9:17 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.”
This might not be quite the full-orbed description of the Being of Christ, but as some note, it’s a mite better than “I don’t know.”
9:18-23 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 [19] and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” [20] His parents answered, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. [21] 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.” [22] (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.) [23] Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”
First, “The Jews” here refer to the Pharisees. It is a common thing for John to refer to the religious leaders as “the Jews.”
What we see here is that in response to the miracle of Christ, the religious leaders of the day react in unbelief. So what they try to do is seek verification from the parents since they don’t seem to believe the accounts of the people and the man himself.
However, what happens here is the parents respond in fear of what the religious leaders will do to them if they give their full and honest opinion of what has just happened to their son. Sproul and Carson both excoriate these parents in their commentaries as examples of unbelief, and I agree with them. But who cannot identify with them? Who can blame them? These people don’t yet know Jesus, they don’t have any reason as of yet to stand up for Him other than what they know of in regards to their son. So they pass the buck back to their child, who is a grown middle-aged man.
Here’s what I mean by this: Overall, while we can identify with the parents, and even the religious leaders, what is it that is dominating their emotions and behavior here? Fear and unbelief. Perhaps that’s why we can so closely identify with them…
9:24 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.”
Now they are frustrated and demanding. Their tone is completely curt and to the point. They demand that the blind man give glory to God (as if he hadn’t been doing that already), and not to in anyway glorify the man (Jesus) who gave him his sight.
Ironically the very man who gave him his sight was Jesus the God-man. The incarnation of God had healed this man in love and compassion.
Also, it is interesting that they “know” this man is a sinner. Their judgment has already been made at this point – for all the reasons we talked about before, specifically and especially regarding the Sabbath.
9:25 He answered, “Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”
I can picture this man, can’t you? Recoiling a bit at the harshness of the conversation. But as we will see from the way he interacts with these religious leaders, he is bold. Why is he so bold? Because his entire life has been resurrected from darkness! You too would be bold if a man healed your blindness! And indeed, if you are a Christian, you have been resurrected from darkness and death and our response ought to be this man’s response: One thing I do know, that though I was blind now I see”! What a powerful statement!
As MacArthur notes, unbelief is simply irrational at this point, “Stopped dead in their tracks by the incontestable testimony of the man, and left with no way to advance their lame argument, the Pharisees began to go over the same ground they had previously covered.”
R.C. Sproul notes something really important about this whole passage with the blind man and how he interacted with the Pharisees. At this point in the discussion, the man is bearing witness about Christ, but he is not evangelizing. He is sharing his testimony, but he is not yet sharing the gospel message – there is a difference. Our testimony is important, and its what Sproul calls “pre-evangelism.” It helps us relate what God has done for us to others, and helps others relate to us on a personal level. It gives glory to God, certainly, but it is not sharing the gospel. We share the gospel when we announce the good work of Jesus Himself. As Sproul notes, (to paraphrase) “the gospel is not about me…the gospel is about Jesus.”
We all need to learn to share our testimonies, but we also have to take the next step and share the gospel.
Now listen in your mind as you read below how they interact here…you can almost feel the tension rising…
9:26-27 They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” [27] 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?”
Bravo! This man has moxie. Frankly, if such a wonderful miracle happened to me, and then those around me were so determined to ruin it and slander the God who provided it, I would also be indignant.
Note the rebukes. First, “you would not listen.” This is so true. They were never listeners; they were tellers. They ordered people about, they didn’t take time to genuinely listen to people. The man doesn’t let them get away with it.
Second, he taunts them by asking them if they “also want to become his disciples.” The very thing they would have despised the most! He makes these religious leaders out to be merely ignorant pupils who need to be discipled.
9:28-29 And they reviled him, saying, “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 comes from.”
Now, obviously this (formerly) blind man was not a disciple of Christ yet, but the leaders throw it back in his face because he had just used the same thing to annoy them.
I think it is really emblematic of this generation that they claim to be disciples of Moses, and children of Abraham (in chapter 8) when they are neither. God knew all along that He would bless the nations through Abraham, which means that the seed of Abraham (spiritually) would populate the church. From Abraham’s body would come the body of Christ (the church) – in other words, the gentile makeup of the elect was never “plan b” for God. Also, it’s worth noting that God only instituted the Mosaic Law as a “guardian” until Christ came (Gal. 3). Even Moses saw this (Deut. 18:18-19), but these religious leaders were not eagerly anticipating such a high priest, they were instead longing for the day when the Messiah would come and conquer their political enemies and redeem the land.
Their sinfulness had clouded their judgment, and as they were not God’s children (John 8), they were speaking out of their character here.
Now listen to how the man responds to their claims at Mosaic discipleship…does he back down? Not at all!
9:30-33 The man answered, “Why, this is an amazing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. [31] 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. [32] Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. [33] If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”
First he castigates them for their lack of knowledge of who Jesus was. Then, in an amazing show of boldness, he gives them a theology lesson! I honestly don’t recall any other time in scripture where a common beggar gives the religious establishment a theology lesson, but here it is!
He says to them, basically, that they aren’t thinking logically. First, he reasons that “God does not listen to sinners” – true enough. We know that God hears the prayers of those who are His own, and the man goes on to say just that, “if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him.” I have to believe he is speaking out of practical experience here. This man has not been healed in vain by God. He is grateful, and from the sounds of his words, was probably in daily prayer for this miracle.
Then he uses some hyperbole to drive home the point that this miracle was done in the power of God – there’s simply no other explanation for it!
9:34 They answered him, “You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?” And they cast him out.
The word “utter” here is holos in the Greek, and it means “whole” or “complete.” And thus the response of the Pharisees is accurate here. He was born in utter sin – complete fallness like all mankind, and of course they mistakenly believe they were not. Paul’s words are apt:
But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; [28] God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, [29] so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. (1 Corinthians 1:27-29 ESV)
There is perhaps nothing more appalling than the arrogance of ignorance, but that is what he have here. And it is instructive for us as well. Let us, who were also born in “utter sin” not think ourselves too good or too pure to learn from our great teacher. We have all fallen way short of His glory. No man is worthy to boast before God – because Paul’s passage in 1 Corinthians I mention above goes on to say this:
And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, [31] so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 1:30-31 ESV)
If we are to boast, let us boast in the power of the Lord Jesus Christ as this man did.
9:35-37 Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” [36] He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” [37] Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.” [38] He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.
I love the compassion of the Lord Jesus. He knows that this man must go through a trial, and He allows it as a testing of his faith perhaps. Whatever the reason as it relates to the man, it certainly gave glory to God – and still continues to do so even to this day.
Note also that Jesus requires something of this man more than simply standing up for Him. Jesus isn’t looking for a supporter for a political or religious movement, He looking for a lost sheep.
Lastly, it is evident that God had touched the heart of this man as significantly as He had touched his eyes. The man responds in belief, and that’s the challenge for us today. Do we really believe Jesus is who He says He is? Here he says that he is the “Son of Man” – that favorite designation that Jesus uses for Himself that comes from the book of Daniel, which says:
“I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. [14] And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed. (Daniel 7:13-14 ESV)
This “Son of Man” is reigning right now – and His reign will one day see its consummation at His second coming. When Jesus asks the blind man who had been healed whether he believed in the “Son of Man”, He is asking him to place his faith in the one who is from God, of God, and is God. The one who will one say have “an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away.”
9:39 Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” [40] Some of the Pharisees near 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 guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.
Finally, we notice that Jesus isn’t saying these things in just the presence of the healed man any longer. Now others have gathered. The Pharisees are now listening in, and, aware of this, Christ begins to address them.
First Christ uses the miracle He performed to give greater light to a spiritual truth. We could divine all of these things and see the picture of Christ’s work here pretty easily, but in this case we don’t even have to because He has done that for us here.
He says that He came so that those who don’t see will see. Conversely, He says that those who see “may become blind.” The Pharisees immediately feel as if they are the butt of this joke – only its not a joke at all, it’s a hard truth, and one that they refuse to swallow.
The point of the analogy as it relates to “guilt” is much like Paul’s argument in Romans 1. We all bear the weight of guilt of knowing at least something about God through general revelation. But these were men who were learned. They knew the law, had access to all the writings of Moses, knew and had heard of the words of the prophets, and yet they who saw all of these words on scrolls were blind to their truths. In this way they became blind.
It reminds me of what God said to the prophet Isaiah as He commissioned him to go and preach to Israel:
And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.” [9] And he said, “Go, and say to this people: “‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’ [10] Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.” (Isaiah 6:8-10 ESV)
Later God says through Isaiah:
Bring out the people who are blind, yet have eyes, who are deaf, yet have ears! (Isaiah 43:8 ESV)
Spiritually speaking, only God can open the eyes of mankind. He is completely sovereign over who can “see the kingdom of God” (John 3).
In His sovereignty, God has sent Christ to heal us of this blindness. Another verse from Isaiah speaks of this as well:
I am the LORD; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, [7] to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. (Isaiah 42:6-7 ESV)
Secondly, I want to make note about what Christ says about judgment and blindness here. MacArthur hints at the way in which spiritual blindness reacts to the light. He says, “It receives judgment, refuses to admit its blindness, rejects spiritual sight, and results in doom.”
Specifically as it relates to “judgment”, Christ says “for judgment I cam into this world”, whereas in another place He says, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:17).
So which is it? Is Christ contradicting Himself here? Not at all – these are two truths co-existing in the character of Christ. MacArthur explains this in his commentary, and its worth quoting a lengthy portion of what he has to say:
…far from being contradictory, those two truths are complementary; they are two sides of the same reality. To reject Jesus’ peace is to receive His punishment; to reject His grace is to receive His justice; to reject His mercy is to receive His wrath to reject His love is to receive His anger to reject His forgiveness is to receive His judgment. While Jesus came to save, not to condemn (cf. 12:47, Luke 19:10), those who reject His gospel condemn themselves, and subject themselves to judgment (John 3:18, 36). Spiritual sight comes only to those who acknowledge that they do not see, who confess their spiritual blindness and their need for the Light of the World. On the other hand, those who think they see on their own apart from Christ delude themselves, and will remain blind. They will not come to the Light, because they love the darkness and do not want their evil deeds to be exposed (3:19).
So their response was “self-condemning” as MacArthur goes on to say, and the role of Christ as judge will certainly happen eventually (Jon 5:22, 27), for He has been given all authority to judge by the Father, but during His time on earth (first advent) His mission was to “seek and save that which is lost” (Luke 19:10).
Leon Morris puts it this way, “In one sense He did not come to judge people (3:17; 12:47). But for all that, his coming represents a judgment; for people divide according to the way they react to that coming. The coming of light shows who are spiritually blind and thus judges them; judgment is not the purpose of the coming of the light, but it is an inevitable consequence.”
Finally, and perhaps ironically, the great hero the Pharisees were looking for ended up being the one they mocked openly. The great warrior who they hoped would one day set them free from oppression had just set another captive free before their very eyes. The great king they hoped would rule over Jerusalem was in their midst ushering in a kingdom “that shall not be destroyed.”
PJ Wenzel 