He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, that they may not see with their eyes, and understand with their heart and be converted, and I should heal them.
Near the end of His public ministry, John explains why crowds who had watched sign after sign still turned away. He quotes Isaiah, and the answer is hard: God Himself blinds and hardens — so where does human responsibility fit?
The verse follows a statement that the people could not believe. Commentators tie that inability to a choice already made.
John, however, looks at their conduct at a stage after their wilfulness. They hardened their own hearts, and then their hearts were hardened as a penalty. They would not believe, therefore they could not believe. John's words are emphatic that a judicial punishment from God had fallen on the people.
One writer traces the same order right through Scripture.
It is not until man's will actively opposes God's that He shows His sovereignty. It is when man will not that he cannot.
Nothing here is hasty. God's sentence comes last, not first.
The first citation proves the guilt of rejecting God's testimony. The second, though really earlier, 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. He waits until man has filled up the measure of his guilt beyond measure. Under such a sentence of hardening they could not believe, no doubt. But the sentence came because of wickedness completed in wilful rejection of God and His will. They did not believe, despite the fullest appeals to their hearts and consciences.
Commentators point to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt in the book of Exodus, as an earlier case of God hardening a man. They note which came first.
More solemn still is the word that "they could not believe," because God had blinded their eyes and hardened their heart. But we must not suppose that God did this without reason. Pharaoh first hardened his own heart against God, and only after that do we read of God hardening his heart (Ex. 5:1-2; Ex. 7:3). In the same way, the Jews hardened themselves against the Lord Jesus, and then God confirmed their blindness by judicially blinding them. Let men dare to go too far in opposition to God, and this may be the awful result.
The blinding was not total. One writer limits it to what the Son was bringing in, and traces it to what they had already refused.
But we must remember this. He has blinded them judicially in relation to the things of Christianity, not to the things He promised them in the prophets… It was after they had refused Christ as their Messiah that God closed their eyes to the greater things the Son was bringing to pass… They closed their own eyes to what their prophetic word had clearly set out. So God judicially closed their eyes to what was not obvious, and what came to light in the ministry of our Lord.
John quotes the prophecy only in part. The gap is deliberate.
Notice that the Fourth Gospel quotes only part of the original prophecy, and leaves out the clause about their hearing. The context shows that the Gospel writer is speaking of the signs of Jesus, not of His teaching (v. 37). His miracles were for the eyes of the people, while His teaching was for their ears. So John brings forward only the clauses about their eyes and heart, which God had blinded and hardened because of their stubborn opposition.
Isaiah's prophecy and John's Gospel do not name the same speaker. Commentators say there is no clash.
It is Jehovah in the prophecy, Christ in the Gospel; but they are one — as, indeed, Acts 28:25-27 lets us include the Holy Spirit.
The verse ends with the healing they never reached. The offer behind it was real.
The Lord was the Great Physician come to heal them. And He had given repeated proofs of His power and readiness to do it. But they "would not," and so their blind eyes were made more blind.
Even at the time some did believe, and the hardening had a limit.
However, this hardening was only national, and it was not apart from mercy. It is added at once: "Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him."
And it is not the last word on the nation.
However, Israel's blindness is not permanent.
- Refusal first. They would not believe; only afterwards could they not. The hardening is a penalty on a choice, never the cause of it.
- Patience first. God held back the sentence until His patience had run its full course and man had filled up his guilt beyond measure.
- Precedent first. Pharaoh hardened his own heart before God hardened it. Go too far against God, and this may be the result.
- Sight first. The signs were for their eyes, so John quotes only the clauses about eyes and heart, leaving out the ears.
- Healing last. The Great Physician came ready to heal them. They would not. Yet the blindness is national, not permanent.
These things said Esaias because he saw his glory and spoke of him.
John has just recorded a long list of unbelief. Now he tells us who Israel was rejecting: the glory Isaiah saw, long before, was the glory of Jesus.
One writer notes that the wording reads either way — "because" or "when" he saw His glory. He then traces what the sight did to the prophet.
"Isaiah said these things because (or when) he saw His glory and spoke of Him." When the prophet saw the King, the Lord of hosts, he saw the glory of the Son of God. This was the Word who would in time become flesh and live here below, full of grace and truth. The light had its effect. The prophet owns that he is a man of unclean lips among a people of unclean lips. But fire from the altar touches him and cleanses him. Then he goes out with the message of blindness in judgment to the people who did not see His glory when it stood before their eyes in divine love.
Isaiah's own words were that his eyes had seen the King, the Lord of hosts. John says those eyes saw Jesus.
Isaiah 6 is another proof. Isaiah was in the presence of the thrice holy God… And John says of that very passage that Isaiah "saw His glory and spoke of Him" (12:41). John is referring to the Lord Jesus, the wonderful glory of the Son of God, coequal with God… Isaiah saw the glory of Jehovah, and John tells us this was the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Again we have no hesitation in saying that the Jesus of the New Testament is the Jehovah of the Old.
Scripture credits the words Isaiah heard to more than one speaker.
Isaiah 6 records the words of verse 40 in our chapter as "the voice of the Lord." In Acts 28 Paul quotes the same words as what the Holy Spirit said. This casts a helpful light on the unity of the Divine Persons. We may not divide, though we may distinguish.
Verse 41 comes right after the hardest words in the chapter: they could not believe. But the order matters. The blindness came after the refusal, not before it.
God never pronounces this blindness, and never carries it out, until His patience has had its perfect work and man has filled up the measure of his guilt. Under such a sentence of hardening they could not believe. But the sentence came because of wickedness brought to its full in the deliberate rejection of God and His will. They did not believe, despite the fullest appeals to their hearts and consciences… It is Jehovah in the prophecy, Christ in the Gospel; but they are one… And the darkness increased as the light shone out.
Why mention the vision at all in a passage about failure? Because it changes what we are left looking at.
John 12 sets a dark picture before us. But the Holy Spirit does not only show us Isaiah 6 fulfilled in the unbelief of the people. In His grace He also adds a word or two for our comfort, reminding us of the glory of the One they rejected… Here we have a man in the secret of God. And a man in the secret of God always speaks of the glory of Jesus.
Isaiah did not walk away from that vision congratulating himself. The light showed him what he was.
Christ is the perfect standard, and He measures every one of us. It does not matter what I may think of myself, or what others may think about me. The question is this: what am I in the presence of Christ?… Only when the bright light of Christ's moral glory pours around me can I form a right estimate of what I am.
And what Isaiah saw in vision is what we now need by faith — the same Person, hidden under an ordinary life in Galilee.
Isaiah "saw His glory, and spoke of Him"… And we need that same sight, by faith. We need the faith of the Son, the faith of Jesus, the faith of His name, the grasp of His person. We need the sense of the glory that lay behind a veil thicker than a seraph's wing — the covering of the lowly, earth-rejected Galilean.
- Seen — Isaiah's vision was a sight of the Son of God, long before He became flesh and lived among us.
- Named — Because the glory Isaiah saw was the Lord's glory, the Jesus of the New Testament is the Lord of the Old.
- Shared — Scripture credits Isaiah 6 to the Lord, to Christ and to the Spirit. Distinguish the Persons; never divide them.
- Refused — Blindness fell on Israel only after they refused the light. The darkness deepened as the light shone brighter.
- Sought — The glory that humbled Isaiah and then cleansed him still measures us. Faith is how we see it now.