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But Romans 9 is about service, not about salvation. Every analogy Paul uses in that chapter has to do with a defense of God's sovereign use of Israel to accomplish His purposes. It has nothing to do with who is or is not saved.

Honorable and dishonorable vessels have to do with degrees of service. The potter analogy shows that potter is sovereign over the clay to make it into what he wants. The same lump of clay that could be made into a vase that sits in Buckingham Palace is also the same clay that can be made into a bed pan. It can be used for honorable or ignoble purposes.

God can use one person to be a great leader and someone else for lesser more humble purpose. God NEVER ordains anyone to Hell.

Paul refers to those who are vessels of wrath prepared for destruction. But in the Greek, God is not the one preparing them for destruction. The word "prepared" is in the middle voice. That means that it refers to what someone has done to themselves. Pharaoh made himself a vessel prepared for destruction. God did not create him that way.

So no, you still have NO passages that says God causes some people to go to Hell.

 

It does, like it or not.

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Wrong and that is just more sloppy exegesis. Those who refuse to believe are condemned already because we are born in a default state of condemnation. We are born in sin, separated from God. Those who reject the Lord stand in the condemnation in which all of us are born. Jesus never said that they were chosen for Hell.

You still have nothing to support that heretical statement.

 

That explanation dismisses the Lord's statement that he hardened him "in order that" or "so that" he would not let the people go. Not just that he would not -- he could not, unless the Lord was wrong.

 

Wrong. Nothing I said rises to that.

I have the power to hurt an infant child. But I don't have the will to do so. There is nothing in my mind or heart tha would prompt me to do that. Pharaoh had the power to change his mind and obey the Lord and do what the Lord told him to do. That does not thwart God at all. God knows that Pharaoh would not change his mind and he didn't. Nothing in that at all about thwarting God.

That's just you trying to assign false values to my words. A rather dishonest debate tactic.

 

That isn't how it reads in Hebrew. It doesn't say that God would harden Pharaoh's heart in order that he would not let the people go. Otherwise, you would have God ordering Pharaoh to do something while at the same preventing Pharaoh from doing it. He would punish Pharaoh for not doing what He would not allow Pharaoh to do. That doesn't reflect the just character of God.

 

We can retreat to an argument about the Hebrew, but most translators translate it that way -- that, so, so that. Maybe they don't know, either. Ultimately we must "retreat" to the simple statement of God that is active, "I will," not passive. He is talking about something he will do.

 

This has actually devolved into a semantic difference of opinion concerning the definition of “ordained”.

No Calvinist believes that people are inherently GOOD, so God must shove some EVIL into their hearts. God can merely remove restraints and allows the natural evil in the human heart to have more of its way. (Like God granting permission for Satan to attack Job and setting limits “this far and no further”.)

 

It reads in Hebrew, "v'ani a-khazak et-lavo v'lo shalak et-ha-am." Where you find the phrase, "that he shall not" is the Hebrew word, "v'lo." If he wanted to say, "In order that" or "so that" the word would be "l'ma'an."

I am not retreating to an argument about the Hebrew. I simply pointing out that the Hebrew doesn't say what you're saying God said.

 

You may have a great deal of scholarship in the Hebrew, but I don't know you or what your qualifications are. I do know you are (1) moving the debate to a different location that may not be all that edifying to most of the readers, (2) even if you are a Hebrew scholar, other Hebrew scholars disagree with you, and (3) God said "I will harden" not "I will just perform miracles so that Pharoah will harden..." Interesting that you seemed to be fine with God doing it so that Pharaoh would harden his heart, just not so that he would not let the people go.

 

Again, I never said that God did not harden Pharaoh's heart. You are trying to refute an argument I didn't make. So I can see you are really confused and lack competent debate skills. Perhaps you should bow out if you can't correctly frame my argument.

 

I am not moving the debate anywhere. YOU engaged me and I am just responding to you. Again, I never said that God did not harden Pharaoh's heart. You can't seem to get past that. You can't seem to be unable to actually address what I said. My point is that God hardened Pharaohs' heart and that hardening was the direct result the plagues God sent.

The text also says in places that Pharaoh continued to harden his own heart, which is also part of the issue, and you seemed to not want to accept that fact. God was not doing to Pharaoh anything that he had not already done to himself, as well. There are two things going on with Pharaoh. He is being hardened by God as a result of God's actions, but Pharaoh's own pride was also in play.

Pharaoh, even before God started hardening his heart, was already full of pride and was not going to obey the word of the Lord in Exodus 5. So hardening process in Pharaoh had already begun by the time the Lord started hardening him.

 

This narrows it down to the crux of the issue. No, I never said Pharaoh did not harden his own heart. But as far as the sequencing of the hardening of Pharaoh heart, it was God first, then Pharaoh. I can find no verse or verses that say otherwise. I was taught that God only hardened Pharaoh's heart after Pharaoh first hardened his own heart, and believed that for a long time. The sequence is Exodus does not bear that out.

 

It doesn't use those exact words in Exodus 5, but it is clear from the text that Pharaoh's heart was hardened against Moses and the Israelites. It is there in function.