Eyes of Faith: How Jesus Viewed the World
One of the most interesting aspects of Jesus’ character was his extreme spiritual-mindedness. Jesus thought on such a spiritual plane that he was constantly misunderstood by his more earthly-minded counterparts. It is not just that Jesus used frequent spiritual analogies. Instead, Jesus’ thinking was constantly on a spiritual level.
The first example that we have of this in the book of John comes in 2:4 – when Mary tells him that there is no more wine, Jesus responds with, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.”
Of course, Mary has not mentioned anything about the ‘hour.’ Jesus, however, is thinking about the promised ‘hour,’ the New Age that is prophesied of in the Old Testament prophets. This ‘age’ is described as a day when “the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the stream beds of Judah shall flow with water; and a fountain shall come forth from the house of the LORD and water the Valley of Shittim” (Joel 3:18). The event that will set the New Age in motion is the ‘lifting up’ of Jesus. And since it is not yet time for Jesus to be ‘lifted up,’ why is Mary expecting that wine would flow?
Of course, all of this would likely be lost on anyone whose mind is not steeped in Old Testament prophecy. Most of the time, Jesus’ spiritual sayings cause us to stop and wonder what he really means.
Evidently, Jesus developed spiritual-mindedness at a very young age. When he was only twelve, Jesus was ‘lost’ by his parents for several days. When they finally found him in the Temple in Jerusalem, his simple response was, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49).
Jesus’ spiritual-mindedness encompassed many everyday objects which became symbols of spiritual ideas. Jesus referred to his body as a temple (John 2:19) a habitation for God. Food and physical sustenance became reminders that true spiritual sustenance is the Word of God (Matthew 4:4) and doing the will of God (John 4:34). Water is meant to remind us that we need spiritual, living water (John 4:14), and bread is a reminder of our need for what is spiritually sustaining (John 6:27). Slavery is only a symbol of the condition of sinful man (John 8:34), and one’s true ancestry is traced more by their spiritual than physical ancestry (John 8:44-47).
Even the finality of physical death had little influence on Jesus’ thinking, since he recognized the unending quality of spiritual existence. Abraham, two millennia earlier, was not prevented from seeing the Messianic age (John 8:56), since God is the God of saints who still live (Matthew 22:32). Physical death is only temporary (John 11:23), best described as ‘sleep’ (John 11:11), but the spiritual person is always alive and never dies (John 11:25-26).
Jesus recognized the spiritual nature of his words: “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (John 6:63). He intended his hearers to deeply ponder his utterances, promising his disciples that the Holy Spirit would remind them, and explain to them, the meaning of his words (John 14:26).
Even when he was misunderstood by his hearers, Jesus often continued to talk in spiritual terms. Rather than descending to the level of earthly discussion, Jesus invited his listeners to ascend to the spiritual grade that he was discussing. When he was misunderstood for calling himself the ‘bread’ that comes down from heaven, he simply doubled down on the illustration, calling on his hearers to feed on his flesh and drink his blood (John 6:56).
The impression that we get, from reading these accounts of the life of Jesus, is that he was a man who lived on an entirely different spiritual plane than those around him. Spiritual understanding was simply ‘sight,’ while spiritual dullness was ‘blindness.’ Jesus lived with 20/20 spiritual vision. He clearly observed what was going on in the spiritual realm around him. It must have been very challenging for him to constantly live around individuals who had no spiritual sight, and who were constantly groping and bumping their way through the spiritual realm that they claimed to understand. No wonder Jesus speaks directly and pointedly to human beings about spiritual matters, admonishing them for their misunderstanding (John 3:10), and castigating those who claimed to be spiritual guides despite their ignorance (Matthew 15:14).
In the end, it is those who recognize their blindness who receive healing (John 9:41). Jesus’ spiritual-mindedness is another evidence of his divinity, since he came from the heavenly realm to tell us about it (John 3:12-13). He opens our eyes to spiritual truth, and he is an example of how we, also, should live our lives (Colossians 3:2-3), since we have also died with him to the things of this earth.
