The Potter and the Clay

A potter has full authority to mold the clay into the type of vessel he wants to make. The clay has no control over the matter. So it is with man and God. The man cannot rightly dispute with God any more than the clay can with the potter whose hands are giving it a form.  With ancient Israel, Jehovah demonstrated his ability to do what the potter does to clay. But there is a marked difference. A potter can make any sort of vessel he is capable of making from a lump of clay. Does Jehovah arbitrarily mold people or nations, making some good and others bad? The Bible’s answer is no. Jehovah has given mankind a very precious gift—the gift of free will. He does not exercise his sovereign authority in a way that nullifies his gift. Humans must choose to be molded by the Creator, Jehovah.

COMMENTARY

Imagine someone taking a transcript of a two-part conversation between two individuals and chopping it up into disjointed excerpts and then rearranging the dialogue out of sequence and then presenting it to a third party. Do you think the third party would be able to make sense of the jumbled conversation? They may understand isolated statements, but unless they are an expert decoder they will never be able to understand the deeper meaning of the whole conversation.

Basically that illustrates what the Watchtower has done with the prophecy of Isaiah. They have dissected it into isolated verses and in the process have destroyed the message.

To appreciate the real meaning of Isaiah read the entire 64th chapter from which the day’s verse was extracted. Isaiah speaks for God’s people in the aftermath of the destruction of Jerusalem. Verses 9-12 read:

“Do not become too indignant, O Jehovah,

And do not remember our error forever.

Look at us, please, for we are all your people.

Your holy cities have become a wilderness.

Zion has become a wilderness,

Jerusalem a wasteland.

Our house of holiness and glory,

Where our forefathers praised you,

Has been burned with fire,

And all the things we cherished lie in ruins.

In view of this, will you still restrain yourself, O Jehovah?

Will you remain silent and let us be afflicted so severely?”

That is the setting in which the heavenly Potter finishes molding the clay as he pleases — in the aftermath of the desolation of the holy place. It should be obvious that the destruction of Zion parallels what Christ foretold regarding the desolation of the holy place by a disgusting thing. However, the Watchtower makes no such connection.

Significantly, the 29th chapter of Isaiah — part of the conversation that takes place before God abandons his city — addresses the men who wield power over “Jerusalem,” saying to them:

“Woe to those who go to great lengths to conceal their plans from Jehovah. Their deeds are done in a dark place, while they say: ‘Who sees us? Who knows about us?’ How you twist things! Should the potter be regarded the same as the clay? Should what is made say about its maker: ‘He did not make me’? And does what is formed say about its former: ‘He shows no understanding’?”

It is evident that in the prophecy of Isaiah those who refuse to acknowledge Jehovah as the Potter prior to the destruction God brings upon them are the same as those who humbly admit they are the clay in the 64th chapter.

Oh how the Watchtower has twisted things! They imagine they have been given carte blanche with all matters pertaining to the Scriptures. But just because Jehovah’s Witnesses may know such things as the true condition of the dead, the meaning to 144,000, the name of God and the future of the earth, does not mean they understand the judgments of Jehovah. As regards Isaiah, the leadership of Jehovah’s Witnesses are those described in the 29th chapter of Isaiah: “Every vision becomes for you like the words of a sealed book. When they give it to someone who can read, saying: ‘Read this out loud, please,’ he will say: ‘I cannot, for it is sealed up.’ And when they give the book to someone who