Anchor My Faith

Light Within

Scripture: Matthew 6:23; Luke 11:33-36

With this lesson we will cover a short section which is rather difficult to explain due to the fact that the eye, besides being the organ of vision, is the seat of expression, revealing inward conditions of the heart. Physically the qualities on which vision depends are health and disease. The healthy eye gives light for all bodily functions, walking, working, etc. where the diseased eye more or less fails in this service. Connecting moral issues then adds difficulty.

^{Lk 11:33} “No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar or under a basket, but on a stand, so that those who enter may see the light.”

This verse draws attention to physical light that dispels darkness so that one entering a room can see and not stumble over things. But a careful reading of this verse suggests a second aspect by the phrase “so that those who enter may see the light.” The focus is on seeing the light, not seeing things in the room. The implication is that physical light is a metaphor of a different kind of light; a light found in the life Jesus has, revealed in John 1:4 ESV: “In him was life, and the life was the light of men.” In Matthew 5:14 ESV, Jesus expanded on this by saying: “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.”

That light that we are now considering is light we as believers have received from Jesus Christ. It is a light that is not to be hidden but is to be seen by those in the world through our good works that they might be guided to our Father through salvation through faith in Jesus. (Matthew 5:15).

^{Lk 11:34} “Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, but when it is bad, your body is full of darkness.”

As a person ages there is the growing risk of less light entering through the eye to the optic nerve because of either cataracts or macular degeneration. When the eye is healthy light can easily enter the optic nerve and the body experiences full light and can see to get around.

After pointing out that we are the light of the world, Jesus then looks how much light we have in our body. To say that our “eye is healthy” describes a spiritually healthy way of looking at things and our whole body is full of light, but a bad eye describes an evil way of looking at things and results in a life full of moral and spiritual darkness. This is restated in Matthew: ^{Mt 6:23} “But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.”

Returning to the story line in Luke: ^{Lk 11:35} “Therefore be careful lest the light in you be darkness. ³⁶ If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright, as when a lamp with its rays gives you light.”

Jesus instructs us to “be careful lest the light in [us become] darkness” and we become false guides to those around us. When we are filled with the light of Jesus Christ, it will affect all of our body; there will be no parts hidden in darkness.

Conclusion

The eye is the lamp of the body and when it is healthy, we see to do our daily work, but when diseased darkness increases. The eye of the soul, the heart, and seat of desire, when focused on God, all goes well with our spiritual functions—we choose and act wisely, but when sordid passions possess it there is darkness deep within that results in a growing blindness. We then mistake the relative value of things, choose the worse, neglect the better, or flatter ourselves that we can have both and, in the process, we mislead others.