Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him, 38 so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:
“Lord, who has believed what he heard from us,
and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”
39 Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah said,
40 “He has blinded their eyes
and hardened their heart,
lest they see with their eyes,
and understand with their heart, and turn,
and I would heal them.”
I have not understood why God would blind the eyes and harden the hearts of people so that they would not believe, and therefore could not be healed. This means that some people would not receive the benefits of believing (salvation, and all that it encompasses) because HE had blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts.
This is the sort of passage that skeptics use and ask the question “what sort of God is this anyway?” and adding “I don’t want to believe in a God that would blind people to so-called truth.”
But look at verse 42a: Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him.
Apparently, many did believe, and if you read through the entire book of John, you see that multitudes believed. So who is Isaiah and John writing of here? Exactly who is it that could not or would not believe?
I believe it to be those who are proud. It is people who have raised their own intellect and their own viewpoint to the level that it is their own god. In that day, those who were proud were the Pharisees, who were in power in the Jewish religion.
In John 9, Jesus healed a man who was born blind, but the Pharisees were so proud that they were blinded and unable to see the manifest power of God through this miraculous work. Here’s what Jesus said regarding them: “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” (verse 39)
I believe that this same pride remains at a number of levels, especially in Western society. It continues to remain in religious circles as it did in the time that Jesus was on Earth. It also is more prevalent than ever throughout educated people who have bought into thought birthed in the Industrial Revolution and that has grown throughout the age of technology. Intellect and reason has been placed on the throne of our lives.
But what I believe God asks of us is intellectual honesty. If your decision rests that there is no God because you have studied it out for yourself, including the study of the Bible and other Christian apologetic materials, then so be it. But if your decision comes as a result of prejudice, then my friend, you are mired in pride. You would know that it is prejudiced if your belief system has been formed through lectures, conversations, books and magazines that only those who believe as you do have used. Or worse yet, you believe what you do because someone you respect convinced you to do so. That sort of belief system lacks integrity. This includes many who consider themselves Christian.
Here is the fundamental reason that a blind person remains blind. It is found in James 4:6, and repeated in a number of places throughout Scripture: “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
Friend, if you have the disease of pride, the first step in being free of it is to come to God with humility and confess it to Him. May you be able to see the Lord Jesus in all His glory, and be healed. That is my prayer for you.
