Blinded to Death

"We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." -2 Corinthians 4:2b-6

It is often the overlooked things in life that can have the greatest controlling power. Especially if those little things or changes pile into a big problems: The straw that breaks the camels back, the snowball that starts the avalanche, the butterfly wing that creates the typhoon. I have been told (I have not been cruel enough to try myself) that if you were to throw a frog into boiling water, it would instantly and in great pain, jump out; but if you gradually heat the water with the frog sitting in the pot, he will stay there calm and unmoving until he boils to death. So to is it with the power of sin. I believe that if people were to see all the magnitude of the horror of their sin they would instantly leap away, scalded by the contact. But sin creeps in slowly and seductively, like a warming bath, slowly becoming more comfortable and clouding the evil that it is, until it is impossible and even intolerable to pull away, consummating itself in terrible death. I can see this progression in humanity and in my own heart.

A prime example of this worked out on a cultural scale is the Holocaust of the Jews. Atheistic naturalism blended with the existential ideals of Nietzsche and the Antisemitism of a militaristic and unstable Germany lead to the rise of Hitler and the moral principles of his radical National Socialist Party. In the Nazification of Germany, Jews were systematically stripped of their legal and civil rights and progressively forced out of the culture, because they were considered less than human and the cause of so many of the worlds problems. This lead to the formation of the Ghettos were Jews were effectively sealed off from the outside world and forced to live with practically no economic ties. The Nazi high command began to coordinate the "final solution" - the extermination of all Jews; a justified cleansing of a social cancer. Labor and concentration camps had existed for years, but Hitler wanted a more efficient method of genocide, and so created the extermination camps. Overall, 6000000 Jews and 5000000 other human beings were slaughtered in his cultural purging.
This picture is probably the most horrifying picture I have seen of the Holocaust. In our society we are so jaded to violence in the media that sadly even pictures of the concentration camps do not have the shock value that they should (another numbing power of sin). This picture was taken when one of the death camps was liberated by Allied troops and shows a bin filled with hundreds of wedding rings, taken off prisoners and corpses before they were cremated in massive ovens. Each ring represents a family unit that was destroyed; torn apart by hate and terrible suffering. A husband, wife, and children scream out from each one. Rings are a symbol of the covenant of marriage, which is a signpost to the glorious union that we have with Christ. And in such a callous disregard for that union and the innate image bearing of His children, I find real and deep horror.

Today we ask how the German people and the majority of the German church could have let this happen under their watch. How could such hatred and violence that destroyed one third of an entire cultural group worldwide, have been born out of one of the most sophisticated, technically advanced, culturally developed, civilized, modern societies this planet has ever seen? The Holocaust was not an exterior force stumbled upon by a few bad men in a sea of good... No, rather the Holocaust was the natural outpouring of the hell that is the human heart. A few good men were not corrupted by evil, but humanity loosened the reins on their sinful nature.

I would like to think that I would have done better in their place to stop the progression of hate, or that I would never fall to such a level; but I fear that I am deceiving myself. I always looked back on the Israelites as a kid thinking, "What idiots? Can't they understand that God is with them? They always doubt him in the midst of so many signs and miracles... I would never doubt if I saw that!" Yet here I am today, with so much more knowledge of the glorious redemptive plan of God, being this side of the Cross, with His Word at my fingertips to guide and sustain me; and I doubt and fear and run from him constantly. It is not an external blinding to the majesty of God, but my very heart that is my greatest problem.

"For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person." (c.f. Matthew 15:19)

"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?" (Jeremiah 17:9)

"If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we say we have not sinned, we make [God] a liar, and his word is not in us." (1 John 1:8,10)

Sin deceives, blinds, and numbs us to the reality of who God is and the truth of who we are in relation to him. It offers us an alternative to trusting and relying on the goodness of God and sets up our own kingdom and godhead in our hearts. Without the intervention of God ripping the scales from the eyes of our hearts in Christ, we would be blinded to death... and we would go to that death like the frog in the pot: happy and warm and oblivious. We are far worse than we can possibly imagine, and at the same time more truly loved and accepted that we could ever dream or hope in and through Christ Jesus.

I love that Jesus performed miracles. Especially that the majority of his miracles were curing or restorative in nature. We must ask what purpose those miracles served in the ministry of Jesus; were they simply because Jesus felt sorry for the diseased and the lame, or is it something far deeper? Jesus preached of the coming kingdom and taught that it would not only be a spiritual kingdom but a prepared physical and tangible place. Jesus did not perform signs and miracles for the signs sake or because that was the only way people would believe him, but rather his miracles ushered in a piece of that kingdom to his audience. Christ's miracles were a reaching into the future kingdom and bringing that restoration to the broken now. His redemptive message was so concrete and sure that miracles naturally flowed from its power and truth. What power would there be in the teaching a restored kingdom, if he did not work toward that restoration. When a paralytic was brought before Jesus and Jesus forgave his sins, the Pharisees thought it was blasphemy. "But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, "Why do you think evil in your hearts? For which is easier, to say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Rise and walk'? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins"---he then said to the paralytic---"Rise, pick up your bed and go home." And he rose and went home. (Matthew 9:4-7) Jesus saw the man's ultimate need (the removal of his spiritual paralysis) and forgives him, and also through that power then cures his physical paralysis. Christ's miracles and message were not mutually exclusive, but bound intimately by the truth of his words.

Many of Christ's miracles were the curing of physical blindness. I love the parallel symbolism of the restoration of our spiritual sight. Just as the blind cannot lead or heal themselves, so to we are dependent on the grace of God to lead and heal our hearts. Jesus used a variety of means to heal blindness: in several cases he touched their eyes, in another he spit on a mans eyes and worked in stages, in others he spoke and that opened their eyes, and in one he placed saliva mud in the man's eyes and commanded the man to wash in order to receive his sight. So to the Lord employs various means, all rooted in Him to draw us to himself. He works uniquely in individuals as a personal and perfectly suited savior.

"I am the LORD; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. And I will lead the blind in a way that they do not know, in paths that they have not known I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground. These are the things I do, and I do not forsake them. Hear, you deaf, and look, you blind, that you may see!" (Isaiah 42:6,7,16,18)

God's work in this world is a freeing, restorative, and redemptive work, and just as Jesus' ministry called forth the future restoration of Paradise, so to our lives should be a reflection of the love of Heaven. Our gospel and works are not mutually exclusive; they are one in the same. Our works proceed from faith and bear witness to our faith. My loving others out of Christ's love to me is my gospel. So when people see my love they will ask about the hope that I have. May our eyes be opened to the need for restoration in the world around us. And may we sing boldly when confronted by a blinded world, "Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found, was blind, but now I see!"

"Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him! Oh, fear the LORD, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack! The young lions suffer want and hunger; but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing." (Psalm 34:8-10)

O how I pray that we may see his beauty and extend that sight to others! I leave you with a poem that I wrote about the blinding power of sin that I see in my own heart and the hearts of others. I pray that we may take seriously the destructive power of sin and the glorious, all conquering, majesty of grace.


The greatest power I see in sin
Is the blinding of a man.
Wherein he sees no god but self
And believes the presumption of his good.

He scoffs at Heaven and believes he deserves
Life and good and peace: he mocks,
"How can God be good and pure
All knowing, powerful, and just;
Yet evil exist and suffering run free?"
As if happiness and joy were his due.

O man! So blinded, canst thou see
The question is reversed.
If scales removed you beheld your God
Your question would be thus:

"How can God, all good and pure,
All knowing, powerful, and just,
Allow a sinner such as I
Who mocks with unending scorn,
To draw my next fleeting breath
And not crush me in the dust?"

My due is Hell and that is just
Tis grace I live and breathe;
Yet wrath will not be stayed forever,
I pray that you may see!