Understanding how God hardens hearts would help resolve issues raised in the previous topics. For one, it would help clarify how the Gospel is used. And secondly, it would help sequence Romans 9 in the second time-shot of God fulfilling His promise after factoring in human acts of evil – instead of the first time-shot of God making His promise of salvation before any good or evil.

Some clues right out of Romans 9 that point to God factoring in human acts of evil while He wills to harden or show mercy is the very fact that it talks about mercy. Mercy is applicable only where evil is done, which cannot be before any good or evil is done. This internal contradiction within calvinism is what’s debated between the Supralapsarians and the Infralapsarians – you can read more about it here.

There’s also nuanced language as seen in Rom 9:22-23 where the vessels of mercy are said to be afore prepared to glory but not so with the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction. None of these stand on its own but meshes into a cohesive whole when put together. Moving on to the central point then, the elephant in the room is over how it is fair for God to harden hearts.

God is Sovereign

First, let’s put any self-esteem out of the way. If any man thinks he is something when he is not, this passage puts him in his place. Who are we to question God’s sovereignty – and can any be deluded into thinking they are more than mere putty in the Potter’s hands.

So it’s not from a position of self-entitlement but a zeal to uphold God’s glory in all of Scripture that one is forced to question the consistency of the calvinist interpretation. The calvinists lump all of human actions consequent to the Fall. And this Fall is the determining line, from which God elects to pull some into salvation while leaving the rest in the condemned state that they have fallen to.

Measure of Iniquity

But Scriptures state that this isn’t the final line of determination. There is a measure of iniquity that God awaits to be filled before pouring out His wrath in destruction – Gen 15:16. It is this same reason that Jesus Christ didn’t come into the world before the ‘fullness of time’ – God awaited Israel to fill out their measure of iniquity (Matt 23:32,36, 1Th 2:16) at which point Christ came into the world as the stumbling block to non-elect Israel.

This harmonizes with all of Scripture – that there is a conditional line that God draws for the non-elect. Eze 18 and Matt 23:37 reflect God’s disposition towards the wicked until they have filled their measure of sins – He wishes them to repent, be gathered under His wings and live. But when the non-elect have filled this measure, they are completed for destruction and they no longer meet the conditional for God’s compassion. God switches His disposition and is no longer near to them (Matt 23:39) but is a consuming fire.

The Sentencing

Here, God could easily destroy them instantly in their sleep – or He could use them as props to demonstrate His glory. Given that they are anyway ready for destruction, how does it matter if they are destroyed in a day or in a hundred. What if they were destroyed as they were then, or if they grew a hundred times worse before being destroyed. Hardening them is simply God’s sentencing process. During this time, God is set against them, and shows no mercy whatsoever – strategically causing them to be hardened as per every purpose of His will to rise in rebellion against which God shows forth His power.

And it is in this sense that Rom 9:19 preempts someone asking why God still finds fault in those He Himself has hardened as per His will. The ‘still‘ serves to imply that this question didn’t arise before God hardened them – that is was fair for God to find fault with their evil prior to this while their measure of iniquity was being filled. This further reinforces that the effects of Romans 9 shouldn’t be read as before the foundation of the world, before any good or evil was done.