Of all man’s physical endowments, none is more precious than the ability to see. Only those deprived of sight after having known its blessings can fully appreciate it.
In the dictionary we find the eye spoken of as the faculty of discrimination, perception, or discernment, and there are repeated references to the eye in Scripture. These scriptural references usually have a spiritual application. Let us consider some of them.
Spiritual blindness is ascribed by Isaiah to those who should be God’s watchmen but have failed: “His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber” (Isa. 56:10).
This same spiritual blindness is ascribed to deceitful teachers such as the Pharisees of our Lord’s day: “Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind” (Matt. 15:14).
Those who willfully rejected the truth in all ages were said to be spiritually blind. Isaiah described the condition in his day: “See ye indeed, but perceive not” (Isa. 6:9), and our Lord said the same was true in Israel during his ministry. Paul wrote: “In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not” (2 Cor. 4:4). And this is still true today.
But one does not have to be blind to have a serious vision problem. Like our physical eyes, our spiritual eyes can be out of focus, causing us to confuse immediate advantage with eternal values, secular issues with spiritual, human accomplishments with the work of God, and our own opinions with the divine revelation.
The Apostle Paul speaks of those whose spiritual eyes are in focus: “We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18). Properly focused eyes belong to those who set their sights on things that are above, those who see a city beyond the earthly sphere and who long for others to see it too.
Then there is the evil eye—the eye of him who judges the acts of God by human standards, even daring to criticize God. Jesus speaks of the impossibility of clear sight with such an eye: “If thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matt. 6:23). Again he refers to the darkness that exists for those whose eyes are evil, in Luke 11:34, when he says, “When thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness.”
Sometimes vision is hampered by a foreign body in the eye. A speck of dirt, a cinder, or anything else in the eye causes discomfort and distortion of sight.
The more our faults cause us pain and irritation, the more prone we are to see the shortcomings of others—to prejudge, misjudge, criticize, and slander. Concerning this all too human tendency, our Lord asked, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and fail to notice the plank in your own?” (Matt. 7:3, Phillips).
Then there is the downcast eye, that which sees only the problems and sorrows of life and refuses to look up to the One who is sufficient for all things. Peter walked safely on the water to meet the Lord until he looked down and allowed the winds and the waves—the utter impossibility of what he was doing—to give him an earthly view of a heavenly experience.
The psalmist looks up (Ps. 121:1), knowing that his help comes from the Lord, the Creator of the universe. Paul tells us to seek and set our affections on the things that are above. We are to look to God and not to this world. Our Lord, in describing conditions that will prevail near the end of the age, says to believers, “When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh” (Luke 21:28).
In like manner, he calls us to our responsibility for world evangelization: “Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest” (John 4:35).
How often our eyes are selfish and calculating! Since the time when Eve “saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise” (Gen. 3:6, RSV), men have disobeyed God for a fancied personal advantage, only to find in time that they have exchanged eternity for a mess of secular pottage.
Many of us have looked at material things and have deliberately put them first. We have forgotten Christ’s command. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God,” and his promise that the necessities of life would surely follow such a choice.
We live in a day when the lustful eye is a deadly spiritual disease. Men love to have it so, and women do all they can to further it. The Apostle Peter describes our day with painful accuracy; “These are the men who delight in daylight self-indulgence.… Their eyes cannot look at a woman without lust” (2 Pet. 2:13, 14, Phillips). There is more to “girl-watching” than meets the eye. It is the lust of the heart.
The aged Apostle John tells us that all things attached to this world, including the “lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,” will pass away, “but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever” (1 John 2:17).
Strange to say, many have deliberately closed eyes—eyes that cannot see because of prejudice, presuppositions, unbelief. Our Lord wept over the people of Jerusalem because they had willfully rejected spiritual truths; “now they are hid from thine eyes,” he said (Luke 19:42). Here we have the weeping eyes of the Lord of love, and the self-blinded eyes of those he had come to redeem. And our own generation is no different. Some eyes are closed because of laziness, some because of fearfulness, and some because of a deadly indifference.
But for all diseases, all impairments of vision, there is a sure cure.
The Laodicean church—so like the Church of today—was urged to admit its wretched condition (“miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.” Rev. 3:17), and, among other things, to anoint its eyes with Spirit-provided eye-salve, so that it might see.
Our Lord came preaching and healing, giving physical sight to many who were blind and spiritual sight to all who would receive him. And today he offers spiritual sight for the taking. The Holy Spirit opens blinded eyes so that sinners can see. His Word brings spiritual light. “Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law,” the psalmist prayed. Little wonder that Satan attacks the Bible so viciously. He knows it brings sight to those who read and believe!
Pride closes the door to spiritual sight. Like the beggars of old, we must come seeking the boon of sight once more: “Have mercy on us, O Lord, thou son of David.… Lord, that our eyes may be opened” (Matt. 20:31, 33). Until we admit our blindness, we will never be in a position to receive his healing touch. But when we do, we too can sing, “Once I was blind, but now 1 can see!”
