The recovery of sight to the blind was predicted to be among the events which should mark the person and acts of the Messiah. (See Isaiah 61:1, etc. compared with Luke 4:16-21) But the greatness of the miracle hath not perhaps been considered but by few, equal to its importance, both in its relation to bodily and spiritual blindness. I am free to confess that I did not discover the whole loveliness of it until reading somewhat of the manners and customs among eastern nations.
In many cases of the blind there is not only a loss of vision but a loss of the eyeballs. And in eastern countries, where for capital punishment the eyes are literally scooped from their sockets, it is not simply a restoration to give sight to such miserable eyeless creatures, but it is a new creation. We meet with numberless instances, in the Old Testament Scripture, where such cruel punishments were inflicted. The case of Samson, Judges 16:21; the case of Zedekiah, Jeremiah 52:11. In the margin of the Bible in the former instance it is, the Philistines bored out his eyes. Now in all such cases there is not only the loss of sight, but the loss of eyes. I beg the reader to connect this idea all along with what is said concerning this feature of character in the Lord Jesus Christ giving sight to the blind, for, it is literally giving eyes also, and consequently a new creation.
Now look at the prediction in this point of view concerning Christ, and it must instantly strike the mind with the fullest conviction that such acts to the bodies of men demonstrated his GODHEAD; for he not only gave vision, but he created eyes. And in respect to the souls of his people, which those miracles to the bodies were intended to set forth, surely here was exhibited the new creation in the most striking manner. Unawakened sinners are represented as "dead in trespasses and sins;"Jesus came to give them life. Jesus came to bind up the broken in heart; and a broken heart is a dead heart. Jesus came to give sight to the blind whose eye-sockets had no eyes, being put out for the capital punishment of high treason, even sin against God. And hence the charter of grace runs in those soul-reviving words: "A new heart will I give you, and a right spirit will I put within you; ye shall be my people, and I will be your God." (Ezekiel 36:26, etc.)