Volume 1 – The Story Unveiled (Chapter 3) – Divine Blindness: When Mercy Hides the Truth (Part 2)
But what exactly did God do? Ezekiel reveals it:
Ezekiel 20:21-26
²¹”‘But the children rebelled against me: They did not follow my decrees, they were not careful to keep my laws, of which I said, “The person who obeys them will live by them,” and they desecrated my Sabbaths. So I said I would pour out my wrath on them and spend my anger against them in the wilderness. ²²But I withheld my hand, and for the sake of my name I did what would keep it from being profaned in the eyes of the nations in whose sight I had brought them out. ²³Also with uplifted hand I swore to them in the wilderness that I would disperse them among the nations and scatter them through the countries, ²⁴because they had not obeyed my laws but had rejected my decrees and desecrated my Sabbaths, and their eyes lusted after their parents’ idols. ²⁵So I gave them other statutes that were not good and laws through which they could not live; ²⁶I defiled them through their gifts—the sacrifice of every firstborn—that I might fill them with horror so they would know that I am the Lord.’
God took four dramatic actions:
- Scattered them among the nations
- Enslaved them to other gods
- Gave them impossible laws
- Required costly sacrifices of firstborn animals
In other words, God gave them a religion that would hide the truth—the same truth Paul would later reveal. But why another religion? Because God was protecting His reputation by blinding them from their responsibility to reach the nations. He knew they would disobey, and here’s the crucial principle: The degree of our guilt depends on what we do with what we know.
Luke 12:48 – But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.
The Tolerance Triangle: Knowledge Brings Accountability
Think of it this way: The horizontal line represents time spent sinning against God. The vertical line represents our knowledge of God’s truth. The diagonal line is God’s judgment line—cross it, and punishment must come. You might call it the Tolerance Line.
This explains why Sodom and Gomorrah could sin for centuries before judgment came—they had little knowledge of God. But Moses? One angry moment striking a rock instead of speaking to it, and he’s banned from the Promised Land. Unfair? No—Moses had great knowledge of God, so God’s tolerance was correspondingly short.
Look at Ezekiel again with this understanding:
Ezekiel 20:13-14
¹³”‘Yet the people of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness. They did not follow my decrees but rejected my laws—by which the person who obeys them will live—and they utterly desecrated my Sabbaths. So, I said I would pour out my wrath on them and destroy them in the wilderness. ¹⁴But for the sake of my name I did what would keep it from being profaned in the eyes of the nations in whose sight I had brought them out.
Israel was about to cross the tolerance line. If they did, God would have to judge them, risking His reputation among the nations. So, what did God do? He didn’t try to change their behavior—He lowered their knowledge. Specifically, He hid their responsibility to reach the nations. This became the mystery Paul would later reveal.
What the Church Has That Israel Did Not Have
After understanding God’s strategy of hiding truth to protect both His reputation and His people, a crucial question emerges: Why did God finally reveal this mystery to Paul and the church? What makes us different from Israel?
The answer is transformative: We have the Holy Spirit living within us.
This isn’t just a theological detail—it’s a game-changer. The Holy Spirit gives us something Israel didn’t have: the power to live in obedience. And this reveals something profound about God’s character. His “blinding” of Israel wasn’t just about protecting His reputation among the nations; it was an act of mercy.
Think about it: By hiding the full extent of their responsibility to reach the nations, God was actually protecting Israel from greater judgment. He blinded them out of love. And this principle of merciful blindness continues even today—God sometimes shields people from fuller knowledge when He knows they’re choosing a path of disobedience.
This isn’t divine manipulation; it’s divine mercy. Like a father who doesn’t give his children more responsibility than they can handle, God limits knowledge to limit liability. He waits until we have the power—through His Spirit—to live up to what we know.