“For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand. Today, if you would hear His voice, do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as in the day of Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers tested Me, They tried Me, though they had seen My work. For forty years I loathed that generation, and said they are a people who err in their heart, and they do not know My ways. Therefore I swore in My anger, Truly they shall not enter into My rest.”
People determine the disposition of their own heart. Rejecting the light of God’s revelation in repetitive fashion results in a calloused heart toward God. So when God speaks, the response of our own heart affects who we are moving forward. If we respond in obedience, we form a pattern of humility in our heart, while if we respond in disobedience, we form a pattern of stubbornness, and making it easier to repeat the similar behavior in the future. God warned Israel not to go down that path, presumably because if they did, then only total brokenness could restore them, and God’s intent for Israel was not punishment but blessings.
Relevant to Calvinism, the elect cannot harden their heart, due to an Irresistible Grace, while the non-elect cannot soften it, as they are subject to Total Inability and Unconditional Reprobation. So in Calvinism, how does this verse retain any meaning if it is relevant to no one?
What do Calvinists believe?
It makes no sense for God to claim He is the One who hardens hearts, as with Pharaoh, when in actuality, people harden their own heart. So either God hardens hearts or He does not. If He does, He does so for a reason: either to prevent action or prevent inaction. When God says He hardened Pharaoh’s heart to show His power, we have to believe His power would not be shown in the way He wanted it to be shown, if He had not hardened Pharaoh’s heart. [Editor’s Note: Many Calvinists would agree that both God and Pharaoh hardened Pharaoh’s heart. But they would see God as irresistibly causing Pharaoh to harden his own heart, but this is still subject to the author’s criticism.]
Our reply:
It is perfectly reasonable to say both that Pharaoh first hardened his own heart and then also God hardened it further, through the use of signs and wonders, in order to bring a certain matter to a conclusion. The only reason why an either/or scenario would be necessary is if one had already presupposed absolute divine determinism, in which the events of human history are all unilateral actions by God through an alleged immutable decree. Conversely, it would make no sense at all to say that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart if (a) Pharaoh was already born totally hardened, and (b) God is hardening someone whom He already determined, fixed and decreed their every last want, wish, thought and desire from womb to tomb.
Divine hardening is a contingent, judicial response by God, which takes those who are already rebellious, and uses a given situation to exacerbate their problem, in order to bring it to a conclusion. In terms of God’s hardening of Pharaoh, already his heart was not right with God, and God strengthened his resolve by allowing his magicians to mimic Moses’ miracles, and to ultimately believe that he was withstanding God until he was finally broken and conceded to God’s demand. So you have two independent free wills in action, where God works with people. The alternative is puppetry, which is perceived to be beneath God.
[This post has been excerpted with permission from Richard Coords, Calvinism Answered Verse by Verse and Subject by Subject, © 2024.]
