Spiritual vision, spiritual blindness

 

 

My grandfather was physically blind. When he died, my mother grieved, but she also joyfully realized, “Now he can see!”

In the Bible BLIND is used for people like grandpa and for others who for various reasons have a different blindness. They are oblivious to reality even though their eyes are working just fine. This word is first used when Moses complained he was not a good speaker and the Lord said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?”

The OT laws protected the blind but make blindness part of the curses for disobedience. Leviticus 19:14 says, “You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God: I am the Lord” but the curses say, “The Lord will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of mind, and you shall grope at noonday, as the blind grope in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways. And you shall be only oppressed and robbed continually, and there shall be no one to help you.”

In one instance when the Syrians came down against Elisha, he prayed to the Lord and said, “Please strike this people with blindness.” And the Lord struck them with blindness in accordance with the prayer of Elisha. (2 Kings 6:18)

The NT also uses blind for physical blindness and for the inability to grasp or understand truth. In either case, God is able to heal eyesight and transform spiritual blindness.

A person can be born blind without any obvious cause, or blind as a result of judgment. Those physically blind had no resources and became beggars. Those spiritual blind include everyone, pagans to pharisees.

Beggars came to Jesus for mercy and He healed them. In one case, He used the situation to confront the religious leaders and call them blind guides of the blind. Even though they saw Him with their eyes and knew the wonders He performed, they could not see that He was their Messiah.

OT prophets told how God would eventually deal with blindness. Isaiah 29:18–19 says, “In that day the deaf shall hear the words of a book, and out of their gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind shall see. The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the Lord, and the poor among mankind shall exult in the Holy One of Israel” and later adds, “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy . . . .”

However, this metaphor has a twist. Isaiah 6:10 says, “Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.” Jesus repeats it in the NT.

Matthew 13:13–15. “This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. Indeed, in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says: ‘You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive.’ For this people’s heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them.”

This is a hard saying about how spiritual blindness works. An oblivious person needs to hear the gospel message to be enlightened, yet hearing it without believing it deepens the blindness of those who don’t want to be ‘healed’ or changed or forgiven. Understanding without faith is one definition of apostacy.

This relates also to spiritual warfare. 2 Corinthians 4:4 says that “The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” Jesus can transform people from this darkness into the kingdom of light just as Isaiah 42:6–7 said of Him:

“I am the Lord; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.”

GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. As a believer in Jesus, I am in His kingdom of light and keep my eyes on Him as He leads me, yet 2 Peter 1:9 says if I lack Christian virtues, it is due to being “so nearsighted that I am blind, having forgotten that I was cleansed from my former sins” and 1 John 2:11 warns that if I hate other Christians, I am in darkness and walking in darkness, and do not know where I am going, because the darkness has blinded my eyes.” Since God is in charge of blindness, faith and obedience are important for good eyesight!