Transcript

ANNOUNCER: Can some hearts become so hard that they get beyond the possibility of eternal salvation? Let’s think about this today here on Grace in Focus, and we are so glad you’re joining us. Grace in Focus is the radio broadcast and podcast ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. Our website is FaithAlone.org, and we’d love you to receive our magazine. It has a free subscription. All you have to do is ask for it. It is free—the only thing you would have to pay for is postage if you live outside of the 48 contiguous United States. It comes out six times per year. Beautifully done, we want you to have it. That’s the Grace in Focus magazine. Free subscription on our website, find it at faithalone.org. 

And now with today’s question and answer discussion, here are our Philippe Sterling and Sam Marr. 

SAM: All right, welcome back everybody. This is Grace in Focus. I’m Sam Marr and I’m here with Philippe Sterling again. Bob’s still not feeling great, so we’re gonna chip away at this just the two of us. So we have another question. This one is from Leland and Leland says that he’s having some troubles struggling with legalism, and he fears sometimes that his heart has been hardened beyond the point that he can truly believe in Jesus for everlasting life. 

And so I’ve had some conversations with Leland. I know there’s a little bit more context to this. We’ll answer that question too, but another question I want to ask is, is it possible for someone’s heart to become so hardened that they are beyond salvation? And then a follow up to that, if someone is asking the question, is my heart too hard to believe, then is their heart really hard? So those are the questions we’re gonna answer in this one. I think we’re gonna start with Exodus 5. 

PHILIPPE: Yes, and the reason to start with Exodus 5 is that’s the whole matter of the hardening of the heart, emerges with Pharaoh and God’s dealing with Pharaoh. And of course, Paul picks on that in his discussion in Romans 9-11 about God hardening whom He hardens and all of that. But the thing I like to start with Pharaoh because that gives us a context, understanding the concept of the hardening of the heart. 

So God tells Moses and Aaron to go to Pharaoh and to tell him that my people go. And this is how Pharaoh initially responds in Exodus chapter 5 verse 2, “And Pharaoh said, ‘Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord nor will I let Israel go.’ ” So the context is the release of Israel from bondage and Pharaoh being commanded by Yahweh, by the Lord, to do so. And he says, I don’t know who Yahweh is and God’s Yahweh is gonna start letting him know who He is by His power over nature and life and everything as it will unfold over the plagues, over the next ten plagues in all. 

And as we follow Pharaoh’s response plague after plague, the matter of the hardening of the heart, occurs in three different aspects. In several of the places we are told of his heart simply was hardened without telling us who was the agent of that hardening. In a couple places it specifically says that Pharaoh hardened his heart and then a couple places it says Yahweh, the Lord, hardened his heart. 

Now the hardening of the heart concerns obeying the command of God to let Israel go. And time after time Pharaoh refused to do so by hardening his own heart and when he was ready even to relent because of the intensity of the plagues, God intervened and says, I want to show more of my powers that you and didn’t know that I am Yahweh. So he hardened his heart by at that point you know to cause him to relent upon his decision to let Israel go, strictly because of the pressure of the plagues. So contextually the hardening of the heart really concerns obeying God’s command to let Israel go. 

Now concerning the application that Leland is making to his own heart—can my heart be so hardened that it’s impossible for me to ever believe not the promise of everlasting life? So just by the very fact that Leland is asking the question and having that as a concern means that he’s not rejecting what the Lord is trying to do with him, which is still to draw him and to enable him to come to the point where he’s persuaded of the truth of the promise of everlasting life. So he’s not deliberately trying to disobey God or reject believing in the promise of everlasting life. So the hardening of the heart does not concern that matter. 

SAM: If you’re asking the question, if you’re seeking God, even if you’re an unbeliever, we have examples from the New Testament, we have Cornelius and we have the Ethiopian eunuch who were both Godfearers, they were seeking God and God did not reject them or you know with the example, I can’t remember what’s from, but he didn’t, you know, they didn’t, they asked for something and he gives them the scorpion instead. PHILIPPE: Like a child, you know, who asks his—

SAM: Yeah. And so that’s the way I see it. If you’re, even if you’re an unbeliever, if you’re seeking God, you want to believe, you just are struggling with it, then God’s not going to harden your heart and say, nope, I don’t like you enough, you’re not good enough, you’re not, you know, I don’t want you in my kingdom, so I’m just going to harden your heart so that you can never believe. If you’re seeking, then God is going to draw you to Him, He’s going to put people in your life, experiences in your life to convict you. And in this example, like I said, I’ve spoken to Leland, he reads his Bible a lot, he asks all these questions and so I don’t think his heart has been hardened. 

ANNOUNCER: We will rejoin in just a moment. But years ago, Zane Hodges wrote the Gospel Under Siege. Sadly, this is still true. And GES president Bob Wilkin has recently written its sequel. Bob’s new book, The Gospel is Still Under Siege, is a book about theological clarity on the Biblical teaching about eternal salvation. It is available now. Secure yours today at the Grace Evangelical Society’s bookstore. Find it at faithalone.org/store. That’s faithalone.org/store. Now back to today’s content.

SAM: This example, like I said, I’ve spoken to Leland, I don’t think his heart has been hardened, but let’s say a different example, let’s say someone has like a father who, you know, is an unbeliever, has always been an unbeliever, and has, you know, their son or their daughter is a believer and tries to evangelize, tries to share the Gospel with him, and he just isn’t having any of it. Is there any example of a person whose heart can become so hardened that they just can’t, it’s physically impossible that they could ever believe. 

PHILIPPE: As long as someone is alive, there’s always the opportunity to believe. An example of that certainly will be Saul of Tarsus, you know, who was rejecting the message of life, as they, the apostles were proclaiming it in Jerusalem, as Stephen was even speaking of it. But on the road to Damascus, as he was going there to drag back, arrest and drag back to Jerusalem for trial, believers that were there in Damascus. Of course, we know that Christ appeared to him, and the scales eventually fell off his eyes, but he responded to that, to Christ. 

SAM: But he was willing to change his mind, he was willing to respond in that way. But we also have examples, while Christ was still on earth during His ministry, where there were Jewish Pharisees and Sadducees, teachers, men that were well educated in the Old Testament, seeing Him perform miracles and fulfill Scripture, and rather than react in the way Saul did on the road to Damascus, they said, nope, this is, you know, a prophet from Satan, this is a trickster or an evil doer, or, you know, he’s trying to deceive our people.

PHILIPPE: Ascribing to Beezelbub, right? They’re works of Christ. 

SAM: And so they hardened their own hearts, because they were not willing to believe their own Scripture being fulfilled. And Saul was that way up until the road to Damascus, but then he still, at that point, he had the choice, he could have said, nope, this is a vision from the enemy, this isn’t real, I’m going to stay strong and keep persecuting Christians, but he didn’t. He believed this is my Lord and my God, and then he—Ananias helped him, even though he was skeptical of Paul’s will or Saul at the time as well, but he helped him, and then he went on to, you know, his great ministry, but it was because of a willingness to believe, and in the other cases for the Pharisees and Sadducees, it was an unwillingness to believe. They were willfully resistant to God’s Son. 

PHILIPPE: And here’s a thought even concerning the Pharisees of the time. It appears that for the most spot, they were rejecting of Christ during His actual presence before the cross and day and the resurrection. So there were many who were rejecting, but with the preaching of Peter and the other apostles, we’re told that thousands among the priests, you know, were becoming believers, and I can—we assume that many of those had been among those who were rejecting, you know, few months earlier or a year earlier, and that finally did come to believe. So it wasn’t—unbelief is, I don’t think is ever final until person dies. 

SAM: I agree. I think so. And I think that’s to me, it’s hard to say, you know, someone’s beyond salvation, because I think you’re limiting God, if you say, there is the human—we have free will. So at the end of the day, it’s our—either we’re convinced or we’re not by Christ’s promise, but God’s ability to continue to draw people to Him, continue to put things in that person’s life, whatever they need. I don’t think we should limit that and say, you know. God—what I’m saying is God hasn’t given up on anybody. There’s no one that they’ve hardened their heart so much that God’s like, nope, this guy’s too tough a nut to crack. I’m, you know, gonna focus my time on someone else. We know that’s ridiculous. It always comes down to the individual’s willingness, and so that’s what the hardening is—if you’re not willing. So if you’re a seeker of truth, of God, then even if you haven’t believed in the promise of everlasting life yet, you’re not, your heart is not hardened. You’re not beyond salvation, because you’re seeking God, and He’s going to draw you to Him. 

PHILIPPE: Yeah. And a matter of hardening, if you come back, full circle, you know, to Pharaoh, is that Pharaoh was hardening his heart. So if you were feeling, I don’t think Leland probably will say, no, I’m deliberately hardening myself against the drawing of God, not to my believing the promise of everlasting life. 

SAM: That’s right. Well, thanks for the question, Leland. I hope this helps you and I hope this helps anybody out there who’s struggled with this, because I—this is a phrase I hear a lot of—my heart’s too hard or his heart is too hard. So I would encourage you to read the Scripture in context, understand what that phrase means, and just trust that God in His sovereignty, His all-knowingness that He has the ability to reach anybody and understand that it is human free will. It’s between that individual and God, whether they believe or not. 

But thank you for listening, and let’s remember to keep grace in focus. 

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On our next episode: how can we know if someone else is saved? Please join us for that, and in the meantime, let’s keep grace in focus.