Last week we ended with Jesus' proclamation that He was the Great "I am" – or ego emmi – and this week we will start with a theological question from the disciples about a blind man.
John 9:1-7
As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" Jesus answered, "It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world." Having said these things, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man's eyes with the mud and said to him, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam" (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.
The disciples were caught in the logical fallacy of a false dilemma. They asked if it was the blind man or his parents without considering that there may be other possible explainations. Jesus doesn't mean to indicate that misfortune is never the result of sin. We see in Scripture that it is sometimes the result of sin and, for example, in the case of David with Bathsheba, their son died as a result of their sin. So it wasn't a dumb question it was just poorly formulated. Next time you find yourself about to point out that a person asked a dumb question then just say it was "poorly formulated".
We should never fall in the trap of thinking that all suffering is divine punishment for sin. We live in a fallen world and all sorts of bad things happen as a result of living in a fallen world but not every bad thing that happens to each individual is the product of their individual sin. God is sovereign and in control and He will lead you throughout your life but that way may be hard.
One key thing that we learn from the book of Job is that we can't associate a cause and effect with a person's relative physical prosperity or physical suffering. In fact, to do so in the life of one of God's loved ones is risky. Job had to pray for his "comforters" so that God would not judge them for the lies they told about Job. Elihu was an exception and did not need a prayer of mediation because he had not said wrong things about Job. God's primary message in Job – if we reduce it to the bare bones – is that we are not smart enough to understand why bad things happen but we are smart enough to trust God and not say wrong things about Him in the midst of our trials. We need to pray through until we can agree with Paul who said, "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us (Romans 8:18)."
The picture here is that this particular man was there to be healed for the glory of God. Jesus says that it is daytime and that He is the light and that they must do what God directs while it is spiritually daytime and before spiritual nightfall.
Jesus methods here are remarkable and I imagine that people have been asking why he made mud from His saliva and put it in this guy's eyes for 2000 years now. It is a good question. If Jesus could raise Lazarus just by calling him then why stick mud on someone's face. Well, John Calvin says not to speculate beyond the text and so I'll only speculate a little bit beyond the text. Lets read the next few verses.
John 9:8-12
The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar were saying, "Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?" Some said, "It is he." Others said, "No, but he is like him." He kept saying, "I am the man." So they said to him, "Then how were your eyes opened?" He answered, "The man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, 'Go to Siloam and wash.' So I went and washed and received my sight." They said to him, "Where is he?" He said, "I do not know."
It is possible that this blind man suffered from anophthalmia or, in other words, was born without eyes. His neighbors had trouble recognizing him and argued about whether it was really him or not. He used the term "εγω ειμι" to say "I am who I am". If he didn't have eyes and Jesus chose to make mud to make him new eyes then he would be hard to recognize. That would explain why the neighbors had arguments about him. If there were no changes in his face then they shouldn't really have had much trouble recognizing him. So maybe that is why Jesus made mud.
The more important picture here is of those who, like we were, are spiritually blind but are given light by the work of Jesus through the Holy Spirit. Notice that the question in verse 12 does qualify as a dumb question. They were asking a man born blind who had just received his sight at the Pool of Siloam if he knew where the guy was who healed him. He couldn't have picked Jesus out of a lineup.
I think John intends these verses to be a little bit funny. They are sad but funny too. Remember the last healing on the Sabbath of the lame person who didn't support Jesus and didn't care to argue with the authorities. The blind man is a different sort of person and one of the first converts to Christ.
John 9:13-17
They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. So the Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight. And he said to them, "He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see." Some of the Pharisees said, "This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath." But others said, "How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?" And there was a division among them. So they said again to the blind man, "What do you say about him, since he has opened your eyes?" He said, "He is a prophet."
The Pharisees were split because Jesus had healed another man on the Sabbath day. They were not allowed to kneed bread and perhaps that action was similar to making eyeballs out of spit and clay. From the point of view of the blind man it was pretty simple. It was mud, washing, and seeing. And the spiritual insight was present in this man. God didn't just give him physical eyes but He also gave him spiritual eyes. This is another part of why I think the man was born without eyes. Our sin nature results in a critical defect in that we are spiritually dead. We need to be born again. We need another birth. My mother (bless her for nothing can disturb her blessedness today) would see a deer in my backyard and get excited because when she was a girl they were not present in the southern Piedmont of the USA. She would try to show that deer to my mother-in-law. My mother-in-law is blind but my mother would keep saying look right there. See it? You need God present and acting to show something to a blind person. You need God present and acting to present the Gospel to a lost person. Like I've said before, you are not selling Amway. Getting people saved is a resurrection of the dead but God is doing it. You can't do it by yourself but you're not supposed to do it by yourself. It isn't your skill and ability that saves people but the power of God. So you can rest in the power of God as you share and expect to see things happen.
John 9:18
The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight, until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, "Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?" His parents answered, "We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. But how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself." (His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.) Therefore his parents said, "He is of age; ask him."
The first "solution" for the authorities was to deny that the person with eyes really was the blind man who had been begging previously. The blind man's parents were not brave enough to stand up for Jesus in the face of the Jewish authorities and the threat of being excluded from the synagogue. They simply confirm the identity of their son and then suggest they ask him what happened. They would have been viewed as being the likely cause of their blind son. They would have likely accepted some blame down through the years and they were not ready to be excluded even further from the life of the community.
John 9:24-34
So for the 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." He answered, "Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see." They said to him, "What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?" He answered them, "I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?" And they reviled him, saying, "You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from." The man answered, "Why, this is an amazing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing." They answered him, "You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?" And they cast him out.
This person may have been born without eyes but he had a quick brain and a pretty quick tongue too. He sticks to the facts and then starts to purposely annoy the authorities. He never was part of the community in the sense that his parents were so he isn't too worried about being excluded from the synagogue since he likely only had limited access to start with. I think this is also an early fulfillment of the promise found in Mark 13:11 that says, "And when they bring you to trial and deliver you over, do not be anxious beforehand what you are to say, but say whatever is given you in that hour, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit."
The blind man confronts them with their sinful, willful ignorance and they accuse him of being born in sin – which is true – and then cast him out. I don't think he minded to much because I suspect he had a backlog of things he wanted to go look at.
John 9:35-41
Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" He answered, "And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?" Jesus said to him, "You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you." He said, "Lord, I believe," and he worshiped him. Jesus said, "For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind." Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, "Are we also blind?" Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, 'We see,' your guilt remains.
Jesus went and found the man that was formerly blind and asked him if he believed in the Son of Man. In essence, Jesus was asking if he believed in the Messiah. He asked Jesus – who he recognized presumably from His voice as a prophet – to tell him who the Son of Man is. When Jesus identifies Himself to this formerly blind man the man responds with belief and worship. Note that Jesus receives worship. John is repeatedly stressing the divinity of Jesus in this gospel.
Some of the Pharisees took offence at Jesus' statement that the blind would see and the seeing would be blind. Jesus makes a very important point. The blindness – even the spiritual death – while insurmountable in the fallen state of man by man is still a willful and guilt producing state. It really brings us around to the core of our fallen state that we don't seek God and are guilty. The logic of God's existence is sufficient and the gospel is sufficient and yet apart from a move of the Holy Spirit we chose to remain blind and argue that we see. This compounds and confirms our guilt and sin. In Matthew 5:3, Jesus says, "blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of God. Poor in spirit means those who are askers or beggars. In these verses we have a blind beggar who knew he was blind and admitted it. Religion apart from Jesus consists of blindness arguing that they see. I've seen physically blind people refuse to be blind. Of course they are blind and it becomes apparent to those who can see. The lost person's need for the Savior, the Son of Man, the Son of God, and the Promised Messiah is always there and we as Christians can be the instruments God uses in prayer and in presenting the good news of the Cross.
Jesus said that He was the Way, the Truth, and the Life and that no one could come to the Father except by Him (John 14:6). Other religions deny that and argue that they see clearly when in fact they blind to sin, God's holiness, and the only forgiveness for sin available.
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