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The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
(Matthew 6.22-23, NRSV)
The above enigmatic statement appears to pertain to our relationship with earthy goods. In the preceding passage the Scripture addresses the need to place priority and affection on “heavenly things.”
Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
(Matthew 6.19-21, NRSV)
In the scripture following Matthew 6.22-23, again the Scripture speaks of singleness of devotion, a devotion directed toward the Spirit of Life, not the stuff we collect and which ages with time.
No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.
(Matthew 6.24, NRSV)
A key to interpreting the Matthew 6.22-23 passage is the word the NRSV renders “healthy” in “your eye is healthy.” Modern translators, generally, render the Greek as speaking of wholesome. However, the Greek word can refer to “single” and is rendered “single” in the Authorized Version, Darby Translation, and in the Wycliffe New Testament as "simple," which bears the meaning "single." The context of focus on matters pertaining to the Spirit suggests the reading “single” is best, with the idea of health being implied, possibly.
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Likewise, Matthew 6.23 has “if your eye is unhealthy.” This can be rendered “if your eye is filled with annoyances” or “distractions.”
Whichever renditions are chosen in the above passage, context determines interpretation of a singleness of purpose. In the words of Emmet Fox, “If the Glory of God comes first with you, and to express His Will becomes the rule of your life, then your eye is single and your whole body, or embodiment, will be full of light” (Around the Year with Emmet Fox). Or, as Jesus says, “But seek first the kingdom of God (the spiritual Reality) and his righteousness (right relations, justice), and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6.33, ESV).
Two additional matters of import pertain to the “eye” and the “body.” The eye is, as noted by Fox, a symbol of “spiritual perception.” The unhealthy eye is an eye, or attention, distracted by emotional attachment to what is temporal. This person gives undue attention and devotion to matters that are bound within the time-space dimension, rather than the domain of Eternal realities. The first is passing, the latter is enduring. Compare I Corinthians 13.13: “So now faith, hope, and love abide [remain, endure], these three; but the greatest of these is love” (ESV).
Then, does all this imply some disembodied spirituality, some escape from the world? No. For, with the single eye “your whole body will be full of light.” Historically, this likely refers to the common belief that the body contained light that emanated through the eyes to guide behavior. Therefore, here an implication is that your and my behavior reveals the content of the light within us, and that light can be a deep darkness: “If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” Consequently, the body can be filled with light, or spiritual life and vision, or darkness, the darkness of illusion and spiritual ignorance.
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