The man born blind

John 9:1-41 – The man born blind

The context of the event is immediately after Jesus has claimed to be God in John 8:58-59, saying, “Before
Abraham was, I am”, and has narrowly escaped being stoned by the Jews in the temple courts.

v.1 “He saw a man blind from birth”: He has slipped out of the temple grounds and is walking through Jerusalem when he sees a man blind from birth. It was the Sabbath and from His previous encounters with the authorities
Jesus knew full well that they would not approve of Him helping this man on the
Sabbath … but He was going to help him anyway. It is remarkable that Jesus
saw the opportunity as he was passing by and made the most of the opportunity.
We tend to make more of an art-form of avoiding opportunities to minister to
people, whereas Jesus made an art-form of grabbing His opportunities.

We must already begin to bear in
mind that this miracle is also a sign of something, and many older commentaries
focus on this man as a symbol of the Gentiles who were in spiritual darkness.
So when the Jews had just rejected Jesus in the Temple courts, Jesus now went
to the Gentiles.

v.2 “Who sinned”: Whereas Jesus looked on the man with pity, they
looked on him with judgment. How typical it is of us as humans that we will
always look for a reason to look down on those who are suffering and try to
find a way to make it somehow their own fault. The disciples should have known
… as we should also know … for it was settled in the book of Job … that
suffering in this world is not necessarily a direct consequence of that
person’s sin!

v.3 “Neither”: Jesus is very quick to correct the disciples’ error
and to point out the truth of the matter. This was not an opportunity to judge
the man … this was an opportunity to see God glorified. If only all of us
would see the hardships in our lives and opportunities to glorify God, we would
live far more victorious lives. This particular man was born blind for exactly
this moment when Jesus was going to heal Him. Others suffer from equal
afflictions and are not miraculously healed … but as they respond to the
presence of God in their lives they win victory over their afflictions and this
glorifies God as well.

v.4-5 “As long as it is day we must work”: The day-time is life and
the night-time is death. Jesus is saying that as long as He is alive He must do
the work that the Father sent Him to do. He must not let any Pharisaic rule
stop Him from being obedient to the Father’s call and command. He must work for the Father because His time in
the world is short. We would be wise to consider this attitude of Jesus and to
be motivated to make the most of every opportunity because the days are evil.
There is a huge spirit of laziness among Christians and an attitude that seems
to say that tomorrow is another day for me to tell my friends or loved one
about Jesus. Jesus had the responsibility to be the light of the world – to bring a pure revelation of the nature and
character of God to a lost and blind
human race.

This miracle is not only a sign
of Jesus’ gospel for the gentiles … it is a sign of the entire ministry of
Jesus as the light of the world. He came
to bring a revelation. So this blind man is symbolic of all of humanity who
were living in darkness without an understanding of God and of Jesus coming to
take away our blindness and reveal God to us.

Notice also that Jesus
immediately heals the man. He doesn’t wait for a safer time or for a more
prominent time when more people should see His power revealed. He does it NOW!
(Eccl. 11:4)

v.6 “He spat on the ground and made some mud”: We don’t know why he
chose to heal in this way. He could have healed with a word. Perhaps He wanted
to show that He is not tied to one particular method. Perhaps He saw that in
the man’s heart and mind he would need to be a part of his own cure and so did
it this way. Who knows? We don’t need to know. What we can learn from this is
that Christ used what He had at hand to minister the healing. We must also be
open to using whatever is at hand as tools of ministry. Every situation has the
potential to be used for ministry in some way or another, and we should take
hold of the potential! Every situation needs a slightly different approach and
we should adapt to the context we’re in so as to minister as effectively as
possible.

i) Using mud was foolishness: if there’s one thing no-one would
like smeared in or on their eyes it would be mud. When that mud dried it would
fairly glue the man’s eyes closed. Jesus used something that seemed foolishness
… almost as foolish as the cross. And He followed a similar process with Saul
who became Paul … He made him blind first and then opened his eyes to the
gospel. (Acts 9:18)

ii) Using mud was a “re-creation”: It is interesting that Jesus
makes use of the same material (dust) with which He had originally created man
to minister the restoration of this man. Jesus was demonstrating the
re-creation of the man’s eyes by God Himself.

iii) Using eye-ointment made by Christ was prophetic: It symbolised
the way Jesus opens blind eyes by His grace. Revelation 3:8 speaks of the
ointment Jesus wants to put on our eyes so that our spiritual blindness can be
removed. That ointment is not made of spit and dust … it is made of the
broken body of Jesus (the dust) and the water of the Spirit (the spit).

v.7 “Go, wash in the Pool of Siloam”: This seems such an
unnecessary bother, to go and wash in a Pool. It’s a bit like Namaan’s healing
(2 Kings 5:10). But here Jesus is both giving the man the opportunity to
actively participate in his own healing, and also to demonstrate, through his
obedience, his desire to get well. The man would have known that the religious
people would frown on him washing his eyes on the Sabbath – it was forbidden to
even clean your eyes with spit on the Sabbath … let alone to go and wash in
the Pool. The man’s hunger for healing and his obedience were being put to the
test here. It is a lot like Jesus telling us to believe and be baptised. This
man, representing a sinner lost in darkness is first touched by Jesus and then
has to respond to that touch by going to wash his body. The power has already
touched him but the full effects are released by his washing. Jesus saves us
and then instructs us to grow up in our faith and work out our salvation with
fear and trembling. Salvation is always a co-operation between Jesus and us.
The early church called baptism “pho tismos” which means “illumination”.
Baptism completed salvation in the same way as this man’s washing completed his
healing.

The word Siloam meant “Sent” –
the “Sent Pool”. The reason for the original name is because the water was sent
a long distance to the pool. It ran from Gihom in the north-east. John is
making an allusion to Jesus being “Him who was sent”. In John, Jesus refer to
“Him who sent me” 26 times. So he sees Himself very much as the “Sent One”. So
this whole story is just becoming more and more a story of salvation through
faith and baptism. For the Pool of Sent is then the Pool of the Sent One …
Jesus … Just as the waters of baptism represent Jesus … and we are baptised
“into Christ” (Romans 6:3).

 

v.8-9: The transformation: The man’s neighbours and those who had
formerly seen him begging now see him coming home able to see. So a big hubbub
goes up … Isn’t this the same man who used to sit and beg?” The man has been
so changed that they are not sure if their eyes are maybe deceiving them. But
he is ready to tell them … no it is me! The symbol of this moment is that
salvation through faith in Jesus will always be noticeable. These people could SEE that this blind man was blind no
longer! All who meet Christ must come away transformed. Those who go to Christ
doubting must come away with faith. Those who go in despair come away with
hope. Those who come in anxiety come away in peace.

v.9-11 “I am the man”: Awesome!! The man who was blind and now
could see was testifying boldly to
his transformation. Faith – salvation – transformation – testimony! It is an
absolutely natural progression. VERY< VERY sadly, many today want a private
salvation … with no transformation and no testimony. But remember Romans 10:9-10. Confession of Christ
before people is part of the work of salvation. If we are ashamed of Him he
will be ashamed of us (Luke 9:26).

This testimony involves
admitting:

1. What I was: I was blind; e.g. 1 Timothy 1:13
2. What Jesus did for me: He … sent me to the
   Pool; e.g. 1 Tim. 1:14
3. What the result was: Now I see! E.g. 1 Tim. 1:12

You need to be ready to share
your testimony with anyone and everyone who is open to hearing it!

v.12-13 “They brought him to the Pharisees”:  Why they took him there, who can tell.
Hopefully it was because of their excitement to advertise a great miracle. The
neighbours had not raised the issue of the Sabbath, so it is unlikely that they
were there to tattle on the Jesus. For today, we’ll ignore the matter of the
Sabbath because we dealt with that last week. However we must consider the
other messages John wants us to grasp from this miracle. I am just going to
highlight them and not deal with all the remaining verses.

A. Is He from God?

• Some Pharisees said, “No”, because Jesus did not
  keep their Sabbath rules and was therefore a sinner.
• Other Pharisees said, “Yes”, because of the
  signs He did. A sinner could not do such miraculous signs.
• The healed man said, “Yes” because I was blind
  but now I can see! Again this shows us the importance of a personal encounter
  with God. The Pharisees continued to be sceptical of the reality of the man’s
  healing. And to be fair they were quite normal. We are great sceptics too.
  However, even when the parents of the man testified, they refused to believe
  because Jesus was outside of their religious box. However, the man who had been
  healed had no doubts … because he’d had a personal encounter with Jesus. All
  of us need to rely on our own encounter with Jesus and not be 2^nd-hand
  Christians who depend on others’ testimonies.

B. Should we follow Him?

The healed man actually raises
this issue … but it is one that John wants to highlight. The Pharisees have
all the evidence before them and yet they still cross-examine the man. They try
everything they can to get out of the corner of all the evidence which is
confronting that Jesus is from God. So the healed man asks them: “You’re asking
so many questions. Does this mean you also want to be His disciple.

They immediately go into the
“best form of defence is attack” mode. “Our
leader is Moses.” they declare, “We
know he was from God, but this chap – we don’t know where he comes from.”

Then the man almost mocks them.
“That’s remarkable,” he says, “he opened my eyes and yet you don’t know where
he’s from?” The he starts teaching them that Jesus has done an unheard-of
miracle which no-one but God could do. Jesus must be from God!

Then the Pharisees make their
decision. Instead of going over to the side of the healed man, they
excommunicate him. They can’t defeat his argument so they kick him out. They
can’t live with the truth so they kick the truth out!

v.35-41 JUDGMENT

Remember John 1:12; 3:17-19.
These are the principles being revealed here. Those who know they are blind and
seek the light will find it and find life. Those who believe they are not blind
and know everything and cannot be taught a thing will not seek the light, will
not find it and will die. We will be judged according to the light we have
received. Thomas a’Kempis said: “The more you know and the better you
understand, the more strictly you shall be judged, unless your life is also
more holy.