Grace in the Plagues

Recently I came across a cartoon with a biblical theme on my social media feed. It depicted a character that was clearly meant to be Pharaoh, with the cobra headdress and shendyt. He was sitting on a bed in a doctor’s office, his arms and legs were covered in spots, and the doctor stood next to him, ready to pronounce his diagnosis.

“Have you tried letting His people go?” the doctor asks.

It made me smile. The doctor had no human answers to his condition. So he asked the obvious question. The one thing Pharaoh hadn’t tried. The one thing that Pharaoh wouldn’t do.

When modern people read about the plagues, they often wrestle with the idea that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. As Seventh-day Adventists who believe strongly in free will and the loving character of God, the idea that Pharaoh’s heart was hardened by God, so that he afflicted God’s people, while his own people suffered, can be a challenge to process. We are not as comfortable with the concept of judgment, as our ancient counterparts may have been.

This week’s lesson excellently explains that each plague was designed to target a specific deity of Egypt. In many ways this was just as much a physical battle as a spiritual one—against “principalities and powers.”

A Challenging Story

Some claim that because of God’s sovereignty, He is ultimately responsible for everything that happens and should be held accountable for it. The Bible, however, is clear that Pharaoh was complicit in hardening his own heart. Pharaoh is blamed for hardening his own heart until the sixth plague. We see that even after Pharaoh is defeated and the people are set free; he soon attempts to chase them down and recapture them. He was almost single-mindedly determined to maintain his course, even in the face of good sense or better judgment.

Still, some wrestle with these stories, and I think this is healthy for our faith. Our faith shouldn’t be comfortable with boils on babies. Or bombs on babies, for that matter. Our faith should wrestle with the death of the innocent as it should wrestle with a whole people group enslaved and oppressed. The fact that Pharaoh destroyed the sons of the Israelites doesn’t mean we should cheer and clap when the children of Egypt are destroyed.

Yet greater minds than mine have struggled with these questions for millennia. Scholars and philosophers have debated this and that point for lifetimes.

I’m going to take an unexpected approach and leave the debates to those who are more worthy to have them. I’m going to look for something that appears in the Old Testament but is not always immediately apparent.

I’m talking about grace.

We don’t often look for grace in unexpected places, but I half suspect that if we looked for it more often, we’d find it.

Why the Long Process?

Grace. The sweet sound of salvation to the sinner, redemption to the bound, mercy to the undeserving, and a stay of execution to the guilty.

We don’t often look for grace in unexpected places, but I half suspect that if we looked for it more often, we’d find it—God’s grace in a fallen world for a broken humanity.

The first hint I had of grace buried in the story of the plagues was God’s delay. In a sense, the plagues worsened progressively. The first few were merely inconvenient: flies, frogs, gnats, and blood. They offended the senses (smell, taste, sight, ickiness). They made things dirty and unclean. They afflicted everyone, Israelite and Egyptian alike. But they were a warning, a shot across the bow. God didn’t start the plagues with the death of the firstborn. You could argue that to do so would have matched the throwing of Hebrew babies into the river, and would have forced Pharaoh to give in straightaway. But then he would have had no chance to repent or soften his heart and turn away from his course. The plagues unfolded as they did; but what if Pharaoh had repented? Like Nineveh, what if Pharaoh’s true repentance had stopped the plagues when they were merely annoying irritations? Grace allowed for this potential outcome!

Another Old Testament story that taught me to look for grace in unexpected places was the story of Ai, found in the book of Joshua. At Ai Israel suffered its first defeat in the Promised Land. What should have been an easy battle turned into a rout, and Israel was defeated. Joshua and the elders searched their souls and turned to God. What could have happened? they wondered. After the high point of conquering Jericho without a soldier lost, they were turned back by an insignificant city. Achan was discovered to have stolen some dedicated things from Jericho and had hidden them in his tent. His whole family was held accountable for the crime and punished alongside their head. Another difficult story. When I was reading it, I kept wondering: Why the long process?

God knew who did it. He could have told Joshua. Why tell them to come back tomorrow? Why alert the guilty party that there would be a process of searching for this transgression? Why the lots cast and drawn? Why line everyone up?

The entire process took a considerable amount of time. As the search narrowed to tribe, clan, family, at each step there was an opportunity for repentance. At any point Achan, his conscience pricking him, could have come forward and confessed. He did not. Not until the last moment, when it was too late. Achan’s lot had come up, and this was the end. He had nowhere else to hide. Joshua said, “My son, give glory to the Lord. . . . Tell me what you have done; do not hide it from me” (Joshua 7:19, NIV). His heart had hardened. He had held out until the very end. Finally Achan confessed. “It is true! I have sinned against the Lord, the God of Israel. This is what I have done. When I saw the plunder . . . , I coveted them and took them. They are hidden in the ground inside my tent” (verses 20, 21, NIV).

God’s judgment falls, but not before a long process. If Achan had come forward without prompting, could he have found forgiveness? We’ll never know. But I like to think that God sometimes allows affliction to take time, to go through a process, or to escalate before the final blow, giving people time to repent and be saved.

“The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9, NIV).

The other sense we get of God’s grace is in the latter plagues. The Israelites lived in the land that was afflicted, but were protected by God. They were God’s chosen people, but at the time they lived in Egypt, they were not much holier than the Egyptians. Many followed Egyptian gods. They had probably backslidden somewhat from Joseph’s faith. It wasn’t their perfection or their great faith that saved them from the plagues, but the fact that they were chosen by God and called by His name. God provided protection from the more severe plagues, not because of their merit, but because of His grace.

I can be like the Israelites: While the world falls apart around me, I see God’s hand protecting me. I can also be like the Egyptians: Consequences of my sins, affliction, and grief may assault me, but God’s grace is available anytime I accept it. And in the waiting or the grief, I get to learn more about God’s grace.

Next time your world is rocked by whatever plague, broken humanity, or the natural world throws at you, be courageous and look for God’s grace.