Explain in Detail Romans 9: 10-23 and in So Doing Answer This : Is It Not Unjust to Deliberately Raise Pharaoh and Harden His Heart in Order to Destr?
1) Direct Answer
No. It is not unjust. Romans 9:10–23 shows God’s sovereign right to show mercy and His righteous judgment to harden the stubborn. Pharaoh was not made evil; he repeatedly resisted the Word, and God judicially confirmed him in that path to display His power and deliver His people.
2) Scriptural Explanation
- Romans 9:10–13: Before Jacob and Esau were born, God declared, “the elder shall serve the younger,” and “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.” The point is the purpose of God according to election—not of works, but of Him that calls. God’s choice stands on His foreknowledge and purpose, not on human merit (1 Peter 1:2). Esau later proved the nature of that choice by despising the birthright (Genesis 25:34; Hebrews 12:16).
- Romans 9:14–16: “Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.” Mercy is God’s to give. “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.” If mercy could be demanded, it would be wages, not mercy. “It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.”
- Romans 9:17–18: Concerning Pharaoh, Scripture says God “raised” him up—that is, set him on the stage of history and sustained him—so God’s power and name would be declared. Exodus records both that Pharaoh hardened his own heart (Exodus 8:15, 32; 9:34) and that God hardened his heart (Exodus 9:12; 10:20). God’s hardening is judicial: He gives men over to the stubbornness they choose (Romans 1:24–28; 2 Thessalonians 2:10–12). The same Word that softens the believing heart hardens the rebellious one.
- Romans 9:19–21: “Who hath resisted his will?” Paul answers, “Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God?” The potter has authority over the clay. As Creator, God owes no man mercy, yet He wrongs no man in judging sin.
- Romans 9:22–23: God “endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction”—they store up wrath by hardness and impenitence (Romans 2:5). Meanwhile He makes known “the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory” (Ephesians 1:4–5). Notice the patience: He endures the rebellious, then judges righteously; and He prepares His own for glory.
3) Simple Clarifying Logic
- God is just to judge sin. No sinner can claim injustice when judged.
- Mercy is not owed; it is sovereign grace. Therefore choosing to show mercy to some is not injustice to others.
- Hardening is not God making a good man evil; it is God confirming a rebel in the path he refuses to forsake after light is given. Pharaoh saw signs, heard God’s command, and kept resisting; God then hardened him to fulfill His purpose and to free His people.
- Scripture holds both truths: God rules in sovereign mercy, and man is responsible for unbelief (John 3:19–20; Acts 13:46). “Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts” (Hebrews 3:7–8).
4) Reinforcing Statement
Now notice, the Judge of all the earth does right. He raised Pharaoh to manifest His Name, He bore long with him, and He righteously hardened the man who hardened himself. At the same time, He had mercy on those who believed. That’s the mystery of grace and justice—sovereign mercy to the willing believer, righteous hardening to the persistent rebel.
Ask a Follow-up Question
What did the Laodicean Church Age (our age) Angel (- messenger) Say about this?
Ranked passages from the local William Branham sermon and Church Age Book database. Relevance is relative, not a statement of doctrinal certainty.
An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages
CAB 2:E-18
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An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages
CAB 1:E-47
Now we've been talking about the offices and manifestations of the one true God and beholding His glory in a Scriptural study. But He is not to be known intellectually. He is known Spiritually; by Spiritual revelation. This same One Who was known as Jesus after the flesh went back to the pillar of fire. But He promised He would come again and dwell amongst His people by the Spirit. And on the day of Pentecost that pillar of fire came down and it separated itself in tongues of fire upon each one of them. What was Go...
A greater than Solomon is here
63-0628E §26
But let me try to justify that tonight. The Bible said, "The footsteps of the righteous are ordered of the Lord." Sometimes He makes us do things very contrary to what we think. But we're always ... if we're following the leading of the Spirit, we're always in His will. God does what He wants to. He raised Pharaoh up for the same purpose, and called ... said He loved Jacob and He hated Esau before they were ever born. Now, God's purpose must be fulfilled. Can the potter, or the clay, say to the potter...? as we fin...
Moses' Commission
50-0110 §12
God speaking here to His servant, Moses... It was a time that--that the children of Israel got away from God, and got away from His precepts and so forth, and had become--gotten in trouble, and were down in Egypt in the Egyptian bondage. And there come a great need. As long as they were faring sumptuously and had need of nothing, why they went along all right. But when God's prophetic time come to pass, after He promised Abraham that his seed would sojourn in a strange land for four hundred years, and He would brin...
Marriage and Divorce
65-0221M §22
It's the original sin and that's the reason it's question. When any great phenomena comes from God, about the first thing: "What about marriage and divorce?" Now, as ever, it still is a question amongst the people, as it was in the times of Jesus, as it was in the times of Moses; it's always been and is to this day a question among the people, because the people want to know what's the truth. But where there is a question, there must also be an answer. And now, being an answer, as I have said before this week, ther...