We are born spiritually blind, trying to earn our way to heaven. It is impossible for us to be saved on our own. But what is impossible with man is possible with God. With a word, God says, “Recover your sight,” and a blind sinner sees.

In Luke 9:51, the gospel narrative pivots: “When the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” This begins the central section of Luke’s gospel, where Jesus ends his Galilean ministry and focuses entirely on his mission in Jerusalem. As Luke 13:22 summarizes, “He went on his way through towns and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem.” Everything Luke records in this section—every parable, teaching, and confrontation—happens under the shadow of the cross.

The teaching Jesus gives on this journey consistently answers one question: “What does it take to enter the kingdom of God?” The passages leading up to the story of the blind man in Luke 18 answer this with poignant clarity. Entrance is not for the prideful Pharisee but for the desperate tax collector who humbly cries, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” It’s not for the respectable or competent, but for those who receive the kingdom like a child. When the rich ruler asked what he must do to inherit eternal life, Jesus’s answer revealed that you can’t do anything. In fact, you must forsake everything.

Luke groups these teachings to show that only when you reach absolute bottom, trusting in nothing of yourself, can you enter the kingdom of God. “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” It is not something you do that gains you entrance, but something done by another—Jesus Christ.

Beautifully, Jesus himself modeled this path. He humbled himself, taking the form of a servant, and set his face toward Jerusalem, where he predicted he would be mocked, shamefully treated, spit upon, flogged, and killed, rising on the third day. This is the key: suffering before glory. This is the path of Christ, and it is the path for his disciples. Only the lowly will be exalted. Jesus humbled himself to the point of death, and therefore God highly exalted him. If you want to enter the kingdom, you must walk the same path. Take up your cross, humble yourself, and you will be exalted.

Yet, after all this teaching, Luke 18:34 tells us the disciples “understood none of these things.” This statement applies not just to his prediction of death, but to all his teaching about the kingdom. The truth was hidden from them. They were spiritually blind.

Now, in verse 35, the geography shifts: “As he drew near to Jericho.” This is a significant marker. The long journey of teaching is ending, and the time for fulfillment has come. But before entering Jerusalem, Jesus gives two real-life examples of his teaching, encountering two outcasts: a blind man and a tax collector. The story of the blind man is a particularly powerful illustration, especially following the disciples’ failure to “see.” Jesus’s disciples were spiritually blind, and here, on the road to Jerusalem, Jesus shows us what is necessary for blind men to see.

Spiritual Blindness

What better picture of the disciples’ problem is there than a literal blind man? Scripture often uses physical blindness as a metaphor for spiritual blindness. This isn’t about a lack of information. Romans 1 says that what can be known about God is plain to all. We have God’s special revelation in the Bible. The problem isn’t access to the truth, but suppression of the truth. People are blind to it. The spiritual significance is hidden, and they do not grasp what is said.

In fact, Scripture teaches that the preaching of God’s revelation can have a hardening effect. In Isaiah 6, God tells the prophet to preach a message that will shut people’s eyes and dull their hearts, “lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.” Jesus quotes this very passage in Luke 8 to explain why he teaches in parables: “so that ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.’” This is what happened with his own disciples; after months of teaching, they were still spiritually blind.

Paul says the gospel is veiled to those who are perishing because “the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:4). The truth of God sounds like foolishness to those who are blind. Suffering before glory? Death before life? Humble yourself to be exalted? Forsake everything to gain true riches? As 1 Corinthians 2:14 says, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” This is the fundamental truth we must grasp: spiritual blindness is the natural condition of every person.

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