Matthew 6:22–23 (KJV 1900)
22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. 23 But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!
The body being like that of a house, whose window is the eye. The eye which sees objects of various luminous degrees as its treasures (Matt. 6:21), is not on its own, its own light source. Rather, it is the object that the eye beholds that is the light to illuminates the body.
Now, if an object is luminous, but dimly so, then the body will nonetheless be illumined, but dimly - allowing for darkness to dwell in its many crevices, corners, etc. On the contrary, if an object is luminous, and exceedingly so, then the body will be illumined with no room for darkness to dwell. One’s view of Christ and his gospel can be either the former or the latter.
The Former
The first, when 1) there is a lack of study of the riches and splendors of our inheritance in Christ (Eph. 1); 2) the eyes are so darkened/ unaccustomed that it a) refuses or b) forgets the light of Christ which a) immediately bears down or b) having once bore on it through the presentation of it via the preaching of the gospel/ evangelistic endeavor (Gal. 3:1).
This being the case, when one rejects the object of Christ as its light, the body is left in an unhappy state of blindness, and so the eye seeks out other sources of light, which are no light at all (Gal. 1:6-7) to fill it. To this, our Lord describes as the “light that is in thee be darkness” … that is to say that the object of our “truth” - the lamp that shines a light on our path - be no truth at all, and thus no light at all, but darkness. The blind lead the blind (Matt. 15:24; Luke 6:39). And so those who reject Christ for some other form of wisdom, lead astray those who also reject the light that God has ordained to lead men in this life.
The Latter
The second, wherein our Lord describes as the "eye be single" communicates 1) that the treasure and focus of one's desire is to look upon Christ and his riches at the expense of all other distractions. Herein, the body (life) of the man is wholly Christ's, having his mind transfixed upon Christ, with no space left unihabited by the same thought. His desire is one, and there are no competing desires. The law of sin and death is put to death by the law of the Spirit of life (Rom. 8). The third law, i.e., the law of Scripture reigns supreme in the battle between the two laws at war within us: The moral (natural) law vs. the law of sin (flesh). The Christian is liberated to love his Christ freely without the hindrance of competing desires for licence (e.g., the mock-freedom to commit sin).
Excursus: On a cloudy day, the obstruction of the sun’s light by the clouds inevitably changes the hue of our rooms. In like manner, when our memory of Christ’s riches are obstructed or obscured by our eye’s lack of single-mindedness / discontentment derived from 1) wanton lusts, 2) covetousness, 3) cares of this world … so too does the illumination of our bodies become dimmer in hue, allowing for shades of dark shadows, and crevices and corners for darkness to dwell content thus, leaving a foothold for Satan to harass our souls with more discontentment till Christ be removed as our light altogether. Culpable lies are such as these, “look at your Christ, so dull and dim, and such is the state of your unhappiness because of this; turn thus to me, and all the treasures and pleasures of this life will I give to thee.” And so, the devil’s web of deceit is sown in our imaginations - which seeing though the eye beholding the sad truth of Satan’s observations - does perceive Christ to be dim and dull, then proceeds to cast him out altogether for what the mind has now believed to be more vivid, and luminous - the treasures of the world that have been given unfitting gravitas and subjected to Satan’s dominion.
But what the Christian ought to do in such a moment is to recognize that Christ does not change, indeed He is described as one “with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning” (Jam. 1:17). Rather it is our sad condition which as changed rather than the revelation of Him. Indeed God’s theophanies of Himself is according to his holy pleasure and will - He alone chooses how He is to be revealed to us. Nonetheless, we are held responsible for turning good into evil (Isa. 5:20). This oft happens because 1) our remembrance of him is prone to forgetfulness (Deut. 4:9; James. 1:24), sometimes even done willfully (2 Peter. 3:5); 2) we have allowed ourselves to be slack in our daily duties to be accustomed to the remembrance of God’s testimonies and thus when evil circumstances strike, they immediately lay siege upon the eyes and lay waste to it.
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