https://youtu.be/CtQdLflRoBk
In our verse-by-verse study of Romans we are in Rom 9:18; where we are looking at Paul's conclusions regarding the issue of Jacob and Esau.
Last time we noted that the racial Jew has a great spiritual heritage but that great heritage has no meaning unless he receives God's judicial righteousness and is adopted as an heir of God as an adult son through faith in Jesus Christ, the God of Israel the Shekinah glory.
To be a biological son of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is nothing until a Jew becomes a spiritual Son of God through faith in Christ Jesus. Gal 3:26; Israel has an eternal future but the individual biological Jew must be adopted spiritually as an adult son by faith in Christ Jesus to participate in that eternal future.
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob believed in Jehovah Elohim, and therefore God wills to have mercy on them. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob advanced to spiritual maturity, therefore God desired to show them mercy by the imputation of greater grace blessing from God's justice.
In the center of the verse he conjunctive particle "de" (and). Sometimes it is translated as "now" or "and," and sometimes it is adversative so it is translated "but." But occasionally the conjunctive particle "de" is intensive as it is here so it can be translated, then, or "in fact."
That is followed by the accusative singular from the relative pronoun "hos" (on whom) with the present active indicative of "thelo" (he wishes or desires) in the static present tense refers to a doctrine that is taken for granted as a fact.
That is, the omniscience of God feeding the facts of history into God's decree that results in a printout of condemnation and wrath from negative volition.
The active voice: God's integrity produces the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative for a dogmatic statement of doctrinal reality.
We see from this that God uses man's uncoereced free will as the predicate for the information in the decree that prints out His will or purpose. His will is for human free will, positive or negative.
God knew in eternity before He created time everything that every person was going to do. He knew all about Pharaoh and the scar tissue that would be developed from his negative free will.
Remember that initially Pharaoh is described as hardening his own heart; Exod 7:13,22; 8:15,32; 9:34,35. He had maximum scar tissue in his soul by the time the sixth plague was over.
At that time God would normally have removed him from physical life under the sin unto death because he was so insane and he was dangerous to the survival everyone who was involved with him but God did not remove him he let his negative volition play out.
So in plagues 7,8,9,10 we read that God hardened his heart by letting him continue to live to use his free will to keep on saying no to God.
Next we have the present active indicative of the verb "sklerynei" (to harden, or to calcify). The perfective present tense describes a fact that has come to be in the past but is emphasized as a present situation.
When this occurs he lets people live with their own negative volition in time, go to Hades after they die physically without believing in Jesus Christ, and ultimately be transferred to the eternal lake of fire at the end of biological human history.
Pharaoh faced the issue from his own free will with full information and he kept saying no. In fact, no one had more information to say yes than Pharaoh, but he always said no.
God was not willing that Pharaoh should perish. 2 Pet 3:9; The decision was Pharaoh's, not God's. Pharaoh could have been saved because Jesus Christ died for him on the cross when he died for everyone else.
The scar tissue of the soul or the hardness of Pharaoh's heart actually originated with his own negative volition. Pharaoh had said no repeatedly. Then the Lord gave him the opportunity of saying no beyond the world's record.
This is described as God hardening Pharaoh's heart in Exodus 9:12; 10:1,20,27; 11:10; 14:8. God hardened Pharaoh's heart by keeping him alive to have more opportunity to say no in the face of more and more facts and God sustained his life so that he could completely divorce himself from reality.
And when we read in other passages that "Israel in part was blinded" we must understand that it is actually nothing more than self deception from scar tissue of the soul. Scar tissue means that you still have freedom but because of the scar tissue you believe a lie because you are completely disassociated from truth.
God hardened Pharaoh's heart by giving him more opportunity to say no in the face of more and more information that should have changed his mind.
God preserved Pharaoh alive with his great power and authority to say no to an infinitely greater power and authority, the Lord Jesus Christ. Pharaoh's continued negative volition from the scar tissue of his soul resulted in worldwide evangelism; it also resulted in more scar tissue than anyone else in history has developed.
Expanded Translation Rom 9:18; "Consequently therefore, He shows mercy on whom He desires, in fact (but) whom He desires he hardens."
We see here that understanding history from God's viewpoint is predicated on understanding God's immutable attributes. We must always understand that God never tampers free human volition in fact God demands that human volition be free.
Certain attributes are relevant to the hardening of Pharaoh's heart and/or scar tissue of his soul. Those attributes include omniscience, foreordination related to omniscience, foreknowledge as the facts are printed out from God's decree.
God's omniscience knew in eternity past that Pharaoh would not only say no six times but would persist in negative volition as the scar tissue of his soul or the blindness of his heart developed. God's omniscience knew what Pharaoh' free will would choose throughout his entire life and God did not coerce or tamper with his free volition.
That means that God's sovereignty made a decision to provide maximum opportunity for Pharaoh to experience God's omnipotence in action and in spite of that to continue to refuse from his free will and arrogance.
Scar tissue of the soul always causes human arrogance to increase. We see that principle in Rom 1:20-22;
God had the eternal and infinite power to perform those miracles that He knew would only increase the intensity of Pharaoh's obstinance.
Pharaoh's negative volition combined with his scar tissue persisted in his refusal to free Israel so the demonstration of God's omnipotence was magnified to a greater extent and the greater the demonstration of God's omnipotence the greater the evangelism.
The greater manifestation of God's omnipotence resulted on both local and worldwide evangelism at the time of Israel's Exodus from Egypt.
God's integrity or holiness includes His perfect righteousness and absolute justice. In judging Pharaoh God was fair because He was functioning in complete accord with His own perfect righteousness under His grace policy.
Rom 9:19; has two debater's questions that Paul anticipates. He understands why the unbelieving Jews are up in arms about and are antagonistic toward what he is saying.
In anticipation of their next question Paul presents it before they do. Part of debaters' technique during the debate is to anticipate the opposition's reaction to a point that has been made and to ask a question and answer the question before they ask it using the framework of the context of one's own logical reasoning to demonstrate the fallacy of even thinking what the opposition thinks before they ask about it. Paul is using that technique in this verse.
It begins with the future active indicative from an obsolete verb "eris" (you will say). This was an ancient Attic word that had become obsolete and replace by the verb "lego" (to say) in the future active indicative.
The future tense is a predictive future. Paul is predicting their thoughts in anticipation of the questions they will pose. The future predicts an event that is expected to occur at a future time, it is a part of debaters' technique to anticipate questions from the opposition.
Paul attributes the question to the thinking of the opposition so he makes them the subject of the verb. The opposition produces the action by thinking about what they are gong to say next.
Paul is quoting their thinking and they know it so they recognize his genius. It is recorded here because it is a part of our understanding of God's absolute and irrevocable Word of Truth.
It is also an application to our own life. Paul was under pressure and whenever you are under pressure you must be able to think. The indicative mood is potential indicative that that anticipates their question.
The next word is "ego" (to me) that is the indirect object. Paul is referring to himself. Then we have the inferential conjunction "oun" (then) that references the question that is based on what Paul has previously presented.
A translation of what we have so far is "Therefore you will say to me" or "you will say to me then." Next we have the first debater's question: "Why does he still find fault?" This begins with the nominative neuter singular from the interrogative pronoun "tis" (why).
With it is the adverb of time "eti" (yet or still). After all that Paul has presented the question is why is there still opposition. The tremendous logic and ability of Paul's presentation of begs the question as to why anyone would say no to these things. Any opposition is irrational.
The opposition is irrational because each doctrine is resisted individually, and as scar tissue is built up, arrogance is increased that causes blindness to the next concept without rational thought. At this point they have become totally implacable so their viewpoint is to reject everything that Paul says so they are thinking exactly what Paul is presenting in his question.
Then we have the present active indicative of the verb "memphetai" (find fault). We see from this that this debater's question anticipates objections to the doctrine of God's integrity and the doctrine of God's decree, as well as other related doctrines including election, adoption, and foreordination.
At this point the objection is irrelevant because it is blasphemous because it assumes that God does not know what He is doing and that perfect God is unfair.
Paul anticipates the antagonism of the racial Jew against the true spiritual heritage of Israel.
The racial Jew emphasizes physical genealogy and natural descent from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob while the spiritual Jew emphasizes the new birth and the spiritual descent from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
This becomes a conflict related to the natural and the spiritual seed of Abraham. It also demonstrates that irrelevance becomes irreverence by blaspheming and maligning God's integrity.
The blackout that is caused by scar tissue of the soul always finds fault with God and becomes critical of God's policy. In fact, scar tissue of the soul or hardness of the heart moves and enters places where angels fear to tread.
The self-righteousness and legalism of the Jews results in the distortion of doctrine that is the predicate for their rejection of Israel's spiritual heritage and the Lord Jesus Christ.
This first debaters' question anticipates a distortion of doctrine on the part of Jewish reversionists who follow the same pattern as the Pharaoh of the Exodus generation of Israel They see God's power and glory but they reject it.
It is inevitable that God's perfect character will find fault with imperfect sinful mankind so Paul poses his first question: "Why does He still find fault?"