Many Bible teachers say that God chose who will be eternally saved before any of us were born. A small group of people are “the elect.” If you are in that group, congratulations. If not, too bad.
One of the passages they use to make this argument is Rom 9:15-18. It says that God will have mercy on whom He wants. Pharaoh was a man whom God had not chosen for eternal salvation. God hardened his heart so that he would not believe. From some time in eternity past, Pharaoh was destined for an eternity in the lake of fire. The same is true for everyone who is not of the elect. God does not reach out to these people. They have no hope.
But Romans 9 is not talking about God’s choosing people for eternal life. It is talking about how God chooses people or nations for His purposes. The Lord can choose a person to be an apostle, for example. That does not mean that those whom He does not so select are destined for the lake of fire.
It is beyond the scope of this blog to discuss those issues. But I would like to ask a simple question: Does God reach out to all unbelievers, or to only a particular group of elect people? Did God reach out to Pharaoh?
Recently, I noticed a phrase in Exodus indicating that God reached out to Pharaoh. When Moses brought the plagues upon Egypt, Pharaoh’s magicians tried to mimic the miracles. With their enchantments, they were able to approximate, in very weak ways, some of the power the Lord displayed through Moses. They attempted to show that Israel’s God was not as great as He might appear. The implication was that Moses was just a better magician than they were.
But when Moses brought lice upon the land, the magicians confessed to Pharaoh that their sleight-of-hand “miracles” were not able to do what Moses did. They said, “This is the finger of God” (Exod 8:18-19). It then says that “Pharaoh’s heart grew hard.”
While some claim that Pharaoh had no say in the matter and that God was not reaching out to someone He had chosen for an eternity in the lake of fire, I beg to differ. Through Moses, God was revealing who He was to Pharaoh and the nation. They could all see His “finger” at work in the plagues that struck the country.
Jesus used the same phrase when He reached out to an unbelieving Jewish nation. He performed many miracles while in their midst. In Luke 11:14, He cast out a demon. The religious leaders said He did it through the power of Satan. But the Lord pointed out that it was logically impossible to take that position. Instead, He did it by the “finger of God” (Luke 11:20). He was showing them that He was the Christ who could bring the kingdom of God to that generation of Jews.
Was He reaching out to them? Was He showing them who He was, or was it all a cruel joke? If He did these things before people who were unable to respond positively or to believe in Him, it was a joke.
Since the Lord rebukes the Jews for not believing, it is clear that He was reaching out to them. Many Jews, like Pharaoh in Exodus 8, hardened their own hearts to what they saw. God showed His power through His “finger” in both cases. Pharaoh was not willing to look at the evidence right before his eyes because he valued the financial benefits of his Jewish slaves. Most of the religious leaders in Christ’s day were unwilling to recognize the finger of God at work before their eyes because they loved their prestigious positions in the nation.
Unless we are enslaved to a theological system that insists God does not reach out to all mankind, we realize that Moses reached out to Pharaoh. Jesus reached out to the whole nation of Israel, including the religious leaders.
The “finger of God” reaches out to all people. They can refuse to see it and harden their hearts. But if they are willing to look, they will see the truth.
