 |  |
important not to miss the transcendent glory of grace. Consequently, before the Apostle
can proceed to speak of the high glories of the church seated together in Christ, at the
right hand of God, he pauses to pray for them,
"That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the
spirit of wisdom and revelation for the acknowledgment of Him, the eyes of your
understanding (or heart) being enlightened, that ye may know, etc." (Eph. 1: 17, 18).
The Apostle does not pray here that the eyes of the saints "may be" enlightened, but
assumes that they "have been" enlightened; so essential is this to all progress.
This series of articles takes its title from the words of the Lord when He opened the
ears of a deaf mute. Mark 8:, however, records the healing of a blind man, giving
minute details of the performance of the act.
"He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the town: and when He had
spit on his eyes, and put His hands upon him, He asked him if he saw ought. And he
looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking. After that He put His hands again upon
his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly"
(Mark 8: 23-25).
It is hardly possible to avoid comparing this account with the record of the healing of
the deaf mute in Mark 7: 31-35. There we have a twofold operation before the man
"spake plain"; first his ears were opened, and then "the string of his tongue was loosed".
So also in Mark 8: we have a twofold action. In the first the man was asked if he
could see ought, to which he replied that he saw men as trees walking. In the second the
Lord "made him look up and he was restored and saw every man clearly". Instead of
"He made him look up", some texts read "The man looked steadily", which is a
suggestive alteration. "Clearly" is telaugos, meaning "distinctly", as one sees a distant
object with good sight. (The word tele enters into our words telescope, television, etc.).
Let us meditate upon these elements of truth, for they are contributions to the teaching
of the Scripture as a whole. They teach that spiritual sight is a gift of grace, and that,
whether in the case of the Ephesians or of the blind man, the eye first opened to see the
initial light of salvation, may yet need further strengthening by further grace in order to
see "clearly". The man who can only see men as trees walking is to be congratulated in
that he has sight, however defective, but it would be an incalculable loss for him to rest
content with that vision, or if he were to be encouraged to believe that it was normal, still
more that, with such a prime defect, he should set himself up as a leader of others.
The subject deserves an exposition of II Cor. 3: and 4:, where the theme is the veil,
which is made by the enemy out of undispensational use of the Scriptures, the law, that
had been abolished, being used to blind the minds of those who believe not. This cannot
be dealt with in a paragraph, but the reader would find the article in Vol. XXIII, p. 190,
a useful supplement to the present one; also the chart illustrating II Cor. 3: and 4: that
appears in Volume XXV, page 137.