John 9:2

And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? AND HIS DISCIPLES ASKED HIM, SAYING, MASTER, WHO DID SIN, THIS MAN, OR HIS PARENTS, THAT HE WAS BORN BLIND? [ hina (G2443) tuflos (G5185) genneethee (G1080)] - or 'should be born blind.' Since the doctrine of the pre-existence of souls, and that of the 'metempsychosis' (the transmission of the soul of one person into the Body of another), though held by certain of the more philosophical Jews, was never a current belief of the people, we are not to understand the disciples here to refer to sin committed in a former state of existence; and probably it is but a loose way of concluding that sin somewhere had...

2._Rabbi, who hath sinned, this man, or his parents? _In the first place, as Scripture testifies that all the sufferings to which the human race is liable proceed from sin, whenever we see any person wretched, we cannot prevent the thought from immediately presenting itself to our minds, that the distresses which fall heavily upon him are punishments inflicted by the hand of God. But here we commonly err in three ways. First, while every man is ready to censure others with extreme bitterness, there are few who apply to themselves, as they ought to do, the same severity. If my brother meets with adversity, I instantly acknowledge the judgment of God; but if God chastises me with a heavier stroke, I wink at my sins. But in considering punishments, every man ought to begin with himself, and to spare himself as little as any other person. Wherefore, if we wish to be candid judges in this mat...

1-7 Christ cured many who were blind by disease or accident; here he cured one born blind. Thus he showed his power to help in the most desperate cases, and the work of his grace upon the souls of sinners, which gives sight to those blind by nature. This poor man could not see Christ, but Christ saw him. And if we know or apprehend anything of Christ, it is because we were first known of him. Christ says of uncommon calamities, that they are not always to be looked on as special punishments of sin; sometimes they are for the glory of God, and to manifest his works. Our life is our day, in which it concerns us to do the work of the day. We must be busy, and not waste day-time; it will be time to rest when our day is done, for it is but a day. The approach of death should quicken us to improve all our opportunities of doing and getting good. What good we have an opportunity to do, we shou...

Verse John 9:2. _WHO DID SIN, THIS MAN, OR HIS PARENTS_] The doctrine of the transmigration of souls appears to have been an article in the creed of the Pharisees, and it was pretty general both among the Greeks and the Asiatics. The _Pythagoreans_ believed the souls of men were sent into other bodies for the punishment of some sin which they had committed in a _pre-existent_ state. This seems to have been the foundation of the disciples question to our Lord. Did this man sin in a _pre-existent state_, that he is punished in this body with blindness? Or, did his parents commit some sin, for which they are thus plagued in their offspring? Most of the _Asiatic_ nations have believed in the doctrine of transmigration. The _Hindoos_ still hold it; and profess to tell precisely the _sin_ which the person committed in another body, by the afflictions

MASTER, WHO DID SIN? ... - It was a universal opinion among the Jews that calamities of all kinds were the effects of sin. See the notes at Luke 13:1. The case, however, of this man was that of one that was blind from his birth, and it was a question which the disciples could not determine whether it was his fault or that of his parents. Many of the Jews, as it appears from their writings (see Lightfoot), believed in the doctrine of the transmigration of souls; or that the soul of a man, in consequence of sin, might be compelled to pass into other bodies, and be punished there. They also believed that an infant might sin before it was born (see Lightfoot), and that consequently this blindness might have come upon the child as a consequence of that. It was also a doctrine with many that the crime of the parent might be the cause of deformity in the child, particularly

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

AND HIS DISCIPLES ASKED HIM,.... It may be that some of the twelve apostles, or others of his disciples, might put the following question to him on sight of this blind man, who by some means or another knew was born blind: SAYING, MASTER, WHO DID MAN, OR HIS PARENTS, THAT HE WAS BORN BLIND? the first of these questions, whether the man himself had sinned before he was born, which might be the occasion of his blindness, proceeds not upon the doctrine of original sin, though the Jews then believed that; Romans 5:12; since that was common to all men, and therefore could not admit of such a question; but either upon the notion of transmigration of souls into other bodies; and so the disciples might ask whether this man had sinned in a pre-existent state when in another body, which was the reason of this blindness, or of his being put into a blind body. This notion, Josephus says

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? 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. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, and said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way before, and washed, and came seeing._ I will not say anything now about this miracle, as it will form the subject of my discourse. This exposition consisted of readings from...

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. ...

JOHN 9. THE HEALING OF THE MAN BORN BLIND. JESUS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. HOSTILITY TO HIS FOLLOWERS. John 9:1. The Miracle. The expression passed by (_cf._ Mark 1:16) does not necessarily connect the incident with the preceding chapter. In subject-matter it is more closely connected with the first part of ch. 10. It belongs to the period between the Feasts of Tabernacles and the Dedication. The encounter with a man born blind suggests the question of sin and suffering, so often raised in the OT and especially in Job. The disciples see the difficulty of the orthodox Jewish explanation. Can this man's suffering be due either to his own or his parents'sin? There is probably a reference, either to the Greek view of the soul's pre-existence (_cf._ Wis_8:19 f., being good I came into a body undefiled), or to th