The Gospel of John

A Hard Heart Revealed In the Glory of God

John 12:36-43

This passage found in John, for me, seems to be difficult in the since that one would ask the question – why would God do such a thing? (I am referring to the quotation of Isaiah chapter 6)

“He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart” v.40

Why would God purposely make our hearts hard and our eyes blind? Doesn’t God want to reveal himself to us? I am not sure how to answer this “tough” theological question, but I do know God is sovereign.

This passage form Isaiah is a quoted in the New Testament six different times (Matthew 13:13, Mark 4:12; Luke 8:10; John 12:40 and Act 28:26.) So it must be pretty important. But, it is the moral question that has me baffled. Why would God purposely harden the hearts of some men? We know that He does do this, consider the story of the exodus and how He hardened the heart of Pharaoh. (Exodus 4:12, and chapters 7 thru 10).

It seems to me, that in each case, when God hardens the heart of man, man is first to rejected the grace and love of God. So we can conclude that this act of God is not done in a vacuum, but rather it is man who first rejects God.

In our study of John, I think that it is important that we ask ourselves how we can apply the bible to our life. Hence I have the following questions for discussion:

1. Are there any areas of our lives that have become so calloused to sin that we need God to soften our hearts?

2. How can we continue to have an open and pliable heart to God’s will?

It is important to remember the context of this statement. In Isaiah, Isaiah was given in a vision from God in which He saw the glory of the Lord (Isaiah 6:1 “I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple”). Note that John equates this vision with Jesus (John 12:41 “Isaiah said this, because he saw the glory of Jesus and spoke about him”). The people at this time had a front row seat to the glory of Jesus. In fact Jesus preformed many miracles before them. With the number of miracles so great (ref v.37) this gave skeptics plenty of opportunity to defame Jesus or to show that any one of these miracles were done in trickery. Yet, this is not the case. With each miracle, Christ revealed His glory giving all an opportunity accept Him as Lord. Yet, the Pharisees continued to reject Jesus and His teachings. Thus, God harden their hearts “For they loved the praise of men more then the praise of God”.

3. How has God shown His glory to you?

posted by Ray Andrade @ 4:22 PM