Hardening Pharaoh's heart: God's influence on our free will

In response to our 90-Day Challenge to the read the whole Bible, we had some great questions on Monday night. What does it mean that "God hardened Pharaoh's heart"?  Does God sometimes override our free will for his own purpose? And if so, is it really free will?

But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, Pharaoh will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my hosts, my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment.

Ex 7:3–4, ESV

The Problem

This passage, and the twenty other references to Pharaoh's hard heart in the following chapters, have long been concerning to critics, and even some believers.  It seems to imply that God will force the king of Egypt to make a sinful decision, and then punish him for it -- ultimately killing him and his whole army in the sea.  If so, this is the height of injustice; even more disturbing, it would mean that God can revoke our free will at any time -- which really is no free will at all.

Who hardens his heart?

Joel's answer on Monday is a good place to start: it's vital to note that Pharaoh first hardens his own heart.  The first place we see any reference to hardening is Exod 4:21; but in this verse, God only tells Moses what is going to happen, at some point in the future.  The first time we see Pharaoh's heart actually hardening, he does it on his own, with no help from God.  And in fact, he does six times in a row!

From the Bible Knowledge Commentary:

...in the next seven references Pharaoh is said to have hardened his own heart (Exod 7:13-14, 22; 8:15, 19, 32; 9:7) before God is said to have hardened it (Exod 9:12; 10:1, 20, 27; 11:10; 14:4, 8). God’s first hardening came after the sixth plague. Pharaoh hardened his own heart six times by his refusals. Then later he hardened it again in response to the seventh plague, and God hardened his heart after each of plagues 8-10.

As a side note, it's significant that there are seven references in each case; numbers often (but not always) have symbolic meaning in the Bible, and seven is the number of fullness.  Pharaoh is fully committed to harden his own heart, apart from any action that God takes.

"Strengthen"

But does the fact that God also "hardens" his heart take away from Pharaoh's free will? I don't think so.  If you look at the translator's note on 4:21 in the NET Bible, you'll find an important insight to the word usually translated "hardened":

tn Heb “strengthen” (in the sense of making stubborn or obstinate). The text has the expression (va’ani ’akhazzeq ’et-libbo), “I will make strong his will,” or “I will strengthen his resolve,” recognizing the “heart” as the location of decision making (see Prov 16:1, 9).

This implies that God is making stronger the intent that Pharaoh already had in his heart; rather than making the choice for Pharaoh, God confirms the choice that Pharaoh has already made.

Responding

Pharaoh's heart is hardened both as a result of his own decision and God's action. To look at it in another sense, God influences Pharaoh's heart simply by giving him instructions.  Anytime anyone is told what to do, they will have one of two reactions in their heart: either they will listen and obey, or they will be stubborn and refuse.  Sometimes, depending on what they are being told to do, being stubborn is a good thing. Other times, what they are told is for their own good, and they refuse simply for the sake of refusing. And, as anyone who has ever put a toddler to bed knows, the more they are told to do it, the more stubborn they become. Every time God repeated his command to Pharaoh, it made him more resolute not to comply.

This true for all of us; what has God prompted you to do? Have you responded with obedience, or have you hardened your heart against his voice?

The Problem of Pain

"If God were good, He would wish to make His creatures perfectly happy. And if God were almighty, He would be able to do what He wished. Therefore God lacks either goodness, or power, or both. This is the problem of pain, in its simplest form." – C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

There's no getting around it: Pain is a part of life. Why? There are many possible answers.

If you don't believe in God, you don't have any trouble answering this question. There is no "why". There is only what is, and what is not. There is no reason, no purpose behind it. But that also means that you have no reason, no purpose for your life.

We, however, believe in a God that loves us absolutely, without hesitation or condition, and who at the same time has absolute power, and can do whatever he wants. And that is where we come across this problem: If He loves me, He wouldn't want me to be in pain, would he? If He is good – perfect, in fact – wouldn't he want to eliminate evil from the world? But He hasn't, obviously, since we see evil and pain and suffering all around us.

So, the thought goes, if He hasn't eliminated pain or evil, either

1. He doesn't want to, which would mean He's not good, or
   
2. He can't, which would mean He isn't all-powerful.
   

However, this doesn't take into account one other possibility: maybe pain has a purpose. Maybe – just maybe – God is smarter than us, and knows of a good reason to allow pain to exist.

Are there any good things about pain that you can think of? What is a purpose it could serve?

1. Pain tells us when something is wrong. Pain helps to prevent you from twisting your arm the wrong way, or jumping off a building, or any number of things that would harm your body. And if your body is injured, pain screams at you, "Fix me!" If you ignore that pain, like professional sports players sometimes do, you risk causing permanent damage.
   In the same way, emotional pain can tell us when something is wrong. If you cringe when you hear one friend lying to another, or when you see someone suffering from abuse, that emotional pain is screaming at you that something needs to be fixed.
   
2. Pain can be God's way of getting our attention.
   "Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, and shouts in our pain. It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world."— C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
   It is almost a reflex for people to turn to God when they are in pain. Even when they are not regularly devout, those who find themselves in dire situations have a natural tendency to look to the Lord for help, and perhaps He has allowed those things to happen just so that they would see their need for Him. 

The problem of pain becomes even more complex when we try to answer why bad things happen to good people. There is something built into us that desires fairness, most of us believe at a gut level that that life is actually fair. Sometimes we even blame the victim, reasoning that if something bad happened to them, then they must have done something wrong to bring it on themselves.
That's what we find Job's friends doing to him in the midst of his pain:

"Think! Has a truly innocent person ever ended up on the scrap heap? Do genuinely upright people ever lose out in the end? It's my observation that those who plow evil and sow trouble reap evil and trouble." (Job 4:7-8, The Message)

In effect, they are telling Job that if he's in pain, then it must be his own fault! Does that sound like what a person in pain needs to hear? No! When a person is in pain, it is not our role to find problems with them, or to add guilt to their discouragement.  Instead, we are to be a people who lift each other up in spirit and in prayer (Hebrews 3:12-13).


The Lord himself answers Job's friends in the last chapters of the book, telling them that their view of Him as a vengeful and unmerciful God are plain incorrect:

“My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right" (Job 42:7, ESV)

To Job himself, the Lord shows again and again that He is the ultimate in power and knowledge.  He challenges,

 8 “Would you discredit my justice?

Would you condemn me to justify yourself?

 9 Do you have an arm like God’s,

and can your voice thunder like his? (Job 40:8-9, NIV)

In other words, how could you, Job, possibly know what the Creator of the Earth knows? How could you dare to challenge my reasons for allowing what happens? No, it is because of who God is, not what He does, that we are to trust Him.  In the midst of our pain, we can always to the Lord as a source of comfort who never fails. 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17


 

Taking Every Thought Captive

2 Corinthians  10:3-7

3 For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does
4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the word. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.
5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every though to make it obedient to Christ

I just think this is a good reminder that we live in the world but we aren’t like the world. The weapons we have are from God and so they have divine power. Since we are from God we demolish arguments and pretensions that come up against what we know about God. A pretension is a claim.
It also says that we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. If you think about it literally you might see something like what we were saying at our Servant Leadership team meeting. The picture we came up with was a bunch of little thoughts flying around in a bird cage.
After you stop thinking about it like that, just think about how hard it is to make all your thoughts obedient to Christ. A different version says that though probably means plot, or design so this means that we need to submit not only outwardly but also inwardly meaning in thought or mind.
So if you need to make all your thoughts or plots obedient to Christ that would mean that every time you try to plot your revenges on some one your thoughts wouldn't be obedient. So try it strive to make your thoughts obedient to Christ.

This devotional message 

was prepared and delivered by Katie Hersman

at the February Bible Quiz Meet.
Watch Katie's message on YouTube!