“For it is the God who once said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has made his light shine in our hearts, the light of the knowledge of God’s glory shining in the face of the Messiah Yeshua. But we have this treasure in clay jars” (2 Corinthians 4:6-7).
Adam, The First Clay Jar
Adam was created from the dust of the earth, the first God-made jar of clay. Elohim (God) breathed His Ruach (Breath) into Adam so he had the ‘treasure’ of God’s life-empowering Breath inside him. Because Eve was created from a flesh portion of Adam’s body, she also had the Ruach inside her. Accordingly, all human descendants of Adam and Eve are also clay jars with the life-giving Breath of God in them.
“The LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7).
Yeshua, Clay Jar of Adonai
“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).
Yeshua, the visible image of the invisible God, became flesh and lived among humanity in a clay jar. He is the most ‘treasured’ clay jar as his very nature is divine, but he willingly humbled himself and took on the role of a servant made in human likeness in order to make a way for all of us to enter the Kingdom of God (Philippians 2:5-7). Because he was the very Word of God in the flesh, he endured rejection, experienced deep sorrow, and suffered at the hands of his Jewish brothers and sisters as well as the gentile leadership of his day.
Dead Sea Scrolls
“Go now, write it on a tablet for them, inscribe it on a scroll, that for the days to come it may be an everlasting witness” (Isaiah 30:8).
The Dead Sea Scrolls contain the ancient ‘treasure’ manuscripts of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Samuel, Judges, Ezekiel, Isaiah and Psalm. In 1947, the scrolls were found in Qumran preserved in ‘clay jars’ on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea. Each of the writings are identical to the modern-day Torah, Prophets and Writings.
“Then I said, “Here I am, I have come— it is written about me in the scroll” (Psalm 40:7).
The Great Scroll of Isaiah found in the Shrine of the Book has nearly all of its 66 chapters intact, though its fragile condition requires it be kept underground in a temperature-controlled vault. The book of Isaiah has the most comprehensive prophetic picture of the Messiah from his first coming including his life, his coming, his virgin birth, the message of salvation, his death, his second coming when he returns to judge the world, his Millennial Kingdom, and the new heavens and new earth. It is truly a book preserved for our time and in our generation.
“But you, Daniel, close up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end. Many will go here and there to increase knowledge” (Daniel 12:4).
New Clay Jars
“Therefore, if anyone is united with the Messiah, he is a new creation — the old has passed; look, what has come is fresh and new!” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
When enter the Kingdom of God through new birth, we become renewed creations with a new ‘treasure’ in our ‘clay jars.’ As part of the new covenant promises, our ‘clay jars’ become Temples of the Ruach haKodesh (Holy Spirit) (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). Through the Spirit of God we are sanctified and set apart to Him as His ‘treasured’ possession (Deuteronomy 14:2, 1 Peter 4:2). The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin and empowers us to walk in wisdom, understanding, counsel, courage, knowledge, righteousness, and fear of Adonai.
Old and New Treasures
“For every teacher of the law (Torah) who has been instructed about the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old” (Matthew 13:52).
A wonderful visual aid for the Feast of Tabernacles is to use the ‘treasure in clay jars’ verse to show children how they are a ‘clay jar’ with ‘spiritual treasures’ hiding inside. Just as the sukkot our family made were always kind of bland on the outside, our treasures decorating the inside made each year’s sukkah unique and special.
As preparation for Sukkot, we made a jar out of clay. After they dried, we painted them and wrote our names on them. We did not use a luster finish so they would remain dull on the outside.
As the eight days of Sukkot progressed, we looked up Scriptures from the storeroom of both the Old and New Testaments and wrote our favorites on pieces of paper. We would discuss each verse and how it applied to our lives. We kept our ‘treasures’ in our handmade, painted ‘clay jar.’ Each day we read the verses several times so that they would become part of our hearts –– Treasures in Clay Jars.
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