Sovereign Election and Pharaoh

Exactly. As Dr. James White once said, Pharaoh would have relented to save his own skin, but God hardened his heart so that he wouldn't. This goes right along with the religious leaders in Christ's days on earth. They saw all the miracles He performed, yet they did not worship Him at all.

In their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says, ‘YOU WILL KEEP ON HEARING, BUT WILL NOT UNDERSTAND; YOU WILL KEEP ON SEEING, BUT WILL NOT PERCEIVE; FOR THE HEART OF THIS PEOPLE HAS BECOME DULL, WITH THEIR EARS THEY SCARCELY HEAR, AND THEY HAVE CLOSED THEIR EYES, OTHERWISE THEY WOULD SEE WITH THEIR EYES, HEAR WITH THEIR EARS, AND UNDERSTAND WITH THEIR HEART AND RETURN, AND I WOULD HEAL THEM.’[Matthew 13:15-15]

God was just as active in hardening their hearts in Matthew 13 as He Pharaoh's in Exodus.

 

Harden what? you mean he had a good choice before?

 

He must have been partially depraved. Or did get he get extra-scoop depraved? Kinda silly for God to help anything along evil.

Although I don't agree with total depravity, The way I understand it is actually less a threat to a total depravity doctrine.

I think the error is in not perceiving the means by which God hardens a heart, so when you miss it, you fill the blank with an idea of direct intervention.


1 Samuel 6

6“Why then do you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? When He had severely dealt with them, did they not allow the people to go, and they departed?


Romans 9

14What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! 15For He says to Moses, “I WILL HAVE MERCY ON WHOM I HAVE MERCY, AND I WILL HAVE COMPASSION ON WHOM I HAVE COMPASSION.” 16So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. 17For 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.” 18So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.

We see the contrast of how God can execute justice and mercy. Mercy on whom he desires and harden whom he desires.

God did not have to add a extra heaping of evil on pharaoh any more than you would harden the devil if God healed the sick or cast demons through you.

In other words God would be hardening the heart of the devil the means are explained in scripture, Its the means that are pressing the buttons.

Exodus 9

13Then the LORD said to Moses, “Rise up early in the morning and stand before Pharaoh and say to him, ‘Thus says the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, “Let My people go, that they may serve Me. 14“For this time I will send all My plagues on you and your servants and your people, so that you may know that there is no one like Me in all the earth. 15“For if by now I had put forth My hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, you would then have been cut off from the earth. 16“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. 17“Still you exalt yourself against My people by not letting them go.

God tells pharaoh he could have killed them all off altogether if he wanted to. But he allows them to remain with the purpose to show his power and proclaim his name through all the earth. Pharaoh refuses.

So God lets out the flaming hail and Pharaoh appears to finally surrender as the hail falls but then:

34But when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunder had ceased, he sinned again and hardened his heart, he and his servants.35Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he did not let the sons of Israel go, just as the LORD had spoken through Moses.


Notice Pharaoh hardened his own heart but this equates it being hardened just as the LORD had spoken.

Did God do it? Yes. But only by the means of God being God. God doesn't turn up temptation.

James 1
13Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone.

Again I don't believe in Total Depravity, But I believe my understanding of hardening of hearts supports it better then this idea that something already completely broken needs to be more broke. Its like threatening to throw a match into a bonfire, makes no sense. Its already evil.

 

I have to agree with @utilyan on this one. I believe that God only "caused" Pharaoh to sin by loosening the reigns on his heart. In Romans 1:28, it refers to God giving people over to a reprobate mind, not giving them a reprobate mind. He just turned them over to the mind that they already had.

 

Yes, and the Israelites had to make a choice and had to follow God's instructions to be saved. They had to apply the blood of an unblemished lamb to their door frames.

 

In the Passover type the fathers (of the household) are active in shedding and applying the blood, the firstborn (those being passed over, as in infants and children) are passive.

 

Yes, the blood is applied to us "in Christ", and the Bible is clear that God is the one who put us there:

"For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands; That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ." Ephesians 2:10-13