Of our five senses, the ability to see and hear must be the King and Queen of them all. The loss of any one of our senses would be a tragedy, for sure, but the loss of either sight or hearing would be an entirely different misery. These two connect us to the living and moving world around us in ways the others don’t. Touch, taste, and smell are more immediate, they only function in relative proximity to their object. We feel as long as we touch, we taste only while something is in our mouth, and smell just as long as the scents swirl around our faces. But we can see galaxies further away than we could ever hope to reach, and hear sounds from tremendous distances. These two senses alone are proof that big things exist outside ourselves. If you only had the senses of touch, taste, and feel, think how small the world would seem. But with open eyes and unplugged ears, we recognize how large the world around us is, and just how small we are in it. But I’m convinced these two are meant to tell us something even more significant than this. Allow me to explain.
My father used to say that “The good Lord gave us two eyes, two ears, and only one mouth because He meant for us to look and listen twice as much as we talk.” Now, this home-spun wisdom has stood the test of time, but I do think there’s greater significance to the doubling of these receptors. On one hand, eyes and ears are strong proof of objective reality. These organs of sense are meant to take in external stimuli, light, color, the vibrations of different tones. In other words, we have eyes because there are things to see. We have ears because there are things to hear. Even with an evolutionary mindset, these abilities substantiate the objective; they must have developed in response to something, right? But Scripture tells us that they are meant to testify to a reality even more important than this – that our God can see and hear as well.
This testimony dates back to the inception of God’s people. When the promised child was late in coming to the elderly and barren Abram and Sarai, Sarai sought to bring the fulfillment about through her Egyptian maidservant, Hagar. But after Hagar had conceived, Sarai “dealt harshly with her” (Gen. 16:6) and she fled from her presence. The Angel of the Lord found the afflicted and pregnant woman by a spring of water in the wilderness and comforted her with a promise and a fact about Himself: “Behold, you are with child, and you shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ismael because the LORD has heard your affliction.” (Gen. 16:11) The name Ishmael means “God hears” or “God listens.” It’s interesting to note that while God used His covenant name, Jehovah, when He spoke to her of being the God who hears, she responds by calling Him El Roi, the “God who sees.” And clearly, she had experienced the truth of both of these attributes.
The Westminster Confession of Faith II.1 states that God is “a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions…”, and surely this is derived from such passages as John 4:24, which says that “God is Spirit.” But while Scripture is clear that He has no body, and therefore no eyes and ears, it is equally clear that He possesses what could only rightfully be called the ability to see and hear. He even states that this is one of the primary things we should remember because of these abilities in ourselves. “He who planted the ear, shall He not hear? He who formed the eye, shall He not see?” (Psa. 94:9) In other words, our eyes should be a daily reminder that God sees too, our ears that He can hear. And the fact that we have two of each of these should witness to how important this testimony is.
The ability to see is so singularly significant that we even use the term “see” as synonymous with full comprehension. When we finally grasp some concept we say, “oh, now I see!” And this is precisely how Scripture describes God’s vision. We find this idea in such passages as Hebrews 4:12 and 13, which says that God’s word is “a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.” Indeed, the entirety of Psalm 139 is an ode to God’s ability to see us even before we were born (v. 15), and to hear us, even before we had spoken (v. 4), and that no darkness, distance, or time can hinder these faculties in the least. As an eternal Spirit, there is nowhere we can flee from Him, for “the eyes of the LORD are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good.” (Pro. 15:3)
How tragic, then, that we are so quick to forget that God can see and hear us. How often men say, “The Lord does not see, nor does the God of Jacob understand.” (Psa. 94:7) But this is one of the ways He specifically differentiates Himself from vain idols. “Eyes they have but they do not see, They have ears but they do not hear.” (Psa. 115:5-6) The end of eyes and ears, their deeper purpose and design, is to remind us that our God, alone, is the God who sees, and the only God who hears. So may every flash of light that hits your retina today, and every subtle sound that strikes your eardrum as you move about, call your mind to ponder once again that “The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are open to their cry.” (Psa. 34:14) How kind of the God who “is not far from each of us” (Act 17:27) to place such a precious testimony of His sight and hearing right on our very heads.
