The natural tendency of clay to harden

But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart and he would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had said to Moses. Exodus 9:12

There is much debate regarding the phrase "the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart" because it seems to imply God caused Pharaoh to sin.  In other words, did God work evil into Pharaoh's heart to prevent him from obeying?  Martin Luther did not think so.  In his words, God does not "work evil in us (for hardening is working evil) by creating fresh evil in us." Luther continued:

When men hear us say that God works both good and evil in us, and that we are subject to God's working by mere passive necessity, they seem to imagine a man who is in himself good, and not evil, having an evil work wrought in him by God; for they do not sufficiently bear in mind how incessantly active God is in all His creatures, allowing none of them to keep holiday. He who would understand these matters, however, should think thus: God works evil in us (that is, by means of us) not through God's own fault, but by reason of our own defect. We being evil by nature, and God being good, when He impels us to act by His own acting upon us according to the nature of His omnipotence, good though He is in Himself, He cannot but do evil by our evil instrumentality; although, according to His wisdom, He makes good use of this evil for His own glory and for our salvation. (Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will (Westwood: Fleming H. Revell, 1957), p. 206.)

The last time I took an art class was in middle school.  My favorite assignments were when we got to work with clay to make pottery.  The trick about working with clay as a medium is if you leave a block of clay sitting on a counter it will naturally harden and dry out.  Clay requires constant kneading with water to keep it malleable.  So every few minutes I would stick my fingers in a cup of water and rub the water into the clay to keep it soft.  The human heart works the same way spiritually.  Left to ourselves we dry up, crack, and harden.  God's grace is the only reason we can avoid sinning all the time.  So the phrase "the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart" means the Lord withdrew his grace, allowing Pharaoh's heart to harden, all the while knowing Pharaoh would naturally respond out of the hardening with disobedience.

In Romans 1, Paul says that because man suppressed the truth, exchanged the glory of God for a lie, and did not acknowledge Him, "God gave them up" to "the lusts of their hearts", "dishonorable passions", and "a debased mind to do what ought not to be done" (Romans 1:22-28).  As a result,

29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. Romans 1:29-32

Thankfully that's not the end of the story.  Yes, left to ourselves we naturally harden, but God in his love for us graciously has not left us to ourselves.  In my church, at the end of every worship service my pastor leaves us by quoting directly from the book of Jude.  Jude ends with this wonderful doxology:

24 Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, 25 to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. Jude 1:24-25

Christ through the Holy Spirit is able to keep us from stumbling.  Literally, from sinning.  Christ is able to present us blameless before himself.  And this He will do if we are in union with Him.

Knocking down the last bastion of pride

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.  Romans 5:1-2

Faith is not why we are justified, it is how we are justified.   Faith is the means of our justification, not the cause of it.  If I travel from London to Paris through the Chunnel, the Chunnel is the means of my travel.  The Chunnel is not the cause of my travel.  If I travel from London to Paris by train, the train is how the travel occurs, not why the travel occurs.  God doesn't look at our hearts and say, "You have faith, so I am going to justify you."  He gives faith in order to justify us.

Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.  1 Tim 1:13-14

For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him  Philippians 1:29

Of waterfalls and God

I remember hiking in the woods alone one day while I was in college.  There was a little waterfall about an hour or so from campus that I would enjoy visiting.  I could lay for hours on some rocks below the falls just letting the sun warm me as I listened to the water splash down.  I did not have to understand the waterfall in order to enjoy it.  I could just lay there and savor it.

The top of the falls was about 100 feet above and it was not until after I graduated that I became curious enough to finally climb to the top of the falls to see where the water came from.  At the top of the falls I was reminded about something I learned in elementary school.  That the falls was actually fed by a stream.  And the stream was fed by water trickling down the slopes of the mountains.  The water came from rain that fell from clouds of moisture up in the sky.  The clouds were formed from water evaporating out of the oceans and lakes.  And the oceans and lakes are fed by water coming from the rivers which are fed by streams like the one I was beside.  When I really thought about how the whole water system works the waterfall I was looking at became even more amazing.  It was one small piece of a large whole, and contemplating the whole only made the part more amazing.

We all interact with the world in the same way.  That is, through the five senses: taste, touch, sight, hearing, and smell.  Our senses form a sort of baseline for how we experience the things around us.  If you had no knowledge of how the world around you works, you could still experience it with your five senses.  And as I found with the waterfall, I did not have to understand it in order to enjoy it.  Still, knowing where the water came from did not diminish my enjoyment of it.  In reality, knowing where the water came from only made the falls more amazing and enjoyable.  Just consider that the water I was looking at may have been in the Atlantic Ocean just a few days prior!

What I have found is that experiencing something amazing is more enjoyable if it is coupled with understanding it.  Understanding and experience must work in tandem.  Had I simply stayed at home and read about waterfalls I would have gained understanding, but I wouldn't have had nearly the enjoyment as if I actually sat next to one.  And yet, sitting next to a waterfall after having understood it better helps me to enjoy the experience even more.

I've found this to be true with God too.  A friend recently read one of my posts about a fairly deep theological topic and he called me.  He said, "I read your post.  It was pretty deep, and it made me wonder.  If I gave the Bible to someone who had never read it and did not have layers upon layers of church history and theology built up, what would they get out of it?"  He went on to say that he sometimes questions the value of delving into the deeper issues in theology.  He found that sometimes getting so deep prevented him from simply enjoying God.  I appreciated his thoughts, and as I considered them they made me wonder whether the "deeper" things do sometimes distract me from simply enjoying God at my base level--through the five senses, for example.  What I've found is that if I spend all my time trying to grow in understanding of the deeper things of God and neglect the experience of God, I lose my enjoyment of God.  Yet if I neglect the pursuit of understanding the deeper things and focus on simply experiencing Him, I forfeit some of my enjoyment as well.  The best, I have found, is to pursue understanding without neglecting experience.

God made him who had no sin to be sin

After the Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt they wandered in the desert for forty years until the generation that lived in Egypt had died and a new generation could enter the promised land.  Only two individuals from the Egypt-generation were allowed to enter the promised land: Joshua and Caleb.  During this time of wandering God provided food in the form of manna and water for the people.  God himself was their supply and provision, yet the people of Israel frequently became impatient and complained.  Here is the story of one such episode:

4 From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way. 5 And the people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.” 6 Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. 7 And the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. 8 And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” 9 So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live. Numbers 21:4-9

My paraphrase of this episode goes like this: Despite all that God had done for them in rescuing them from slavery in Egypt, saving them from the Egyptian army, bringing them through the Red Sea, and providing manna from heaven, the Israelites became impatient and in their complaining they sinned against God.  In His righteous indignation God sent snakes to bite the people so many died.  The people repented and so Moses interceded on their behalf.  God then provided the means to save the people from his punishment for their sins.  Anyone who had been bitten by a poisonous snake simply had to submit to the means God provided and they would be saved.  When I say "simply", I mean it.  All they had to do was look at the bronze serpent lifted high on a pole and they would live.

This story is relevant because it reveals a pattern.  It is a pattern of the gospel--the story of how God works to save His people.  We know this because Jesus says so.  In John 3 Jesus is speaking to a Pharisee named Nicodemus and he uses this story of Moses and the bronze snake to clarify the gospel to Nicodemus:

14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. John 3:14-15

So this story about the Israelites, the bronze snake, and God is a template for the story of us, Jesus, and God and functions as an aid to help us understand how the gospel works.

The first thing to notice is that in their grumbling and complaining the Israelites sinned against God.  Their sin was real and it made God justifiably angry.  The second thing to notice is that God punished them for their sin.  "the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people".  The venomous snakes were not coincidental.  They were punishment.  God sent them.  And God was justified in punishing the people because the people really did sin against Him.  Yet, God of his own discretion decided after Moses' intercession to show mercy to some.  That said, the third thing to notice is that though the people did not deserve mercy, God chose to be merciful by providing a means for rescue.  It's important here to understand the difference between justice and mercy.  Justice is giving someone what they deserve.  Mercy is not giving someone what they deserve.  So at the point someone deserves mercy, mercy ceases to be mercy and becomes justice.  The Israelites did not deserve mercy, they deserved justice, but God showed them mercy.

How did God show them mercy?  God did not simply withdraw the snakes.  His mercy was not preventative.  No, rather than withdraw the snakes and prevent bites He provided a means to rescue people after the venom was in their veins.  He did not save them from the snake bite, he saved them from the consequence of the snake bite which was certain death.  After being bitten they could simply look at the bronze snake Moses lifted on a pole and they would live.

Why lift up a bronze snake on a pole?  God could have told Moses to lift anything so what's special about the snake?  The snakes were the problem and God told Moses to lift the problem on a pole.  But why?  Because God wanted to communicate something to us.  The gospel tells us our sin is the problem.  To defeat sin Christ became sin and He was lifted and nailed to the cross.  2 Corinthians 5:21 says, "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." And Galatians 3:13 says, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: 'Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.'"

This story of Moses lifting the snake in the desert is so precious because it is a pointer to Christ defeating sin and death by becoming sin and dying for us.