John 9:15

_THEN AGAIN THE PHARISEES ALSO ASKED HIM HOW HE HAD RECEIVED HIS SIGHT. HE SAID UNTO THEM, HE PUT CLAY UPON MINE EYES, AND I WASHED, AND DO SEE._ No JFB commentary on this verse....

15._The Pharisees also asked him. _The people had already heard this confession from the mouth of the blind man; and now the Pharisees also are made witnesses of it, who might have objected that a report had been groundlessly circulated by the common people, and had been as groundlessly believed. And, first, leaving out of view the question as to the fact, they dispute only about the law of the case; for they do not deny that Christ restored sight to the blind man, but they find a crime in the circumstance of the time when it was done, and assert that it is not a work of God, because it violated _the Sabbath. _But we ought first to inquire if a work of God was a violation of the Sabbath. And what hinders them from seeing this, but that, in consequence of having been blinded by sinful motives and by malice, they see nothing? Besides, they had already been abundantly instructed by Christ,...

13-17 Christ not only worked miracles on the sabbath, but in such a manner as would give offence to the Jews, for he would not seem to yield to the scribes and Pharisees. Their zeal for mere rites consumed the substantial matters of religion; therefore Christ would not give place to them. Also, works of necessity and mercy are allowed, and the sabbath rest is to be kept, in order to the sabbath work. How many blind eyes have been opened by the preaching of the gospel on the Lord's day! how many impotent souls cured on that day! Much unrighteous and uncharitable judging comes from men's adding their own fancies to God's appointments. How perfect in wisdom and holiness was our Redeemer, when his enemies could find nothing against him, but the oft-refuted charge of breaking the sabbath! May we be enabled, by well-doing, to silence the ignorance of foolish men....

THE PHARISEES ASKED HIM HOW ... - The proper question to have been asked in the case was whether he had in fact done it, and not in what way. The question, also, about a sinner’s conversion is whether in fact it has been done, and not about the mode or manner in which it is effected; yet it is remarkable that no small part of the disputes and inquiries among men are about the mode in which the Spirit renews the heart, and not about the evidence that it is done....

EXPOSITION These chapters (9. and 10.) bring the conflict with the Jews to a climax before the commencement of the Peraean ministry. They are doubtless closely connected with what has preceded; but the note of time (John 10:22) implies an interval of some months of intense activity elsewhere—to have carried on the ministry of Christ from the Feast of Tabernacles to the winter. If John 10:22 points back, as Westcott argues by alteration of the Received Text and by special translation, to the preceding discourse, we are compelled to dissociate the cure of the blind man from the teaching of John 8:1., and to regard the opening verse of John 9:1. a

THEN AGAIN THE PHARISEES ASKED HIM,.... Not that they had put any question of this kind to him before; but they also, as well as the neighbours, inquired of him, HOW HE HAD RECEIVED HIS SIGHT; from whom, and by what means: HE SAID UNTO THEM, HE PUT CLAY UPON MINE EYES, AND I WASHED AND DO SEE. This account agrees with the matter of fact, and with that he gave to his neighbours: he did not vary as to the truth of the relation, but this is somewhat more concise and short; and it is reasonable to suppose, that the Pharisees had talked much with him before, which made it less necessary to be more particular; for he makes no mention of the name of Jesus, nor of his making the clay, and the manner of it, nor of the Pool of Siloam, or his orders to go there and wash; John 9:6, John 9:7

John 9:1. _And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind_ Christ's disciples were often inquisitive even when their Master was bent upon giving proofs of his practical benevolence. Fools may sometimes ask questions which wise men may not think it proper to answer; but on this occasion, our Saviour gave an answer to the enquiry which his disciples had put to him. John 9:3. _Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents : but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work._ Think of our Lord being under the necessity of working: «I mus

CHAPTER 9 _ 1. The Man Born Blind, Healed. (John 9:1 .)_ 2. The Healed Man Questioned. (John 9:8 .) 3. Reviled and Cast Out. (John 9:27 .) 4. Jesus Reveals Himself to Him. (John 9:35 .) The healing of the man born blind is a type and an illustration of how Christ, the Light, communicates light and how he who follows the Light walks no more in darkness, but has the light of life. (John 8:12 .) And before He healed the man He testified that His day of activity on earth as Man was rapidly drawing to its close. ...

THE INCOMPETENCE AND ANGER OF THE AUTHORITIES. In what follows the actors are described first as Pharisees, then as Jews, the larger party of whom the Pharisees are one section. In John 9:13 the attempt is made to get evidence out of the man to disprove the fact of the healing, which they refuse to believe, on the ground that a Sabbath-breaker could not do so great a work. They only elicit the man's view that Jesus is a prophet. Interest in the matter spreads. The Jews now question the man's parents, in the hopes of being able to deny his identity. They assert that it is undoubtedly their son, and for the rest they are cautious, knowing the hostility of the authorities to the claims of Jesus. So the man himself is called again, in the hope that his admissions may be made to point to demoniac agency, as the fact of the healing can no longer be denied. He is solemnly adjured to confess the...

THIS MAN IS NOT OF GOD, BECAUSE HE KEEPETH NOT THE SABBATH DAY. The Pharisees questioned the man, learned that his eyes had been smeared with spittle, and then declared that Jesus had broken the Sabbath. The Jewish doctors of the law, while binding burdens that God had never imposed, declared that on the Sabbath no man could even anoint one of his own eyes with spittle. Hence, according to their logic, Jesus had broken the Sabbath, and was not. man of God. But on the other hand was the wonderful miracle. How could one whom God did not help open the eyes of one blind from birth! Hence, "there was. division among them....