God’s revealed will and His hidden purpose

Never has anyone resisted GOD’S purpose. Correctly rendered, Romans 9:19 (see interlinear) says:

You will then say to me: Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His purpose?

In this passage Paul argues that God, through Pharaoh, wanted to demonstrate His power. A willing Pharaoh would not have been useful for that, and therefore, when Pharaoh under the great pressure of the plagues threatened to give in, God hardened (or strengthened) his heart (Exodus 9:12). Incidentally, not only Pharaoh’s heart but also the hearts of the other Egyptians God worked on in a similar way.

HE changed their hearts, so that they hated His people and dealt craftily with His servants.
—Psalm 105:25

purpose & will

Behind the drama of rebellion and anti-Semitism of Pharaoh and the Egyptians, God proves to be the great Director. That is what Paul brings forward. That also explains the predictable criticism he then lets his opponents voice: why does God still find fault? Pharaoh (or anyone else) has never resisted God’s PURPOSE!

Pharaoh and his people resisted God’s WILL. God had repeatedly, through Moses, made known to Pharaoh: “let-My-people-go.” On that, Pharaoh and his nation were judged. Nevertheless, behind God’s will lay a hidden PURPOSE. A purpose of which Pharaoh did not know and probably was not meant to know. And this purpose meant that Pharaoh would not let the people go. And so the disobedient Pharaoh, unwittingly and for the full 100%, fulfilled God’s purpose. It cannot be otherwise, since GOD…

… works all things according to the counsel of His will…*
—Ephesians 1:11; NBG51—

(*The word for “counsel” here is the same as what Paul uses in Romans 9:19: boule, boulema > purpose. This verse also shows that “will” and “purpose” (counsel) are two explicitly distinct concepts.)

An ungodly Pharaoh, a hostile people of Egypt, the brothers who sold Joseph as a slave, etc., etc.—all of them in their own way fulfilled God’s counsel (= purpose). This even applies to the greatest crime ever committed: the crucifixion of the Messiah. That deed too was very explicitly…

… according to the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God…
—Acts 2:23 (NBG51)

No creature can conceive of or undertake anything without it fitting exactly into the “script” of the Creator. The creature should therefore never imagine itself to be original. Man is a clay figure whose destiny is completely determined and shaped by the great Potter.

protest?

And to those who raise protest against this, Paul has the following to say:

But you will say to me then: Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His purpose? But indeed, O man, who are you who answers back to GOD? The molded thing will not say to the molder, Why did you make me like this, will it?
—Romans 9:20–21

God is GOD. He explicitly declares that He has a purpose with everything. He owes no accountability. We are His creation! He does not excuse Himself. He could rightly one day say: I did it My way.
And dear reader, you can count on it that the ultimate outcome of all God’s ways will be breathtakingly great and glorious! Without a single creature missing. Not even Pharaoh.

For God has shut up all into disobedience, that He might have mercy on all.
(…) For OUT OF HIM and THROUGH HIM and TO HIM is ALL. To Him be the glory for the aeons! Amen.
—Romans 11:32, 36

Delen: