Subject: Does God lead us to sin? |
Bible Note: Dear Brother Steve, A recital of my research after reading this thread: Checking Exodus, armed with my lexicon, I learned that the hardening of Pharaoh's heart is mentioned nineteen times: eleven times the LORD is said to have done it, three times Pharaoh is said to have done it, and five times Moses simply states that it was done. (One other instance says that the LORD hardened the hearts of the Egyptian people.) Biblical narratives tend to be phenomenological; which should not surprise us, as we share that tendency ourselves. However, deducing the interconnectedness of divine and human volition, from the point of view of narrative, might yet, with care, yield some theological fruit. So the question naturally arose: Why didn't the Holy Spirit use the language of nudging or pushing, if that was His actual intent? Perhaps I could find out a bit more about the word He chose to use. I was surprised that it was a word with which I was already somewhat familiar. I recall a Rabbi using it as a mandate about persistence in keeping the Law. I understood it to simply mean "Be strong!" Picture an astringent, almost mordant, command from a (little scary!) disciplinarian, "Keep the Commandments! Hazak!" That usage, by itself, lines up with your own choice of words. In a sense, we might say, God strengthened, firmed up, bound, or shored-up Pharaoh's disposition; as though Pharaoh was already on the edge, and God powerfully nudged him across the line. (Hopefully I've not misrepresented what you have asserted.) I wondered if Moses made use of hazak elsewhere. If he did, then your sense would be borne out, and confirmed. I found that Moses did use it elsewhere: Of the angels, forcibly dragging Lot and his family from Sodom (Genesis 19:16); of God's command (21:18) to Hagar to actively embrace (for purposes of recovery) her son unconscious son from heat exhaustion (vv1-16); of the famine that "prevailed" over the lands during the time of Joseph (41:56, 57; 47:20); of Jacob, rousing himself from his deathbed, to bless Joseph (48:2); of the LORD's command to Moses to capture the serpent by the tail (Exodus 4:4); of the hysterical demand of the Egyptians for the departure of the people after the final plague (12:33); of the thunderous voice of God on mount Sinai (19:19); of the benevolent taking into slavery persons fallen into abject poverty (Leviticus 25:35); of Moses' admonition for courage to the spies (Numbers 13:20); of the LORD's command to Moses to establish Joshua over Israel (Deuteronomy 1:38; 3:28; 31:7, 23); of Moses demand of Israel for active obedience to the LORD (11:8; 12:23; 31:6); of the rape of girls (22:25); and of assault by seizing a man's "private parts" (25:11). Well, if we had nothing more than the Pentateuch, it seems a mighty aggressive word! I was reminded that my hermeneutics professor would say that, in a way, we read the Bible backwards. The light of the New Testament brings much of the Old Testament into stark clarity. In this, as in many other instances, the Holy Spirit does not leave us only the observations we can make from the text itself -- though we could look at the Greek equivalent of the word in places like Mark 6:52; 8:17; John 12:40 (hardening and blinding!); Acts 19:9; etc. But better than even that, we have the wonderful commentary of Romans 9:14-22. Do we need much more? I am mindful that in Historic Baptist thinking, we take care to receive the whole revelation of Scripture into account. The old divines summarized the Bible doctrine on this point: "God hath decreed in Himself, from all eternity, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably, all things, whatsoever comes to pass; yet [an important word!] so as thereby is God neither the author of sin nor hath fellowship with any therein; nor is violence offered to the will of the creature, nor yet is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established; in which appears His wisdom in disposing all things, and power and faithfulness in accomplishing His decree." (1689 LBCF, chapter 3, paragraph 1) When the Holy Spirit makes no effort to ease the logical tension of an antinomy -- as Synergism does on the left and Hyper-Calvinism does on the right -- then we presume if we do otherwise. Thank you for the opportunity in our Bible study. :-) In Him, Doc |