Wednesday 21st August
Read John 12:39-41
“For this reason they could not believe, because, as Isaiah says elsewhere:
40 ‘He has blinded their eyes
and hardened their hearts,
so they can neither see with their eyes,
nor understand with their hearts,
nor turn – and I would heal them.’
41 Isaiah said this because he saw Jesus’ glory and spoke about him.” (NIVUK)
CS Lewis wrote about the tendency of modern people to consider themselves smarter than people of previous generations because the cumulative sum of knowledge gathered by humanity has increased. He warned people against such a naïve view. It remains rather widespread though. Sometimes we also fall into the error of thinking that the gospel authors were also simple folk, lacking education and not quite as clever as us. We read passages like the one before us now and think that all John is doing is using another standard proof-text to make his point concerning the continuing unbelief of the Jews.
In doing so we are as guilty as others who look down on the intelligence of those before them. Scholars have regularly shown that when texts such as these are cited (and all four gospel authors quote these verses, but in nuanced and different ways), the authors are drawing upon the context of the entire passage also. Sometimes the ‘proof-texts’ quoted can’t be understood without their context.
The context of Isaiah 6 forces us to read these words in a different way. They force us to consider that John is not simply saying, the don’t believe because God wouldn’t let them. They force us to consider that the glory of the Lord was simply overwhelming. For the context speaks of what Isaiah ‘saw’ and ‘understood’. He ‘saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple.’ (Isaiah 6:1) (NIVUK). He understood his sin for his ‘eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.’ (Isaiah 6:5) (NIVUK).
One wonders if the reason John shortens the Isaiah passage is deliberate also. John leaves out the reference to the people’s deafness, their lack of ‘ears to hear’. If John’s purpose is to force us to consider the context by leaving out those lines, perhaps he intended us to reflect on what Isaiah ‘heard’ when in the presence of the Lord Almighty, when he ‘saw Jesus’ glory’ (v41).
‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory.’ (Isaiah 6:3) (NIVUK)
Simple ‘proof-text’ or powerful witness? Who is Jesus indeed?
