The Bible reveals that man was created as a vessel to contain God. In His creation of man, God made man a vessel to contain Him with the intention of coming into this vessel and filling it with Himself. When God enters into the vessels created by Him, He finds that they are a proper match for Him. For example, God has emotion, and His vessel, His container, also has emotion. Hence, in the vessel God has a place to dispense His own emotion. In this way human emotion and divine emotion become one. The divine emotion is the content, and the human emotion is the container and the expression. We thank the Lord for showing us the fact that man is a vessel to contain God and that God feels at home in this vessel.
Romans 9:21 discloses God’s purpose in creating man. This verse is unique in its revelation of God’s purpose in the creation of man. Without this verse it would be difficult for us to realize that God’s purpose in creating man was to make him His vessel to contain Him. We need to be deeply impressed with the fact that we are God’s containers and that He is our content.
God’s selection in His sovereign mercy has a goal, and this goal is to have many vessels to contain God and express Him eternally. God created us in such a way that we are able to take Him into us and contain Him as our life and life supply, to the end that we may be one with Him to express what He is and that He may be glorified in us and with us. This is God’s goal in His selection and in His creation of man.
Romans 9 reveals that the climax of our usefulness to God is that we are vessels to contain Him and express Him. We are His container and His expression, and He is our content and our life. He lives in us that we may live Him. Eventually, He and we, we and He, will be wholly one in life and nature. This is our destiny as vessels of mercy.
The believers are vessels unto honor with Christ as their treasure through regeneration. Romans 9:21 speaks of vessels of honor. Second Corinthians 4:6 and 7 say, “The God who said, Out of darkness light shall shine, is the One who shined in our hearts for the illumination of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.” This treasure is the Christ who dwells within us. We are containers of honor because Christ Himself is honor. He is the treasure within us. Although we have this treasure in earthen vessels, this treasure has not yet been manifested. When the Lord Jesus comes back, Christ as our treasure will be manifested. Then others will be able to see that we, as vessels unto honor, are containers of such a treasure.
The believers are vessels unto honor through their cleansing of themselves from the vessels unto dishonor. Second Timothy 2:20 says, “In a great house there are not only gold and silver vessels, but also wooden and earthen, and some unto honor, and some unto dishonor.” In the great house spoken of here, there are not only gold and silver vessels but also wooden and earthen ones, and some unto honor and others unto dishonor. The house of God defined in 1 Timothy 3:15 and 16 is the genuine church in its divine nature and essential character as the foundation of the truth, whereas the great house in 2 Timothy 2:20 refers to the deteriorated church in its mixed character, as illustrated by the abnormally big tree in Matthew 13:31 and 32. In this great house there are not only precious vessels but also base ones. For this reason we cannot believe that the great house refers to the church as the house of the living God in 1 Timothy 3:15. The great house is certainly not the house of the living God. The house of the living God is the great mystery of godliness and also God manifested in the flesh. Such a house does not contain vessels unto dishonor. Therefore, the great house must refer to Christendom. Furthermore, this great house is equal to the big tree in Matthew 13. The genuine church today is the house of the living God, whereas abnormal Christianity is the great house. How great today is this abnormal house! Just as many unclean birds lodge in the big tree, so in the great house there are vessels unto dishonor, wooden and earthen vessels. In the genuine church, however, there are only gold and silver vessels.
Honorable vessels are of both the divine nature (gold) and the redeemed and regenerated human nature (silver). These, like Timothy and other genuine believers, constitute the firm foundation (2 Tim. 2:19) to hold the truth. Dishonorable vessels are of the fallen human nature (wood and earth). Hymenaeus, Philetus (2 Tim. 2:17), and other false believers are of these.
In 2 Timothy 2:21 Paul goes on to say, “If therefore anyone cleanses himself from these, he will be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, useful to the master, prepared unto every good work.” To cleanse ourselves is to “depart from unrighteousness” (v. 19), as an outward evidence of the inward divine nature. The word “these” in verse 21 denotes the vessels unto dishonor, including those mentioned in verses 16 through 18. We should not only cleanse ourselves from anything unrighteous but also from the dishonorable vessels. This means that we must stay away from them. Hence, we must cleanse ourselves from the unrighteous things and from the dishonorable vessels of wood and earth. If we cleanse ourselves from these negative things and negative persons, we shall be vessels unto honor, sanctified, useful to the Master, and prepared unto every good work. “Unto honor” is a matter of nature, “sanctified” is a matter of position, “useful” is a matter of practice, and “prepared” is a matter of training.
Second Timothy 2:20 and 21 indicate that, based upon God’s mercy, which has made us vessels of honor, we must cleanse ourselves from the vessels unto dishonor. We need to separate ourselves from these vessels. For example, we should separate ourselves from today’s modernists, who deny that Jesus is God and that the Scripture is inspired by God. Such ones are vessels unto dishonor, and we should not be with them. In order to be vessels unto honor we need to separate ourselves, cleanse ourselves, from the dishonorable vessels.
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