Understanding is the key

John 12:39-40 “Therefore they could not believe, because Isaiah said again: (40) "He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, lest they should see with their eyes, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them.”

We mentioned earlier that when people hear the gospel of salvation, that they are able to respond in faith immediately to that message and are thus born-again. The reason for that is because everyone already has the gift of faith given to them by God when He creates them. Scripture identifies two ingredients that must be present in order for one to be saved, i.e. they must hear the gospel preached and they must exercise their faith in the gospel message proclaimed (Romans 10:13-14). But clearly evidence teaches us that not everyone who hears the gospel preached is saved, even though they have faith. And so obviously something else is required, other than just faith and hearing the message of the gospel. The above quoted passage of scripture reveals to us that the missing ingredient is in “understanding” the gospel message preached. The context of the above passage is that the apostle John was explaining why it is that many people witnessed the miracles done by the Lord Jesus, and yet they still did not believe that He was the Messiah. In this passage John teaches us that the reason certain people hear the gospel and yet are still not saved, is because their hearts are hardened and they do not understand the message of the gospel. We see therefore, that because people do not understand the message of the gospel they cannot therefore exercise their faith in that message. And so we see that there are in fact three ingredients required for one to be saved, i.e. hearing the message of the gospel, understanding that message, thus being able to exercise faith in that message. I want you to notice that this passage declares that because of hardened hearts, these people could not understand the message of the gospel. That is the same terminology that Jesus used in describing the problem the disciples were having when it came to using their faith in areas other than healing and casting out demons, for He said they did not understand because their hearts were still hardened.

Michael E.B. Maher