Hardening.
God communicates anew with Moses, fortifying his resolution to appear before Pharaoh, putting words into his mouth, and warning him of the effect his message would produce. He was not to fail to do all his wonders before Pharaoh, though the only effect would be to harden the monarch's heart—to confirm him in his resolution not to let the people go.
I. THE WORD OF GOD IS TO BE ADDRESSED TO MEN, WHATEVER RECEPTION IT MAY MEET WITH. It is to be set forth, and the evidence which attests it exhibited, "whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear" (Ezekiel 2:5); and this—
1. That God's will may be made known.
2. That men's dispositions may be tested.
3. That if men disobey they may be left without excuse.
4. That ulterior purposes may be fulfilled.
For men's unbelief cannot make the faith of God without effect (Romans 3:3). If men disbelieve and are hardened, God will use even their hardening as the point of attachment for some new link in the chain of his providential developments.
II. GOD INFALLIBLY FOREKNOWS THE EFFECT OF EVERY APPEAL OR MESSAGE HE ADDRESSES TO HIS MORAL CREATURES. He knows those to whom his servants will be "the savour of death unto death," and those to whom they will be "the savour of life unto life" (2 Corinthians 2:16). But the knowledge that his Word will be rejected is not a reason for keeping it back. As respects these foreknown effects, we are not permitted to say either—
1. That God wills (i.e. desires) that his Word should harden; or
2. That in any case it hardens by his arbitrarily withholding the grace which would have produced an opposite result. Yet Divine sovereignty is not to be denied in the effects produced by the preaching of the Word, or in God's dealings with men in mercy and judgment generally. He will be a bold student of Divine things who ventures to assert that by no means known to him could God have subdued the obstinacy even of a Pharaoh. Hearts as stubborn have yielded before now. We cannot solve these anomalies. Enough for us to know that God's sovereignty, however exercised, is ever righteous, holy, and, could we see all, loving.
III. GOD'S WORD, WHEN ITS MESSAGE IS RESISTED, HARDENS THE HEART THAT RESISTS IT. The hardening of the heart is here attributed to God, as in other places it is attributed to Pharaoh himself. The latter statement occasions no difficulty. It is the invariable law, and one which is constantly being exemplified, that he who resists grace and truth incurs the penalty of being hardened. That result follows from the constitution of the moral nature. But precisely in this fact lies the explanation of the other mode of statement, that the hardening of the heart is from God. For God is concerned in the results which flow from the operation of his own laws, and takes (providentially) the responsibility of them. We may go even further, and say that God designs that those who resist his truth shall be hardened by it; just as he designs that those who believe and obey it shall be saved. And the stronger way of putting the matter, harsh as it seems, has its own advantages. Resisters of the truth do well to remember that in their attitude of opposition they have to do, not merely with "laws," reacting to darken the mind and indurate the heart, but with a living God within and behind these laws, lending his solemn sanction to their operations, willing the results which flow from them, and righteously punishing sin by means of them. This explanation, indeed, is not complete. Other phases of the subject come into view later. Meanwhile the preacher of the Gospel is not to be astonished that his word, in many cases, produces hardening effects. This is foreseen by God, and is taken up into his plan. Learn also how a career of iniquity is often punished by the transgressor being brought into circumstances which, merciful in their own operation, yet lead to his greater hardening.—J.O.
Israel a type of sonship.
Consider—
1. The condescension of God in the establishing of this relationship. A nation of slaves; in the eyes of the Egyptians little better than a nation of lepers; yet Jehovah says of them, "Israel is my son, my firstborn." "Behold what manner of love," etc. (1 John 3:1).
2. The privileges implied in it. On this cf. Deuteronomy 1:31-34; Deuteronomy 8:2-6; Deuteronomy 32:9-15. Reflect how Israel was led, fed, guided, trained, chastened, delivered from enemies, and conducted to a bountiful inheritance. These privileges have all their counterparts in the experience of the "children of God by faith in Christ Jesus'" (Galatians 3:26).
3. The responsibilities it imposed on others. Because Israel was God's son, his firstborn, Pharaoh was to refrain from oppressing his son, and if he did not he would be smitten in his own firstborn.
HOMILIES BY J. URQUHART