And being disagreed among themselves they left; Paul having spoken one word, Well spoke the Holy Spirit through Esaias the prophet to our fathers,
Paul's last recorded meeting with his own people ends in a quarrel. As they walk out he leaves them one sentence: words Isaiah spoke seven centuries earlier, and he names the Speaker behind them.
That closing sentence is not new. Paul repeats a verdict passed centuries earlier.
They disagreed among themselves and left. Paul repeated the sentence God had held back so long. The Judge Himself had already pronounced it in John 12:37-41 — more than seven centuries after God inspired Isaiah to speak it from the vision in the temple, in the year King Uzziah died (Isa. 6). What a witness to God's patience, and to His sure judgment on His own people!
Paul credits the words to the Holy Spirit, not to Isaiah alone. The New Testament quotes the older Scriptures this way throughout.
The quotations from the Old Testament in the New are important. They prove beyond dispute that God is the author of the whole. It is not simply that Moses or David said this or that. Such quotations come with words like "God commanded," Matt. 15:4; "as the Holy Spirit says," Heb. 3:7; "David himself, in the Holy Spirit, declared," Mark 12:36; "The Holy Spirit was right in saying to your fathers through Isaiah the prophet," Acts 28:25. Then all of it is called "the scriptures," and God inspired every part. So whatever carries the mark "It is written" has the authority of God Himself.
Three places in the Bible quote this passage from Isaiah. Compare them, and something remarkable appears about the One Who spoke.
It is worth noting that in quoting this passage Paul says, "The Holy Spirit was right in saying." Turn to Isaiah 6, and the prophet says about this message, "I heard the voice of the Lord" — that is, the Lord of hosts. Turn to John 12, and we find the comment, "Isaiah said these things because he saw His glory and spoke of Him." We have only to look at the verses before it to discover that the "His" and "Him" refer to Jesus. How plain it is, then, that we must identify the Lord of hosts with both Jesus and the Holy Spirit — three Persons, yet one God.
Isaiah spoke these words long before they took full effect. One commentator traces the delay, and what ended it.
He arrived at Rome and sent for the Jews. Here, for the last time, we see their condition. Judgment had hung over their heads ever since Isaiah spoke the prophecy. The Lord Jesus declared that this judgment would come upon them because they rejected Him. God's patience held back the carrying out of it, until they rejected the testimony of the Holy Spirit as well. So Paul brings this judgment to mind at the end of the historical part of the New Testament.
The Spirit named in the verse had a work of His own. Refusing Him was the last refusal.
He Who long ago gave the prophet to see, hear, and write was now sent down from heaven to make good Christ's glory. Paul declares Him to be the One Who spoke then and in that way. The Jews had rejected the Spirit as the witness of the glorified Son of Man, as truly as they had rejected the Son on earth, and the Lord long before that.
The sentence Paul quotes is one of hardening. So could these hearers have believed?
Under such a sentence of hardening they could not believe. But the sentence came because their wickedness had reached its full measure. They wilfully rejected God and His will, and did not believe, despite the fullest appeals to their hearts and consciences.
The verdict falls on the nation as a whole. It does not fall on every individual.
Paul spoke these words, realising that during this gospel age Israel's day as a nation was over. As a nation they are blind and without understanding in the things of God, though very sharp about the things of the world. Of course, this does not conflict with God still calling out a remnant according to the election of grace, as Romans 11 states.
- Spoke. Paul credits Isaiah's words to the Holy Spirit. The New Testament treats every older Scripture this way: the human writer holds the pen, God is the Author.
- Saw. Isaiah heard the Lord. John says Isaiah saw Christ's glory. Paul says the Spirit spoke. Three Persons, one God, in one quotation.
- Waited. Isaiah's sentence hung over the nation for centuries. God's patience held it back until they refused the Spirit's testimony too.
- Chose. The hardening is real, but the guilt is man's. The sentence came only after they rejected the fullest appeals.
- Remains. The nation's day closed, yet God keeps calling out a remnant — the verdict on the many never cancels mercy for the few.
saying, Go to this people, and say, Hearing ye shall hear and not understand, and seeing ye shall see and not perceive.
Paul was a prisoner in Rome. He spent a whole day showing the city's leading Jews how Moses and the prophets speak of Jesus. They left divided among themselves, and his parting word was not a new argument. It was an old sentence from Isaiah: a people who hear and hear, yet never take it in.
Paul does not say "Isaiah wrote." He says the Holy Spirit spoke. Two other passages name a different speaker again.
It is worth noting that when Paul quotes this passage he says the Holy Spirit "was right in saying" these words. Turn to Isaiah 6, and the prophet says about this message, "I heard the voice of the Lord" — that is, the Lord of hosts. Turn to John 12, and we find the comment, "Isaiah said these things because he saw His glory and spoke of Him." We only have to look at the verses just before it to see that "His" and "Him" refer to Jesus. How plain it is, then, that we must identify the Lord of hosts with both Jesus and the Holy Spirit — three Persons, yet one God.
The problem is not deafness. They could hear perfectly well.
God commanded the prophet to "go and tell this people, Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive." That was their condition. They stood in the place of privilege, hearing and seeing, yet they took in nothing of heavenly sights and sounds.
So who closed their eyes? The wording Paul quotes answers that.
Compare these passages. The quotations from this prophecy in the first three Gospels, and the one by the apostle Paul in his speech to the Jews at Rome, all point to the nation deliberately closing its own ears. "Their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed." This wording comes from the Greek version of the Old Testament, which gives the passage that turn. Their sin therefore came from their own deliberate act, and so the nation bears the responsibility.
Paul was the third messenger to aim these words at the nation. He was also the last.
The leaders of the people refused to listen to Isaiah when he spoke to them... they had no heart for his message from God. The solemn words Paul quotes fell on them first. Yet that did not seal their fate. They had another opportunity. The Lord lived among them, full of grace and truth, and spoke to them Himself. But they threw that opportunity away, and the same solemn words came again... Yet God's patience was so great that their fate was not sealed by their rejection of the Lord Himself... The third and final testimony came from the Holy Spirit through Paul. They rejected that too, and their rejection was final. For eight hundred years God had waited, but now at last Isaiah's solemn prediction was fulfilled.
Is it fair to blind a people? Commentators answer that this blindness is a sentence from God, and the sentence comes last, not first.
...it points to the solemn fact of judicial blindness. God never pronounces it, still less carries it out, until His patience has had its perfect work and man has filled up the measure of his guilt beyond measure. Under such a sentence of hardening they could not believe. But the sentence came because their wickedness had reached its full measure. They wilfully rejected God and His will, and they did not believe, despite the fullest appeals to their hearts and consciences.
The verse describes the nation, not every individual in it. God's work with individuals went on.
Paul spoke these words knowing that during this gospel age Israel's day as a nation was over. As a nation they are blind and without understanding in the things of God, though very sharp about the things of the world. This of course does not conflict with what Romans 11 states: God is still calling out a remnant according to the election of grace.
Israel would not hear, so the message went to those who would. That is where Acts stops.
Meanwhile "this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles." The grace of God goes down to the lowest when the light of the knowledge of His glory shines. It shines now in the gospel, in the face of Jesus at His right hand. So Israel is set aside, the Gentiles hear, and the apostle was in chains. So the history ends.
- Spoken — Paul credits the words to the Holy Spirit. Isaiah heard them from the Lord of hosts. John says Isaiah saw the glory of Jesus. Three Persons, one God, one message.
- Heard — They had every privilege. They heard and saw, and still took nothing in.
- Closed — The wording Paul quotes says the people shut their own eyes. That is why they carry the blame.
- Waited — First Isaiah, then Christ, then the Spirit through Paul. God waited eight hundred years before the sentence fell.
- Sent — The nation's blindness did not stop grace. God still calls out a remnant, and salvation went to the Gentiles who would hear.
For the heart of this people has become fat, and they hear heavily with their ears, and they have closed their eyes; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.
Paul's last recorded words to the Jewish leaders in Rome are not his own. He hands them a sentence Isaiah had spoken centuries earlier, about a people whose heart had gone dull and whose eyes were shut. The verse raises two questions. Did God blind this people, or did they blind themselves? And is the closed door final?
Isaiah spoke these words long before Paul. They hung over the nation while God waited.
Paul arrives at Rome and sends for the Jews. Here, for the last time, we see their condition. We also see the judgment that had hung over their heads ever since the prophecy was spoken. Isaiah pronounced that judgment, and the Lord Jesus declared it would come upon them because they rejected Him. The patience of God held back the carrying out of it until they rejected the testimony of the Holy Spirit too.
Isaiah spoke. Then Christ came. Then the Holy Spirit testified through Paul. God's patience carried them past every refusal but the last.
The quotation is from Isaiah 6. The leaders of the people refused to listen to Isaiah when he spoke to them. They had no heart for his message from God, and the solemn words Paul quotes were first spoken against them. Yet that did not seal their fate. They had another opportunity when the LORD lived among them, full of grace and truth, and spoke to them Himself. But they threw that opportunity away. Again the solemn words were spoken, showing both their condition and their doom. Yet God's patience was so wonderful that even their rejection of the Lord Himself did not seal their fate. God spared them for one more testimony, for the Lord prayed for them, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." The third and final testimony came from the Holy Spirit through Paul. Their rejection of that one was final.
The verse does not say their eyes were shut for them. Paul's wording puts the act on their side.
Compare these passages. The quotations from this prophecy in the first three Gospels, and the one the apostle Paul made in his address to the Jews at Rome, all point to the nation closing its own ears on purpose. "With their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed" (Acts 28:27). This wording comes from the Greek version of the Old Testament, which gives the passage this turn. Their sin was therefore their own deliberate act, and the nation is held responsible for it.
Pharaoh is the standing example of a man God hardened. The order matters. The hardening seals a man in what he has already chosen.
God never makes a man bad. But Pharaoh was a bad man, made still worse by resisting the most striking divine appeals. God put him on show. He raised him up from among men to such a height that his downfall might speak to consciences far and wide throughout the world. Hard at first, God sealed him up at last in a judicial hardening. God warned the Jews through Isaiah that this would be the case with their unrepentant hearts. He carried it out when they rejected Christ (John 12) and the Holy Spirit's appeal in the gospel (Acts 28:25-28).
The verse ends with healing on offer. The Healer had already proved Himself among them.
It was dangerous for them to trifle with God's offers of mercy. Grace and truth had come in His Person. To reject Him was to bring down on them that judicial blindness the prophet Isaiah spoke of… The Lord was the Great Physician, come to heal them. He had given repeated proofs of His power and His readiness to heal. But they "would not" (Matt. 23:37), and so their blind eyes were blinded further.
The chapter does not end in darkness. The same moment that closes the nation's day opens the message to everyone else.
But the gospel goes to the Gentiles. Despite all that had worked against it before, or might work against it later, they were to hear. And they have heard. We ourselves, thanks be to God, are the witnesses of it.
Within Israel, God has not stopped saving people.
As a nation they are blinded and without understanding in the things of God, though very sharp about the things of the world. Of course this does not conflict with God still calling out a remnant according to the election of grace, as Romans 11 states.
- Delayed. Isaiah spoke the sentence, and God held it back for centuries. He carried it out only after His patience had run its full course.
- Refused. God sent three testimonies — the prophet, the Son, the Holy Spirit. The third refusal was the last.
- Self-closed. The verse says they shut their own eyes. The blindness is their own responsibility.
- Sealed. God makes no one bad, but He does seal a man in the hardness he has chosen — as with Pharaoh, so here.
- Redirected. They refused healing. The gospel then went out to the nations, and God still saves a remnant of Israel by grace.
Be it known to you therefore, that this salvation of God has been sent to the nations; *they* also will hear [it].
One writer explains how far the promise to the Gentiles reaches. ESV renders the last clause "they will listen":
Verse 28 gives us the last words of Paul recorded in Acts. They are very significant, because they show the point the book has been leading us to. He proclaims a definite message from God: His salvation is now sent to the Gentiles, because the Jew is blind and hard. Then he adds, "they will hear it." This does not mean all of them will hear. It means that, unlike the Jew, a hearing ear will be found among them. This, thank God, has proved true throughout the centuries.
Paul had just quoted Isaiah 6, words the New Testament had already used twice. This third use marks a final stage, but not a closed door for individual Jews:
Before the unbelieving Jews left, Paul spoke a final word to them. He quoted the passage from Isaiah 6. The Lord Himself quoted it in Matthew 13, and John quotes it in chapter 12 of his Gospel. This sad and terrible hardening and spiritual death had already set in during the days of Isaiah, some seven centuries before Christ. It was far more pronounced when Christ was on earth; and now the final stage was reached... Of course, this does not conflict with God still calling out a remnant according to the election of grace, as Romans 11 states.
Paul does not say only that Isaiah spoke. He says the Holy Spirit spoke — ESV renders that line "The Holy Spirit was right in saying." One writer traces three refusals: the prophets, the Son on earth, and the Spirit from heaven:
Now the word is again cited by Paul, only with this emphatic reference — "Well spoke the Holy Spirit." The One who long ago gave the prophet power to see, hear, and write was now sent down from heaven to make good Christ's glory. Paul declares Him to be the One who spoke those words then and in that way. The Jews had rejected the Spirit as the witness of the glorified Son of Man, just as truly as they had rejected the Son on earth, and Jehovah before that. As far as responsibility goes, everything was over with the chosen people. They had failed in righteousness, and they hated the sovereign grace offered in the gospel.
The verb matters. If God has to send salvation to you, two facts follow at once:
The moment I hear the word "salvation" it brings this to my mind. If God sends me salvation, it is clear I have not got it, that needs no proving; and if God sends it, it proves, too, that I need it. Salvation comes from God, that is the source. You are the recipient, and the thing sent is exactly what you need!
The announcement in Rome describes the age we still live in. (The Scripture quoted below uses an older wording; ESV has "immeasurable riches.")
There is no doubt about this long age in which our lot is cast. God still works and gathers out of the Jewish circle, but the main work has been the out-gathering from the Gentiles. So we get the Scripture that says "in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace, in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus." The word "exceeding" might be translated "surpassing." Something that surpasses everything else.
The verse is often read as a closing of accounts. One writer ends the story on three notes at once:
But meanwhile "this salvation of God was sent to the Gentiles." The grace of God goes down to the lowest when the light of the knowledge of His glory shines. It shines now in the gospel, in the face of Jesus at God's right hand. So Israel is cast off, the Gentiles hear, and the apostle was in chains. So the history ends.
- Refused — Paul quotes Isaiah's word a third and final time. Israel had turned away the prophets, the Son on earth, and now the Spirit sent from heaven.
- Sent — God did not withdraw salvation; He redirected it. If He must send it, those who receive it neither had it nor could produce it.
- Heard — the promise is not that every Gentile believes. It is that a hearing ear would be found at last — and it has been, for centuries.
- Gathered — since that day God's main work has been gathering people out of the nations, a surpassing display of His grace.
- Reserved — the setting aside is not total. God still calls out a remnant by grace, so the verse closes an era, not a people's future.