Spiritual Blindness & the Real Jesus

By Doreen Virtue

“And even if our Gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they will not see the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” (2 Corinthians 4:3-4)

When I think back of how I was blind to the Gospel, I recall the lyrics of Amazing Grace:

“I once was blind, but now I see.”

I’m sure that my previous spiritual blindness caused my brother (who was saved 20 years before I was) a lot of grief and confusion. He would share the Gospel with me, but I’d reject it. The idea that I was a sinner who needed a Savior was an offensive message to me back then.

After all, I’d been following the false Jesus of New Thought and New Age who said I could do whatever I wanted as long as I stayed “positive.” I couldn’t relate to the Gospel message about sin and repentance, as my whole worldview was on “positive and negative energy.” The Gospel message seemed like negative energy, so I dismissed it.

The message of Christ crucified, risen, and calling sinners to repentance can sound either glorious or offensive, depending entirely on whether God has opened a person’s eyes. God’s Word describes unbelief as spiritual blindness, a condition leaving a person unable to understand the Gospel apart from divine intervention.

We read this in 1 Corinthians 1:18:

“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those of us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

Spiritual blindness explains why the Gospel once sounded judgmental, preachy, negative, or confusing to you. It explains why teachings that reframed Jesus as a life coach previously felt comforting and reasonable. It also explains why suddenly everything changed because God opened your eyes.

So, those who are attracted to a false Jesus may be spiritually blind to the real Jesus. Spiritual blindness is a real condition with eternal consequences.

Scripture says that apart from Christ, people are dead in their trespasses and sins, walking according to the world and under the influence of the enemy, following the desires of the flesh and mind, and by nature children of wrath (Ephesians 2:1-3). A dead person can’t see. A blind person can’t perceive light. That’s why the Gospel can’t be understood apart from God’s sovereign work in opening their eyes.

Jesus Himself taught this repeatedly. When He spoke in parables, His disciples asked why the crowds didn’t understand. Jesus said, “To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted” (Matthew 13:11). Understanding the Gospel is a gift that God grants. I was spiritually blind to the Gospel for 59 years until God opened my eyes as I was reading the Bible.

Now, spiritual blindness doesn’t mean people can’t understand facts about Jesus. Many unbelievers can recite Bible stories and details about Jesus’ life, teachings, death, and resurrection. Blindness means they can’t grasp the meaning and personal application of those truths. They don’t see their own sin, so they don’t see their need for a Savior.

God’s Word says that the unsaved person can’t understand the things of the Spirit of God, because they’re foolishness to him and require spiritual discernment that he doesn’t possess (1 Corinthians 2:14).

This is exactly what I went through! I was raised in New Thought teachings that denied the existence of sin, reframed wrongdoing as ignorance, and replaced repentance with positive thinking and self-improvement pep talks. Since I was brainwashed to believe there was no such thing as sin, I concluded that there was no need for a Savior. Without godly sorrow in realizing that I’d sinned before our holy God, then the cross didn’t make any sense. Plus, all the New Age teachings (especially the blasphemous book, A Course in Miracles which corrupted my thinking for decades) say that the crucifixion was symbolic and not literal.

That’s why the Gospel made no sense to me for so long. When I was finally saved, I wondered why no one had told me the Gospel before. Then I realized that I had heard the Gospel throughout my life, but I’d rejected it.

God’s Word says that Jesus came to save His people from their sins (Matthew 1:21). When sin is denied, Jesus is reduced to a teacher or example instead of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

New Thought, the New Age, and other deceptive systems don’t always attack Jesus directly. In fact, they embrace the false Jesus to make followers feel safe. However, they attack the Gospel foundations of sin, judgment, repentance, and substitutionary atonement. I remember when people would say: “Jesus died for your sins” that I’d immediately think, “Well that may be true for you but it’s not true for me.”

In the New Age as we’ll discuss in depth later in this book, there’s a phobia about hearing anything that’s considered “negative.” The New Age belief is that you’ll “manifest” negativity as a consequence of hearing something negative. The Gospel sounded negative. Hearing that I was a sinner sounded negative. So, I rejected these truths and clung to my New Age false gospel teachings.

Jesus Heals Physical Blindness

Throughout the Gospels, Jesus repeatedly healed the physically blind. These miracles pointed to Jesus’ divinity. When Jesus healed blind eyes, He was revealing His identity as the One who gives spiritual sight.

God’s Word records Jesus saying, “While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world” (John 9:5). Immediately after saying this, He healed a man who’d been blind from birth. The Pharisees, who believed they could see spiritually, rejected Jesus. The healed man believed. Jesus later said to them, “For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind” (John 9:39).

Spiritual blindness is often paired with pridefulness and know-it-all attitudes.

Saul on the Road to Damascus

Perhaps the clearest Bible story about spiritual blindness is the conversion of Saul of Tarsus. Saul was a highly-educated Pharisee, yet he was spiritually blind to the fact that Jesus Christ is the prophesied Messiah.

Saul believed he was serving God while persecuting Christians. As Saul traveled to Damascus, a light from heaven suddenly flashed around him, he fell to the ground, and Jesus spoke to him directly (Acts 9:3-4).

Saul was physically blinded for three days. After Ananias prayed for him, immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales, and he regained his sight (Acts 9:18).

This moment captures the heart of salvation:

• Saul didn’t decide to see. God removed the blindness.
• Saul didn’t soften his heart. God intervened.
• Saul didn’t gradually come to better theology. Jesus confronted him sovereignly.

My story echoes what happened to Saul. I thought that I was serving God with my new age work, since people told me that my work comforted them. I thought I was a Christian since I was raised in a (false) church with daily Bible study (through the lens of New Thought false teachings). My new age career was at the peak of worldly success and I didn’t see any reason to change. But God did!

The scales fell from my eyes because God willed them to open by His grace and mercy.

Spiritual Blindness on the Road to Emmaus

The account of the road to Emmaus shows that spiritual blindness isn’t always attached to rebelliousness. People can be devoted servants of Christ, yet still be spiritually blind. On the day that Jesus rose from the dead, two of His disciples were walking to a village called Emmaus, discussing all that had happened. Jesus Himself drew near and walked with them, “Yet their eyes were kept from recognizing Him” (Luke 24:16).

Notice how the Bible says that their eyes “were kept” from recognizing Jesus. This was God’s sovereign restraint which He willed for His glory. The risen Christ walked beside them, listened to them, and questioned them, yet they couldn’t recognize Him as Jesus until God determined the right moment.

These disciples weren’t rebels. They were heartbroken followers who’d hoped Jesus was the One who would politically redeem Israel, and they were crushed by His death. God’s Word records them saying, “We were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel” (Luke 24:21). Their words convey sincerity, not rebellion.

This is an important point, because you may know a professing Christian who says and does all the right things and who’s sincere. Yet she’s not saved because she’s spiritually blind.

Spiritually blind people can quote the Bible and express affection toward Jesus and even display deep sorrow over His suffering. A person can speak warmly about Jesus and still be blind to the Gospel.

These disciples knew Jesus in a false way by believing that He was a political hero. They didn’t understand until God opened their eyes why His death on the cross was necessary. They didn’t understand the meaning of sin, or the fulfillment of God’s promises through Christ’s death and resurrection.

Jesus responded to them with both truth and patience. God’s Word records Him saying, “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?” (Luke 24:25-26). Jesus was revealing that His death didn’t make Him a fallen political hero, but was necessary for God’s plan of redemption which fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies.

God’s Word says, “Then beginning with Moses and with all the Prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures” (Luke 24:27). Wouldn’t you love to have been privy to that conversation where Jesus opened the Scriptures and showed them how the entire Bible pointed to Him?

This detail is important to note, because spiritual understanding comes when Scripture is rightly handled and rightly believed. Yet even here, notice that their eyes weren’t immediately opened. They heard Scripture explained by Jesus Himself, and still they didn’t recognize Him until God’s appointed moment.

God’s Word continues, “Then their eyes were opened and they recognized Him” (Luke 24:31). Once again, the wording shows that God opened their eyes and removed their spiritual blindness just as He did with Saul of Tarsus.

Those who’ve been false converts can find comfort in the story of the road to Emmaus. These disciples loved Jesus, yet they’d misunderstood Him. Jesus didn’t shame them. He walked with them, taught them patiently, and waited until the appointed time to reveal Himself fully.

This story helps me to understand how I could’ve read the Bible, gone to church, sincerely believed that I was following Jesus, and yet I didn’t know the real Jesus until God opened my eyes. Like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, I needed God to open my eyes to what His Word had been saying all along.

The Emmaus disciples falsely believed that Jesus was a political conqueror who would stop Roman rule in Jerusalem.

I falsely believed that Jesus was a created human who merely came to earth to enlighten us to be miracle workers like Himself.

As long as we’re following a false idea of Jesus, we are spiritually blind to knowing the real Jesus.

God’s Sovereignty in Opening Blind Eyes

Salvation belongs to the Lord as God’s Word says, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him” (John 6:44). That means believing the Gospel isn’t self-generated. Faith itself is a gift.

This is why you can’t argue someone into the Kingdom. You can plant seeds, but only God can nurture and grow those seeds into salvation. We’re exhorted to share the Gospel and make disciples, yet we aren’t the ones who save people. God is.

God’s sovereignty also explains timing. I was 59 years old – a senior citizen! – when God opened my eyes. This gives me compassion upon those who don’t seem to grasp that Jesus died for our sins, and that He rose physically from the dead to conquer sin and death. Only with the spiritual sight granted by God can we understand the depth of our sin nature, and why we absolutely need Jesus in order to be forgiven and have reconciliation with our Heavenly Father.

Scripture says God has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires (Romans 9:18). That weighty truth assures us that God is in charge of salvation. Of course, we must pray for the unsaved and share the Gospel with them, as the Gospel is the power of God for salvation (Romans 1:16).

Once your eyes are opened, you recognize counterfeit Jesuses, and you see why certain teachings feel comforting yet hollow. When you see someone reject the Gospel, you recall when you did the same thing.

If you have a loved one who is spiritually blind and perhaps following a false Jesus, please stay encouraged. Jesus who healed the blind still saves today because He is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). So, keep praying, continue to share the Gospel, study God’s Word, and always keep your eyes upon the real Jesus.

For more from Doreen please visit her page at Servants of Grace or at our YouTube.