Blindness is taken very seriously in my family. As the daughter of someone who lost their sight, it’s been drilled into me to make sure nothing is going astray with my eyes. I get regular check-ups – it wouldn’t even occur to me to miss. But I suspect few of us, myself included, are that diligent when it comes to spiritual sight.
In the Bible, spiritual blindness is a term used mostly of those outside the church – people whose spiritual condition means they can’t see Christ for who He truly is. His Lordship, holiness, goodness, graciousness all completely miss their gaze and will continue to do so until God opens their eyes. But that’s not the only time we find the term ‘blind’.
Peter picks up on the theme of lack of sight in his second letter and applies it to the local church. He draws our attention to the call to be increasingly known for our faith, goodness, self-control, perseverance and mutual love. If Christians aren’t growing in these areas? Well, ‘…whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins’, he says. Maybe partially-sighted might be a helpful rendering of the original there. Believers may be in God’s kingdom, they’ve had their eyes opened to the wonders of the cross, but they’ve lost sight of who God has made them to be and how He has called them to treat those around (2 Peter 1:5-9).
