I Was Blind, But Now I See!

Introduction

            The closest I’ve ever come to witnessing a miracle is being present at the birth of both of my daughters. I suppose it’s not technically a miracle since millions of babies are born every year. Nevertheless, human life is amazing and watching my girls come into this world has been an unsurpassed event in my life. I’m sure there are some of you out there that have experienced an honest-to-goodness miracle so you’ll probably be able to relate to this week’s lesson. For the rest of you who have never experienced a true miracle, have you ever wondered what it must have been like for someone who was cured by Jesus? A friend sent me a video link this week of a baby who was born deaf. Doctors performed a Cochlear Implant procedure and the video recorded the moment when the implant was activated and the baby heard his mother’s voice for the first time. I’ve included the video link so you can see for yourself.  

It is a beautiful sight and I wonder if that reaction might have been similar for those who Jesus healed. We usually consider Jesus’ miracles in the context of what those miracle say about Jesus and we would be right to do so. But maybe we could take a moment to consider the impact of a miracle on the person who is healed. We sometimes take our hearing and our sight for granted in the sense that we don’t really think about either on a regular basis, but take a minute to think about a beautiful sunset for example. How would you describe it to someone who has been blind from birth? It wouldn’t matter how you described it, it would never make sense to them because they have no possible way of understanding colors, textures or dimensions. Now, imagine being with that person as they regain their sight and see for the first time the sunset you have tried to describe to them. Your description of a beautiful sunset could never do justice to seeing a beautiful sunset for the very first time. The baby’s reaction in the video I’ve included is priceless and perhaps gives us a glimpse into what it might have been like for those who were healed by Jesus. Tomes of theological material have been written about the significance of Jesus’ miracles generally and his healings more specifically but let’s not forget that for the person who receives sight, they could probably care less about the theology of the healing—for them it’s probably as simple as, I Was Blind, But Now I See! Let’s look at just such a story.

Subject Text

John 9:13-34

            ¹³ They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. ¹⁴ Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a Sabbath. ¹⁵ Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. “He put mud on my eyes,” the man replied, “and I washed, and now I see.” ¹⁶ Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.” But others asked, “How can a sinner do such miraculous signs?” So they were divided. ¹⁷ Finally they turned again to the blind man, “What have you to say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” The man replied, “He is a prophet.” ¹⁸ The Jews still did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they sent for the man’s parents. ¹⁹ “Is this your son?” they asked. “Is this the one you say was born blind? How is it that now he can see?” ²⁰ “We know he is our son,” the parents answered, “and we know he was born blind. ²¹ But how he can see now, or who opened his eyes, we don’t know. Ask him. He is of age; he will speak for himself.” ²² His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews, for already the Jews had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Christ would be put out of the synagogue. ²³ That was why his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.” ²⁴ A second time they summoned the man who had been blind. “Give glory to God,” 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 man 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.

Context

            Jesus has just escaped an attempt by some Jews to stone him while he was teaching at the temple (shocking I know!). Jesus tells those who reject his authority that their father is the Devil! He goes on to proclaim his eternal existence by telling the Jews who opposed him that he existed before Abraham was born. Specifically, Jesus used the encounter to identify himself as “I AM.” This is the designation God used of himself when he first introduced himself to Moses. The Jews took great offense to this claim by Jesus which precipitated their attempt to stone him. Jesus encounters the blind man from our subject text as he’s leaving the gang of Jews looking to stone him. Jesus’ disciples want to know whether it was the man’s sin or his parents’ sin that has caused the man’s blindness. It was commonly believed that all bad things in people’s lives were the result of some known or unknown sin. Of course, all imperfections in creation are a result of sin generally but Jesus clarifies that there is no specific sin at the root of this man’s blindness. Instead, Jesus sets the stage for the way we should look at all of Jesus’ miracles—curing this man’s blindness was an opportunity to demonstrate the authenticity of Jesus’ claims about himself. After restoring the man’s sight, Jesus sends him away with specific purification instructions. When a blind man who is normally seen begging for handouts is suddenly walking around like any other sighted person, people are bound to wonder what has happened. Consequently, those who knew him to be blind confronted him wanting to know how his sight was restored. When he told them how Jesus restored his sight, they brought him to the Pharisees for further questioning and that’s where our subject text picks up.

Text Analysis

            In v. 13 we see the neighbors of our formerly blind man bringing him to the Pharisees to tell them all about the miracle of having received his sight from Jesus. V. 14 gives us the background for why the Pharisees find fault with Jesus’ miracle—it was performed on the Sabbath! “A prohibition of work on the Sabbath is found in the Decalog [Ten Commandments] (Ex 20:8-11; Deut 5:12-15) and several other OT texts (e.g., Ex 31:12-17; 35:2), and its transgression is treated in the Law codes as a capital offense (Ex 31:14-15; 35:2; cf. Num 15:32-36)…The Sabbath healing gives the Evangelist [John] the opportunity to show Jesus’ opponents as blind to the manifest workings of God in their midst, a blindness induced by their insistence that a divine representative must conform to the niceties of the old code.”[1] The Pharisees begin questioning the man in v. 15a asking him how he received back his sight. The man answers them in v. 15b by recounting how Jesus put mud on his eyes and told him to wash his eyes as we know from earlier verses in Siloam and thereafter he received his sight. There are two important observations we can make from this second half of v. 15 so let’s take a look at them:

1) Why did Jesus put mud, formed with his spit and dirt, on the man’s eyes? Honestly, I don’t know and Scripture doesn’t tell us. Therefore, anything I tell you would simply be supposition but I’ll give you an idea that has been historically popular provided you don’t try and build some profound biblical doctrine around it. During ancient times, it was believed that saliva had some medicinal value and Jesus wanted to demonstrate to his disciples that they were to use what was immediately available to them to carry out their ministerial duties. It is an odd method for healing considering he could have just said the word and the man would have received his sight. Perhaps Jesus wanted to avoid creating any kind of formulaic pattern that humanity would inevitable try to replicate, manipulate and no doubt mass-produce in exchange for a small donation of course. We see Jesus’ miracles take many forms—at Lazarus’ resurrection, Jesus simply called Lazarus out of the tomb (John 11:43-44); Jesus healed the Centurion’s servant without seeing him, touching him or calling out to him, Jesus simply informs the Centurion that the request to restore his servant’s health had been granted (cf. Matt 8:5-13; Luke 7:1-10); Jesus unknowingly heals a woman suffering from a persistent bleeding condition when she touches the hem of his garment as he passes through a large crowd of people (Mark 5:21-35). I think we actually miss the point when we focus on Jesus’ method for healings when we should be focusing on his purpose for healing. Ask yourself: Does Jesus’ method for performing miracles define him or does the fact that he performs miracles define him?

2) Why did Jesus send the man to Siloam to wash the mud from his eyes? At first, this instruction to the blind man seems just as obscure as putting mud on his eyes in the first place, but I am convinced that John is revealing something to us that is not immediately obvious to us when we read the text in English. Some contend that Jesus requires the man to demonstrate his faith by being obedient to Jesus’ instruction to go to Siloam to wash his eyes before he can receive his sight and that is certainly very plausible. However, I’d like to paint a slightly different picture for you and it has to do with the meaning of Siloam. “The pool of Siloam, south-west of the City of David, received its water through a channel which carried it from the spring of Gihon in the Kidron valley.”[2] It is fascinating to note that the head of the spring that feeds the pool of Siloam is known as the “Fountain of the Virgin” (cf. Jesus born of a virgin). Siloam, as noted by John in the text, means “sent.” If you read through John’s Gospel you will quickly see that Jesus is consistently referred to as “the one sent” by God (e.g., Jn 4:34; 5:23, 37; 7:28; 8:26; 12:44; 14:24).[3] There is also a connection in the Book of Genesis. “Siloam” is a Greek transliteration from the Hebrew “Shiloah.” “This identification of Jesus with Siloam, i.e., Shiloah, may well have been suggested through the messianic interpretation of Gen 49:10 ‘The scepter shall not depart from Judah until Shiloh [Shiloah] comes.”[4] There is one other matter of significance with respect to the pool of Siloam. With its proximity to the Temple, during the Feast of the Tabernacles one of the Levitical priests would fill a golden pitcher from the pool of Siloam and would poor the water on the altar in the Temple to commemorate Israel’s time of wandering in the desert after their exodus from captivity in Egypt and their arrival at Rephidim where they complained to Moses because they lacked fresh drinking water. There, Moses struck the rock with his staff and water flowed from the rock providing Israel with fresh drinking water (Ex 17:1-5). Now wind the clock forward and we find the connection of the events of the Old Testament, the Temple rituals and the culmination of all these things in the person of Jesus as we read in Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth: “For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ (1 Cor 10:1-4).” Paul provides an assembled picture for us that previously existed as segmented events and practices of history but now form an image of Christ that was previously veiled but is now prominently displayed.

In v. 16, what was previous implicit in v. 14 becomes explicit when the Pharisees proclaim that Jesus could not be from God because they believed he broke the rules of the Sabbath when he cured the man of his blindness. Note that even the Pharisees don’t identify Jesus by name only referring to him as “this man.” However, there are at least some who are not so sure as they question how someone who is a “sinner” could perform such a healing miracle. In an attempt to reach what appears to be some kind of consensus among themselves, they ask for the blind man’s opinion in v. 17. To their inquiry, the blind man responds that “this man” is a prophet. But what does that meant? There were some who consider Jesus to be a prophet in a general sense (Jn 4:19) while others considered him to be the prophet (Jn 6:14). “Probably the healed man means the former. The niceties of Sabbath regulations do not concern him. He knows that a work of God was done in his life, and therefore the human agent must be an extraordinary individual, a prophet, someone sent with God’s word.”[5]

Unconvinced by the man’s testimony, the Pharisees seem to be moving away from getting answers and toward discrediting the healed man’s experience. The Jews now questioned whether the healed man was even blind in the first place. To clarify, “Jews” in this case is a general term used by John to identify a group of people that included the Pharisees, synagogue rulers and other prominent and influential leaders in the community. In any event, in vv. 18-23, the Jews summon the healed man’s parents for questioning. If you are a parent, think about this for minute. Your child has been healed from a disability under which he has desperately toiled his entire life. You’ve done everything you can to take care of him and teach him how he can take care of himself. All the while, always grinding on your mind and emotions is the question: ‘What will happen to him when I’m gone? Who will take care of him?’ Then suddenly, miraculously, he rushes in the front door fully healed. You’re overwhelmed! You’re speechless! The years of stress and grief melt away as you dance around the room with your child in joyous celebration. However, your joy is cut short when the police show up at your front door and take you in to be questioned by authorities about your child’s miraculous healing. And this is where we find the parents of the healed man in our subject text. The Jews ask some obvious questions: Is this your son? Was he blind from birth? How did he come to be healed? The parents answer the first two questions without hesitation confirming that the healed man was their son and was, in fact, blind from birth. However, with respect to the final question, they deferred to their son as the one best qualified to explain what happened and since he was an adult, his testimony should have been credible. However, v. 22 alludes to the fact that they knew it was Jesus who healed their son but they were afraid of what might happen if they confessed that knowledge publicly. The text says that they feared being kicked out of the synagogue. In v. 22, we see “A reflection of the (ironically called) birkath ha-minim, ‘The benediction of the heretics,’…said thrice daily at that time by pious Jews. The benediction runs: ‘For the apostates let there be no hope, and let the arrogant government be speedily uprooted in our days. Let the Nazarenes and the Minim [heretics] be destroyed in a moment, and let them be blotted out of the book of life and not be inscribed with the righteous. Blessed art thou, O Lord, who humblest the proud.’…The expression ‘The Jews had already agreed…’ shows that the expulsion from the synagogues was the result of a formal decision of an authoritative Jewish body; that is likely to have been the one taken by the Pharisees at Jamnia, during their formulation of Judaism under the leadership of Rabban [“our master”] Gamaliel.”[6] Some of you still might not grasp the gravity of the position these parents find themselves in. Does the name Gamaliel ring a bell for any of you? If not, let me just refresh your memories, Gamaliel was the Apostle Paul’s teacher before he became an Apostle of Christ. Gamaliel was a proponent of arresting Christians and Paul exemplified that zeal when he sought and received permission from the religious leaders to arrest Christians (Acts 9:1-2). If you want a picture of the zeal for persecution inspired by Gamaliel, you can find Paul (still named Saul at that time) graciously offering complimentary coat-check services during Stephen’s murder (Acts 7:54-8:3). It seems clear that this is the reason why we see the parents complete their testimony in v. 23 by deflecting all questions to their son who, because he is “of age,” can answer for himself and thereby insulate them from possible indictment by the Jewish leadership. It is not a coincidence that one of the theme’s in John’s Gospel is the cost of discipleship and here, John might be reminding his readers of the possible consequences of confessing Jesus as the Christ.

With that, it appears the parents of the healed man are dismissed so the Jews can once again focus their attention on the healed man in vv. 24-34. However, the scene now turns from an inquiry into an attempt at re-education and indoctrination. The Jews want the healed man to give God the glory for his healing because they have already judged Jesus to be a “sinner” for having done “work” on the Sabbath (of course we can’t let the facts get in the way that the “work” Jesus is accused of doing is something that is only attributed to God). However, the Jews seemed to have forgotten that the healed man was blind his entire life so life for him was really only about one thing—survival! Religious laws, rules and regulations for someone blind, disabled, seriously ill, widowed or orphaned were only important if they served to protect this endangered group. And although the laws, rules and regulations given to Israel were designed to do just this, being part of this despised group was often a death sentence in ancient times which is one of the things that made Jesus so angry about the religious leaders of his day. This blind man should have been the best friend of the Jews. Instead, he would have lived on the very margins of society barely surviving so the fact that he is ambivalent about the Jews’ claims that Jesus is a sinner shouldn’t be a surprise. Jesus did infinitely more than give him sight, he gave him a very real chance to live! For this man, absolutely everything came down to one simple statement of fact: I Was Blind, But Now I See! The Jews are incredulous in v. 26 when they ask the healed man to tell them once again how Jesus gave him back his sight. The healed man seems to display some frustration in v. 27 because he has already told them what happened when they questioned him earlier. The healed man then wonders if perhaps the Jews are wanting more information because they hope to become followers of Jesus. But when he asks them if the intent behind their questioning is to become followers of Jesus, the Jews become unhinged with anger! The veiled attempt at impartiality is over and the basis of their anger is revealed in v. 28-29 when they angrily insist that he is a follower of Jesus but they are followers of Moses and don’t know anything about Jesus! “These verses encapsulate the heart of the dispute between Judaism and Christianity, and in particular between Pharisaic Judaism (which dominated the scene after AD 70) and Christianity. The Pharisees knew that God had revealed his will through Moses. This law of God embraced not only the written word (what we refer to as the Pentateuch), but also a mass of oral tradition handed on from generation to generation. By the standards of the latter, Jesus was certainly a transgressor. The Pharisees therefore preferred to remain ‘disciples of Moses’, i.e. to remain with the given, rather than to attach themselves to some upstart about whom they knew all too little. But John’s readers know what answer the Evangelist provides to such a stance. It is this: If the Jews rightly understood what Moses wrote, they would grasp that he wrote of Jesus (5:39-40). On the last day, Moses himself will be their accuser (5:45-46).”[7] Then, in a twist of irony and not a little bit of sarcasm, this once blind beggar gives the room full of learned theologians a crash course in systematic theology in vv. 30-33. The healed man outlines the matter to them rather sarcastically when he says in essence: ‘Let me get this right—you don’t know where Jesus comes from even though I’ve told you that he cured my blindness. Now even I know that God isn’t in the habit of granting the requests of sinners yet he listens to anyone who is obedient to do his will. Since no one has ever heard of a blind person being given back their sight, how do you explain that Jesus restored my sight if he isn’t sent by God?’ Well? How would you explain that? Sadly, the Jews respond in v. 34 like a little child caught in a great big lie. They respond with indignation calling the healed man a sinner with no right to lecture them in the area of their expertise. To punctuate the matter, they threw him out! Unfortunately, this is often the result when sinful unbelievers are confronted with their own sins and the truth of Jesus Christ. For the religious leaders, they could not get beyond their long-held beliefs about God’s revelation of himself to Moses. For the Jews, God was a complex system of laws, rules and regulations. For the healed man, the matter of God was very simple: I Was Blind, But Now I See!

Application

            Thankfully, I get to rely entirely on Jesus for the application of our subject text. The tale of the healed man from our subject text continues in vv. 35-41. Jesus finds the healed man after the Jews threw him out and asked if he believed in the Son of Man?” The Jews would recognize the “Son of Man” title as referring to the Messiah (specifically in Ezekiel and Daniel). The healed man only asks to know him and he would believe in him. When Jesus reveals to the healed man that he [Jesus] is in fact the Son of Man, the healed man confesses his belief and begins to worship him. In v. 39 Jesus says that his purpose for coming is so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind. Theologically, Jesus is saying that he came so that those who are lost will have to opportunity to be saved by believing in him and those who don’t think they need salvation will seal their condemnation by rejecting him. In v. 40, some Pharisees who happened to be there to witness what Jesus said challenged Jesus assertion that they too are blind. Jesus finally gets to the very heart of our lesson in v. 41. Sinners who are blind and don’t yet recognize Jesus because of their blindness are not condemned for their sin but those who receive their sight and refuse to recognize Jesus are condemned as guilty. The healed man demonstrates the application of our text—acknowledge Jesus for who he is and worship him and him alone as the Sent One who opens our eyes to the revelation of himself.

            I ran across a modern day example of this when I was researching the link for the baby who received his hearing as the result of a successful Cochlear Implant procedure. I really want to encourage you to go view the YouTube link on the YouTube site as well. When you reach the link, you will see many other links to view similar stories of people who have received or regained their hearing. You will find very similar reactions—for children there is often joy expressed in laughter and for adults there is joy expressed in tears. However, I warn you to have a box of tissues on hand. You might also notice, as I did, that some of the comments praise God for the gift of healing. And in at least one case, someone took the opportunity to comment that the people who have received hearing for the first time or regained their lost hearing are a testament to science not God (as though science somehow does not fall within the sovereignty of God). I was sad when I saw some of those comments but it’s understandable in the context of our lesson. I wonder, however, what those who regained their hearing might say if someone asked them how they received their hearing. In our educated culture, most adults could probably give you some of the basic science behind the technology that gave them their hearing but I wonder if a child could do that or would a child simply say, ‘I was deaf, but now I hear’?

Believing in Jesus seems so simple and obvious yet so many still stubbornly refuse to believe. So we sometimes think that if God would just do something miraculous, then people would have to believe. I know I have been tempted to think that. At times I struggle to find the right words to write with the thought that if I just communicated God’s truth about Jesus Christ in exactly the right way then people would be compelled to believe. But in my more sober moments, I know it is folly to think this way. I remind myself that if staring at an empty tomb didn’t convince people of the truth of Jesus Christ then my words probably don’t have much chance of convincing people who are willfully blind to the truth. There are, however, many who are spiritually blind and desperately want to see again or for the first time. For them, the truth of Jesus Christ has the power to heal their broken hearts and lives. I know some of these people; not theologians by any definition. But they have recognized and accepted the truth that is Jesus Christ and now see. If you asked them to explain it, you probably wouldn’t get a lesson in systematic theology to explain what happened to them. More likely you’d hear something like, I Was Blind, But Now I See! If you were once blind to Jesus and have been given sight, what will your story be? It doesn’t have to be anything dramatic, but it needs to be your story. Be prepared and courageous enough to tell your story to anyone who asks and even to those who don’t ask. It might not make sense to people when you tell them in the same way that describing a sunset to blind person doesn’t make sense to the blind person. But it’s so beautiful that you have to try. In the same way that everyone should experience the beauty of a sunset, everyone should experience being healed of their blindness by Jesus.

Call To Action

            For those of you who don’t know yet, I am trying to build a community through these weekly lessons in order to reach every nation in the world with the Gospel in accordance with Jesus’ command and the Mission Statement of this ministry. If you know someone looking for a miracle as a condition for their belief, will you please share this lesson with them as a warning? If you know someone who is blind to the truth of Jesus Christ, will you share this lesson with them and allow Jesus to do a miracle in their lives and heal their blindness? If you know someone who needs a miracle to encourage them in their faith, will you please share this lesson with them as a reminder that God is still in the business of healing hearts, minds and sometimes bodies in order to reveal himself to the world?

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[1] Joel B. Green, Scot McKnight, I. Howard Marshall, eds., Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1992), pp. 716; 719.

[2] D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1991), p. 365.

[3] Gary M. Burge, John, The NIV Application Commentary, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2000), p. 273.

[4] George R. Beasley-Murray, John, Word Biblical Commentary, (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1999), p. 156.

[5] Carson, John, p. 368.

[6] Beasley-Murray, John, p. 153.

[7] Carson, John, p. 374.John, p. 374.