Romans 9:18

18. Hardeneth It is surprising how anxiously the very commentators who teach that from all eternity God decreed the sin and hardening of Pharaoh endeavour to soften this word, and maintain that the hardening is by no direct act of God, but by indirect effect. Surely, if God may predestinate Pharaoh’s hardness, then he may as well produce it by a direct touch of his hand. A true view, in its proper place, of God’s clearness from the sin of the creature enables us to assert, in its proper place, the full force of the divine sentence upon the sinner. And when we consider that this hardening, being the opposite of showing mercy, is a judicial act, performed upon one already past probation, it impeaches not God’s perfect rectitude to suppose that he executes it, according to the words, by direct act. It may have been God’s turning the key of mercy’s door upon him who had, without God’s decree or concurrence, forever closed it against himself. It may have been confirmatorily glazing with God’s own finger the surface of that heart already callous by its own act. This is just as righteous as it is for God to bar the gates of hell upon the finally damned, or for Jesus to say, Depart, ye cursed, etc.

The Jew now understands of Paul that the hardened Pharaoh is but a type of his own hardening self. The condemnation of Israel, for whom Moses prayed in vain, the overthrow of Pharaoh, whom Moses warned in vain, are figures of his own downfall, for whom Paul weeps in vain. And all because Supreme Righteousness will have its own way. It next follows that,