the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Dictionaries
Seeing
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or SEEING.—In the Gospels there are three Greek words (βλέπω, θεωρἑω, ὁράω) used for ‘see,’ sometimes rendered in the Authorized and Revised Versions by ‘behold,’ ‘take heed,’ ‘beware,’ ‘regard.’ The most ordinary significance of the word ‘see’ is, of course, the natural one—to recognize by the act of vision ordinary external objects, as when the blind are described as seeing (Matthew 15:31, John 9:7), or men are promised that they shall see the Son of Man, or when the disciples think they see a vision, or the multitude see the miracles of Jesus (Mark 14:62, Luke 24:23, John 6:2).
The more significant uses of the word are, however, figurative. (1) The first usage under this head is where the verb ‘to see’ is used of the recognition of objects not strictly visible, as, for example, when it is said of Peter that he saw the wind (Matthew 14:30); or when men are told that, if they first cast out the beam out of their own eye, they will then be able to see clearly to cast the mote out of their brother’s eye (Matthew 7:5); or, again, when it is said that a man shall see death (Luke 2:26, John 8:51); or when the Lord speaks of a man as ‘seeing the light of this world’ (John 11:9), where, of course, it is more strictly the vision of objects made possible through the presence of the light of day.
(2) The second figurative sense is a very ordinary one in the Gospels, where the verb ‘to see’ is employed in the sense of the spiritual vision of the mind and soul. In the Beatitudes, for example, the blessing of the pure in heart is that they shall see God (Matthew 5:8). The angels also possess the same privilege (Matthew 18:10). The disciples are told that in seeing Christ they have already obtained the vision of the Father (John 14:9); while in another passage of the same Gospel the seeing of Christ and believing on Him are the conditions of possessing eternal life (John 6:40). In the Lord’s great prayer for His disciples He desires that they may see His glory (John 17:24), which implies a participation in the understanding of Divine things of the highest and most intimate character. In this connexion also is to be noted the strange utterance of our Lord in Luke 10:18, where, on the return of the Seventy, He speaks of His beholding Satan ‘fallen as lightning from heaven,’ which must imply His spiritual prevision of the final overthrow of the powers of evil, and the establishment of His Divine kingdom. Most significant of all this class of passages, however, are those found in John 9:39, and Matthew 13:14-16 with its parallels in Mark 4:12 and Luke 8:10. The passage in Jn. distinctly states that the purpose of Christ’s presence in the world was first to bring light to blind eyes, but, secondly, to make blind those who were able to see; and this last statement is further explained in the passage by the answer given to the indignant question of the Pharisees as to whether they also were blind, that their fault consisted in claiming to possess the power of spiritual vision, while their hearts were closed to the real significance of Christ’s message; and so their boast of spiritual perception only magnified their sin. On Matthew 13:14-16 || see Parable, p. 315 f.
(3) A third general significance of the word ‘see’ is that of an ethical warning in the sense of the English phrase ‘take heed.’ For example, in Matthew 24:6 we read, ‘See that ye be not troubled’; and in Mark 8:15 two words are combined in the warning, ‘Take heed (ὁρᾶτε), beware (βλέπετε) of the leaven of the Pharisees, and the leaven of Herod.’
When combined with a preposition (εἰς), the verb βλέπω signifies ‘regard,’ in the sense of ‘pay obsequious attention to,’ as in Matthew 22:16; and, finally, the word is used of God Himself in His vision of the hearts of men, as in Matthew 6:6, which reads, ‘Thy Father which seeth in secret shall recompense thee.’
As a general result of the examination of the above passages, it will be noticed that in Jn. the word ‘see’ has a special significance. It is, indeed, one of the words that form a leading conception in his writing. Just as the idea of life arises out of the miracle of the feeding of the multitude, so does that of light spring from the miracle of the healing of the man blind from his birth. In Jn.’s spiritual vocabulary, Christ Himself is the light of the world; and the illumination of the souls of men and the blessing of the gospel can be spoken of in terms of light and its enjoyment as suitably as in terms of life and its possession. Thus the miracles of giving sight to the blind become peculiarly significant; but we need not, therefore, assume that, though they are in this way acted parables, the narratives of such miracles are not to be regarded as of any historical value, but as mere pictorial representations of the spiritual truths they are meant to convey.
Literature.—The Comm. on the various passages, esp. the Expos. Gr. Test., and Westcott’s St. John; Jülicher, Gleichnisreden Jesu, pp. 121–149; Bugge, Die Haupt-Parabeln Jesu, vol. i. pp. 1–89; Expositor, 6th ser. vol. i. [1900] p. 231 ff.; Fiebig, Altjüd. Gleichnisse und die Gleichnisse Jesu; Phillips Brooks, Mystery of Iniquity (1893), 208.
G. Currie Martin.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Seeing'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/s/seeing.html. 1906-1918.
