Predestination, Freewill and the “God tense”

We live in the midst of time and so we have a clear past, present and future tense. But God is outside time and so has no past present or future. He is present in all time.

To give an example, an ant occupies a small area of space. When a boot comes down to crush him, he finds that changing his space to the adjoining space does not help as the boot is there also! So God is in all spaces and there is no place where He is not there. So also He is in all time.

So how does a person who is outside time communicate to a person who is within time? That is the challenge of scripture.

When God says “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” it also means you are saved and you were saved. Similarly when God says “He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” it is referring to the present condemnation of the judgement of condemnation which will be at the judgement seat in the future.

We also need to realise that the fact that God knows the choices you will make in the future does not take away your responsibility for the choices you make.

So God knowing the choices you are going to make, begins to work in your life from before you are born to prepare you for the good work He has planned for you to do (Eph 2:10) in the present.

If we understand this concept we will find that many of the difficulties of interpreting the Bible lie predestination or freewill, once saved always saved versus you can lose your salvation, etc. disappear. Even the question what happens to you when you die if the judgement is in the future vanishes if we go to a place outside time.

Was God cruel to Egypt?

Was God cruel in inflicting the then plagues on Egypt to deliver Israel from slavery? This is a valid question to ask, especially when the narrative says "God hardened Pharaoh's heart".

In Gen 15:13-14, Ex 6:6, Ex 7:4 it says that Egypt was judged. That means that the plagues served a dual purpose - one of judging Egypt and the other of delivering Israel from slavery.

For what was Egypt judged? The Bible does not say, but one good guess would be their cruelty not only to the Israelites but to all the slaves from whichever nation. This is a character of God seen in the prophetic writings of Amos, Isaiah etc. for cruelty against the poor and in Obadiah for cruelty ro ones enemies.

In this sense God was not being cruel to Egypt in the plagues.

How do we then understand the phrase "God hardened Pharaoh's heart"? I want to make two obeservation on this.

1. A similar incident is seen in II Samual 24 where God was angry with Israel and so moved David to call for a census resulting in a judgement coming on Israel. Similalry, God hardens Pharaoh's heart so that a judgement comes on the Egytpians for their cruelty.

2. The second observation is that the passage 7 times records "Pharaoh hardens his heart" and 3 times "God hardens Pharaoh's heart." Both God and Pharaih were involved and Pharaoh was not just clay in God's hand. God took advantage of Pharaoh's pride and nature to make Egypt reject the signs and prophecies given through Moses. The few who believed escaped some of the plagues, Ex 9:20, but those who did not believe were judged.

Some of the innocent Egytpians would have suffered God's judgement because of the cruelty of their fellowmen, just as some of us suffer because of the cruelty of out neighbours and fellow human beings taking God's blessings away from our nation.