Verse 18
This statement summarizes Paul’s point. In chapter 1 the apostle had spoken about the way God gives people over to their own evil desires as a form of punishment for their sins. This is how God hardens people’s hearts. In Pharaoh’s case we see this working out clearly. God was not unjust because He allowed the hardening process to continue. His justice demanded punishment. Similarly, a person may chose to drink poison or he may choose not to, but if he chooses to drink it, inevitable consequences will follow.
"Neither here nor anywhere else is God said to harden anyone who had not first hardened himself." [Note: Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans, p. 361.]
"God’s hardening, then, is an action that renders a person insensitive to God and his word and that, if not reversed, culminates in eternal damnation." [Note: Moo, p. 597.]
"God’s hardening does not, then, cause spiritual insensitivity to the things of God; it maintains people in the state of sin that already characterizes them." [Note: Ibid., p. 599. See also Dorian G. Coover Cox, "The Hardening of Pharaoh’s Heart in Its Literary and Cultural Contexts," Bibliotheca Sacra 163:651 (July-September 2006):292-311.]
". . . we say boldly, that a believer’s heart is not fully yielded to God until it accepts without question, and without demanding softening, this eighteenth verse." [Note: Newell, p. 369.]
Paul did not mention the fact that Pharaoh hardened his own heart, which Moses stated in Exodus. Paul’s point was simply that God can freely and justly extend mercy or not extend mercy to those who deserve His judgment.
"The reconciliation of God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility is beyond our power. The Bible states and emphasizes both, and then leaves them. We shall be wise if we do the same." [Note: Griffith Thomas, St. Paul’s Epistle . . ., p. 257. Cf. p. 266.]
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