Like the Blind We Grope

Isaiah 59:9–16

“So justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us. We look for light, but all is darkness; for brightness, but we walk in deep shadows. Like the blind we grope along the wall, feeling our way like people without eyes. At midday we stumble as if it were twilight; among the strong, we are like the dead. We all growl like bears; we moan mournfully like doves. We look for justice, but find none; for deliverance, but it is far away. For our offenses are many in your sight, and our sins testify against us. Our offenses are ever with us, and we acknowledge our iniquities: rebellion and treachery against the LORD, turning our backs on our God, inciting revolt and oppression, uttering lies our hearts have conceived. So justice is driven back, and righteousness stands at a distance; truth has stumbled in the streets, honesty cannot enter. Truth is nowhere to be found, and whoever shuns evil becomes a prey. The LORD looked and was displeased that there was no justice. He saw that there was no one, He was appalled that there was no one to intervene; so His own arm achieved salvation for Him, and His own righteousness sustained Him.”

Towards the end of Francis Thompson’s poem “The Hound of Heaven”, he imagines Jesus saying, having caught up with the one running away from Him, “Ah fondest, blindest, weakest, I am He whom thou seekest, thou dravest love from thee who dravest Me.” And as Author Dostoyevsky wrote, without God, everything is permissible, Isaiah tells us today that “rebellion and treachery against the LORD, turning our backs on our God, drives away justice (vv. 13-14). God is the only foundation of love, justice, and objective moral values and without Him, there is no justification for good and evil, no ultimate universally binding standards of behaviour, it does not matter whether we live like a Mother Teresa or a Joseph Stalin. “Like the blind we grope along the wall, feeling our way like people without eyes. At midday we stumble as if it were twilight (v. 10)”, this seems to suggest of the noetic effects of sin (Plantinga) over our natural sense of God and right and wrong. It isn’t that belief in God creates in us the ability to discern right from wrong, Christianity affirms we all have this naturally having been created in the image of God (Gen 1:26) and we have this awareness of God or Sensus Divinitatis, naturally that we are without excuse (Rom 1:19-20), but sin marrs this sense and debilitates our awareness of God and only He can renew our minds and the Holy Spirit restore our senses through the redeeming work of Jesus Christ. 6th Century Roman philosopher Boethius in his Consolation wrote, “in spite of a clouded memory, the mind seeks its own good; though like a drunkard it cannot find the path home”, and God tells the prophet Jonah, “should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals (Jon 4:11)?” We are just lost without God, and only God can make a way for us, and we receive it, the Living Life writer affirms this in saying, “sin can bind and blind us, rendering us powerless to discern God’s will. When we are enslaved to sin, we stumble through life in darkness, and though we might try to seek righteousness and deliverance, our sinfulness only pushes these things farther away… the prophet Isaiah acknowledges how lost God’s people are without Him and confesses their sins on their behalf. Confession is the first stage of repentance, which leads to redemption. Because we could not attain righteousness by our own strength, God had to intervene by sending His Son to achieve salvation for us and cover us with His righteousness. If we confess our sins, our faithful and just God will forgive us and purify us through the power of Christ’s blood shed for us on the cross.”