If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and fit for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work.
Read Chapter 2
Basil the Great
AD 379
The infinite God, remaining changeless, assumed flesh and fought with death, freeing us from suffering by his own suffering! … He himself has bound the strong man and plundered his goods—that is, us, who had been abased in every manner of evil—and made us vessels fit for the Master’s use, the use of our free will being made ready for any good work.
Man, we see here, hath free-will to make himself a vessel of salvation or reprobation; though salvation be attributed to God's mercy, the other to his justice, neither repugnant to our free-will, but working with and by the same, all such effects in us, as to his providence and our deserts are agreeable. (Bristow)
If therefore a man purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified. Do you see that it is not of nature, nor of the necessity of matter, to be a vessel of gold or of earth, but of our own choice? For otherwise the earthen could not become gold, nor could the golden descend to the vileness of the other. But in this case there is much change, and alteration of state. Paul was an earthen vessel, and became a golden one. Judas was a golden vessel, and became an earthen one. The earthen vessels, therefore, are such from uncleanness. The fornicator and the covetous man become earthen vessels. But how then does he say elsewhere, 'We have this treasure in earthen vessels,' so that he does not despise but honor the earthen vessel, speaking of it as the recipient of the treasure? There he shows the nature itself, and not the form of the material. For he means to say that our body is an earthen vessel. For as earthenware is nothing else but baked clay, so is our body nothing...
It is clear that this cleansing is done freely, for he says, “if any man shall cleanse himself,” the converse of which rejoins that, if he does not cleanse himself, he will be a vessel unto dishonor, of no use to the Lord and only fit to be broken.
