Mark 4 11-12

[Douglas]

11 And He said to them, “To you it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God; but to those who are outside, all things come in parables, 12 so that


‘ Seeing they may see and not perceive,
And hearing they may hear and not understand;
Lest they should turn,
And their sins be forgiven them.’”[a]


I have a question regarding the last part of "lest they should turn, and their sins be forgiven them". As I believe that God "desires" all men to turn from sin and repent and follow Him, my understanding of this part is a little fuzzy. It almost sounds like Christ is telling His disciples that he does not want some people to turn from their sins, which I presume is the wrong understanding.

Can anyone help clarify for me?
Thanks
Doug

ps. I realize that this is referencing Isa 6:9, but comparing that with this passage still didn't completely clear things up.

[RickC]

Hello Douglas

I see the Lord's 'quotation' of Isaiah as:
1) hyperbole: a form of speech that "exaggerates" or is "extravagant" to make a point.
2) Hebrew idiom: a form of speech particular to a certain people or race.

So Isaiah, and Jesus in kind, were using Hebrew idiomatic hyperbole. Or we could say, hyperbolic idiom. As you I'm sure you know; there are many examples of this in both testaments {see Rev 22:11 for a "most pronounced" example}.

It almost sounds like Christ is telling His disciples that he does not want some people to turn from their sins, which I presume is the wrong understanding.

I agree that this would be a wrong understanding.

Jesus' point was: Though people hear him tell parables; he realized in advance that some wouldn't "really hear." They would see but not "really see."

Why is it that Jesus {and Isaiah, for that matter} knew these people wouldn't really see, hear, and understand the teaching? Because if they "really heard," they would repent: "turn and have their sins forgiven them." Though they heard the words coming into their ears and going into their brains; Jesus knew, in advance, that his words wouldn't have their intended effect on unrepentant hearts.

To put this in the modern vernacular, I could paraphrase it as, "People hear Jesus' teachings, but they won't change. It's like they didn't really hear the Lord's teachings to begin with, like they're deaf."

Make sense?
Thanks,

[Douglas]

Ah! That makes a lot of sense. Thanks Rick

[RickC]

10-4,

[mikew]

If it were merely hyperbole, Jesus would have spoke in clear language. But Jesus spoke mysteries within parables, this is a doubly encoded message as it were. So it was obvious that people would not understand Jesus. And we bear witness of that inability by having many different views of the kingdom of God. (I am mainly speaking from the parallel passage found in Matt 13)

Even in Romans 10 and 11 it was seen that the Jews were blind to the gospel and the salvation. Paul even said that their blindness led to the outreach to the Gentiles. So this blindness and deafness was truly occurring.

I think the misunderstanding of the nature of the kingdom kept many of the Jews from repenting
Mat 13:15 For this people's heart is waxed gross, And their ears are dull of hearing, And their eyes they have closed; Lest haply they should perceive with their eyes, And hear with their ears, And understand with their heart, And should turn again, And I should heal them.

Many Jews didn't repent cause in their idea of the kingdom they were expecting the Messiah to be seen among them as their leader with physical armies to fight the Roman Empire. If they knew the true nature of the kingdom, as the original believers seemed to have known, the non-believers would have heeded the warnings of Jesus and have been spared their own destruction in Jerusalem.

Even if the scripture shows that God was interested in all people having eternal life, the reality is that people had to come to faith toward God for them to get eternal life. And this total conversion of people may not have been a reasonable, they were not all going to come to faith and hence were better left in blindness.

[mikew]

I found a passage on the idea that none should perish

Mat 18:12 How think ye? if any man have a hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and go unto the mountains, and seek that which goeth astray?
Mat 18:13 And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth over it more than over the ninety and nine which have not gone astray.
Mat 18:14 Even so it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.

Jesus spoke essentially of the Israel bloodline in the first three gospels and maybe a bit more generally in the fourth.

I was about to say that the passage was about saving the lost sheep (or the one lost sheep), but the mention of the sheep was more just an analogy of the emotions involved. What is interesting on this passage is the concern about the little ones. This concern almost sounds like the 40 years in the wilderness where the older generation died away but the younger were left to stay. Only by looking at the Exodus could I make sense of this concern for the little ones -- cause otherwise the younger people just become the older people -- and then why wasn't God interested in the older people?

[livingink]

mikew,

I'm just a little confused. Are you saying that Jesus used parables to intentionally keep things from some people?

thanks,

livingink

[mikew]

mikew,

I'm just a little confused. Are you saying that Jesus used parables to intentionally keep things from some people?

thanks,

livingink

Hi livingink,

Yes. Based on the Matt 13 scripture that quoted Isaiah, Jesus was speaking so that they would not understand. And when has simple knowledge ever been the reason someone got saved? True salvation comes by faith in Jesus.

I wouldn't venture so far as to say that evangelists should speak in parables though. This use of parables was specific fulfillment of prophecy in Isaiah.

Regards,

Mike

[livingink]

Hello Mike,

There's another view that Jesus used simple stories(parables) to inform the multitudes about the characteristics of the kingdom with one of the goals being to call forth a response from the hearers. At least with part of the crowd, he asked specifically if the people understood (Matthew 13:51). Referring to Matthew 13:13, it appears that Jesus spoke in parables "because" they seeing see not. In other words, their unseeing was a condition that existed before he even spoke to them so there would be no reason for him to hide anything from them intentionally. Isaiah 6:9-10 is consistent with the same idea. By the time that Isaiah was commissioned, the nation had seen multiple plague miracles in Egypt, had been led through the Reed/Red Sea, fed manna in the desert and yet remained an obdurate people willing to worship foreign gods. They had seen miracles and refused to worship God. Jesus had performed miracles among the people such that all knew of them but only a small group believed that he was the anointed king. While they expected a military leader, the same can be said of all of the disciples since they lived near the Zealot stronghold at the north end of the Sea of Galilee. I believe some of that follows on with the comments of RickC.

Have a great day.

livingink

[mikew]

Hello Mike,

There's another view that Jesus used simple stories(parables) to inform the multitudes about the characteristics of the kingdom with one of the goals being to call forth a response from the hearers.

The idea about Jesus using simple stories might have merit except that there also were a mysteries wrapped up in the parables. I would venture to say that few Christians have understood the implications about the kingdom from the parables and fewer have understood the mysteries within the parables.

Also, if these parables were simple stories then maybe we could expect that Christians would tend to have the same interpretations of these parables.

[sorry if I'm so single-minded here. These parables have been on my mind for many years. I'm kind of seeing how the chat forum discussion flows .]