“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 spit 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 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.’ 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.’”

New Eyes in the Spirit

1.      The Spirit Brings Light

We closed John 8 with Jesus declaring His deity, the religious authorities taking up stones to kill Him, and Jesus slipping away from them. When we pick up in chapter 9, it’s not immediately clear where Jesus is, but as we read on, we see that He hasn’t fled the region, but is still in Judea. Not only has He remained in the vicinity of those seeking to kill Him, but He’s about to stir things up with another miracle performed on the Sabbath.

“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.”

Jesus starts the passage by clarifying a point that I imagine many will find comforting, while many others will find it unsettling. An age-old question is, “why do bad things happen to good people?” This isn’t an altogether unfair question, but unfortunately, it’s also a common, on the nose talking point among atheist apologists. If God exists, and if He’s loving and merciful, why do innocent people suffer? Part of this is answered in Genesis, as a result of the fall. Tragic things happen because the world is fallen, because we chose sin. In Genesis 3:17–18 God says to Adam,

“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.”

This curse is largely literal, in that mankind must labor in order to yield food from the land and survive. But there is also a principle at work in spirit, in that the world itself is cursed. We’re deprived of the peace and harmony that we knew in the garden, separated and stained by the sins of our flesh. While God shows His divine justice repeated throughout the Bible, in the wicked being laid low and the righteous raised up, it’s not always as we imagine or expect it to be from our human perspectives. It’s far more comfortable for us to think that bad things happen to bad people, and good things happen to good people, and leave it at that. In the book of Job, Job’s friends spend the majority of the book arguing evermore fiercely that he must have sinned against God to be suffering as He is. This isn’t illogical, but it doesn’t mean it’s right. God rebukes them sharply at the end of the book, and accepts the prayers of Job on their behalf, for speaking wrongly concerning God. This is the same kind of assumption that the disciples approach Jesus with in today’s passage. While they open the possibility of the blindness being the result of the man’s parents, and a generational issue, they assume that his infirmity is due to sin. Again, it isn’t that sin couldn’t be a factor, just that it’s not the only explanation. Jesus tells the crippled man He heals in John 5, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.” This suggests that there was a sin element to the man’s condition, while also pointing us to the fact that we’re better off being physically crippled than to be found in sin against God. But in the case of the blind man in John 9, sin has nothing to do with his condition. This man is as he is, so that the work and glory of God may be displayed through him. Now from the narrow, humanistic view of an atheist debater who is just trying to prove a point, this is cruelty. To them, them this is an example of immorality on God’s part, and dismantles the entire case for Christianity. The problem (one of the problems) with this, is that it humanizes God, and God in His perfection and righteous glory is not human. Isaiah 55:8–9 says,

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

We can’t set a standard for God when God is the standard. A few other passages to consider in understanding this matter are Romans 9:20–21, which is reminiscent of the ending of Job, and says,

“But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, ‘Why have you made me like this?’ Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?”

Romans 8:18, which grants us proper perspective on our suffering in this life,

“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 8:28 and 1 Peter 4:12-13, which both remind us that our sufferings are not in vain, but in God’s hands, are used for our good and His glory,

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”

“Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.”

And finally, 2 Peter 3:8–9, which draws our attention back to the fact that what the world has earned is judgement, and it is God’s patience and mercy that prolongs our lives, that we may have an opportunity to be drawn to Him and repent,

“But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”

Bearing these passages in mind, we can see that there is a clear difference in suffering as a result of our own wickedness, and suffering to the glory of God. While I don’t encourage anyone to make themselves a glutton for misery, or to withhold compassion from their brother who is suffering, we are given hope in Christ, that when we do suffer, it is not automatically a result of God’s wrath, but in the case of the believer, a trial through which God may be glorified. This is important for us to understand as it relates to the passage, and for us to grasp in our lives today.

“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 spit 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.”

This may seem obvious to most readers, but this section made me stop and ask, what does Jesus mean by “night is coming” and what does He mean by being “in the world”? The most common commentary or interpretation of this section is that Jesus speaks of the coming “night” of His crucifixion, and that His being in the world is just that, His literal, physical presence, and earthly ministry. I may be wrong, but I don’t know that I agree. “We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work.” Ecclesiastes 3:1–8 shows that there’s a time for all things,

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to tear, and a time to sew, a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.”

Bearing in mind that the driving message of Jesus’s ministry was the direction to “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” it all makes sense that while God will be glorified for eternity, there is a time to do the work of God that Jesus was sent to carry out, and that there will come a day when this ends. So, what work do we see Jesus do? We see miracles: water into wine, the crippled raised to walk, a single meal multiplied to feed thousands, and in today’s passage, a man born blind given sight. We see mercy given to broken people, and accountability given to sinners, and we see a true and undiluted teaching of the Word of God, to people who were desperate for the truth. But as He has clearly stated, Jesus does none of this for His own glory, but to fulfill the will of the Father. There will be a time when night comes for this universe. When the world ends, and we enter into final judgement, the children of God into eternal life with the Father, and the unsaved into the burning darkness of eternal separation – but we’re not there yet. Jesus says that He is the light of the world, that the day prevails so long as He is in the world. But this poses a question – is Jesus any less in the world now, than He was at the time when He spoke these words? Yes, after the ascension, Jesus is no longer bodily in the world, but is in heaven at the right hand of the Father. But Jesus tells His disciples in John 16:7–11,

“Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.”

Father, Son, and Spirit are all distinct, with their own attributes, and yet they are all one. If the Spirit is in the world, then the Son is in the world. If Jesus, who is the light of the world, has indwelled us through the Spirit, so that we shine with His light, can we in good conscience say that the night Jesus spoke of has come? Did the miracles stop after His ascension? Of course not. The book of Acts shows us the work of the Father continuing in the Spirit, as the lame are healed, the sick are made well, and the dead a restored to life. While this doesn’t seem to happen today quite like it did during the apostolic era, the gospel also now stands on validation beyond the display of miracle works. In John 9, Jesus spits in the dirt, makes mud and anoints the blind man’s eyes, restoring his sight, and this is truly a miracle. But is it any more of a miracle than if today, the Spirit opens the eyes of someone born blind in their sin, to see the redemptive truth of Christ? There are differences between the bodily ministry of Jesus, and the work of the Spirit now, but we draw that line too strongly at our own peril. The light of the world is still shining, night has not yet come, and the work of the Father is still to be carried out in the world today.

2.      The Spirit Transforms

“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.’”

                A common theme that we see repeated through the gospels is the idea of healing through faith. From the woman with the discharge of blood who knew it was enough to just touch the fringe of His garment, to the centurion with the dying servant who claimed he was unworthy to have Jesus under His roof and knew if He just said the word, the healing would take place. It’s the faith that we see as a core component to receiving the blessing from the Lord. While we see other instances of Jesus healing the blind, in the case of the man in John 9 who is blind from birth, there’s an extra step. Jesus anoints the man’s eyes, and then gives him instructions: “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam.” This man was blind from birth. Those of the community knew him as a beggar, and while we don’t know the degree of his independence or mobility, it’s fair to assume that he had limitations. But we don’t see him protest, or argue against Jesus’s instruction, we see obedience, and in that obedience, transformation. This man shows us a representation of what salvation looks like, in that it is faith that saves us, and the acting out of this faith that shows it to others and gives credence to its validity. In the aftermath of receiving his sight, the man is so different that he’s unrecognizable to many of those in his community. This again, mirrors the transformation of salvation, as it says in 2 Corinthians 5:17

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”

Before he speaks up and clarifies (repeatedly) that he is in fact the same person that they’re accustomed to seeing out begging, there’s legitimate confusion over his identity. When asked how he gained sight, he tells the story just as John recorded it, crediting Jesus with the miracle. The next question is logical, asking where Jesus is now, but given that the man never actually saw Him, he doesn’t know.

“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.’”

3.      The Spirit Divides

My first thought in reading that the people took the formerly blind man to the Pharisees was, “wow, with friends like that, who needs enemies?” It’s not entirely clear what their motives were, but whether it was to report the miracle that had been worked, or to report possible fraud in the matter, it’s fair to say that they did him no favors in bringing him before the religious rulers. Learning here that it was again the Sabbath when Jesus performed this miracle adds another layer of significance to Him making mud to anoint the man’s eyes. This first thing I’ve always taken away from this is that Jesus could take spit and dirt, form mud, and from something that we would think of as dirty and unsanitary, deliver miraculous healing, but there’s more to it than that. The thing this makes me keep thinking of is K9 training. I’ve spent enough hours with a leash in my hand to have something of an opinion when it comes to shaping behavior in dogs. When you’re trying to correct them, sometimes all it takes is a moderate tug on the leash, and they get the picture that what they’re trying to do is not what you want them to do. But some dogs are stubborn. Sometimes they want to go the direction they’re going in, and don’t care how many times you tug on the leash, they’re not yielding. The Pharisees are the stubborn dog. They’re the child, told “no” a dozen times, who keeps reaching for the cookie jar and getting their hand slapped. But you don’t give up on training a dog just because they’re strong willed, and you don’t let a child eat themselves sick on sweets just because they want them. The behavior has to be corrected in some manner, for the good of all involved. The Pharisees have taken the Sabbath, the day of rest set aside by God for His people, and they have killed it in spirit. Jesus, continually and firmly corrects them in their wrongness, standing for the true nature and reason behind the Sabbath. In healing the blind man in John 9, He defies the directions of the religious authority, but the mud provides an extra slap in their faces. One of the activities forbidden in their additions to God’s law was the kneading of bread. Jesus, knowing this, doesn’t just find mud, but makes it by kneading the dirt with His spit. This has the desired effect of revealing the blind and hypocritical from those who are starting to see the Truth. When the man recounts how Jesus healed him for the Pharisees, there is immediate division among them. The spirit and intent of what Jesus has done is clearly in line with the will of God. Leviticus 19:14 says,

“You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God: I am the LORD.”

And Deuteronomy 27:18 says,

“‘Cursed be anyone who misleads a blind man on the road.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’”

There is clear provision in the Law to have mercy and compassion on the blind, and Jesus has done more than this in giving this man his sight. Yet some of the Pharisees immediately respond that Jesus must not be from God since He’s not keeping the Sabbath. Again, He is keeping the Sabbath, it’s their distorted and self-invented version of Sabbath Law that He’s violating. However others of the Pharisees take a far more reasonable, practical approach. “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” This is similar to Nicodemus in John 7:51, where he makes a case for Jesus by simply referring the plotting Pharisees back to the Law,

“Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?”

In both instances this causes division between those who seek to persecute Jesus on worldly principles, and those who are looking to His legitimacy under the Law. After some disputing, the group turns their attention back to the formerly blind man, and asks his take on the matter, given that he is the one who was healed. If we look back to John 5, at the crippled man that Jesus healed, we see a certain kind of character displayed. While a case could be made for this man’s moral standing, he comes off looking questionable at the very least. The moment he’s presented with opposition from the religious authorities, he passes the blame off on Jesus. John 5:10–12 says,

“So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, ‘It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.’ But he answered them, ‘The man who healed me, that man said to me, “Take up your bed, and walk.”’ They asked him, ‘Who is the man who said to you, “Take up your bed and walk”?’”

Reading on, we see that because of the crowd, the man doesn’t know who Jesus was, but that once he learns of His identity, he reports back to the Jews to pass along the information. There’s no accountability, no sense of ownership, or loyalty to Jesus as the man who healed him from thirty-eight years of being crippled, but a clear desire to avoid blame. The previously blind man in John 9 however, has a different response altogether. You could read his answer, that Jesus is a prophet as underwhelming. We’ve discussed before that while calling Jesus “rabbi,” or even “the Prophet,” aren’t wrong, they’re also not complete. Jesus is the Teacher, the Prophet, and the Christ. He is the Son of Man, the Son of God, the King of kings, Lord of lords, and the Prince of Peace. In many cases, simply calling Him a prophet is such a massive understatement that it verges on insulting. But the spirit and intent also matter. There are those like Nicodemus who calls Him “Rabbi” in John 3, seeking to show respect, but not really grasping who he was addressing. Then you have Judas, who pointedly calls Jesus “Rabbi” while the others call Him “Lord” showing a contrast, and his lack of faith. In the case of the man in John 9, his claiming Jesus to be a prophet seems to be a sign of loyalty. We have to remember that while he met Jesus, and was healed by him, he didn’t see him. His exposure to the Christ was, from what we’re told, limited. He stands before a group of religious leaders, contesting the legitimacy of Jesus. Is He, or is He not from God? The formerly blind man doesn’t have all of the information, but in answer to this question he makes a public declaration – Jesus is doing the work of the Father, He is a prophet, He is of God. If we read ahead, we see that when the man is given more information and brought face to face with Jesus, he worships Him. We don’t have to know everything, every detail of the Bible cover to cover, and every religious particular of the Christian Church, to begin a right relationship with Christ. We should develop over time. We should learn and grow in our walk with God, and bear fruits of the Spirit, in keeping with repentance. But it doesn’t have to start with all of that. It can start with a very simple, yes or no question. Do you believe that Jesus is who He says He is? Beyond that, are you trying to bring God down to the level of humanity, because you don’t want to believe the Truth of His Word, and draw comfort from worldly understanding? Are you at peace when things are hidden and obscured under the cover of night, or are you seeking the Truth that is exposed by the Light of the World? These answers can grow exceedingly complex, but they don’t have to, and certainly not at first. Sometimes it’s as easy as honestly asking yourself, “who do you say Jesus is?” and realizing which side of the line you fall on. 

Pastor Chris’s sermon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kFkXUQ9-qA