First, this teaching is very long and I apologize for that. I couldn’t cut it down though because I feel the message is deeply important so I’m just going with it. Hopefully it will reach the right people. One of those people is myself. I wrote this as much for me as anyone else. I fleshed out one version of this teaching weeks ago and never had a chance to write it. That chance came today and I guess I’m glad because I see the old teaching I first saw in a new light. Let me explain a little.
I have been sorely tested and struggling with my faith this last week. I hear voices that cut my faith to the ground and leave me hopeless and reaching. I reach in prayer, I reach in asking others for prayer, I reach in crying out to God, I reach in studying Scripture to discern God’s truth and hold it up to the wounding and destructive lies that tear down my mind and heart. I reach in trusting the testimony of God’s mercy and work in my life. I hold that God who is True up to the one making dark claims in me, and I turn my heart and mind to know Him and trust in Him despite every obstacle testing me. I honestly didn’t know if I had enough faith to do this teaching today, but I sensed that I would need its message as much if not more than anyone I would hope to help in sharing it. And, indeed I was right, because more than ever, I must look at Jesus, Son of God, to know Him and see Him truthfully for who He was and claimed to be, and say, Lord, I believe!
We will begin in John 8:37 and go all the way through the end of John 9 because the essential message is tied in through a pretty wide stretch. I will try to be as concise as possible! John 8:37 starts a subsection called, “Abraham’s Seed and Satan’s.” It is an exchange between Jesus and the Pharisees that is very tense and direct. Jesus addresses them saying, “I know that you are Abraham’s descendants, but you seek to kill Me because My word has no place in you. I speak what I have seen with My Father, and you do what you have seen with your father.” There are a couple of things in this short statement I want to point out. There is the issue of physical descent and spiritual descent that Jesus is about to speak to them.
He acknowledges that they are descended from Abraham physically, yet they seek to kill Him even though He testifies that He is from God, that He does and says what the Father gives Him, and that He does the righteous works of God. His testimony has no “place” in them. They deceive themselves in their pride, rejecting His words because the truth would threaten the power they thrive off and the sin they would have to give up—sin that profits them in the world. They prioritize the physical, imagining they are in service to the spiritual just because they pursue Religion, oblivious to their alienation from God. Jesus shows us in this short statement that as people, we must make a “place” for the Truth in us. We must clear out from within our hearts the lust and attachment to this physical world for want of the true freedom that comes from embracing Truth, that we must release the power that profits us for the true freedom we find in the spiritual world. We find this freedom by making God the Father our spiritual lineage—by receiving His words and seeing and doing His works rather than those of Satan, the liar that deceives us from truly being saved.
In the next statements, the Pharisees said, “Abraham is our father,” just because they were not born to fornication—implying that they were more his children than Jesus who was rumored to be born of Mary’s adultery against Joseph. It was likely meant to insult and discredit Him. Jesus went on preaching truth. Starting in verse 39, He showed them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill Me, a Man who has told you the truth which I have heard from God. Abraham did not do this. You do the deeds of your father.” Being they were religious leaders, they become indignant at Jesus’ implication, then claiming, “We have one father—God.”
What Jesus says next is full of truth we all must take to heart. Many question in the push and pull of life, of the heart and mind, what to believe and how to understand it. Especially when it comes to spiritual matters like absolute Truth. Listen to what He says next in verse 42: “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come from Myself, but He *sent* me (pay attention to this phrase as it will come up in the latter portion of our teaching). Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word. You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me. Which of you convicts Me of sin? (Jesus was blameless in His life on earth) And if I tell the truth, why do you not believe Me? He who is of God hears God’s words; therefore you do not hear because you are not of God.”
Would a sinless Man lie in this world? Jesus left this earth accused of but one thing: that He was a blasphemer claiming to be God. He was otherwise sinless. Even the thief on the cross knew that He suffered unjustly. He knew Jesus was sinless and therefore could not be a liar. He chose to believe Him in faith, realizing that he himself was suffering true justice and his only hope was in Christ’s saving promise. He was able to *hear* God’s words, to *listen* to Him. He did the deeds of His Father trusting Jesus was sent of God as He claimed. The Pharisees did the opposite. Trapped in their blind pride, they presumed they were godly because of their position and even perhaps their knowledge of Torah and scripture, because of their outward appearance of godliness. Yet their spirits were closed to the truth and they served a lie that protected their position in the world. They made the devil their father, the father of lies that murdered Christ through them.
Jesus not only claimed to be from God, sent of God and doing His works. He went much further in stating the Truth. In the next section, the Pharisees accuse Him of having a demon and He assures them that “if anyone keeps My word he shall never see death.” This again was blasphemous to them because they pointed out that Abraham and the prophets were all dead and Jesus wasn’t even alive when they were, so just who was He claiming to be anyway? Jesus then said to them, “Most assuredly I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.” In the book of Exodus, when God sent Moses to deliver the Israelites from Pharoah, Moses asked Him what to tell them if they ask His name? In Exodus 3:14, God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” Jesus was claiming to be God, in this direct reference to Moses’ encounter with God in the same Torah that the Pharisees knew well. They got so enraged at this claim that they tried to stone Him. But He passed right through them and went on His way.
Now John 9 picks up where He was passing by a man who was blind from birth. In that day, people understood infirmity to be a curse of sin in life. So His disciples turned to Him and asked Him: who had sinned to make him blind- the man or his parents? In John 9:3, Jesus said to them, “Neither this man nor His parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him.” While healing is a work of God that is undeniable both then and now, Jesus is preparing His disciples and every witness of this miracle, for a far greater insight into who God is and His purposes in the world. He is a healer indeed, but He heals more than our physical bodies and He used this man to reveal truths we must pay close attention to. So let’s tune into the true message in this miracle as we go forward in this chapter.
After saying this, Jesus spat on the ground, made clay and applied it to the man’s eyes, “anointing them.” While Jesus healed other blind men, He used a particular method in this one that confirmed the claim He had just made to the Pharisees. How did God create man? By breathing the breath of life, the water of the Spirit, into clay Adam. Here, He did the same, mirroring an act of creation only God is capable of performing. He fashioned new eyes for this man from scratch, so to speak. Then He says something interesting telling him to complete the healing in one more step. In verse 9:7, He says to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which is translated Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.”
It was not enough to fashion new eyes from clay for Jesus to reveal deeper truths to us. He then has him wash and *baptize* his new eyes with what water? The water named “Sent.” Jesus just finished saying to the Pharisees that He did not come to earth from Himself but that He was *sent* by the Father. Jesus *sent* His disciples to “go make disciples throughout the world, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). Apostles are those *sent* of God in His service. So too, in this blind man, Jesus is showing us that this miracle is more than just a healing. He is opening this man’s eyes to go forward in his purpose in Christ and to carry forward His works in the world as His disciple, for as we will see, this blind man comes into faith.
After his healing, in verse 9:8, those who saw him healed said to themselves in amazement, “Is not this he who sat and begged?” They debated in disbelief, but the man said, “I am he.” They asked him how his eyes were opened so he told them the truth, saying a Man called Jesus had done it. They asked where He went, and he said he did not know. Then they brought him to the Pharisees who claimed, “This Man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath” (since the healing occurred on the Sabbath and they considered it “working” which was illegal since they were commanded to “rest” on this day in God). Others said a sinner could never do such signs of miraculous healing. So, there was a division in the people’s response to the blind man’s testimony.
So they said to the blind man, “What do you say about Him because He opened your eyes?” So he said, “He is a prophet.” The Pharisees then began an interrogation and sought the parents of the man, who told them to ask him. So they asked him again, and the blind man said, “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?” Then they “reviled” him, saying, “We are Moses’ disciples. We know that God spoke to Moses; as for this fellow, we do not know where He is from.” They could not hear Jesus at all. They were defensive and proud of their religion and faith. They claimed superiority in their faith in Moses and were even willing to count righteous Jesus a sinner—looking for accusations to hold up their self-deceived beliefs.
But listen to what the blind man said: “Why, this is a marvelous thing, that you do not know where He is from; yet He has opened my eyes! Now we know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is a worshipper of God and does His will, He hears him…If this Man were not from God, He could do nothing.” The blind man was incredulous at their hard hearts! The measure of simple truth they were willing to overlook in their pride was astounding. Then they said to him, “You were completely born in sins, and are you teaching us?” And they cast him out of the synagogue.
Jesus heard they had cast him out and went and found him. Then He said to him who he had healed, “Do you believe in the Son of God?” In simple faith and reverence, the blind man answered Him saying, “Who is He, Lord, that I may believe?” The man called Him Lord. He had said prophet at first, but confronted by his Healer, He said Lord and believed Him to be of authority in God, without having heard any of His testimony to the Pharisees of being I AM who preceded Abraham. Verse 9:37 says, “And Jesus said to him, ‘You have both seen Him and it is He who is talking with you.’” Then, the blind man reveals his heart to Jesus and to us. His testimony in this moment is one of a child-like faith that God has called all of us to approach Him with. Without any hesitation or compunction, with simple gratitude and faith, the once-blind man says to Jesus in verse 38: “’Lord, I believe!’ And he worshipped Him.” He shows us our true response to faith in God and His deliverance is worship.
Then Jesus declares a key truth. He did not simply come to do the works of God, healing those in need. He came to reveal Truth. We must pay close attention to all His words. Next 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.” Those who are unwitting to sin and the law are not as culpable. God only holds us to the account of our conscience. For judgment, God sent Jesus and sends the Holy Spirit to convict us of sin. Then again, those who know about sin and the Law, yet claim in their self-righteousness to be clean (like the Pharisees), they will miss their need for a Savior and completely miss the Truth. They are “those who see” who are made blind. So, the Pharisees then asked, “Are we blind also?” They sensed what He was saying even if they did not completely understand. Perhaps they felt a momentary conviction though their hearts were hard. So Jesus answered them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, ‘We see.’ Therefore, your sin remains.”
The meaning of this last part was not readily clear to me at first. I really had to meditate on it to sort out the mystery in my mind. I’m not sure totally that I understand it completely, but this is as far as God seems to have helped me: The blind man was both physically and spiritually blind, not because of sin, but because of this very testimony we have reflected on today—the testimony of who Christ truly is, God Almighty. This story shows us that this reality is not readily perceived by all. Indeed, this story is a Gift to us because it demonstrates to us truths about faith in God and about our own reality when we are confronted with Him. We, like the blind man and the Pharisees are born spiritually blind. Faith and the ability to see Jesus for who He is comes to us in our lives at some point. It is a Gift granted to those who are prepared to receive Him.
Jesus opens our eyes and heals our blindness when we, like the blind man in this story, humble our hearts and spirits, realizing we are beggars of alms, of true insight and Truth, waiting by the road for our Savior to find us and deliver from our darkness by grace. We may be blind to sin but He convicts us of our need for mercy and in humility, we repent. Or we may also be blind to our sins, like the Pharisees, but in our presumption that we are already righteous, we miss His heavenly call to repent and surrender to God truthfully. This call is a call to be cleansed and sanctified by His Spirit, and not just seeming religious works, assuming we are “good enough” people without His saving grace.
Like the blind man, we must ask, “Lord who is He that I may believe?” taking Jesus at His Word—that He is the only Son of God and the great I AM—the God of Moses and Abraham and all the children of faith in Christ. We must not be like the Pharisees, claiming we see truth in our pride, dismissing Christ and making Him a liar from the devil and not God; blind to the truth of Him and their need for mercy and grace. We all need that same healing miracle of mercy to open our spiritual eyes. Let us humble ourselves then and see Christ truthfully through eyes of faith. Let us say with the once-blind man, “Lord, I believe!”