What should we learn from the symbolism of the potter and clay in the Bible?

Do we not see God acting in this way towards Nineveh? Jonah had pronounced the judgment of God upon the guilty city, crying, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown" (Jonah 3:4). When the people of Nineveh heard God's word, they believed it, and put on sackcloth, and the king led in the humbling that he decreed, and in addition to calling for a fast and for sackcloth, he added, "yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands" (Jonah 3:8). Then we read, "And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that He had said that He would do unto them; and He did it not" (Jonah 3:10). How very sad it is to see that God's people Israel, who were just as evil as the Ninevites, but with less excuse, for they had more light, reject God's overtures of mercy in refusing to turn from their evil ways.

There is however another aspect of God's ways to consider, "And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; if it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them (Jer. 18:9-10). This was a solemn warning to Israel, for God had built them up, and planted them in the land of Canaan, but they had not obeyed the voice of Jehovah, but had wrought evil in His sight. Israel was indeed a marred vessel in the hand of the potter, but having rejected His mercy they would be the vessels of wrath.

In Jeremiah 18 we have seen God's ways with the nations, but in Romans 9 we learn something of God's ways with individuals. Romans 9:21 brings in the illustration of Jeremiah, where the Spirit of God says, "Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?" Every individual, like every nation, is a marred vessel in the hand of the Potter, for we have all become marred by sin, and in taking our own evil way. There are those who, like Israel, will not listen to the word of God by His servants, the word of mercy that is proclaimed in the Gospel, and God has the power to make these marred vessels, vessels of wrath. Again, there are those who, like the Ninevites, listen to the message of God, and turn from their evil ways to God, and God makes them vessels of mercy. No man can escape from the hand of God, and God in His sovereign power can do as He will with the vessels of clay that are marred in His hand. Those that reject His mercy come in for judgment, and those who listen to Him He brings into blessing.

Pharaoh, in Romans 9:17, is an example of a vessel of wrath. He had been raised to a place of eminence in Egypt, and in relation to the nations around, and in this high position God had spoken to him time and again by His servant Moses. The self-willed monarch hardened his heart and refused to do the will of God. His constant rejection of God's word produced a hardened state, and finally God intervened in His government and hardened his heart, and so made him a vessel of wrath, fitted for destruction.

One of the actions Jeremiah had to perform to illustrate his message was to go to the potter’s house and watch him produce a vessel (18:1–10). Jeremiah witnessed how the potter produced a vessel on the wheel and how it was ‘marred’. The potter then used the same clay to produce another vessel. What was the lesson Jeremiah was meant to learn from this? God Himself gives the answer: ‘At the moment that I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to break down, and to destroy, if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turn from their evil, then I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at the moment that I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant, if it do evil in my sight, that it hearken not unto my voice, then I will repent of the good wherewith I said I would benefit them.’

The message was clear: there was still time for Judah to repent. If so, God would ‘repent’. Otherwise, He would need to chasten and discipline them. God ‘is not a man … that he should repent’ (Num. 23:19) but He does repent when man changes, especially when man repents.

Things had gone wrong with Israel. Idolatry had become prevalent. The vessel had been marred. But the clay was still soft. There was still time to turn to God.

A fragment of pottery, to which man is compared when he strives with his Maker. Isa. 45:9. David quotes the word in the Psalm prophetical of the Lord's sacrificial sufferings, "My strength is dried up like a potsherd." Ps. 22:15. It is employed literally in Job 2:8; Prov. 26:23, and translated 'sherd' in Isa. 30:14; Ezek. 23:34.

Of the potter scripture says he treadeth the clay to make it pliable, Isa. 41:25; and he forms his vessel on a wheel. Jer. 18:3. Much of the ordinary pottery in the East is made in a very simple way: the workman turns the wheel with his feet, and with his hands he forms the vessel as it pleases him. This common pottery of the East is very fragile, and as such is often alluded to in scripture. The Lord Jesus will subdue all His enemies: will dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Ps. 2:9, Isa. 30:14; Rev. 2:27.

The potter making his vessels as it pleases him, is a beautiful illustration of the power of God as Creator, and is applied to Israel: "as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in my hand, O house of Israel." Jer. 18:2-6. It also illustrates God's sovereignty: "Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?" The potter has full power over the clay. Rom. 9:20-21.

In Jeremiah 18:1-2, Jehovah tells His servant to "go down to the potter's house," and there He would cause him to hear His words. Obedient to the word of the Lord, Jeremiah went to the potter's house, and saw him working on a vessel on the wheels, "And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter." The potter then took the clay again and made it "another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it."

Having seen what the potter wrought, the Lord spoke to His servant as He had promised, and the words spoken were addressed to the house of Israel. God was instructing His servant as to His sovereignty, saying, "Cannot I do with you as this potter? … Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel" (Jer. 18:5-6). The nation of Israel was not free to do exactly as it pleased, for it was in God's hand and He could do with it just as He pleased.

At the time God was speaking to His servant Jeremiah, the house of Israel was "marred in the hand of the potter." God in His goodness had brought them out of Egypt, and had planted them in the land of promise to be a witness for Himself to the nations of the world. He had hedged them in, keeping them apart from the nations, so that they might be free from all the pollutions of the nations, and He had protected them, giving them His law that they might know how to be pure as a people for Himself. Alas! they were found marred in the hand of the potter. They had become polluted with idolatry, their kings, their priests, their princes, their elders, and the people themselves were all involved in the ruin that was about to bring upon them the judgment of God.

In longsuffering and mercy God was waiting, looking for some evidence of repentance, so that the judgment long since predicted might be delayed, or that He might, in mercy, turn from His anger and bless them. They could not escape from the hand of God, but God was prepared, like the potter, to make them into another vessel, a vessel that would be for His pleasure.

The prophet is now told to betake himself to the potter's house, where he was to hear Jehovah's words. There he beholds a vessel of clay marred in the potter's hands, and another vessel made as he would. (Ver. 1-4.) "Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? says the Lord. Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in my hand, O house of Israel. At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it; if that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil I thought to do to them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; if it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them." (Ver. 5 10.) The will of man is only evil. The sole hope is in God Himself. But Israel, as Christendom now, feels neither, even where both are in words confessed; for there is a real turning from evil where grace works, and man is quick to claim the credit of it. On the other hand, man is prone to depart from the living God, who would deny Himself if He made light of disobedience, and treated evil in His sight as if it were good.

Then came the message: "O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in my hand, O house of Israel." If the creature of the dust can do as he pleases with the clay, how much more the Sovereign God. The Holy Spirit evidently uses this in Romans 9:20-32.

If a nation is threatened with destruction and that nation turns to the Lord, He will repent of the evil pronounced upon them. This is fully illustrated in the case of Jonah's prediction, God-given as it was, of Nineveh's overthrow. Nineveh repented and the judgment was not executed upon that generation. But if the Lord has promised a nation good and that nation does evil in His sight, He will repent of the good He had promised unto them. Thus the potter's action is used to convey a great lesson, the lesson of God's sovereignty, to do as He pleaseth, yet always in perfect righteousness. If Israel had owned then the sin and guilt and turned to the Lord, He would have acted in sovereign grace towards them. Their answer was: "There is no hope; but we will walk after our own devices, and we will every one do the imaginations of his evil heart." What depravity and wicked boldness these words reveal! They refused to believe the message of the Lord. They pushed aside the hand which would snatch them out of the fire. They acknowledged the evil heart and deliberately declared to continue in wicked defiance of Jehovah. And is it any better in professing Christendom today? The answer of the Lord, an answer of kindness and long-suffering follows.

Lower down in chapter 9 we read of the power of the potter over the clay to make vessels to honour and dishonour; but while it speaks of God’s long-suffering with vessels of wrath, fitted to destruction, it never says God fitted them for destruction, but that He endured them with much long-suffering; but in the next verse, where it speaks of vessels of mercy, it distinctly says that God afore prepared them for glory.

If now it be objected that if God shows mercy where He wills, and where He wills He hardens, He cannot rightly censure men, the apostle rebukes it as arrogance. Men should remember that it is unseemly to argue with God. Furthermore, it is His right of the same lump of fallen, sinful humanity to make one a vessel to honor, and another a vessel to dishonor. It is His sovereign prerogative to find delight in the part of the lump that submits to His grace, and to be displeased with the part that resists it. Those who reject the Ideal after which His grace would form them are surely vessels quite fit for judgment. God's long-suffering and patience with them make this manifest. On the other hand, those who yield to the formative power of His grace are suited vessels to display the riches of His glory; and this, too, whether such vessels are found among Jews or Gentiles. That such are to be found among the Gentiles the quotations from Hosea 2:23 and Hosea 1:10 fully show (vers. 19-26).

The vessels of honour and the vessels of dishonour had been alike as vessels marred in the hand of the Potter, ruined by sin and rebellion against God, but those who repented and turned to God, in His rich mercy He formed to be vessels for the display of His glory in the coming day, the rich glory of His grace, as giving them to share His own Son's place before His face, and also in the day of His glory.

Prophetically, God announces in this way that He will judge Israel (the earthen vessel) but also that he will form a people that He will ‘build’ and ‘plant’ again (the Jewish remnant: see Isa. 10:20–22; Jer. 23:3; 31:7; Rom. 9:27).

These first two symbolic incidents (the clay and the vessel) have a solemn application to unbelievers as well. There is an acceptable time when God gives opportunity to repent but when the heart is hardened (or death intervenes) it is too late and the inevitable consequence is the smashing of the potter’s vessel (‘as one breaketh a potter’s vessel, that cannot be made whole again’ (Jer. 19:11)). Yet, the same principle applies to discipline — and this appears to be the primary thought here.