SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS by A. C. Spicer

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 7, 1876

SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS.

By A. C. Spicer

When asked for an exposition of scriptural doctrine, I can never know to what extent I may hope to be successful in presenting the light of revealed truth to the inquirer, however simple and clearly expressed it may appear to me; for I can not know to what degree the mind of the inquirer will be opened to receive the truth, or to what extent there will be a persistence in being controlled by previous education and customs, by superstition, tradition, or prejudice.

I do know, however, by personal experience and observation of many years, that upon the mind which is yielded a perfect slave to any of those characteristic impediments to the truth, the plainest and most forcible presentation of the most vital truths may make no impression whatever. An item of mere heathen philosophy or mythology, as that of “inherent immortality,” or a mere church dogma, as that of “the Divine presence in the sacrament,” once received into the mind and incorporated into the religious convictions and doctrine, especially by a very positive and intensely earnest mind, may shut out the light of Heaven in respect thereto forever. This is a strange phenomenon, but it is nevertheless a fact of frequent observation and experience. The reader, then, who would see the light of truth and walk in it, should be sure that his mind is liberated from bondage to any error or false doctrine, and by earnest prayer seek to be free to apprehend and accept the truth.

These thoughts have been suggested by the following paragraph from a letter from Texas which has been the occasion of the article on the first page of the Review this week:—

“Show me just one passage of Scripture which would require the Gentile nation to keep any Sabbath, either on the first or on the seventh day, and I will try hard to keep it; for I am in earnest about doing the will of God. But Paul, who was the apostle to the Gentiles, of which family I am, is on that subject as silent as the tomb.”

If it be a marvel “that blindness in part is happened to Israel,” so that part have rejected the Saviour—the Messiah—for whom they so anxiously longed, is it any less a wonder, that, notwithstanding what has been written, and especially by Paul, to break down national prejudice, Christians of Gentile origin, to whom inured the advantages of a knowledge of the gospel in consequence of the blindness of the Jews, should in return have allowed prejudice against the Jews to have so blinded them as to permit them to reject the plainest and most positive teachings of God’s word, even the life, example and teachings of the Saviour and his apostles whom they profess so much to love! I would exhort you “that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity [prejudice] of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life [teaching and example] of God,” and teaching for gospel the theories, and “for doctrines the commandments, of men.”

A. C. SPICER.