Chapter # 11 Paragraph # 1 Study # 6
December 2, 2018
Humble, Texas
(Download Audio)
<091>
Thesis: Part of our theological conclusion has to do with what "the rest were hardened" means.
Introduction: In our last study, we considered the fact that Paul called the Romans to draw a definitive conclusion to the main implication that "the election of grace" that preserved 7,000 Israelites from idolatry was fundamentally a matter of "grace". Having, then, forced the issue of whether "Grace" has any "legal" overtones at all involved with it, Paul called for this "conclusion".
It is a very interesting thing that this "grace" issue is strongly resisted by both those who declare themselves to be unbelievers and many of those who say they "believe". And from that initial resistance as it is found among those who say they "believe", has developed a heresy that even those among those who say they believe who do accept "election" by grace have embraced. That heresy is called "man's free will". It seems like the bottom line is that "it is ok if God 'elected by grace' because He gave every man the 'freedom of will' to believe and make himself a part of the elect". Thus, God is given permission to be gracious as long as He leaves the reception of grace, or its rejection, up to the individual.
But, there is another heresy even more pernicious: man has a natural desire to do what is right if he can only be told what that "right" is. The outworking of this denial of the actual fall of man into The Sin is the mental picture men have created of a humanity that is desperately desiring to hear the word of God so that it can embrace it. Thus, the concept of God "electing" a few and "hardening the rest" ends up being a concept of God "allowing a few to participate in grace" and "overtly acting in opposition to the natural desire of "the rest" by "hardening them".
This is a matter that I wish to pursue in this study: what does "the rest were hardened" mean?
- I. Part of the Answer Exists in the First Part of the Conclusion Called For By Paul.
- A. This first part is a declaration, as we saw in our last study, that Israel existed in a context of a hyper-commitment to "seeking" to reject the righteousness of God as a gift in favor of establishing their own righteousness by diligent effort on their own part.
- 1. The first problem is the intensity of the commitment to reject "righteousness as a gift" in favor of "righteousness as a judicial decree after evaluation".
- 2. The second problem is the absolute distinction of "grace" from "works" as God's method of justification.
- B. Thus, the conclusion we are to draw is that "Israel did not obtain" the goal of their hyper-intensity.
- C. This means that "they were hardened" has its meaning tied up in the hyper-intensity of the ones who refuse grace in favor of "works".
- II. Part of the Answer Exists in the Old Testament Record Regarding "Hardening".
- A. Paul's "quotes" of "what is written" are not really "quotes".
- 1. The actual words Paul wrote are found only in the blending of texts found in the Old Testament.
- a. The word translated stupor as the outcome of God's "giving" is only found with this concept in Isaiah 29:10.
- 1) The idea in this text is that Israel is in such a mental condition that it is best defined by the physical phenomenon of being so sleepy as to be what we call "dead to the world" (there is no active mental engagement of processing information and drawing legitimate conclusions).
- 2) In this text, this has come about because God has removed all ability to "see" by removing the "prophets" and all ability to "think" by removing the "seers" (in other words, the "eyes" are the "prophets" and the "heads" are the "seers").
- 3) The point is that without "eyes" and "heads", there is no capacity to understand.
- b. The reference to "eyes" to "see" and "ears" to "hear" probably comes from Deuteronomy 29:3.
- 1) This text says the opposite of what most people think because, instead of it presenting a picture of God actively "blinding" and "making deaf", it presents a picture of God not actively "giving".
- 2) The major point of this text is that it presents "blindness" and "deafness" as the present, natural, uncorrected state of man.
- 3) Thus, this text raises the major question: At what point did man become blind and deaf so that it takes a special action by God to correct it?
- 2. By this blending of texts Paul presents the biblical truth about man's blindness and deafness.
- B. New Testament confirmation of Paul's Old Testament doctrine.
- 1. Mark 6:52 indicates a present condition that made the disciples incapable of understanding.
- a. This means that the condition was present before divine revelation was given.
- b. This means that the "hardness" was an aspect of being "human" that was not automatically or significantly resolved by being a true disciple of Jesus.
- 2. Mark 8:17 indicates that the problem has a more difficult solution than being a "believer".
- 3. John 12:39-40 records Jesus as saying that the reason they "could not believe" because God "had blinded" and "had hardened" (both perfect tense verbs that, when combined with Paul's "until this present day", mean that we have to look far back into the past to identify the "when" of God's "punitive action").
- 4. These New Testament verses, when combined with Isaiah 6:10, clearly indicate that since the fall in Genesis 3, men have been blind and deaf to truth.
- III. The Point.
- A. A special "restorative" action by God is required to "fix" the "just" action by God in the garden.
- B. This "special restorative action" is rooted in the grace of God and, thus, is neither "demandable" by anyone, nor "meritable" by "works".
- C. Because "grace" is the focus of the Gospel, the "salvation" that is presented by it is entirely rooted in a total rejection by God of "works", and the "picture" is no longer of God being stingy with men who want to be saved but are blocked by His "whim of grace" but is of men being hyperegotistical so that even the Gospel has no impact if unaccompanied by special grace in deliberate divine insistence.