Isaiah 42:18-23: Hear ye deaf; and look ye blind that ye may see. Who is blind, but my servant? Or deaf as my messenger that I sent? Who is blind as he that is perfect, and blind as the Lord’s servant?

Acts 28:25-28: They departed… after that Paul had spoken one word: Well spake the Holy Ghost. Saying, Go unto this people, and say, Hearing ye shall hear and not understand; and seeing ye shall see and not perceive: For the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. Be it known unto you therefore, that the salvation of God is sent to the Gentiles and that they will hear it.

There is disagreement among Bible believers as to just what Paul’s last words in Acts 28:26-28 to the Jews in Rome mean dispensationally. Some vehemently oppose the view that it is God’s pronouncement of blindness and deafness upon the chosen nation Israel. Others see it as the end (temporarily) of the Lord’s dealings with the once chosen nation but still believe they themselves are saved under the New Covenant and are still “grafted” into the rootstock of Israel’s olive tree. Yet others hold that the modern, secular state of Israel stands in God’s favour.

A better approach to understanding is to realise Paul’s quoting of the Isaiah 48:18-23 prophecy is but the last of several times in scripture in which this dire indictment is pronounced and recorded. It is cited in the same terms in the Prophets; it was spoken by Jesus in the gospels and reiterated by the New Testament apostles, before finally being proclaimed by Paul as a now fulfilled judgement in Acts 28.

All up this dire prophetic indictment is found at least eleven times in the Bible, and eleven is the scriptural number of chaos, disorder and judgement. Accordingly, in Acts 28:28 a long withheld judgement takes place. It is that the message of salvation is sent, away from Israel, to the Gentiles “who will hear it”.

Now, it is an obvious historical fact that since the Apostle Paul passed on no major spokesman for God has arisen who is of Jewish extraction. There has been no Jewish Luther, Calvin, Wycliffe, Tyndale, John and Charles Wesley or George Whitfield. No Jewish believer in Jesus as Messiah has arisen to match the God-empowered evangelism of Jonathan Edwards, Charles Finney and that of other saved Gentiles.

Clearly, in the past God intended Israel to be a holy nation proclaiming salvation through the Lord to the rest of the world. Sadly, they fell down on the job, becoming deaf and blind to their own salvation, let alone that of others. In the Old Testament they persistently turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to what God was saying through his prophets. Thus, eventually the Lord chose another people, the Gentiles, who would listen to what He had to say.

Now, Isaiah 42, written in 711 BC, is the first biblical mention of Israel’s refusal to hear or see what God was doing or hear what He had to say. The last mention is in Acts 28:25-26. More than 750 years separate these two announcements. And, in between the indictment that Israel, God’s chosen nation, was deaf and blind to the Lord’s word is a theme that runs like a river through the chosen nation’s history.

For example, in Isaiah 6:9 the Lord tells the prophet, “Go tell this people, hear ye indeed and, but understand not, and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed”.

In Jeremiah 5:21 and 19:  the Lord thunders: “Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding: which have eyes and see not, which have ears and hear not … like as ye have forsaken Me and served strange gods in your land, so shall ye serve strangers in a land that is not yours”.

Israel’s state of heart did not improve when Jesus their Messiah came to them in the flesh. As He explained in Matt. 13:13: “…I speak to them in parables: because seeing they see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which said:

“By hearing ye shall hear and not understand; and seeing ye shall see and shall not perceive. For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing and their eyes have they closed, lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.”

Israel’s deafness and blindness was why the Lord repeatedly said: “He that ears to hear, let him hear” (Mark 4:9). It is also why even today the indictment of deafness and blindness is also levelled at the world at large and much of the professing church to boot.

Note that in Isaiah 43:8 the Lord calls, “Bring forth the blind people that have eyes and the deaf that have ears”, and goes on to say, “Ye are my witnesses … that I am God”.

In Ezekiel 12:2 The Lord tells the prophet: “Son of man thou dwellest in the midst of a rebellious house which have eyes to see, and they see not; they have ears to hear and they hear not: for they are a rebellious house”. Ezekiel is then told to “pack up his stuff and carry it out”, signifying the Lord’s intent to “remove” Israel from the land.

In John 9: 39 Jesus said: “For judgement am I come into this world, that they which see might not see; and they which see might be made blind”.

In Mark 4:12 the Lord reiterated his teaching, saying: “… unto them that are without all these things (i.e. teachings) are done in parables, that seeing they may not see, and not perceive, and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted and their sins should be forgiven them”. A briefer version of the same statement appears in Luke 8:10.

The Apostle John in John 12: 37-40 goes to the heart of the matter, saying that though Jesus “had done so many miracles before them (the Israelites), yet they believed not on Him, thus fulfilling Isaiah’s prophetic lament, “Lord, who hath believed our report?” What’s more, John states firmly that “they could not believe”, because again Isaiah said: “He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart, that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them”.

In Romans 11:8 the Apostle Paul says that: “According as it is written (Isa. 29:10), God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear unto this day”.

There should be no argument against the fact that in Acts 28:28 a final judgement in fulfilment of this indictment is pronounced. And yet there is. Many refuse to accept that for the foreseeable future Israel as a nation has been set aside. (The Lord will of course keep his prophetic word and restore the nation when He brings his kingdom on earth, but, as Paul stated in Rom.11:15 that will only be by resurrection in a time yet to come).

Worse still the majority of Christian teachers and leaders refuse to accept that Acts 28:28 is a cut-off point that ends the Acts period Pentecostal dispensation and lays bare the ground before the new dispensation from God of grace and the mystery (Eph. 3:1-8) is brought in by personal revelation to Paul while in prison.

As a consequence this new, unprecedented and unprophesied revelation with its vital message by grace and grace alone is not recognised as the latest word of God to the world.

Was Acts 28:27-28 a final judgement on unbelieving Israel? Consider Jesus’s words in Matt. 21:43: “Therefore, I say unto you, the kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof”.

Those who obey the biblical instruction to “rightly divide the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15) and compare “spiritual (i.e. scripture) things with spiritual” as taught by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 2:13) will recognise Acts 28:27-28 as the termination of one way of God’s dealings with mankind.

Then there is two-year hiatus before God announces through the Apostle Paul the dispensation of the grace of God (Eph. 3:1-4) which replaces the message and means of salvation previously available through the nation Israel. Thus, it seems God firmly shuts one door before He opens another.

John Dudley Aldworth

Email: john.aldworth@hotmail.com

Visit the website Day of Christ Ministries for more on Christ’s appearing, the Day of Christ and the mystery of grace in Paul’s latter epistles.

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