John 9 (TNIV)

John 9
1 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"
3 "Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. 4 As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. 5 While I am in the world, I am the light of the world."
6 Having said this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man's eyes. 7 "Go," he told him, "wash in the Pool of Siloam" (this word means Sent). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.
8 His neighbors and those who had formerly seen him begging asked, "Isn't this the same man who used to sit and beg?" 9 Some claimed that he was. Others said, "No, he only looks like him." But he himself insisted, "I am the man." 10 "How then were your eyes opened?" they demanded.
11 He replied, "The man they call Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes. He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed, and then I could see." 12 "Where is this man?" they asked him. "I don't know," he said.
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.

35 Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" 36 "Who is he, sir?" the man asked. "Tell me so that I may believe in him." 37 Jesus said, "You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you." 38 Then the man said, "Lord, I believe," and he worshiped him. 39 Jesus said, "For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind." 40 Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, "What? Are we blind too?" 41 Jesus said, "If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains."

John 9: 1 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" (Based on earlier misinterpretation the Jews, especially the religious elite, believed that if a man or woman was submersed in poverty, depression, disease, deformity, etc, that God had either cursed them, or caused the infirmity to show that he was not with them and to show that they were being punished for what they had done wrong or how they had sinned, they widely based this belief off of Ezekiel 18:20 and Psalms 89:33)

3 "Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. (This is a confusing statement, I don’t want to stay here long, but the question that quickly comes to mind is ‘God caused the blindness – that’s a bit sadistic isn’t it?’ To which my response would be that according to the original grammatical make up, that Jesus is actually saying, “that this man was born blind and the result of this is that God has chosen to reveal his work and glory in this man’s life” In other words, we are not being told that God caused a person to be born blind just to use hi as an illustration of divine power later in life; however the man’s blindness that happened as a result of genetic deformity which is a product of a fallen world, will be made to serve God’s larger purposes; it will be an occasion for God to reveal his works and glory to humanity. The truth is some will disagree with me on this interpretation, and that fine, because how do you explain it that way in the light of God’s sovereignty, I don’t know, but that’s where I’m at!) 4 As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. 5 While I am in the world, I am the light of the world." (Jesus is stressing the importance of himself taking advantage of the time he has to shed light in the world, for “night is coming when no one can work.” The dark/light symbolism permeates the whole Gospel of John. But here is the question, what is Jesus talking about here – ‘no one can work’ – if that is true, then why are promoting serving, evangelizing, loving, acts of compassion, in the hopes that people may see Christ in our actions and hear him in our speech? At this time Jesus is sent to the lost sheep of Israel [Matthew 10:5-6], so the point of his thoughts here is that if the Jews reject him now, they will face utter darkness...which they did as Jesus prophetically points to A.D. 70 – but that’s for another time.)

6 Having said this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva (Which according to Mishnah Shabbat chapters 7 and 12, this was actually forbidden to do on the Sabbath based on a couple technicalities! You’ll also notice that down in verses 15-16 that Pharisees didn’t say that Jesus was not from God until they had explained to them ‘how’ Jesus healed him, and thus judged it as anti Sabbath), and put it on the man's eyes. 7 "Go," he told him, "wash in the Pool of Siloam" (this word means Sent). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.

NOTE: Significant things to look for:
> 3 times the former blind man who is gaining real truth, humbly confesses ignorance – 12, 25, 36
> 3 times the Pharisees, who are really plunging deeper into ignorance of who Jesus is confidently make statements about what they know about him – 16, 24, 29

8 His neighbors and those who had formerly seen him begging asked, "Isn't this the same man who used to sit and beg?" 9 Some claimed that he was. Others said, "No, he only looks like him." But he himself insisted, "I am the man." 10 "How then were your eyes opened?" they demanded.

11 He replied, "The man they call Jesus (Many conclusions we can draw here, How does this man know who Jesus is – we don’t read in the preceding verses anything about Jesus introducing himself, we could assume that blind man, though he could not see him, did recognize his voice [there is a whole sermon right there in that thought, and can be cross referenced with Job 42:5], but due to location and the historicity of this situation, we can rightly assume that this blind man had been passed many times by Jesus and his disciples, while at the same time) made some mud and put it on my eyes. He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed, and then I could see." 12 "Where is this man?" they asked him. "I don't know," he said.

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." (According to Hebrews 11, faith is the ability to believe in what you cannot see, yet here we are not only seeing a lack of faith, but rather the inability to believe in what you can see. The truth is even empirical evidence will not always over ride our own paradigm. Even though they know that according to Exodus 4:11, Psalms 146:8; Isaiah 29:18; Isaiah 35:5 and Isaiah 42:7 and other Jewish writings that the signs of deaf ears and blind eyes being opened were reserved to signs of God or His sent one their own paradigms based off of Mishnah Shabbat 7 & 12 and nationalistic pride would not allow them to see what was right in front of their face, therefore this glorious miracle blinded the eyes of the Pharisees because they were blinded by their own tradition) But others asked, "How can a sinner do such miraculous signs?" (Looks, like we have some smart ones in the crowd. We have some people saying, “True, our traditions tell us that the real messiah would not have messed with clay nor would he have hung out the people ‘judged by God’ especially not on the Sabbath, but even though our traditions tell us this, we recognize that our traditions, are our interpretations of the original law.” This is the place we want to be, to be able to say, our traditions may be wrong, if they are getting in the way of us recognizing who God is and what he is up to, then our tradition have become more than traditions, they have become idols that blind us from recognizing Jesus in our midst, and that’s where this other group of people came to in their understanding – they couldn’t deny the work of Jesus) 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." (I love this last line, “He’s a prophet.” Often times be it from church leadership or our own insecurity, we feel like we have to ‘know’ so much in order to be a witness for Christ. We have to have so much knowledge, so much ability, so much history, but this man, the didn’t even know that Jesus was the Messiah, for all he knew Jesus was some great prophet, but even in his lack of knowledge and understanding, he was able to confront or present them with the reality of Jesus…the truth is, as we continue to read it was in his engagement with those who doubted that Jesus continued to make himself known to this man, rather waiting until we ‘know’ so much to actually engage our culture.)

18 The Jews still did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight (let’s step in here to get a glimpse of the true blindness/stubbornness of the Pharisees – The Pharisees knew this man was born blind, they knew it, they knew of him yet they would rather admit to believing that this blind man had pulled off a scam in which he fooled the entire town that he was blind, rather than believing that he was healed) until they sent for the man's parents. 19 "Is this your son?" they asked. "Is this the one you say was born blind (this almost can be taken as a statement of accusation, did you help him fool everyone into believing he was 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 (Why do they call him a sinner? The sad truth is, that his acts of compassion, his God-centered work, is overlooked, because he does work on the Sabbath)." 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!" (In other words, I can’t debate doctrine, theology, Judaism, or education, all I can do is tell you what happened to me…) 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. (First of all, we need to understand that verse 31 is not a statement of fact. We know that God does listen to sinners, or we could not call on his name and be saved-period. What is going on is that the former blind man is using their own teaching to disprove their irrational reasoning. The Pharisees believed that only deaf ears and blind eyes being open was an act of God, they believed that it could not be performed by a sinner’s request! Another subtle idea, that is probably being drawn out here is that if you will look through out the Gospels there are usually one of two things that proceed a man’s name – either his place of origin or his heritage – this was usually used to describe the type of man he was or wasn’t – the fact that they did not know where Jesus came from would normally disqualify them from being able to make a sound judgment on him – So let’s summarize verses 31-32 – The blind man is simply saying to the Pharisees, that based on your own admitted beliefs you have to believe that Jesus is from God, and if you don’t then you don’t even believe what you claim to believe, because all you believe clearly points to Jesus being the Messiah, and you let your man-made Sabbath rule get in the way)" 34 To this they replied, "You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!" And they threw him out. (They have absolutely no response for this, except to fall back on their already disproved belief, that he is a man of sin, and belongs outside of the temple, a place reserved for God’s chosen race!)

35 Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" (Notice Jesus’ act of compassion on this man before the man believed, and without having to tell him who he [Jesus] was. He simply did!) 36 "Who is he, sir?" the man asked. "Tell me so that I may believe in him." 37 Jesus said, "You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you." 38 Then the man said, "Lord, I believe," and he worshiped him. (Very rarely if ever, and I believe this is the same in our world and the lives of the people we know, this man was not argued into believing, he was not given a convincing theological debate, but simply had an encounter with Jesus that changed him, and that caused him to believe!) 39 Jesus said, "For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind." 40 Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, "What? Are we blind too?" 41 Jesus said, "If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains (The blind man received sight physically, and this led him to see spiritually as well. But the Pharisees, who claimed to possess spiritual sight, were spiritually blinded. Remember Jesus’ words to Nicodemus in 3:10? In other words, to receive Jesus was to receive the light of the world, to reject him was to reject the light, close one’s eyes and become blind. This is the serious sin of which Jesus had warned before in 8:21-24. The blindness of such people was incurable since they had rejected the only cure that exists [cross ref – John 12:39-41]. This story can also serve as a powerful appeal for faith, but also a powerful indictment of the willfully disbelieving, who know but refuse to accept what they have heard and seen. The Pharisees have enough spiritual knowledge and insight to be held responsible for rejecting Jesus [Romans 1:18-23; Romans 3:9-18].).