“The man answered and said to them, ‘Why, this is a marvellous thing, that you do not know where He is from; yet He has opened my eyes!’ ” (John 9:30).
That the eye could have been formed by natural selection seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree.” Even the father of evolutionary theory, Charles Darwin, was awestruck by the complexity of the human eye. The eye has more than two million working parts and is capable of seeing at a resolution of 576 megapixels. It can process 36,000 bits of information an hour and see 2.7 million different colours. Under the right conditions, it can detect the light of a candle fourteen miles away.
In order for the eye to function properly, all of its components—cornea, lens, retina, nerves, muscles, iris, pupil—must be present at the same time and work together perfectly. If one part is missing, such as the eyelid, the eye would be seriously damaged and blindness would result. This can happen through accidents or genetically.
Jesus once crossed paths with a man who was born blind. As His disciples passed the sight-impaired person, they asked a question that was natural for Jews who believed blindness was always a direct result of someone’s sin. “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:2). Christ shocked the disciples by replying, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him” (verse 3).
What happened next would be considered absurd in the highest possible degree. Jesus spat on the ground, made clay with His saliva, rubbed it on the man’s eyes, and told him to go wash in the pool of Siloam. When the blind man obeyed, he came back seeing. He was later questioned by the Pharisees who refused to “see” and believe in Jesus. The man who had been blind was amazed at their spiritual blindness.
There are still people who insist on walking in darkness instead of opening their eyes to the light of truth. Let’s pray for them.
“I once was lost, but now am found; was blind, but now I see.”
For Further Study: John 9; Matthew 13:13–16; Ephesians 5:8