When I was a youngster, whenever we had a medical emergency we went to see the family doctor. Sometimes he even came to our house if we were sick in bed. These general practitioners, as they were called, treated everything from a sore throat to ingrown toenails. They included eyes, ears, noses, lungs, stomachs, hearts, bones, and joints in their expertise. They performed simple operations such as removing inflamed tonsils or a painful appendix. I don't think I visited a specialist until I needed glasses as a teenager. Nowadays, however, the GP serves mainly as a pill dispenser and a referral service for specialists.
This reminds me of a man, we'll call him Henry, who was experiencing blurred vision. He went to the optician and complained that his glasses weren't right. He was told that there was nothing wrong with the glasses, but it was his eyes. "I'm sorry, but I don't treat eyes, I only make glasses," said the optician. So Henry returned to the optometrist for a refraction, but he was told that he had a serious medical problem and that he should see an ophthalmologist, who is an MD The ophthalmologist diagnosed that Henry needed cataract surgery, but that he also had glaucoma which had damaged his retinas. This resulted in his seeing a retinal specialist and a glaucoma specialist.
Yes, modern medicine has come a long way from the family doctor who made house calls, to today's plethora of medical specialists in spacious well-staffed offices, equipped with expensive diagnostic tools. Not only has medicine come a long way, but mankind has come a long way from his physical, mental and spiritual condition at the time of creation. His powers of observation and his mental acuity were far superior to those possessed today. The Eden dwellers possessed telescopic vision as they studied the heavens and "the innumerable worlds in their orderly revolutions, the balancing of the clouds, the mysteries of light and sound, of day and night" (Education p 21). They also must have had microscopic vision to "hold converse with the leaf and flower and tree, gathering from each the secrets of its life" (PP p 50,51). The mysteries of the visible universe were open to their study (Education p 15).
Not only has man lost his superb physical powers, but sin caused a separation from the only true source of wisdom and spiritual insight. Today man suffers from a severe distortion of spiritual eyesight; he is nearsighted and selfish; he is farsighted so that he cannot read the plain Word of truth; he has astigmatism so the truth is distorted and adulterated; he has glaucoma and tunnel vision so that he cannot see the big picture of salvation. If our spiritual vision is to be clear we need the spiritual "eye salve" that can be provided only by the "Divine Ophthalmologist."
