Hardening Pharaoh’s Heart
Romans 9:17-24
We are in
Romans, chapter 9.Tonight we get into one of those great little tough
conundrums on the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. So hopefully tonight I will be
able to shed a little light and not too much darkness on understanding how
God’s sovereignty works in terms of human history. We’ll specifically be
looking at Romans 9:17-24 but we’ll start with a little review because it’s
important to understand the context.
Context is one
of the most important aspects of Biblical interpretation. It’s often easy when
we walk up into a conversation and interrupt in the middle or we just overhear
a conversation to misunderstand what someone might be saying simply because we
haven’t heard the whole conversation. We don’t know precisely what they’re
discussing or what they’re saying. I’ve had situations where I was quoting
somebody and I had someone walk up and think that what I was saying was
expressing my opinion instead of that I was quoting someone else. So context is
very important in order to understand anything we hear or that we read. It’s
the literary version of the real estate adage, location, location, location.
We have to
understand what the context is. Context affects words a lot. What a word means
is often more determined by its context than just simply going to the
dictionary. Often we think of certain words having certain set meanings but
those meanings can change or vary according to the context. In a broad sense
you have some words that are used in poetry and they have a broader use, more a
figure of speech use than if they’re used in technical, legal, or historical
literature. So context is important and one way that we often misinterpret
scripture is that we don’t understand the audience so we think what is being
said has something to do with justification and salvation rather than
sanctification.
Many times in
the Gospels when Jesus gives various commands related to sanctification, such
as “take up your cross daily and follow me” people have taken that to refer to
something related to salvation rather than sanctification. It’s very clear from
passages in scripture like Ephesians 2:8-9 that we’re not saved by works or by
doing these thing. Mandates in the Word relating to discipleship are not
related to becoming saved. Becoming a disciple wasn’t the same thing as
becoming saved. So Ephesians 2:8-9 says we’re saved “through grace, by faith,
and not of ourselves [not of works] lest any man should boast.” Titus 2:5 says,
“It’s not by works of righteousness we have done but according to His mercy He
saved us by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit.”
So when we look at passages like that we see that salvation is by grace,
through faith, and works are completely excluded in those passages.
Another thing
we see is that “saved” in used in those passages to relate to phase one
salvation. The word “saved” or “salvation” in those contexts relates to getting
or acquiring eternal life. However when you get into Romans the technical term
that Paul uses for phase one is justification. When we acquire eternal life
then that is justification. When we receive the imputation of Christ’s
righteousness then that is justification. In Romans most of the time salvation
and the word group related to the Greek word sozo has to do with
either sanctification or in certain cases, physical deliverance. But there’s no
place in Romans where the word group for sozo relates to
justification so you have to pay attention to context. If you take that word
group in Romans for “saved” and try to assign to it the same meaning you have
in Ephesians 2:8-9 then you’re going to go off track in terms of interpreting
the particular passage.
In a similar
way it’s easy to not only impose a word meaning from one passage to another passage
but also it’s wrong to take a theological system and read it into the text.
This often happens in Romans 9, as I’ve pointed out. When we first started with
Romans 9 I spent quite a bit of time talking about replacement theology and
covenant theology because they come with an assumption, a presupposition, that
Israel has been totally set aside by God and His plan and if they’re really
into full Covenant theology they’re either amillennial or post-millennial so
they don’t believe in a future, literal Messianic kingdom. This influences
their interpretation of Romans 9 so Romans 9 to them is not something that is
talking about God’s plan for Israel as a nation.
They often
interpret the term “Israel” as referring to a spiritual Israel saying that the
church is now spiritual Israel. Ultimately everything gets reduced to covenant
theology, to something related to soteriology. This is part of their scope for
how they interpret history, that history is the history of redemption and the
working out of God’s covenant of grace. So everything is organized around this
principle of salvation so they’re reading salvation into the context. As I
pointed out last week as we get into the context of Romans 9 it’s not a defense
of God’s sovereignty in electing or choosing some people for salvation and
sending other people to eternal condemnation. Justification salvation isn’t
anywhere in this context. It’s talking about God’s choice of Israel and the
descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob for a specific purpose in history; and
that it’s through Abraham, on the basis of the Abrahamic covenant that God is
going to bless all of the nations. The focus is not on individuals or
individual salvation as you saw in the passage dealing with Esau and Jacob in
verse 13. “Jacob I have loved but Esau I’ve hated.” We saw that’s not talking
about individuals but they represented nations just as God had indicated in the
original passage in Genesis.
With that in
mind we got into the next section dealing with this question that is raised, as
we talked about the sovereignty of God and His decisions in human history, that
someone might object to it and say, “Well, is there unrighteousness in God?”
Paul’s response at the end of verse 14 is a very strong denial in the Greek, me genoito, which means no,
not at all, absolutely not!
Then he gives
two illustrations of God’s right to choose how He will oversee history. That’s
the focal point here, how God’s going to work out His plan for Israel within
history. That’s been the context up through verse 13 and it’s still the
context. It doesn’t change. So when we get down into some of these more
difficult passages such as the reference to the potter and the clay in verse 21
again it’s not discussing God’s choice or selection of some people for
salvation and some people for eternal condemnation. That’s not in the passage
anywhere. It doesn’t fit the context.
Last time we
looked at Romans 9:15 where Paul illustrates with his first example from
history in Exodus, and the birth of the Jewish nation. The birth begins with
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in Genesis, chapter 12. The birth of the Jewish
people begins in the Exodus event as He redeems them from slavery in Egypt. In
Romans 9:15 Paul said, “For He [God] says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I
have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” Now if we
just take that out of context it looks like Paul is saying that God can just willy nilly, arbitrarily select
whomever He’s going to be good to and who He’s going to have judgment on and that
just depends on God’s arbitrary will.
I showed
that if we look at the context of that statement back in Exodus, because it’s a
quote of the second half of Exodus 33:19, we discovered that it’s a very
important context. I just wanted to remind you of that because this is not the
easy stuff of Scripture. This is the steak, the really meatier parts of
Scripture. It’s harder for some people to understand and comprehend. Often the
way words are translated into English causes us problems. The English words chosen
have been used traditionally since the time of the Reformation and they sort of
frontloaded our theology a little bit. They might not be the best words to use
so we have to work our way through this.
In Exodus 33
where we saw the context was where Moses was up on the mountain getting the
tablets of the Law and they hear the sound of a party going on down below and
what’s happened is that the people have talked Aaron into making an idol, a
golden calf. They’re worshipping the golden calf and basically having an orgy.
God threatens to completely destroy and wipe out all of the Israelites except
for Moses and raise up a new nation through Moses.
This is really
a test of Moses, just as God has tested Abraham and God has tested Job, to see
if Moses is truly humble and really understands God’s plan. Moses does. He
passes the test with flying colors and he intercedes for the nation. He
intercedes by arguing a couple of different ways as we saw last time. One of
those ways is that he argues to God that it is bad for His reputation, and
number two, it’s violating the covenant he made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
So on that basis Moses asks God not to destroy the people. God relents. He’s
not going to destroy the people but as a result of their disobedience, God is
still going to bring divine discipline. There has to be consequences for sin in
this situation so there’s judgment upon those rebels in the camp that is
brought about by Moses and the Levites.
Another part of
the consequences of that, though, is that God is going to come along and He is
going to remove Himself from their midst as we saw in Exodus 33:5, “For the
Lord had said to Moses, “Say to the sons of Israel, You are an obstinate
people; should I go up in your midst for one moment, I would destroy you.” God
in His righteousness would bring judgment upon the whole nation so God says
that He’s going to remove Himself from their presence and not lead them.
Well at this
point Moses continues to intercede with Him. Moses is concerned about the people.
This is seen in the plural pronouns which Moses uses
when he talks to God. And God, on the other hand, is speaking about how He’s
going to bless Moses. Moses asks God in verse 13,”Now therefore I pray You, if
I have found favor in Your sight, let me know Your ways that I may know You so
that I may find favor in Your sight. Consider too, that this nation is Your
people.” In other words he’s asking God to relent even of this complete removal
from the people to demonstrate by His presence that these people are indeed
God’s chosen people and God has selected them for His purpose in history.
God answers
Moses, “My presence shall go with you, and I will give you rest.” But God
tells Moses that there are consequences for the people’s actions so He’s going
to scale back in His presence. Now he’ll just be in the tabernacle and leading
them through the cloud and the pillar of fire. God is making it plain that He
is going to give Moses blessing, an additional grace blessing that shows favor
to Moses, and the response is that “If Your presence does not go with us, do
not lead us up from here.”
Moses is
continuing to plead that God’s presence needs to be with the people. His reason
is given in verse 16, “For how then can it be known that I have found favor in
your sight, I and Your people? Is it not by Your going with us, so that we, I
and Your people, may be distinguished from all the other people who are upon
the face of the earth?” In verse 18 he pleads with God to show him His glory.
God’s response is, “I will make all My goodness pass before you…” God is going
to give this special blessing where God as an individual is showing Himself to
Moses. He is showing His glory to Moses alone. He’s going to pass by. This is a
blessing that is restricted only to Moses so the statement that God makes at
the end of the verse, “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will
show compassion on whom I will show compassion.”
This is
basically a statement where God is saying to Moses, “I have a plan. That plan
will be executed the way I want to execute it, at the time I want to execute
it, and in the manner I want to execute it. Your idea of how it should be
executed isn’t going to work. I’m going to do it My way. I have the right to
reserve that and how I will do that. I choose how I am going to display Myself
and how I am going to choose to be gracious to you and pass before you and
reveal myself to you, not to all the people in this particular way.”
So the point we
see here is that God is the One who reserves the right to determine what He
does and how He does it and the right to display His grace when, where, and how
he sees fit. So he reserves that right. But he’s not talking about individual
salvation. Moses is already saved. This has nothing to do with salvation but
how God is going to display His grace in terms of His plan for Israel.
Here is a
summary of what we see here: First of all, the issue did not involve
individuals but the role of the nation. No one’s eternal salvation was at stake.
It’s not talking about individual justification. The second thing, what was at
stake was the destiny of Israel and God’s plan and purpose for the nation and
how God was going to manifest His blessing for the nation. Third, what we see
Paul doing is that he’s arguing that God’s plan for Israel would not be shaped
by what Moses wanted but by God’s omniscient will. In Calvinism everything gets
washed in the grid of God’s sovereignty but we know from passages like 1 Peter
1:2 that we’re “elect according to the foreknowledge of God.” God’s omniscience
plays a role in the decisions that He makes and part of His omniscience
involves an understanding of our volition and the fact that He knows all the
knowable and all that could take place and He makes His plan accordingly.
Fourth, in the
same way Paul uses the example of Pharaoh to show that God’s plan for Israel
was not to be shaped by the opposition of Pharaoh but by God’s plan. So on the
one hand, he’s showing Moses who’s good, who walks with the Lord, who gets this
intimate blessing from the Lord but that doesn’t shape God’s plan. It’s not
based on his decision and his will. Neither is it on the basis of the negative
side like Pharaoh.
So we’re going
to look at this illustration from Pharaoh. Paul is not saying in this passage,
as some suggest, that God can do whatever He likes: whether it’s going to be
saving some and condemning others since everyone deserves hell anyway. That’s
sort of a Calvinistic, deterministic interpretation of this passage that God
just has the right to do whatever He wants to. Paul is saying something like
this. Let me sort of paraphrase this whole discussion. Certainly there is no
unrighteousness with God. Moses found it difficult to see why the Lord was
acting to judge Israel the way He did and he pleaded with God to show grace to
Israel. The Lord’s response was that only He knew the best way to distribute
His grace to Israel. Moses’ ideas were not the issue. Moses’ behavior was not
the issue because Moses didn’t know all the details. Only God knew all the
details and facts and what the overall strategy needed to be.
Paul is saying
that if one objects to the way God is dealing with Israel in history in terms
of their rejection of the Messiah, this only shows a misunderstanding of the
principles on which God works. God’s dealings with Israel at the time of the
exodus were not determined by Israel’s merits or holiness because they were
quite disobedient. God blessed them according to His own plan and His own
character. Even Moses’ own righteousness did not enable him to direct God’s
plan. God worked out His plan on the basis of His own omniscience, His own
righteousness, His own justice, and His sovereign authority. So this is why we
read in Romans 9:15, “For He [God] says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I
will have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.”
That relates to the demonstration of God’s grace in terms of His plan and
purposes for Israel. Then in Romans 9:16 he says, “So it does not depend on the
man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.”
When we get
into this next section starting in verse 17 the focus is going to be on
Pharaoh: “For the scripture says to Pharaoh, For this very purpose I raised you
up to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed
throughout the whole earth.” Now it’s easy to see why people would read into
this some sort of salvation determination, that God is predetermining what
Pharaoh’s salvation will be but salvation isn’t entering into the passage at
all. There are a couple of things we have to remember as we start in on this.
First of all, Pharaoh is already immersed in idolatry. He has already chosen to
believe completely and immerse himself in the entire idolatrous system of Egypt.
How does Paul
describe this whole mechanic of getting involved in idolatry? We go back to
Romans, chapter 1. Think about this in terms of the Pharaoh. Verse 20, “Since
the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and
divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been
made, so that they’re without excuse.” The Pharaoh has clearly seen God’s
invisible attributes so he is without excuse. In verse 21 let’s just put the
Pharaoh in here, “For even though the Pharaoh knew God, he did not honor Him as
God or give thanks, but he became futile in his speculations, and his foolish
heart was darkened.” See that’s what’s happening with unbelievers. He’s
darkening his heart. It’s getting locked into negative volition because he’s
rejected God and in the place of God he’s worshipping the creation, rather than
the creator.
Romans 1:22
goes on to say, “Professing to be wise, he became a fool and exchanged the
glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and
of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.” This description in
Romans 1 describes the introduction of idolatry in human history and
specifically can be applied in terms of Pharaoh’s own personal relationship to
God. He’s rejected God. He’s worshipping the creation. “Therefore, God gave him
over in the lusts of his hearts to impurity.” God allows them to follow the
determination of his own volition. He and others have chosen to reject God and
to follow the path of idolatry so God releases them to continue to go in that
direction.
So when we get
to the passage related to Pharaoh, we see that this is just an expression that
God is intensifying a decision and he’s sort of strengthening Pharaoh in his
conviction on that decision but it’s a decision that Pharaoh has already come
to on his own. God is not making him reject God. God is not forcing his will
against God. God is just strengthening a decision that Pharaoh has already made
on his own. So we look at the passage in Romans 9:17. We see that it is a
quotation from Exodus 9:16 which states where God is speaking to Pharaoh, “But
indeed, for this reason I have allowed you to remain, in order to show you My
power and in order to proclaim My name through all the earth.”
This isn’t a
statement related to his individual soteriological decision. The context of
that is the seventh plague. One of the problems we have is the word that is
chosen traditionally, probably going back to William Tyndale. So much of the
language that’s used even in the King James Version was originally words chosen
by William Tyndale in his translation of the Old Testament and New Testament
earlier on in the 16th century. Some of these words have become very
much solidified in English translations so that despite later developments in
our understanding of language it’s difficult to change the translations.
Unfortunately
translations have become a business. I had a professor at Dallas Seminary, a
Hebrew professor, who was very much involved in the New International Version.
It’s not one I’m real fond of and often I refer to it as more of a commentary
than it is a translation. He used to comment several times that they would meet
in committee and that each person was assigned a text to translate. Then they would
come back and argue and debate their translations until finally it would go to
a couple of committees. Then a final reading would be determined. He would
often say, “You know, this translation is the word of God by a vote of five to
four.” Many times that ought to go in the margins.
Unfortunately,
because there’s a tradition to translate these passages as “hardening Pharaoh’s
heart” that’s the translation that stuck. That’s how we find it. It’s become
the traditional way but that’s not the best way to translate it. If God had
subverted Pharaoh’s individual volition and God is making him do it, then how
could God turn around and say it was Pharaoh’s fault that he was the one who
refuses to let His people go? The fact that God says this is a big insight in
the fact that it is ultimately Pharaoh that is making this decision. He is
hostile to God’s people, to Israel. So as we look at all of the hardening of
the heart verses in Exodus, it’s easy to see how the Calvinists or the
determinists’ interpretation of the “hardening of the heart” is arrived at. But
we need to observe other passages of Scripture. First, they indicate that
Pharaoh has already set his volition in a direction hostile to God and to God’s
people, Israel. Pharaoh has already made that decision before God does
anything. Second, in God’s commission to Moses in Exodus 3 God states that He
knows Pharaoh will not let His people go. In Exodus 3:19, God says to Moses,
“But I know that the king of Egypt will not permit you to go, except under
compulsion.” So God in His omniscience knows that Pharaoh has already made a
decision and that he had already set his heart and he’s not going to let his
entire workforce, basically, leave the country.
Third, the
issue in the Romans argument when we look at the context is that neither Moses
in his righteousness nor Pharaoh in his obstinacy has the right to set God’s
agenda for how He’s going to deal with His people. God’s plan for Israel is
determined by God’s sovereignty. It’s not a plan related to individual justification.
The fourth point we see is that Pharaoh’s hardened heart is related to his own
animosity and hostility toward the Israelites. It’s based on his own volition.
Now the fifth
point, I want to look into the fact that there are actually three different
words that are used in Hebrew that are translated as “hardened.” It’s important
to look at these words. The first word and the most common word that is used is
the Hebrew word “chazaq”.
Without the vowel points it’s just “chzq”. It’s in the piel, which is an
intensified stem. It means to be strong, to become strong, to strengthen, to
prevail, to harden, to be courageous, and to be severe or sore from the Old
King James. Other than the hardening passages where chazaq is almost always translated as
hardening.
Other than that
the most common translation for this word has to do with strengthening or
encouraging or urging someone. Look at Exodus 12 and I’ll show you an example
of this. In Exodus 12:33 we have a similar use of the word chazaq. We’ll start reading in
verse 31, “Then he called for Moses and Aaron at night and said, ‘Rise up, get
out from among my people, with you and the sons of Israel and go, worship the
Lord as you have said. Take both your flocks and your herds, as you have said,
and go, and bless me also.’” This is after the death of the firstborn when
Pharaoh is finally saying, “Just leave. Get out of the kingdom. Leave Egypt.”
Not only does Pharaoh tell them to go, look at verse 33, “The Egyptians urged
the people to send them out of the land in haste, for they said, ‘We will all
be dead.’”
“Urged” here is
chazaq,
which is translated urged or encouraged the people to go. Not hardened them. It
means to encourage. If you were to take all of these passages where God
“hardened Pharaoh’s heart” and translate it “God encouraged or urged Pharaoh’s
heart”. You get a totally different sense here. It’s not as though God is
fixing or locking in Pharaoh’s volition. He is strengthening it, something
that’s already been decided. He’s urging and encouraging him to continue in a
course of action he’s already set his heart on.
So Exodus 12:33
gives us a good look at that word in a similar context right where we are in
Exodus. That makes a lot of sense. We can look at a lot of other passages like Exodus
4:21, “And the Lord said to Moses, ‘When you go back to Egypt see that you
perform before Pharaoh all the wonders which I have put in your power but I
will strengthen [not harden] his heart so that he will not let the people go.’”
And then Exodus 7:13, “Yet Pharaoh’s heart was strengthened or became stubborn
or became obstinate or did not heed…” This is the idea we have as we go through
these verses. There are thirteen times this word is used as hardening, or
strengthening, or encouraging Pharaoh’s heart.
Now the next
word that is used is kaved,
which literally means to be heavy or to be severe. It is a word in another noun
form, which means glory, such as the glory of God. This has to do with the
seriousness, the significance, the heaviness, the weightiness
of something. Its literal meaning is something that is heavy, something that is
harsh, and something that is difficult. It’s used one time as a noun related to
Pharaoh’s heart and six times as a verb. In Exodus 7:14, “Then the Lord said to
Moses, “Pharaoh’s heart is stubborn, he refuses to let the people go.” You
could say his heart was focused in a negative way. It’s used six times where
it’s translated as the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, such as in Exodus 8:32,
Exodus 9:7 and three or four other verses.
The third word
is qashh
in the hipiel stem, which is a causative stem in the
Hebrew. It means to make something hard. It’s used two times in relation to
this. In Exodus 7:3 God says, “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart and multiply my
signs and wonders in the land of Egypt.” In Exodus 12:15 it’s translated
stubborn there. So that’s interesting in one passage it’s translated as
stubborn indicating that it’s his volition. So what’s the bottom line in all of
this? When we look at the passage and the overall view of Scripture we see that
Pharaoh, as an idolater, had already made a decision against God. At the point
of God consciousness he had rejected God and he had become more and more immersed
in the idolatry of the Egyptian religious system. He made a decision against
God not to release the Israelites. That was his decision but God strengthened
him because in doing so God could bring about several objectives that He wanted
to use as a teaching illustration and as evidence of His own glory.
Number one, God
wanted to demonstrate that Israel should clearly understand who it was who
delivered them. This is seen in Exodus 6:6-7, Exodus 10:2, Exodus 13:14-15. God
wanted Israel to clearly see that this wasn’t just something that happened by
chance, that this wasn’t something where they were involved or made possible
but that God brought about a tremendous miracle. They needed to understand that
it was God, and God alone, who delivered them from slavery in Egypt.
The second
reason God did it this way was because it brought about a spoiling of the
Egyptians. The Israelites had been slaves for almost four hundred years and so
what happens when the Egyptians finally release them, the Egyptians want to give
them all of their treasured possessions, gold, silver, and jewels. They give
them all this and it was payback essentially for all the years of their labor.
All of this wealth that was transferred to the Jews would help sustain them and
establish them in the future but it would also provide for all the gold and
silver needed for the tabernacle.
Third, God did
it in this way in order to demonstrate who He was to the Egyptians. He wanted
to demonstrate His omnipotence. He wanted to show that the Egyptian system of
idolatry was completely false and that God was superior to all the gods and
goddesses in the Egyptian pantheon. This is seen in Exodus 7:3-4, Exodus 11:9,
Exodus 14:4 and Exodus 14:17-18. To recap, the first reason was that Israel
would clearly understand that God was the one who had delivered them in Exodus
6:6-7, Exodus 10:2, Exodus 13-14-15. Make sure you have those passages. Second,
that they would have these valuable possessions to take away from Egypt in
Exodus 3:21-22 and that God would multiply His signs and third, demonstrate His
power and His ability to the Egyptians, and fourth, that God’s name would be
declared not only in Egypt but also in the whole earth. That this would be a
testimony and it was.
Remember, later
on when we get to Joshua and the two spies go into Jericho? They are hidden by
Rahab because Rahab has heard all the stories about the exodus and how God
brought the Jews out of Egypt. That testimony of what God did had spread all
throughout the world so God’s reputation impacted the whole world. So the
conclusion in this is, that therefore God has mercy on whom He wills, which was
the illustration from Moses, and whom He wills, He hardens, which is Pharaoh.
So God is doing
this relation to His plan and purpose for Israel. The word for “hardened”
translated in Romans 9:18 is just a word that either means to be hardened or to
make stubborn or obstinate. So God is just intensifying that that was already
there. Back in Romans 9 Paul goes back to the objector. He knows this sounds
like this is just an arbitrary God. So he says, “Indeed who are you, O man who
answers back to God?” Remember he’s talking here about God’s purposes for
Israel in history. “The thing molded will not say to the molder ‘Why did you
make me like this?” Does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make
from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?”
This is an
illusion to the Old Testament in Jeremiah 18:8 and this has to do again with
God’s shaping the nation’s destiny. It does not have to do with individual
volition in relation to individual salvation. So he uses the illustration in
Jeremiah 18 about the potter shaping the clay. He states that as God has the
authority over creation to set His plan and purposes in motion and to select
one nation for one purpose and another nation for another purpose, just as the
potter has the right to shape a lump of clay for one purpose or another.
So he then
raises the question in verse 22, “What if God, although willing to demonstrate
His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience [long
suffering] the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?” The endurance with
much patience, or long suffering indicates that God is giving them time
individually to respond to the non-verbal or general revelation in creation and
whatever special revelation they might have, even though they might be within a
nation that is doomed to judgment. And that ultimately all of this is designed
for God to make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy which He
had prepared beforehand for glory.
Here, he’s
again not talking about individuals or salvation but about God’s plan now
shifting from Israel to the gentiles in terms of the church. He says in verse
24, “Even us whom He also called, not from among Jews, but also from among
gentiles.” Who are the “called”? Well, that takes us back to our study from
Romans 8:28, “We know that things work together for good to those who love God,
to those who are the called according to His purpose.” This is a term that is
used to refer to those who had responded to the gospel message, who had
believed on Christ. Those who had believed on Christ, not only the Jews but
also the gentiles, were blending together to form a new people of God, not to replace
Israel, but because Israel had rejected their Messiah. Now at this point we get
into a couple of different verses in Hosea 2:23 and Hosea 1:10 and then
starting in verses 17 and 28 we have a quotation from Isaiah 10 and Isaiah 28.
I want to get into the original context of both of these passages so I want to
wait until next time. I kind of went into that part on the hardening of the
heart a little faster than I thought I would. I will deal with these passages
next week when we can take some time and go back and investigate them more
fully.