Jesus Heals a Blind Man
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2021 · 25 April 2021
As Jesus lives His life, He continues to demonstrate His deity. At the same time, the people of His nation, Israel, continue to escalate their rejection of Him. When we come to John 9, there’s something added. And that is, in verse 2, you’ll see the mention of His disciples. This is the first time that His disciples have been mentioned in this particular setting of His ministry in Jerusalem.
Jesus has been working, with the people and with the leaders. And now we see Him begin to shift as we see also in the other gospels, toward His disciples in the last months, to make sure that He answers their questions and equips them for what is waiting them. That does not mean that this particular portion of Scripture doesn’t have impact on the people and the leaders, because in fact, it did.
Disease, deformity and death, have dominated life in the world since the fall of Adam, which means essentially all of human history. It touches us all; we’re all in the process of dying. We all are infected by the corruption that came by way of sin. Familiar with sickness and familiar with deformity. All of that is part of life. And it has dominated life since the Fall in Genesis 3.
And in the Old Testament, miraculous healing is rare. There was the healing of Naaman, the leper, who was a terrorist attacking the Jews in 1 Kings. And then, there was King Hezekiah who had a terminal illness, and God spared him and cured him of that terminal illness in 2 Kings. And in Numbers 21, God sent snakes that bit the children of Israel with a deadly poison. Here the Lord provided supernatural healing.
And in the Old Testament, there are three resurrections in 1 Kings 17, 2 Kings 4 and 2 Kings 13. In the New Testament, there are a couple of other physical miracles. One happens to Elizabeth so that she who has been barren all her life is enabled to have a baby, John the Baptist. And then Mary, where she is given the right, and the power to bear a child without a human father, the virgin birth.
Until Jesus shows up. And when Jesus showed up, miracles explode in every direction throughout His three-year ministry. Jesus did no miracles for the first 30 years of His life. None. Because when He reached the age of 30 and went to a wedding in Cana, He turned water into wine, and the Bible says this is the first miracle Jesus did. These false gospels are just wrong when they said He did miracles as a child.
But during the life and ministry of Christ, healings are happening on a daily basis. This is an explosion of miracles intended to demonstrate that the Messiah, the Son of God, God in human flesh, has arrived in the world. Matthew 12:15 says He was healing all the people in all the places. That’s why He banished all illnesses during His three year ministry from the people in the land of Israel.
And according to Acts 2:22 in the words of Peter: God is attesting to Jesus as the Messiah by these miracles. These are supernatural healings. These are creative miracles. People with deformed limbs who were given new limbs. People with deformed and diseased organs given new organs. People with blind eyes were given new eyes. People who couldn’t hear were given new ears.
There’s no natural explanation or medical or psychological explanation for them. These are not psychosomatic diseases that people imagine they have, and then overruled by Jesus’ power as a psychologist. There is no medicine that He uses. There is no formula applied to any of these illnesses. These are divine, supernatural, instantaneous miracles done by a word, or a touch, instantly and completely.
We have the privilege, here in John 9, of looking at one of these tens of thousands of creative miracles that Jesus did. This miracle alone should have substantially changed their view of Jesus. But instead of coming to faith, instead of acknowledging that there was no human explanation for what they had experienced, all it does is elevate their animosity and anger. Their hatred escalates.
Now, John 9 is devoted to this miracle and the investigation. So, we’ll have to break it up over the next weeks. It is a miracle followed by a discussion and dialog. We saw that in John 5 and in John 6. Now, let us break the passage up into some sections, so let’s just take for this evening, verses 1 to 12. We can see these simple points: darkness, light, sight, and back to darkness.
So, let’s start with the darkness, verse 1, “As Jesus was walking along, He saw a man who had been blind from birth.” We see blindness all over the New Testament. If you go back into the Old Testament, you will find blindness mentioned many times. Blindness was a reality in the ancient world, and that’s why Isaiah 42:7 said that when the Messiah comes, He will open blind eyes.
Here is an illustration of this kind of blindness. Jesus sees a man who has been blind his whole life. Now, let me give you the setting. Jesus has just declared, in John 8:58 that He is the ‘I AM’, that He is God Himself. They were so infuriated at what they saw as blasphemy that they picked up stones to throw at Him, but Jesus hid Himself from them and went out of the temple.
Now, as Jesus goes out of the temple, He sees a man, blind from birth. This man is sitting at one of the temple gates, begging as He passed by. Jesus is never concerned with His own life. He stops, even though He’s in danger because He’s escaping from being stoned. He stops to demonstrate grace, power, mercy, compassion and even salvation on a blind beggar. This is what Jesus was like all the time.
In fact, in Matthew 21:14, it says, “The blind came to Him in the temple. The lame came to Him in the temple. And He healed them.” Beggars always go where crowds are, even today. Why would they go to the temple? Because, the most devout people went to the temple. People with compassion, people who are kind, caring. And people feeling guilty about sin are more likely to be generous.
The beggar can’t see Christ. But it says, He saw the beggar, “as He passed by.” Sovereign grace dominates this miracle. The blind man is a picture of the sin-blinded man who has no capacity to see Jesus, who is profoundly, deeply, engulfed in his desperate blindness, and has no capability to see the Savior. The analogy is irresistible. In fact, the gospels use this analogy.
Blindness also illustrates man’s spiritual darkness and lost-ness. Helpless from the start, He’s like the sinner. God has to take the initiative with the blind man through Christ. God has to take the initiative through Christ for the sinner. That’s how grace operates. We’re lost, we’re dead in sin, we’re blind, we know no truth, and God sees us. He comes in compassion, grace, and gives us spiritual sight.
We see light in verse 2, “Rabbi,” his disciples asked him, “why was this man born blind? Was it because of his own sins or his parents’ sins?” Their theology was that if something’s wrong with you, it’s a sin issue. Not an indirect one, but a direct one. Now, we would all agree that everybody’s illness is related to the fall of Adam. But you can’t make a direct link between sin and sickness.
The rabbis were convinced that the sins of the parents were visited upon the children. Where did they get that? They misinterpreted Exodus 20. Remember the classic illustration of this is Job’s friends. Job hasn’t done anything. He’s suffering greatly. His friends come up chapter, after chapter, to try to make him guilty, so they can find sin and direct cause for his suffering.
And there are some really bizarre discussions between rabbis on this subject. One rabbi eventually responds with Genesis 4:47, “Sin lies at the door,” and he makes the door refer to the door of the womb. So, he interprets that as some kind of insight into prenatal iniquity. And another rabbi argues that if the baby was actually sinning in the womb, he would be kicking harder.
Now Exodus 20:5 says, “I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generations.” This notion that you’re paying for the sins of your parents somehow has managed to survive to our time even today. And among the Jews, people could be punished for several generations for sins committed by their parents.
What is the right interpretation? First, it’s a collective statement: the sins of the fathers, the leaders, that they commit that define that generation area so influential that they can’t be reversed and rooted out for three to four generations. That’s the principle. It’s not talking about individual sins for three or four generations. That is completely alien to what Scripture says, and here is the proof.
Look at Ezekiel 18:1-2, “Then another message came to me from the Lord: 2“Why do you quote this proverb concerning the land of Israel?” The proverb is that the children suffer the consequence of the behavior of their parents. Verse 20 says, “The person who sins is the one who will die. The child will not be punished for the parent’s sins. Righteous people will be rewarded, and wicked people will be punished.”
The answer Jesus gives is verse 3, “It was not because of his sins or his parents’ sins,” Jesus answered. “This happened so the power of God could be seen in him.” With one statement, He completely obliterates that whole theological system. He is blind for the glory of God, so that we could see this healing, and the power of God, and the works of God be manifest, and God be glorified.
No, this isn’t about this man’s parents. There are healthy sinners in the world, and there are sick believers who are faithful to the Lord. Jesus is going to do a creative miracle so that it becomes clear to everybody that He is the One who created everything. Verse 4, “We must quickly carry out the tasks assigned us by Him who sent us. The night is coming, and then no one can work.”
Jesus is not talking about a physical night. Here He pulls the disciples in with the “we.” We are all together called together to “work the works of Him who sent us as long as it is day.” Death is looming on the horizon. He has only months. The disciples, some of them don’t have very long. They are martyred. There’s only one thing to live for, and that’s to work with the Savior and the Father.
In Ephesians 5:16, Paul says, “making the most of your time.” Jesus uses the word “we” here. Stop doing those things that have no value at all in the future, and get at it, hand-in-hand with the Lord, hand-in-hand with the Father. It is incredible to work with “Him who is able to do exceeding, abundantly above all that we can ask or think.” (Eph. 3:20) Jesus knew His death was coming in just months.
He says in verse 5, “While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world.” He will always be the Light, in one sense, but it’ll never shine in the world as brightly as it did for those three years. He’s going to give this man spiritual light. In verse 38, the man himself said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped Him. So Jesus not only heals the blind man; He saves him spiritually.
Verse 6-7, “Then He spit on the ground, made mud with the saliva, and spread the mud over the blind man’s eyes. 7 He told him, “Go wash yourself in the pool of Siloam. So the man went and washed and came back seeing!” Why did Jesus use this method? Well, He did it in Mark 7 using saliva mixed with mud to put on somebody’s ears. In Mark 8, He did the same thing with another blind person. Why?
I don’t know and it does not matter. But there’s something I do understand. Could Jesus have just touched his eyes and would he be healed instantaneously? Yes, He could. Why does He send him somewhere? Because He’s calling for obedience here. He has never seen anybody, but he obeys. Why does he do this? Because the divine compulsion of an irresistible power is beginning to work on his will.
He’s being transformed. We are seeing here an illustration of regeneration. New life is bursting on his soul. A spark of faith ignited in his heart as the Holy Spirit began to change him on the inside. These are the first workings of the power of the Holy Spirit to draw this man to submit to Christ. Why use the pool of Siloam? This shows God’s provision, God’s cleansing, giving him the water of life.
Verses 8-11, “His neighbors and others who knew him as a blind beggar asked each other, “Isn’t this the man who used to sit and beg?” 9 Some said he was, and others said, “No, he just looks like him!” But the beggar kept saying, “Yes, I am the same one!” 10 They asked, “Who healed you? What happened?” 11 He told them, “The man they call Jesus made mud and spread it over my eyes and told me, ‘Go to the pool of Siloam and wash yourself.’ So I went and washed, and now I can see!”
That does not explain how it happened. That just explains what he did. There is no explanation for how it happened. That’s a creative miracle. Verse 12, ““Where is he now?” they asked. “I don’t know,” he replied.” The account of Jesus healing a blind man beautifully illustrates really the salvation process. We sit blinded by sin, begging. And then, God, in His mercy; Christ, in His grace, finds us.
That’s salvation. And Jesus reaches out to us in our blindness, and He gives us sight. And all He asks is a simple act of faith, which He empowers. And then He washes us. And we forever can see. And that’s what happened to this man. First, the physical healing came, and then the soul blindness was removed. This can happen to us as well. But we’ll see what happens next Sunday. Let us pray.