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A BLIND MAN IS HEALED

John chapter 9, verses 1 to 7.

The day was after the stirring scenes and the discussions in chapter 8, and the blind man the Lord saw, as He passed by, was probably a well-known character with his stand as a beggar.

Blindness is common in the Middle East and He healed many cases (e.g. Mark 8:23; 10:46), having mentioned it as one of the marks of the Messiah in a message He sent to John the Baptist (Matthew 11:5). But this is the only example of congenital blindness healed, mentioned as such.

It is not clear whether the disciples expected Jesus to heal this case. They were puzzled by the Jewish notion that any calamity or disease was the result of some great sin.

It is sometimes true that disease is the result of personal sin, as in the paralytic man (John 5:14), but if this man was guilty, it could only have been due to a prenatal sin, an incongruous notion (the Jewish rabbis believed that a child in the womb could sin); the other alternative charged it upon his parents, which can sometimes also be true and parents can hand on the effects of sin to the third and fourth generations (Exodus 20:5, etc.).

The Lord Jesus denied both alternatives. The disciples had not thought of the possibility of other reasons for calamity or disease, though one of them is the subject of the Book of Job.

God has His own wise reasons for permitting sickness, disease, suffering, and trouble, and He doesn't always reveal to us the reason why. He does, however, ask us to walk with Him by faith through the difficult times of our lives, knowing that He would never do, or allow to be done, something that we would not be happy to do ourselves, if we could but see through His ultimate plan for us and His people.

Our Lord was not saying that this man was a kind of spiritual guinea pig: the punctuation given to the verse (not in the original) misleads us. The meaning is very different if it is put like this in verses 3 and 4:

"Neither this man nor his parents sinned. But that the works of God should be revealed in him, I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day."

It is not a question of who sinned. "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). God has created us for His glory, and we have come short of it. This blind man, through the healing of his blindness, did not only see the physical things around him, but he also saw Jesus Christ and came to know Him as his Saviour, becoming himself a living testimony of the power of God.

There was an urgency in doing the works of God: the Lord did not defer it till he could do it either more privately, for his greater safety, or more publicly, for his greater honour, or till the Sabbath was past, when it would give less offence. What good we have opportunity of doing, we should do quickly; if we only do a good work when there are no obstacles in the way, we will miss many an opportunity for good works we could have done (Ecclesiastes 11:4).

By day and night He was probably referring to light and darkness, in a spiritual sense, as he continued by referring to His previous statement "I am the Light of the world". Christ is the spiritual Light of the World, and without Him everyone is blind as if in the darkness of the night, like this man who was physically unable to see. But as long as He is in the world, He is the Light of the world (although He physically left this world, He has poured His Spirit upon his church, the believers, and He opens the eyes of every one that comes to Jesus Christ, receiving Him as his Lord and Saviour).

Then the Lord asked the blind man to go and wash in the pool of Siloam (the pool of Siloam was built by Hezekiah. His workers constructed an underground tunnel from a spring outside the city walls to carry water into the city. Thus the people could always get water without fear of being attacked. This was especially important during times of siege - see 2 Kings 20:20; 2 Chronicles 32:30).

There are several reasons why He may have used this process:

• This Gospel sets forth both the deity and the humanity of Christ. He had just claimed His deity and now He physically touched the blind man. Christ must also touch our spiritual vision and give new life to the dead spiritual optic nerve so that we can see.

• The blind man had to obey the Lord Jesus Christ if he was to see.

• The Lord sent him to the pool which was called Siloam, and the meaning of this word is pointed out: "Sent," similar to Messiah or the Greek "Christ". This man would learn that the Lord Jesus had been sent from the Father, and in the same way He is sending him.

• The blind man needed the water from this well to make him see. Water represents the Word of God in many passages of Scripture, and the kingdom of God is entered by birth of water and the Spirit (chapter 3:5).

• The Jews needed this testimony because in verse 29 they said, "We know that God spoke to Moses; as for this fellow, we do not know where He is from." They must see by this healing of the blind man that Jesus was the God-man who was sent from the Father.

The Lord used different methods of healing people, but the Person who healed is the important issue, not the method. A lot of blind folk today argue about the necessity of a certain ceremony or an experience to be saved, yet the all-important thing is to come to Christ, to believe and obey Him: "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out" (chapter 6:37).

The condition of the blind man is a similar to our condition as sinners before we were saved:

1. The blind man was outside the temple, shut out from God. In Ephesians 2:12 we are told that we were strangers from the covenants of promise, that we had no hope; we were without God in the world. That is the condition of everyone before he is saved.

2. The man was unable to see the Saviour. We also did not see Him as our Saviour before we were saved, nor was He the wonderful One to us then, for we were blind.

3. The man had been blind from birth. We were born with a sinful nature, unable to see God's righteous way.

4. The blind man was beyond human help: there was no known cure for his blindness. We were helpless sinners in this world and no one had a cure for us.

5. He was a beggar. This is what hurts a lot of people: they hate to admit they are destitute, and would be willing to pay for salvation, but it is not for sale. God gives it away. This beggar could never have bought salvation because he had nothing with which to buy it. "Ho! Everyone who thirsts, Come to the waters; And you who have no money, Come, buy and eat. Yes, come, buy wine and milk Without money and without price" (Isaiah 55:1).

6. He was not seeking Jesus, for He didn't know Him. It took him time to grow in grace and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Many who are now believers never expected to be saved, or were looking for salvation or were even looking for the Lord Jesus, but He was looking for them.

7. There was no pity shown to him by others. He was passed by on their way to the temple, and the disciples were only curious about whether he or his parents were responsible for his condition. They had no intention of showing any mercy to this man, and they were not prepared to do anything for him. This is a picture of humanity. Only Christ felt compassion for us, and He alone can help us.

 

R David Jones

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1 Now as Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from birth.

2 And His disciples asked Him, saying, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"

3 Jesus answered, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him.

4 "I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work.

5 "As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world."

6 When He had said these things, He spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva; and He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay.

7 And He said to him, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam" (which is translated, Sent). So he went and washed, and came back seeing.