Bible Text: Matthew 6:22 | Speaker: Dr. Harold J. Sala | Series: Guidelines For Living | The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. Matthew 6:22

Of all the parts of the human body, none is more awesome and wonderful than the human eye. Measuring about an inch in diameter, the eye does things science has never been able to even mimic. You can smell some things a great distance from you, and certainly, you can hear some things far away, but only your eyes have the ability to estimate distance. Your eyes can penetrate the heavens, seeing objects as stars or planets millions of light years away, yet they can focus on something only a few inches away.

This is possible because of the ability of the iris in your eye to adjust to the amount of light that is allowed to penetrate the jelly-like substance behind the cornea, which in turn translates impulses into signals that are sent to the brain, which in turn tells you what you are seeing. Simple? No! Tremendously complex. On a very bright day, say in the sun or in snow, the iris of your eye may close down as much as 100,000 times the size it would in near darkness.

Scientists have, on occasion, compared the iris of the human eye to the diaphragm of the lens on a camera which allows the proper amount of light to fall on the film to record a clear image, yet the lens of your eye is far more complex than the most sophisticated camera ever built.

The human eye is really quite complex, with blood vessels and nerves crossing the surface, interlaced with muscles and nerve fibers, all of which have to work together to let you see properly. Scientists are still not absolutely certain why we see in color, rather than in black and white, but we do, and that allows us to marvel at the beauty of a sunset and the grandeur of the mountains and oceans.

Then, at the same time, every time you blink, which is totally involuntary, fluid is pumped across the surface of the iris in your eye and your lids wash away impurities and allow it to stay soft and to continue functioning.

Those beautiful eye lashes which your little girl bats when she wants her way serve a function other than to cause the boys to notice how pretty she is. They serve as a catcher or guardrail to keep objects out of your eye.

Sir Charles Scott Sherrington, the famed English physiologist of Oxford, wrote a classic on the human eye. In this book he said, “Behind the intricate mechanism of the human eye lie breath-taking glimpses of a Master Plan.”

Time does not allow further description of this remarkable window to the world, but the complexity of the human eye speaks to me very clearly about two things: (1) It tells me that nothing so complex could have just happened. The laws of thermodynamics, as well as the frailties of my human body, tell me that things tend to run downhill and disintegrate, not grow more complex as time passes. Even the aging process is a testimony to that. Year by year my glasses grow thicker, as does my waist, not sharper, leaner, and more muscular. (2) The complexity of the human eye tells me that God’s design is absolutely marvelous. “The eye is the lamp of the body,” said Jesus. “If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light” (Matthew 6:22).

More than 600 times you find the writers of Scripture referring to the eye, pointing out the fact that God knew exactly what He was doing when He so designed and built the human body.

The next time you get a speck of dust in your eye, let it serve as a reminder that we take the eye so very much for granted, and let it serve to remind you to say, “Thank you, God, for the vision I do have.”

Resource reading: Psalm 139