Lest They Be Forgiven

One of the most hard-to-take statements Jesus ever made—that’s what this is.

Before we get to it, recall Jesus just told “The Parable of the Sower and the Soils” (Mark 4:1-9—See “Got Ears? LISTEN!”, https://theoldpreacher.com/got-ears-listen/). After that, Mark reports . . .

(10) And when he was alone,
those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables.
(11) And he said to them, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God,
but for those outside everything is in parables,
(12) so that ‘they may indeed see but not perceive,
and may indeed hear but not understand,
lest they should turn and be forgiven'” (Mark 4:10-12).

TWO TYPES OF PEOPLE in that parable-hearing crowd– “those around him with the twelve” and “those outside.” Those with the twelve have “been given the secret of the kingdom of God” (4:11). Those “outside” “see but [do] not perceive” and “hear but [do] not understand” (4:12). Jesus wants the first group to know the secret of the kingdom, but he doesn’t want the other group to understand “lest they should turn and be forgiven.” Hear that? Jesus does not want “those outside” to turn and be forgiven!

Epistrephosin (translated “turn”) literally means “to turn physically” and figuratively means “to change one’s ways or repent”. Jesus uses it in Luke 17:4 where he teaches his disciples “if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.” Here, then, in Mark 4:12, “turn” implies repentance and repentance requires the granting of forgiveness.

BUT SOME JESUS DOESN’T WANT TO FORGIVE. This flat-out contradicts everything we generally believe about Jesus. Jesus is “Mr. Mercy”. “Sir Soft-Heart”. Lavish with love. Frenetic to forgive. But not here. Here he doesn’t want some people to understand his parables, because, then, they might repent and he’d be obligated to forgive them.

How could that be? Jesus quotes Isaiah 6:9,10 where the Lord commissioned Isaiah for a strange prophetic ministry . . .

(9) Go, and say to this people:
“Keep on hearing, but do not understand;
keep on seeing, but do not perceive.”
(10) Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes;
lest they see with their eyes, and understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed.

WHY WOULD THE LORD SAY THAT? In his commentary, The Book of Isaiah, E.J. Young writes, “[The Lord’s] nation had so sinned and hardened its heart that it contained within it the seeds of its own destruction” (Volume 1, p. 258). Young is referring to the repeated calls to repentance prophets made to Israel—calls they repeatedly refused. Young quotes John Calvin, “Such blinding and hardening influence . . . must be ascribed to the depravity of man . . . The whole blame lies on themselves in altogether refusing [the prophets’ words]; and we need not wonder if that which ought to have led them to salvation becomes the cause of their destruction” (ibid., p. 260). In other words, our refusal to pay attention to the Gospel has a limit. Reach it (only God knows when) and we’ve hardened our hearts permanently. Repentance and forgiveness are no longer possible.

Glue that hardens in 60 seconds makes me nervous. My hands shake squeezing out the glue and fitting the broken pieces together. More than once I didn’t beat the clock–as warned the glue hardened. That can happen to hearts too.

PURITAN PASTOR-THEOLOGIAN JONATHAN EDWARDS EXPLAINS: “We have here . . . a tension-laden account of human unbelief: both the consequence of man’s refusal to heed the revelation of God and God’s judgment of the unwilling, confirming the hardhearted in their unbelief. Parables veil the truth to outsiders just as they reveal it to insiders. God both opens the eyes of the blind and blinds the eyes of those who have proved themselves uninterested and unwilling.”

LISTEN!

The sower sows the word.
And these are the ones along the path,
where the word is sown:
when they hear, Satan immediately comes
and takes away the word that is sown in them.
And these are the ones sown on rocky ground:
the ones who, when they heard the word, immediately receive it with joy.
And they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while;
then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word,
immediately they fall away.
And others are the ones sown among thorns.
They are those who hear the word,
but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches
and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word,
and it proves unfruitful.
But those that were sown on the good soil are the one who hear the word
and accept it and bear fruit,
thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundred fold (Mark 4:14-20).

This is “the word”—“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in this gospel” (Mark 1:15). Let’s not let our heart become rocky ground, so Satan can snatch the word away! Let’s not let our heart be rootless, so trouble drives us from Jesus! Let’s not let our heart be cluttered with this-life cares or wealth’s lies or endless wants, so the word of the kingdom gets choked to death! Let’s make our heart good soil that embraces the word and bears fruit!

In other words, “Pay attention to what you hear” (Mark 4:24)!

Ears, Me, More & Homework