Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Categories
- All Categories 13.7K
- General Category 10.8K
- General Announcements 184
- Faith Issues 3.4K
- Coptic Orthodox Church 2.5K
- Personal Issues 1.4K
- Prayer Requests 423
- Random Issues 1.8K
- Introductions 294
- Non-Orthodox Inquiries 232
- Youth Corner 606
- Hymns 2.5K
- Hymns Discussion 2.5K
- Technicial Difficulties 367
- Technical Topics 367
Is God UNJUST?
It was said to rebecca "The older shall serve the younger" ROMANS 9:12
ALSO ROMANS 9:17-18 "For the scripture says to the pharoah for this very purpose i have raised you up, that i may show my power in you, and that my name may be declared in all the earth"
Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.
does this mean that God in unjust, for how can God harden peoples harts and at the same time have respect for them by giving them free chioce?????
I beleive that God is merciful and just from the bottum of my heart but i would like to see if some of the christian youth have an answer to this question........ I hope that this question forces us to ask questions about our religion so that we may understand our religion in depth......... THANK YOU AND GOD BLESS
ALSO ROMANS 9:17-18 "For the scripture says to the pharoah for this very purpose i have raised you up, that i may show my power in you, and that my name may be declared in all the earth"
Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.
does this mean that God in unjust, for how can God harden peoples harts and at the same time have respect for them by giving them free chioce?????
I beleive that God is merciful and just from the bottum of my heart but i would like to see if some of the christian youth have an answer to this question........ I hope that this question forces us to ask questions about our religion so that we may understand our religion in depth......... THANK YOU AND GOD BLESS
Comments
I can understand your predicament. ???
These verses shouldn't be taken in the sense that God denies free choice. If you look at it in its fullest sense you will see that God did allow Pharoah free will. The hardening of heart is not something that God does in the sense that he forces Pharoah to make that decision but it is the result of God trying to get Paharoah change his mind. I mean that Moses came to Pharoah and said let God's people God people go and Pharoah refused so God tried to convince him by one of the plagues. Pharoah had to decide in his mind what do I need more the Israelites who are the backbone of the economy of Egypt or obedience to God and the possible ruin of my nation? The hardening came as a result of Pharoahs own convitiction that he needed the slaves more than God. Everytime a plage came he was pushed to resist further and further. Its like the Egyptian mentaiity (that still exists today I might add) when a person is attacked and even though they're in the wrong they get defensive and when you push harder they resisit more and more even if they're in the wrong.
God's treatment of Pharoah is consistant with how God deals with proud people it is written God humiliates the proud but gives grace to the humble. God does this because proud people don't want to listen to Him so God does it out of His kindness to give them a chance to see how weak they are so that they are able to accept Him. In the story God did Pharoah a favour, He FORCIBLY made pharoah submit on numerous occasions, the plages were so bad and only stopped after pharoah repented (he had no choice but to stop them) but after they were gone he concluded that matters couldn't get worse and that so long as he had the slaves Egypt could be rebuilt and so freely changed his mind.
It says that God hardened because while God didn't actually send His Spirit to harden Pharoahs heart, but God's work exposed it in an emphatic way. So we can conlude that these verses mean that God will work in the world to both bless the people who have humility and expose the pople who will resist him so that they will have no excuse on judgement day. God's work here is not to deny free will but to manifest the magnitude of disobediance that we are capible of performing. It was very possible for Pharoah to turn from his sin but he chose not to.
I hope this helps! :)
God bless you,
CS