As we continue on with conversion, it is useful to note again the necessity of the work of God in the conversion of the soul. A soul that is dead cannot make itself alive; He who is life itself must give that soul life. A soul that hates God and has a strong aversion to holiness and true love cannot just make a choice to love holiness. This takes the work of a God who is love and holy, holy, holy to work this in a soul. The soul that has a deformed image cannot transform that image to be created like God from its own power, but instead the God of all power can alone take a soul and convert it to be like Himself. The soul that hates the glory of God cannot just decide to love the beams of glory that shine forth from God in Christ. The soul must undergo a complete transformation and be converted in order to become an instrument to receive the glory of God and out of love shine forth that glory. In looking at some of the pictures that Scripture gives it speaks of the soul as having an eye. Of course the soul does not have a literal, physical eye, but the Scripture gives us this in order to communicate some very important teachings.
Scripture speaks of the eye of the soul being the lamp of the soul. “The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” (Matthew 6:22-23). What the eye looks at the body is full of because the body receives what the eye looks at. When the eye itself is bad, it receives is darkness. When darkness is thought to be light, there is a great darkness in the soul. If the eye pictures the understanding of the soul, then the unconverted soul can receive no understanding but darkness though it is very religious. The understanding of the soul is necessary to spiritual life and light. If it is only darkness in its fallen state, then all it understands and receives is nothing but darkness. The soul that has nothing but darkness in its understanding and receives nothing but darkness into the understanding is a soul that must be converted or it is nothing but darkness.
The eye lamp of the soul (the eye) is either humble or proud. Scripture teaches us that God hates haughty eyes. Proverbs 21:4 tells us this: “Haughty eyes and a proud heart, The lamp of the wicked, is sin.” The eye that is guided by pride is not changed by a decision, but instead can only be changed by the converting actions of the living God in changing a soul from darkness to light. Proverbs 6:16 tells us what things the LORD hates: “There are six things which the LORD hates, Yes, seven which are an abomination to Him.” Then verse 17 tells us what those things are: “Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, And hands that shed innocent blood.” Note that haughty eyes is on this list as one of those things. Proverbs 21:4 (given above) connects haughty eyes with a proud heart. There can be no haughty eyes without a proud heart and if one has a proud heart one will have haughty eyes. These things are the lamp of the wicked. These are the guides of the unconverted person and that is to be in great darkness.
Let us look at Matthew 6 again. “The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” (Matthew 6:22-23). This is a verse that should chill us to the depths of our souls. The Pharisees were very religious and very moral in the externals, yet their eyes were bad and they were full of darkness. Here we had, at least in terms of profession and externals, the most religious people of their day. Yet these words were spoken by Jesus in the context of having a righteousness that surpassed that of the Pharisees (Mat 5:20, the Sermon on the Mount). It matters not how religious a person is or can be or even how religious they will become, but a person must be converted so that they have an understanding of light. If a soul is never turned from being darkness, it will never even see the light despite all of its religion, morality, and even ministry.
Ephesians 4:18 speaks of “being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart.” These people (the unconverted) are excluded from the life of God because of this ignorance that is in them that comes from being darkened in their understanding. If eternal life is to know God as John 17:3 tells us, then a darkened understanding will exclude one from the life of God. A darkened understanding is one that has pride and haughty eyes as its light rather than Christ Himself. A heart that does not have the life of God is a heart that is full of darkness and is being given over to more and more to a hardened heart. This is a heart that does not need to be better, but to be totally converted.
Romans 1 shows us how this hardness of heart works: “For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures” (vv. 21-23). The heart has some aspect of information about God in it by reason of the fact that God has created it as one that bears His image in some ways. But the dark soul does not want the honor of God but instead wants the honor for itself. So this is a heart that is given over to futile speculation. While those speculations may come from brilliant men, they are nothing but the speculations of darkened hearts and that leads to more darkness. This futility in their speculations leads them even farther down the path: “And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper” (Romans 1:28). A sinful life is the demonstration of a heart that has not acknowledged God and has been given over to a depraved mind.
What we see, then, is that the understanding of a soul that is blinded by its own haughty eyes and pride is a soul that is descending in its darkness. It is the wisdom of God to hide Himself from the wisdom of men. “For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God.” The world sees the Gospel of the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ as utter foolishness. Even worse, in their case “the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Cor 4:4). The devil is at work to blind the minds (eye of the soul) of the unbelieving because he does not want them to see the light of the Gospel. The eye that is darkness and fills the soul with more and more darkness will stay that way if the devil blocks the light. But God can overwhelm the devil and bring the light of His glory to a soul. “For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Cor 4:6).
Ephesians 4:23 tells us something of how this works. “That you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, 24 and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.” The spirit of the mind must be made new in conversion. The old self must be put aside and the new self be created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. But this can only be done by God. It is God alone who can do this work of creation. As Ephesians 2:10 puts it: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” The new soul is the direct work of the living God in giving it a new eye and a new understanding. This new soul is now light in the Lord. “For you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord” (Ephesians 5:8). The soul that used to be all darkness has been changed by the light of the knowledge of the glory of God who has made it a new creature that is now light.
The mind of the unnatural man’s mind is darkness and ignorance. Christ is the light and it takes the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ to be saved (II Cor 4:6). Christ is the light but it takes the work of the Spirit to illuminate the light or for us to be able to see the light. The mind must be converted in order for the eye to be full of light and then for the body to be full of light. The mind must be converted or the light that the eye sees will be nothing but darkness. Religious people will be religious but will not see the light of the glory of God apart from a converted mind. Nice people will be nice but will not see what true love is until they have converted minds. For a soul to be converted the aspects of the soul must also be converted. An intellectual understanding of the Bible and of many issues of Christianity can be attained to by the natural man and the natural mind, but to have a spiritual understanding of these things a mind must be converted.
We must begin to understand salvation in terms of conversion. Men, women, and children are dead in their trespasses and sins. They have hearts full of darkness and eyes that are bad and so see nothing but darkness. Paul, in recounting his conversion and then call to Agrippa, said this: “to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me” (Acts 26:18). This is what Paul was called to. He was not called to talk people into praying or making decisions, but to be an instrument of the Gospel which opens eyes and turns from darkness to light. A soul is not saved until it has had its eyes opened and it has been turned from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan (darkness) to God (Light). Until a proud heart is humbled, it will be in the darkness of the devil and pride. It must be broken from living in the lamp of its own haughty eyes and pride in order that it may deny self and follow Christ. For true conversion the understanding must be converted as well. The eye of the soul must be able to see and receive light for the soul to be light in the Lord. It is pride that holds the soul in the grip of the darkness of self and pride. That bondage must be broken by the light of the knowledge of His glory in order that it may know Him which is eternal life.
God Loves... Himself 
Leave a comment