Romans 9:18: God Hardens Whom He Wants to Harden?

We have no trouble reading that God has mercy on whom he wishes. We like to think of God as a God of mercy. Yet it is quite troubling to hear that he hardens whom he wants to harden. Does that mean that some people do not have a chance and that the mercy of God is less than universal?

In order to understand this passage, we first have to understand the context. Paul is writing to the Romans defending his position that Gentiles do not have to become Jews in order to become full Christians. That is, he is defending a Christianity that is free from the Jewish law insofar as it marked out people as Jews. At this point in the argument he has just answered the objection that such an approach would lead to immoral behavior (Rom 6--8). Now he is completing his argument by showing that there is a place in the heart of God for the Jewish people. In other words, he is arguing that Old Testament history is not simply a plan that did not work out or a way of producing Jesus, but instead has value in its own right.

Paul begins the chapter by asserting that he does care very much for Israel or the Jewish people (he returns to this theme in Rom 10:1). He cares so much that he would go to hell himself if by so doing he could save the Jewish people from hell. He then lists some of the good things that God has given the Jewish nation in the past. Having said this, he addresses a problem: do these facts imply that God's plan has failed? His full explanation will take from Romans 9:6 to Romans 11:36. His main point is that the plan of God was to send the gospel to the Gentiles and thus stir Israel to jealousy, resulting in the salvation of Israel in the end. In the middle of this argument he makes it clear that he is talking about the Jews (or Israel) as a whole, not every individual within the nation, for on the individual level there are Jewish people (including himself) who have believed in Jesus.

Our verse comes in the first part of the argument. Paul is establishing the ability of God to work his plan, not only by getting people to cooperate with what he is doing, but also by getting them to oppose what he is doing. Paul's point is that God is absolutely sovereign in his choices.

The Jewish people prided themselves in the fact that God had chosen Israel and had not chosen the Gentiles. Part of this theme is picked up in the argument in Romans 9:7-13. While Abraham had more than one son, God chose Isaac as the one through whom the promise would be passed down. Isaac also has more than one son, but God chose Jacob and not Esau. Any Jewish reader would nod affirmingly, especially if he or she had not read the opening verse (Rom 9:6): "For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel" (RSV). Paul's reason for arguing this is not to prove that God could choose the Hebrew people for his purposes and reject others. All Jews knew this. Paul is pointing out that if this is the case, God can also choose some Jews and reject others. Paul is using the Jews' own teaching against their national complacency.

The Jewish people also prided themselves on their adherence to the Mosaic law. Surely God would reward their careful observance with salvation; surely he would not select Gentiles for salvation when the Jews were so much more righteous. Paul argues that this is not the case. In the opening parts of the book he has argued that there is no one who is righteous, so no one has a claim on God's salvation. Any salvation which people get is mercy and grace, not just deserts. Now in this chapter he goes out of his way to point out that God's choice in the case of Isaac and Jacob was not based on their character. It was made before they developed their character. It does not help to argue that God knew what sort of people they would become, for that would be to deny what Paul is arguing. He is arguing that God simply chose. To underline this point he cites God's words to Pharaoh in Exodus 9:16: "But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." Pharaoh did not arise by chance or by his own power, but God had raised him up. Why would God raise up such an obstinate ruler? So that God's power could be clearly seen when he brought about the exodus. Pharaoh's hardening was part of God's plan for God's own purposes.

If we have any doubt about this interpretation, in the next section (Rom 9:19-24) Paul argues for the right of God to make anything that he wishes out of human beings. In Romans 9:24-33 he is making the point that God has chosen, but he has chosen Gentiles for salvation, not just Jews, nor have the Jews as a whole been chosen for salvation at the present time. The point is that God would have had just as much right to have chosen Pharaoh for salvation and the Jews to oppose him as otherwise. In fact, something like that has happened in the case of Jesus.

We should not act, however, as if this were Paul's only word on predestination and the hardening of people. Here he is making a point about how God has worked with broad groups of people, the Jews as a whole and the Gentiles as a whole. He is also pointing out that Jewish prophets knew about this plan of God long before it took place. Yet Paul goes on to underline in the following chapter that all of this happened through human choices. God chose to make his salvation available, not on the basis of the Jewish law, but on the basis of the grace of Christ. This was proclaimed to Jew as well as Gentile, so God did not coerce the Jews into hardening themselves. Yet, as God predicted, this good news was largely rejected by the Jews and often accepted by the Gentiles.

So here are two sides of the same reality. On the one hand, people hear the gospel and reject it, just as Pharaoh heard the command of God through Moses and rejected it. There is a true moral choice made by the individual in each case. On the other hand, the sovereign God tells us that he had raised up such a Pharaoh precisely so that he could make that choice. It is no surprise to God when Pharaoh chooses to oppose him, nor is it a surprise to God when many of the Jewish people reject the gospel.

So, does God harden some people? Paul's answer is yes. Does God have mercy on everyone? Paul's answer is no. Yet do people freely choose to reject God? Paul's answer is also yes. And does God have mercy on everyone who believes the gospel? Again Paul's answer is yes. How do these two things fit together? Paul never tells us. He knows on the one hand that God is the sovereign ruler of history, shaping it for his own purposes. There is no power that can resist God. He knows on the other hand that people make choices for or against the gospel and all who come to God are accepted by him. He never tries to explain how these two fit together.

The point he is making is that we must never presume on our status with God ("God, of course, will always choose people like us") or be proud that we are chosen ("God must have seen something great in us"). Each attitude fails to recognize the sovereignty of God. Paul warns us that the Jewish nation fell into the first assumption and thus missed Jesus, and in chapter 11 he warns Gentile believers not to fall into the second assumption. Instead he counsels us to thankfulness, based on knowing that we are where we are, not because we deserved it, but because God chose to extend his mercy to people like us, a mercy that we did not deserve.