Hardening the Heart

By

Shelby G. Floyd

March, 2010

 


      

 

During the ministry of Christ, multitudes of peo­ple heard him preach the wonderful words of God. A few believed, but most of them believed not. Concern­ing those people who heard him and believed not, John, the apostle, made the following observations:

 

“But although He had done so many signs before them, they did not believe in Him, that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke: “Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?” Therefore they could not believe, because Isaiah said again: “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts,  Lest they should see with their eyes, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them.” These things Isaiah said when he saw His glory and spoke of Him” (John 12: 37-41 NKJV).

 

       We observe first that in spite of the many miracles which Jesus performed openly before the people, yet they kept on not believing on him. That is, they rejected the miracles which confirmed his word and his identity as the divine son of God. The apostle John only records seven miracles performed by Christ, but these seven were typical of all the miracles which he did perform, which were many, great and varied. Jesus healed the sick, raised the dead, cleansed the lepers, gave sight to the blind, and in many other types of healing miracles gave evidence that God was with him.

 

       The purpose for miracles being performed by Jesus and others was twofold: (1) to confirm the word of God as being inspired and authoritative, and (2) to cause men to believe in God’s word by producing sufficient evidence that that word was from God. In fact, the key passage in the gospel, according to John, is found near the end of the book.

 

“And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name” (John 20: 30-31).

 

Notice that the purpose of the miracles which are written in the Bible is to cause faith or belief that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, in order that we might have eternal life in his name.

 

       In like manner, the miracles which were performed by Christ and his apostles to the people living dur­ing that time had the same purpose, that is, to confirm the word and to cause men to believe. “So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God. And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord work­ing with them, and confirming the word with signs fol­lowing” (Mark 16: 19-20).

 

       Now to those who were sincere and of honest heart, these miracles accomplished exactly what they were designed to accomplish. They accomplished faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. For instance, Jesus performed his first miracle at a marriage feast in Cana of Galilee (John 2: 11). Sometime later those who had seen this miracle were in Jerusalem during the Passover, arid John says, “...many believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did” (John 2: 23). If we are sincere and have open and honest hearts, the miracles which are writ­ten in the Bible will also produce faith in our hearts that Jesus is the Christ the son of God.

 

       But returning back to our text in John 12: 37, the Bible says that they believed not even though he had done so many miracles before them. Jesus perform­ed his miracles openly before the people.  They were not something done in a corner or hidden from popular view. Yet, in spite of all these miracles, there were certain people who kept on not believing in him. The present tense of the verb “believed not” indicates that it was a settled and stubborn refusal to accept his message. And yet, the rejection of Christ and his message was a fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah who said, “Lord, who hath believed our report? And to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed” (John 12:38)? This is a quotation from Isaiah 53: 1. A re­port is a message, and here it refers to the message of the Old Testament prophets which pointed to Jesus Christ as the divine Son of God. Therefore, Isaiah asked the question, “Lord, who hath believed our re­port, or our message?” The answer being implied was that not very many would believe that report. Then he also asked, “And to whom hath the arm of the Lord been re­vealed?” The arm of the Lord stands for the power of the Lord, and so in essence Isaiah is simply asking, “Lord, who will believe our message, even when it is confirmed by the arm of the Lord through miracles, signs and. wonders?”

 

       The Jews who had heard Christ, rejected him, and therefore they rejected the report of Isaiah and other inspired prophets which pointed to Christ. And they also did this in plain view of the fact that God had extended his arm through the miracles performed by Jesus Christ.

 

       Several years later, Paul, the great apostle to the Gentiles, found that the gospel report which he preached was also being rejected by the Jewish popula­tion. He applied the same prophecy of Isaiah to the people of his day (Romans 10: 16-17). The reason they had not all obeyed the gospel was because their hearts were hardened, they were prejudiced, and they had re­jected the word of the Lord.

 

       So far, we have observed that many of the Jews rejected the message of Christ, and had thereby fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, when he said, “Lord, who hath believed our report? And to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed” (John 12: 38)? This unbelief on the part of the Jews had been in the face of the greatest of evidence, miracles, signs and wond­ers performed by the Lord himself, confirming his identity as God’s Son, and confirming his speech as being inspired of God.

 

       But the unbelief and rejection of Christ and his message, by the Jews, also fulfilled another state­ment of the prophet Isaiah:

 

“Therefore they could not believe, because Isaiah said again: “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, Lest they should see with their eyes, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them.” These things Isaiah said when he saw His glory and spoke of Him (John 12: 39-41, NKJV).

 

       During the Reformation, John Calvin originated the doctrine later known as Calvinism. This doctrine consists of five propositions, namely: (1) hereditary total depravity; (2) foreordination, (3) election, (4) ir­resistible grace, and (5) the final perseverance of the saints. Those who advocated this doctrine claimed that a certain number had been foreordained to be saved, and a certain number foreordained to be lost, and that number cannot be changed by even one. Per­haps those who have taught and believed that doctrine would try to find in our text some proof to substan­tiate their theories.

 

       While on the surface it may appear that God ar­bitrarily, immediately and directly hardened their hearts and blinded their eyes so that they could not see and believe. Yet, upon closer observation such will not be found to be the case. We observe in our text that the apostle John said that “they could not be­lieve” (John 12: 39). Now obviously, if it was phy­sically impossible for them to believe because of something that God had done unto them, then of course they were not responsible for their unbelief, and rath­er God could be charged with that responsibility.

 

       But, “could not believe” does not always mean that it is absolutely impossible for someone to do this or that, but it means that it is only morally impossible to do this or that as long as a certain state or attitude prevails. Let me give you some examples. (1) When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father loved Joseph more than them, the Bible says that, “…they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him” (Genesis 37: 4). This simply means that as long as hate for Joseph existed in their hearts, they would not speak peaceably unto him. They could not because they would not, and therefore it was a moral impotency and not a physical impotency on their part. (2) Jesus said con­cerning his disciples, “The world cannot hate you” (John 7: 7). Jesus meant by this that the world would not hate his disciples as long as they had the ways of the world. The world could not because it would not hate those who were of its own. (3) Jeremiah asked the question, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil” (Jeremiah 13: 23.) The mean­ing here by a figure of speech means that the sins of Israel were so inveterate, and in such a settled state that it would be very difficult for them to change their ways and therefore avert the disaster which was coming upon them.

 

       B. W. Johnson gives us this very fine explanation as to why they could not believe. “The cause of their failing to believe is not the fact that God, through Isaiah, said thus and thus, but he simply points out the cause of their unbelief in what he said. The rea­son why they could not believe was not that God had decreed their unbelief and destroyed their free agency, but that, in the exercise of their free agency, they had made themselves, by the operation of God’s moral laws, incapable of belief” (B. W. Johnson, The New Testament Commentary On John, p. 197). Adam Clarke quotes Augustine on this passage to the effect, “If I be asked why they COULD not believe? I immediately answer, Because THEY WOULD NOT. And God, having foreseen their BAD WILL, foretold it by the prophet” (Adam Clarke, Clarke’s Commentary, Vol. 5, p. 613).

 

       On this verse, B. F. Westcott observes that, “This ‘cannot’ expresses a moral and not an external or arbitrary impossibility” (B. F. Westecott, The Gospel According To St. John, p. 185). A. T. Robert­son also gives the following excellent remarks: “John is not absolving these Jews from moral responsibility, but only showing that the words of Isaiah ‘had to be fulfilled, for they were the expressions of Divine foreknowledge’” (A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures In The New Testament, Vol. 5, p. 231).

 

       Therefore the reason why the Jews rejected Christ and his message, and could not believe is because they were prejudiced, full of sin and would not listen to the council of his will.

 

       Concerning those who rejected Christ and his mes­sage, the apostle John observed, “Therefore they could not believe, because Isaiah said again:  “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, Lest they should see with their eyes, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them.” These things Isaiah said when he saw His glory and spoke of Him” (John 12: 39-41, NKJV).  As we have observed previously, those who rejected Christ could not believe on him because they would not. They were stubborn in will and steeped in sin.

 

       The reason they did not believe is because they could not, and the reason they could not is because they would not, and therefore the “could not” of John 12: 39, is not a physical, absolute or arbitrary impossibility, but rather a moral impossibility because of the state of mind, and attitude of the heart toward God, his Son and his message. And yet, we notice that John quoted Isaiah 6: 10 to the effect that God had blinded their eyes, and hardened their hearts, in order that they should not see with their eyes nor under­stand with their heart and be converted, and therefore be saved from their sins.

 

       On the surface, this looks like that God is di­rectly responsible for their blindness, hardness of heart, lack of faith and therefore their lack of salvation. The statement in Isaiah reads in this fashion: “And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed” (Isaiah 6: 9-10).

 

       If God directly blinded the eyes and hardened the hearts of those who heard Christ, then those people were not morally responsible for their unbelief and rejection of Christ and his message. But if God hardened their hearts and blinded their eyes by send­ing Christ with a message of moral and spiritual light and truth, and they closed their eyes to that light, and hardened their hearts to that truth, then God was not directly responsible, but only indirectly by send­ing the light and the truth,

 

       God gives us physical light through the sun, but if a man closes his eyes and refuses to look upon the light, he then will become blind to the light. In the same way, God sends us the wonderful light of the gospel, but if a man chooses to ignore and to reject that light and truth, then he himself is responsible for his unbelief, and hardness and impenitent heart. But of course, it is true that what is done through an instrument or agent can be attributed to the one who is originally responsible for that agent or instrument. God then is in no way responsible for man’s unbelief and rejection of the gospel. Each man carries his own responsibility in this case because he is a free moral agent with the power of choice between right and wrong.

 

       Isaiah 6: 10 has been quoted and applied several times in the New Testament: (1) by John the apostle in our text under consideration (John 12: 39-41); (2) the quotation from Isaiah is applied by Jesus Christ in his parable of the sower to the people who were hearing the word of God. In this connection the disciples of Christ asked why he spoke to the people in parables, and Jesus replied because it was given unto his dis­ciples to know the mysteries the kingdom of heaven, but to others it was not given. Then he explained,

 

“Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.  And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says: 
      ‘Hearing you will hear and shall not understand,
      And seeing you will see and not perceive;
      For the hearts of this people have grown dull.
      Their ears are hard of hearing,
      And their eyes they have closed,
      Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears,
      Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn,
      So that I should heal them.’” (Matthew 13: 13-15).

 

This settles the question as to who is morally respon­sible for unbelief and rejection of the truth. Jesus said that they did not see, hear, understand and were not converted because the people themselves had become dull in their hearing of moral truth, and they had closed their own eyes to the blessed light of the glor­ious gospel of Jesus Christ.

 

       Therefore God only hardened their hearts and closed their eyes in the sense that he sent the message of truth and righteousness which was the immediate occasion for their closing their own eyes and hardening their own hearts to this wonderful message of truth. But the disciples of Jesus Christ understood his message because their eyes and ears were open and attentive to see and hear the truth of God. “But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear” (Matthew 13: 16).

 

       The steps by which people then can truly be saved from their sins are these: (1) see the truth with the eye of the mind, (2) hear the truth with the ears of the mind, (3) understand or perceive the truth, (4) to be converted or turned from sin to righteousness and, (5) to be healed of the moral malady of sin by the truth of the gospel. From this we observe that God is not responsible for the hardening of the human heart, but each man is responsible himself for the condition of his heart and the receptiveness of the word of God.

 

       Paul affirms that the god of this world, the devil, old Satan, blinds the minds of men in order that they might not believe the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ. “But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them” (2 Corinthians 4: 3-4). God blinds men by sending them the light. The devil blinds the eyes of men by sending them darkness, and each man blinds his own eyes by choosing darkness over the light. There­fore there is no contradiction in any of these passages but they all are in harmony with the principle that each man is morally responsible for his choice of actions. God help all of us to walk in the light as Jesus Christ is in the light.* Copyright © 2010 Shelby G. Floyd, All Rights Reserved

 

*Shelby G. Floyd delivered this sermon Sunday evening February 20, 1977 at the Garfield Heights Church of Christ, 2842 Shelby Street, Indianapolis, Indiana.