John 9 - Preacher's Commentary

New Eyes for Old

John 9:1–38

9:1-7

The Healing

Here is one solitary human being who has never seen the face of his parents or his friends nor known the beauty of a sunrise or a lily. “Blind from birth” says the record, as each of us is born spiritually blind. And Jesus sees him, as He “passed by.” And He stops! For Him, no one is ever lost in the crowd. He knows each of us, where we are, and what our need is. This is our hope.

The disciples cannot help raising the inevitable theological question, Whose sin has caused this man’s blindness? They are the children of orthodox Jewish thought which assumed that any physical illness or calamity was caused by someone’s wrongdoing. But in calling Him “Rabbi” they seem open to deeper truth.

Do we not all seek for the hidden cause that brings on tragedy—cancer, a car accident, or the mongoloid child? Who is responsible? We feel we must identify the culprit.

I recall an earnest, hardworking deacon in the first congregation I served having a nervous breakdown when his life savings were washed away in a few terrifying moments when the Marais de Cynes River flooded unexpectedly. The water came in like a deadly, silent wall. Wesley had been down the street helping a friend move the furniture in his store to a safer place, and there was no way he could get back in time to save all the precious watches, rings, china, and silver in his own well-stocked jewelry store. Some days later, after the water had subsided, fellow businessmen saw him trying desperately to find some of those costly items in the mud with no success. He had been wiped out. As his pastor I could not convince this dear, conscientious man that God had not punished him for some hidden, unknown sin he had committed in bygone years. I do not believe he ever really recovered.

But we humans persist in wanting to know who to blame. We discuss the matter endlessly, sometimes earnestly, but often foolishly. However, Jesus brushes this question aside. He does not focus on the past, nor is He interested in answering theological speculation, for He sets the needs of this man in the context of what God can do. He knows that the work of God will be done in this situation even though men call it impossible.

And this must be done while it is still day. Night is coming. The powers of darkness are closing in, for Jesus’ death is not far off. Then it will be too late for any earthly act of compassion. But is this not the lot of all of us? The opportunities we have this day to do God’s work will pass.

Jesus will do His work here as the “light of the world.” He is the only One who can penetrate the darkness of this man’s life. His blindness represents dramatically the ignorance and slavery of every man. Jesus now moves decisively in a surprising, almost strange, way to drive out the darkness. An intimate part of Himself is given as He mingles His own saliva with some soil, that lowly, earthy stuff out of which we have all come. It is almost as if He reenacts that first trembling moment of creation when the Lord breathed His life into the man He had formed from the soil. When Jesus anoints the man’s eyes with the clay, we are made aware again how the intimacy of caring touch is at the heart of all healing—physical, spiritual, and psychological.

He then commands this man to go to the Pool of Siloam, which means “he who has been sent,” and wash. Jesus’ own mission is identified with the meaning of this pool from which water came for the libations at the Feast of the Tabernacles. Here there is life, “for the water of Siloam disappeared in the living water of Christ.”¹ How simply the writer notes the obedience of this needy man. He “went and washed, and came back seeing” (v. 7). The ways of Jesus in healing are rich and varied. But He always calls for obedience, the active response of faith.

Can any of us imagine the wonder of those first incredible moments of sight for this man? I will never forget the spontaneous comment of Jerold Hayes at a recent Sunday evening communion service. We had invited people to come to the table to serve one another the bread and the cup as fellow priests in God’s family. When I returned to my seat next to Jerold he leaned over and whispered enthusiastically, “Boy, I understand things about this now I didn’t even know when I first came here.”

That had been two years before when he came to us out of the work release program for ex-prisoners. He had done twenty-two years in half a dozen state penitentiaries, most of his trouble caused by mixing booze with his destructive hatred. Then Jerold showed up in church and made an unexpected commitment to Christ, insisting that he be baptized. But it was a short, emotional trip, for in a few weeks he dropped out of sight back into his old ways. A year and a half later he showed up again, repentant and scared, but much more honest. I will never forget that gray, gaunt look about him as he moved forward from the back of the church to make a public declaration of a new beginning. It was obvious he had “been to hell and back again” since we had last seen him.

Now it was as if Jesus had again formed clay by mingling the saliva of His own Word with the earthiness of our congregation’s shared experiences to anoint the darkened eyes of Jerold’s heart. As he washed in the cleansing pool of Christ’s forgiveness, Jerold was given new eyes, a divine illumination. And he has been a blessing and a challenge to all of us ever since.

9:8-12

The Witness

Now the neighbors, who have watched this man come and go, struggling to eke out an existence, are confused. Can this new vibrant, seeing man be the one who used to sit and beg? The contrast is so great. But the healed man makes his identity clear. He alone knows who he is and what has happened to him. So he answers their wondering questions with an unequivocal “I am he.” Unknowingly he has already begun to bear the name of his Healer, “I AM.” But when the neighbors ask how it happened, he tells them what he knows. It was a gift. He heard Jesus’ command, obeyed, and now he sees. There is an uncluttered honesty and a directness about this man that is appealing.

9:13-17

He is a Prophet

When the man who was healed admits he does not know the whereabouts of this man Jesus, apparently his neighbors are convinced there needs to be some kind of “investigation,” a verification by the “religious experts.” How ironic that they would bring him to the Pharisees, who, in their spiritual blindness have rejected Jesus at every turn. That little innocent-appearing phrase, “it was a Sabbath,” referring to the time of the healing, is loaded with legalistic dynamite for these Pharisees. For both kneading, the making of clay from saliva and dirt, as well as healing, the opening of the man’s eyes, were absolutely forbidden on the Sabbath.

But it is almost as if Jesus had again deliberately healed on the Sabbath to declare His sovereign reign over every day and occasion in this age of grace. He is Lord of the Sabbath. And when the man is questioned about how he received his sight, he states the simple facts again with refreshing candor, “He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.” He doesn’t change his story for the officials.

Immediately some of the Pharisees dismiss this Healer as a lawbreaker. How can He possibly be from God when He heals on the Sabbath? But others see the happening with different eyes. How can a sinner open any man’s eyes? Here is the watershed that divides those who are locked into legalistic prejudices, stubbornly protecting “sacred cows” regardless of the facts, from those who are struggling to be open to what God might do in some unexpected way or place. The life of grace is carrying them beyond the rigidities of the law.

How often the church has been torn asunder by prejudice and dogmatic assumptions and hardness of heart. If we haven’t been angered about the charismatics, it may have been the Roman Catholics or those who are committed to a nuclear freeze in the arms race or to the Scofield Reference Bible or to putting the new organ on the east side of the church. The list goes on and on.

I recall a leader in our church becoming violently upset when beautiful banners were hung around the balcony on Pentecost Sunday to celebrate the creative gifts of the Holy Spirit. He felt the building was being violated. And in one church where I was to report on a friendship mission in which I had been involved among our courageous Baptist brethren in the Soviet Union, I overheard an usher blurt out, “The only good Russian is a dead one.” So we often refuse to deal with the facts. We would rather live by our false assumptions and prejudices even though in the end we miss seeing and live on in blindness.

In verse 17, it is out of their own division that these Pharisees now turn to the healed man and ask, “What do you say about Him?” How interesting that the learned interpreters of the law should turn to an unlettered ex-beggar seeking for an answer to their differences. Again he makes a terse, direct response. “He is a prophet.” On the basis of what he knows, this is the loftiest title he can give his Healer. But these Jews cannot deal with the truth this man speaks. They have now convinced themselves that he was never blind, that there really has been no healing. Attempting to substitute lies for the truth always becomes a complicated, drawn out maneuver.

Questioning His Parents

9:18-23 These Pharisees take another tack and call in his parents. Perhaps here they can discover evidence that will discredit the story of their stubborn son. But these parents can only answer what they know. Yes, this is their son, and he was blind and now he sees. But they do not know how this happened. Their son is of age. He can speak for himself.

How unlike their honest, independent son these parents are. There is a tentativeness, a hesitating kind of fear, in all they say. After all, they are facing hostile interrogators who have already decided that if anyone comes near admitting that this healing may have been done by the Messiah, he will be “put out of the synagogue,” which would be a humiliating ostracism. They would then be outcasts among the non-believing Gentiles, cut off from the house of Israel.

9:24-34

This Man Must Be from God

Now there is a final confrontation. The Pharisees are into this case too deeply to leave it hanging. So the healed man is called in again and put under oath, “Give God the glory!”, a solemn charge to tell the whole truth. And a united attack is pressed against the One he claims has healed him. “We know that this Man is a sinner” (v. 24). This has become their common judgment. But this simple, lonely man will not be intimidated. He speaks the truth as he has experienced it. And since his kind Healer has thus far not revealed His identity to him, he does not know whether or not He is a sinner. One detects in his answer a stubborn refusal to capitulate to the charge of the Pharisees. But one thing he does know, and this he clings to tenaciously, “I was blind, now I see” (v. 25). No council of Pharisees, however powerful, can change that.

This man’s witness has become more convincing, more appealing, each time he has been challenged or questioned. He boldly shares what he knows, no more and no less, under all conditions, regardless of who his audience is. His clear, lean honesty is a model for all of us who attempt to say that Jesus has opened our eyes.

But when they ask again how it happened, he seems irritated, weary of it all. “You did not listen,” he says. Do they want to hear him rehearse again what took place because they also want to become His disciples? His use of “also” in verse 27 is significant. This healed man has begun to follow Jesus in spite of how little he knows.

It is as if there has been a reversal of roles. The healed man is not on trial; the Pharisees are. His newly found freedom judges their darkness. And the defense of the Pharisees is pathetic. They attempt to fall back on what they assume is their superior spiritual position. After all, they are the students of the law and Moses is their teacher. They are certain this man has been led astray by the One he claims as his Healer. The man has foolishly become His disciple, no longer under their control. All they can do now is damn him, literally calling him a bastard.

What a temptation it is for those of us who call ourselves “Christian leaders” to fall back on our credentials—a seminary degree or an ordination certificate, our many years of Bible study or the number of church offices we have held—when we are confronted and even embarrassed by the spontaneous, often naive, witness of a newly born disciple of Jesus.

This unlettered man who now sees, not only physically, but with an inner spiritual illumination, is amazed that these learned doctors do not know from whence “this fellow,” as they call Him, has come. But He must be from God, who surely would not listen to his Healer’s prayers if He were a sinner. At least He must worship God and do His will. Otherwise how could He open his eyes which have been closed from birth? He has never heard of this happening to anyone before.

His simple spiritual reasoning is too much for these Pharisees. How can someone “completely born in sins” become their teacher? So they “cast him out.” Often we throw out those who threaten us with the truth. But in being thrown out of Judaism, this man is “cast” into new life.

9:35-38

Belief and Worship

Jesus does not leave this man to his lonely fate. When He hears he has been cast out, He comes to him. He “found” the man. Now His work of healing can be completed.

Here again is the tragic chasm between faith and rejection, between light and darkness. As the man faced his hostile interrogators, he honestly confessed ignorance. Yet his eyes are being opened more and more to understanding who it is that healed him. The Pharisees, who seem to be aware of this, accuse him of being this Healer’s disciple. They become “more obdurate in their failure to see the truth.”² Their rejection of Jesus is climaxed by casting out the one who has already begun to cling to Jesus. As Jesus was later to say, “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you” (John 15:18). Jesus is always seeking out the rejects and the losers, coming as a Friend to include all of us in His family. Chrysostom, the church father, has said it beautifully, “The one whom the Jews had cast out of the temple, the Lord of the temple found.”³

At the moment of this writing, I have just been called by a physician, a member of our congregation. While ministering to a patient in the terminal stages of lung cancer, he became aware of this man’s deeper spiritual need. And almost hesitatingly, fearing he might be getting out of his territory, asked the man about his spiritual condition. The patient responded as if this might have been the real reason he had come to the hospital. In the next few moments this lonely man came to know God’s forgiveness and peace. He was healed for eternity by the One who sought him out through words of love and truth spoken by Richard Shoffner, a caring, believing physician.

The man finally discovers who it is that has healed him. The One he first called “Jesus,” then a “Prophet,” and then “One from God,” now reveals Himself as the “Son of God.” Here is the end of all the blind man’s seeking, the fulfillment of all for which he has yearned. He has seen and listened with eyes and ears of faith, not carelessly or critically as the Pharisees. Now an eternal light floods his inmost being and he can only cry out, “I believe!” And in trusting wonder he falls to his knees in worship and adoration!

The stubborn, courageous witness of this man was a word of renewing strength for those tiny communities of Jewish Christian believers scattered throughout the Roman empire. John surely had these fellow believers in mind when he wrote. Like this man, they had heard the voice of Jesus and obeyed, and their eyes had been opened! They had come to know Him as the new Moses “full of grace and truth.” But in turning to Him they had been ridiculed and cast out from their people. In the face of continuing hostility these Jewish Christians must have become weary and fearful and even wavered. So this lonely, healed man, so bold in his witness, was a model for the early church. Jesus had welcomed and received him when he was cast out. So these early believers were heartened. They knew Jesus would not leave them. They could continue to know the joy of His presence and worship Him with fresh devotion.

9:38

The Shepherd’s Last Appeal

John 9:39–10:42

Scripture Outline

Judgment: “Your Sin Remains” (9:39-41)

Truth Hidden in a Parable (10:1-6)

The Only Door (10:7-10)

The Good Shepherd (10:11-16)

Laying Down His Life (10:17-21)

The Sheep Hear and Follow (10:22-30)

Sanctified for the World (10:31-39)

A Harvest in John’s Country (10:40-42)

9:39-41

Judgment: “Your Sin Remains”

A man healed of physical and spiritual blindness has “been driven from one fold and received into another.” And the One who has received him now faces the false spiritual leaders who have cast him out, but who remain in their sin. They stubbornly insist they see, but continue in darkness. Their fierce pride shuts out any hope of healing. This is the judgment: Jesus can only heal those who know they are blind.