Exodus 4:21

THE JUDICIAL HARDENING OF PHARAOH

"And Jehovah said unto Moses, When thou goest back into Egypt, see that thou do before Pharaoh all the wonders which I have put in thy hand: but I will harden his heart, and he will not let the people go."

The big thing in this verse is the simple declaration on the part of God that, "I will harden his heart." We may be sure that God still hardens the hearts of willful and impenitent sinners. The phenomenon mentioned here is repeatedly referred to in the Bible, and has already happened on three different occasions to the entire race of Adam. In understanding the status of mankind at the present time with reference to his relation to God, hardly anything could be more important than a proper understanding of what is meant by hardening.

1. In the case of Pharaoh. This may be viewed as a pilot case, showing exactly the manner of its occurrence. "Ten times it is stated of Pharaoh, in a great variety of forms of expression that he hardened his own heart."[26] "The hardening of Pharaoh's heart was due to his own obstinancy in refusing to yield to the warnings he received ... The Easterner means the same thing when he says that God hardened his heart."[27] Nevertheless, there is more involved here than some other way of describing it." `He will not' leads inevitably to `he cannot.'"[28] Stubborn and willful sin inevitably leads to God's judgmental action against the sinner, not upon some distant day of judgment, but in the sinner's lifetime. "God hardens his heart." Such sinners are penalized. "Their senseless hearts are darkened" (Romans 1:21). "God gives them up!" (Romans 1:24,26,28). This is called judicial hardening. (We have often addressed this problem in our series. See my commentary on Romans at Romans 1:28,32; 11:7. Also see my comments at Genesis 6:5).
   
2. In the case of all disobedient hearers of the Gospel, the same phenomenon occurs continually. The Gospel is an aroma of life unto life in them that are saved, and an aroma of death unto death in them that perish (1 Corinthians 2:15,16). The same Gospel both kills and makes alive. The difference? That is solely in the reactions of men themselves to its eternal truth. It is the same thing, hardening, when God sends strong delusions upon those who do not love the truth (2 Thessalonians 2:10-12).
   
3. What actually happens in the life of the hardened? Does God cause them to sin? The answer must be, NO! God causes no man to sin. The hardening stops short of causing sinners to sin, but there is a God-visited judgment that destroys that higher sensitivity in men's minds with which all are endowed. The destruction of that higher center of intelligence, the spiritual thymus, if we may call it that, is deadened, darkened, hardened, rendered ineffective, thus removing all restraint. Another result is that the hardened cannot either understand or appreciate spiritual truth. Such persons may be great scholars, great intellectuals, holders of high office, and/or possessors of great power, but the bloom has been plucked out of their brains by God Himself, and such are doomed to walk in darkness. Of these, are "the blind ... leaders of the blind."
   
4. That the same righteous and loving power of God should save some and harden others has never been difficult to understand. The ancient statement credited to Theodoret was that, "The same sun moistens the wax and hardens the clay." The difference is in the substances themselves.
   
5. One of the great inferences to be drawn from this phenomenon is that all sin, unless checked and repented of, leads at last to a "point of no return," the point of hardening. Balaam could not turn back, he had already gone too far. Judas was commanded by the Lord, "What thou doest, do quickly." Pharaoh apparently, in his admission of sin, entertained thoughts of turning back from his stubborn course, but he could not. The whole antediluvian world experienced such a condition, for which reason God destroyed them.