The Sovereignty of God and the Non-Elect, Part 7

In part 6, we zeroed in on Romans 9, specifically dealing with Pharaoh.   God had hardened his heart.  We’re told in Romans 9:17, God says, “For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth (a quote taken from Exod. 9:16). 

Some interpreters by seeing this as being too strong favoring predestination of the non-elect, try their best to soften the interpretation. But we must avoid such attempts and let the Scriptures reveal plainly the mind of God.

The phrase, “I have raised you up,” in the Hebrew is, “I have appointed,” by which it appears, that God, designing to show that the contumacy of Pharaoh would not prevent Him from delivering His people, not only affirms that his fury had been foreseen by Him, and that He had prepared means for restraining it, but that He had also designedly ordained it for this end,—that He might exhibit a more illustrious evidence of His own power.

Therefore, it is clear that God raised up Pharaoh for this very end—to “destroy” him.  When God said, “I have raised you up,”

He means that He allowed Pharaoh to live for a specified purpose.

You see, God never does anything without a previous plan and design. In giving Pharaoh life, in preserving him through infancy and childhood, in raising him to the throne of Egypt, God had one end in view. That such was God’s purpose is clear from His words to Moses before he went down to Egypt, to demand of Pharaoh that Jehovah’s people should be allowed to go a three days’ journey into the wilderness to worship Him— “And the Lord said unto Moses, When you go to return into Egypt, see that you do all these wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in your hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let my people go” ( Exodus 4:21).

God’s design and purpose was declared long before this.

Four hundred years previously God had said to Abraham, “Know for certain that your seed shall be a stranger in a land (Egypt) that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they (Egyptians) shall afflict them four hundred years; and also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge ” ( Genesis 15:13,14).

From these words it is evident that God’s purpose was formed long before He gave Pharaoh life.  Therefore, the non-elect are chosen to be non-elect by God in fulfillment of His great and awesome design.

End of Part 7