(Rom 9:18b), Why does God harden people at all?
(Go here for start of series)

This brings us to Rom 9:18b - "...He hardens whom He wants to harden" - which signals God's righteousness in JUDGMENT.  We've been talking all this while about His mercy; Paul now introduces God's 'alien work' of wrath (Isa 28:21) and the perfect validity of His actions throughout. Just as God has every sovereign right to bless WHOMEVER He chooses independently of merit, He also has every right to destroy the wicked in WHATEVER way He sees fit.

Israel was chosen totally apart from works or 'racial superiority'; she can thus certainly be hardened, judged and broken off for her unbelief (this will be the subject of the forthcoming verses). As Rom 9:19 will be an elaboration of this issue, 9:18 here coolly ushers it in.

Paul needed to bring the subject from "Israel never deserved their election as the Chosen People" to "Israel fully deserved their judgment!" and what better link than Mr. King of Egypt himself?

The hardening of Pharoah's heart (to which 9:17-18 will most certainly remind Paul's readers of) is the perfect example of how God has the right to quicken the destruction of someone who persistently chooses evil.  Pharoah hardened his OWN heart no less than six(!) times before it was recorded that God did it. The facts show that Pharoah was as guilty as sin by his own continuous choosing, and what God did was merely to say 'Amen' to it all, albeit after repeated warnings. For even after the first time God did the hardening (in Ex 9:12), Pharoah did it himself again (in Exo 9:34).

Thus, we must understand divine hardening always as a judgment / punishment upon an ALREADY guilty party.

Lam 3:64-65, "Pay them what they DESERVE, O Lord...PUT A VEIL OVER THEIR HEARTS..."

Isa 63:9-17, "In God's love and mercy, He redeemed them...yet they REBELLED and GRIEVED God's Holy Spirit...so God turned and became their enemy...(then the people pleaded with God) Why, O Lord, do you make us wander from your ways and HARDEN OUR HEARTS so we do not revere you? Turn back for the sake of your servants, for the sake of the tribes that are your heritage"

(The Isaiah passage is a wonderful example of how we can be AWARE of our hardening as a punishment and even ASK God to change it!  See Glenn Miller’s write-up on ‘heart-hardening’, from which a lot of what you've seen and will see here has been borrowed)

God has every right to execute any MODE/METHOD of punishment He sees fit, including the 'encouraging' of the person's plunge to destruction i.e. 'hardening'. Yet we should remember that Pharoah's hardening was inflicted with much patience, repeated warnings, and even the opportunity to STOP the disasters AFTER they begun(!).

Furthermore…

Terence Fretheim offer this interesting analogy in relation to the hardening of Pharoah's heart:

We could understand Pharoah's situation as being inside a canoe going downstream towards a watery abyss. There are many signs showing that he is in danger (e.g. rising speed, more sprays of water, etc.). He now has a choice: he either jumps off the canoe and swim to safety, or stay his path and plunge into the canyon.

God's hardening can hence be understood as INCREASING THE SPEED of the river and RAISING THE IMPACT of the fall in the hope that Pharoah will come to his senses!

If Pharoah doesn't repent, then his destruction will both be expedited and more severe. However - and here's the beautiful part - the faster the stream becomes, the MORE Pharoah will NEED God to save himself! So God is here not solely concerned about Pharoah MERELY releasing the Israelites, but also that he will fall down at His feet and surrender his all to Him. A kind of intensification of 2Cor 7:9b-11, "For you became sorrowful as God intended...(for) godly sorrow brings repentance..."

Yet naturally there will be a point beyond which it'll be too late to repent...to 'swim for safety'...I shudder...

Summary of Rom 9:17-18:

Pharoah's case is the perfect link between unmerited compassion (expounded in 9:6-16) and deserved judgment (9:19 onwards), BOTH of which Israel experienced as the Chosen Race who failed God.

Rom 9:17-18a thus forms a grand summation of all that went before, as there are few better illustration of MERCY than that shown towards Pharoah, a wicked king who deserved to be wiped from the earth yet was granted so many opportunities to repent before God.

And Rom 9:18b hence kicks off the theme of judgment and the divine hardening of a guilty people, using again the example of Pharoah who persistently chose against God and so was judicially 'strengthened' towards his tragic end. Nevertheless the case still can be made that God still desired the repentance of Pharoah and His hardening was also directed towards this end.

OK, any questions? *grin*

(I'm still working on vs.19 and beyond.  In the meantime you may want to look a little deeper at the word 'harden' as well as our Reformed brethren's views on what we've been discussing.  Next piece: Is divine hardening 'proof' of total unconditional divine sovereignity/determinism? )
 


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