How Unbelief treats a Miracle
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2021 · 2 May 2021
From John 1 on, to the very end, it talks about believing. But we’ve also noted, all the way along, that there is also much unbelief. And it also chronicles the rejection of Jesus Christ. We learn that at the beginning in John 1:11, “He came into His own, and His own received Him not.” So John writes that Christ is confronted by constant unbelief, and that is still true today.
God Himself calls all men to believe in His Son. But, the vast majority do not, and the vast majority did not when His Son was walking in their midst. We’ve seen unbelief in a number of forms. We saw the confused unbelief of Nicodemus, to whom Jesus said, “If I have told you earthly things, and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?”
There is even the mysterious unbelief of the brothers of Jesus, of whom it is said, “Neither did His brothers believe in Him.” But what stands out is the truth-rejecting, hard-hearted unbelief of the Pharisees, the scribes, the chief priests and the rulers of religious Israel. And in John 9 in particular, you get an insight into the character of willful, obstinate, stubborn unbelief.
And starting in verse 13 we see the religious leaders, and the Pharisees in particular investigating a miracle. But as we go through the story, we see the character of unbelief. Now, unbelief comes in many forms. But it demonstrates these kinds of components. And that’s important, because our responsibility is to carry on the gospel ministry, to preach Jesus Christ.
You’re going to confront unbelief. Most all of the people to whom you give the Gospel will reject it. And you need to know how unbelief operates. And in this event, we see in graphic demonstration, the schism between Christianity and Judaism. Between the church with the believers and the synagogue. On the one hand, the Jews affirmed Moses. On the other hand, the believers affirm Christ.
And it is that division that has existed ever since, even to this very hour. So, we will see that schism, which has perpetuated itself through history and will until Israel turns to see the Christ they rejected, and embrace Him for who He is, God. And that will happen someday in the future. We’re going to see how unbelief makes conclusions before it examines the situation. Unbelief establishes false standards.
Unbelief demands more and more evidence, but when it receives that evidence, it doesn’t respond as any thinking person would. So, there’s an irrationality in unbelief. Unbelief does biased research. It can look at facts and come to the wrong conclusion. Unbelief is self-centered and ego-centric. All these things are part of unbelief, but we’ll try to break it down into meaningful words.
First of all, unbelief is hostile. It could even be dangerous. That is why it is unbelievers who ultimately persecute Christians. It were unbelievers who persecuted the apostles and martyred almost all of them. Now the Pharisees have decided that Jesus is demon-possessed and insane. And while not all unbelievers are equally hostile, unbelief is hostile to the truth, and it may take many forms.
Verse 13, “They brought to the Pharisees the man who was formerly blind.” Who are they? Go to verse 8. The neighbors and those who previously saw him as a beggar, these people bring this man to the Pharisees. Now, the Sanhedrin had passed a law that if anyone confessed Jesus to be the Messiah, they would be thrown out of the synagogue. So, they wanted to find out how Jesus could heal this blind man.
Verse 14, “Now it was a Sabbath when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes.” They knew that healing was not allowed on the Sabbath. They didn’t mean miracle healing, but medicinal healing. According to rabbinic law, if someone was sick, you couldn’t do anything to make him better on the Sabbath. But if someone was dying, you could sort of prevent him from dying, but not make him well.
So here, Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath. Furthermore, He had taken clay, spit in the clay, put it on the eyes of the man, and you weren’t allowed to do that because that was work on the Sabbath. So, Jesus had violated the Sabbath. And they went back and told the Pharisees it happened on the Sabbath. They had these ridiculous laws. You couldn’t fill a lamp with oil on the Sabbath.
You couldn’t light a wick on the Sabbath. If a man extinguished a lamp on the Sabbath to spare the lamp to save the oil and conserve the wick, he was guilty of violating the Sabbath. So you couldn’t light one, and you couldn’t blow one out. They had laws that said a man may not go out on the Sabbath with sandals with nails because nails constitute a burden, and he’s carrying a weight on the Sabbath, which was a violation.
A man was not allowed to cut his fingernails or pull a hair out of his head or beard. It just was absolutely ridiculous, adding burden after burden after burden on the Sabbath. And part of it, not only the forbidding to heal; in fact, if you had a toothache, you couldn’t pull your tooth on the Sabbath, but you could suck vinegar to mitigate the pain. I don’t know if that works; so don’t try it.
But the most dominating reality was the question: what do we do about the violation of the Sabbath? By the way, the Lord did whatever He wanted on the Sabbath, because He says in Mark 2:28, “I’m the Lord of the Sabbath.” In John 5:16 -18 when He had healed the man at the pool on the Sabbath, He said, “My Father works on the Sabbath, and I work on the Sabbath.”
So, He purposefully violated their Sabbath, the human laws that these Pharisees had invented, that were not God’s laws. Matthew 15:9 says, “You have substituted the traditions of men for the commandments of God.” Verse 15, “Then the Pharisees also asked him again how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and I can see.”
A straightforward and simple answer. The Pharisees don’t want to take the word of the neighbors, they want a first-person testimony, so they ask the man. Verse 16, “Therefore some of the Pharisees said, “This Man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath.” Now, this is supposed to be an investigation, meaning the conclusion is supposed to come at the end.
This Man, meaning Jesus. They won’t call Him “Jesus.” They don’t want to mention His name, but they’ve already made a conclusion. The conclusion is: this man is not from God, because He doesn’t keep the Sabbath. Their major premise is: all people who are from God keep the Sabbath. That’s because He doesn’t keep their trifling, ridiculous little rules on the Sabbath.
So this is backwards, as unbelief would always reveal itself. Let us start with the conclusion, and then reason backwards. However, there is a group within the Pharisees that can’t be so easily persuaded. Verse 16 continues, “Others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” And there was a division among them.” Their correct reasoning is only God can open blind eyes.
Secondly, in verses 17 to 24, unbelief will not bend and cannot be convinced. The blind man gives this testimony. And there are all kinds of people around affirming the reality of this. But it is the nature of unbelief that it wants more evidence. It’s really on a search to discredit. They keep probing, not because they seek the truth, but because they seek justification for their conclusion.
Verse 17, “They said to the blind man again, “What do you say about Him, since He opened your eyes?” And he said, “He is a prophet.” This man has no authority, but typically he would never be allowed in a synagogue because he was blind. Because his blindness was related to his sinfulness. And yet, he has enough sense to know that this Jesus, in fact is a prophet.
So he gives them a straightforward, sensible answer, which should’ve been the end of the investigation. Verse 18, “But the Jews did not believe concerning him, that he had been blind and received his sight, until they called the parents of him who had received his sight.” Similarly most of the people are going to reject what you tell them about the Gospel, throughout your whole life of ministry and evangelism.
They say, we’re going to dig deeper into this, because they will not give up the notion that this Man is a sinner and He is not from God. So, there must be some kind of cover-up here. So, they call the parents. Verse 19, “They asked them, “Is this your son? Was he born blind? If so, how can he now see?” Verse 20, “His parents replied, “We know this is our son and that he was born blind.”
The case is over. The Man is from God. Verse 21, “But we don’t know how he can see or who healed him. Ask him. He is old enough to speak for himself.” They’re lying to cover themselves. Verse 22, “His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders, who had announced that anyone saying Jesus was the Messiah would be expelled from the synagogue.”
That was that law that fixed the antagonism permanently between the church and the synagogue, between the Jew and the Christian. So, his parents are afraid of the Jews. They can’t throw him out of the synagogue because he’s not in the synagogue. Now, if you were in Jewish society and you weren’t in the synagogue, you were like a leper. There were three kinds of excommunications.
According to the Talmud, the first was Shamatha, which means destruction, cut off from God. Then there is Nezifah, you were out of the synagogue 7 days to 30 days, depending on the crime. If you died under that ban, you had no funeral. The worst was Herem, which was an indefinite, permanent ban. Being banned was far worse because of its implication socially, economically and religiously.
They didn’t want to get that experience. Verse 23-25, “Therefor his parents said, “He is of age. Ask him. 24 So they again called the man who was blind and said to him, “God should get the glory for this, because we know this man Jesus is a sinner. 25 “I don’t know whether he is a sinner,” the man replied. “But I know this: I was blind, and now I can see!”
Why did they keep insisting on that? Talking about Jesus. What do they mean, give glory to God? That’s a direct quote from Joshua 7:19. When the children of Israel came into the land, they were told to take nothing. Joshua finds out that Achan and his whole family have conspired together to take this stuff as booty and buried it in the tent. Joshua confronts this crime which costs Achan and his family their lives.
God is glorified when you tell the truth. The Jews did not believe his testimony nor the testimony of the parents and neighbors. That is how immovable their unbelief is. We know that this man is a sinner based upon his violation of the Sabbath. We know. So, he also uses of the word “know.” I do not know whether He is a sinner; but I know this, that I was blind, and now I can see.”
But they’re not interested in anything related to the truth. Verse 26, “But what did He do?” they asked, “How did He open your eyes?” This is significant, because now they just admitted that he was healed. With true facts, if you come to a wrong conclusion, you’re irrational. Unbelief is irrational. Verse 27, “Look!” the man said, “I told you once. Didn’t you listen? Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples?”
He just reciprocate their sarcasm, their hypocrisy. And as the story goes, he comes to fully believe in Jesus for salvation, which we’ll see next week. So they descend to that third level of conflict, to revile him. Verse 28-29, “Then they cursed him and said, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses! 29 We know God spoke to Moses, but we don’t even know where this man comes from.”
Verse 30-33, “Why, that’s very strange!” the man replied. “He healed my eyes, and yet you don’t know where He comes from? 31 We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners, but he is ready to hear those who worship Him and do his will. 32 Ever since the world began, no one has been able to open the eyes of someone born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, He couldn’t have done it.”
So the healed blind man has become the preacher. First, he is sarcastic, and now he is specific and clear-minded, and faithful to the Old Testament. He is giving them an explanation of reality, a sensible logical explanation. To which they responded in verse 34, “You were born a total sinner!” they answered. “Are you trying to teach us?” And they threw him out of the synagogue.”
So, it gets physical. Be prepared to face this when unbelief investigates a miracle. This will be a major disappointment through the years to any of us who walked with Christ for a long time. How can it change? The only answer comes from God, when Jesus said three times in John 6, “All that the Father gives to Me will come to Me. No man comes to Me unless the Father draws him.”
So, what do we do? We plead with the sinner to believe, and we plead with God to be gracious. Because the natural man does not understands the things of God. To him, they’re foolishness, because they’re spiritually dead. So, don’t evangelize with hope that we have the power in our reason or in our truth to shatter the blindness of unbelief. We just cry out to God to draw the sinner out of this unbelief. Let’s pray.