In connection with the plagues the Lord brought upon Egypt, it is evident from Exodus 7:1313And he hardened Pharaoh's heart, that he hearkened not unto them; as the Lord had said. (Exodus 7:13), as well as other scriptures that follow, that the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart. This fact is also referred to in Romans 9, where the question of God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility is taken up. In this chapter we read, concerning the Lord, “Whom He will He hardeneth” (Rom. 9:1818Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. (Romans 9:18)). Some will not allow that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart so that he could not let the people go only after Pharaoh had proved himself the inveterate enemy of God and His people. Rather, they insist that God hardened his heart arbitrarily before Pharaoh had displayed his wicked intentions to God’s people. We quote from one exponent of this teaching: “It is not judicial hardening ... but sovereign ‘hardening’ of a fallen, sinful creature for no other reason than ... the sovereign will of God.”
Judicial Hardening
But let us notice words which much better describe the situation: “The king of Egypt was a thoroughly selfish, cruel and profane man when God first sent him a message by Moses and Aaron. The effect of the summons on such a spirit was to bring out his blasphemy against Jehovah and more savage oppression of Israel. ... God made a most striking example of Pharaoh, not a mere exposure of his malice, but His own power on that background, so that His name might be thus told abroad in all the earth. Never does God make a man bad, but the bad man Pharaoh, made yet worse by his resistance of the most striking divine appeals, He made manifest, raised up as he was from among men to such a height that his downfall might tell on consciences far and wide throughout the world. Hard at first, God sealed him up at length in a judicial hardening. ... If it were true, as Calvin says, that those who perish were destined to destruction by the will of God, the case were hard indeed. But Scripture never really speaks thus, and the language of the texts usually cited in support of such a decree, when closely as well as fairly examined, invariably avoids such a thought, however near it may seem to approximate.”
Fitted to Destruction
Romans 9:22-23 have also been twisted to furnish support for a wrong view of God’s dealings: “What if God, willing to show His wrath, and to make His power known, endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had afore prepared unto glory.” These verses are used by some schools of opinion to declare that God prepared these vessels, some to destruction on the one hand and some to glory on the other. Again we quote from a strong exponent of this theory. “[The Apostle] intimates here that before they are born, they are destined to their lot.” This is to falsify what the Apostle said, for he did no such thing as is here alleged.
A careful examination of these verses will show that it is not said that God fitted such vessels to destruction, but that He prepared the vessels of mercy unto glory. To say more than is here said is to add to God’s Word. Furthermore, instead of saying that He prepared the vessels of wrath for destruction “before they were born,” it is said that He “endured with much long-suffering” these vessels — not a word about His preparing them, but about His forbearance with them.
Vessels of Wrath
We shall again quote from a more reliable author: “Sinful men thus living in enmity against God are here styled ‘vessels of wrath,’ on the one hand, as those who believe are designated ‘vessels of mercy’ on the other. ... But there is a shade of difference, as distinct as it is refined and profoundly true, which no reader should overlook. The vessels of wrath are said to be ‘fitted for destruction.’ But it is neither said nor implied here, or anywhere else, that God fitted them for it. They were fitted by their sins, and most of all by their unbelief and rebelliousness against God. But when we hear of the faithful, the phrase is altogether different: ‘Vessels of mercy, which He had afore prepared unto glory.’ The evil is man’s, and in no case is it of God; the good is His and not our own. God, not the saints, prepared the vessels of mercy for glory. More strictly, He prepared them beforehand with a view to glory. ... Thus, lost man will in the end be compelled to justify God and to take the entire blame on his own shoulders, who preferred to trust Satan as his friend and adviser rather than God, while the saved, however dwelling in bliss, will know and make known all as the riches of His glory, themselves debtors to His unfailing and unfathomable mercy.” And from the same writer: “To me I confess it looks like the blinding influence of falsehood when men overlook the difference of vessels of wrath fitted, on the one hand, to destruction and vessels of mercy which He, on the other hand, before made ready for glory.”
God Endures With Long-Suffering
We will quote from still another excellent source: “While it is true that Christians are ‘chosen in [Christ] before the foundation of the world’ (Eph. 1:44According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: (Ephesians 1:4)), it would never be right to say that lost sinners were in a parallel way elected to reprobation. ... In the case of the wicked, so far from being elected to eternal misery, we find that God endures them [while on earth]—vessels of wrath—with much long-suffering, fitted not by Him but by their own deeds for destruction. The word katartizo (Rom. 9:2222What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: (Romans 9:22)) means to correct, repair, mend; then in its participial form, fitted, prepared. The word does not suppose a decree of God, but a work of man.” Unregenerate man continues to say, “He fits the non-elect unto destruction by His foreordaining decrees.”
Pharaoh was a cruel despot long before Moses and Aaron were sent to him with a demand from God that he let Israel go. Even before Moses was born, a previous pharaoh had issued the decree that all the male children should be drowned in the Nile, and Moses was delivered from that fate by the providential intervention of God. Pharaoh was hardened in his cruel course of exterminating God’s chosen earthly people long before God began to work to deliver them from under his power. God might justly have cut him off in his sin against Him at that time, but He endured the wicked king and finally hardened his heart in His government so that Pharaoh rushed on headlong into the jaws of death in a way calculated to demonstrate God’s power.
Beware of Hardening
A young scoffer once accosted a faithful servant of Christ about God’s hardening Pharaoh’s heart, but he received a stern rebuke in the words, “Beware, young man, lest God harden your heart.” And in like manner, Christendom, which is largely rejecting God’s grace today, is going to be given a lie to believe, so that those who will not have the truth may perish (see 2 Thessalonians 9-12). “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb. 10:3131It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. (Hebrews 10:31)). God is patient and long-suffering, but when grace is despised, He will act in judgment. It is dangerous for one to resist the overtures of grace; he may then be blinded as his just desert.
P. Wilson (adapted)