John 9:1-12

A BLIND MAN HEALED

Text 9:1-12

1

As he passed by, he saw a man blind from his birth.

2

And his disciples asked him, saying, Rabbi, who sinned, this man, or his parents, that he should be born blind?

3

Jesus answered, Neither did this man sin, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.

4

We must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work

5

When I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

6

When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and anointed his eyes with the clay,

7

and said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam (which is by interpretation, Sent). He went away therefore, and washed, and came seeing.

8

The neighbors therefore, and they that saw him aforetime, that he was a beggar, said, Is not this he that sat and begged?

9

Others said, It is he: others said, No, but he is like him. He said, I am he.

10

They said therefore unto him, How then were thine eyes opened?

11

He answered, The man that is called Jesus made clay, and anointed mine eyes, and said unto me, Go to Siloam, and wash: so I went away and washed, and I received sight.

12

And they said unto him, Where is he? He saith, I know not.

Queries

a.

Why such a question from the disciples (John 9:2)?

b.

Why put clay on the man's eyes?

c.

Is there any faith evidenced by the blind beggar?

Paraphrase

And as Jesus and His disciples were walking along He saw a man who was blind from his birth on. And His disciples asked Him saying, Teacher, did this man's sin or his parents-' sin cause him to be blind? Jesus answered, It was not that this man or his parents sinned which caused his blindness. His blindness has happened to him within the providence of God in order that God's works of mercy and power might be made manifest in him. We, while our appointed time and opportunities for working still remain, must make the most of our opportunities and do the works of the One who sent Me, The night-time of life comes to every man and then our opportunities to do God's work is over. I am the world's source of divine light and truth as long as I am in the world and so I must make the most of My opportunities here. Having said these things He spat upon the ground and made clay of the spittle and daubed the clay upon the blind man's eyes. Then Jesus said to him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam (interpreted it means Sent). So he went away and washed and returned seeing! His neighbors and those who had seen him before and known him as a beggar were saying to one another, This is not the blind one who used to sit begging is he? Some said, Yes, this is the beggar; but others were saying, No, but he resembles that one. But the man himself said, Yes, I am that man. So they said to him, How were your eyes opened? He answered, The man who is called Jesus made clay and daubed my eyes with the clay and said to me, Go to Siloam and wash. I went and washed as he commanded and behold, I received my sight. They said to him, Where is this man? He replied, I do not know.

Summary

Jesus cures a man born blind. The disciples are concerned about the theological aspects of the man's blindness. Jesus uses the man's blindness to perform a miracle and testify to His deity and, further, to illustrate His teaching that He is the light of the world.

Comment

It would seem that the blind beggar was observed by Jesus and His disciples immediately upon their leaving the temple as recorded in John 8:59. The temple gates were appropriate places for the multitudes of aged and infirm of Jesus-' day whose only means of existence was begging. People would be coming and going continually (and especially during annual festivals) to drop their shekels in the temple treasury. In fact, the Book of Acts tells of one beggar (Acts 3:3) who was carried and placed daily at the gate Beautiful in order to beg alms. This particular blind beggar must have been well-known for the disciples to have known him as one blind from birth. The time when Jesus and the disciples passed by and saw the beggar is not important. It could have been the day following Jesus-' escape from the temple (John 8:59). Jesus continued His later Judean ministry, in and around Jerusalem, for at least three months (from Tabernacles in September to Dedication in December). But it seems more in harmony with the context that this incident took place on the same day that Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple.

We can understand the alternative explanation of the disciples when they attributed the man's blindness to parental sin, but why would they suggest that a man born blind might be blind as a result of his own sin? How could a man sin before he was born? First, the Jews unhesitatingly connected suffering with sin. Job's friends attributed his calamities to his hypocrisy (cf. Job 4:5-8). All of man's infirmities are attributable in the final analysis to sinAdam's sin brought about physical disease and death (cf. Romans 5:12-21; also Genesis 3:17-19; Romans 8:20-23). Furthermore, the sins of parents may be visited upon their children in physical calamities even to the fourth generation (cf. Exodus 20:5; Exodus 34:7; Numbers 14:1-45; Numbers 15:1-41; Numbers 16:1-50; Numbers 17:1-13; Numbers 18:1-32; Deuteronomy 5:9; Deuteronomy 28:32; Jeremiah 31:29; Ezekiel 18:2). And it is also true that much of a man's suffering is brought by his own sin and dissipation.

Could it be that in their dilemma they were thinking that if his blindness were a punishment for his own sin, then God must have punished him before he sinned, since he had been blind from his birthor, the only other alternative, to them, was that the innocent child was being punished for the guilty parents.

According to most commentators, the Jewish Rabbis exaggerated the theological implications of the relationship between sin and suffering all out of proportion to what God's revealed truth actually says. Jesus did not agree with some of their ideas (cf. Luke 13:2-5). Some of the Rabbis are said to have believed that infants still in the womb were able to commit prenatal sin. According to their interpretation of Genesis 25:22-26, Esau had tried to murder Jacob while still in the womb of their mother! Other scholars have traced out in a Judaism later than Jesus-' time a Jewish belief in the pre-existence of souls and their ability to sin in such a pre-existent state. Perhaps some of the Rabbis contemporary with Jesus were even then teaching this doctrine.

Whether the disciples had been exposed to these Rabbinical theories or not, they were concerned with the blind man primarily in a theological sense. They were wanting Jesus to give His opinion on the subject.
Jesus was not primarily interested in wasting time in speculating on the theological question of the cause for the man's blindness. His time was precious and to be used primarily for bringing remedy to the results of sin and evil. Jesus does not contradict the teaching of the Scriptures when He says, that the man is not blind as a result of his own sin nor the sin of his parents. The man is still subject to mortal infirmities because of Adam's sin. Neither did Jesus imply that the man or his parents were without sin. In light of our ignorance on the mystery of suffering and affliction we will do well to accept what God has revealed and not to speculate further. Jesus simply stated here that, within the providential scheme of God, this man's blindness was in order that the works of God might be made manifest through Him. As Hendriksen says, All thingseven afflictions and calamitieshave as their ultimate purpose the glorification of God in Christ by means of the manifestation of His greatness. (Gospel of John, Vol. II, Wm. Hendriksen, pub. Baker, page 73.) This is the teaching of the Scriptures (cf. Romans 8:28; 2 Corinthians 4:17) and this is the ultimate lesson which Job learned (cf. Job 42:1-6).

To the disciples this man presented an opportunity for theological speculation which was time-wasting and unprofitable. To Jesus the man's extremity presented a challenge and an opportunity to manifest in Himself the glory of God and the authority of God. Giving sight to the blind was to be a sign that the Messiah had come (cf. Isaiah 35:5; Isaiah 29:18; Isaiah 32:3 ff; Isaiah 42:7; Matthew 12:22; Luke 4:18-19).

In John 9:4 Jesus makes it plain that He has only a certain allotted time in which to manifest Himself as the Son of God. It seems that Jesus means His period of earthly life when He says day and by the night cometh when no man can work, He means physical death, when He shall depart this earth. This harmonizes with the general idea that Jesus is trying to teach the disciples concerning the man's blindness. But the Lord's statement in John 9:4 is true of all His followers. We all pass this way but once. We must make the most of our opportunities to carry out our divinely appointed commission to proclaim and live the word of Christ. When the time of our departure draws nigh, let us be ready to say with Paul, I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith (2 Timothy 4:6-8).

He has a special work to do while He is in the world. While He is here He is the light of the world in a special sense (cf. John 1:4-18). While He was here He was the effulgence of his glory, and the very image of his [God'S] substance (cf. Hebrews 1:3). Jesus was Emmanuel (God with us). He came to walk among men and reveal unto them the Father (cf. John 14:7-11). He is, of course, still the Light of the World through the written testimony of His Word, the Bible, and through the reflected glory of the lives of His followers, in whom His Spirit abides.

Two reasons are generally offered for Christ's anointing the man's eyes with mud made of spittle: (1) To challenge the Pharasaic tradition of prohibiting application of medications on the Sabbath, and/or (2) to give the blind man some symbolic or expressive action in order that he might know the power to heal his blindness comes from Jesus. Perhaps the second explanation is the more to be desired. Jesus used this method at other times (cf. Mark 7:33; Mark 8:23) and so did the prophets (cf. 2 Kings 4:29; Isaiah 8:18) to show that the miraculous healing was communicated through them.

Why did Jesus send the blind man to the pool of Siloam? The pool of Siloam was just inside the southeast portion of the city wall and quite a distance from the templethere were probably facilities much handier where the man might wash. We believe there were two reasons for such a command: (a) He sent the man there to test his faith. Faith must be tested and expressed. Actually, neither the mud nor the water had any medicinal qualities except as Jesus used them miraculously. The Scriptures are replete with such tests of faith by demanding obedience to an arbitrary commandboth Old Testament and New Testament. Just one example will illustrateNaaman the Syrian captain cured of leprosy by dipping himself seven times in the muddy Jordan river (cf. 2 Kings 5:10); (b) This pool probably had some symbolic, typical, or spiritual Messianic significance (cf. Isaiah 8:6 and our comments on this pool in connection with the Feast of Tabernacles, John 7:38). John could be hinting of this spiritual significance when he adds the interpretation of the pool as Sent.

The pool of Siloam has an interesting history. The water supply for Jerusalem was mainly from outside the city walls and always subject to being cut off by her enemies in event of siege. King Hezekiah, realizing that Sennacherib was about to invade Judah, in about 701 B.C., had workers tunnel through solid rock a conduit from the Virgin's Fountain (or Spring Gihon) into a pool inside the city (cf. 2 Chronicles 32:2-8; 2 Chronicles 32:30; Isaiah 22:9-11; 2 Kings 20:20). The engineers began their cutting from both ends and met in the middle and tunneled through solid rock with the very inadequate equipment of that day for a distance of 583 yards. In 1880 a tablet was discovered by two boys, while wading, which had been cut into the stone in Hezekiah's reign to commemorate the completion of the tunnel. This inscription would have been there when the blind beggar went to wash the mud from his eyelids.

Jesus, wishing to remain hidden from those who would have stoned Him in the temple, quietly left the scene of the miraculous healing. The beggar, now able to drink in the world with his eyes, would go quickly home to tell his parents the exciting news. And there was excitement, indeed, as the neighbors couldn-'t believe their eyes. Some of them were unable to believe that this was their former blind neighbor until he, himself, said, I am he. Naturally they are eager to hear how he received his sight. The man knew very little, actually, of what had transpired. He simply related clearly and concisely what he knewthe man called Jesus put clay on his eyes, told him to go wash in the pool of Siloam; he did so and received his sight. Someone no doubt told the blind man that it was the man called Jesus who commanded himperhaps even Jesus told him His name. But, as we shall see later, the former blind man had not yet come to know Jesus as the Christ. The beggar's neighbors must have been cohorts with the Pharisees. Their desire to know where Jesus could be found is only natural and arises out of the excitement of His apparent miracle upon their neighbor.

Quiz

1.

What teachings concerning sin and suffering might cause the disciples to ask their question in John 9:2?

2.

Why was the man born blind?

3.

What does Jesus mean primarily in John 9:4? Does it apply to everyone?

4.

How was Jesus the light of the world while He was in the world?

5.

Why did Jesus put clay on the man's eyes?

6.

Why command the man to wash in the pool of Siloam?

7.

Who built the conduit to the pool of Siloam? What archeological evidence is there to substantiate the antiquity of this pool?