In our last blog, we began to look at the prophecies in Isaiah which have their fulfillment in Christ. We continue the study with Matthew 13:14 which states, “And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which states:
14. Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, and seeing you will see and not perceive;
15 For the heart of this people has grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their heart and turn, so that I should heal them.”
In this passage Matthew is quoting directly form Isaiah 6:9-10. Isaiah 6 is the passage in the Old Testament when Isaiah had a divine encounter with the living Lord of heaven and earth. It was in this passage where his sin was purged when one of the living beings touched his lips with a coal from before the altar of God. He said to God, “Here and I! Send me.” He then went forth to the people of his generation proclaiming God’s truth. Unfortunately, Isaiah was also told that the people would hear but not understand, they would see but not perceive and their hearts would be dull.
Jesus encountered the same situation in the generation of people who heard Him. Jesus likened His generation to the same generation to which Isaiah spoke. They had ears to hear, eyes to see and hearts that were dull because they would not open themselves to hearing and obeying the truth of God’s word. How sad! May we each pray that our ears would be open, our eyes would see and our hearts would understand the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The next passage regarding the prophecies of Isaiah is very similar to the one just reviewed. Jesus refers to this passage in Mark 7:6-7, “He answered and said to them, ‘Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. And in vain they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” In this passage, Jesus is quoting directly from Isaiah 29:13. Again, He is basically saying that the people of His generation claim to worship God but what they actually worship are nothing more than the doctrines of men. In so doing they sin and fall short of God’s glory being revealed and manifested in their lives. Even so, we continue to make the same mistakes today when we do not submit our lives fully unto Christ and His Lordship.
The third passage from Isaiah that speaks of Christ as Lord and Savior is one that Jesus applied to Himself. This is the passage from Isaiah 61:1-2. Jesus quoted from this passage after His temptation in the wilderness. Jesus returned to his hometown of Nazareth and attended synagogue services on the Sabbath. Luke tells us that Jesus’ custom was to observe the Sabbath. On this occasion, He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah and He began to read Isaiah 61:1-2 which states,
The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent me to heal the broken hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
After He finished, He closed the book, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The word states that all of the eyes of those in the synagogue were fixed on Him. Those in attendance knew that Jesus had just read a verse that could only be fulfilled by the Messiah and in essence Jesus had just proclaimed that this passage of scripture pertained to Himself. He confirmed that He was that person and He said in verse 21, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” The text goes on to say that those present were filled with wrath and then attempted to throw Him over a cliff but He simply walked away.
Another sad note regarding the generation of people to whom God revealed Himself through His Son, Jesus. To those in attendance, they knew Him only as Joseph’s son and not as the promised Messiah. They heard with their ears and saw with their eyes but their heart was far removed from believing that Jesus was the Christ, the Anointed One, the promised Son of David and the Messiah of Israel. May our hearts not be hard as those in Nazareth, and may they ever be open to the truth of WHO HE IS.