John 8:58-59
58 Jesus said to them, "Most assuredly [Amen, amen], I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM."
59 Then they took up stones to throw at Him; but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.
John 9:1-41
Now as Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from birth. 2 And His disciples asked Him, saying, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"
3 Jesus answered, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him. 4 I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work. 5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world."
6 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. 7 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.
8 Therefore the neighbors and those who previously had seen that he was blind said, "Is not this he who sat and begged?"
9 Some said, "This is he." Others said, "He is like him."
He said, "I am he."
10 Therefore they said to him, "How were your eyes opened?"
11 He answered and said, "A Man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes and said to me, 'Go to the pool of Siloam and wash.' So I went and washed, and I received sight."
12 Then they said to him, "Where is He?"
He said, "I do not know."
13 They brought him who formerly was blind to the Pharisees. 14 Now it was a Sabbath when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. 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 see."
16 Therefore some of the Pharisees said, "This Man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath." Others said, "How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?" And there was a division among them.
17 They said to the blind man again, "What do you say about Him because He opened your eyes?" He said, "He is a prophet."
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. 19 And they asked them, saying, "Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?"
20 His parents answered them and said, "We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; 21 but by what means he now sees we do not know, or who opened his eyes we do not know. He is of age; ask him. He will speak for himself." 22 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. 23 Therefore his parents said, "He is of age; ask him."
24 So they again called the man who was blind, and said to him, "Give God the glory! We know that this Man is a sinner."
25 He answered and said, "Whether He is a sinner or not I do not know. One thing I know: that though I was blind, now I see."
26 Then they said to him again, "What did He do to you? How did He open your eyes?" 27 He answered them, "I told you already, and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become His disciples?"
28 Then they reviled him and said, "You are His disciple, but we are Moses' disciples. 29 We know that God spoke to Moses; as for this fellow, we do not know where He is from."
30 The man answered and said to them, "Why, this is a marvelous thing, that you do not know where He is from; yet He has opened my eyes! 31 Now we know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does His will, He hears him. 32 Since the world began it has been unheard of that anyone opened the eyes of one who was born blind. 33 If this Man were not from God, He could do nothing."
34 They answered and said to him, "You were completely born in sins, and are you teaching us?" And they cast him out.
35 Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when He had found him, He said to him, "Do you believe in the Son of God?"
36 He answered and said, "Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?"
37 And Jesus said to him, "You have both seen Him and it is He who is talking with you."
38 Then he said, "Lord, I believe!" And he worshiped Him.
39 And Jesus said, "For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind."
40 Then some of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these words, and said to Him, "Are we blind also?"
41 Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, 'We see.' Therefore your sin remains.
Let me begin by once more acknowledging my great debt to Mr. Charles Alexander for his spiritual exposition of the Gospel of John. Of the many commentaries that I have read on the Gospel of John few even come close to the discovery of how Jesus of Nazareth “walks among the prophets.”
What does that mean? It is my belief that everything that Jesus said and did was in keeping with the OT Scriptures whether or not we have yet found the connections in the gospels.
Luke 24:25-27
25 Then He said to them, "O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!
26 Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?"
27 And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.
The gift that Mr. Charles Alexander had was to discover in the Gospel of John many of those connections from the prophetic words of Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Zechariah, et al. To be fair to Mr. Alexander, he attributes much of his work to Hengstenberg. So I am not claiming originality either.
The Gospel is based on the OT Scriptures {Cf. Romans 1:2]. Any presentation that claims to be the Gospel that cannot be supported by the Law and the prophets and the psalms, viz., the OT, is “another gospel”, i.e., not the Gospel at all. A man that cannot preach the gospel from the OT simply does not know the gospel.
John opens his Gospel with the eternal Word who was with God in the beginning, who was “face to face” with God, and who is Himself God.
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Jesus of Nazareth is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity and He is very God.
Jesus reveals Himself as Messiah and preaches on His deity as He turns water into wine and gives the new birth to Nicodemus and the woman at the well in Samaria and as He answers the attacks of the scribes and Pharisees as we saw in chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8.
The event of chapter 9 is so wonderful that we can scarcely do justice to its exposition. Jesus uses the occasion of an attempt to kill Him to perform one of the most remarkable miracles in the entire Bible.
Following this miracle Jesus uses the event to preach the parable of the Good Shepherd in John 10..
This miracle and the way Jesus worked it is yet another declaration that He is the promised Messiah. Jesus is the Sent One of God.
If we only see the outward result of a blind man who is given sight, a gift that he never before had, we will come very short of understanding the meaning of the “The Man Born Blind”.
So with God’s blessing and with “ears to hear” we will look at some of what the Lord has taught me about John 9.
An outline for this message:
The occasion: “They took up stones to throw at Him.” John 7:58-59
The “happenstance”: “Now as Jesus passed by.” John 8:1
The problem of suffering: “Rabbi who sinned?” John 8:2
Time is running out: “… while it is day….” John 8:3-4
The Creator: “He spat on the ground and made clay …” John 8:6
The Sent One of God: “Go wash in the pool of Siloam …” John 8:7
The blind and the blind: “Are we blind also?” John 8:40
•
The occasion: “They took up stones to throw at Him.”
John 7:58-59
We have another example where the uninspired chapter divisions are not helpful because the attempt to kill Jesus is part of the miracle.
Jesus had once again declared that He is “I AM” and the religious leaders incite the crowd to throw stones at Him. But Jesus hid Himself from them.
Commentators have speculated that the Lord simply mingled with the crowd so that the assassins lost sight of Him. But John does not record trivialities. He hid Himself by a divine act, casting a judicial blindness upon the foe, just as the angels did in Sodom when on the eve of the great judgment they prevented the wicked men from breaking into the house of Lot.
The men of Sodom were only blind in as far as they could not find the door.
These Jews could not touch the Light of the world until He gave them permission. He reserved Himself for that other death which should publicly exhibit sin in all its horror and shame and curse.
•The “happenstance”: “Now as Jesus passed by.” John 8:1
He was but a blind beggar man, a recipient of passing charity, useless in the world, nameless, pitiful, and disinherited.
But it is the Lord of glory who is passing by and He knows all about this man - his destiny as well as his origin - the purpose of his creation. Jesus knows why was he born blind?
Men gnash their teeth and cry out against the absolute sovereignty of God. They say that if God is really in control of everything then we are mere robots. Man, they say, has a will that is absolutely free and that man’s will is sovereign even over God. Read the letter to the editor in the February 3, 2005 issue of The Alabama Baptist if you think that I am exaggerating.
Men have made an idol out of their imagined free will.
They say that God wills to save the entire human race but that God has limited Himself to the sovereign will of man. How is that for “limited atonement”?
But we do make choices freely and we are responsible for the choices we make. How then can God providentially order everything that comes to pass yet hold man responsible for his thoughts and actions?
Now I have matured enough to be honest and tell you that I cannot explain how God is sovereign over even the particles of dust that float in the air and where they will settle, and that God causes tsunamis, and allows the evil of abortion. Yet, He is holy and just.
Paul in Romans 9 gives the answer to this imponderable question. A man may not accept God’s answer but that man will answer to God for his rejection of the truth.
Romans 9:14-24
14 What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not! 15 For He says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion." 16 So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. 17 For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth." 18 Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.
19 You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?" 20 But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, "Why have you made me like this?"
21 Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?
22 What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23 and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory, 24 even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
And so here in John 9, Jesus “just happens” to pass by a man who was born blind and God is going to “have mercy on whomever He will have mercy.”
This “happenstance” in John 9 was as ordered by God before God ever spoke the world into existence; as was the caravan that“just happened” to pass by and be the means to rescue Joseph from the treachery of his brothers and send him to the throne of Egypt.
God no less planned this “happenstance” than the fact that Jesus “must” go through Samaria to keep an appointment with the woman at Jacob’s Well in John 4. “Now as Jesus passed by.”
E. W. Johnson preached a great message: “God’s elect are found in strange places.” A proud Pharisee, a wretched woman at the well, a blind beggar, a thief on a cross.
•Then Jesus answers, the problem of suffering:
“Rabbi who sinned?” John 8:2
Was the man’s blindness his own fault?
[“A strange thought this!” says Mr. Alexander.]
Or was it the fault of his parents?
Jesus said it was neither the one nor the other.
The basis of the question asked by His disciples, “who sinned” with the result that he was born blind is called “Retribution Theology.” The idea is that affliction and pain are the direct result of a specific sin.
The oldest book of the Bible presents us with Job’s loss of family, wealth, and health and yet Job was blameless. But Job’s “comforters” were ready with the answer: Job, tell us about your sin and God will restore you.
Well you know the story of Job. And here in John 9 we have an answer that will satisfy the child of God and mystify the unbeliever.
“The man born blind is the subject of a great creative purpose. His infirmity is the consequence of a divine decree, destined to end in eternal joy. The glorious works of God are to be shown forth in this man.
Moreover the deep, yea fathomless, design of the holy wisdom of God in the case of the man born blind was to serve a purpose beyond the actual personal deliverance enjoyed by this man.
The blind beggar man was to be the occasion of one of our Lord’s greatest parables - that of the Good Shepherd. He was born blind not for his own sin nor yet the sin of his parents, but that he might first of all symbolize the nation of Israel in the blindness of its unbelief and its miserable failure in true righteousness. They failed to put mercy before the letter of the law.
He was in fact a prophetic person deliberately forced into human history by the unsearchable counsel of God to vindicate the holy justice of heaven against the people of Israel who asked the contemptuous question,
“Are we blind also?” and who received the solemn reply that sealed their doom - “If ye were blind ye should have no sin, but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth” [v.41].
The meaning and purpose of the miracle become abundantly clear in Chapter 10, again no artificial chapters in the original script of course, for the narrative is one and complete.
In Chapter 10 is the parable of the Good Shepherd, in which the Lord places Himself before Israel and the world as the Shepherd of Israel [the mystic Israel of Jew and Gentile] foretold in Jeremiah 23 and Ezekiel 34 - glorious chapters of prophetic vision of the Savior which He claims for Himself as He declares His own self-knowledge of His own deity and the central place given to Him and to Him alone in the prophetic scriptures.
But more of this when we come to Chapter 10, wherein we shall find not only a description of the Savior’s gracious office in relation to His church, but also a solemn warning to the hireling shepherds of Israel who that day had asked in mocking scorn, “Are we blind also?” ” [Charles Alexander]
Why is there suffering?
Every time there is a so-called “natural” disaster, e.g., the tsunamis in the Indian Ocean or something like the terrorist’s attack on the World Trade Centers on September 11, 2001 we hear all kinds of explanations.
Listen very carefully. In no way am I a stoic who would deny the pain of suffering. But neither do I try to take God “off the hook” as it were, by saying that a good God would not allow pain. So God, they reason, if He is really good, must not be all-powerful. People who think like that are saying, in effect, “I would be a better god and would not allow such pain and suffering.”
The root of all evil is sin, and this even the disciples expressed when beholding the man blind from birth they asked, “Who did sin, this man or his parents that he was born blind?” The Savior’s reply “Neither this man nor his parents,” was not intended to sever all connection between sin and suffering, but to discourage the cruel conclusion [a1leged long before by the friends of Job] that suffering in itself is of necessity a result of personal sin.
The Lord does chasten His children and it is always necessary to examine ourselves to see if we are being corrected by God. But do not assign to anyone else the charge that when something bad happens that it is the result of a specific sin.
That lie was nailed for all time by the example of Job, and supremely in the case of the Son of God Himself, who bore all evil and pain and curse on the tree, that by evil He might destroy evil, and by death declare Himself to be the resurrection and the life.
My assessment of the problem presented by suffering and tragedy is that most people think that God is obligated to explain His providence to them and they want to know “right now!”
There is much more that we could say about suffering. We could discuss the age-old question of why a good God allows suffering. This problem bothered Augustine and it has not yet been resolved. Is He not powerful enough to stop all suffering? But that is for another time.
John in his Gospel records seven miracles performed by the Lord during three years of His earthly ministry. Three of these miracles took place in Galilee, and three in Judea.
Then there was the miracle of walking upon the water, inserted between the two series, a private miracle as it were, as distinct from the public miracles comprising the six [for only the disciples in the boat, at the dead of night, were witnesses of the unique display of the Lord’s divinity in walking upon the waters of the Lake].
The first Judean miracle was the healing of the impotent man [5]. The second was the healing of the blind beggar in chapter 9, and the third was the raising of Lazarus in chapter 11.
Beyond all doubt John was inspired to record this perfect cycle of seven miracles for the bearing they all had on the mission of Christ.
Those miracles in Judea followed the pattern laid down when the disciples of John the Baptist came asking Him “Art thou he that should come, or look we for another? The Lord showed them that day in demonstration of His messiahship, how ‘the lame walk, the blind see, the dead are raised’ [Matthew 11:5].
John the Apostle was led carefully to select the three Judean miracles as principal proofs of the divine office of Christ to comfort John the Baptist.
This “passing by” of the Lord is a prophetic act. John does not record any mere casual act of Christ. The hands, which reached for the stones to stone Him, were the hands of the unbelieving nation to whom He had revealed Himself by work and word.
He ‘hid himself’ from the wouldbe assassins, because that was not the death which He must die. Only by hanging on a tree, crucified, could He be made a curse for us.
•Time is running out: “… while it is day….” John 8:3-4
The blindness of this man was therefore foreordained that the glory of God should be manifest in his deliverance, and a further indication of this divine selectivity of all the circumstances of the case is conveyed in the preliminary words of the Lord before He proceeded to bestow sight on the unseeing eyes.
He utters words of great power and depth: “I must work the works of Him that sent Me while it is day. The night cometh when no man can work. As long as I am in the world I am the light of the world” (verses 4 & 5).
What is the night to which the Lord refers? Is it the night of His own death, or the night into which Jewish history was about to pass because of the unbelief of the nation? Is it the night of the cosmic earth when it shall pass away on the great Day of Judgment?
Often I have said that your eschatology interprets Scripture and this is a case in point. It is my understanding that the Jewish leaders are having their final confrontation with Messiah. They will reject Him and crucify Him and in so doing bring about the final rejection of national Israel.
And so the “day” is the time that our Lord is working His miracles and preaching about His deity. The “night” will fall on national Israel when they crucify Jesus. He said in 8:28: “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I AM …” They will realize too late for the most of them that Jesus is the Christ! It will be “night”!
“As long as I am in the world I am the light of the world” (vs. 5)
Jesus makes a solemn and clear declaration of His own divinity, and another indication of how the Lord Jesus Christ “walks among the prophets.”
The mystery of cosmic light upon which the existence of the whole universe depends, is first indicated in the opening chapter of the Bible: “…. and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And God said, Let there be light and there was light….”
The inspired John takes up the theme in the opening chapter to his Gospel; “In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehended it not ... That was the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world”.
The prophet Isaiah is full of this great theme: “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined” [9:2]; “I will give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the gentiles” [42:6]; “I will give thee for a light to the gentiles, that thou mayest be My salvation unto the end of the earth…” [49:6]; “Arise, shine for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee, For behold, darkness shall cover the earth and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and His glory shall be seen upon thee” [60:1-2].
•The Creator: “He spat on the ground and made clay …” John 8:6
John tells us in chapter 1 that “All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.” [1:3]
There is more than a mere suggestion here of the creation when the Creator of everything that is not God makes clay. Adam was made from the dust of the ground. Is not the Lord, as He proclaims His deity, reminding those who are not blind that He is indeed I AM?
•The Sent One of God: “Go wash in the pool of Siloam …”
John 8:7
The narrative proceeds. The Lord spits on the ground, stoops and makes clay of the spittle and therewith anoints the eyes of the blind man and tells him. “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam,” The man went his way [no great distance from, the temple precincts where the Lord found him] washed, and came again seeing [verse 6].
The mingling of the spittle with the dust, and the spreading of the ‘clay’ on the eyes of the blind man, is so unusual an act on the part of the Lord that it appears to be a deliberate portrayal of a prophetical truth.
He who healed the sick with a word, or raised the dead at a command, could easily have dispensed with so strange a proceeding, unless He had some special lesson to teach. This further appears in the fact that the process did not end even there. He said to the blind man, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam”. The man obeyed, went, and returned seeing.
John is careful (for he wrote in Greek whereas Siloam is a Hebrew name with a special meaning which Greek readers would not understand) to tell his readers that there was something special about this act of sending the man to Siloam. For the Hebrew meaning of Siloam is “SENT”. By this clue, John carries us at once to the words of the Lord in verse 4: “I must work the works of HIM THAT SENT ME ….”
John Six is about the Sent One of God.
The Prophetic origin of the Lord’s act in sending the man to the pool of Siloam is found in Isaiah 8:6-8:
“Forasmuch as this people refuseth the waters of Shiloah which go softly, and rejoice in Rezin and Remaliah’s son; now therefore behold, the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the river strong and many, even the king of Assyria and all his glory: and he shall come up over all his channels and go over all his banks. And he shall pass through Judah; he shall overflow and go over, he shall reach even unto the neck; and the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land 0 Immanuel”
SILOAM IS IMMAUEL
The symbolism of Shiloah [the same as Siloam] is clear. Hengstenberg writes that this sacred pool is ‘consecrated by Isaiah into a figure of the kingdom of God’
The true Siloam is Immanuel [“God with us”], and the sending of the blind man to the pool of Siloam was a declaration by the One who sent him there, that He, the sender, was none other than the Immanuel of Prophecy, God with us, sent by the Father to establish the new and eternal kingdom of God by His overthrow at the Cross, of sin, Satan, death.
HE WHO WAS SENT
Like an opening flower the acted prophecy proceeds in John 9 to interpret itself in all its heavenly fullness.
Siloam means ‘Sent’ and in commanding the Blind Beggar to go there and wash the Lord was pointing to Himself, that all succeeding generations might know the reason why He was in the world, and know also the eternal consequences flowing therefrom, The sinner in his need is sent to Him whom the Father sent into the world to be the Savior of the world.
Christ came into the world not by His own will, but by the will of the Father who SENT him. The gospel of John is rich in its allusions to this great fact.
It is made abundantly clear that the mission of our Savior was not an independent act. He did not by His own volition come to stand between the sinner and an angry God.
“I came not to do Mine own will but the will of Him that SENT me,” declares the Son when He comes to fulfill His mission as the obedient Servant sent from the bosom of the Eternal. [John 6:38].
Time does not permit me to bring out the many passages in Isaiah that point to the sending forth of Christ into the world. A thorough study of Isaiah will open many things to your mind about the purpose of God in the salvation of the Gentiles. The Jews had reserved for themselves all of the mercy of God and despised the Gentile “dogs.” But in all of the allusions to His being the SENT ONE of God, Jesus is putting the prophecies of Isaiah before them.
The mission of Christ as the SENT of the Father, is further revealed by Isaiah 61:1- the verse with which the Lord identified Himself at the opening of His public ministry in the synagogue of Nazareth:
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek; HE HATH SENT ME to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that arc bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. [see also Luke 4:16-21].
•The blind and the blind: “Are we blind also?” John 8:40
Why was the man born blind?
“… that the works of God should be revealed in him,” [4]
More than a miracle is at work here. Jesus is using the words of the prophet Isaiah that God would SEND His Messiah in His sending the blind man to wash in the pool of Siloam, which means, “Sent”.
Jesus of Nazareth is the One Sent by God according to the Scriptures.
In the confrontation between the man who was born blind and the Pharisees we will see the total frustration of the Pharisees and learn a lesson on how to witness for Jesus Christ.
This blind man is symbolic of national Israel and of every person born into the world.
We are born in spiritual blindness as to any true knowledge of God and we remain in that miserable condition until Christ is revealed to us.
We are born just as blind spiritually as was this man to whom Christ was revealed. The man not only received his physical sight but with healed eyes he saw Jesus who is the Christ.
See the total frustration of the Pharisees who had determined that Jesus of Nazareth could not be Messiah and said they would excommunicate anyone who said that He was.
They make five attempts to discredit the miracle [10, 15, 17, 24, 25].
The man begins to enjoy himself and taunts the Pharisees because to him they are blind. “Do you also want to become His disciples?”
The Pharisees claim to be Moses’ disciples [28].
The man begins to teach the experts and he is now having fun at the expense of the Pharisees. Not even Moses opened the eyes of a man born blind [32]!
Notice how the man’s understanding progressed.
Jesus is “A MAN” [11].
He is a prophet [17].
Jesus is greater than Moses [32].
This Man is from God [33].
Jesus is “Lord, Sir. [36]
Jesus is the Christ [38].
Now look at a lesson on how to witness for Christ.
The man simply told them what Jesus had done for him. He told them only what he knew, e.g. he could not see when Jesus spit on the ground [vs. 6], so he didn't include that in his telling [vs. 11] of what Jesus had done for him.
Personally I don’t use planned approaches to witnessing. Usually people will not follow the script that you have memorized. Just tell others what Jesus has done for you.
Has Jesus revealed Himself to you to the saving of your sinful soul?
As the man born blind said, I can honestly say for myself, “One thing I know: that though I was blind, now I see.”
John Newton got it right in “Amazing Grace”:
“I once was blind, but now I see.”
Has Jesus opened your eyes? Have you witnessed before men in believer’s baptism that Jesus is your Lord? Are you afraid, like the blind man’s parent, to be thrown out of the “synagogue”? Your “synagogue” may be your family who will disown you if you profess and follow Jesus!
Immanuel is only known by faith, that is by those whose eyes have been opened and their hearts renewed by divine grace so as to understand. This is shown dramatically in the story of the blind man of John 9. The false shepherds of Israel cast the man out of the synagogue. The Lord sought out one of His sheep and asked him, “Do you believe in the Son of God?”
The man answered, “Who is he Lord that I might believe in Him? And Jesus said unto him, You have both seen Him, and it is He who is talking with you.” And the man said, Lord I believe. And he worshipped Him. [9:35-38]
Notice that Jesus received his worship.
We now understand also the next words of Christ:
“For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind” [39]
Still moving in the prophecies the Lord goes back to that 6th chapter of Isaiah and tells the nation which then stood before Him in the person of their teachers and leaders, that the dire words of the prophet were being fulfilled then and there, for Israel was even then judicially blinded and hardened by the righteous judgment of God. “Night” was about to fall on Israel!
40 Then some of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these words, and said to Him, "Are we blind also?"
41 Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, 'We see.' Therefore your sin remains.
Amen
