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Potter (2)

Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament

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(κεραμεύς)

The ceramic art is of great antiquity. Wherever the primitive races of mankind found clay, they became potters. Rude baked vessels are found with the remains of our remotest ancestors. In the story of the creation, God is represented as a Potter moulding the human body out of the dust of the ground (Genesis 2:7; cf. Job 10:9; Job 33:6), and thoughtful men in all ages have figured themselves, in their whole relation to God, as clay in the Potter’s hands (Isaiah 45:9; Isaiah 64:8, Jeremiah 18:6, Romans 9:21). In one aspect the metaphor is still readily accepted, for all devout men believe in the Divinity that shapes their ends. The classical modern expression of the doctrine is found in Browning’s Rabbi Ben Ezra:

‘Ay, note that Potter’s wheel,

That metaphor! and feel

Why time spins fast, why passive lies our clay,-

But I need, now as then,

Thee, God, who mouldest men;

My times be in Thy hand!

Perfect the cup as planned!’

But God’s ‘vessels of wrath’ (Romans 9:22) create a difficulty for the reason as well as the heart, a difficulty which becomes a σκἁνδαλον when the phrase is interpreted as meaning that ‘the Lord has created those who, as He certainly foreknew, were to go to destruction, and He did so because He so willed’ (J. Calvin, Institutes, Eng. tr._, 1879, ii. 229). Such a doctrine has been a rock of offence to very many. The legitimate protest of the clay is heard in the quatrains of Omar Khayyam; and the last word of the Christian spirit is not uttered in the militant Messianic Psalm quoted in the Apocalypse: ‘Thou, shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel’ (Psalms 2:9 || Revelation 2:27). See Predestination.

James Strahan.