INTRODUCTION:
Quantum Physicist Arthur Zajonc wrote a book entitled, “Catching the Light”. He describes various studies that investigated recovery from congenital blindness. Thanks to cornea transplants, people who had been blind from birth would suddenly have functional use of their eyes. However, in most cases, the patient could see light but could make out no colors or shapes after the surgery. Light and eyes were not enough to give the person sight. One surgeon concluded, “To give sight to a congenitally blind person is more the work of an educator than a surgeon.”
From both the animal and human studies, they found that there are critical developmental “windows” in the first years of life. Sensory and motor skills are formed, and if this early opportunity is lost, trying to play catch up is very frustrating and usually unsuccessful. Professor Sajonc adds, “The sober truth remains that vision requires far more than a functioning physical organ. Without an inner light, without a formative visual imagination, we are blind.”
The blind man that we have been studying in John’s gospel, chapter 9, is no doctor and he is no physicist, but he will be making a statement that goes along with these statements and adds to them. Let’s find out what he has to say.
I. FURTHER INTERROGATION (verse 24)
The verbal battle between the Pharisees and the blind man that Jesus healed isn’t over yet. It’s now round three, the final and deciding round of this verbal boxing match. The blind man outscored his opponents in round one, his parents out-maneuvered them in round two, and now, after a change of strategy, the Pharisees have come back for more.
Verse 24 begins with a command: “Give God the glory”. What’s the purpose of that statement? Shouldn’t that be understood? Isn’t that part of the rules? I think they are trying to be the referees in this match. That expression was used in the Old Testament scriptures as an oath. Joshua used those words when speaking to Achan after he was chosen by lot as the one guilty of the defeat at Ai (Joshua 7:19). Joshua was saying, “Give the glory to God by telling us the truth about your guilty actions.” The Pharisees are saying, “Give glory to God, not Jesus.” They are no longer denying the miracle, but are urging him to deny that Jesus was the miracle worker. When they say, “We know that this man is a sinner” they are implying, “sinners can’t perform miracles.” They are hoping this man might share more information that might prove that Jesus is an impostor.
II. BACK TO THE FACTS (verse 25)
I admire the tenacity of this healed man. He sticks to the facts and dodges their theories when he says “Whether He is a sinner or not, I do not know; but one thing I know, that though I was blind now I see.” In one sense, this man was still in the dark. He didn’t know very much about Jesus, but he knew that Jesus had changed his life in a miraculous way. There was no doubt about that! His testimony is undeniable! Based upon the illustration in my introduction, this man was not only given light, but also sight. The Lord Jesus performed a miracle, not only on this man’s eyes but also in his brain. The sensory and motor skills, and the visual imagination which took years to develop, were programmed into this man’s brain by Jesus before he opened his eyes. A man who had been blind from birth now had perfect vision! Those critics standing around him were no match for that testimony! Their world was enveloped in a spiritual blindness of their own making.
His response to them must have also surprised them. Normally when the leaders of the Jews made a statement, it wasn’t questioned. Most people kept quiet and accepted what they had to say. This was an exception to the rule. I can imagine that a thought entered the minds of these Pharisees: “Who are you to question us?” They are so dumbfounded by his response that they don’t know what to say. They know they have to say something. They can’t let him have the last word, and there are people around them watching and waiting to see how they are going to respond.
III. A SECOND INTERACTION (verses 26-29)
In desperation, the Pharisees go back to the “tried and failed”, asking the man once again, “What did He do to you? How did he open your eyes?” If you or I had been that blind man and heard the rerun, we would probably have been short on patience if we had any patience left at all. This healed man is no exception and he gives these Pharisees a piece of his mind. They may outnumber him but he’s not at a loss for words. In verse 27, he relieves some of his tension by scolding them and following that up with a sarcastic remark. He sounds like a school teacher responding to a dumb question asked by one of his pupils. Here are his words: “I told you already and you didn’t listen; why do you want to hear it again?” He’s treating these Pharisees like delinquent children who aren’t paying attention. As scathing as that remark is, it gets even worse. Now he adds a bit of sarcastic humor when he says, “You don’t want to become His disciples too, do you?” By using the little word “too”, he’s proclaiming himself to be a follower of Jesus Christ, even though he had yet to see Him. I envision a smile on his face as he said those words. He knew those words were going to come back and hit him in the face but he said them anyway. I also think that some of the people who are standing around the “ringside” and watching this confrontation take place are silently rooting for him. He’s saying things to these Pharisees that they would like to say, but would never consider saying because of their fear of the consequences.
The Pharisees give him the response that he was expecting to receive. Verse 28 says, “And they reviled Him, and said, ‘You are His disciple, but we are disciples of Moses.’ ” These Pharisees don’t realize it, but they have just paid this man a compliment. He has already identified himself as a follower of Jesus and they have confirmed it! Now they are really angry, and their pride takes over when they say “we are disciples of Moses.” They lingered on the words “We” and “Moses” for the sake of emphasis because this is their prideful boasting. At the same time, they put Jesus down by referring to Him as “that man” – that “nobody”. That’s “hitting below the belt!” Their actions are described by the wisest person in the Old Testament. King Solomon said, in Proverbs 1:7, “Fools despise wisdom and instruction.” An unknown person said these words: “A wise man learns by the experience of others. An ordinary man learns by his own experience. A fool learns by nobody’s experience.” The once-blind man learned by his own experience. He was an ordinary man. Where do the Pharisees fit into that illustration? They certainly didn’t learn from the experience of others, in this case, the healed man. They also didn’t learn from their own experiences in their conversations with the healed man and his parents. That puts the Pharisees in the remaining category – “the fool who learns by nobody’s experience” because they have “despised wisdom and instruction”.
IV. THE FINAL AND DECISIVE BLOW (verses 30-33)
It’s the end of the final round and God continues to give this healed man wisdom as he makes sarcastic remarks about their conclusions and expresses amazement at their lack of faith. In verse 30, he begins his response by saying these words: “Well, here is an amazing thing”. He’s not referring to the miracle performed on his eyes but to their lack of faith. He’s implying that their lack of faith is even more amazing than the miracle itself. “You don’t know where He came from, and yet He opened my eyes.” How can they refuse to believe in spite of all the evidence? He knows why they are refusing to believe, but he decides to give them a basic course in logic to show them just how foolish they are. In verse 31, the healed man presents the Pharisees with a concise summary of their own argument when he says, “We know that God does not hear sinners, but if anyone is God-fearing, and does His will, He hears him.” I imagine that many of these Pharisees were nodding their heads in agreement thinking, “This man has finally come to his senses and is agreeing with us!” However, he has set them up for the final and deciding blow. This time it’s in the form of a history lesson – the history of medical treatments for the blind. He says, in verse 32, “Since the beginning of time it has never been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind.” It makes me shudder to think of all the experimental treatments and surgeries that were done throughout the centuries in an attempt to restore sight. I don’t even want to think about the drastic consequences to those patients. The success rate was zero in every case. We also find no cases in the Old Testament scriptures where a blind person was healed. That’s because the miracle of restoring sight to the blind was a miracle that was reserved for the coming Messiah. Only He could perform such a miracle. The Pharisees knew that information. They were familiar with the prophecy in Isaiah 35 which says, “Behold, your God will come with vengeance; the recompense of God will come, but He will save you. Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped.” In Matthew 11, John the Baptist sent some of his disciples to ask Jesus this question: “Are You the Expected One, or shall we look for someone else? Jesus immediately replies to them saying, “Go and report to John what you hear and see; the blind receive sight and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he who keeps from stumbling over Me.” That was sufficient information to convince John the Baptist that Jesus was the Messiah because He fulfilled the prophecies that were written about Him in the Scriptures. These were prophecies that no one else had fulfilled nor could fulfill.
In verse 33, the healed man brings this controversy to its only logical conclusion when he says, “If this man were not from God, He could do nothing”. That was the decisive blow! How do you respond to an argument that is so sound and logical? How do you react to a statement that is so firmly rooted in the history and prophecies of the Old Testament scriptures? The bout is over! The winner hasn’t been announced, but everyone there knows who the winner is, especially the Pharisees who are still reeling from this TKO [Technical Knock-Out].
V. THE PHARISEES’ RESPONSE (verse 34)
In their agony and shame, these Pharisees want this healed man out of their sight immediately and permanently. Verse 34 says, “They answered and said to him, ‘You were born entirely in sins, and are you teaching us?’ And they put him out.” He taught them alright! He taught them a lesson they will never forget, even though they refused to believe it. His battered opponents decided to make themselves the referees of this match. However, they couldn’t declare themselves the winners because their viewing audience knew they were the losers. They couldn’t ask for a rematch because everyone there knew he beat them “fair and square”. They didn’t want to take the “walk of shame” again, as they and the scribes did in John 8:1-11, quietly leaving the synagogue with their heads bowed after losing the match with Jesus. Their only other choice, in their minds, was to remove the evidence as quickly as possible They couldn’t refute his arguments so they degraded him with their words and whisked him out of the synagogue. Their last words to him may have been: “Get out of here and don’t ever come back!”
CONCLUSION:
It’s easy to miss or overlook the greatest miracle in this passage of Scripture. The most amazing miracle was not the unbelief of the Pharisees in spite of the obvious gift of sight to this congenitally blind man, nor was it the physical healing of this man’s eyes, nor the reprogramming of his brain so that he could see clearly. The greatest miracle was the gift of spiritual sight or insight that caused this man to believe that Jesus was the Messiah and to commit his life to follow Jesus. The rest of the passage of Scripture bears witness to the fact that this miracle of the new birth was real in his life. He was ready and willing to testify on behalf of Christ in spite of the opposition and the potential consequences of his words. It was obvious that he was a changed man and God gave him wisdom and empowered his testimony.
Do you have a personal testimony of a point in time when you responded to the truths in God’s Word, repented of your sins, asked Jesus Christ to come into your life and reign as King in your life, and began to follow Him? Did you experience a new joy and peace in your life as a new child of God and a desire to share the source of that joy and peace with others? Is God changing your life as you walk in obedience to His Word? If your answer is “yes”, then you have experienced a miracle that never ends. You will enjoy its effects during the rest of your life on this earth and throughout eternity. I hope you are following the example of this man who received his sight and is delighted and unashamed to share his testimony of what Jesus Christ did in his life.
If this has not yet been your personal experience, please reconsider the claims of Christ written here in John’s gospel, and the miracles that substantiate those claims. Ask God to open the spiritual eyes of your soul and give you a willing mind to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and Lord and follow Him with all your heart. He will give you a new life and will direct your steps as you yield to His control and His abiding presence in your life (John 10:27-30; 2 Corinthians 5:17)
CONSTRUCTION SITE: COMPLETED
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