“And they brought a blind man to Him, and entreated Him to touch him. And taking the blind man by the hand, He brought him out of the village; and after spitting on his eyes, and laying His hands upon him, He asked him, “Do you see anything?” And he looked up and said, I see men, for I see them like trees, walking about.” Then again He laid His hands upon 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.””
Sandy, a married lady in our small group, was selected at random to stand in the center of about 20 people seated in a circle. She was in the “hot seat” and had to answer personal questions. “When did you know Jim?” the first person asked. Spontaneously, she responded: “Do you mean biblically?” After the laughter died down, she said, “I do remember!” Knowing can mean different things to different people at different times.
The blind man came to Jesus, not to know God, but to see physically what was going on in his neighborhood. He had the hands-on attention of THE One who could actually perform miracles … and “so much more!” In fact, He is the One who created life itself and the One who gives life everlasting! But the blind-man’s obsession is to see the physical world with his own eyes only!
Spiting on the blind man’s eyes, Jesus then lays His hands on him saying:
“Do you see anything?”
The blind-man says: “I see men like trees, walking,"
Excited by the prospects, this partially sighted blind man intently looks into his healer’s face and this time Jesus lays His hands on partially seeing eyes and immediately the “blind-man” sees with perfect physical vision!
Can you imagine this experience! How can we possibly know the essence of this special moment; this man is no longer physically blind; he can now see with 20-20 vision! But at the same time, he is oblivious to seeing God; the “blind-man” is still blind, unable to see grace and mercy by God’s own visible hand!
This blind-man is properly named! He walked away from Jesus still blind in his heart; he saw only with physical eyes! “Not even go into the village?” This is exactly what the blind man intended to do … and does!
Why does the “blind-man” ignore Jesus’ command to go home and not into the village? Obsessed with his physical circumstances, he could not hear or see his spiritual need! He exploited Jesus for physical sight and exploits the joy of 20-20 vision while disregarding his healer’s instruction to go home. The “blind-man” goes into the village big-headed with God’s gift of grace … for his own self!
This blind-man doesn’t understand who Jesus is! He doesn’t recognize Jesus as being able to keep his heart from stumbling and provide the essential Light for his Life; neither does he pay attention to Jesus’ direction and command: “Do not even enter the village.”
The Son of God is physically standing in front of this seeing-blind man … and the blind-man goes into the village! Even after this miracle has taken place, the blind-man doesn’t think about who Jesus might be; did he even pause long enough to say thank you? He just wanted to see the world he could already hear!
Jesus had addressed this same subject (“having eyes do you not see?”) with the disciples on their way to the blind-man’s town in the boat, Bethsaida. Jesus replies to the disciples while in the boat, Mark 8:17:
““Why do you discuss the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up”? They said to him, “Twelve.” “And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up”? And they said to him, “Seven.” And he said to them, “Do you not yet understand?””
A few hours earlier Jesus spoke these harsh words to the disciples about “the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” He was referring to leaven as the worldly influence corrupting God’s truth and righteousness. Leaven in scripture is seen as man’s choices rather than God’s righteous choices. Sin is visible through the disobedience of Adam and Eve and our personal priorities.
But what the disciples heard in their own skulls was “leaven,” as in bread, which they did not have in the boat. They had not yet made the switch from worldly choices to their own spiritual identity. Jesus’ clash with the disciples was concerning hearing spiritually, “having ears do you not hear?”
The dialogue with the disciples in the boat sets the scene for Jesus’ private two stage healing of the blind-man outside of town, Mark 8:14-26. The disciples are needing a lesson about the hardness of heart relating to the “leaven of the Pharisees” and the disciple’s lack of bread, which, with Jesus in the boat, wasn’t true. The disciples are spiritually blinded by the needs of self just as the blind-man was both physically and spiritually blind!
Now, in Bethsaida, the disciples are witnessing a blind man who hears only what he wants to hear and nothing spiritually righteous. Jesus is providing a lesson on spiritual hearing as expressed in Revelation which John has not yet written, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches!”
This is a fundamental issue, not just for the disciples! Every person has a sin nature, that is, a self-orientation about our needs feeding our desires. When we are “born again,” we retain this natural orientation but our “born again” new creation is an eternal identity, God’s resurrection power in Jesus has “set us free” from sin and death. We now can live “in Christ.” The law of the Spirit of Life has set us free in Christ from the law of sin and death. Romans 8 makes it clear, we are set free from the dominion of our old nature! It hasn’t gone away, but in Christ, it no longer has control over us without our consent, “you however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you.”
-Romans 8:9.
After the resurrection of Jesus and the gift of the Holy Spirit, the disciples would see this more clearly! God creates a new spiritual identity in us when we are “born again.” It is the mystery of God within us, the hope of glory, giving us a Spiritual ear to hear God’s word; faith comes by hearing through the word of God.
But now the disciples, like the blind-man, are witnessing a hardness of heart within the blind-man coming from his worldly and fleshly concerns. The disciples themselves did not hear about the “leaven of the Pharisees,” they heard about the “leaven” that makes bread rise, and they didn’t have any “bread” in the boat, not realizing that Jesus is the bread of Life even though they were present when Jesus fed the 4,000 and 5,000.
Jesus is teaching the disciples that the righteousness of God is displayed in the flesh of Jesus Himself. Jesus is the “word of God” being revealed so that absolute truth can be tested by fallible and corrupt humanity. Jesus is teaching the disciples discernment between the flesh and the Spirit. This is a cultural issue for today’s Body of Christ!
We all need to learn spiritual discernment. Spiritual discernment comes from within the Word by continual practice thru the Holy Spirit. Those who have entered the kingdom of God through the blood of Jesus are “born again;” we born again-ers are “rooted and grounded” in the agape love of Jesus. This is the light of life, the bread of life, in us; it is to be seen in us by others while we are “living” in these fleshly jars of clay. This is a long-life discipline; Jesus is growing us in grace and the personal knowledge of Himself. He wants His redeemed to go deeper into His grace, penetrating into agape love, a relationship of fellowship, in Christ Jesus, which includes feeding His sheep.
The disciples are viewing “hardness of heart” as an effect of sin in flesh displayed thru the blind-man. This blind-man demonstrates worldly sensitivity focused on temporal concerns as a sinner separated from the righteousness of Jesus, our loving Lord!
By contrast, the disciples, on their journey with Jesus, are experiencing the righteousness of God overcoming sin in people and the world. The blind-man illustrates fleshly blindness to sin which continues to tempt us while in our own “jars of clay;” the surpassing power of God belongs to Jesus and not to us!
Outside of the village, the disciples and Jesus huddle around the blind-man. The blind man is the center of attention but it is the disciples who have this spiritual lesson to learn. Jesus gave the blind man physical sight but Jesus is also giving the disciples spiritual understanding.
The blind-man apparently doesn’t consider the reasons he should go home … and not go to town! If he had gone home, he may have paused in his thinking and considered Jesus more deeply; he probably would have realized Jesus was not just a prophet guy who could perform miracles. The blind-man is singularly fixed on seeing what he wanted to see! The blind-man has a “hardened heart” unable to see God’s truth! He is a sinner and remains blind in his heart; Jesus is his only solution in life but this he knows not nor can he see!
We are members of Jesus’ body and are witnessing a man who is physically blind and not interested in spiritual seeing. This blind-man knows about Jesus, the man, with his intellect but does not know him in his heart. He wants what Jesus offers for his physically well-being, but his heart is not open to who Jesus is and what He is really about! Jesus is offering Himself to him, and to the disciples, and to us!
God created His universe in which we live. He has a purpose! He created the life we are experiencing and He created time and He created light! He is a person Himself, the owner-operator of everything we touch, feel or experience!
But God has a plan which is revealed in His word and is being expressed in each of us personally thru His gospel of salvation and grace! The depths of His plan is revealed in us as we consume His love and grace. It requires our transformation, not only in the word, but in Him personally! We must decrease and He must increase through choices of our death and His life while still living in our fleshly jars of clay!
God requires us to stand in His presence, within His righteousness, in order to have fellowship with Him. God’s righteous character requires judgment against everything less than His absolute truth. This defines the what sin is! Our natural state is less than His righteous existence demands. His solution? Being “born again,” living in His Light and eating His bread.
The resurrection of Jesus, conquering His own death, provides in us, His resurrection life and power, restoring us into fellowship with and in him. This is what redemption does; it buys us back to God, making us His personal possession thru Jesus. The blood of Jesus is the death sacrifice providing creation of His holy nature in us when we accept His justification through the gospel. Its not just about heaven, its about us in Him and Christ in us! He became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption.
Now it is up to us, humanity, to reconcile ourselves back into God by accepting His gospel and He, then, creates within us a new spiritual identity. We become “born again;” we become, once again, children of God. We again enter into the garden of His fellowship, participating in His purpose, participating in His agape love relationship by accepting His mercy and grace in Christ Jesus.
We are to grow in grace and knowledge of our resurrected Jesus Christ Himself. But we get distracted by our worldly concerns and neglect the gift of grace each of us possess.
It is natural to be thinking within the sphere of mankind’s physical needs; we live in a world of touch and feel, or in the case of the blind man, hearing and seeing. But what about the disciples? They lived daily in the presence of Jesus’ miracles! But they too were targets of sin’s effect. This is what aroused the anger of Jesus in the boat. But are we any different? He has given us so much more, as Paul tells us in Romans 5 thru 8.
Yes, we are different. We do have the mind of Christ, as Paul reminds the Corinthians, because we are in Him and there is no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus. The law of the Spirit has set us free from the law of sin and death. But often we DO NOT live in this factual reality!
Yes, we do have the mind of Christ! We don’t realize it if, or when, we don’t put on the Lord Jesus, walk in faith, and grow in His grace.
Humanity is spiritually handicapped! The healing of the blind man was a visual picture of a natural human response to a spiritual opportunity. Jesus’ conversation with the disciples in the boat was spiritual and they didn’t get it!
This is a beautiful picture for you and me, about our own difficulty growing in God’s grace. We too are living in our flesh, in “our jar of clay,” but there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus; the “Spirit of Life” has set us free, in Jesus, from the law of sin and death! We are to consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus!
Today’s churches speak about salvation from hell but seldom tell us about reconciliation; they don’t teach us about redemption or explain sanctification to us. Salvation’s gospel is so much more than being saved with eternal life; its much more than going to heaven when we die on earth!
Yes, this is true; we will go to heaven but we will also answer to Jesus about living His Life in our fleshly jar of clay on earth. Jesus’ agape love is providing his resurrection power to us and in us, so that, we can be living in the righteousness of Jesus’ resurrected life! We are to glorify Him now, in our flesh, so others will see Jesus in us! He is our life and we are called to walk in His Life to glorify Him!
When we look to Jesus, we will see … Him!
“If the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you.”
“But when one turns from the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this is from the Lord who is the Spirit.”