Isaiah 42:13-25: The LORD goes forth like a mighty man, like a man of war he stirs up his fury; he cries out, he shouts aloud, he shows himself mighty against his foes. 14 For a long time I have held my peace, I have kept still and restrained myself; now I will cry out like a woman in travail, I will gasp and pant. 15 I will lay waste mountains and hills, and dry up all their herbage; I will turn the rivers into islands, and dry up the pools. 16 And I will lead the blind in a way that they know not, 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 will do, and I will not forsake them. 17 They shall be turned back and utterly put to shame, who trust in graven images, who say to molten images, “You are our gods.” 18 Hear, you deaf; and look, you blind, that you may see! 19 Who is blind but my servant, or deaf as my messenger whom I send? Who is blind as my dedicated one, or blind as the servant of the LORD? 20 He sees many things, but does not observe them; his ears are open, but he does not hear. 21 The LORD was pleased, for his righteousness’ sake, to magnify his law and make it glorious. 22 But this is a people robbed and plundered, they are all of them trapped in holes and hidden in prisons; they have become a prey with none to rescue, a spoil with none to say, “Restore!” 23 Who among you will give ear to this, will attend and listen for the time to come? 24 Who gave up Jacob to the spoiler, and Israel to the robbers? Was it not the LORD, against whom we have sinned, in whose ways they would not walk, and whose law they would not obey? 25 So he poured upon him the heat of his anger and the might of battle; it set him on fire round about, but he did not understand; it burned him, but he did not take it to heart.

The Bible addresses spiritual blindness as the great human problem. God’s reason for delivering Israel from Egypt was that Israel would be a holy nation that served him as a kingdom of priests. But, Israel was blind to the role God wanted them to fill. Called to be watchmen protecting the nation, they instead blindly preyed on the people (Isaiah 56:10). As the Pharisees gained control, they became blind leaders of the blind.

Jesus came to reverse the situation, making it clear who had spiritual sight and who was spiritually blind (John 9:39-41). In God’s view, religious people who pridefully think they have perfect spiritual vision are in fact blind. Their pride in their religion limits their ability to see the truth of the fact of their blindness. Conversely, New Covenant disciples who can now see with spiritual eyes are very aware that they were once spiritually blind.

2 Peter 1:5-9 lists the qualities a person must have to have spiritual sight. Without these qualities, a person is blind to the spiritual truths that are available only to people who listen to God’s voice while reading the Bible. Thus their knowledge of God is limited to their literal interpretations of the written words. Because they do not listen while reading, they are spiritually blind but do not know they are blind.

Lacking the ability to hear God’s voice, they are blinded by the gods of the world of religion. They walk in darkness, blinded by the moral darkness of hatred of their religious brothers. 

The possibility of a blind person being mistreated was recognized and forbidden by God. The law prohibited the giving of misleading directions or doing anything to cause the blind to stumble.

STUDY TIP: See The Law is a Stumbling Block.

Jesus is a model of all messiahs/prophets whom God sends to give spiritual sight to religious people. They do this by speaking God’s words to people who are not in the habit of listening to God’s voice. Thus they serve as mediators between God and man. This is how New Covenant disciples serve God as high priests.

STUDY TIP: Spiritual blindness has been discussed many times in this website. To find those pages, we recommend using the Key Word Search feature in the upper right hand corner of this page. Enter the word “blind” in the search box and then click on the spyglass icon. This will produce a list of excerpts of all pages that discuss spiritual blindness.