Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word.
Failure to understand Christ's speech comes from inability to hear His word, where hearing means receiving and accepting His words and not merely listening to them. Disregard for God's truth and righteousness leaves people unable to distinguish truth from deception. Followers of Christ will meet in life the same incomprehension Jesus met.
This inability comes from willful resistance, from turning from God and rejecting the truth He sends. Truth that is unpalatable is met with prejudice and unbelief, and prejudice and resistance to further light build barriers against the truth. Such resistance holds souls in allegiance to evil and in refusal to receive what Christ tells them, leaving them in darkness. Further light then meets only greater resistance.
Such spiritual darkness does not come from God, for God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. As shade appears only when some obstruction blocks the sun, though the sun does not create it, so spiritual darkness results when an intruding object comes between the soul and God.
In its setting the Jewish leaders and Pharisees did not understand because they were not spiritually receptive to God, had turned from Him, and refused to recognize the Son He sent. They resisted Christ, so that even Christ, the greatest Teacher the world ever knew, had His words misinterpreted by them. Love for Christ would have shown that God was their Father, since Christ proceeded forth and came from God and was sent by Him.
Their deeds proved they were not true children of Abraham or of God but children of darkness following the devil. Their bigotry and self-righteousness, their hatred of the truth, their seeking to kill a man who told them the truth heard from God, and their being urged on by the accusing spirit showed they did the deeds of their father and did his lusts. The devil is opposed to truth, was a murderer from the beginning, abode not in the truth because there is no truth in him, and when he speaks a lie he speaks of himself for he is a liar and the father of it. In contrast, children of light obey the truth.
Behind this rejection the enemy was working on human hearts to keep the light from them, so that the people Christ worked to save did not recognize His voice or believe His word. Their rejection of His truth was tied to that allegiance to evil.
Those who reject the light and evidence God sends close themselves to hearing and receiving His word. They treat Christ's words as evil with the same spirit as the unbelieving Jews, and further light meets only greater resistance, as it did with Pharaoh.
The same condition exists today in those who call God their Father yet hate the Word of truth with intense hatred. Many things must be left unsaid because people are not imbued with the Spirit of God to take them in. A view of God's infinite majesty and holiness brings a deep sense of deficiency of spiritual understanding, and institutions now need plain, direct, decided testimony just as much as the people in Christ's day did.
The verse therefore calls its hearers to stop resisting the words of Christ and receive the light presented to them. It belongs to Jesus' teaching that He is the light of the world and that he that follows Him shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of life. It supports proclaiming God's truth faithfully amid both good and evil report even when opposed.
Failure to understand Christ's speech comes from inability to hear His word, where hearing means receiving and accepting His words and not merely listening to them. Disregard for God's truth and righteousness leaves people unable to distinguish truth from deception. Followers of Christ will meet in life the same incomprehension Jesus met.
This inability comes from willful resistance, from turning from God and rejecting the truth He sends. Truth that is unpalatable is met with prejudice and unbelief, and prejudice and resistance to further light build barriers against the truth. Such resistance holds souls in allegiance to evil and in refusal to receive what Christ tells them, leaving them in darkness. Further light then meets only greater resistance.
Such spiritual darkness does not come from God, for God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. As shade appears only when some obstruction blocks the sun, though the sun does not create it, so spiritual darkness results when an intruding object comes between the soul and God.
In its setting the Jewish leaders and Pharisees did not understand because they were not spiritually receptive to God, had turned from Him, and refused to recognize the Son He sent. They resisted Christ, so that even Christ, the greatest Teacher the world ever knew, had His words misinterpreted by them. Love for Christ would have shown that God was their Father, since Christ proceeded forth and came from God and was sent by Him.
Their deeds proved they were not true children of Abraham or of God but children of darkness following the devil. Their bigotry and self-righteousness, their hatred of the truth, their seeking to kill a man who told them the truth heard from God, and their being urged on by the accusing spirit showed they did the deeds of their father and did his lusts. The devil is opposed to truth, was a murderer from the beginning, abode not in the truth because there is no truth in him, and when he speaks a lie he speaks of himself for he is a liar and the father of it. In contrast, children of light obey the truth.
Behind this rejection the enemy was working on human hearts to keep the light from them, so that the people Christ worked to save did not recognize His voice or believe His word. Their rejection of His truth was tied to that allegiance to evil.
Those who reject the light and evidence God sends close themselves to hearing and receiving His word. They treat Christ's words as evil with the same spirit as the unbelieving Jews, and further light meets only greater resistance, as it did with Pharaoh.
The same condition exists today in those who call God their Father yet hate the Word of truth with intense hatred. Many things must be left unsaid because people are not imbued with the Spirit of God to take them in. A view of God's infinite majesty and holiness brings a deep sense of deficiency of spiritual understanding, and institutions now need plain, direct, decided testimony just as much as the people in Christ's day did.
The verse therefore calls its hearers to stop resisting the words of Christ and receive the light presented to them. It belongs to Jesus' teaching that He is the light of the world and that he that follows Him shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of life. It supports proclaiming God's truth faithfully amid both good and evil report even when opposed.