Q. Is it probable for a human being whose coronary heart has turn into hardened, and been hardened even additional by God, to arrive back again to God?
Im not exactly guaranteed what you mean by God hardening someones coronary heart even additional. We do have a document in the Bible of God hardening Pharaoh’s coronary heart. But that was for a unique reason. Pharaoh had by now set himself up in opposition to God, as became crystal clear from his initial remedy to Moses: Who is the Lord, that I need to obey him and permit Israel go? I do not know the Lord and I will not enable Israel go. So this was a issue of God confirming Pharaoh in selections that he had by now manufactured, but that was for the intent of God exhibiting who he was to all the world by means of what he did to what was then the greatest empire in the planet. We know that this built an effect on all the encompassing peoples, for the reason that later on 1 of them instructed the Israelites how they had heard of what God experienced done to the Egyptians, and as a result, they realized that the Lord your God is God in heaven over and on the earth down below.
But I would say that, apart from this sort of amazing needs in just God’s historical prepare of redemption, God would not harden the heart of an individual so as to make it tougher for that specific to repent and return. At times God will confirm us in our choices in the perception of permitting us to experience the implications of those people possibilities. But God does that exclusively so that we will realize that they were the wrong options and repent.
So my necessary response to your query is yes, a man or woman whose heart has turn out to be hardened can certainly return to God. Exclusively if you are asking about your self, the incredibly point that you are inquiring shows that your coronary heart has started to soften. You want to know if there is a way again to God. And there constantly is, for any individual who wants to return. The door is normally open on God’s side. As the Bible suggests, God was in Christ, reconciling the planet to himself, no longer counting peoples sins from them. God is keen to forgive and to restore us to romantic relationship to him. So if you are asking about by yourself, I would persuade you that the way is genuinely open up for you to return to God.
And even if you are inquiring about an individual else, the simple fact that God has place this individual on your heart and you are wondering if there is even now hope suggests to me that God, by his Holy Spirit, is reaching out to the individual as a result of you, wanting you to pray and intercede for that man or woman. So I would stimulate you to do that. See your issue for the man or woman as a little something that God has given you due to the fact God is involved and understands that you will pray and possibly be someone who is ready to inspire and enable the particular person to return.
Only God actually is aware of what is in a individuals coronary heart. Even if it may possibly seem to us that another person has become so hardened in opposition to God that they would never return, we do not know what is going on within that individual. Jesus stated he arrived to seek out and preserve the lost. That is what we do know. If a person appears missing, then he or she is precisely the form of man or woman whom Jesus arrived to preserve.
Christopher R Smith
He has a B.A. from Harvard in English and American Literature and Language, a Master of Arts in Theological Scientific tests from Gordon-Conwell, and a Ph.D. in the History of Christian Lifestyle and Believed, with a small concentration in Bible, from Boston Higher education, in the joint application with Andover Newton Theological School.
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