Every Eye will see Him…….

“Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him…....”  Rev. 1:7 NKJV

The first instance of the eye in Scripture is simply as a physical organ.   When Job laments his condition to his friends, he says, “My eyes have grown dim with grief….”  (Job 17:7).   Jeremiah laments the fact that Judah will not listen to the warning from God and heed the judgment to come.  “I will weep bitterly and my eyes will overflow with tears because you, the Lord’s flock, will be carried into exile” (Jer. 13:7).

 In Job’s case, the dim eye reflects the physical suffering and in Jeremiah’s situation, the tears signal the spiritual sorrow the prophet has over stiff-necked Judah’s rejection with God’s grace.

For the writer of Proverbs, a mischievous person “winks” with his eyes, causing harm to others (Prov. 10:10).  Conversely, those who call out to the Lord for help remain awake at night with their eyes open (Ps 77:4).

Finally, when Christ returns, “every eye will see Him” (Rev.1:7).   The certainty of Christ’s return is attested to by everyone seeing him with the eyes of their resurrected bodies. 

These, and many other such references in Scripture, begin with the eye as the organ of physical sight, but they often are extended to express the moral or spiritual attitudes of those they describe.

A significant part of a person’s character is his moral condition and in Scripture the eye often expresses the moral attitudes of a man.   In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus uses the eye---whether it is full of light or darkness---as the symbol of the moral quality of a man’s heart (Matt. 5:23-24). 

In our moral lives, we either serve God ---Light----- or Satan---darkness.

When Jesus speaks of hypocrisy and lack of forgiveness, He references the eye.  “Why do you seek the speck in your brother’s eye, but fail to see the beam of wood in your own?” (Matt. 7:3).

 The eyes truly are the “windows to the soul” in Scripture, exhibiting the condition of people’s moral character, and Christ often points to His hearer’s moral condition with the image of the eye.

“Turn my eyes from worthless things, and give me life through your word”.           Ps. 119:37 NLT

“People may be right in their own eyes, but the Lord examines their heart”.         Prov. 21:2  NLT