Bible Studies

Musings on how God hardens hearts

by Douglas Eckert
01/02/16
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Musing on "how" God hardens hearts-dj eckert

But the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart and he would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the LORD had said to Moses. (EXODUS 9:12 NIV)

I started looking into this Biblical concept or idea that has slightly perplexed/ confused me , and I'm sure many Bible reading Christians ,and wannabe Christians over the years.

It's this idea of "God hardening Pharoahs heart" in the book of Exodus. And how does this idea leave Pharoah still having a freewill?

I've heard some question answering radio pastors answer this question by saying basically: "God didn't really harden Pharoah's heart per sé, but because of God's actions (the miraculous signs) this ,in essence strenthened Pharoah's resolve AGAINST God.( a hardened heart)
Now this made some good sense to me, but it got me to thinking about God's great gift to us ,that of our freewill. Now,me being one who goes on and on and on about our freewill, I won't disappoint.
Looking in that light on the question:
Why would Pharoah harden his resolve against God?
Well,quite simply Pharoah had the same "trait" that we all have "inherited" from Adam and Eve , when THEIR freewill decided to partake in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I'm guessing that when man did this , he became self righteous, rebellious, disobedient and prideful (to name some of the biggies) , and because after all ,now we have the knowledge of Good and evil right? So why would we need a God telling us what is "right" ? This ALL sounds VERY familiar to me.

When I started thinking about this "hardening" concept when it comes to our freewill it led me to some intriguing reallizations.

Three glaring instances of the "hardening of man's heart, " stood out for me in the Bible.
The first being the aforementioned
"God hardening Pharoah's heart", while the second seems to be Jesus' hardening the hearts of the Pharisees during His ministry (performing miraculous signs right in front of them).
And then the third instance being Paul , in Acts chapter 9: "where the jews took counsel to kill him", a hardening of a resolve against someone if I ever did see one.
The first time, God did it , the second time Jesus did it, and the third , a transcended man (Paul) doing it.
Old Testament first. Fulfilling of the Old Testament ( the life of Jesus) second, and then God's Church (transcended man) the third.
The first time the Father, the second time the Son and the third time the Holy spirit.

There seems to be kind of a evolving pattern here, but I'm digressing.

Back to the "will of man" as it relates to our hearts.
For some reason my mind started thinking about OUR will when it goes up against other wills ; like up against other men's wills as in
Proverbs 27:17 KJV
Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.

Then, I looked into the definition of the word countenance as used in the KJV (the word countenance is not in many of the translations), and the verb (action) form of the definition jumped right out at me!

coun·te·nance /ˈkount(ə)nəns/
noun
a person's face or facial expression. "his impenetrable eyes and inscrutable countenance give little away" synonyms: face, features, physiognomy, profile

verb
admit as acceptable or possible. "he was reluctant to countenance the use of force" synonyms: tolerate, permit, allow, agree to, consent to, give one's blessing to, go along with, hold with, put up with, endure, stomach, swallow, stand for

Whoaaa! There it is! there is how our hearts ACTUALLY get hardened by God.

How is this ? You ask.
Well, here is my theory:
The verb definition: "admit as acceptable or possible" kind of says it all as we think about our hearts' ability to accept all the possibilities of our God as it forges up against other kinds of wills.

Now as a man's will forges up against another man's will, if they are "made from the same stuff"(iron) , they will sharpen the countenance of the other. If they both have a believing heart, they will sharpen ( reinforce their hearts ,or their resolve to "admit as acceptable or possible" the works of God), likewise, if they both have a hardened ,non believing heart, they will ALSO sharpen the resolve of their sinful,disbelieving countenance).
God's WORD is so amazing!
Now, what if the men's wills that forge up against each other are NOT "made from the same stuff"? Well.... I suspect that this is the source of the LORD'S great commission for us, and the source of many of man's enemy making conflicts, and his other destructive travails.

Now it's when you look at sinfull man's will, and what happens when it goes up against God's will that it gets interesting. My goofy theory of how God ACTUALLY hardens,or forges a man's heart begins to take shape ( please excuse the pun) with a little poetic license on my part .

Now God, being an immeasurable lover of our souls, not only loves and respects us, but greatly loves and respects our freewill.

With God knowing that a believer's soft heart will be lovingly forged ....
As it hones against His will, the soft unwanted parts of the believers heart will fall away and leave a heart more fashioned like His.
But, for an unbeliever's heart, if it were to hone itself up against the steely, rigid file of Truth of the Loving,unchanging Lord, it would be the relative equivalent of a buttermilk biscuit, grinding up against the now "seemingly" destructive steely file of God. This soft biscuit would crumble apart into millions of pieces and probably even bloody the unbelieving man's knuckles.(whatever that might poetically mean)
But our God, being an eternally loving Graceful God, who can handle it with great ease (that is, a man's hardened heart) will lovingly make the man's biscuit like heart hardened so as it will NOT be destroyed : so even as our sinful ,prideful countenance continues to rebelliously hone up against Gods will, He actually continually MERCIFULLY hardens our heart.
For GOD will NOT take away our freewill to choose to love Him.
And He will STILL not even allow our rebellious countenance to "destroy" our always potentially repentant,even STILL mallable hearts. Thank you Lord!

My analogy may be a bit "cheddar biscuity", but hey, it works for me.