Who is Blind as My Servant?

The Old Testament contains many prophecies about Jesus Christ. One of these prophecies says that Jesus would be blind and deaf.

Isaiah 42 has many verses that refer to Jesus, some of which are quoted in the New Testament. Isaiah 42 also contains this:

“Who is blind but My servant, or deaf as My messenger whom I send? Who is blind as he who is perfect, and blind as the Lord’s servant? Seeing many things, but you do not observe; opening the ears, but he does not hear. The Lord is well pleased for His righteousness’ sake; He will exalt the law and make it honorable.” (Isaiah 42:19-21).

These verses refer to the same Servant, Christ, who was spoken of earlier in this chapter, and the New Testament makes clear that those verses refer to Christ.

What does the prophet mean when he prophesies that Christ, who would open the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf, would be blind and deaf?

We know that Jesus was not literally blind and deaf because he saw and heard things while on the earth. We also know Jesus was not spiritually blind or deaf because he was able to see his Father and hear God’s word. 

We get a clue as to what this means from another prophecy about Jesus in Isaiah.

“The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. His delight is in the fear of the Lord, and He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes, nor decide by the hearing of His ears” (Isaiah 11:2-3).

This prophecy says that Jesus would not judge by the sight of his eyes nor decide by the hearing of his ears. He had a higher source of information than his natural senses. His source of information was his Father. Jesus did not judge people based on natural thinking, but he knew people by revelation from God.

Jesus could do nothing of himself but what he saw his Father do (John 5:19-20). Jesus laid down his own will and completely yielded to his Father. He knew the unreliability of human flesh, so he relied on his Heavenly Father for decision-making, not on his natural abilities.

Jesus judged as he heard from God (John 5:30). All his discernment, conclusions, and judgments came from God. Jesus said that people judge according to the flesh, but he judged no man (John 8:15-16). People judge according to what they see and hear, but Jesus didn’t do that. He relied on spiritual wisdom. Therefore, all his decisions were perfect, based on righteousness (John 7:24).

Jesus saw and heard many things with his eyes and ears, but this natural information was not the basis of his judgments. In this way he was blind and deaf. He was blind because he didn’t judge according to appearance, but he perceived reality by the Spirit. Jesus was deaf because he didn’t go by what he heard from people, but by what he heard from God.

What we see and hear often doesn’t tell the whole story. There is often more to people and situations than meets the eye. 

“The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).

The Holy Spirit is inside us to help us get past appearances to fundamental reality. The Bible says we are not to know people according to the flesh (2 Corinthians 5:16). The word “know” means to regard, estimate, or discern. We are not to know people based on what we see and hear with our natural selves, but we are to know them based on what we understand about them from God.

When a person is blind and deaf to the things of the flesh, he won’t judge people according to wealth, social status, personality, or other external factors. He will discern them according to God.

The word of God should define our interactions with people. God must lead us into reality by the Holy Spirit, and this reality is beyond what we can understand with our own minds. 

Christ is inside of us. When we live according to him, we will leave our own judgments behind, and then we will see things according to God.