Does God Ever Soften a Heart He Has Hardened?
Chapters
0:02:22 The Flow of Thought in Romans
7:3 God Is Free To Save
8:5 He Raises the Spiritually Dead Ephesians 2 : 5
00:00:00.000 | Romans 1 verses 18 to 32 is striking. There, the Apostle Paul casts the fallout of idolatry
00:00:11.000 | into categories of sexual sin, of a deepening entrapment to sexual sin, and specifically
00:00:16.940 | homosexual practices. The immediate relevance and potency of this text for our own culture
00:00:23.320 | raises all sorts of controversy, and merely expounding the Bible's own words in this
00:00:28.520 | chapter is an act commonly judged to be scandalous hate speech. But the Bible says it, we won't
00:00:35.040 | ignore it, and Christians can't ignore it. So then, can these idolatries be saved from
00:00:40.200 | a process of divine heart-hardening? This question arrives from a listener named Nate.
00:00:44.560 | "Hello Pastor John, I was recently reading Romans chapter 1 verses 18 to 32. There, Paul
00:00:50.040 | seems to be saying that God gave up homosexual sinners to dishonorable passions because they
00:00:55.260 | worship the creature rather than the Creator. There's a judgment in this text of God giving
00:01:00.520 | them over to a further hardening, and yet it also seems to me that former practitioners
00:01:05.320 | of homosexual sin can be saved out of that lifestyle, as we see in 1 Corinthians chapter
00:01:10.560 | 6 verses 9 to 11. So the handing over does not seem to be a permanent, irreversible thing
00:01:17.200 | either. So is it possible for the ever-hardening heart of Romans 1 to eventually be saved?"
00:01:24.200 | Well, if Nate uses the phrase "ever-hardening heart," then he's already answering the question.
00:01:34.240 | Because if they are saved, then the hardening wasn't ever-hardening. But I assume what he's
00:01:40.360 | asking is whether the people of Romans 1 whom God gave up to the lust of their hearts can
00:01:49.760 | be saved. In other words, is the giving up to hardness, to lusts, always forever? God
00:02:00.280 | can give up to hardness and corruption for a season or not, can He? And my answer is
00:02:06.200 | yes. He can and He does, and so the people of Romans 1 can be saved if God sends them
00:02:14.680 | the gospel and opens their hearts to believe it. And here are several reasons that I think
00:02:21.520 | that. And the main one is the flow of thought in Romans 1 through 3 itself. We don't have
00:02:27.880 | to run over to 1 Corinthians 6, which we will, but we don't have to. The main point is that
00:02:34.920 | the flow of thought, Paul's intention in Romans 1 through 3, is to teach just that—namely,
00:02:43.040 | that these folks in Romans 1 can be saved. Chapter 1 describes the typical Gentile situation
00:02:49.920 | before God in the bondage of blindness and sin. Chapter 2 describes the Jewish situation
00:02:56.480 | of bondage and blindness to sin. Then chapter 3 introduces God's saving action to rescue
00:03:05.820 | people from both groups, Jew and Gentile. So verse 9 of chapter 3 summarizes what he's
00:03:12.200 | been saying for two chapters, and he says, "What then? Are we Jews any better off? No,
00:03:18.880 | not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks," chapter 1 and
00:03:27.160 | chapter 2, "are under sin." And I think that phrase "under sin" refers to bondage, under
00:03:35.820 | the power of sin for both Jew and Gentile, as they were described in chapters 1 and chapter
00:03:43.240 | 2. And then comes this glorious saving action in chapter 3, 21, "But now the righteousness
00:03:53.080 | of God has been manifested apart from law, although the law and the prophets bear witness
00:03:57.280 | to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For,"
00:04:05.940 | and these important words, "there's no distinction for all who have sinned and fall short of
00:04:11.880 | the glory of God. They are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that
00:04:16.520 | is in Christ Jesus." Those words, "all have sinned and fall short," or literally lack
00:04:22.720 | the glory of God, are, I think, intentionally designed to recall verse 23 of chapter 1,
00:04:30.320 | they exchange the glory of God for images and resembling mortal man and birds and animals
00:04:36.940 | and creeping things. Those are the people that God gives up to dishonorable passions,
00:04:44.200 | because they exchange the glory of God. They lack the glory of God. These are the very
00:04:50.040 | ones who threw away God's glory and he handed them over to corruption. These are the ones
00:04:58.680 | in 323 who are justified by faith. That's the connection Paul is making. So that's my
00:05:07.560 | first reason for saying that the condition of the Gentiles in chapter 1 of being handed
00:05:15.240 | over to the lusts of their flesh is not necessarily irrevocable. I think chapter 3 of Romans is
00:05:23.700 | intended to say that God saves all who believe, including some of them from chapter 1. Here's
00:05:30.920 | the second reason I think we should be hopeful for folks in chapter 1 of Romans. That same
00:05:39.280 | flow of thought is found in 1 Corinthians 6, 9, and 10. It says, "Do you not know that
00:05:47.320 | the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?" So there they are, set, trajectory
00:05:53.440 | is on, they are doomed. "Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters,
00:06:00.560 | nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor greedy, nor drunkards, nor
00:06:08.480 | revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God." That corresponds to the Gentile
00:06:14.560 | situation of Romans 1. In verse 11, "Such were some of you, you believers, you saints,
00:06:22.640 | you people on the way to heaven, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified
00:06:28.680 | in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God." And that corresponds to the salvation
00:06:35.680 | in Romans 3 through 8. So we're encouraged to believe that God steps in to the seeming
00:06:44.200 | impossible bondage to sin that he himself has handed people over to and sovereignly
00:06:51.600 | changes their hearts and saves them. And here's the third reason I think the sinners in Romans
00:06:59.000 | 1 that God has given up to bondage to sin can be saved and should take heart. God is
00:07:05.360 | free to save anyone he please, and none can thwart his purpose to do so. Romans 9.15,
00:07:18.200 | God says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion
00:07:25.320 | on whom I will have compassion." So then it depends not on human will or exertion,
00:07:32.480 | or you could add, or any bondage that they're in, but on God who has mercy. So he has mercy
00:07:39.480 | on whom he wills, and he hardens whom he wills. In other words, if God has given people over
00:07:46.040 | to the hardness of their heart, he is free to step in at any time he please, with anyone
00:07:52.760 | he please, to free them from that hardness. Here's a fourth reason we should be hopeful
00:07:59.480 | for those who seem to be impossibly ensnared in sin. He raises the spiritually dead. Ephesians
00:08:11.880 | 2.5. He gives new birth. John 3.8. He takes out the heart of stone and puts in the heart
00:08:21.040 | of flesh, Ezekiel 11.19. So we should be encouraged that God can take out any hard heart that
00:08:31.000 | he has handed people over to. In other words, salvation isn't a mingling of human resolve
00:08:39.000 | and God's resolve. It is a powerful, sovereign work of God replacing hearts. Finally, we
00:08:47.760 | should take heart for those folks in Romans 1, because even though Satan is stronger than
00:08:55.920 | we are, nevertheless, God overcomes satanic blindness to save people, according to 2 Corinthians
00:09:04.040 | 4, 4-6. So if he's willing and able to step in and conquer Satan's supernatural power
00:09:13.600 | of blindness, who loves to beat up on people who have been handed over by God to their
00:09:20.560 | sin, we can be encouraged that he is able and willing to save those who are in bondage
00:09:27.200 | to their own finite sinfulness. So my conclusion is, when we read about God giving someone
00:09:36.240 | over to passions and hardening, we should not conclude that this is always permanent.
00:09:45.360 | God can and does break in and save.
00:09:50.560 | Yes, amen. He is a gracious God. Thank you, Pastor John, for those hope-filled words.
00:09:56.600 | Well, for everything you need to know about this podcast, you can pretty much find it
00:10:00.400 | all at our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn. There you can find past episodes, a list of
00:10:07.200 | our most popular episodes, and you can send a question or a follow-up question to us through
00:10:12.280 | that page as well.
00:10:13.720 | Well, on Wednesday, we hear from a Christian who came to embrace Reformed theology in college,
00:10:19.680 | and that same believer is now having children of her own and building a family with children
00:10:25.320 | that may or may not be elect in Christ. And that reality raises huge questions for young
00:10:31.560 | parents like a young mom named Alex. We will hear from her next time on Wednesday. I'm
00:10:37.360 | your host Tony Reinke. We'll see you then.
00:10:39.000 | [END]
00:10:39.500 | 1. What is the purpose of the Reformed Church? The Reformed Church is a Christian organization.
00:10:46.500 | [ Silence ]