10 And the disciples came and said to Him, “Why do You speak to them in parables?”
11 Jesus answered them, “To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted.
12 “For whoever has, to him more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him.
13 “Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.
14 “In their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says, ‘YOU WILL KEEP ON HEARING, BUT WILL NOT UNDERSTAND; YOU WILL KEEP ON SEEING, BUT WILL NOT PERCEIVE;
15 FOR THE HEART OF THIS PEOPLE HAS BECOME DULL, WITH THEIR EARS THEY SCARCELY HEAR, AND THEY HAVE CLOSED THEIR EYES, OTHERWISE THEY WOULD SEE WITH THEIR EYES, HEAR WITH THEIR EARS, AND UNDERSTAND WITH THEIR HEART AND RETURN, AND I WOULD HEAL THEM.’
16 “But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear.
17 “For truly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.”
I wrote about verses 10 and 11 in Bible Truth #39 but I wanted to include them here for context. I also wrote about the same conversation Jesus had with His apostles and disciples in Bible Truth #381 from Mark’s Gospel, but I want to touch upon something Jesus said here in Matthew but not in the Gospel of Mark.
In verse 16 Jesus said, “But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear.”
It is unmistakable that Jesus was telling the apostles and other followers that the ability to see and hear the spiritual truths He was teaching was a gift from God and NOT normal of the human condition (v11). The fallen nature of man, also known as the sinful nature or the “natural man,” prevents him from seeing and hearing any spiritual truth. The reason for this is that a lost man is dead in his sins, meaning he is spiritually dead (Ephesians 2:1, 2:5; Colossians 2:13). As long as he is dead he is unable to please God because everything he does is in the flesh and from the flesh, and they that are in the flesh can NOT please God (Romans 8:8). Jesus said the same thing when He said the flesh counts for nothing (John 6:63).
Obviously everyone present saw Jesus and heard His words but until God quickens a man’s spirit, he will never understand the Truth (John 8:43, 1 Corinthians 2:14) and will consider it foolishness. Christ chooses those to whom He will reveal the Father (Luke 10:22).
But those He chose before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4), because of NOTHING they have done, including “accept Jesus” (2 Timothy 1:9, Titus 3:5), are blessed because they CAN see and hear Jesus - and here in Matthew is not the only time Jesus said this, see Luke 10:23.
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