Seeing Jesus

Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”
John 9:39 NIV

The importance of seeing Jesus cannot be overemphasized, as we cannot follow Him unless we see Him. Again, we are transformed into His image when we see Him (2 Corinthians 3:18). However, seeing Jesus is not about eyes being physically open to behold His natural form, but being able to recognize who He is in Truth.

In John 9, we find the conversation that ensued between Jesus, the Jewish leaders, and the blind man whose eyes were healed by Jesus. Though the blind man was blind in the natural, it turned out that he could see spiritually, as he was able to recognise who Jesus was in Truth after his healing (John 9:35-38). But the Jews who could see naturally turned out to be blind because they could not see who Jesus was, despite observing the healing of the blind man.

Like the Jews, many are in need of having their spiritual eyes healed, but they cannot recognize it because they see in the natural. They are not healed because they do not ask. One such person who was blind but could see in the natural was Saul, who became Apostle Paul. In his blindness, he persecuted the Church, thinking he was doing the will of God. To help him, Jesus had to make him blind in the natural (Acts 9:8-9). This blindness revealed his need for spiritual sight.

In Paul’s blind state, the Bible recorded that he saw a vision of Ananias coming to heal him (Acts 9:10-12). Though seeing Jesus goes beyond seeing visions, this account showed his spiritual sight was restored in his blind state.

The Jews remained blind because they claimed they could see. Unlike the Jews, we should not assume we see Jesus. Again, we should not wait to be made blind before we can see. We can simply ask Him to open our eyes to see His glory.