Mat 11:4 Go and show John again those things which you hear and see:
Mat 11:5 The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.

This verse is important because it encapsulates a number of double meansings and because of what it does not say.

"The blind" is tuphlos, which means both physically and mentally blind. It also means all things that are obscure.

"Recover their sight" is anablepô, which means "to look up," "recover sight," "open one's eye's" and "revive."

"Lame" is chôlos, which means both "limping" and 'defective."

"Walk" is peripateô, which means both "to walk up and down," "to walk around while teaching," and metaphorically, "to live."

"Leper" is lepros, which "scaly," scabrous," and "rough" and is used to describe the leperous.

"Cleansed" is katharizô, which means "to make clean," "to prune away," and "to purify."

"Deaf" is kôphos, which means "the blunt," "the dull," and "the obtuse" and is a metaphor for the "deaf."

"Hear" is akouô, which means "to hear," and "to understand."

"Dead" is nekros, which means "a corpse," "the dying," and "the dead."

"Raised up" is egeirô, which means "awaken," "rouse," and "stir up."

"The poor" is ptôchos, which means "a beggar" and "beggarly" and it a metaphor for being poor in anything.

"To have the Gospel preached to them" is euangelizo, which means "to bring good news" and "to proclaim good tidings."

Christ uses these statements both to describe his miracles and to describe his teaching on those who are morally and spiritually handicapped or dead. He makes it clear that the miracles we are seeing are just metaphors for the bigger miracle that affects everyone.

However, there is something else important here, something that Christ did not do during his ministry. Today, many people portray Christ as a "social activist," whose teaching was designed to make society more "fair." However, we must notice that this is no part of Christ's ministry.

There were slaves in Christ's time, but did Christ try to free them or speak against slavery. There was certainly racism, sexism, and a thousand forms of unjust social persecution, but Christ did not address this directly. The only "social" ill that he addressed was "poverty" and his cure was not social reform, but "the good news."

Why wasn't Christ a social reformer? Was it fear of the Romans and powerful? Not too likely. He knew that he was destined to die. This is something that the Jews of the time really expected because of Roman occupation. Their "social injustice" wasn't slavery or racism, but Roman domination, and yet, Christ never addressed it, why?

Christ clearly divides the world into three parts: the physical, the social, and the spiritual. His miracles were all physical because God alone controls physical reality. Christ's goal was spiritual reformation. However, his view of society is that it is ALWAYS flawed one way or another. society is a human creation and everyone who think that society is perfectible or that people can be reformed through social change has it exactly backward. Christ taught that society is changed one spirit at a time. This is why the kingdom of heaven or universal rule is always coming but never here. Heaven's battles must be won one soul at a time in a battle against the pressures of society. It is the changing of individuals that changes society, not the other way around.

This is what Christ was telling the followers of John. The physical was a sign of the spiritual. Social reform only comes from changing people's hearts through the preaching of the Gospel.