CHAPTER 9

(A.D. 32)

BORN BLIND

¹And as Jesus passed by, He saw a man which was blind from his birth (proclaims the only instance of such a healing being recorded; this is a picture of humanity born in sin, consequently spiritually blind from birth).

²And His Disciples asked Him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? (Many believed, as evidenced by the question of the Disciples, that every peculiar disaster pointed to some special or particular sin. It seems they had not learned much from the Book of Job, which repudiates this type of thinking.)

³Jesus answered, Neither has this man sinned, nor his parents (does not mean that our Lord asserts these people are sinless, but rather severs the supposed link between their conduct and the specific affliction before us): but that the Works of God should be made manifest in Him (means that Jesus did not come to the Earth to condemn men for their fallen condition because, in fact, they are already condemned; He came to set man free by the Power of God).

⁴I must work the Works of Him Who sent Me (We should be substituted for I, simply because these Works are meant to be continued by all who follow Christ), while it is day (this life span): the night comes, when no man can work (refers to the end of this life span).

⁵As long as I am in the world (the span of His earthly Ministry), I am the Light of the world (proclaims Jesus as sublimely conscious of His Power to do for the moral world what the Sun was doing for the physical world).

⁶When He had thus spoken, He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle (is meant to express to the morally blind eyes of men Christ in a body of lowly clay, animated by Divine Breath; the clay symbolized His Humanity, and the moisture of His Lips the life that animated it), and He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay (was meant to serve as a symbol of the human Body of Christ serving as the Perfect Sacrifice for sin),

⁷And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam (symbolizing the shed Blood of Christ, which cleanses from all sin), (which is by interpretation, Sent.) (This refers to Jesus being sent from God for the Salvation of the world.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing (spiritually refers to all who are washed in the precious shed Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ; only then can we see).

⁸The neighbours therefore, and they which before had seen him who was blind, said (proclaims those who personally knew Him, witnessing the miraculous change which had taken place), Is not this he who sat and begged? (He would beg no more.)

⁹Some said, This is he: others said, He is like him: but he said, I am he(he wants everyone to know who he is, and Who performed this Miracle; despite the religious leaders, he is not ashamed of Christ, neither does he fear them).

¹⁰Therefore said they unto him, How were your eyes opened?

¹¹He answered and said, A man Who is called Jesus made clay, and anointed my eyes, and said unto me, Go to the pool of Siloam, and wash (proclaims this man repeating almost exactly what Jesus had told him to do; He began where all Disciples must, with the man, i.e., a Man called Jesus): and I went and washed, and I received sight (think of this! this man, born blind, had never seen anything, and now he can see).

¹²Then said they unto him, Where is He? (This seems to be asked with some sarcasm.) He said, I know not (seems to be said with the thought in mind that even though he did not then know, he was determined to find out).

THE PHARISEES

¹³They (seems to be those who are trying to cause trouble) brought to the Pharisees him who aforetime was blind.

¹⁴And it was the Sabbath Day when Jesus made the clay, and opened his eyes (we now come to another confrontation over religious rules, which has plagued humanity almost from the beginning).

¹⁵Then again the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. He said unto them, He put clay upon my eyes, and I washed, and do see (it seems that this man is beginning to suspect that some charge is being trumped up against Jesus; therefore, he shrewdly omits the saliva and the making of the clay, as well as the place where he had been sent to wash, which things the Pharisees claimed were the breaking of the Law of Moses).

¹⁶Therefore said some of the Pharisees, This man is not of God, because he keeps not the Sabbath Day (as given in the Greek, it is especially contemptuous). Others said, How can a man who is a sinner do such Miracles? (This provides a dilemma for the Pharisees because the truth is that a sinner could not do such Miracles.) And there was a division among them (proclaims the obvious!).

¹⁷They say unto the blind man again, What do you say of Him, Who has opened your eyes? (This portrays the idea as presented by the Pharisees that Jesus might have performed this Miracle through the agency of demon spirits.) He said, He is a Prophet (having scant knowledge of Jesus, he calls Him a Prophet because that is the highest title he can now apply).

¹⁸But the Jews did not believe concerning him, that he had been blind, and received his sight (not only do the Pharisees deny Christ, they now deny what has been obviously done, claiming they need more proof), until they called the parents of him who had received his sight.

¹⁹And they asked them, saying, Is this your son, who you say was born blind? (The question implies that they even somewhat doubted the testimony of the parents.) how then does he now see? (What a stupid question!)

²⁰His parents answered them and said, We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind:

²¹But by what means he now sees, we know not (true, in that they only knew what their son had told them); or who has opened his eyes, we know not (does not quite present all the truth; surely they knew it was Jesus, but experiencing the obvious animosity, they will not confess Christ): he is of age; ask him: he shall speak for himself (actually presents them distancing themselves from the Miracle and, in a sense, from their own son).

²²These words spoke his parents, because they feared the Jews (proclaims the man-fear which Jesus had earlier addressed): for the Jews had agreed already, that if any man did confess that He was Christ, He should be put out of the Synagogue (excommunication, which cut them off from family, from social ties, from employment, literally everything).

²³Therefore said his parents, He is of age; ask him (the Holy Spirit brings this out twice in order to highlight the position taken by the parents).

²⁴Then again called they the man who was blind, and said unto him, Give God the praise (implies that they want the man to repudiate Jesus; in this type of instance, to give God praise was the equivalent of swearing to tell the truth [Josh. 7:19]): we know that this man is a sinner (their blasphemy and threats did not sway the former blind man in the least!).

²⁵He answered and said, Whether He be a sinner or no, I know not (even though the translation seems to leave doubt, in the original Greek Text there is no hint of such; in effect, you assert it, but the facts of my experience are altogether of a different kind): one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see (pulls the attention back to the great Miracle which had been performed by Jesus; they had an argument, while he had an experience!).

²⁶Then said they to him again, What did He to you? (This represents the third time they have asked him how he was healed.) how opened He your eyes? (Once again, the implication is that it was done by the power of demon spirits. In effect, these religious leaders were blaspheming the Holy Spirit.)

²⁷He answered them, I have told you already, and you did not hear (presents a courage that few in Israel had at that time): wherefore would ye hear it again? (This actually says, What is the point of telling you again?) will ye also be His Disciples? (The former blind man now uses sarcasm, and rightly so!)

²⁸Then they reviled him (means to vilify, to rail at, and to abuse by words), and said, You are His Disciple (presents them telling the Truth for a change); but we are Moses disciples (despite their claims, they were no more the Disciples of Moses than they were of Christ).

²⁹We know that God spoke unto Moses (that is true, but they did not at all obey what God spoke to Moses): as for this fellow, we know not from whence He is (had they truly known Moses, they would have known Christ).

³⁰The man answered and said unto them, Why herein is a marvellous thing, that ye know not from whence He is, and yet He has opened mine eyes (in effect, says, even you ought to know that only God can open blinded eyes!).

³¹Now we know that God hears not sinners (in effect, says, we know God does not listen to the cry of sinners, when, as sinners, they ask from the ground of their sin to secure their own sinful purpose): but if any man be a worshipper of God, and does His Will, him He hears (proclaims the deepest Truth of the Divine Revelation about the conditions of acceptable prayer; it is obvious that this man had a knowledge of God that few people in Israel possessed at that time).

³²Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one who was born blind (portrays the magnitude of this Miracle).

³³If this Man were not of God, He could do nothing (thus, the Pharisees are compelled for a few moments to hear from one known as a street beggar, words of teaching along the finest lines of a deep experience).

³⁴They answered and said unto him, You were altogether born in sins, and do you teach us? (The question presents them unable to answer his Scriptural charge, so they have no other weapon to use but invectiveness and persecution.) And they cast him out (means they excommunicated him from the Synagogue).

JESUS

³⁵Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when He had found him, He said unto him, Do you believe on the Son of God? (Jesus is introducing Himself to this former beggar as the Messiah of Israel.)

³⁶He answered and said, Who is He, Lord, that I might believe on Him? (This question is asked with the idea that he already suspects Jesus is speaking of Himself!)

³⁷And Jesus said unto him, You have both seen Him (saw Him physically and spiritually), and it is He Who talks with you (proclaims the greatest Revelation that could ever be given to any person at any time!).

³⁸And he said, Lord, I believe (what did he believe? he believed that Jesus was and is the Son of God, the Saviour of mankind, the Redeemer of the world, the Messiah of Israel). And he worshipped Him (both for the great Miracle of Healing that he received and, as well, the Great Salvation he has now received, which was the greatest of all).

³⁹And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world (what men think of Christ is the question that decides in every age their moral condition before God), that they which see not might see (pertains mostly to the Gentile world); and that they which see might be made blind (could be translated, they which think they see, but in reality do not, and with the presentation of the Gospel, refuse to accept it, thinking they have no need of such).

⁴⁰And some of the Pharisees which were with Him heard these words, and said unto Him, Are we blind also? (This seems to have been asked in sarcasm.)

⁴¹Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin (doesnt mean that the absence of light abrogates their condition as sinners; all men are sinners [Rom. 3:9-18]; Jesus is saying that if they admitted they were spiritually blind, which they were, then this particular sin of rejecting the Light would not be attributed to them): but now you say, We see; therefore your sin remains (therefore, they were guilty of the terrible sin of refusing the True Light, which meant that the Light they did have would be taken away, with them being left totally blind in the spiritual sense).