God Is Free To Be Just. Would You Not Agree?

I tend to be a visual person and love graphs and diagrams.  If we were to chart the argument of Paul thus far, I think it would look like this:

	He is free in mercy	Example: Moses	Example: Jacob	Example: Isaac	Example: Children of Promise
Main Answer to the Question, "Is God unjust in election?" No, God is free to do as He wants.
	He is free in hardening (or free to act judicially)	Example: Pharaoh	Example: Esau	Example: Ishmael	Example: Children of the Flesh

A difficult question has to do with this issue of the hardening of Pharaoh.  We needn't argue that God is "free" to do that, but we should ask about what all this really means.  First of all we notice that in the text there is an equivalence between God showing His power through Pharaoh and God hardening Pharaoh.  Note:

“For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.” (Romans 9:17–18, ESV)

Why do I know that God is essentially saying that He exalted Pharaoh in order to harden him.  Well note these two passages from the Old Testament account:

Exodus 4:21 (ESV), ²¹ And the Lord said 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.

Exodus 7:3–4 (ESV), ³ But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, ⁴ Pharaoh will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my hosts, my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment.

Now just as a note, there is often the response of skeptics to say, "Well yes, Pharaoh hardened his own heart and God just acted judicially in response to that."  As much as that attempt to make God seem unjust is a sincere intention that is not what the Bible says.  The Bible is clear that God hardened Pharaoh's heart and in fact He is just and free to do that.  What did that hardening result in?  It resulted in Pharaoh not listening to the voice of God. 

Now because we know that God is not the author of sin (2Chronicles 19:7), nor does He tempt men to sin (James 1:13), how does God harden a man's heart?  In the case of Israel, the prophet Isaiah records his appeal to God for Israel, “O Lord, why do you make us wander from your ways and harden our heart, so that we fear you not? Return for the sake of your servants, the tribes of your heritage.” (Isaiah 63:17, ESV).  That's a good question.  In the next chapter we seem to get a sense of how God hardened Israel's heart.  There we read, “There is no one who calls upon your name, who rouses himself to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have made us melt in the hand of our iniquities.” (Isaiah 64:7, ESV).

I think it is right to say that God hardens the heart of a man, not by what He does, but by what He doesn't do.  In the case of Israel God turned His face of grace away from them and left them in the consequence of their sin. The Reformation Study Bible affirms this notion: "When God “hardens” Pharaoh’s heart (v. 18), He does not create fresh evil in it, but gives Pharaoh over to his already evil desires as an act of judgment, resulting eventually in God’s display of “power” (v. 22) in the destruction of Pharaoh’s army (Ex. 14:17, 18, 23–28)."^[1]

When God is said to "harden" the heart of a person, He is acting in divine justice.  Paul has already stated in Romans 1 that God's justice on the unrepentant human race is that "God gave them up."[2] I suggest that this act of justice is also called in Scriptures as "God hardening."  The end result is that those to whom God does not show mercy, He extends justice and that justice is leaving man in his own sin and rebellion resulting in a hardened heart.

We are either objects of God's mercy, or objects of God's justice.  God is free to be merciful to whom He desires and free to be just to whom He desires.  He is not unjust in either case. This brings another objection.

_____________________________________________

Previous Blogs on this topic:

1	The Truth. The Whole Truth. And Nothing But The Truth	Romans 9:1-2
2	How They Have Fallen!	Romans 9:3-5
3	Proceeding From or Belong To. The Difference is Life and Death.	Romans 9:6–9
4	It's Not Who You Are or What You've Done.	Romans 9:6–13
5	"Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."	Romans 9:13
6	Is God Unjust?	Romans 9:14-16
7
8
9
10

---

^[1] Whitlock, L. G., Sproul, R. C., Waltke, B. K., & Silva, M. (1995). The Reformation study Bible: bringing the light of the Reformation to Scripture: New King James Version (Ro 9:14). Nashville: T. Nelson.

[2] “Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.” (Romans 1:24–28, ESV)