Blindness I: From Vision to Insight

What do you see?

This is one of the existential questions that God asks of each of us. Vision and light are some of the most occurring themes in the bible, and for an important reason. It seems as if God takes us on a spiritual journey of sight and blindness, light and darkness, insight and ignorance. These concepts also carry important aspects with our understanding of God’s grace and even judgment. But, the relationship may not be as we have always thought.

If God is light, then how are we to understand spiritual darkness. 1 John 2:11 states, “But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes”. Darkness is closely linked to blindness. Blindness and its opposite, sight, have deep spiritual as well as physical meaning. The spiritual equivalent of physical sight is “insight”—understanding of the kingdom of heaven.

It is clear that Mankind was created with some kind of functional blindness; Adam and Eve could not see their nakedness: (Genesis 2:25).  And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. However, the serpent sought to open their eyes fully, telling Eve: “For God knows that in the day you eat from it (the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:1-5)

In doing so, the serpent seems to suggest that God wanted to hide something—specifically, insight into good and evil—from them; that He did not intend for them to possess this insight. Yet, paradoxically, the bible says that once they ate that fruit, their eyes were opened, but opened to what?

Before they ate, they were unashamed of their nakedness. After they ate, it made them ashamed. Their eyes were opened to judgment, to discernment. As the tree name suggests, they were now adults who are able to discriminate between what is good and what is bad. They lost the need for God to do that for them. But the passage makes no mention of their seeing anything else other than their nakedness. Ironically, the opening of their eyes appears to have initiated another type of blindness.

It seems that our relationship with God changed at the instant they ate the fruit. Instead of having God in full sight-an intimate knowledge of who God is, Adam and Eve instead hid from God, which is silly if you think about it, there is no hiding from God. Perhaps at that moment, we began to view God from a moral lens. Instead of the God of Grace, God took on the quality of a court judge. There was no change in God, what changed was our vision of the world around us because of the experience of shame- an outcome of the knowledge of what is good and what is evil. 

And so, the opening of our eyes to the ways of Mankind—our cultural and moral upbringing—seems to blind us to God and His ways. Yet, the stress has always been upon God’s ability to see—it is on God’s vision, not Man’s.

The Bible has no fewer than 50 stories concerning blind people. In the proclamation of his mission statement, the primacy of giving sight to the blind was manifest when Jesus quoted from the book of Isaiah:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
 Because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor.
 He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives,
 And recovery of sight to the blind, To set free those who are oppressed,
 To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.” (Luke 4:18-19)

This prospect of giving sight to the blind carries much more significance than just restoring physical sight. Let’s examine two of these stories where Jesus heals a blind man.

And they came to Bethsaida. And they brought a blind man to Jesus and implored Him to touch him. Taking the blind man by the hand, He brought him out of the village; and after spitting on his eyes and laying His hands on him, He asked him, “Do you see anything?” And he looked up and said, “I see men, for I see them like trees, walking around.” Then again He laid His hands on his eyes; and he looked intently and was restored, and began to see everything clearly. And He sent him to his home, saying, “Do not even enter the village.” (Mark 8:22-26)

Note that this man was brought to Jesus by others. He apparently did not come of his own accord, based on his own faith. Note also that Jesus took the man out of the village before healing him—and before asking him one of the key existential questions that God asks us all: “Do you see anything? What do you see?” Why could Jesus not ask that question in the context of the village? What is it about the village, which would have been so familiar to the blind man, so comforting, so much a part of his existence?

After Jesus had partially restored the man’s sight and asked him what he could see, the man answered that he saw men. He did not say he saw God. The first thing that other blind men whom Jesus had healed saw was Jesus. Is that why Jesus had to do the healing act twice on this man?

Here’s another blind healing story: 

Now as Jesus was passing by, He saw a man blind from birth, and His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the works of God would be displayed in him. While it is daytime, we must do the works of Him who sent Me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

When Jesus had said this, He spit on the ground, made some mud, and applied it to the man’s eyes. Then He told him, “Go, wash in the Pool of Siloam”. So the man went and washed, and came back seeing. (John 9:1-7) 

Notice the question of the disciples, “who sinned?” The disciples saw the suffering of the blind man and ascribed it to the result of sin. They shared the faulty theology that illness is directly related to sin. They were willing to accept that it might not be the blind man’s own sin that caused his illness, but someone must be to blame. Jesus’s answer is fascinating, “:this man is blind so that the good works of God are displayed in him”. Our conception of what sin is very different from God’s. We tend to be so blind that where we see sin, God sees grace!

The story of the man blind from birth is the longest healing story in the bible. It reveals the entire spectrum of Man’s spiritual blindness. Some, like the blind man himself before his encounter with Jesus, have zero spiritual context. Some, like the neighbors, have some limited spiritual insight but are so confused that more information only confuses them more. Some, like the parents, seek to preserve their perceived spiritual standing in the community and see more information as a threat to that standing. Some, like the disciples, have had a long and deep spiritual relationship yet given new information they remain unwilling to give up their most cherished preconceptions and cherished viewpoints. They follow a messiah who they believe will use miraculous powers to overcome evil—as they define it, which is as the physical and political oppression they suffer under.  And finally, are those, like the Pharisees, so studied in the scriptures, so deeply committed to the given interpretation of them, that when God himself appears before them they mistake him for the Devil.

The message could not be clearer: All Mankind is spiritually blind, in one way or another. The key to the story is this:

And Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.” Those of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these things and said to Him, “We are not blind too, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but since you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains. (John 9:39)

What does this mean? What type of blindness is Jesus trying to cure, and what type of blindness is Jesus trying to cause? Is God’s concept of sin the same as ours?

In response to the existential human question: “Are we blind before God?” Jesus said unambiguously that we will be judged as sinners if we claim spiritual insight. The entire story began with a question about sin (the disciples asked Jesus whose sin caused the man’s blindness) and ended with this statement about sin. Sin is related to spiritual arrogance: Any claim to have penetrated the secrets and the heart of God, to be his spokesperson, and to be righteous before God, is sinful. It is important to emphasize how different our understanding of sin is from God’s. To us, sin falls within the moral realm, but to God, sin which translates to “missing the mark”, is us seeing ourselves and our relationship to God differently than God does. 

Jesus was saying that all of us, without exception, are spiritually blind and sinful. We are all in need of God’s forgiveness and grace. Any claim to spiritual insight—to know all about God and how he thinks—is linked, Jesus implied, to our readiness to rely on that “knowledge” on the day of Judgment. We saw it clearly at the start of the story in the question “Who sinned?” The disciples arrogantly assumed that they more-or-less knew how God works; they were just a little unclear on the details. Jesus swiftly disabused them of their assumption, and told them essentially that sin was not the point: God’s grace was the point. The works of God that are manifest are the works of love and grace and compassion… and yet, I am forced to admit that even the claim to understand God’s grace is a claim of insight!

The Pharisees’ asked the blind man in John, “What do you say about Him, since He opened your eyes?” And he said, “He is a prophet.” (John 9:17). Yet the blind man in Mark saw only men, and he was given a second treatment by Jesus. Clearly, the message is that God wants us to look to him, not just to men, for vision and insight. Insight limited to Man’s condition and Man’s wisdom is inadequate. If “Only men” is our answer to the question, “what do you see?” then the work of God is not done. To begin to see everything clearly, is to begin to see the grace and the love of God. Vision focused on Mankind is cloudy, indistinct, faulty, and in need of correction. Vision focused on God is clear and sharp and is restored. God seeks to blind us to Mankind and his ways, and to open our eyes instead to the grace of God. 

Perhaps that helps understand the above judgment statement mission of Jesus. Let’s read it again:  “For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.”

The word judgment carries negative connotations to it. In the religious realm, judgment carries with it condemnation and eternal punishment. When we read this statement by Jesus, we tend to read this negative aspect of judgment in Jesus’s mission to blind those who can see. However, as we mentioned above, we all are spiritually blind and sinful. So, Jesus’s mission is to demonstrate to those of us who claim sight- claiming the ability to understand how God works and confidence in our efforts at righteousness, is to blind us, in order that we see God’s grace instead. 

Some verses in the bible suggest that blindness is an important spiritual state. 

I will lay waste the mountains and hills
And wither all their vegetation;
I will make the rivers into coastlands
And dry up the ponds.
I will lead the blind by a way they do not know,
In paths they do not know I will guide them.
I will make darkness into light before them
And rugged places into plains.
These are the things I will do,
And I will not leave them undone. (Isaiah 42:15-16)

Who is blind but My servant,
Or so deaf as My messenger whom I send?
Who is so blind as he that is at peace with Me,
Or so blind as the servant of the Lord? (Isaiah 42:19)

I will go before you and make the rough places smooth; I will shatter the doors of bronze and cut through their iron bars. I will give you the treasures of darkness And hidden wealth of secret places, So that you may know that it is I, The Lord, the God of Israel, who calls you by your name. (Isaiah 45:2-3)

So, it seems like there are two types of blindness and two types of sight. When we are confident of our vision into our understanding, of right and wrong, of cause and effect, of suffering and sin, of heaven and hell, we are the most blind to God and His ways. But, when we see God and Grace, we are blind to man and his understanding of the world.

To summarize, Adam and Eve were created blind to the ways of mankind, they were like children, who are naturally blind to how human society functions. After they ate from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, their eyes were shut to God and His grace and they learned how to judge for themselves. They grew up to human adulthood, but they became spiritually blind. Jesus came to establish judgment, to blind us to our own ways in order that we can see God and grace instead. This is what it takes to be born again, to become like little children. 

So, what do you see? Is your vision faulty? Is it time for spiritual healing? God sees as his children, partakers of the royal family of God. What does that mean for you? 

C-J: I always marvel at how God ministers to people, and the lessons that you’ve been giving are truly on the mark this week. This past week, or maybe the week before, I lost one of my earrings. I had those earrings for over 50 years, and I didn’t realize it until I was getting ready to clean up. And I’m like, “Oh no.” So I looked and I looked and I looked, and I thought, “If I lost it outside while I was in the yard, I’ll never find it.” So I’m having this conversation with God, and I’m saying, “I know this is a silly thing, but if you could help me find my earring, I’d really appreciate it.” Then I just got up and thought, “Let it go, Connie. It’s just an earring. They weren’t expensive, it’s just an earring.”

So I left that room, came through my dining room, and into the kitchen. There on the floor, near the entrance to my pantry—where I have glass windows with a pattern called ‘ice’—there was this little beam of light, and there was my earring. I just laughed, you know? Sometimes you just have to say, “God, you’re so funny!” I picked it up, and I was thinking about how things that are hidden may become noticeable. Today I still don’t have any earrings on, and the reason is that the earrings were a distraction to my ability to hear and see God, not with my natural eyes.

I was going to put my earrings on today after I took my shower, but I chose not to. An incident occurred at the Veterans Outreach Center, and I decided, “I’m not going to trust this woman, and I’m not going to talk to her about what I was sharing with someone else.” Somebody had made a donation. And as you were talking, I was hearing God say, “Remember, Connie, it’s never about you. It’s always about being an instrument in the hand of God.” And even though you can justify saying, “You hurt me in the past, and I’m never going to trust you,” God was saying, “It’s not about you.” Instead of using this opportunity to separate and protect yourself, the most important thing is, “What is God doing here?” God is always molding and shaping everybody in the room.

So I’m listening and interpreting: “Lord, forgive me now. Thank you for opening my eyes and my ears.” I just think we often get so busy in life that even if we think we’re doing right, like a Pharisee or those who have blessings all around them, we don’t really see. It’s only when God opens our ears and hearts that it’s revealed in such a simple way, you know? In such a simple way, so clearly. I’m just very blessed by what you’ve given about going back to relationships—just getting out of the way and letting God do the work. It’s amazing.

Sharon: I’ve really never thought of blindness as being something positive, but I did a little Googling while you were talking—excuse me—and there are several things that blind people are saying they have that we, who are sighted, don’t. I’ll just quickly share those.

• Number one is enhanced senses. When one sense is diminished, other senses become more acute.
• Number two: increased focus and the ability to pay attention without constant visual stimuli. Sighted people experience distractions, while the blind have more focus.
• Number three: improved spatial awareness. Through the use of canes, guide dogs, and other mobility aids, many blind individuals develop a keen sense of their physical surroundings.
• Number four: increased empathy and compassion. This ties back to our discussion on relationships. Experiencing challenges fosters kindness and a greater understanding.
• Number five: adaptability and resilience. Overcoming the obstacles presented by blindness leads to heightened appreciation for non-visual experiences like sound, touch, and smell, which sighted individuals sometimes take for granted.

I was contemplating how could God want me to be blind? And I can really see that if we look at grace through the lens of blindness, our blindness can actually bring us to a more holistic, wholesome relationship. Our confidence in our own sightedness might actually keep us from experiencing that.

(Here follows a comment from Krishna Washburn on Quora: “What are some of the positives of being blind?” https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-of-the-positives-of-being-blind)

“I am a formerly sighted person and I retain a tiny, essentially useless field of vision. For me personally, the positives of being a blind person are:

• I am a much better problem solver. I expect things to go wrong in my life and I don’t give up when they do. I figure things out. I think I’m twice as intelligent as I used to be.
• I am used to being scared and working through the fear. I can push through terrible anxiety and find courage in even the worst moments.
• I am part of the disability community! Disabled friends are amazing. The friendships I have now are so much stronger and less superficial than the friendships of my past.
• My memory is razor-sharp. If I hear important information, my brain grabs onto it and doesn’t let go.
• I do not wonder what my life would have been like if I had not experienced vision loss anymore. It has been a long time. I appreciate my life very much.”

David: I was taken by Jesus’ statement “…since you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.” (John 9:39) What sin remains, exactly? Surely, Jesus must mean Original Sin. So, what was the Original Sin? It was, of course, eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Before that, in the Garden of Eden Adam and Eve saw only goodness. It’s true that they could see the serpent, who we now know was evil, but they didn’t see it at the time. They didn’t see evil or sin in the serpent or anything else around them in the garden, until they ate that fruit. They saw no sin, they saw no evil; they saw only goodness.

Perhaps this is perhaps part of the message in the instruction to “turn the other cheek.” If someone is slapping you on the cheek, you should be seeing not the sin of the slap, not at the evil in a person who slaps you, because you simply cannot see evil. This seems to be the blindness we need: We need to be blind to evil. In a sense, if you are blind to evil, it goes away, which results in a perfect world in which there is no evil, because if you don’t see it, it doesn’t exist.

C-J: I don’t know about that. I think that light overpowers the evil, but the evil exists. It’s the goodness of God that overshadows—or no, it dispels. It’s not like putting frosting on a cake—that’s not a good analogy. I don’t think evil, pride, selfishness, all the things we’re warned about, just go away. I think we need to be very mindful that there’s a lot of harm out there. But when Truth comes in, it doesn’t matter.

It goes back to this woman that did harm. I land on that because I don’t want to be hurt again. I’d be a fool not to think she processes information in a way that could harm me. It didn’t go away. But my position is to be the light in the room. So instead of saying, “I don’t want to talk to you,” it’s better for me to go and talk to her. Because if we aren’t willing to be that instrument in God’s hand, to be yielded, not just thinking through my mind or my experience or my fear, then the light and the dark—the light and the darkness—are separated. But I’ve given room to the darkness by just moving away from it. Does that make sense? I’m listening to myself thinking, “That wasn’t very clear,” but I don’t think the evil goes away.

David: It makes sense from the human intellectual perspective, but it doesn’t make sense in terms of the injunction to be blind to evil. That’s what we are told to be. That’s what the Bible says we should be. I’m arguing that the effect of that, in essence, is to make evil disappear. You can’t see it. It’s not there. I think that’s the point, but it seems we’ll just have to agree to disagree on that one.

Reinhard: I believe God created everything perfect and good, but that’s not the end of it. Creation didn’t stop at the end of creation week. As humans, we go through ups and downs in life, and I think God understands that. That’s why grace is provided to us. 

But back to blindness—first, I think we can equate blindness with darkness in our topic here. So, blindness is darkness. Although we’re talking about spiritual blindness, the lessons Sharon mentioned from physical blindness—the gains, like awareness and all the other things on that list—can be applied. Because from time to time, we all experience spiritual blindness in life—that’s for sure. As humans, when we fall, when we deviate from God’s flow, we walk in darkness.

To me, the world, as the Bible mentions in some verses, is in darkness because of sin. For us, individually, I think we can come out of darkness through our obedience to God. Psalm 119:105 says, “The word of God is a lamp for my feet and a light to my path.” I think if we hold onto that principle, always connecting to God, then when we stumble in life, we just try to reconnect through the Word of God. God always speaks to us through His Word. We often mention the Light of God—Jesus represents the Light, and the Light always wipes out the darkness. When we have Him as our shield in life, we don’t need to worry about walking in darkness. The grace of God provides that for us.

It’s interesting when we talk about the darkness of the world because of sin. In a universal sense, I would say heaven will always be full of light. That means we won’t experience darkness anymore—physically and spiritually. Someday, all the sin and shortcomings we experience here won’t happen again. So when we stick to the law of God and remain obedient, all the darkness we’re going through will eventually be cleared up. 

That’s why I think we’re here—to discuss the truth, share our ideas, and encourage each other. To me, that’s the most important thing in life, especially now, when most of us are at an age where we’re reflecting on these experiences. We should always remember that the Light of God and the grace of God will remain, and we don’t need to worry about facing life on this earth.

Don: I think Jesus is trying to make a point that He is here to make blind those who claim that they can see, and to open the eyes of those who claim they can’t see. My question is, whose responsibility is this? Is this God’s business, or is it my business? If it’s my business, how am I supposed to get myself blinded? How am I supposed to give myself sight?

It’s also ironic that the very thing He uses to bring sight to the blind—His spit or spit mixed with dirt—if you put such a physical mixture in your eyes, it’s going to make you blind. So, I think perhaps we misinterpret or are misguided in thinking we have the ability to give ourselves vision. Maybe this is something that is God’s business, not ours.

Reinhard: I think when Jesus said those words—about those who see but cannot see—He was talking about the Pharisees. They were out of order because they forgot the real purpose of the commandments. They were so focused on the law that they forgot the love for others. They even disagreed with Jesus’ teachings, and He brought the good news on how to live the right life. They disregarded that and were even against Him, ultimately planning to kill Him.

So, I think they didn’t accept His teachings because, to them, the teaching of God was out of the ordinary. The law they practiced at the time was totally against what Jesus was teaching. And Jesus, in turn, told them, “They have eyes but do not see, and ears but do not understand.” They heard something but didn’t grasp it.

In our time, we’ve learned from this. We are the recipients of Jesus’ teachings, and through the epistles of Paul, we receive further guidance on how to live the right life. We have the advantage of all this information on how to do the right thing in our lives.

David: The problem is that the law differentiates between right and wrong, between good and evil—and that’s precisely what we’re being told we can’t do. We should leave that in God’s hands. So, the law itself seems to be a product of our original sin.

I wonder if, when Jesus said He came to “fulfill” the law, He meant that the law would no longer be necessary once His kingdom was restored. Once fulfilled, it’s no longer needed, just as it wasn’t needed in the Garden of Eden before the fall. Everything boils down to the distinction between good and evil—knowledge of which (a knowledge that is vital to the law) is the original sin. As long as we think we can and want to try to distinguish between good and bad, we are blind. That’s what I’m reading in the Scripture.

Reinhard: We know that the commandments came after Sinai, but in the beginning, God didn’t give a law—He only gave a prohibition about touching the tree. To me, the tree is only a symbol, symbolizing what God wants from humanity. The key here is obedience. God could have put something else in the garden to test their obedience. The issue isn’t about the tree itself, but about obedience. That’s what God wants from us—obedience is the key here.

David: I agree. The actual sin was disobedience, but it was disobedience to a specific injunction—the injunction not to try to distinguish between good and evil. They disobeyed that specific command. It’s not about general disobedience to small rules, like wearing a tassel on your head (or not) on a certain day. It’s a much bigger issue. It boils down to the original sin: Disobedience with regard to seeing good and evil, and having our eyes opened in a way that God did not want.

Once we did that, we became blind to His goodness and opened our eyes to evil. That’s how I reading it. It’s pretty simple, though very hard to live that way. As for Don’s question—what are we supposed to do about it?—I think the answer is nothing. Just have faith that God will take care of it.

Carolyn: I think there’s also an element of work in this. I may be a bit off track, but to me, when we just focus on God, that is the only work we need to do. He gave us the commandment to “love God” and “love your neighbor.” He also said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,” it’s that simple. The work comes from our mind and our belief.

Kiran: The first thing I take from Michael’s lesson on blindness today is this: if you think you know the way to God or how to get to heaven, then you’re wrong, because you have no idea of the ways of God. You have to be humble and recognize that you don’t know how to get there, and simply accept God’s way. Be humble and let God lead you progressively to the place where He wants you to be.

The second thing I think about is sin, or what we call sin, in terms of obedience. This isn’t a new concept—it’s in the Bible, and we all understand it. But the key is your relationship with God and your relationship with your fellow human beings. Before Adam and Eve ate the fruit, they had perfect harmony with God and with each other. As soon as they ate the fruit, besides their eyes being opened, they experienced disharmony with God and began accusing each other.

This ties into the Ten Commandments: your relationship with God and your relationship with others. In the New Testament, it’s summed up as “Love God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself.” So, however you look at it, the common thread is how you relate to God and to others.

One point is that if you don’t relate to God in the way He wants, it messes up how you relate to other people. As for how we can relate to God, I don’t think it’s something we can achieve on our own. It’s God’s job—He came down and showed us who He is and established a relationship with us. Recognizing that and going along with it is important, rather than trying to find our own way.

The other thing I hear in Michael’s message is this: when God said everything is good, who are we to say something is bad? The idea that something is bad comes from the fruit of the tree—the fruit of our “vision” after we ate it, which you could call blindness. For example, who says drugs are bad? You can talk to the parent of a drug-addicted child or the family of an alcoholic and ask them about the pain and abuse they’ve experienced. You don’t need a Bible, a Bhagavad Gita, or a Quran to understand that.

When we talk about what’s good or bad, the question is whether someone is living in a peaceful, loving environment or disturbing it. Even animals have this basic concept. So when you say, “Who decides what is good and bad?” I’d argue that’s an intellectually utopian concept, but it’s not practical. We need to admit the practicality of this. Why would someone seek spiritual vision if everything is good?

For me, I sought spiritual vision because I recognized something was wrong with me. Who gave me that perception? We could argue it was society, the Ten Commandments, or something else, but it was my own realization. Of course, I tried my own ways to fix myself, but eventually, I found the way God gave me, and I submitted to Him.

When we talk about what’s good or bad, it’s not about controlling others with our own vision of morality. It’s about convicting ourselves of what is good and wrong in us. Spiritual wisdom, if focused on others, can be harmful. But if it convicts me of my need for God’s grace, then it has value.

When God’s grace comes into me, it transforms me. That transformation doesn’t mean drugs are okay, or that stealing someone else’s property is okay, because that’s not what love does. Love treats others as we want to be treated. I want to be healthy, happy, in good relationships, and flourishing, and I want the same for others.

So we have to recognize that aspect of morality or spiritual light. It’s about personal relationship with God and personal enlightenment, which eventually translates into society. If a group of people like me realize they are spiritually blind and seek the path of grace, I’d want to live in that society because they would care for each other as they care for themselves.

Don: Michael will continue the study of blindness next week.

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