Before we dive right into the story, let’s talk about the structure a little bit. The chapter will start off with a miracle. The miracle is the 6th and second-to-last miracle. Do you remember how John 5 used the healing of the invalid as an introduction to Christ’s teaching? Do you also remember how John 6 used the feeding of the 5,000 to introduce Christ’s preaching on the bread of life? John 9 will follow in the same pattern. In the beginning of chapter 9, Jesus will perform a miracle. This miracle will be the “attention-getter” for the teaching that will take up the rest of the chapter. Another piece I would like to note is that this teaching also has a thesis line. As I said in the conclusion of the chapter before, the thesis is one of the “I AM” statements in John 8. More specifically, it’s John 8:12. I’ll put up John 8:12 again in case you forget, but Jesus does use another form of the statement in John 9:5.
John 8:12-
When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
John 9:5-
“While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
Now let’s dive into the chapter. Along their journeys, Jesus and His disciples pass a man blind from birth. So this man has never seen in all His life. When the disciples see the blind man, they do not have pity or mercy on him, but rather, they turn it into a theological debate. Indeed, this topic was hot topic, just as much as it is today: why do people suffer? The Jews in the 1st century had got it down two possibilities: either the person sinned or the person’s parents sinned. Both views are supported by Old Testament Scripture (Ezekiel 18:4 and Exodus 20:5, 34:7 respectively). The Jews of the 1st century, however, were trying to take it a step further. They were trying to create a methodology to determine whether a person’s suffering resulted in the person’s sin or the person’s parents’ sin. Some rabbis were even declaring that a disability from birth was caused by the person sinning in the mother’s womb. This was a heavily weighted debate, and so the Twelve Disciples asked their rabbi for His view.
What really strikes me here is what I said early on the paragraph above. When the disciples see the blind man, there’s no compassion, no mercy, no pity not even a “Poor guy.” They break out in a theological debate, and right in front him. The man is blind, not deaf. How hurtful that must have been to hear people standing in front of you, arguing whether you are a sinner or your mom and dad are sinners. The blind man might be crying out for help, but they don’t hear because they are too involved in their debate. Sometimes I fear Christians have fallen into the same rut. Christians can get so caught up in being right in their theological debates that they miss the people who are hurting. I remember one time I was in Washington, D.C., walking by the steps on the Supreme Court. On one end of the steps was a Christian man, holding a big, wooden cross that had a poster board nailed to it, which read, “Bring back prayer to school.” He was also handing out persuasive pamphlets. A worthy cause, I will admit. On the other side was a beggar, holding a big, tin coffee can, begging for money. Once again, I will say that bringing back prayer to schools is a worthy cause, but this Christian man was caught up in trying to make a political change that he totally ignored the beggar in need not too far from him. I wanted to yell at him, “Help him!” This Christian man probably would not have a made difference in this nation’s decision on prayer in school, but he probably would have had made a difference to man the begging if he had simply helped the man. Christians, let make sure we don’t get caught up in trying to be right or trying to make a political change that we ignore the people who are truly hurting and in need. When we help them, then we show we are right and making a change.
Jesus understood that. He did not see a theological debate in front on him, but rather a person, a human being, that needed help. Jesus, being the good rabbi he was, did answer the disciples’ question, but he was quick and to the point so He could move on to healing this man. Jesus revealed to His disciples that suffering doesn’t always have to be a result of sin (although it could be). Suffering doesn’t always have to be a negative consequence. Suffering can lead to a positive consequence, like glorying God or healing. Jesus does not deny this blind is a sinner, and the same is true for the blind man’s parents, but He’s simply clearing up that it’s not sin that led to suffering, but the suffering will lead to the works of God being seen. (On the note of “Why do people suffer, on top of our sin, our parents sin, and to give glory to God, I want to note that Romans 3 will tell us people suffer because we’re naturally in a corrupt, depraved, fallen, sinful world. So there’s 4 reasons why people suffer, but that’s another blog for another time.)
How does Jesus perform the miracle? Jesus spits on the dirt, makes mud with it and puts it in the blind man’s eyes. Now I’ve heard some people say Jesus used spit because spit does have healing properties. After all, that’s why people suck on their skin when they get a cut, bruise or burn. But I don’t think that just anyone today could spit in someone’s eyes and heal them, so there definitely still is a great miracle happening here. Then Jesus commands the man to go wash in the Pool of Siloam. The Pool of Siloam is located at the mouth of Hezekiah’s tunnel, which was the waterway that led fresh water from the Gihon Springs outside the city of Jerusalem insider the city of Jerusalem. When I was in Israel, I went to Pool of Siloam, and to this day, it still has water in it. Israeli children take the word “pool” very literally, as they play in it on a hot summer day. The blind man follows the instructions of Jesus, and by the time the blind man gets home, he has 20/20 vision!
Now all the Jews living in the city knew this man as the blind beggar. And now all of a sudden, they see their blind beggar seeing. They cannot comprehend this. Some ever going as far as to say it’s just the man’s doppelganger (“look alike”) or maybe a twin, but it cannot be the man, since he’s been blind from birth. But the man who was blind just keeps insisting “I am the man!” When they ask him how he can see, he tells the story word for word, even giving Jesus the credit. The only thing he cannot tell them is the whereabouts of Jesus.
The befuddled Jews of Jerusalem bring the man who was blind to the Pharisees. There’s a lot of reasons to do this. The Pharisees were greatly valued when it came to spiritual affairs. If the Jewish people needed answers, the Pharisees were the ones to go to. In John 9, the people bring the formerly blind man to the Pharisees to get them to verify he was once blind, he is indeed seeing, and this was a legitimate miracle. This practice is somewhat backed up by Scripture, as the Law of Moses did say a cured person had to go to a priest to be declared fully healed. Now in verse 14, John brings to light a very important key aspect, probably because it is on the Pharisees’ minds as well as all the other people’s minds. According the Pharisees, Jesus broke the law twice. First, Jesus made mud on the Sabbath, and the Pharisees thought that making mud or clay on the Sabbath was doing work, thus breaking the 4th commandment. Second, Jesus healed a person on the Sabbath, and the Pharisees believed that healing on the Sabbath was work, and therefore a sin (unless the person healed was dying). So when the formerly blind man tells his story for a second time, the Pharisees simply dismiss Jesus as a sinner because he broke the Sabbath laws twice. But this further baffles the people who brought in the blind man. They know healing can only come from God, and they also know God only works with the righteous, not the sinners. A sinner cannot work with God, so the miracle must mean Jesus is righteous. In verse 16, John once again describes the Jewish people as “divided.” So for the tie-breaker, the Pharisees act the man who was blind directly. The man simply answers, “I think he’s a prophet.”
Well, this still isn’t good enough for the Jews. So they drag his parents in, just to make sure this is their son, the son blind from birth. But then the Pharisees turn on them the question of how he was healed. The parents do verify that the man is indeed their son, but on how he got healed, they simply reply, “We don’t know. Ask him. He is of age.” John explains the parents’ motif. It almost seems as if the parents do believe this is miraculous healing from Jesus. Yet they are afraid to admit it because the Jewish leaders have declared that anyone who called Jesus the Messiah would be “put out of the synagogue.” We think of “synagogue” as building, and indeed it was a building for public meetings. But the Greek word that “synagogue” comes from could literally be translated as “gathered together.” The term synagogue, to the Jewish people, is not only a building, but can also mean the general assembly of Jews as whole. So to be “put out of the synagogue” would mean being excommunicated or shunned from the general assembly of Jews. The Jews saw this as no longer being a Jew, no longer being God’s chosen people, so they did not want to say or do anything that would shun themselves, including saying that Jesus is the Messiah.
Still not satisfied, the Pharisees drag the man who was blind back and make him swear an oath proclaiming God healed him, and not Jesus, for Jesus is a sinner. The man does not accept and agree with the Pharisees’ decision, nor does he disagree by defending Jesus. He does not know who caused the healing (God or Jesus), nor does he know if Jesus is a sinner. So he simply states the facts he knows are true: “I was blind but now I see.” It’s like the man is crying out, “Who freakin’ cares who made see or how I can see, all that matters is I was freakin’ blind and now I can freakin’ see!” Still, the Pharisees are not satisfied, so they start questioning the formerly blind man as to what had happened, hoping to find some kind of contradiction in his story. They still don’t believe he is telling the truth, even after he’s sworn a solemn oath.
Now the man who was blind is going to start to become bold in front of the religious leaders. When the Pharisees ask the formerly blind man to re-tell the story, the formerly blind man says, “Why bother? I already told you everything over and over, and you did not listen. I could tell you again, but still won’t listen,” and then at the end he adds, and I do quote, “Do you want to become His disciples, too?” I can really sense sarcasm in the formerly blind man’s last sentence. It’s like he’s saying, “Apparently you love hearing me talk about Jesus so much. I bet you secretly want to become his disciples.” I’m almost sure this is sarcasm, and my proof is the Pharisees’ reaction to it. But I think the man born blind is on to something. He knows that the Pharisees are out to get Jesus. He even proves it, in the boldest fashion, in John 9:30-33. In a way, the man who was blind shows he has greater spiritual wisdom than the religious leaders. The man who was blind from birth simply states what everyone in the crowd is thinking. God only works with the godly who do His will, not sinners. Thus, a sinner cannot make a blind man see, but only a godly man. Therefore, Jesus has to be a godly man, not a sinner, because he can make the blind man see. Well, the Pharisees won’t take this. Since the man was blind from birth, they take their belief he was in sin since he was in the womb. Seeing themselves as righteous and the man as a sinner, they throw him out and shun him.
Before we move on, let’s take a moment to really feel bad for this poor man. He was born blind, which means he wasn’t able to see all his childhood, and a lot of his adulthood. As the disciples demonstrated, he was probably the topic of many theological talks. Then Jesus comes along and heals him. To be healed after being blind for so long would be a reason for praise, rejoicing and celebration…wouldn’t it? I think it is, but that’s not what the blind received. First, his neighbors do not believe it was him, even claiming it was a doppelganger that just looked like him because the blind man could never see. Next, he is dragged before the Pharisees, where he has to explain again and again what happened. Does it cause the Pharisees to rejoice or praise God? No. The Pharisees just keep asking him questions, which turn into accusations. Then the conversation goes from the blind man to Jesus, and they almost forget that a seeing blind man is standing before them. Soon, even the blind man’s parents are brought forward. Do they rejoice and celebrate their son can see? No, because they are afraid, since the Jewish leaders have struck them with fear. By the time, they get to the end, the blind man is insulted and excommunicated. To sum it all up, the Pharisees did to seeing man what the disciples did to the blind. Instead of recognizing and rejoicing, they instead turned it into a theological debate. Once again, I cry out to Christians: Never get so caught up in the theological “why” and “how” that we forget to just praise and worship God for what He has done.
The story concludes quickly after the man is shunned, but it really hits back to the “I AM” statement used in John 8:12 and John 9:5. When Jesus receives news that the man who was blind has been kicked out, He reaches out to the potential believer. Jesus simply asks him in John 9:35, “Do you believe the Son of Man?” Jesus carefully chooses His words. The term “Son of Man” was a title the prophet Daniel gave the Messiah. The man who was born blind shows willingness and unawareness at the same time. Yes, he does want to believe in the Messiah, but he does not know who the Messiah is. Once again, I see Jesus carefully picking his words, and I love how He does it. I love how Jesus says, “You have now seen him.” Jesus is not merely saying, “It’s the man standing before you,” but He’s also saying, “It’s the one who opened your eyes and made you see.” And it brings the formerly blind man to belief and worship. Jesus explains to the man (and possibly everyone around him), “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind” (John 9:39). The Pharisees who overhear Jesus become indignant at Jesus. Whether they know Jesus is being figurative, or even if they take it literally, they know Jesus is calling them blind. In John 9:41, Jesus makes that connection of blindness to sin, or, in the words of the hymn “Amazing Grace,” Jesus makes the connection of “I was blind, but now I see” to “I once was lost, but now am found.”
I was a summer missionary for Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF) for 4 years, and one of those years, the curriculum we used taught children 5 of the “I AM” statements of Jesus. Even the memory verses were those 5 “I AM” statements. On Day 4 (typically Thursdays), the “I AM” statement and memory verse was John 8:12. The Bible story was not about this blind man in John 9, however, but the story of blind Bartimeaus, as found in all 3 synoptic Gospels. They did it because, for the sake of the children, blind Bartimaeus is an easier story to tell because there’s more action and less talking. Let me be clear that the blind man in John 9 is not Bartimeaus. There are many differences in the story, but the biggest difference is the blind man in John 9 lives in Jerusalem, while the blind Bartimeaus in the synoptic Gospels lives in Jericho. But as CEF revealed, theologically speaking, there are commonalities, and those
In other ancient writings, blindness was seen as a blessing. In ancient writings, most blind people were sages who had a deeper understanding of the world, and some could even use it to “see” in the future (yes, the pun was intended, but so was the irony in ancient writings). Not true with the Bible. Blindness was seen as a curse. As the Jews well understood by the 1st century AD, they knew that blindness, a disability, might have been the result of a sin, and there’s some truth to that. But I think the bigger picture God was trying to get across was that blindness was a literal, physical ailment that was to be a symbolic metaphor for being lost in sin. A blind person could be described as “walking in darkness” because darkness is all they could “see.” In the same way, someone who is in sin could also be described as “walking in darkness.” A blind man needs to be led, for if he wasn’t led, he would get lost. In the same way, someone in sin in lost in sin. Blind people represented the fallen human race, lost in their sin, whether could literally see or not. Then Jesus came along, and he made the blind see. In the same way Jesus helped the blind to see, or helped those who “walked in darkness” to “walk into the light,” Jesus brought salvation to sinners so they would no longer have to walk in the darkness of their sins, but walk into the light of salvation. If Jesus can heal the blind of their blindness, Jesus can heal sinners of their sin. This is how Jesus demonstrated He was the Light of the World. Those who believe in Jesus, as the blind man did, are no longer walking in the darkness of their sin, but are now walking in the light of life. On that day, the blind man just didn’t go from blind to seeing, but also from being lost in his sin to being found.
On that same day, the Pharisees took a step back. They went from seeing to being blind (in a spiritual sense). They went from being found to being lost (once again, in a spiritual sense). Their pride would not allow them to trust in Jesus for salvation. So they lied to themselves, believing themselves to be righteous. Jesus said to them that by doing so, they have not becoming innocent, but have made themselves guilty. Jesus also says, as found in verse 39, just as much as he’ll make the blind see, he’ll make the seeing blind. Christians, may we never make the same mistake as the Pharisees and be blind to see the sin in us and around us. May we always walk in the light of Jesus Christ.
So after 9 chapters of John, we have 1 miracle left and 4 “I AM” statements left. 3 times we saw Jesus use a miracle as the “attention-getting” introduction to the teaching, 2 of which were “I AM statements.” To follow the pattern, the last miracle will be used in accordance with an “I AM statement.” But first, we have another “I AM” statement, and it will be found in the next chapter of John.
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