JOHN CHAPTER NINE

 

Jesus Heals A Man Blind From Birth
John 9:1-12

Do you ever wonder why some people have so much pain and suffering in their lives? Does it sometimes trouble you that even God’s people have to undergo tragedy and physical suffering? If so, you are not alone. Through the ages the problem of suffering has been discussed and debated. A number of people have written on the subject, trying to supply answers. Some titles of books on the subject include The Problem of Pain by C. S. Lewis, Where Is God When It Hurts? by Philip Yancey, and When Bad Things Happen to Good People by Rabbi Harold S. Kushner.

Even Christ’s disciples struggled with this subject, as we will see in John chapter 9. We will read the whole chapter because it is an interesting story that is hard to interrupt.

John 9:1-41 NAS:
1 As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. 2 And His disciples asked Him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?" 3 Jesus answered, "It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him. 4 "We must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day; night is coming when no one can work. 5 "While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world." 6 When He had said this, He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and applied the clay to his eyes, 7 and said to him, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam." So he went away and washed, and came back seeing. 8 Therefore the neighbors, and those who previously saw him as a beggar, were saying, "Is not this the one who used to sit and beg?" 9 Others were saying, "This is he," still others were saying, "No, but he is like him." He kept saying, "I am the one." 10 So they were saying to him, "How then were your eyes opened?" 11 He answered, "The man who is called Jesus made clay, and anointed my eyes, and said to me, 'Go to Siloam and wash'; so I went away and washed, and I received sight." 12 They said to him, "Where is He?" He said, "I do not know."

13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who was formerly blind. 14 Now it was a Sabbath on the day when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. 15 Then the Pharisees also were asking him again how he received his sight. And he said to them, "He applied clay to my eyes, and I washed, and I see." 16 Therefore some of the Pharisees were saying, "This man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath." But others were saying, "How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?" And there was a division among them. 17 So they said to the blind man again, "What do you say about Him, since He opened your eyes?" And he said, "He is a prophet."
18 The Jews then did not believe it of him, that he had been blind and had received sight, until they called the parents of the very one who had received his sight, 19 and questioned them, saying, "Is this your son, who you say was born blind? Then how does he now see?" 20 His parents answered them and said, "We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; 21 but how he now sees, we do not know; or who opened his eyes, we do not know. Ask him; he is of age, he will speak for himself." 22 His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone confessed Him to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue. 23 For this reason his parents said, "He is of age; ask him."

24 So a second time they called the man who had been blind, and said to him, "Give glory to God; we know that this man is a sinner." 25 He then answered, "Whether He is a sinner, I do not know; one thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see." 26 So they said to him, "What did He do to you? How did He open your eyes?" 27 He answered them, "I told you already and you did not listen; why do you want to hear it again? You do not want to become His disciples too, do you?" 28 They reviled him and said, "You are His disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. 29 "We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where He is from." 30 The man answered and said to them, "Well, here is an amazing thing, that you do not know where He is from, and yet He opened my eyes. 31 "We know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is God-fearing and does His will, He hears him. 32 "Since the beginning of time it has never been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind.
33 "If this man were not from God, He could do nothing."
34 They answered him, "You were born entirely in sins, and are you teaching us?" So they put him out.

35 Jesus heard that they had put him out, and finding him, He said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" 36 He answered, "Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?" 37 Jesus said to him, "You have both seen Him, and He is the one who is talking with you." 38 And he said, "Lord, I believe." And he worshiped Him. 39 And Jesus said, "For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind." 40 Those of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these things and said to Him, "We are not blind too, are we?" 41 Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would have no sin; but since you say, 'We see,' your sin remains.

Imagine the scene: Jesus and His disciples had left the Temple and were walking along. As was frequent in those days, the disabled were sitting beside the road begging, much as we often see the homeless doing on street corners in our cities today. They noticed a man who had been born blind. Seeing this man raised a question in the minds of the disciples and they realized they had a golden opportunity to learn the reason for suffering. So they asked Christ, as recorded in verses 1 and 2, “Who sinned? This man or his parents, that he would be born blind?”

Now the question reflects the simplistic answer that the Jews had about such things. It is an explanation that many people today also hold. The person had sinned; or if a baby was born blind, deaf, or crippled, the baby’s parents must have sinned. In other words, these Jews had one explanation for suffering in the world: punishment for sin. Christ is about to expand that concept.

John 9:3-5 NAS:
3 Jesus answered, "It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him. 4 "We must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day; night is coming when no one can work. 5 "While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world."

John chapters 1-8 give us a pretty good idea of the conflict that was deepening between Christ and the Jewish leaders, and the conflict will in no way be diminished as we come to chapter 9. In fact it was going to continue to escalate.

You will hopefully remember that the activity in chapter 8 took place in and around the Feast of the Tabernacles in Jerusalem. The stage and the setting for this conflict could not have been better set if a Hollywood movie crew had produced it. As chapter 9 opens, the feast has ended but the memory of the spectacular festivities was fresh in each person’s memory. Each night during the feast four huge torches as high as the walls of the Temple were ignited as the elders and holy men of Israel danced through the night. It was before these extinguished torches that one morning Jesus announced, “I am the light of the world.”  What a way to punctuate His message as to why God had sent Him. He was to show people in a dark world how to find their way. He would provide the way so that they could see where they should go and what they should do. “Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life" (John 8:12).

Jesus’ meaning was clear. He represented spiritual light and they represented spiritual darkness, and Jesus intended to expose them for the frauds they were. But Jesus did not stop there. He told them that they were disciples of Satan, while He had been sent by God. If you can imagine what the government of Iran would do if someone went into the center of their capitol city with a loud speaker crying, “Long live George Bush,” that might give you some idea of how the Jews reacted to Jesus’ comments. And Jesus still was not through. He further told them that although they prided themselves on being children of Abraham, they showed no evidence of such a heritage in the way they lived their lives, but instead they behaved in a way that indicated they served Satan.

In John 8:58 Jesus went on to say: "Before Abraham was born, I am!" With these words Jesus was declaring Himself to be God, and so the Jews attempted to stone Him. Now as we move on to chapter nine we see a continuation of what we saw in John 8. Immediately in John 9, Jesus comes across a man who has literally never seen light at all, a man who has been blind from birth. His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?" As we said earlier, it was a common Jewish belief that such birth defects were caused in some way by sin.

Jesus answers them two ways, by teaching and by demonstration. First He explains the theology, and then He performs a miracle.

Christ tells His disciples that it happened “so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”  This man is blind so the power of God can be displayed.

This answer from Christ in verse three is a mind-blowing response if you think about it for a while. How often do we look at our suffering as an opportunity for the works of God to be displayed or demonstrated in us? And when we do, are we not more likely to think of how God would be glorified by doing a miraculous healing? Surely, God would be glorified if the quadriplegic got up and threw away his wheelchair, or if the person with Multiple Sclerosis suddenly recovered completely. Yet the works of God are also manifested another way through suffering. Notice the word “in” used in verse 3. The Greek for this word can also be translated “through” and is used in the sense of a position of rest, which we can think of as “throughout.” So throughout the suffering God’s work is to be manifested, God’s power and grace is to be shown. Christ chose to do a miracle for this blind man, a miracle that lasted for the rest of his life. But the works of God are sometimes manifested even more powerfully when He takes His child through suffering instead of delivering him or her out of it. For one example, look at the life of Joni Erickson Tada, who in a split second was paralyzed from the neck down as the result of a diving accident. She has been confined to a wheel chair for the majority of her lifetime, but she has a powerful ministry to other disabled people.

Annie Johnson Flint has written many tremendous poems that have encouraged the hearts of thousands during times of suffering. Her mother died when she was three years old and her father died when she was about six or so. In adulthood, she became an invalid with severe crippling arthritis and spent much of her life on a sickbed, where she learned the lessons she wrote about in her poems. Here is a sample from one of them:

“Have you come to the Red Sea place in your life,
Where, in spite of all you can do,
There is no way out, there is no way back,
There is no other way but through?
Then trust in the Lord with a faith serene
Till the night of your fear is gone;
He will send the wind, He will heap the floods,
When He says to your soul "Go on."

“And His hand will lead you through - clear through -
Ere the watery walls roll down,
No foe can reach you, no wave can touch,
No mightiest sea can drown;
The tossing billows may rear their crests,
Their foam at your feet may break,
But over their bed you shall walk dryshod
In the path that your Lord will make.”
--Annie Johnson Flint

Or think of Fanny Crosby who was blind and yet wrote lyrics for many beloved gospel songs.  She was prob­ab­ly the most pro­lif­ic hymn­ist in his­to­ry. Though blind­ed by an in­com­pe­tent doc­tor at six weeks of age, she wrote over 8,000 hymns Including Blessed Assurance, God Will Take Care of You, He Hideth My Soul, and Near the Cross.

About her blind­ness, she said:

“It seemed in­tend­ed by the bless­ed prov­i­dence of God that I should be blind all my life, and I thank him for the dis­pen­sa­tion. If per­fect earth­ly sight were of­fered me to­mor­row I would not ac­cept it. I might not have sung hymns to the praise of God if I had been dis­tract­ed by the beau­ti­ful and in­ter­est­ing things about me.”

In her life­time, Fan­ny Cros­by was one of the best-known wo­men in the Unit­ed States. To this day, the vast ma­jor­i­ty of Amer­i­can hymnbooks con­tain her work.[fn]

Ken Medema is a musician, composer, and performer whose music ministry has blessed many for over 30 years, yet who is also legally blind.

The Apostle Paul stated it well, “[God’s] grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). But not all of us really believe this, do we? Too often we spend our time complaining and thereby hamper the work of God in our lives.

When we read Christ’s words in John 9:4, 5: "We must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day; night is coming when no one can work.  "While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world," it also sounds like God sent Jesus to earth with a “to do list.” Each item on the list was to be accomplished with perfection and everything that was on the list was from God. Jesus added nothing of His own. Further, these things had to be accomplished without delay for God had also set a specified time for Jesus’ crucifixion. Day means the amount of time that God had specified for Jesus to do God’s will. How many times have we now heard Jesus say that He came to do the will of the One who sent Him? Note that Jesus begins the verse with the pronoun, “we.” This means that He is including all believers from that time forward to accomplish God’s will for their lives while they are still alive. Do not waste your time! No opportunity for doing good should be postponed. Day represents the opportunity. Night represents the loss of that opportunity. Make sure God’s will is your top priority each day. Night represents death when it is too late to do God’s will. In Jesus’ case it was His coming death. As the Light of the world Jesus gives people salvation: "I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life" (John 8:12 NAS). After Jesus’ death, His disciples would be His light: "You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden” (Matthew 5:14).[fn]

Ephesians 5:7-14 NLT:
7 Don’t participate in the things these people do.
8 For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light!
9 For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true.
10 Carefully determine what pleases the Lord.
11 Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, expose them.
12 It is shameful even to talk about the things that ungodly people do in secret.
13 But their evil intentions will be exposed when the light shines on them,
14 for the light makes everything visible. This is why it is said, “Awake, O sleeper, rise up from the dead, and Christ will give you light.”

And so, after His comments it looks as if Jesus has set the stage for yet another miracle.

Although Jesus had endangered his life earlier (John 5:1-16) by working a similar miracle on the Sabbath, He had no reluctance to do what He did then and He has no reluctance to do it again here with this blind man because these events were clearly spelled out on Jesus’ “to do list.” He knew that both of these miracles were the will of God to do good, and that God would protect Him. Jesus had absolutely no fear of what anyone could do to Him as long as He remained within God’s will.

John 9:6-7 NAS
6 When He had said this, He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and applied the clay to his eyes, 7 and said to him, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam" (which is translated, Sent). So he went away and washed, and came back seeing.

Jesus put clay on the blind man’s eyes and then told him to go wash it off. Many Bible interpreters suggest two primary reasons for Jesus’ using clay in this situation. There is no way of validating conclusively that this is what Jesus had in mind in these verses, but it certainly seems quite possible. For one thing, they say it was a picture of the Incarnation. God made the first man out of the dust (clay) and God sent His Son as a real Man. Note the emphasis on the meaning of “Siloam”—“sent.” And relate this to John 9:4, “The works of Him that sent Me.” Jesus could be providing a little illustration of His own coming to earth, sent by the Father.[fn]

The second reason for the clay could be irritation; it encouraged the man to believe and obey! If you have ever had an irritation in your eyes, you know how quickly you seek relief to wash it clean. You might compare this “irritation” to the convicting work of the Holy Spirit as He uses God’s Law to bring the lost sinner under judgment.[fn]

Jesus, the Light, came to relieve both physical and spiritual blindness. That fact becomes most evident later when the Jewish leaders start questioning the man about how he regained his sight. At first people were quite confused about the dramatic change in this man, as we read in verses 8 and 9:

John 9:8-9 NAS:
8 Therefore the neighbors, and those who previously saw him as a beggar, were saying, "Is not this the one who used to sit and beg?" 9 Others were saying, "This is he," still others were saying, "No, but he is like him." He kept saying, "I am the one."

We could ask ourselves, since we have come to know Christ has there been such a dramatic change in our lives that people would wonder if we were the same person?

John 9:10-12 NAS:
10 So they were saying to him, "How then were your eyes opened?" 11 He told them, “The man they call Jesus made mud and spread it over my eyes and told me, ‘Go to the pool of Siloam and wash yourself.’ So I went and washed, and now I can see!” 12 They said to him, "Where is He?" He said, "I do not know."

Once the blind man had regained his sight, there was some confusion as to his identity. Isn’t that another wonderful manifestation of the work of God (vs. 3)? When we let God do His full transforming work in us, we are unrecognizable compared with our former selves. The grumbler, the complainer becomes the praiser; the irritable and intolerant becomes gentle and patient. Christ healed many people when He was on earth, but did not heal the Apostle Paul physically even after Paul’s much praying. But He transformed Paul’s nature and spirit.

Was this man really the blind beggar? And who had given him his sight? We will find these two questions argued throughout the rest of John chapter 9. The reason for the disagreement here is that the Jewish leaders did not want to face the fact that Jesus had healed this blind man. In John 9:10, 15, 19, and 26 people asked the healed blind man: “How were you healed?” When the Pharisees asked him the question they were not satisfied with his answer so we will see next time that they went and asked the same question of his parents.

Later we will also see Christ using this miracle to drive home the point that the Pharisees were spiritually blind.

John 9:39-41 NLT:
39 Then Jesus told him, “I entered this world to render judgment—to give sight to the blind and to show those who think they see that they are blind.”40 Some Pharisees who were standing nearby heard him and asked, “Are you saying we’re blind?”41 “If you were blind, you wouldn’t be guilty,” Jesus replied. “But you remain guilty because you claim you can see.”

This was a clear example of the Light coming to His own people and either being accepted or rejected. This is a most interesting reply on the part of Jesus. He is saying that if they had never experienced the light, meaning that they had never heard the truth about God or Jesus, they would not be guilty, but it is because they have heard the message and rejected it that they are guilty. In Jesus’ time of judgment over the world, the harshest judgment will fall on those who think they know more than God.

John 1:11,12 NLT:
11 He came to his own people, and even they rejected him.
12 But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.

The blind man was given spiritual sight as well as physical sight because of his faith. The Pharisees, however were spiritually blind, because of a lack of faith, and thus rejected Jesus.

The miracle of giving sight to the blind should have brought to the minds of the observers Isaiah’s prophecies that in the kingdom, the blind would see.

Isaiah 29:18 NAS:
18 In that day the deaf will hear words read from a book, and the blind will see through the gloom and darkness.

Isaiah 35:5 NAS:
5 Then the eyes of the blind will be opened
And the ears of the deaf will be unstopped.

Isaiah 42:7,16 NAS:
7 To open blind eyes,
To bring out prisoners from the dungeon
And those who dwell in darkness from the prison.

16 "I will lead the blind by a way they do not know,
In paths they do not know I will guide them.
I will make darkness into light before them
And rugged places into plains.
These are the things I will do,
And I will not leave them undone."

Again the Jewish leaders are demonstrating their lack of knowledge of God’s Word as given to them by their prophets in the Old Testament.

Because of these verses in Isaiah, the Jews should have known that one of the indications that the Messiah had come would be His ability to give sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf. But they never even gave this a second thought in forming their evaluation of Jesus. This is inexcusable, especially for the leaders who were entrusted with maintaining the perfection of God’s Word.

The Pharisees wanted to get rid of the evidence. In today’s jargon, we might say they wanted to bury it on page 23. The leaders did not want the truth to be told; and the people themselves were afraid to speak up for fear of what the religious leaders would do to them.

The simple and true explanation for this event was that God had performed a miracle and healed this blind man. That, of course, was the last thing the leaders wanted to acknowledge.

We do not have to understand a miracle in order to recognize one and experience it when we know that the One performing the miracle is the one and only God. When the blind man was asked to describe what had happened to him, he could only say that he was healed by  “a man called Jesus.” The man at the time did not have a clue who Jesus was.

Later (verse 25) when being grilled over and over by the Pharisees, the man said with some exasperation, “Once I was blind, now I see.” That was all he knew and that was all that mattered to him at that moment.

You do have a clue as to who Jesus is, and because you do, you are faced with some major decisions. You may not have a physical illness or incapacity but all of us have spiritual illnesses. To what extent is each of us allowing the works of God to be made manifest in us? To what degree are we allowing the “extreme makeover” of our spirits, our actions, and our reactions?

Do our daily lives and the way we deal with the inconveniences and irritations of life show others the power of the grace of God at work in us? I’m sure we can all grow in that area. Let us ask God for His power to work in us so that we manifest the works of God in our lives.

 

The Blind Man And The Pharisees
John 9:13-41

Have you ever had an idea or made a plan that you tried to communicate to someone else? The idea or plan seemed so clear to you but no matter how much you tried to explain it, the person you were trying to talk to just could not get it. You might have tried to explain your idea in several different ways, but no matter which way you tried, the other person just could not grasp what you were saying. That is pretty frustrating, is it not? We think the blind man in John chapter 9 must have felt that way as he talked with the Pharisees.

Since, because of Palm Sunday and Easter, it has been a while since we covered the first twelve verses of John chapter nine, let us review them before we continue with the balance of the chapter.

John 9:13-17 NAS:
13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who was formerly blind. 14 Now it was a Sabbath on the day when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. 15 Then the Pharisees also were asking him again how he received his sight. And he said to them, "He applied clay to my eyes, and I washed, and I see." 16 Therefore some of the Pharisees were saying, "This man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath." But others were saying, "How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?" And there was a division among them. 17 So they said to the blind man again, "What do you say about Him, since He opened your eyes?" And he said, "He is a prophet."

Since this miracle was so unusual, the people brought the man to the Pharisees because according to their laws healing (unless life was in danger) and making or kneading clay violated the Sabbath Law. After the man told them what had happened the Pharisees believed that since Jesus “violated” the Sabbath He was a false prophet turning the people away from God (Deuteronomy 13:3-5). So they decided, “This Man is not from God.” Later they said Jesus was “a sinner” (John 9:24). Others concluded that the signs were so impressive that a sinner could not do them. The Pharisees then were divided (John 7:43; 10:19), just as we have seen them divided before.

The healed blind man’s opinion was that Jesus was a prophet. Old Testament prophets sometimes performed miracles, which identified them as God’s men.[fn]

John 9:18-23 NAS:
18 The Jews then did not believe it of him, that he had been blind and had received sight, until they called the parents of the very one who had received his sight, 19 and questioned them, saying, "Is this your son, who you say was born blind? Then how does he now see?" 20 His parents answered them and said, "We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; 21 but how he now sees, we do not know; or who opened his eyes, we do not know. Ask him; he is of age, he will speak for himself." 22 His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone confessed Him to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue. 23 For this reason his parents said, "He is of age; ask him."

Once again, in spite of seeing miracle after miracle, overwhelming evidence that Jesus must be from God, the Pharisees refused to accept the obvious truth. Jesus’ act of deliberately healing the man on the Sabbath Day caused the Pharisees great concern. They continued to claim it was illegal to do such work on the Sabbath; and by making the clay, applying the clay, and healing the man, Jesus had performed three unlawful “works.” The Pharisees should have been praising God for a miracle; instead, they sought evidence to prosecute Jesus.

When people refuse to face evidence honestly, but in fear evade the issue, then it is impossible to come to a sound conclusion. The religious leaders were judging on the basis of one thing: nobody who breaks the Sabbath, they thought, could possibly be a true prophet of God.

But isn’t that like many people today? They categorize others based on a few legalistic behaviors. “Oh, he could not be a Christian because he smokes,” or has a tattoo.  Or, “she could not be a Christian—look at how she dresses.” They also go the other direction. “He must be a Christian because he is so nice,” or “She has to be a Christian because she helps so many people.” They do not apply God’s standard to evaluate individuals, but use the standard of public opinion or “common sense.”

God’s standard for being a Christian is that a person has acknowledged that he or she is a sinner, and believed in his/her heart that Christ died on the cross to take the punishment for that sin, and that Christ also came back to life and lives in Heaven today.

The healed blind man was not frightened by the threats of the Pharisees. When asked who he thought Jesus was, the man boldly said, “He is a prophet!” Some of the Old Testament prophets, such as Moses, Elijah, and Elisha, did perform miracles. The Jewish people would look on their prophets as men of God who could do wonderful things by the power of God.[fn]

But the religious leaders did not want to see Jesus given that kind of recognition. They responded, “This man is not of God!” Perhaps they could discredit the miracle. If so, then they could convince the people that Jesus had plotted the whole thing and was really deceiving the people. They may have thought that they could convince the people that Jesus had craftily “switched” men, placing a sighted man in place of the blind man so that the sighted man was not the man who had been known as the blind man.
.
The best way to get that kind of evidence would be to question the parents of the beggar, so they called them in and asked them two questions: (1) “Is this your son?” And (2) “If he is, how does he now see?” If they refused to answer either question, they were in trouble; or if they answered with replies contrary to what the leaders wanted, they were in trouble. What a dilemma![fn]

They answered the first question honestly: he was their son and he had been born blind. They answered the second question in a manner which would not bring them under the judgment of the Pharisees because they knew they would be thrown out of the Temple. They did not know how he was healed or who healed him. They then used the old-fashioned tactic called “passing the buck” by suggesting that the Pharisees ask the man himself. After all, he was of age.[fn]

John 9:24-34 NAS:
24 So a second time they called the man who had been blind, and said to him, "Give glory to God; we know that this man is a sinner."
25 He then answered, "Whether He is a sinner, I do not know; one thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see."
26 So they said to him, "What did He do to you? How did He open your eyes?"
27 He answered them, "I told you already and you did not listen; why do you want to hear it again? You do not want to become His disciples too, do you?"
28 They reviled him and said, "You are His disciple, but we are disciples of Moses.
29 "We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where He is from."
30 The man answered and said to them, "Well, here is an amazing thing, that you do not know where He is from, and yet He opened my eyes.
31 "We know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is God-fearing and does His will, He hears him.
32 "Since the beginning of time it has never been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind.
33 "If this man were not from God, He could do nothing."
34 They answered him, "You were born entirely in sins, and are you teaching us?" So they put him out.

The Pharisees called the man before the court and this time they put him under oath. “Give glory to God” is a form of Jewish “swearing in” at court (Joshua 7:19). They were trying to get the man to change his testimony so that credit for the miracle would not go to Jesus. They were pressuring this man with the fear of reprisals when they said, “we know that this man is a sinner."  They had already issued a warning that anyone declaring Jesus to be the Christ would be thrown out of the synagogue.

But this man held fast to the truth. In effect, the man said, “He may be a sinner, that I do not know. But one thing I do know is that He healed me of my blindness.”

Actually, this was a much greater miracle than it seems on the surface, and that is pretty big. We hear it and realize this man had never in his life seen anything: not the face of his mother or father, not the blue sky, or the bright sunshine. He had not seen the temple of God. And we assume he suddenly saw all this and could immediately identify it and know what each item was. That is, in fact, what happened. But we now know that this was not one miracle but two. When corneal transplant surgery was first developed in the twentieth century, a factor became evident that shows how much greater this miracle was, if that seems possible. In Catching the Light, written by quantum physicist Arthur Zojanc we learn some extraordinary things. He writes about a number of studies that investigated recovery from congenital blindness. Thanks to cornea transplants, people who had been blind from birth would suddenly have the functional use of their eyes. Nevertheless, success was rare.

People who have been blind since birth, and who through surgery receive corneal transplants and are given their sight, can only make sense of the images before them by using the old familiar ways of “seeing,” that is, by using touch, sound, and smell.

Zojanc reports that psychologists Gregory and Wallace did research on a man in his 50s who received sight via surgery. He could only “see” (that is, understand what it was he was seeing) after he touched things in his old way. The process of his learning to see took over two years. They concluded that “learning to see as an adult is not easy at all.”[fn]

To quote Zojanc:
“In his systematic study of sixty-six case histories of the recovery of sight in those born blind, M. von Senden concluded that innumerable and extraordinary difficulties need to be overcome in learning to see. The world does not appear to the patient as filled with the gifts of intelligible light, color, and shape upon awakening from surgery. The project of learning to see inevitably leads to a psychological crisis in the life of the patient. . . . .  Besides an outer light and eye, sight requires an ‘inner light,’ one whose luminance complements the familiar outer light and transforms raw sensation into meaningful perception.”[fn]

So now we can have an even greater comprehension of how great a miracle Christ performed on this blind man. Yet, the Pharisees did not want to accept it.

They continued grilling him hoping to find a discrepancy in his story, but to no avail. As they continued interrogating him an element of sarcasm became evident in the man’s attitude when he suggested they might be considering a change of mind to become Jesus’ disciples. They were furious at his impertinence and arrogantly declared that they were Moses’ disciples, another oxymoron on the part of the Pharisees because one could not be a true disciple of Moses and not know Jesus (John 5:46).

We have already discussed this a number of times and need not do so again. Jesus brought irrefutable evidence that He was the Messiah and had been sent by God. Anyone who could not see that was simply a fool.

The blind man who had been healed then went on to teach them. He pointed out to the Pharisees things they should have been noting. He reminded them that there had never been a report in history of anyone being healed who had been blind since birth. Therefore this miracle could only be performed supernaturally by One who had been sent by God. How then could Jesus be a sinner?

Having been made to look foolish in the eyes of the people, the infuriated Pharisees could do little more than insult this man again and throw him out of the synagogue. There are religious people like this all over the world. Instead of being willing to evaluate the facts, their minds are already made up and not even the soundest evidence will change such minds. The healed blind man, however, was open to the truth and because of that we will see later in this chapter that he is saved, in spite of the fact that the religious leaders had excommunicated him from the local synagogue. Membership in a church or synagogue is neither a guarantee nor a requirement for salvation.

John 9:35-41 NAS:
35 Jesus heard that they had put him out, and finding him, He said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?"
36 He answered, "Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?"
37 Jesus said to him, "You have both seen Him, and He is the one who is talking with you."
38 And he said, "Lord, I believe." And he worshiped Him.
39 And Jesus said, "For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind."
40 Those of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these things and said to Him, "We are not blind too, are we?"
41 Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would have no sin; but since you say, 'We see,' your sin remains.

This concluding section of John 9 describes the man’s discussion with Jesus and reaches its climax with his declaration of faith. Jesus wastes no time in seeking the man out and then issuing a call to faith. Jesus always comes to the person who wants to believe in Him.

Does John 9:39 contradict John 3:17? According to that verse (and 12:47) Jesus was notsent “to condemn the world.” But here Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world.” Jesus meant He came to pronounce decisions on the ungodly, like a judge (cf. 5:22, 27). “The blind” who come to sight are those who, admitting their helplessness and inability, trust Jesus for salvation. “Those who see” and “become blind” are those whose self-trust and pride blinds them to the wonders of Jesus. He does not condemn them by makingthem blind; they blind themselves by rejecting Him and Satan contributes to that blinding (2 Corinthians 4:4).[fn]

The blind man was given both physical and spiritual sight because of his faith. The Pharisees had their natural sight and thought they also had spiritual sight, but their response to Jesus showed they were really blind. It was in this manner that His coming had brought judgment. John then goes on to highlight the complete lack of understanding among the Pharisees in verses 40–41.

The question “We are not blind too, are we?"  highlighted their unwillingness to accept what was true. They were blind to the truth of who Jesus is. They were blind to the truth of God’s Word. Jesus’ replied that “If they were really conscious of their blindness in a spiritual sense they would desire to see the truth,” which they clearly did not.

Jesus had already called them “blind leaders of the blind” (Matthew 15:14), so they had their answer. They were blinded by their pride, their self-righteousness, their tradition, and their false interpretation of the Word of God.[fn]

Jesus replied, “If you were blind, you would be better off. But you claim to see. Therefore, you are guilty!” Blindness would at least be an excuse for not knowing what was going on. But they did know what was going on. Jesus had performed many miracles and the religious leaders ignored the evidence.

Jesus is the Light of the world (John 8:12; 9:5). The only people who cannot see the light are blind people and those who refuse to look, those who make themselves blind. The beggar was physically blind and spiritually blind, yet both his eyes and his heart were opened. Why? Because he listened to the Word, believed it, obeyed, and experienced the grace of God. The Pharisees had good physical vision, but they were blind spiritually. If they had listened to the Word and sincerely considered the evidence, they too would have believed on Jesus Christ and been born again.[fn]

In what sense did the Pharisees “see”? They saw the change in the blind beggar and could not deny that he had been healed. They saw the mighty works that Jesus performed. Even Nicodemus, one of their number, was impressed with Jesus’ miracles (John 3:2). If they had examined the evidence with honesty, they would have seen the truth clearly. “If any man wills to do His [God’s] will, he shall know of the doctrine” (John 7:17, literal translation). “And ye will not come to Me, that ye might have life” (John 5:40).

We never meet this healed man again in the gospels, but surely the man followed Jesus closely and was among those who witnessed for Him. We hope that he was able to win his fearful parents to the Lord. While being excommunicated from the synagogue was certainly a painful experience for him, he undoubtedly found in his fellowship with Jesus Christ much more spiritual help and encouragement than he could ever have found in the Jewish traditions.

Even today, there are people who must choose between Christ and family, or Christ and their traditional religion.[fn] This blind beggar made the right choice, even though the cost was great.[fn]

How about you? Do you clearly see the truth of who Jesus is? That He was God come to earth in the form of a Man. Do you see Him as the only One who can save you from the penalty you deserve for your sins? Do you see Him as the One who loves you more dearly than anyone else in the world loves you? Do you see Him as your Guide, Counselor, and Friend?

Jesus wants to be all those things and more to you. But you, like the blind man, have to make a choice to put Jesus Christ first in your life.

 

 

Isaiah

John

Romans

1 Peter


© Ron Teed - Used by permission. All rights Reserved.