For this people’s heart has grown hard, they have heard with heavy ears, and they have shut their eyes, so that they might not see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn back, and I would heal them.”
Here Jesus quotes the words of the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 6:9–10) as a direct continuation of what was just said, explaining that the people’s spiritual blindness and deafness are not imposed by God, but are the result of their own choice. They have deliberately hardened their heart, made their hearing dull, and shut their eyes, so that they would not see, not hear, and not understand the truth. This statement reveals the role of the human will in salvation: God desires that people see, hear, understand with the heart, repent, and be healed, yet that healing is possible only through accepting the truth. When a person consciously rejects the word of God, he deprives himself of the opportunity to understand the mysteries of the Kingdom and to receive spiritual healing.