9
The man born blind
1 Now as He was passing by He saw a man blind from birth. 2 And His disciples asked Him saying, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, in that he was born blind?”* Wait a minute—if being born blind was the result of the man's own sin (as they suggest), when did he commit it? In any case, Jesus rejects their basic premise. 3 Jesus answered: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but so that the works of God might be displayed in him.† Wow! Did you get that? Jesus is saying that it was part of the Plan—the man was born blind so that the Messiah could come along years later and give him sight. (Does that fit anywhere in your theology?) 4 I‡ Perhaps half a percent of the Greek manuscripts, of objectively inferior quality, read “we” for “I” (as in NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc.). Virtually the same handful of manuscripts also has “Him who sent us” (in this verse), but none of the versions mentioned goes along—a curious proceeding. must accomplish the works of Him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. 5 While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world.”§ In Matthew 5:14 Jesus said to His disciples, “You are the light of the world”—so as long as we are here there is light, and so it isn't night yet. We had better get on with accomplishing the Father's works.
The man is healed
6 Upon saying these things He spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva, and spread the mud on the blind man's eyes.* How unhygienic! The dirt in the street or road would be mixed with manure and all sorts of other contaminants, and human saliva is worse than a dog's. So why did Jesus do it? I don't know. Apparently it was part of His game plan to use a variety of procedures. There are cultures today where the shamans use saliva to heal, and to them this incident is especially significant. 7 And He said to him, “Go wash in the pool of Siloam” (which is translated, ‘Sent’). So he went and washed, and came away seeing!
8 Then the neighbors and those who previously had seen that he was blind† Instead of “blind”, perhaps 10% of the Greek manuscripts read ‘a beggar’, as in most modern versions. started saying, “Isn't this the man who sat begging?” 9 Others said, “This is he”; still others, “He is like him.” He kept saying, “I'm the one!”
10 So they said to him, “How were your eyes opened?” 11 He answered and said: “A man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to the pool of Siloam and wash.’ So when I went and washed, I saw!” 12 Then they said to him, “Where is He?” He says, “I don't know.”
The man is excommunicated
13 They bring the man who was formerly blind to the Pharisees. 14 (Now it was a Sabbath when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes.)‡ 7:37 says “the last day of the feast”, which was Tuesday, Oct. 17, 29 (I believe). Chapter 8 took place the next day, Wednesday. Here we are told that the healing of the blind man happened on a Saturday. Since we are still in Jerusalem (verse 7—Siloam is there), it may well have been the first Saturday after the events of chapter 8. 15 So once again the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. So he said to them, “He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.”§ The man's answer is almost rude in its brevity. I don't think he liked the Pharisees. 16 Then some of the Pharisees said, “This man cannot be from God, because he does not keep the Sabbath,”* Of course they were defining the terms—it was the rules they had imposed on the Sabbath that were not being kept. Others were saying, “How can a sinful man do such signs?” And there was a division among them. 17 So they address the blind man again, “What do you say about him, in that he opened your eyes?” He said, “He is a prophet.”† He is being cautious. I conclude from the context that he believed Jesus to be the Messiah, but like his parents he was aware of the risk involved (verse 22).
18 However the Jews did not believe concerning him that he was blind and received sight until they summoned the parents of the one who had received sight. 19 And they asked them saying: “Is this your son, whom you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” 20 So his parents answered them and said: “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; 21 but by what means he now sees we don't know, or who opened his eyes we don't know. He is of age. Ask him. He will speak for himself.” 22 His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, because the Jews had already agreed that if anyone confessed Him to be Christ he would be barred from the synagogue.‡ In their culture, to be barred from the synagogue was to be socially ostracized. 23 That is why his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”
24 So they summoned the man who had been blind a second time and said to him: “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.” 25 So he answered and said: “That He is a sinner, I do not know. One thing I do know, that having been blind I now see!”§ Beautiful! 26 So they said to him again: “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”* The poor Jews are in a pickle. The fact of an extraordinary work of creation (giving sight where there never was any) won't go away, yet they refuse to acknowledge the obvious explanation. [Sort of like the ‘scientists’ of our day who refuse to acknowledge the Creator.] 27 He answered them: “I already told you and you didn't listen. Why do you want to hear it again? You don't want to become His disciples too, do you?” 28 They reviled him and said: “You are that fellow's disciple, but we are Moses' disciples. 29 We know that God spoke to Moses; but this fellow—we don't know where he's from.”† Not precisely true. 30 The man answered and said to them: “Why, this is remarkable—you don't know where He is from; yet He opened my eyes! 31 Now we know that God doesn't listen to sinners;‡ He knew his Bible—Psalms 66:18. but if anyone is God-fearing and does His will, to him He listens. 32 Since time began it was never heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind.§ Jesus had already restored sight to many blind people, but evidently this was the first instance of giving sight to one born blind, congenitally blind. No one challenged the man's statement. The man's argument here is very strong; irrefutable, in fact. 33 If this man were not from God he would not be able to do anything.” 34 They answered and said to him, “You were totally born in sins, and you are teaching us?” And they expelled him.* The Pharisees here demonstrate their moral and intellectual bankruptcy. They couldn't answer the man, he had bested them fair and square, so they resort to the cowardly tactic of expelling him. (“Totally born in sins”—like the disciples, the Pharisees figured there was a lot of sin involved, for the man to be born blind.)
35 Jesus heard that they had expelled him, and finding him He said to him, “Do you believe into the Son of God?”† Less than 0.5% of the Greek manuscripts, of objectively inferior quality, read “Man” instead of “God” (as in NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc.). 36 He answered and said, “And who is He, Lord, that I may believe into Him?” 37 So Jesus said to him, “You have both seen Him and He is the One who is speaking with you.” 38 So he said, “Lord, I believe!” And he worshiped Him. 39 And Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see may see, and those who ‘see’ may become blind.”‡ In verse 5 of this chapter Jesus declared Himself to be “the Light of the world”. Light enables people to see—“so that those who do not see may see”. But too much light blinds—“and those who ‘see’ may become blind”. The Pharisees had ‘spies’ dogging Jesus wherever He went, and they speak up in the next verse (40). Romans 2:17-20 explains their attitude:
Look, you declare yourself a Jew, and rest on the Law, and boast in God, 18 and know the Will, and approve the superior things, being instructed out of the Law. 19 Further, you are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those in darkness, 20 an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of the immature, having in the Law the embodiment of knowledge and truth. [“The embodiment of knowledge and truth” is an excellent description of the Scriptures.]
The light of the Law enabled them to see, up to a point, but the Light that Jesus offered blinded them, since they did not want to acknowledge it.
40 And some of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these words and said to Him, “We aren't blind too, are we?” 41 Jesus said to them: “If you were ‘blind’ you would not have sin. But now you say, ‘We see,’ so your sin remains.§ According to Romans 5:13, “sin is not imputed where there is no law”, because it is the Law that defines what sin is (Romans 3:20). So those who are without the light of the Law are ‘blind’ in that sense, and their sin is not imputed. In contrast, the Pharisees prided themselves on having the light of the Law, to the point of being guides to the blind, but since they themselves did not obey the Law, their sin remained.

*9:2 Wait a minute—if being born blind was the result of the man's own sin (as they suggest), when did he commit it? In any case, Jesus rejects their basic premise.

†9:3 Wow! Did you get that? Jesus is saying that it was part of the Plan—the man was born blind so that the Messiah could come along years later and give him sight. (Does that fit anywhere in your theology?)

‡9:4 Perhaps half a percent of the Greek manuscripts, of objectively inferior quality, read “we” for “I” (as in NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc.). Virtually the same handful of manuscripts also has “Him who sent us” (in this verse), but none of the versions mentioned goes along—a curious proceeding.

§9:5 In Matthew 5:14 Jesus said to His disciples, “You are the light of the world”—so as long as we are here there is light, and so it isn't night yet. We had better get on with accomplishing the Father's works.

*9:6 How unhygienic! The dirt in the street or road would be mixed with manure and all sorts of other contaminants, and human saliva is worse than a dog's. So why did Jesus do it? I don't know. Apparently it was part of His game plan to use a variety of procedures. There are cultures today where the shamans use saliva to heal, and to them this incident is especially significant.

†9:8 Instead of “blind”, perhaps 10% of the Greek manuscripts read ‘a beggar’, as in most modern versions.

‡9:14 7:37 says “the last day of the feast”, which was Tuesday, Oct. 17, 29 (I believe). Chapter 8 took place the next day, Wednesday. Here we are told that the healing of the blind man happened on a Saturday. Since we are still in Jerusalem (verse 7—Siloam is there), it may well have been the first Saturday after the events of chapter 8.

§9:15 The man's answer is almost rude in its brevity. I don't think he liked the Pharisees.

*9:16 Of course they were defining the terms—it was the rules they had imposed on the Sabbath that were not being kept.

†9:17 He is being cautious. I conclude from the context that he believed Jesus to be the Messiah, but like his parents he was aware of the risk involved (verse 22).

‡9:22 In their culture, to be barred from the synagogue was to be socially ostracized.

§9:25 Beautiful!

*9:26 The poor Jews are in a pickle. The fact of an extraordinary work of creation (giving sight where there never was any) won't go away, yet they refuse to acknowledge the obvious explanation. [Sort of like the ‘scientists’ of our day who refuse to acknowledge the Creator.]

†9:29 Not precisely true.

‡9:31 He knew his Bible—Psalms 66:18.

§9:32 Jesus had already restored sight to many blind people, but evidently this was the first instance of giving sight to one born blind, congenitally blind. No one challenged the man's statement. The man's argument here is very strong; irrefutable, in fact.

*9:34 The Pharisees here demonstrate their moral and intellectual bankruptcy. They couldn't answer the man, he had bested them fair and square, so they resort to the cowardly tactic of expelling him. (“Totally born in sins”—like the disciples, the Pharisees figured there was a lot of sin involved, for the man to be born blind.)

†9:35 Less than 0.5% of the Greek manuscripts, of objectively inferior quality, read “Man” instead of “God” (as in NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc.).

‡9:39 In verse 5 of this chapter Jesus declared Himself to be “the Light of the world”. Light enables people to see—“so that those who do not see may see”. But too much light blinds—“and those who ‘see’ may become blind”. The Pharisees had ‘spies’ dogging Jesus wherever He went, and they speak up in the next verse (40). Romans 2:17-20 explains their attitude: Look, you declare yourself a Jew, and rest on the Law, and boast in God, 18 and know the Will, and approve the superior things, being instructed out of the Law. 19 Further, you are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those in darkness, 20 an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of the immature, having in the Law the embodiment of knowledge and truth. [“The embodiment of knowledge and truth” is an excellent description of the Scriptures.] The light of the Law enabled them to see, up to a point, but the Light that Jesus offered blinded them, since they did not want to acknowledge it.

§9:41 According to Romans 5:13, “sin is not imputed where there is no law”, because it is the Law that defines what sin is (Romans 3:20). So those who are without the light of the Law are ‘blind’ in that sense, and their sin is not imputed. In contrast, the Pharisees prided themselves on having the light of the Law, to the point of being guides to the blind, but since they themselves did not obey the Law, their sin remained.

© 2016 Wilbur N. Pickering, ThM, PhD