Gen. 50:20—“as for you, ye meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive”; Ps. 76:10—“the wrath of man shall praise thee: The residue of wrath shalt thou gird upon thee”—put on as an ornament—clothe thyself with it for thine own glory; Is. 10:5—“Ho Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in whose hand is mine indignation”; John 13:27—“What thou doest, do quickly”—do in a particular way what is actually being done (Westcott, Bib. Com., in loco); Acts 4:27, 28—“against thy holy Servant Jesus, whom thou didst anoint, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, were gathered together, to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel fore-ordained to come to pass.”
To this head of directive providence should probably be referred the passages with regard to Pharaoh in Ex. 4:21—“I will harden his heart, and he will not let the people go”; 7:13—“and Pharaoh's heart was hardened”; 8:15—“he hardened his heart”—i. e., Pharaoh hardened his own heart. Here the controlling agency of God did not interfere with the liberty of Pharaoh or oblige him to sin; but in judgment for his previous cruelty and impiety God withdrew the external restraints which had hitherto kept his sin within bounds, and placed him in circumstances which would have influenced to right action a well-disposed mind, but which God foresaw would lead a disposition like Pharaoh's to the peculiar course of wickedness which he actually pursued.
God hardened Pharaoh's heart, then, first, by permitting him to harden his own heart, God being the author of his sin only in the sense that he is the author of a free being who is himself the direct author of his sin; secondly, by giving to him the means of enlightenment, Pharaoh's very opportunities being perverted by him into occasions of more virulent wickedness, and good resisted being thus made to result in greater evil; thirdly, by judicially forsaking Pharaoh, when it became manifest that he would not do God's will, and thus making it morally certain, though not necessary, that he would do evil; and fourthly, by so directing Pharaoh's surroundings that his sin would manifest itself in one way rather than in another. Sin is like the lava of the volcano, which will certainly come out, but which God directs in its course down the mountain-side so that it will do least harm. The gravitation downward is due to man's evil will; the direction to this side or to that is due to God's providence. See Rom. 9:17, 18—“For this very purpose did I raise thee up, that I might show in thee my power, and that my name might be published abroad in all the earth. So then he hath mercy on whom he will, and whom he will he hardeneth.” Thus the very passions which [pg 425]excite men to rebel against God are made completely subservient to his purposes: see Annotated Paragraph Bible, on Ps. 76:10.
God hardens Pharaoh's heart only after all the earlier plagues have been sent. Pharaoh had hardened his own heart before. God hardens no man's heart who has not first hardened it himself. Crane, Religion of To-morrow, 140—“Jehovah is never said to harden the heart of a good man, or of one who is set to do righteousness. It is always those who are bent on evil whom God hardens. Pharaoh hardens his own heart before the Lord is said to harden it. Nature is God, and it is the nature of human beings to harden when they resist softening influences.” The Watchman, Dec. 5, 1901:11—“God decreed to Pharaoh what Pharaoh had chosen for himself. Persistence in certain inclinations and volitions awakens within the body and soul forces which are not under the control of the will, and which drive the man on in the way he has chosen. After a time nature hardens the hearts of men to do evil.”
(d) Determinative,—God determines the bounds reached by the evil passions of his creatures, and the measure of their effects. Since moral evil is a germ capable of indefinite expansion, God's determining the measure of its growth does not alter its character or involve God's complicity with the perverse wills which cherish it.
Job 1:12—“And Jehovah said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thy hand”; 2:6—“Behold, he is in thy hand; only spare his life”; Ps. 124:2—“If it had not been Jehovah who was on our side, when men rose up against us; Then had they swallowed us up alive”; 1 Cor. 10:13—“will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation make also the way of escape, that ye may be able to endure it”; 2 Thess. 2:7—“For the mystery of lawlessness doth already work; only there is one that restraineth now, until he be taken out of the way”; Rev. 20:2, 3—“And he laid hold on the dragon, the old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.”
Pepper, Outlines of Syst. Theol., 76—The union of God's will and man's will is “such that, while in one view all can be ascribed to God, in another all can be ascribed to the creature. But how God and the creature are united in operation is doubtless known and knowable only to God. A very dim analogy is furnished in the union of the soul and body in men. The hand retains its own physical laws, yet is obedient to the human will. This theory recognizes the veracity of consciousness in its witness to personal freedom, and yet the completeness of God's control of both the bad and the good. Free beings are ruled, but are ruled as free and in their freedom. The freedom is not sacrificed to the control. The two coëxist, each in its integrity. Any doctrine which does not allow this is false to Scripture and destructive of religion.”
2. Rational proof.
A. Arguments a priori from the divine attributes. (a) From the immutability of God. This makes it certain that he will execute his eternal plan of the universe and its history. But the execution of this plan involves not only creation and preservation, but also providence. (b) From the benevolence of God. This renders it certain that he will care for the intelligent universe he has created. What it was worth his while to create, it is worth his while to care for. But this care is providence. (c) From the justice of God. As the source of moral law, God must assure the vindication of law by administering justice in the universe and punishing the rebellious. But this administration of justice is providence.