Questions on a Hardened Heart

Several weeks ago in conjunction with a sermon I preached on Acts 28 someone sent me a text message asking about the concept of God hardening the hearts of people. Because Paul blasts many of the Pharisees that came to visit him in Rome with these words from Isaiah 6:9 & 10

9 He said, "Go and tell this people: " 'Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.' 10 Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed."

And when we hear this we bridle. When we read these words we bristle at the thought that God would harden the hearts of the people He loves. But we gotta be very careful here as readers and doers of God’s word. Because to take this text in Isaiah or Acts or when it is found in Romans out of context you have the possibility of missing out on how God deals richly with us. You also have a possibility of unraveling in a really bad way some key truths about God and His way.

The words translated as hardened in the Bible relate to a series of medical concepts that mean to be made impervious to liquid, to be calloused, or to be or be made insensitive. And that can happen to a person’s heart spiritually.

And in the Bible we read of God hardening the hearts of people. He actively and purpose allows the hardening process to occur and on occasion has been seen to facilitate the hardening process. Now at first this hardening was only seen in people who were not connected to Him in any way. God actually flat out tells Moses in Ex. 4 and 7 and 14 that He would harden the heart of Pharaoh. Later in chapter 14 God let’s Moses know that He would harden the hearts of the Egyptians. Pharaoh’s heart was hardened. The Egyptian’s hearts were hardened. The Canaanite’s hearts were hardened as they fought against the children of Israel. This was a condition exclusive to those not connected to a prescribed relationship with God. But later on in the Old Testament and further in the New, the hardening of heart became solely a condition found in the Jewish people themselves and later to some Christians.

But to gain a greater understanding of God’s role of hardening hearts, especially in Isaiah 6 we have to look at what precedes this passage by looking at Isaiah 5. This chapter begins with a song about a vineyard and sings of a loving God doing everything He could possibly do as the owner of a vineyard to yield a harvest. He found a great plot of land, freed it from stones, planted the best vines and yet it did not produce one grape. And God’s response:

4 What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it? When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad? 5 Now I will tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be destroyed; I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled. 6 I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and briers and thorns will grow there. I will command the clouds not to rain on it." 7 The vineyard of the LORD Almighty is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are the garden of his delight. And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.

This is not a vengeful God arbitrarily making people calloused; condemning them to oblivion. The concept of a hardened heart begins with a loving God doing everything He could possibly do to draw the best out of people only to find that there was not a willingness to yield what was to be yielded from them. As a matter of fact, what God finds is not only are people unwilling to produce fruit in keeping with His loving tending; they choose to yield that which is contrary to what love demands.

But the question dogs us. Can one rebound from this hardening of heart? And as we look at scriptural precedence it looks as if people can. While there were Jews whose hearts were hardened we see many finding their way to faith in Jesus. While even the Apostles where marked by Jesus Himself as hardened hearts and stiff necked they found a way to deeper relationship with Christ and His truths. We must never arrest the gift of choice and freewill from God’s equation. Because if you think about it “good and bad” as concepts do not exist if there is no opportunity for disobedience or obedience. For good or bad to exist there has to be human choice in following the good or following that which is bad. Without choice neither one exists.

Yes, God allows and sometimes fosters hearts to be hardened. This is not done arbitrarily or quickly. From scripture it seems as if God out of absolute love for everyone does everything He can to redeem and reconcile people into deep relationship with Him. It is at the point that we out rightly reject His advances and begin behaving in ways that are absolutely contrary to His attempts at loving us that He allows callousness and insensitivity to overcome people’s lives. Is there a way to overcome this callousness and hardheartedness? Absolutely! For scripture tells us in I John 1:9

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.