The Bible does say that God hardened their hearts so doesn’t that mean they can’t believe in Jesus the way a Christian would? The Jews do believe in a Messiah that hasn’t arrived yet and isn’t that the same Messiah Christians believe in?
But at the same time the Scriptures say that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart too-- and that’s something that I’ve been wondering and praying about for a long time.
Based on what I’ve read, it seems as though the **‘hardening of the heart’ **is more of a
Jewish idiom for people
rebelling against God– more so than God actually
literally hardening people’s hearts.
For example, Pharoah’s heart was hardened against God-- three different ways.
In Exodus 4:21 the Scriptures say that the
Lord himself would harden Pharaoh’s heart so that Pharaoh would not let the people go. In Exodus 4:21 it appears that God is literally making Pharaoh’s heart hardened
But in Exodus 7:13, the Scriptures say that Pharaoh’s heart became hard and he would not listen to them,
just as the LORD had said. In this passage from Exodus 7:13 it appears that Pharoah’s heart has hardened-- but not so much because God literally hardened Pharoah’s heart. More to the point, Pharaoh’s heart appears to be in the process of becoming hardened just as the Lord had ‘prophesied’.
Having said this, later, in Exodus 8:15, the Scriptures say that Pharaoh hardened
his own heart and would not listen to Moses and Aaron--
just as the LORD had said. So in this passage, it appears as if the ‘prophetic words’ of God have come true-- but that it wasn’t God who hardened Pharaoh’s heart. Rather, it now appears to be Pharaoh hardening his own heart.
Actually, if you take a look through
all these passages, one can see that this hardening of Pharaoh’s heart alternates eratically
back and forth, with Pharaoh’s heart being hardened either by God or by Pharaoh himself-- and often without any real indication as to why the
cause has swtiched back and forth so much.
In my own opinion, when God prophesied of Pharoah’s rebellion, this rebellion was something that was fore-seen by God and could not be avoided no matter how hard Pharaoh tried. This doesn’t mean that God ‘made’ Pharoah harden his heart. It means that God saw the future and knew in advance how Pharoah would act.
It also means that Pharoah really messed up in a big way. In fact, he messed up so badly against God’s people that God fairly well told Pharoah
in advance just how much God was going to seriously knock Egypt totally out of commision-- and knock Pharoah down too.
In other words, when God himself tells you that he is going to punish you in the future for the sins you haven’t even commited yet, then you can rest assured that you have totally blasphemed God and are going to go through a lot of pain. Pharoah already angered God a long time before God spoke to Pharoah through Moses and Aaron when Pharaoh did this…
Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: “Every boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.”
When Pharaoh did this, and when it was revealed that Pharaoh had absolutely no intentions of repenting of these tremendously grave sins,
God already knew this and boldly told Pharaoh just how much
he was doomed.
Now the question of God hardening the hearts of the Jews, however, appears to be a different kind of dynamic. In the New Testament, it appears as if the hardening of the Jews hearts against Christ has actually had an inversed effect, bringing the Gentiles into God’s family until the fulness of the Gentiles was complete.
Whereas in the Old Testament Pharoah’s hardening of his own heart against God resulted in Pharaoh’s own utter destruction and the freedom of the Israelites, in the New Testament the Jews hardening of their hearts against Jesus appears to have resulted in the Jews liberating the Gentiles into God’s family by sharing and partaking in Christ’s sacrifice until they were ready to accept Christ once again.
And it’s indeed been a very strange love-hate relationship going on between Jews and Christians ever since that time.
