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A Note on And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: for this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. (Matthew 13:14‑15) The correct rendering of the Isaiah passage is in the Septuagint and here it corresponds exactly with the words Jesus used. It is probable that the Masoretic, upon which the A.V. is based, followed a variant or corrupt reading which either was not extant (existing) in Jesus’ time, or was ignored by Him as not conveying the correct sense. It should be quite obvious that the Lord would never commission Isaiah to go out to the people with the deliberate purpose of closing their eyes and ears to the message and making it impossible for them to repent. Jesus said that His message was in parables, dark sayings, so far as the people generally were concerned, because their hearts had become hardened and their ears and their eyes they had closed, in order that they would not have to face up to the responsibility of accepting or rejecting the challenge. If they were truly converted, God would heal them, but they refused to stand in the position where the call to repent could reach them. So they were not healed, not because the Lord wanted to keep them in ignorance but because they themselves refused to face up to the reality of His call. The point to notice is that these men had not definitely rejected Christ. They had not taken a stand for evil or elected to take the side of the Evil One. They simply refused to take a decision for the one or the other. They knew, from their religious training and background from childhood upwards, that whenever there is repentance, no matter how late in the day, God will receive the repentant one. But repentance and conversion imply obligations and a change of conduct: they knew that too, and they did not want to face up to the implications. Therefore they closed their eyes and ears to the message so that they would not be as it were convinced against their will and so brought to repentance. They will not be able thus to avoid the issue forever. In the coming Millennial Age when Christ rules in righteousness every man will be brought face to face with the issues of good and evil, of life and death, and must make their choice, for that is the final Age of the Day of Grace and after that time has passed God will have dealt with the problem of evil. "Choose ye this day whom ye will serve" (Joshua 24:15) will be the demand then, as it was in the days of Elijah on a much smaller scale. (1 Kings 18:21) The blindness of many in Jesus’ day was as much due to ignorance and fear as anything else, and God is not going to let them go into the darkness before He has exerted His full powers of persuasion: almost certainly the majority at least of those who were so obdurate (obstinate) in that past day will see the light and listen to the message that then will go out with power, and convert, and be healed. AOH |
