John 9:24-34

24 A second time they summoned the man who had been blind. "Give glory to God and tell the truth," they said. "We know this man is a sinner."

25 He replied, "Whether he is a sinner or not, I don't know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!"

26 Then they asked him, "What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?"

27 He answered, "I have told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples too?"

28 Then they hurled insults at him and said, "You are this fellow's disciple! We are disciples of Moses! 29 We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don't even know where he comes from."

30 The man answered, "Now that is remarkable! You don't know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. 31 We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly person who does his will. 32 Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing."

34 To this they replied, "You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!" And they threw him out.



Dig Deeper

I had a major crush on this girl but I wasn’t sure if she even knew I was alive. I was thirteen years old and I had no clue about God’s desire for relationships, dating, marriage, and things like that, so I had pretty much the same view of those things that everyone else in the world around me did (I’m eternally blessed that my own thirteen year-old son has a much better handle on those things than I ever did). At the time, though, I really liked this girl and wanted to be her boyfriend. I tried to talk to her and be around her every chance that I got. There was a short time when I thought all of this was working and that she was understanding that we were destined to be boyfriend and girlfriend. This was bigger than both of us and nothing could stop it. Except for one small problem. It turns out, she didn’t like me "in that way." She suddenly showed up at a school holiday party with her fifteen year-old boyfriend. She had rejected me and my way of thinking and I was devastated. Yet, I handled it with a great deal of grace and maturity. I hope you don’t believe that because what I actually did was to immediately sink to the level of anger and discrediting her. "I never liked her anyway," I declared. She was stupid and ugly and so was this guy she was dating (even though it was pretty clear to anyone at the time that none of that was true).

In short, I had done what so many people do. When I couldn’t get my way I was reduced to name-calling and trashing the character of the person who had rejected me. This is exactly what the Pharisees encounter with this man who had been born blind. They saw themselves as the leading minds and spiritual leaders of their day. People were supposed to listen to them and change their actions and opinions based on what the Pharisees thought. But here comes this man who was born blind, an obvious sign of God’s punishment on him in their opinion. He would not, however, bow to their intimidation or their opinion. This was not acceptable to them but it reduced them to the level of name-calling and trying to discredit him personally. When the new creation breaks in and you won’t accept it, you’re not really left with much else than to attack the character of the person who has embraced it themselves.

The Pharisees have tried to intimidate the man and to question his parents, but it surely became clear to them the questioning of his parents was not going to go anywhere or give them any new information. In that sense, their fear-mongering worked so well with the parents that it actually worked against the Pharisees. If the parents did know anything, which it appears that they did not, then they certainly weren’t going to say anything because they just did not want to get involved. With that, they turn back to the man who had been blind. Perhaps a second round of questioning will cause him to get tripped up, offer up information that he had withheld, or maybe the fear factor will finally kick in and cause this unschooled sinner to back down.

The first time they questioned the man, the Pharisees were trying to demonstrate that this man hadn’t really been healed, but they now seem to drop that line of argument. When someone has been truly touched by the new creation, there is little denying it. They now attack him on his understanding of the miracle. This man was little better than a pagan because he was attributing this healing to Jesus. Their argument was that something this incredible could only be the work of God, so this man should give glory to God and tell the truth, and to stop giving undue credit to Jesus. Jesus had broken the Sabbath traditions and was thus a sinner in their eyes. If this man wasn’t so ignorant he would know all of this. Verse 24, of course, is dripping with irony, because in giving credit and glory to Jesus, this man is beginning to realize with each question, seemingly, that he is giving glory to God. In fact, the more he sticks to his story and the truth and gives Jesus credit, the more he is granting glory, not just to where it is due, but to God in the flesh. As for Jesus breaking the Sabbath; it’s the same thing really. Jesus’ action didn’t show that he was a sinner but that their view of the Sabbath was wrong. The more he stuck to doing God’s will, the more he was going to bring about God’s new creation, especially on the day that was to be holy to the Lord.

The formerly blind man doesn’t make any attempt to counter their charge that Jesus is a sinner. There is simply no level of intimidation or finely-crafted theological theory that can shake the convictions of someone who has has entered into the new creation. He may not be able to answer whether or not Jesus is a sinner in the face of all of their theology, rules, and tradition, but there is one thing that he does know. He has experienced it. He was blind but now he can see. When we have truly experienced Jesus, there is nothing that will shake our faith. This man was touched by the perfect love of the Word that became flesh and it was indeed driving out any sense of fear that he might have had (1 John 4:18).

Again the Pharisees want to hear the story of the healing but it was only to get a contradiction or some further information with which they could hold against Jesus. They were not genuinely seeking the light, they were trying to extend their darkness. This man continues to show a surprising amount of pluck and firmness for a man who presumably spent his life as an outcast and a beggar. He, again, will not directly answer their questions, and why should he, they don’t want genuine answers. Yet, he asks them anyway if they want to become disciples of Jesus, although the question is worded in the Greek in such a way that it expects a negative answer. He doesn’t appear to be mocking them, but is perhaps giving them an opportunity to come to the level of enlightenment that he is quickly achieving. His question also indicates that he is now numbering himself among Jesus’ disciples. He has seen the light of the world and realized that believing in him is the only way to life.

This was too much and the Pharisees are reduced to what seems to be the most common response when darkness is confronted by the light. They try to discredit and hurl insults at the light. He is following an unknown quantity and only fools do that, but they follow what they know and value. They are disciples of Moses. That really brings into focus the major question in this confrontation. For whom does Jesus speak? It was well known that God spoke to Moses when he revealed the law to him, but what about Jesus? They don’t believe his word, his logos. Despite the fact that Jesus has been offering up all along that he speaks not for himself but for God, they have already rejected that as a possibility. Moses spoke for God but they have already decided that Jesus does not. Why would anyone view him as a Messiah. In fact, they don’t even know where he comes from (there is another irony here in that in 7:27, some argued that Jesus couldn’t be the Messiah because no one would know from where the Messiah came). In Jewish legal proceedings, it was necessary to check the background of a person being charged with lawbreaking. The Pharisees, by their own admission, had failed to really do this. They have no clue where he is truly from and for whom he really speaks, but this formerly blind man does.

To further confound the Pharisees, this man who had been blind, and likely a beggar, his whole life, proceeds in verses 30-33 to unfold a logic and understanding that belies his background. These great religious leaders can’t figure out where Jesus comes from and who is the blind one here? If they would just open their eyes they would see his works and recognize that Jesus was doing things that only God could and would do. He makes two assertions that are both solidly biblically based. The first is that God does not listen to (or assist) sinners (Ps. 66:18; Prov. 15:29; Isa. 1:15). The second is that God does listen to those who do His will (Ps. 34:15; 145:19; Prov. 15:29). Jesus could not do things like this unless he were from God (cf. 3:2). Nobody, he says, has ever heard of such a thing. There was, in his mind, simply no other explanation. A miracle had been done. There was no debating that. In the Jewish mind the only two possible sources for wonders and signs was either God or Satanic. Yet, making the blind see was just not something Satan would do, so what was the choice that they were left with? In their blind anger and disdain, they failed to recognize that healing the blind would be one of the signs of the onset of the Messianic age.

The Pharisees seem to be completely dumbfounded by the man’s solid logic and reasoning and are left with nothing but name-calling and personal attacks. His blindness from birth was, in their eyes, evidence that he was cursed by God. He had no standing with them. How dare he try to teach them. Perhaps they failed to see that, in their rage, they confirmed that he had been blind from birth and that a miracle had taken place, the very things they were hoping to disprove. Their anger flared to the point that they followed through on their threats and kicked him out of the synagogue (cf. v. 22). John clearly wants his readers to see that the blind man is the only one in this scene who is seeing things clearly at all.



Devotional Thought

Have you ever been in a situation where people try to discount your beliefs or ridicule you for being a Christian? Don’t get caught up in their attacks or arguments. Stay with what you know and what you have experienced. As the grand old hymn, "Amazing Grace" says, you "once were blind, but now [you] see." It might be difficult or costly (the man here was expelled from the synagogue) but sticking to the truth of what you know is the only way to truly give God the glory of what He has done in your life.