A continuing commentary on John chapter 9

To understand the stirring among the both the religious leaders and the laity, we must consider the uncontested claim in verse 32 of the text: “Since the world began it has been unheard of that anyone opened the eyes of one who was born blind.”

This was an exceptional miracle. Indeed, no past healing of congenital blindness is recorded in all the miracles of the Old Testament. The exceptional nature of this miracle made it difficult for some lay persons to believe (”Others said, ‘He is like him.’” - [v. 9]), and difficult for some religious leaders to dismiss it as a Messianic sign, as evidenced by their irrational explanations (”Therefore some of the Pharisees said, ‘This Man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath.’” [v. 16]; “‘Give God the glory! We know that this Man is a sinner.’” [v. 24]).

The Pharisees called for the parents of the once-blind man to get their testimony concerning the blindness of their son at birth. I imagine that some were hoping to discover the truth so that they would know whether or not to believe, while others of them had already decided not to believe and were hoping to find out that the man was not born blind so that they could more easily dismiss the miracle, and thereby dismiss Jesus (Y’shua) as the Messiah.

The parents confirmed the man’s blindness from birth, but diplomatically deflected the question (see v. 21) concerning the cause of his healing for a bad reason: “His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had agreed already that if anyone confessed that He was Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue.” (v. 22). Now the parents may not have heard Jesus speak the words recorded in Matthew 10:33 (”But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.”), but I cannot help but think that the subsequent guilt that they felt for putting their reputation ahead of their faith far exceeded any fear that they felt prior to their deflecting the question.

In the interest of bite-sized portions, I’ll wrap-up this commentary in another, final post.

Continued commentary on John chapter 9…

Jesus said, “I [translations based upon the Nestle-Aland and United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testaments read “We”] must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” What Christ meant exactly, I can’t say authoritatively; but it is clear form His statement that there was - or is - a limited time for the work of God on Earth. Certainly, He had a relatively short window of opportunity before His crucifixion and subsequent resurrection and ascension; The night of His betrayal was also a night of spiritual darkness (see Luke 22:53). Whether the night in which “no one can work” is a collective or individual experience, we must make the most of our days, for the days in which we live are evil (Eph. 5:15,16).

When He had said these things, He spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva; and He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay. And He said to him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam (which is translated, Sent). So he went and washed, and came back seeing.

Although many were healed through the touch of Jesus, I don’t think that there were any special powers of healing in His saliva, nor the dirt from which He made the clay to put on the man’s eyes. Many people sought Christ for healing, but there is no record of anyone asking Him to spit in a vial, that they may take it home for future maladies. What I think is going on here is a method of taking the emphasis off of the method itself. Throughout the New Testament, Jesus employed different “methods” of healing. He gave sight to the blind through spit (here, and Mark 8:22-25), through simple touch (Matt. 9:27-30), and by the power of His word alone (Mark 10:51,52). Lest we put God “in a box” and derive formulas or a rituals for His work among us, Jesus employed various methods to keep us in wonder of Him. The marvelous thing is that the blind man obeyed the word of the Lord (”Go, wash…”), and returned seeing.

It humors me that when Jesus’ taught His disciples to pray, He began with a series of cautions - including an admonition that we ought not to “use vain repetitions as the heathen.” Following the instruction on how NOT to pray, He offered a sample prayer (Matt. 6:1-13). What do we do today? On many occasions we recite this prayer word-for-word, as if the prayer itself is somehow holy. It is essential that our focus be on the One to Whom we lift our voices - and not so much on the words. In fact, probably the best prayers are expressed without words at all (Rom. 8:26).

Next time we’ll look at the excitement stirred up by this healing.

(Continued from Part 1, of course)

With the first half of His sentence in reply, Jesus completely voids the erroneous teaching that birth defects are the direct cause of the parents’ sin or the in utero behavior of the child himself, i.e., that bad things only happen to bad people: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” Jesus begins. Now, while the first half of His sentence was enough to stun His disciples, the latter half must have blown their minds: “but that the works of God should be revealed in him”. Hold on there! Not only was this man’s blindness not caused by sin, but he’s been blind from birth by divine design?

I don’t think that we can establish a doctrine that every tragedy that strikes our lives is purposely authored by the Almighty, but seemingly bad things working out to God’s glory and our benefit is not a foreign concept to the Scriptures or to the experience of believers. Consider Joseph, the son of Jacob/Israel. Looking back on his journey that began with his brothers throwing him into a pit, onto slavery, through prison, and eventually to the Egyptian government, he told his brothers, “But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive.” (Gen. 50:20). Again, I’m no Hebrew scholar, but this passage seems to indicate NOT that God was able to rescue things after the fact, but that God supervised the whole journey to accomplish His purposes. Consider the ministry of Joni Eareckson Tada. Read and ponder Acts 2:23.

Hey, look! We’ve made it though 3 verses. These are Bible bites, after all. Next time we’ll take on John 9:4-7.

This past Sunday, I was slated to deliver a message at a local jail, during the Sunday evening chapel service. Unfortunately, an incident occurred at the jail on Saturday, causing the facility to be on “lock-down” for three days. My next opportunity to speak there is more than a month a way, so I thought I’d use this prolonged preparation opportunity by sharing my message with you in more detail than the time constraints of the aforementioned venue would allow…

My text for this message is the Gospel of John, Chapter 9. We read in the first two verses:

Now as Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, saying, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

The question of the disciples was not unusual, seeing as they likely grew-up in the shadow of a religious tradition that taught that birth defects were the result of sin. If the parents were found to be blameless, then it must have been the child himself who sinned in utero - perhaps by kicking his mother too violently while in the womb; so taught the religious leaders of that era.

Today, people grasp for answers to similar questions, such as “Why do bad things happen to good people?” Ultimately, they are asking “If God is good, why is there evil in the world?” Now a question like that makes a few, rather unfounded, assumptions: First, it assumes that the person asking the question is a fair judge of “good” and “evil”. I find that ironic, since often the same people who pose such questions also believe in moral relativism. If morals are something invented by individuals and their collective society, how can they expect someone outside of their community - a supernatural being, no less - to conform to their view of morality? Next (by implication), it assumes that the person has knowledge of “good” and “evil” apart from God. That is, it assumes that God, if He exists, should not only conform to their view, but be subject to it - that is, that the questioner is in a position to both prescribe moral behavior to, and find fault with God. If that be the case, then God would not be a God at all, but a servant of men’s desires; which - in a convoluted way - is likely their point, i.e., God doesn’t conform to my image, therefore He must not exist. Utter silliness.

In typical fashion, the entirely unexpected answer of Jesus is quite profound. To be continued in Part 2.

Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. - John 14:1

With a casual read of these words of Jesus, it may seem to the reader that Jesus is saying that He is not God. That is, that God is someone to believe in, and that He is someone else to believe in. However, upon closer consideration, these words are quite powerful.

Imagine if these were the words of someone else, such as the stereotypical politician or used-car salesman. If I believe in God, then I should believe in you, too? How would it ever follow that because I believe in God, I should also believe in that scoundrel - or anyone else for that matter? Now, it would make sense if it were the other way around: “If you believe in me, then you should have no trouble believing in God.” Indeed, the God of the Bible declares Himself to be unchanging, forever faithful and true. Whether or not I can trust any man, I should be able to put my faith in God.

Let’s reconsider these words of Jesus. He is telling His followers that if they believe in God, then they should believe in Him, too. Unless Jesus is equal to God, this statement is arrogance of the highest order, or at least the nonsense of a narcissistic crazy man. He is saying that if you can put your trust in the immutable Almighty, then it is reasonable to trust in Him also.

I am reminded of the words of C. S. Lewis:

A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. – Mere Christianity, pages 40-41.