Q: What does it mean when it says
in Exodus that “God hardened Pharaoh’s heart”?
If God is loving and wants all people to be saved, why would He do that?
The idea of a “hardened heart” is
occasionally found throughout the Bible.
When the Bible speaks of a person’s heart being hardened, it means that
a person persistently resists God when he reaches out to them through Jesus,
the Prophets, or the Apostles, as if their heart had a hard wall around
it. Over half of the instances of this
wording are within or in reference to the events between Moses and Pharaoh in
Exodus, and the remaining instances of this wording primarily speak of a person
hardening their own heart against God or warn the reader not to harden their
hearts against God.
The Bible does say in that “[God]
wants all people to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.” (1 Timothy
2:4), but that God would also harden a person’s heart against Him is not a
contradiction. Other Old Testament books
comment on God’s hardening if Pharaoh’s heart, and clarify what happened. Samuel points out that Pharaoh actively
hardened his own heart against God (1 Samuel 6:6), and Joshua points out that
the purpose for which God did this was so that He could save the people of
Israel (Joshua 11:20). Jesus also talks
about God hardening the Pharisees’ hearts when they come against Him (John
12:40).
Two Biblical truths are important to
remember when trying to understand why God would harden a person’s heart
against Him. First, if anyone is saved,
God always gets all the credit.
Second. If anyone is lost and
condemned, they themselves always bear all of the blame. In the Bible, God desires to save everyone,
but some reject Him. Sometimes people
fear that God might decide to harden their hearts against Him and they will be
lost, but it is not necessary to be afraid of this. God never hardens the heart of those who
believe in Him or average unbelievers in the Bible, and it is never done
randomly or spitefully.
The Bible only attributes this action
to God on very rare occasions, and in every instance of a heart being hardened
in the Bible, it occurs to achieve some greater good. Pharaoh is hardened so that God can defeat
Him and save the people of Israel, who will later give birth to Jesus. The Pharisees are hardened against Jesus so
that they can have Him crucified to suffer punishment for the world’s
sins. Additionally, whenever someone in
the Bible is hardened against God, it is always a person who has heard God’s
message and seen God’s works, and persistently rejected Him. God is simply allowing them to have what they
already desire by allowing them to reject Him.
Jesus says in John 6:40, “For this is the will of my
Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have
eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day." God’s will for the events of
world history is to save as many people as possible, by all means
necessary. God knows all things, even
those which have not yet happened. Since
He knows that Pharaoh will continue reject Him, He can graciously use his
opposition, and even Pharaoh’s death, for His glory and to bring about the
salvation of others by freeing the Israelites from slavery and even brought
some of the Egyptians to trust in Him when they witnessed these events. Even when God executes His wrath on an
individual, he is doing so for the greater purpose of saving a multitude of
others.
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