When Light is Darkness

"The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!" Matthew 6:22, 23

The idea here is simple but beautiful. The eye is pictured as the window through which light enters the body. If a window is clean and the glass is clear, the light that enters will properly light every part of the room. If the window is dirty, or if the glass is uneven or tinted or discolored, the light will be hindered, and the room will not be well-illuminated. The amount and quality of the light that enters a room depends on the condition of the window through which it enters. So it is with the eye. The condition of the eye determines the quality of the light that enters the body. If we are color-deficient, all the reds and greens of Christmas may be lost to us. If we have cataracts, we may sit next to someone and perceive only a shadow. And if our eyes are blind, "how great is that darkness!" There are no colors, no forms, no motion.

Of course, Jesus is not primarily giving us a lesson on optics. He is saying that the light that enters a man's soul depends on the spiritual condition of the eye through which it must pass because that eye is the window of the body. That is the basic meaning. But there is a more specific and deeper meaning depending on the two words "clear" [NASB] and "bad." The word "clear" here likely means "generous," and "bad" means "ungenerous." The Greek word translated "clear" was often used to mean generous in the Greek translation of the Old Testament [e.g. Proverbs 11:25: "A generous man will prosper"]. The word carries the same meaning in the New Testament [e.g. James 1:5 God is described as one "who gives generously to all." The same idea is seen in Romans 12:8; 2 Corinthians 8:2, 9:11, 13]. In our specific text the meaning is "the generous eye."

Likewise, the phrase "bad" eye or "evil" eye [KJV] regularly refers to an ungenerous spirit. The rabbis said that an evil eye indicated a grudging, cheap, ungenerous heart. Proverbs 28:22 says, "A man with an evil eye hastens after wealth" [NASB]. Proverbs 23:6 says, "Do not eat the food of a stingy man" [literally, "a man who has an evil eye"]. That this is the Lord's meaning in this passage is substantiated by the fact that it fits perfectly within the context, for this text is framed on both sides with warnings against selfish materialism. The preceding words are, "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth." And the following words are, "No one can serve two masters ... You cannot serve both God and Money."

In Luke 16:19-31 Jesus tells a story about a rich man who refused to show any mercy to a beggar at his gate. His self-centered, stingy spirit never thought of aiding poor Lazarus, who longed to be fed with crumbs from the man's table. Ultimately death came to them both, and the rich man plunged into the darkness that had long been in his soul. In torment he begged for a messenger to go tell his living relatives about the truths he had failed to see during his life. Materialism shuts out the light of Christ. Such was the case with Esau, Solomon in his later life, and tragic Demas, who forsook Paul "because he loved this world" [2 Timothy 4:10]. And it is the same for us. The increasing materialism of the church is shutting out the light of Christ. The effects of an ungenerous spirit are far worse than any of us really knows. Such a spirit clouds the way we look at life. When the things of this world are our focus, we believe we cannot be happy without them. That is the unrelenting gospel of TV-land, and sadly, far too many people believe it. Too many have a clouded vision of "happiness" and believe that God's primary goal for us is a happiness as it is defined by the world.

Materialism also clouds our vision of success. Because of our grasping spirits, many of us have defined success in financial terms and thereby have condemned ourselves to perpetual failure because we can never quite reach our goal. What a tragedy!

Materialism also clouds our vision of others' worth. If others do not join us in our scramble for the things of this world, we call them slackers or spiritless or lacking in ambition or worse. Missionaries can even be despised because of their choice to serve Christ in a way that means a lower income or being dependent on others for support.

A grasping heart also keeps us from having a healthy vision for our children's lives. Their chosen professions must fit our economic and social criteria, we think. I must admit that I struggled a bit with this when Ashley chose to marry a future teacher and when Alli elected to pursue an education career for herself [then she felt called to become a missionary!!!]. Never mind that Christ himself was a carpenter, and likely never owned his own home and, as far as we know, never planned for his retirement.

A grasping spirit also distorts our vision of God's will for our own lives. We too often selfishly assume God would never lead us onto a path that would involve a diminishing of our status, position or bank account. How different are the Master's words: "I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world shall keep it for eternal life." John 12:24, 25

Furthermore, and perhaps most seriously, a selfish fixation on things clouds our ability to understand and profit from the Scriptures. No wonder the Bible is so minimized and ignored by 21st century man.

So a grasping, ungenerous spirit darkens our inner lives. Very little spiritual light is able to penetrate the eye of the materialist. It also clouds and distorts our vision and leads to a tragic and pervasive dissatisfaction. For people like this there is always a desire for more and better. But those desires ultimately end up unrequited and one never seems to "arrive" materially, professionally, or socially and eventually end up treating other people as things to be used to fulfill one's desires.

Sadly, most of those who are in the darkness do not even know it. They are self-deceived. Many Christians are like this. They think their eye is good when it is, in fact, bad. They think their loyalty to Christ and His values is deep and grounded when in fact it is shallow and contrived. Greed reigns, not Christ. And "how great is that darkness!" How tragic this is! Thousands upon thousands of Christians in America think they have it all together, but their eyes are clouded by materialism and their lives are inauthentic. How is your vision? And how is mine?