The following is
John Brown’s (of Edinburgh) take on Romans 9:18, specifically what he
thinks it means for God to “harden” someone:
“It
may be asked how can God harden men’s hearts? There can be no doubt that
it would be utterly inconsistent with the holiness and equity of the
Divine nature, by direct influence to produce or excite depraved
principle in the mind of man, and then punish him for it. This were to
act like a demon rather than a divinity.” (SOURCE)
Just as
Paul’s opponents in Acts 17:18 misrepresented his teaching concerning
Jesus and the resurrection due to their pernicious presuppositions, so
John Brown likewise misrepresents the teaching of God’s Apostle due to
his pernicious presupposition that pots are accountable to the Potter, ONLY IF
these pots can make themselves.
Romans 9:18-19 demonstrates clearly “how” God’s hardening involves the omnipotence of God. The objector
objects because the “direct influence” of God to actively harden (i.e., to
“excite [a] depraved principle in the mind of man”) him unconditionally CANNOT BE RESISTED (Romans 9:19). Paul’s objector in verse 19
understands and does not misrepresent the apostle’s doctrine. He
understands that this “excitation” of a depraved principle is done by
omnipotent power since he complains that it cannot be resisted by him or
anyone else.
Brown shows himself to be the God-hating objector in verse 19 when he says that God acts like a “demon rather than a divinity,”
if this is indeed the manner, or the way in which He hardens sinners.
Brown suppresses
the truth in unrighteousness by misrepresenting the Biblical doctrine of
active hardening. Brown misconstrues Paul as teaching that God's actively hardening a person is akin to a demon tempting a man to sin
by “exciting” a depraved principle in his mind. If a person insists
on using the same phrase — “by direct influence to produce or excite
depraved principle in the mind of man” — to describe the active
hardening of God in Romans 9:18, as well as to describe the “tempting
influence” that demons and the flesh can do (cf. James 1:13), it ought to
be clear that to actively harden in Romans 9:18 is NOT to tempt in
James 1:13.
"Far be it from God that He should do this injustice, and from the Almighty that He should commit this iniquity."
In other
words, far be it from God that He do the "injustice" of actively hardening
whom He will, and by adding insult to injury by finding fault with
those who could not resist His will to omnipotently harden them (Romans 9:18-20). For
Brown, if God actively hardens men and still finds fault with them —
even though they could not resist His omnipotent will — then that would
be for God to, “commit…iniquity.” Brown boasts in his own
falsely supposed autonomy by setting up a standard that the Almighty
Potter must abide by. Brown is a wicked sympathizer of the apostolic
critic.
"We
know that Pharaoh hardened his own heart, and the Israelites are
cautioned against hardening their hearts: and when God is said to do
what men themselves do, and are responsible for doing, the meaning
cannot be more than this, that God leaves men to the influence of their
own corrupt mind, does not interfere to prevent lust from conceiving, or
when it has conceived, from bringing forth sin; or when it is
perfected from bringing forth death ; that instead of interposing by the
agency of His Spirit to prevent their thus becoming obstinate. He
places them in circumstances which, though naturally fitted to produce a
very different effect, are perverted into the means of fostering their
obstinacy."
This is the
Calvinistic consensus to be sure — that the Potter does NOT make the
pots like this; they make themselves like this.
"And?
if this be the meaning of the word, the apostle’s assertion is, that God
exercises His sovereignty equally in giving and withholding that Divine
influence, which, in consequence of the depravity of man, is necessary
to true repentance. And, however men may fret and quarrel, it will be
difficult to show that there is anything unjust or unreasonable in all
this. ‘May not,’ to use the language of a very sober-minded defender of
this mode of explication, ‘the Judge of all the earth, when a rebellious
creature, from enmity to Him and love of that which He abhors, has
closed his own eyes and hardened his own heart, and deliberately
preferred the delusions of the wicked one to the truth as it is in
Jesus, say to such an one, ‘Take thine own choice and its consequences;
may He not do this without being any more the author of sin than the sun
is the cause of cold and frost and darkness, because these are the
results of the withholding of its influence?'1”
1 Scott—Remarks on Tomline.
The analogy
of the sun put forth here is just that, an analogy. But it DOES convey quite well the
truth that the Calvinistic view of Divine "sovereignty" as it is popularly
taught, is both semi-dualistic and semi-deistic.
