Page 10 - August 2022 - Truth & Tidings

lthough Jeremiah’s third and three different emphases.
fourth action sermons are distinct, First, the Potter’s majesty is revealed in His
Athere is considerable overlap work. This is twofold. In Psalm 19 David
between them. We will consider them declares that His handiwork in the heav-
together in this study. ens eloquently attests to His flawless wis-
In the third sermon, Jeremiah was in- dom. Then, answering latter-day scoffers,
structed to go to the potter’s house and Peter says, “They deliberately overlook
watch him at work (ch18). As the skilled this fact … the earth was formed out of
craftsman busied himself at his wheel, water and through water by the word of
occasionally a blemish in the clay would God, and that by means of these … was
cause him to repurpose that particular deluged with water and perished” (2Pe
lump, making another vessel as seemed 3:5-6). Only God’s matchless power could
1
best to him. When the lesson of this ser- use the self-same elements (the water and
mon was met with resistance, the Lord the Word) first to such creative and then
told Jeremiah to buy a clay jar and take it to such destructive effect.
and some of the leaders to an area of the Second, it implies the Potter’s affinity
Hinnom Valley near the Potsherd (“east” for His work. There is a special relation-
KJV) Gate (19:1,2). The Hinnom Valley was ship between the potter and the clay. His
Jerusalem’s garbage dump, and the Pot- craft is uniquely personal and intimate.
sherd Gate was likely where broken and His hands are His tools. The Lord Jesus
useless pottery was discarded. Jeremiah beautifully demonstrated this in healing
was to pronounce judgement against the blind man of John 9. Stooping in the
the kings of Judah and the inhabitants of dirt, the same hands that formed Adam’s
Jerusalem, and symbolically break the jar, lifeless eyes reworked the dust of the
presumably casting the broken pieces into ground to heal his sightless eyes. The blind
the valley below. man testified, “The man called Jesus made
The Potter’s Clay mud and anointed my eyes …. So I went
These two sermons both invoke the and washed and received my sight” (v11).
imagery of a potter and/or clay. This is Third, it affirms the Potter’s sovereignty
a common biblical motif, particularly in over His work. This is certainly the empha-
the OT. The allusion is invariably to the sis in Jeremiah 18, as in Romans 9, where
relationship of Jehovah as Creator to His the Apostle Paul evidently develops this
Creation: the earth (Isa 45:18), the moun- and Isaiah’s numerous references to the
tains (Amo 4:13), the beasts (Gen 2:19), Potter and the clay. As it was the Potter’s
mankind (Gen 2:7), and even the nation, prerogative to determine how best to use
Jacob/Israel (Isa 43:1). the clay, so the Lord taught Jeremiah that
It should help to note that the metaphor ¹ All Scripture quotations in this article are from
of God forming as a potter presents at least the ESV unless otherwise noted.

234 TRUTH kTidings August 2022