John 9:23-38

ADROITNESS OF THIS MAN UNDER PROSECUTION

John 9:23-38. “ Therefore his parents said, He is of age; ask him. Then they called the man the second time who was blind, and said to him, Give glory to God; we know that this Man is a sinner. Then he responded, If He is a sinner, I know not; one thing I know, that being blind, I now see. Then they said to him, What did He unto thee? How did He open thine eyes? He responded to them, I told you already, and you did not hearken; why do you wish again to hear? Whether do you wish to be His disciples? They railed on him, and said, Thou art His disciple, but we are the disciples of Moses. We know that God spoke to Moses; but we do not know this One whence He is. The man responded, and said to them, For in this it is astonishing that you do not know whence He is, when He opened mine eyes. We know that God heareth not sinners; but if any one may be a worshiper of God, and do His will, him He heareth.” This passage has very shrewdly, and even diabolically, been used by modern heretics in the pulpit, assuming the hypothesis theft a sinner has no right to pray, and should come prayerless, with all his sins, join the Church, and get remission in water baptism. I have heard them, over and over, use this Scripture to justify their foolish, wicked, fanatical dogma, which would deny the sinner access to God on his knees for pardon and salvation, and turn him over to the preacher and to water baptism. Certainly this is one of the most unapologizable heresies ever hatched in the bottomless pit, and, worst of all, they blame the Savior with it. The truth of it is, the penitent, praying sinner is a “worshiper of God,” and according to this very Scripture, God hears and saves him, independently of human instrumentality, or priestly absolution and Church rites. The meaning of the passage is that God will not hear a sinner if he undertake to work a miracle, but that He will hear him if he falls down with a broken heart, and impleads His pardoning mercy. “ It was never heard of that any one opened the eyes of one who had been born blind. Unless he was with God , He would not be able to do anything. They responded, and said to him, Thou wast born altogether in sins, and dost thou teach us? And they cast him out;” i. e., they excommunicated him from the synagogue, turned him out of the Church. This poor, uneducated beggar, who had never seen the light of day, and of course enjoyed no educational opportunities, proved more than a match for the quirky, astute, and quizzical priests and theologians, who, like unprincipled, tricky lawyers, did their utmost to puzzle, complicate, and confuse this man, whom they regarded as a very ignoramus. In all their stratagems to entangle him, they signally failed. He had good, common sense, and the light of the Holy Spirit, and God helped him to triumph gloriously over the combination of his enemies. You have frequently seen a witness in court, so confused, befogged, and entangled by the chicanery of the attorneys as to become utterly bewildered and self-contradictory, thus invalidating his own testimony. A similar effort is made by these Pharisees, scribes, and high priests; but all in vain. The uncouth rustic sticks to the pith of the matter, and never flickers nor cowers. Consequently they do the only thing left in their power, and that is, arbitrarily and illegally turn him out of the Church. How wonderfully, in our day, does the history of the Bible times repeat itself!

“ Jesus heard that they cast him out, and finding him, said, Dost thou believe on the Son of man?” This was a favorite cognomen with Jesus, conveying a deeper significance than many apprehend. Jesus is the only Son of man, because He is the only Son of unfallen humanity, having taken our nature, sin excepted; whereas Adam and Eve had no posterity till after they sinned, the posterity of fallen humanity having received the Satanic nature through the beguilement of the serpent, or the spiritual children of the devil. (John 8:44.) Therefore, Jesus is really and truly the Son of man, and the only one, all of Adam's posterity having forfeited sonship ill the fall; our only possible hope of heaven consisting in the transference from Adam the First to Adam the Second, by the internal infusion of the Divine life in regeneration, and elimination of the Satanic virus in sanctification. “ He responded and said, Who is He, Lord, that I may believe on Him? Jesus said to him, And you have seen Him, and the One speaking with you is He. And he said, I believe, Lord; and he worshipped Him.” Jerusalem, like other Oriental cities, swarms with beggars, and, of course, many of them are blind. As a rule, every beggar has his place, and in the case of this man it was pre-eminently so, because, being stone blind, it was not convenient for him to travel about. N.B. Jesus at this time had been in Jerusalem but a few weeks, having spent the entire period of His ministry in Northern Palestine, except two brief periods, when he attended the first and second Passover at Jerusalem. The presumption is, this man had never met Him before. The very fact of His stupendous miracle convinced him that He was a prophet, sent and empowered from heaven. Elijah and Elisha had wrought great miracles, even raising the dead, yet neither of them being the Christ. Consequently, while the opening of his eyes perfectly assured him of His Divine commission, it did not satisfy him as to His Messiahship; but feeling fully assured that He was a godly man in a very pre-eminent sense, when He declared to him His Christhood, he believed unhesitatingly, confirming his faith by falling down before Him and worshipping Him as God.