A Monstrous Obtuseness

Jesus said, "Now My soul has become troubled; and what shall I say, 'Father, save Me from this hour'? But for this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify Your name." Then a voice came out of heaven: "I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again." So the crowd of people who stood by and heard it were saying that it had thundered; others were saying, "An angel has spoken to Him." (John 12:27-29 NAU)

It was a monstrous thing that the multitude was obtuse to so plain a miracle. Some were deaf, and caught what God had pronounced distinctly only as a confused sound. Others were less dull, but yet detracted greatly from the majesty of the divine voice by pretending that its author was an angel. But the same thing is common today. God speaks plainly enough in the Gospel, in which there is also displayed a power and energy of the Spirit which should shake heaven and earth. But many are as cold toward the teaching as if it came only from a mortal man, and others think God's Word to be a barbarous stammering as if it were nothing but thunder. -- Jean Calvin, The Gospel of St John 11-12