by ChrisVance 7 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Rom 9:21 — Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?
I was thinking about this scripture the other day. (I don't own a bible, nor do I have a dub cdrom, so I couldn't look it up, but fortunately Peacefulepete's thread had a reference to it.) I never did understand what it was talking about, nor how it fits with dub doctrine. It sounds like predestination to me.
hey chris,
hmmm, interesting. i don't know what they use it for either. but since they're not in the business of brain usage, i imagine they could also use it for creationism, although i do not recall if they have or not.
TS
From the Insight book:
The potter’s authority over the clay is used illustratively to show Jehovah’s sovereignty over individuals and nations. (Isa 29:15, 16; 64:8) To God the house of Israel was "as the clay in the hand of the potter," He being the Great Potter. (Jer 18:1-10) Man is in no position to contend with God, just as clay would not be expected to challenge the one shaping it. (Isa 45:9) As an earthenware vessel can be smashed, so Jehovah can bring devastating calamity upon a people in punishment for wrongdoing.—Jer 19:1-11.
Concerning the Messianic King’s exercise of God-given authority against the nations, it was foretold: "You will break them with an iron scepter, as though a potter’s vessel you will dash them to pieces."—Ps 2:9; compare Da 2:44; Re 2:26, 27; 12:5.
From a single lump of clay the potter could make a vessel for an honorable use and another for a dishonorable, a common, or an ordinary use. Similarly, Jehovah has authority to mold individuals as he pleases and has tolerated wicked ones, "vessels of wrath made fit for destruction," but this has worked to the benefit of "vessels of mercy," persons making up spiritual Israel.—Ro 9:14-26. and from a 1965 Watchtower:
6 Note how clear this point is made at Jeremiah 18:6-8: "Look! As the clay in the hand of the potter, so you are in my hand, O house of Israel. At any moment that I may speak against a nation and against a kingdom to uproot it and to pull it down and to destroy it, and that nation actually turns back from its badness against which I spoke, I will also feel regret over the calamity that I had thought to execute upon it."
7
To illustrate: All of Jehovah’s creatures might be likened to clay vessels in a potter’s workshop whom Jehovah God, as the Potter, can and does mold as he pleases. But it is up to the individual piece of clay as a free moral agent and an intelligent creature to choose how he wants to react to Jehovah’s patterns and pressures, either submitting to Jehovah and righteousness, or resisting Jehovah and hardening himself in wickedness. But once the creature has manifested his attitude, Jehovah may, can and does at times mold that one further and further, either toward honorable service or toward dishonorable use, as suits Jehovah’s sovereign will and purposes.
All of Jehovah’s creatures might be likened to clay vessels in a potter’s workshop whom Jehovah God, as the Potter, can and does mold as he pleases. But it is up to the individual piece of clay as a free moral agent and an intelligent creature to choose how he wants to react to Jehovah’s patterns and pressures, either submitting to Jehovah and righteousness, or resisting Jehovah and hardening himself in wickedness.
SeymourButts, Thanks! The 1965 watchtower is what I was thinking of. I don't understand how anyone can make sense of the above quote without suffering cognitive dissonance. He molds as he pleases. The clay responds as it pleases. Give me a break.
The whole section of what is now named "Romans" has this clear predestination doctrine. The potter passage in context:
11 for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that ( Z ) God's purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls,
12 it was said to her, " ( AA ) THE OLDER WILL SERVE THE YOUNGER."
13 Just as it is written, " ( AB ) JACOB I LOVED, BUT ESAU I HATED."
14 ( AC ) What shall we say then? ( AD ) There is no injustice with God, is there? ( AE ) May it never be!
15 For He says to Moses, " ( AF ) 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 ( AG ) runs, but on ( AH ) God who has mercy.
17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, " ( AI ) 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 ( AJ ) hardens whom He desires.
19 ( AK ) You will say to me then, " ( AL ) Why does He still find fault? For ( AM ) who resists His will?"
20 On the contrary, who are you, ( AN ) O man, who ( AO ) answers back to God? ( AP ) 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 ( AQ ) patience vessels of wrath ( AR ) prepared for destruction?
23 And He did so to make known ( AS ) the riches of His glory upon ( AT ) vessels of mercy, which He ( AU ) prepared beforehand for glory,
24 even us, whom He also ( AV ) called, ( AW ) not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles.
chapter 8:
28 And we know that [ c ] God causes ( BG ) all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are ( BH ) called according to His purpose.
29 For those whom He ( BI ) foreknew, He also ( BJ ) predestined to become ( BK ) conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the ( BL ) firstborn among many brethren;
30 and these whom He ( BM ) predestined, He also ( BN ) called; and these whom He called, He also ( BO ) justified; and these whom He justified, He also ( BP ) glorified.
These sections of Romans were originally addressed to the Ephesian congregation as part of a second letter (discussed before). Interestingly Ephesians 1 opens with this same doctrine:
4 just as ( K ) He chose us in Him before ( L ) the foundation of the world, that we would be ( M ) holy and blameless before [ b ] Him ( N ) In love
5 He ( O ) predestined us to ( P ) adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, ( Q ) according to the kind intention of His will,
The writer (ostensibly Paul) definitely endorsed the doctrine of predestination on an individual level. Strangely this doctrine is less pronounced in the rest of the body of Pauline writings.
So the potter molded:
Anne Frank, Mairie Antoinette, on the one hand;
AND
Hitler, Robespierre, on the other.
I can't find the poem by Robert Burns, but its gist is God sends everyone, except a few to torment, after a life of misery:
"and a' fer yer ain glory."
Only debased animals could invent such a deity.
HB
I think the Vessel, that with fugitive
Articulation answer'd, once did live,
And merry-make; and the cold Lip I kiss'd
How many Kisses might it take---and give!
For in the Market-place, one Dusk of Day,
I watch'd the Potter thumping his wet Clay:
And with its all obliterated Tongue
It murmur'd---"Gently, Brother, gently, pray!"
Omar Khayyam
Paul had primarily one issue to deal with in Romans. The Gentiles vis a vis the Jews. What would eventually become "Christianity" was begun as Judaism. It was the Messianic splinter groups of Judaism who embraced the idea of Jesus as Christ first.
When Jesus was executed the endless string of would-be Messiahs would continue---UNLESS---sufficient argument could be made that Jesus' death was actually part of God's Messianic PLAN from the beginning and merely lost sight of by the jews missing the point.
The Emperor Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome for seven years BEFORE the book of ROMANS was written.
The audience of would-be Christians ripe for conversion would be GENTILES and not Jews!
Therefore Paul had his work cut out for him on two fronts.
1.Convince Gentiles that the entire history of the Jews (Old Testament) contained a vast plan to include them in the final days and give them EQUAL reward alongside Jews who had been faithful for thousands of years! Further, they would not have to whack off the end of their penis or eat Kosher to get into to this special club.
2.Convince the Jews that Gentiles could be accepted for the very first time by God because IT WAS GOD WHO MADE ALL PEOPLE what they were (Jew/Greek/Gentile/man/woman). And God formed his plans from the beginning knowing what would happen in the end. God had the power to make anybody suitable for use or to destroy them as unworthy. (i.e. use Gentiles or destroy natural born ritual observing Jews.)
Imagine how the Jews who returned from exile felt when they were now OUTSIDERS in their own religion! They would be opposed by those who had had nothing to do with the ritual of the LAW and did not even want the subject raised with them as a point of orthodoxy!!
Paul's argument reframed the issue cleverly!
He focused on a kind of bifurcation; a binary False dichotomy that differentiated between the ETHICAL aspects of the Law and the RITUAL aspects. Paul argued that even if the Gentiles failed to observe the rituals of circumcision and kosher diet THEY WERE STILL RESPONSIBLE for the ETHICAL meaning of those rituals.
The argument about the Potter serves as part of this purpose. Paul argues that God makes these kinds of decisions HIMSELF without consulting mankind to see if they approve of his plan.
This has nothing whatever to do with predestination.
