unclean, with even its best works or deeds as filthy and nasty, and completely at the mercy of God if He turns a person over to the power of their own sin. Humble minds and hearts know that they do not call upon the Lord and do not rouse themselves to take hold of Him, but they also know that they do not do so because the LORD has hidden His face from them. These humbled and broken hearts know that they have been delivered into the power of their sin and they know that they are clay and He is the Potter and He is just and righteous to do with them as He pleases.

The proper way to come before the Lord of all and the Divine Potter is with humility of mind seeking a deeper humility of mind. The humble mind will bow deeply before the Lord knowing that it can know nothing spiritual apart from what God reveals to it. The humble mind will know that it can do nothing spiritual of itself and so it will seek the Lord. The humble mind will seek to know what God’s will rather than what it wants to know. The humble mind will know that there are many things that it cannot grasp so it bows to what God reveals. The humble mind will not try to tell God what is needed, but instead seek to find out what is needed in order to pray and seek.

Another aspect of coming the Divine Potter is to come with a humbled heart. This is a heart that knows that it cannot have a holy desire or affection apart from the grace of God working that in the soul. This is the heart that knows that it cannot love God apart from the grace of God giving that soul a love for Himself .The humble heart knows that in order to present holy desires before the Lord it must seek those from the Lord who gives those by grace alone. The humble heart comes to the Divine Potter seeking to be made into an instrument in accordance with what the Potter desires and so desires to be an instrument of His glory. The Divine Potter works on the clay by forming it, watering it (water of the Word), and then by Divine wisdom and power making it just as He pleases which is formed to be what He desires. Jesus said that the greatest among you is the most humble. The most humble is a soul that is most emptied of self and full of Christ. That is the soul that sees more of the Lord and prays for His glory more than the most brilliant of men. The humble soul is one formed by the Lord for His pleasure and glory and is getting softer and softer (as clay) in His hand to be ready for more conforming.

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.”

The clay is always in the hand of the Potter to do with as He pleases. This is a fundamental truth that each heart must bow in submission to. Israel should have bowed to the Lord and sought Him for strength to stand firm and seek His face in prayer and holiness in accordance with His revealed will, but Israel sought self and the things of self. Israel began to think that the Lord could be manipulated as the heathens manipulated their gods through sacrifices and external actions. This statement is full of the glory of God and Israel should have bowed in great haste in confession and repentance.

One of the things that should strike each heart in any time period and perhaps each day is that each person and all groups are in the hand of God to do with as He pleases. God is sovereign and He can do with me as He pleases each moment of each day. There is no one and the whole universe together can resist the living God in carrying out His eternal plan and the plan He has for each person. But even then that can be nothing more than an intellectual fact which we carry around in our heads, but the reality of this must sink deeply into our hearts. Each person must begin to see that God can harden him or her if He so pleases. Each time a person sins that sin can be what God uses to harden that person and never soften them. Each one and all alike are as clay in the hands of the Potter to do with as He pleases.

The great truth of who God (Divine Potter) and who man is (clay) would change how people “do church” and how people live. It would change how people worship and it would change how people read the Bible and pray. It would change how people respond to trials and it would change how people approach life. But the difference between a person that seems himself as the potter of his own life and the one that sees himself as clay in the hands of a Divine potter to be formed and shaped according to His plan, is infinite.

What we see in our day is vast numbers of people who think of themselves as the potter of their own lives and living in that way. We also see religious people living as if they are the potter and God is the clay that they can manipulate according to their pleasure as long as they are nice and good and pray while saying the name of Jesus. That is simply idolatry, not to mention utterly blasphemous. Human beings were not made for themselves which includes not living for themselves and shaping themselves as they please, but instead they were made in the image of God and for the glory of God. Men and women are active in seeking to shape themselves and make themselves into something that they want and desire and rarely do they take the will of God into consideration. Religion is used to make us better people, though the idea of better is usually based on humanistic concepts. Christianity itself has been perverted to be little more in the eyes and efforts of many to be nothing more than a self-help philosophy or perhaps how to overcome the things against you philosophy.

But God is sovereign and on the throne of the universe and nothing happens apart from His eternal plan. Those who seek the Lord out of love to be shaped by His Divine hand are being drawn to Him and the Potter is shaping them into a vessel of glory. Those who are giving their every effort at making themselves as they please or as they desire are also being conformed by the Divine Potter as He hardens their hearts and turns them over to their desires which lead to misery and destruction. “Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you” (fill in your own name) “in My hand, O” (fill in your own name). Perhaps the most real thing about us that we ignore the most is that we are all clay in the hands of a Divine Potter to be shaped in accordance with His pleasure. Being shaped in holiness by His hand is to know God and love Him, but to be shaped by His hand of wrath in being turned over to sin is to know true misery now and then for eternity. Oh how men should seek the Lord!

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.