The total and complete sovereignty of God. It’s a ringing theme of Scripture. God rules over all. Nothing lies outside his control. He ordains (he establishes, he decrees) all that is – all that has been, all that is now, and all that will be.
God is sovereign over our salvation and our sin.
God is not responsible for my sin, I am. But he is sovereign over it. He rules supreme over my every act of rebellion against him.
God is responsible for my salvation, I am not. I can do nothing to save myself. God must do it all. Within his work to save, I act in faith, but even this faith is first his gift to me.
Those whom God saves he softens (Ezekiel 11:19; 36:26-27). He regenerates them to new life, with a new heart; a heart not only able, but also ready, willing, and wanting, to obey the Gospel. Those whom God judges – those whom he does not save – he hardens. He confirms them in their sinful, culpable rebellion, not giving them new eyes to see and believe Jesus.
For the purposes of this post, I’m going to intentionally leave aside the difficult question of why God chooses some to save (some to soften) and leaves others to calcify in rebellion. It’s a question ultimately hidden in the sovereign purpose of God himself. I may not understand that purpose in full, but I know it’s good because I know God is good. Instead, I want to focus for a few paragraphs on the “how” of hardening. How does God confirm someone in their sin, ultimately to their destruction in Hell? How does he harden someone in rebellion against him? It’s an important question, in part because the answer helps us again see human responsibility, or human culpability, for our hard-hearted sin, even as God himself is totally sovereign over that sin. In other words, studying how God hardens the sinner helps me, in some small measure, to understand the interface between God’s sovereignty and volitional human personhood. Understanding how God hardens a sinner in their sin helps me see that God is not unjust or capricious in confirming someone all the way to final damnation in Hell.
In order to understand this process of divinely wrought calcification, let’s turn our attention to the Bible’s most famous case of a sinner being hardened, Pharaoh. I mean here the pharaoh before whom Moses and Aaron appeared, demanding that he let God’s people go free from Egypt (see Exodus 5). In case you’re interested, I think it’s highly likely that the Pharaoh in question was Amenhotep II (see Expedition Bible video here). But, his specific identity isn’t Scripture’s concern. What is Scripture’s concern is the way God dealt with this proud, wicked human potentate.
In Exodus 4:21 (ESV), Yahweh says this to Moses: “When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go.” Notice I’ve underlined the word “all.” God wants to ensure that Pharaoh sees all his mighty miracles entrusted to Moses. He can’t miss even one…not one. Why? Because this full-spectrum revelation will leave Pharaoh totally and completely without excuse in his hard-hearted rebellion against God. God will harden Pharaoh’s heart by revelation, by progressively showing himself and his power to this wicked king. As Pharaoh rejects Yahweh, time-after-time, he will progressively confirm the rejection of God for which he is culpable, responsible, guilty. Even when the last straw falls and God kills all the firstborn of Egypt – human and “livestock” – even then Pharaoh’s acquiescence to God will only be temporary (Exodus 12:29, ESV). Even after a decisive, unmistakable revelation of God’s power and authority, Pharaoh will still turn and say: “What is this we have done, that we have let Israel go from serving us?” (Exodus 14:5, ESV). The point is this, God does not harden Pharaoh’s heart by hiding himself from Pharaoh, but rather through clear, compelling, and powerful revelation that Pharaoh rejects. Why does Pharaoh reject it? Because he’s a sinner. He loves his sin, and in his sovereign, righteous, good determination, God leaves Pharaoh to calcify in rebellion all the way to final damnation.
What happens to Pharaoh is instructive. It teaches us. As God worked with Pharaoh, so it is with every sinner who, in God’s sovereign purpose, does not repent. No one will ever stand before the throne of God for judgment and justly charge God with injustice for leaving them ignorant of his glory and goodness. Every sinner will finally be damned based on their knowledgeable rejection of God who reveals himself. Consider Romans 1:18-21 (ESV):
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.”
God does not hide himself; he reveals himself. The more God reveals himself for rejection by a sinner, the more confirmed that sinner is in their rebellion; the more calcified their dead, stony heart becomes – stage-by-stage, step-by-step, layer-by-layer. It’s frightening, horrific, tragic. Increased hardness comes with the rejection of increased, and increasingly clear, revelation. Notice what happens in Revelation 16:9, as the clear and compelling wrath of God works itself out on earth. Notice how people respond to the judging discipline of God: “…they cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues. They did not repent and give him glory.” Horrific hard-heartedness!
Dear reader, where has God revealed himself to you? How has he shown you his goodness and glory? Don’t reject the revelation! Receive it unto salvation, through faith in Jesus Christ as God the Son who died on a cross to save you from the power of sin, and from the wrath of God. May your heart not be calcified but softened.
Fix Your Mind 