“The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. “But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness! (Matthew 06:22, 23, NKJV).
Some rabid anti-religionists claim the Bible is completely unscientific. They use this verse as an example, citing it as a perpetuation of the Platonic myth that human eyesight was powered by light emitted from the eye, kind of like Iron Man. I am no expert on Plato, but if that's what he truly thought he was less than a master logician. If sight were possible only because light-rays leap out the eye onto an object, then why are things not visible at night without an external source of illumination?
Obviously, neither Jesus nor His audience believed that the illustration He was using here was a literal statement of physiological fact. It couldn't be. For Jesus was the same Man who taught that, “…Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. “But if one walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.” (John 11:9, 10, NKJV). So let's dispense with any silly arguments to the contrary.
What the Lord is declaring is that people perceive and interpret those things around them through the filter of their own preconceptions, beliefs, and fallenness. Consequently, if your predisposition is to focus on the evil of this world, virtually everything you experience will be tainted with that filtered perception. If you don't know the truth, what you see is also very likely to be misinterpreted, because your cognitive filtration is skewed. You might perceive what is deemed good in your own eyes, but there is no guarantee at all that your interpretation is correct.
Make no mistake, there exists in the Universe absolute truth and crystal clear delineations of good and evil. The fact that different people argue otherwise says more about their clogged perception filters than anything about reality. If your focus is on yourself, rather than on the things of God, your perception filter is all but completely clogged. That is the "bad eye" condition Christ mentions. What you perceive is darkness, not actual absence of physical light, but absence of spiritual light. As you live your life increasingly in that manner, the light of truth becomes increasingly imperceptible, until eventually, you CANNOT see the light. All that you perceive is deception and darkness. Ultimately, you will stumble blindly into Hell, the greatest darkness of all.
On the other hand, an eye sensitized to the light of truth through faith in Christ is able to discern good and evil. Because the path of life is clearly illuminated by the Light of the Word Himself, your eternal destination is never in doubt. In opposition to the great darkness, there is great light. The figurative lamp that guides your way is literally inextinguishable; it shines forever into the darkness, destroying it.
It is, of course, no accident that the Son of God is associated many times in Scripture with light.
Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.” (John 8:12, NKJV).
Then Jesus said to them, “A little while longer the light is with you. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you; he who walks in darkness does not know where he is going. “While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.” These things Jesus spoke, and departed, and was hidden from them. (John 12:35, 36, NKJV).
That [Jesus] was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world. (John 1:9, NKJV).
“For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. (John 3:20, NKJV).
The thing is, I know individuals who seem strangely comforted by believing that there is no goodness to be had in life. That somehow, the absence of goodness is the only interpretation seen, and the only one they mistakenly believe is possible. In general, these individuals have no hope, are miserable, and over time descend into the very evil they outwardly claim so incenses them. And when they go the way of all flesh, they do so pridefully certain that everyone who believes otherwise is a fool.
