THE ALL-TOO-COMMON HUMAN FAILING in the area of covetousness began with Eve staring fixedly at ‘the apple.’ Whether it was a sweet red Washington Delicious, or a tart green Granny Smith, we will never know. But we do know that God’s clear warning of what was seen at a particular spot in the Garden of Eden should have been enough. “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” (Gen. 2:16b-17)
Despite this, first a whisper in her ear, followed by a few whispers to Adam, and some years later it led to the first recorded murder. “Now Cain said to his brother Abel, ‘Let’s go out to the field.’ And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.” (Gen. 4:6-8) Nevermind that Moses gave the Ten Commandments at a later period in the history of mankind, for these have always been established in the mind of God. In the O.T., breaking any one of them justifies the wrath of God and the punishment of eternal damnation. Murder is the fifth command and covetousness the tenth, but no less important; in fact, Cain coveted before he murdered.
All five senses of the body are stimuli for the brain, and the thoughts then formed in the mind work together to determine how to act and react within the surrounding environment. Sight in particular is an incredibly perceptive faculty. While our olfactory sense may be the strongest stimulant for the brain—especially in the realm of memory—it is vision that does the most to bring to our other faculties to bear on our initial perception of the world around us and our circumstances therein. Of the five senses, it is the one that most people would relinquish last, given a choice. Sight has great scope of breadth, height, and depth of field. It is this that gives us the ability to see all that is about us, and also to center upon a specific object.
The object we focus on can stimulate the desire to obtain the object for its perceived value. In Adam and Eve’s primordial antediluvian fall from grace, it was “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.” (Gen. 3:6) The Apostle John later calls this “the cravings of the sinful man, the lust of his eyes.” (1 John 2:16) And so, James: “You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight.”
Covetousness was what underlay the archetypal theme in the celebrated novella *“The Heart of Darkness,” in which all manner of vices were generated by greed for what the mind perceived. It is this that underlies Jesus’ statement, “Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are healthy, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are unhealthy, your body also is full of darkness.” (Luke 11:34) Jesus is not speaking of sight in the physical sense; he is using sight as a metaphor, as he often does: “An eye for an eye” (Matt. 5:38), “the speck that is in your brother’s eye” (Matt. 5:38), or “if the blind lead the blind.” (Matt. 15:14) He is speaking of perception not physically, but in the spiritual sense, and that in the context of righteous moral action.
The lust of the eyes has been a downfall for myriad throngs of every tribe and tongue traveling the broad road to destruction (c.f. Matt. 7:13-14). “You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.” (Matt. 13:14-15)
A vision-impaired person has much more appreciation for sight than the person for whom sight is normal, and perhaps not unappreciated but under-valued. A person whose vision has been restored has far greater appreciation for sight than the person who has never experienced this loss. So, the blind man: “One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!” (John 9:25) And so also for those whose hearts were once greatly darkened within. In this respect, Paul says “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened.” (Eph. 1:18a; cf. Psa. 119:18-19)
There are five senses, and a sixth. The man of the flesh calls this the sixth intuition, and it is occasionally present in the gestalt of human perception. Of this man, not first in judgment but offered potentially as mercy, Paul says, “The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.” (1 Cor. 2:14)
The born-again man (cf. John 3:5-7) knows that this sixth-sense is the seven-fold Spirit of God (cf. Isa. 11:2-3), and that it is ever-present in his daily life, only a prayer away. Paul adds, “So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.” (Gal. 5:16-18)
Jesus, master of light, who is light (cf. John 1:4), says “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12) And his beloved acolyte adjures us, “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7)
May we all walk increasingly in the light we’ve been given, as we “Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” (2 Pet. 3:18)
Q. What (who) is the light that lights my path?
*James Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness,” 1899.
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