Rom 601 12/7/78; 2 Tim 44 11/30/75; Jer 48 1/31/71

DOCTRINE OF VESSELS

A. Etymology.

1. The Greek word SKEUE refers to any kind of household furnishing.

2. The Greek word SKEUOS refers only to a vessel, drinking cup, or vase.

3. The Greek word AGGEION means a flask or container.

4. The Hebrew word KELI refers to any kind of household furnishing.

5. The Hebrew word MAEN means a vessel or container.

6. The Hebrew word NEBEL means a wine bottle, usually made out of skin (there was no glass).

B. Isagogics of Vessels and Pottery. In the ancient world, there were many kinds of vessels. Jars were usually found in the kitchen to store foodstuffs. Vases were for flowers, spears, arrows and weapons. Drinking cups and vessels were the most common utility pieces in the ancient world. Pottery is the key to much of the history of ancient world.

1. The potter’s earthen vessel.

a. One of the oldest crafts in the world is pottery.

b. The art of ceramics was invented in the late Stone Age, about 5000 B.C.

c. Recovery of pottery fragments has been one of the greatest contributions to the history of the ancient world, including the strata in which they are found. The art work on these gives an idea of life in the ancient world.

d. Pots that didn’t turn out right were smashed and dumped in the potter’s field. Here was where the poor were also buried.

e. Jerusalem had a royal establishment of potters, 1 Chron 4:23.

f. One of the greatest inventions of the ancient world was the potter’s wheel.

g. The original wheel was a stone disk, turned on a vertical axis by hand.

h. The wheel stood only a few inches above the ground. That’s why the potter had to sit down and shape the clay into a vessel.

i. The vessel was shaped, dried, and then fired in a furnace called a kiln (pronounced kil).

2. Vessels.

a. Metal vessels of gold and silver were used extensively among those who could afford them.

b. Gold vessels were also used in the Tabernacle, used to hold oil in the lamp stands, to hold incense, to catch blood. A golden jar was used to store manna in the Ark of the Covenant. A golden pitcher was used to hold wine for libations in the Temple.

c. Every home used vessels to store water, wine, oil, flour, food. They were even used as closets for clothes storage; also as containers for sewage.

d. Wooden vessels, leather containers, baskets, sacks, and bottles were used extensively by the Jews.

e. So it’s not surprising that vessels, being so common, are used for points of doctrine and as Biblical analogies.

C. Under the principle of election, the believer is said to be a chosen vessel.

1. Therefore, as a chosen vessel, he needs to be filled with Bible doctrine. Acts 9:15 says a vessel is no good when it’s empty. A vessel is only usable when it’s filled.

2. Before Paul could be a usable vessel, he had to be filled with doctrine.

3. We never fulfill the plan of God designed for us in eternity past until we become filled vessels, until we contain maximum doctrine in our souls.

D. Vessels are used to demonstrate the essence of God in his treatment of believers and unbelievers, Rom 9:19-23.

1. The character of God is perfect. It is impossible for God’s character to in any way jeopardize His Plan or be inconsistent with His own character.

2. The sovereignty of God, a part of His character, is also perfect.

3. Therefore, God in His sovereignty has never made a bad or unfair decision. He has never been unfair to anyone from the cradle to the grace. Therefore, God’s sovereign decisions are in keeping with His perfect essence. The whole is perfect; its parts are all perfect. God cannot make a bad decision toward you. Only imperfect people make bad decisions.

4. With the believer, propitiation makes it possible for God to provide grace blessing and to do so without compromising His perfect character. The contract to our imperfection is so great; yet God in eternity past actually found a way to bless us and not compromise His perfect essence.

5. With the unbeliever, there is no propitiation factor because he has rejected the cross. Therefore, God must curse him because His perfect righteousness and justice have not been propitiated for the person who rejects the cross.

6. Verse 20.

a. The creature has no more right to challenge the Creator than the pot has to challenge the potter (in fact, even has less right).

b. When God created man, He placed in his soul a facsimile of His own sovereignty, free will, in order to resolve the angelic conflict.

c. Furthermore, God in His grace provided everything necessary for that free will to decide for God and God’s plan of grace.

d. When a person believes in Christ, God is free to express His love, provide eternal life, and the basis for blessings in time, eternity and in dying: perfect righteousness.

e. In doing this, God is not compromised, because propitiation satisfied His perfect righteousness and justice.

f. Why did God make man so? To resolve the angelic conflict, to glorify God, to vindicate the sovereign decision of God to cast Satan and his fallen angels into the Lake of Fire forever.

7. Verse 21.

a. “Lump” refers to homo sapien in general.

b. The person who believes in Christ receives at the point of salvation forty things from God. Positionally then he is a vessel of honor.

c. This is the vessel of honor in this context: a saved person. By providing forty things, the potter has taken the lump of clay and molded a beautiful vessel at salvation.

d. Neither the believer’s carnality nor his reversionism nor his human good and evil after salvation detract from what God provided at the point of salvation. Once a vessel of honor, always a vessel of honor. You cannot lose your “vessel of honorship.”

e. On the other hand, in this passage, the unbeliever is a vessel of dishonor.

f. The unbeliever superimposes his own human volition over divine volition (sovereignty).

g. The unbeliever is not willing to let God save him and mold him into a vessel of honor.

h. The unbeliever chooses his own works for salvation, and this is called the “vessel of dishonor.”

i. Therefore, his own works make the unbeliever a vessel of dishonor in this context.

8. Verse 22.

a. The volition of the clay made himself a vessel of wrath.

b. God is very longsuffering for those unbelievers who decide against Him.

c. God gives the unbeliever every chance to decide for Him by believing in Christ.

d. Constant rejection of Christ means that God’s justice and perfect righteousness must only recognize what has been done: the molding into a vessel of wrath, designed only for eternal judgment. So when this vessel gets through molding itself, God says, “Judgment!" 9. Verse 23.

a. God has the good sense, with perfect righteousness and justice, to know which vessel to accept and which vessels to reject.

b. God knew billions of years ago who would believe in Christ and who would not.

c. At that time, God made a sovereign decision which was registered in the divine decrees, Jn 3:36. As a part of the decrees, God provided for every need of every believer

. d. So don’t ever question God’s judgment; only He has all the facts.

E. Vessels are used to provide an analogy between doctrine in the soul and capacity for life provided for the supergrace believer, 2 Cor 4:7. The “treasure” is Bible doctrine; the “vessel of clay” is the believer with doctrine in the soul. Doctrine keeps us from tampering with the plan of God. Doctrine keeps us straight and keeps us from messing up the plan of God for our lives.

F. Therefore, vessels are used to set up a contrast between the supergrace believer and the reversionistic believer, 2 Tim 2:20-21. Prov 25:4 says the supergrace believer honors God, and the evil must be displaced by doctrine.

G. Vessels are related to category #2 love, and always refer to the woman.

1. There is a sense in which the woman without her right man is empty, like a vessel.

a. In 1 Thes 4:4, “sanctification” means the right man isolates her from the predatory males, for all males tend to get predatory around a woman who responds to only one man. It’s the nature of the beast.

b. Because she is animated and beautiful by her response, other males like the looks of her.

c. “Honor” means the right man’s love fills her so that she becomes a useful vessel. The man is told he must know “how to possess” his vessel in this verse.

2. 1 Pet 3:7 calls the woman a “weaker vessel” because she’s empty without her right man, referring to both her body and soul. The right man fills her emptiness of soul with category #2 soul rapport, and he fills her body in sexual relationship. An “understanding way” is the prerequisite for the married man.

3. The right man fills the woman with strength in place of weakness.

4. Vessels are very descriptive of the woman, many being beautiful and symmetrical. Vessels come in all shapes and sizes, as do women. There’s one for every man. Most men are dumb about women. Therefore, there’s a great field for learning how to possess a woman, how to be the ruler of a woman, and how to do it in an honorable way. So the right woman is the vessel to be filled, honored, cherished, and protected.

5. Jer 13:12-17, Jeremiah’s right woman was a shattered vessel. As an empty vessel refusing to be filled by her right man, she became shattered.

H. Shattered vessels are used to describe personal judgments from God.

1. Ps 31:12 refers to judgment on David’s reversionism.

2. Jer 22:28 refers to judgment on Koniah’s reversionism.

3. Jer 25:34 refers to apostate communicators of doctrine, called shattered vessels. A shattered vessel holds nothing and so is no longer a container. Once shattered, you’re on your way to the sin unto death.

I. Shattered vessels are used to describe national judgments.

1. To the Northern Kingdom, Hos 8:8-9, Hos 13:15

2. To the Southern Kingdom, Jer 51:34.

2. To Moab, Jer 48:38

3. To Gentile nations in the Tribulation, Ps 2:9-10.

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