Welcome to a wonderful chapter. It is perfect drama. We
have a protagonist the weak uneducated blind beggar, and we have antagonists the
strong educated Pharisees. Our protagonist has a grim problem. He was born
blind and everyone thinks the problem is sin.
Then there is a healing.
Then three interrogations.
Our hero is expelled.
But at the end – Jesus finds him.
This is genius story-telling, and characterisation. Look at how our hero
grows. At first, he is a nobody. Then we find out he is obedient. Then he is
brave because he says, ‘I am the man;. Then we find out he has a lot of common
sense – if Jesus has worked his miracle,
he is a prophet. And insight He sees that the Pharisees are not interested in
the truth. They do not want to believe that Jesus healed him. And He is funny So
he mischievously asks if the Pharisees want to become Jesus’ disciples. And
finally he has an open heart and mind not to just accept that Jesus is the Son
of Man, but He also worships Him. What a character. Surely, he is one of the
great heroes of the New Testament.
This chapter has six carefully crafted scenes, let’s
look at them.
Scene 1(1-7) Introduction and the miracle.
The story opens with a scene of suffering. A man, born
blind, begging at the side of the road. And we all ask why. If God is good, why
was this man born blind? And for many, like the disciples, like Job’s friends,
like perhaps some people you know, there is a simple answer. Sin. Somebody has
sinned. This is God’s punishment. The answer is simple, and it is not
completely wrong. The Bible does connect sin and suffering together. God
ordered there to be suffering in Genesis 3, and that was because of sin. All of
us are still under those edicts. That is the general truth, and sometimes, as
with the cripple in John 5, an individual suffers because of a particular sin.
But not always. Often an individual suffers and there is no connection to any
specific sin in his life. Truth in the Bible has two wings. We suffer because
of a specific sin; we suffer but there has been no sin.
This man is not suffering because of a particular sin.
Jesus is blunt about that (v.3), So why was he born blind? He was born blind
because God had a purpose for this.
It’s important to pause here and take in the truth of
this. In the Bible, in this chapter, there is no random suffering. Whatever the
suffering, God has a special purpose. It is under His control.
God’s purpose here is to bring healing to the beggar. We
see here though that for this to happen Jesus has to be sent, to bring sight,
to be light. The Father and the Son are involved. And Jesus has to work
according to a specific time frame, because night is coming. That is a lesson
for us. We cannot deal with suffering unless we are sent by the Father. And we
too need to know that time is limited, as for Jesus, so for us. If God has sent
you to do something, work while it is day.
And we cannot deal with suffering unless the person
who is suffering cooperates. God sends Jesus, Jesus comes to the blind man and
spreads mud over his eyes. Now the man has to obey. He has to go the pool
called Siloam and wash. Then the healing will happen. That’s what v. 7 says –
‘Then he went and washed and came back able to see’.
God chooses the blind beggar. Grace
The blind beggar must do something. Works.
Truth has two wings.
Before moving onto the next scene I must say something
about the miracle, and the mud. In both pagan and Jewish culture, the healing
of a man born blind was said to be a miracle only God could perform. This
explains what is at stake for Jesus’ enemies. If they accept this miracle, they
must accept that Jesus is from God and that He has the final word on issues
like the Sabbath. They don’t want that to happen.
Now the mud. We don’t know exactly what this means.
Some say it echoes back to Genesis 2 where Adam is created out of the dust of
the earth. Others point out in pagan culture there are stories of spit being
used to bring healing. If this is true it is typical of how the writer likes to
reach out to both Jews and Gentiles. In this story though what is important is
that what Jesus does breaks some of the regulations the Pharisees have about
the Sabbath.
The man is healed, and so ends the first scene.
Scene 2: 8 – 12 The Neighbours
The healing rightly causes total wonder; but sadly the
story does not stay with the wonder. The camera zooms in onto the question of
identity. Is this the man born blind, or is this someone else? And behind this
question of identity is doubt about the miracle. Was this man the beggar, or is
it someone pretending they were blind and now they see. Put bluntly, people are
asking – is this a hoax?
We can understand why they have doubt, because then
and now the religious world is crammed full of people making strange claims
about miracles which often prove to be false.
I don’t think the writer is surprised by the doubt of
the neighbours, what he admires though is the response of the beggar. It would
have been so easy for him to have slipped away, to get on with his own life, to
keep his faith private. But here was an opportunity to witness and he took it.
Look at v. 9. He kept on saying, ‘I am the man’.
And then he has such a clear explanation of what
happened to him. Unlike the cripple in John 5 he knows the name of who has
healed him. It is, ‘The man called Jesus’. This is a solid, concrete testimony.
Something definite has happened and he describes it so well. We will come back
to this.
That’s scene two, let’s move to scene three.
Scene 3: 13 – 17 The first interrogation by the
Pharisees of the beggar
.Something extraordinary has happened and the local
people want guidance form their religious leaders. So the first interrogation
begins and again look how straightforward the beggar is. His story doesn’t
change. It is just the same. Concrete and definite.
Now there should be praise. But there isn’t. There is
division among the Pharisees. One group do not want this miracle to be from
God. Because if it is, they must listen and obey Jesus. And they don’t want to
do that. They want to be in charge of religion. So they quickly find a reason
for doubting this is God’s miracle. Jesus has broken one of their Sabbath rules,
he made some mud. So – he can’t be from God. The miracle must be fake.
The other group, they are reluctant to think that
Jesus is from God, but this miracle has convinced them. If Jesus was not from
God, he could not have performed this miracle.
And now we have wonderful irony. The people who should
know who Jesus is, these people ask an uneducated beggar for help. And he gives
a very good answer. He says Jesus is a prophet. That makes sense. Jesus has
caused a miracle to happen, so Jesus is from God, he is a prophet. I
Let’s go to scene 4.
18 – 23: The beggar’s parents are interrogated.
The Pharisees who do not want to believe that Jesus is
from God want to prove that the man claiming the healing, was not born blind.
So – they bring in his parents. It is of course good that they confirm that the
beggar was born blind, but it is impossible not to be saddened by this scene. The
parents should be jumping with joy because their son is healed. Instead we see
them fearful and intimidated, refusing to confirm what their son has said that
it was Jesus who performed the healing.
And the writer explains why. They did not want to be
expelled from the synagogue. They did not want to lose their place in their own
group. That for them was more important than witnessing to the Christ who had
healed their son.
The writer is clearly saying to the reader – don’t be
like those parents.
Let’s more to the next scene.
Scene 5: 24 – 34 the Pharisees interrogate the beggar
a second time
The tone of the Pharisees is now more dogmatic They
say ‘Give God the glory’. That means, stop this lying, and tell us the truth.
And that truth must not involve Jesus because ‘they know’ he is a sinner. Only talk
about God. Keep Jesus out of it.
The reply of the beggar in v. 25 is magnificent. The
Pharisees say that they know Jesus is a sinner, the beggar rejects that
assumption. He is not prepared to say that. But he is prepared to say this:
‘One thing I know, I was blind, and now I see’.
The beggar has had a physical experience of Christ’s
love for him. Something very specific has happened. This is the one thing he
knows. And he refuses to deny that.
Perhaps here we have one of the most important truths
in the Bible when it comes to salvation. We must know that something has
happened to us. For most of us this is not our physical sight, but for all of
us it is our spiritual sight. We were blind. Blind to who God is, blind to who
Christ is, but something happened, and so with the beggar we can say, ‘One
thing I know, I was blind, but now I see.’
In verse 26 the Pharisees show they have lost. They
cannot prove that the beggar is lying. He is refusing to back down. So they
just repeat the question about how this happened. This shows us, and the
beggar, that they are not sincere. They are not interested in what actually
happened. They just want their message to be heard, that Jesus is a fake
miracle worker.
The beggar sees through their deceit, and so,
sarcastically says – is it because you want to become his disciples that you
want to hear the story again? This makes them angry. We are disciples of Moses.
They say, ‘We don’t know where Jesus comes from’.
This gives the beggar an open goal. He mocks them, not
with rudeness, but with common sense. This is an extraordinary miracle. That
means God is at work. And the Pharisees should have known that because Isaiah
said that the Messianic Age would start with the blind being healed (29:18,
35:4, 42:7)
Now we have an own goal from the Pharisees. The
Pharisees say that the beggar was born in ‘utter sin’. This means they are
admitting that he was blind, because, as we saw at the start of the story, that
is why most people thought others were blind. So they are saying the man was
born blind; and there he is standing in front of them able to see. They know a
miracle has happened, but they do not want to admit to this. Instead we just
have their anger – and they send the man away.
And so to our final scene.
Scene 6: 35 – 41 Winners and losers
It seems that the beggar is the loser. He is healed,
but cast out. But he is not. Jesus hears about what has happened and finds the
beggar. That is a beautiful truth. And Jesus wants to reveal more. This beggar
first said that ‘the man’ Jesus had healed him, then he said Jesus was a
prophet, then he said that Jesus was from God. Now Jesus wants him to
understand that He is the Son of Man, this means He is the one who reveals all
that God is. He is the light of the world. And that also means that he is the
judge. The beggar falls on his feet and worships Jesus.
He is the winner.
But the Pharisees – and all like them – they are the
losers. And Jesus spells this out. He comes with this miracle and a blind beggar
sees, not just physically, but also spiritually. The Pharisees physically see,
and they think they see spiritually. But because they reject Christ, they
become spiritually blind.
The Pharisees protest. Are you saying we are blind? Jesus
tells them, ‘Yes’, because they still say or ‘see’ that Jesus is not the
Christ, even though they know a great miracle has happened. This means that the
reason for their blindness is their sin. They do not want Christ to be the King
in their lives. That is the sin.
What a chapter. So many lessons – About sin not always
causing suffering, about the nature of God’s work, about identity, about
salvation.
But let’s end on the most important lesson the chapter
is teaching. The importance of witnessing even when it is dangerous, even when
people are against what we are saying. The chapter is encouraging us to be like
this wonderful beggar. To speak up and not run away. To know exactly what has
happened to us. To never keep Jesus out of the story, and so to be able to say
to the whole world: ‘One thing I know, I was blind, but now I see – and that is
because Jesus Christ healed me.’
In the next chapter those who now see will also hear the voice of the Good Shepherd. Click here https://sternfieldthoughts.blogspot.com/2025/03/the-gospel-of-john-good-shepherd-john.html
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