The Lamp of the Body

“The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good,

your whole body will be full of light.

But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.

If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”

(Matthew 6:22-23)

There are two things necessary to properly see. First, there must be eyes that see. Second, there must be light to see.

Here, our LORD Jesus compares seeing to a lamp that shines light into the body through the eye. However, if someone is blind, it doesn’t matter how much light you shine into the eye, without sight to see the light, you live in darkness, as do any who are physically blind. They may have a perception as to how things are but because they cannot see, their perception is flawed, Acts 17:27.

Some may have some sight (natural knowledge) but their eyesight is bad. Their bad eyesight is often just as bad as someone who is blind. Someone has said, "Seeing falsely is worse than blindness. A man who is too dim-sighted to discern the road from the ditch, may feel which is which but if the ditch appears manifestly to him to be the road and the road to be the ditch, what shall become of him?” That is why our LORD declared, ‘If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness?’

Someone whose eye is good and the whole body is therefore full of Light is a description of a sinner who although born blind, in time has had their eyes opened (the work of the Spirit) and the Light (the revelation of Christ) has shown into the entire body (mind, heart and soul). This is the special work of God’s Grace, opening the heart and minds of His elect that He has chosen to salvation and for whom the LORD Jesus came and paid their sin debt, 1 Corinthians 2:9-12. In time He does cause them to see and rejoice, their eye singularly and exclusively set on Christ and looking to Him alone as the Author and Finisher of THE FAITH, Hebrews 12:2.

The only alternative is a body full of darkness. No matter how much an unregenerate may think they see, yet without the eye being opened by the Spirit of God, how great is that darkness? They may have a natural perception of God, sin, judgment, salvation and even a notion of the LORD Jesus according to their imagination but they need the True Light of the knowledge of the LORD Jesus that only HE can give: “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (2 Corinthians 4:6) A God-given sight sees the LORD Jesus Christ as all their Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification and Redemption, 1 Corinthians 1:30. That’s the Grace of God.