Or, What God Wants Us to See
Scripture: John 9:1-7
Date: December 9, 2012
Speaker: Sean Higgins
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This is an overwhelming passage. It is well-known, yet the light it shines exposes a deadly blindness for those with ears to hear (which, I realize, mixes metaphors). As with everything else in this Gospel, John writes so that we would believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that by believing we would have eternal life. He included this story so that we would see something about Jesus. God ordained the story in history so that we would see what God wants us to see.
The narrative runs through the entire 41 verses in chapter 9. Due to the amount of space devoted to the after-miracle reaction (verses 8-41), the healing and the teaching about sin’s connection to suffering must be seen as leading to the point; they aren’t the point. The point is simple, yet most people can’t see it. We’ve got to keep it all together if we’re going to see what God wants us to see. Otherwise, it will be as clear as mud.
The event started as he passed by (verse 1). He is Jesus, who we last saw leaving the Temple while some of the men were finding stones that they wanted to show Him (8:59). As for where and when Jesus did this walk-by, it was somewhere in Jerusalem since the pool of Siloam was nearby. As for when, it was sometime between the Feast of Booths (chapters 7-8) in September and the Feast of Dedication (10:22ff) in mid-December. We don’t know any more specifically than that. We don’t need to know. The chronological connection may be loose but the thematic connection is tighter than an air lock on the space station.
The theme is need or, more specifically, the theme is blindness. As often found in John, however, there are at least a couple levels of blindness. I’d suggest that there are three categories or types of blindness in this passage, and only one of those blindnesses involved eyeballs.
Chapter 9 belongs with chapter 8 since Jesus calls Himself “the light of the world” (8:12; 9:5). He is the only one who enables men to see. Likewise, chapter 9 belongs with chapter 8 because men don’t see, not naturally. The religious elite in Jerusalem thought they could see. In fact, they led the people in darkness just like their father (8:44). Chapter 9 belongs with chapter 10 when Jesus compares Himself as the good shepherd with the sorts of shepherds they had. They had blind ones.
The point of chapter 9 is so that we would see the spiritual blindness of the religious people.
1-7 Jesus gives sight
8-34 People respond8-12 Neighbors respond
13-17 Pharisees question the seeing man
18-23 Pharisees question parents
24-34 Pharisees question the seeing man again
35-41 Jesus gives sight and makes blind
The initial act intentionally sets up the works of God to be displayed. We’ll spend our time today in the setup and consider the follow up over the rest of the chapter in the coming weeks. There are three things that God wants us to see in verses 1-7.
Though we don’t know the exact time and place, and though we never even learn the man’s name, there is nothing accidental about this encounter.
As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:1-2, ESV)
Jesus had left the Temple (8:59) and, however many days had gone by (it probably wasn’t the same day that He sidestepped the stoning since this was the Sabbath), He was walking and he saw a man blind from birth . John doesn’t tell us how the duration of the man’s blindness was known. Was the man well-known by them? Probably not or the disciples would have already asked their question. Did they ask the man some ministry triage questions? We don’t read about any conversation. It seems that Jesus knew how long because He just knew. He also knew why, a much harder thing to know. The impression is that Jesus “passed by” this blind man with big purposes.
Jesus sees the blind man. Jesus’ disciples see Jesus seeing the blind man; his disciples asked him . We haven’t seen the disciples in any of the stories since the start of chapter 7. No doubt they’ve been with Jesus, but they were doing a lot of watching. They’re back now and they’re struck as they watch Jesus’ attention on the blind man.
Jesus sees need and they see a theological problem. Brothers, is that ever one of our blindnesses. The eyes of the man are blind, but the disciples are blind to how dense their heads are. It’s not the worst blindness in the chapter, but it’s bad, and it is one of our preferred blindnesses, too. The disciples are ready for some doctrinal knot-untying and ignore the person. They seek an explanation (for themselves) rather than mercy (for the blind man).
Their response was very much like the nouthetic counselors that visited Job. Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Someone sinned or he wouldn’t be in this situation.
It hangs on the assumption that all suffering is a result of sin. But isn’t that actually true? Yes! Blindness is due to the fall of Adam. No one suffers anything that isn’t because of sin. That’s not only true, it’s so true that it’s easy to abuse. The men who abuse it most are the men who want to protect God. God can’t be responsible for this.
Life is more bearable if God only gives bunnies and if men can know whose to blame when bunnies become roadkill. We have an insatiable desire to place blame, to know why.
The disciples missed it because they applied the theology with the syllogism skills of a 1st grade Arminian. Sin causes suffering. This person is suffering. Therefore, this person must have sinned. But reverse engineering personal suffering is a dangerous business. Jesus teaches the disciples that afflictions don’t always fit human formulas.
For the disciples, they see the effect and they want to know the cause. They narrowed it down to two possible causes: the man himself sinned or his parents did. Lest we give them too much grief for thinking it was due to the parents’ sin, a mother who gets keeps drinking herself drunk during pregnancy could cause her child to be born blind. As for the possibility of pre-natal sin, many Jews took the fight between Esau and Jacob in utero (Genesis 25:22-23) as pre-birth sin. They were looking for direct connection between someone’s sin and judgment.
Before we see Jesus’ answer, it is surprising that they ask the question, no? Hadn’t they heard Job’s story? Of course, we could ask ourselves the same question: Haven’t we heard Job’s story? Haven’t we read this story in John 9 before? So why do we so quickly wonder if Mr. Soandso is suffering because of some sin?
One reason is that we like knowing, not believing. We like being in control and, having a logical explanation makes us feel like we can change things (on our own) for the better going forward. “Okay, I won’t do this again because I never want that to happen.”
If the disciples were genuinely wondering, was this their attitude toward every other sick, weak, and needy person Jesus healed? Did they ask this question loud enough so that the man could hear their insensitivity? They did not see what God wanted them to see.
Jesus answers the disciples but not with the explanation they were expecting.
Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” (John 9:3-5, ESV)
The disciples gave Jesus multiple choice, A or B, and He chose neither. It was not that this man sinned, or his parents . In this case, no direct cause and effect connected a sin with the suffering. The way Jesus answers directs their attention away from that consideration. They wanted an invariable cause, Jesus instead gives them a illustrious purpose.
The reason that man was born blind was in order that the works of God may be displayed in him . The suffering was an opportunity for God to work and Jesus puts it in the plural, works . He seems to hint that He was about to heal this man, to give him sight. But it also seems that there is more He has in mind; He could have said “that the work of God may be displayed.” Based on the rest of the chapter, and that we find out the healing happened on a Sabbath again (think 5:9), the works are probably indexed in verse 39: to cause the blind to see and the seeing to be blind.
Jesus knew this blind man. He knew his story. He knew the purposes for him in the plan of God. That doesn’t mean that the blind man himself thought anything about his life was great.
We’ll see that the man was a beggar (verse 8). We’ll see that he was old enough to give account for himself (verse 13). He’d been blind for a long time, even if not quite 38 years like the paralyzed man in chapter 5. And he was alone. No one came to help him get to the pool. None of his neighbors were excited for him, they just had questions. His parents distanced themselves from their own son for fear of being pressured out of the synagogue. This man had a life altering disability that robbed more from him than his sight.
And Jesus says it’s all so that God could display some of His works? Does God count the man’s misery so cheap, so inconsequential? Is the man just a bit player in God’s great game?
These are good questions to work through, and they come from thinking that is clear as mud. God wants us to see the world with His categories.
What was the man’s greatest need? Sight obviously was needed. Vision could help him get a job, maybe make some friends, have a life. And he would still be blind in his sins. Giving him sight was good. Giving him salvation and removing his guilt is gooder.
Physical blindness, and many other problems, remind us of a much more terrible misery: blindness to God. We may have trouble with that even as Christians because we are learning how to look with God’s eyes. The Pharisees are in worse condition at the end of the chapter than the blind man was at the beginning of it. God wants us to see two types of trouble and He wants us to see which one is worse without denying that the other is bad.
Jesus’ life (and death and resurrection) were about helping on all these levels. He said, we must work the works of him who sent me while it is day . He only had a little time left before His death. He took His opportunities seriously to display the works of God while He was on His mission.
So He is the light of the world . That makes sense if, in context, His primary concern was for soul blindness, not sight blindness. He came to overcome the dark of hearts, not only the darkened eyes. Jesus did it with both.
He needed to work during the day because that’s when there’s enough light to work (see Psalm 104:22-23). Though He remains the light of the world even after He went back to the Father, His work now depends on His work then.
And what He was headed to, the night that was coming , was His own suffering. Jesus was only six or so months away from torture and pain and death that He did not deserve. Even though Jesus said that this man’s blindness was not a result of his or his parents’ sin, he and his parents did have sin. He deserved blindness even if that wasn’t the immediate cause. Jesus had no sin.
So when we see what God wants us to see, we will see that no human being has ever gone, or will ever go, through the sort of suffering that God Himself did. We don’t have a God who orders our pain who has no taste of pain. There is opportunity in our pain for the works of God to be displayed, even when there isn’t physical healing. That works because of Christ’s work on earth and when He was lifted up from the earth.
Don’t let the vision of a distant, cold God develop in your heart. If you do, you are not seeing what God wants you to see.
Jesus not only claimed to be the light, He also gave light to the blind man to show it.
Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing. (John 9:6-7, ESV)
Having said these things means that Jesus ties this sign with His statement. He’s illustrating the point.
There’s a batch of commentators who love to talk about the symbolism of the mud pack made of spit. It’s hard to know if and what Jesus may have meant by using spittle, other than demonstrating His ability to produce so much saliva that He could make enough mud for a facial treatment. For your notebook of fun Bible facts, there are two spitting miracles mentioned in Mark but none in Matthew or Luke.
Jesus wiped it on and said to the man, ‘Go, wash in the pool of Siloam . Why would He do that? He wanted the man’s trust, He wanted the man to believe. Seeing required believing.
How far did the blind man have to walk with mud on his face? What did he look like? (He didn’t know). How many people did he pass who mocked him? What kept him from wiping it off and heading straight home for the day? He believed Jesus’ word.
John translates Siloam (which means Sent) . Jesus had been sent. Jesus was the Sent One. In Isaiah 8:6, the “waters of Shiloah” outside of Jerusalem flowed into the pool of Siloam inside the city. The waters gave life to the people but the Lord said that they rejected the water. Jesus is drawing on that imagery. The blind man went to “the sent one” for healing. If only he knew.
So he went and washed and came back seeing . What a nonchalant way for John to summarize the sixth miracle he records. The man went home seeing his home for the first time! He went home seeing the road to his home for the first time.
There are real and bad and real bad things in this world. None of them are as bad as our sin, guilt, and deserved death. We are all born blind due to our father, Adam’s sin. We cannot see reality. We cannot see the light.
The Father sent His Son to open the eyes of hearts. The works of God continue to be displayed even though Jesus is now with the Father. May He help us to see and shape our thinking in His categories of light.
Though it isn’t the primary lesson in John 9, it is important. You probably do not know how the works of God are being manifested in your life, in both your sufferings and your successes. Likewise, you don’t know what God will open your eyes to see today, or some day soon. He wants you to see with eyes of faith.