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Lord actually uses the figure of mending a piece of torn cloth, employing the
most glorious word pleroma to illustrate His meaning. Then what are we to
understand by such words as restore, reconcile and the like? and if actions
are to be interpreted as signs of doctrinal truth, it is surely significant
that after the Lord had called unto Him two fishers who were at the moment of
their call 'casting' a net into the sea, He called two other fishers, who
were 'mending' their nets (Matt. 4:18 -21). Had the potter discarded the
clay that was 'marred' and taken another lump, there would have been some
warrant for saying God never mends what man has marred, but the potter does
not discard the clay, he makes another vessel of the same lump.
The vessel was 'marred' in the hand of the potter. Taking this
statement entirely by itself it would be extremely difficult to avoid putting
the blame upon the 'Potter' and so ultimately upon the Lord, yet it is
evident from the sequel, that no mistake or bad workmanship can be ascribed
to the God of Israel. Our failure to appreciate the point of this symbol is
largely because we have not before our mind the book of Jeremiah as a whole,
and so we have not the mental preparation that would be ours if the symbol of
the marred vessel was immediately related to the previous symbol of the
marred linen girdle.
Upon reading Jeremiah 13 to 19 there emerges the following interrelated
set of symbols and explanations:
A
13:1 -11.
The symbol of the Marred girdle.
B
13:12 -14.
The symbol of the Bottle.
C
13:14.
Dashed one against another.
A
18:1 -4.
The symbol of the Marred vessel.
B
19:1 -10.
The symbol of the Bottle.
C
19:11.
I will break this people.
The comment in Jeremiah 13 is that the girdle was 'profitable for
nothing' and that the people, by their refusal to hear the word of the Lord,
and by their idolatry, were 'good for nothing'. By their own faithlessness
they were 'marred'. After this manner, said the Lord, 'will I mar the pride
of Judah, and the great pride of Jerusalem' (Jer. 13:9). It will be
remembered that Jeremiah had been told to do a very strange thing, namely, to
hide the linen girdle in the hole of a rock by the Euphrates. This reference
to the Euphrates would immediately connect this symbol with Babylon -- Israel
would be 'marred' by their captivity in Babylon. The last reference to the
Euphrates is another symbolic action:
'When thou comest to Babylon, and shalt see, and shalt read all these
words; Then shalt thou say, O Lord, Thou hast spoken against this
place, to cut it off, that none shall remain in it, neither man nor
beast, but that it shall be desolate for ever. And it shall be, when
thou hast made an end of reading this book, that thou shalt bind a
stone to it, and cast it into the midst of Euphrates: and thou shalt
say, Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise from the evil that I
will bring upon her: and they shall be weary' (Jer. 51:61 -64).