John 9:1 As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
3 Jesus answered, “This man didn’t sin, nor did his parents; but, that the works of God might be revealed in him. 4 I must work the works of him who sent me while it is day. The 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, made mud with the saliva, anointed the blind man’s eyes with the mud, 7 and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means “Sent”). So he went away, washed, and came back seeing. 8 The neighbors therefore, and those who saw that he was blind before, said, “Isn’t this he who sat and begged?” 9 Others were saying, “It is he.” Still others were saying, “He looks like him.”
He said, “I am he.” 10 They therefore were asking him, “How were your eyes opened?”
11 He answered, “A man called Jesus made mud, anointed my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to the pool of Siloam and wash.’ So I went away and washed, and I received sight.”
12 Then they asked him, “Where is he?”
He said, “I don’t know.”
Immediately after the Jews had rejected Jesus’ claim to be the I Am, Jesus dramatically showed that he was the I Am, the Messiah, by fulfilling the ancient prophesy of Isaiah.
The eyes of the blind shall be opened. Isaiah 35:5
For the first time in the entire Bible, a blind man was healed. Jesus, who at the Feast of the Booths had claimed to be the light of the world, gave light to the man who had spent his whole life in darkness.
When they first encountered the man, the disciples assumed that he was blind because of some sin. This is the same error that Job’s friends made in the Old Testament. Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar were unable or unwilling to comfort their suffering friend Job. Why? Because they wrongly assumed that Job’s troubles must have been caused by his sin they relentlessly accused him of sin and demanded his confession.
Consider now, whoever perished being innocent? Or where were the upright ever destroyed? Job 4:7
There is a persistent belief that all illness and calamity are caused by sin. But in this fallen world, regardless of the cause, every sickness and every trouble is an opportunity to show the love of Christ. “This man didn’t sin, nor did his parents; but, that the works of God might be revealed in him.” As Christians, our default response to suffering of any kind should be to show the works of God, offering comfort, practical help, and most importantly, prayer, bringing restoration to the broken.
How did Jesus bring restoration?
“For reasons we don’t know, [Jesus] dramatized the healing. It was if He were saying: ‘Not everyone who was born from the clay got everything right the first time around. Some people are born from the dust with birth defects, and this man was one of them. Let’s go back to the clay.’” R.C. Sproul, John: An Expositional Commentary
After he received his sight, his neighbors asked him, “How were your eyes opened?” When he replied that a man named Jesus had given him his sight, his friends, perhaps to gain the favor of the religious leaders, took him to the Pharisees.
John 9:13 They brought him who had been blind to the Pharisees. 14 It was a Sabbath when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. 15 Again therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he received his sight. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes, I washed, and I see.”
16 Some therefore of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, because he doesn’t keep the Sabbath.” Others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” So there was division among them. 17 Therefore they asked the blind man again, “What do you say about him, because he opened your eyes?”
He said, “He is a prophet.”
The Pharisees were again in a quandary. On the one hand giving sight to the blind on the Sabbath violated their man-made Sabbath law against even acts of compassion so, they reasoned, Jesus could not be from God. On the other hand who but God could heal the blind? Certainly a sinful man could not have such power. They concluded that the whole incident had been a hoax. The man had never really been blind. It was easier for them to believe that the whole incident was a hoax than to believe that Jesus actually healed the blind man.
John 9:18 The Jews therefore didn’t believe concerning him, that he had been blind, and had received his sight, until they called the parents of him who had received his sight, 19 and asked them, “Is this your son, whom you say was born blind? How then does he now see?”
20 His parents answered them, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; 21 but how he now sees, we don’t know; or who opened his eyes, we don’t know. He is of age. Ask him. He will speak for himself.” 22 His parents said these things because they feared the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that if any man would confess him as Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue. 23 Therefore his parents said, “He is of age. Ask him.”
24 So they called the man who was blind a second time, and said to him, “Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.”
25 He therefore answered, “I don’t know if he is a sinner. One thing I do know: that though I was blind, now I see.”
26 They said to him again, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”
27 He answered them, “I told you already, and you didn’t listen. Why do you want to hear it again? You don’t also want to become his disciples, do you?”
To confirm their suspicions that the healing was just a hoax, the Pharisees summoned the man’s parents. However, the parents deeply disappointed the Pharisees by confirming that yes, the man was their son, and yes, he had been blind from birth. But under questioning about the healing, they dared not offend the Jews because they feared the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that if any man would confess him as Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue.
During a second round of questioning, no doubt like his parents’ session, also under the threat of excommunication, the man was pressured to admit that Jesus was a sinner. God cannot sin, and no one would knowingly worship a sinner. So the Pharisees pressed the man to confirm that Jesus was a sinner, to which the man diplomatically responded, “I don’t know if he is a sinner. One thing I do know: that though I was blind, now I see.” Not getting the answer that they wanted…
John 9:28 They insulted 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 don’t know where he comes from.”
30 The man answered them, “How amazing! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. 31 We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God, and does his will, he listens to him. Psalm 66:18; Proverbs 15:29 & 28:9 32 Since the world began it has never been heard of that anyone opened the eyes of someone born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”
34 They answered him, “You were altogether born in sins, and do you teach us?” Then they threw him out.
35 Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and finding him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of God?”
36 He answered, “Who is he, Lord, that I may believe in him?”
37 Jesus said to him, “You have both seen him, and it is he who speaks with you.”
38 He said, “Lord, I believe!” and he worshiped him.
39 Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, that those who don’t 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, “Are we also blind?”
41 Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, ‘We see.’ Therefore your sin remains.
Not getting the answer that they wanted, just as the Pharisees had insulted and attacked Jesus, first they insulted him. Then after the man had the audacity to respond, teaching them by quoting Scripture, and explaining to the Pharisees that “since the world began it has never been heard of that anyone opened the eyes of someone born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” They threw him out of the synagogue.
After being thrown out by the religious leaders, Jesus sought out the man and, finding him asked, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” When Jesus revealed to the man that he was the Son of Man the man went from believing that Jesus was a prophet with exceptional healing powers to believing that Jesus was the Messiah. Expressing his belief the man replied, “Lord, I believe!” and he worshipped him.
As John would write at the conclusion of his gospel, “these are written, that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.” However, even though the Pharisees were witnesses to this and other miracles and heard that Jesus is the Christ, they refused to believe. Jesus told them that if [they] were blind, that is, if like the blind man, they would admit their spiritual blindness, they could be forgiven and set free – given true freedom. Because the Pharisees refused to acknowledge that Jesus was their Messiah, their sin remain[ed[.
Is it any wonder that as the west becomes detached from its Christian foundation, mocking God, normalizing sin, glorifying lust and rebellion, there are many who are spiritually blind? And like the religious leaders in Jesus’ time there are many cultural and even religious leaders who are currently in a quandary. On the one hand they enjoy the benefits that Christianity has brought to the world while on the other hand they are not willing to accept him as the Messiah.
With the influx of the barbaric, demonic, death cult, Islam into the west, atheist, Richard Dawkins, while denying Christ, nevertheless laments the loss of the beauty and truth that Christianity brought to the world.
The number of people who actually believe in Christianity is going down…but I would not be happy if, for example, we lost all our cathedrals and our beautiful churches. So, I count myself a cultural Christian.
Similarly, atheist, Tom Holland, enjoying the fruits of Christianity’s beliefs and values wrote:
The hope offered by the Christian story is that there was an order and a purpose to humanity’s existence…Without the Biblical story that God had created humanity in his own image, the reverence of the humanists for their own species risked seeming shallow. Humanism derives ultimately from claims in the Bible; humans are made in God’s image; his Son died equally for everyone; there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female. Repeatedly, like a great earthquake, Christianity has sent reverberations across the world…That human beings have rights; that they are born equal, that they are owed sustenance, shelter, and refuge from persecution; these were never self-evident truths. Dominion, Basic Books