How exactly does God ‘harden’ a human heart?

Well there two possible answers. One is to actively put evil into the heart of man – which I do not believe to be true of God biblically. The second, and I believe scriptural view is that in some people’s cases, God withholds mercy, (let’s always remember mercy by definition can never be demanded) and leaves them to the stubbornness of their own (hostile to God) nature. God doesn’t need to actively put evil in a human heart, to harden it – He can just withold mercy and leave us to our own evil desires. The worst thing God can do for us while we are in a state of spiritual deadness is to leave us in the hands of our boasted free will.

God holds people responsible for something they cannot do, which is to come to a saving knowledge of Christ by their own power and will! (v. 16) In this case, they cannot resist His will, but yet they are still at fault. Still the pot screams, “THAT’S NOT FAIR, GOD!”

Today, the vast majority of Christians hold the unbiblical belief that God does not hold us responsible for things we cannot do. Why do they hold to this idea? Because they believe the alternative is not fair.

What is Paul’s answer to this? Well lets read it in the next verse:

20 On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it?

Paul’s answer is to point out that God is God, and man is man, and man has no business telling God what to do with His creation.

21 Or 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?

The implication in Paul’s question here is that yes, indeed, God as the Potter has every right to make what He likes from the clay. Though man will shout loud and long about what seems to be man’s lack of freedom in all this, God’s answer is to shout back, “What about My freedom as the Potter?” In Romans 9, Paul contends for the Potter’s freedom to have mercy on whom He will.

22 What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?

Though these words are phrased as a question, it is obvious that these words are indeed Paul’s continued answer to the claim that this idea of election is unfair.

Paul refers to “vessels of wrath” which were created for the purpose of destruction!

When seeing these words we immediately think that we have misunderstood them, for surely they can’t mean what they appear to say…. or can they?

Actually, if we hold to the inspiration of the Scripture, we have to submit to its teaching as God breathed revelation, and here Paul says that there are some, (obviously the non-elect) who were created for the purpose of destruction. These “vessels of wrath” are created for this purpose, and yet remember, as we follow Paul’s thinking here, God still finds fault with them.

How can this be? Well, the fact that mankind will not come to Christ without God’s intervention is not due to a physical handicap that man has, but rather to a moral inclination, to avoid submitting to God and His ways at all costs (Rom 3:11; 8:7, 8). Man cannot come because he will not come. As Jesus declares in John 6:44, “No man can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.” The only ones who can come are those drawn by the Father, and all that are drawn in this way are raised up to eternal life. God will have His way with His creation, and He has every right to rule in this way. He is God!

Dr. James White writes, “Why are there vessels prepared for destruction? Because God is free. Think about it: there are only three logical possibilities here. Either 1) all vessels are prepared for glory (universalism); 2) all vessels are prepared for destruction; or 3) some vessels are prepared for glory and some are prepared for destruction and it is the Potter who decides which are which. Why is there no fourth option, one in which the pots prepare themselves based upon their own choice? Because pots don’t have such a capacity! Pots are pots! Since God wishes to make known the riches of his grace to His elect people (the vessels prepared of mercy), there must be vessels prepared for destruction. There is no demonstration of mercy and grace where there is no justice. The vessels of wrath, remember, like being vessels of wrath, would never choose to be anything else, and they detest the vessels that receive mercy.” (The Potter’s Freedom)

23 And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory,

24 even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles.

If God had mercy in this way on only one sinner, He would forever be called a God of mercy. The fact that He elects to save a number that no man can count (Rev. 7:9) is the wonder of all wonders. God had every right to send all mankind to the lake of fire, but in His amazing grace and mercy, He has Sovereignly decided to save a people for Himself.

God’s grace will be marvelled at throughout the eternal ages because of the great contrast between the vessels of wrath and the vessels of mercy. Why is this? Because the only difference between the vessels of wrath and the vessels of mercy is a five letter word called GRACE – Sovereign grace which changes the hearts of hostile, rebellious, God-hating sinners into those whose hearts love God. Because this change in the heart is wrought by God alone, for He along takes out the stony heart and puts in a heart of flesh – there is absolutely no basis for the boasting of man, ever. It is by His doing that we are in Christ Jesus and therefore no flesh will glory in His presence. (1 Cor. 1: 30,31)

Though I wrestled for a long time with the issue of Divine election, in the end, I realized that all my efforts to get round Paul’s clear words in Romans 9 were futile. Though I have read many commentaries on this chapter, I have yet to hear a consistent argument or exegesis from the “free will” side that does not in some way twist Paul’s words here.

So to sum all of this up, Paul has answered the question as to why many of his fellow Jews did not embrace the Messiah when He came. Not all of ethnic Israel is the true Israel. Not every physical descendant was chosen by God to receive this mercy. Paul argues this, contrasting the Old Testament figures of Jacob and Esau. Both had the same mother, the same father, and were even in the same womb, when, before either one had done anything good or bad, God chose Jacob and not Esau.

Why? “…so that God’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls.”

The word of God has not failed in any way whatsoever. All to whom the promises were made, the true Israel, will enjoy those promises. That’s also why you and I, are children of God, by God’s Sovereign electing grace alone. As Paul makes clear elsewhere, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Eph. 2:8, 9)

If we are true believers, and therefore, true children of God, we can always count on the promises of God. God has chosen to save His people in such a way that makes His promises incapable of failure. God’s electing purposes will stand because they don’t depend on us and our efforts but on the One who calls. As Jonah 2:9 declares, “salvation is of the Lord.” God is the one who foreknows, who predestines, who calls, who justifies and who glorifies. “It does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.” Romans 9:16

We are saved by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, because of Christ alone… and all the glory for it, goes to God alone.