John 9:13-23. A False Investigation
Bobby was a young inmate of the Maze prison in Belfast. He had been convicted of sectarian murders. He became involved in the dirty cells protest, refusing to wash and dress. The only book he was given was a Bible, but he took no notice of it. He later went to see the prison chaplain and asked for something to read as the Bible made no sense to him. The chaplain, who himself had only recently come to new life in Christ, gave some powerful advice that few would emulate in such a situation,
“I’m not going to give you any literature at all. Go back to your cell, take up the Bible and read one of the gospels – I would recommend John. Because it is God’s book, I want you to ask God to teach you from it and lead you to himself.”
The lad did just that and as a result he came to a knowledge of Christ for himself. One evening, what Jesus said about himself and the need people had for him, struck home and he prayed, putting his trust in Jesus as his Lord. There was a small Bible study group in that prison, led by a doctor, that resulted in several other prisoners recognising who Jesus is and they had their lives radically changed by this knowledge.
This is why studying John’s gospel is so important. God does speak to people through His word today.
A remarkable change
This story of a blind man who receives his sight is not just to remind us of the extraordinary powers of Jesus, it is also a remarkable picture of what Christian conversion is all about. Christian conversion means,
“Once I couldn’t see it, but now I do. This is a work of God.”
Today many think the message of the church is simply ‘Try harder’. People understand the church to be saying, ‘Try to live better lives, do good to others, try to be honest, behave with integrity, try to pray, try to believe.’ Many query why they need to attend church if that is all they are going to be reminded of.
However the church’s prime message is how we can become right with God at all when we are all naturally selfish, sinful people. Sin is another concept few understand. Many think of sin as anti-social behaviour, offending against others. The Bible however is clear that sin in essentially offending against God and we are all guilty of that! Our sin separates us from God, leaving us all in a dire predicament. Some think that turning over a new leaf and trying to live a better life is sufficient but the Bible is clear that the gulf between God’s standards and our own is far too wide to be bridged by what we can do.
The Enlightenment was a movement that began in the 18th century. Fundamentally it was a pagan movement when people cast aside the faith of their fathers. In summary they said,
“Human reason is enough to discover the truth about man, the world and any god. Reason is all the power we need. There is nothing we cannot solve. Man is the centre of everything.”
The Bible stands in stark opposition to this view. It begins with the story of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. The one thing they were forbidden to do was to ‘eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ (Genesis 2:17). Every time they passed that tree they were reminded that they were not God but were to live in submission to him and what he said. When they rebelled and ate the fruit from that tree they were initiating the very first ‘enlightenment’. It was Satan who seduced Adam and Eve into rebelling against God, saying,
“You will not surely die . . . For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Genesis 2:4-5
The very opposite was true, they, and all humanity became blinded to their need for forgiveness. The massive scientific advances have not told us anything about why we are here, what happens when we die, what the purpose of life is, how we should regard God and our own lives. We need God to open our eyes on these matters.
Members of the IRA sincerely believed they were serving God when killing people. Members of ISIL think similarly. But they cannot be blinder. Modern knowledge cannot resolve that kind of blindness, it requires a miracle of God to change people’s hearts.
This blindness is present in many very pleasant people around us. They cannot see their need for God. This is why Christians must pray that God will open peoples’ eyes to Christ, that their hearts may warm to him. We can teach as well as we can but unless God changes hearts there will be no long term benefits.
The beginning of the Christian’s life is a miraculous divine work. My only role at this stage is to accept that I am a sinner and turn to Christ for help. When I have become a child of God by accepting Christ, then he says to me, I have chosen you to work hard for me. However it is clear that my good works can do nothing to give me new life, only Christ can do that.
The Ephesians are reminded that salvation requires a miracle
When Paul wrote to the Ephesian church he reminds them that they were spiritually dead and there was nothing they could do to get spiritual life .
“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.” Ephesians 2:1-2
But then Christ stepped miraculously into their lives,
“But because of his great love for us, God who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved.” Ephesians 2:4-5
To make it abundantly clear that our good works have nothing to do with our acceptance by God and that commitment to Jesus is the only answer, Paul continues,
“For it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith – and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God – not of works, so that no-one can boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9
Even the ability to put our faith in Christ is a gift of God. Christians have nothing to gloat over, the salvation of each person is the choice of God alone.
But when we have come to Christ he both expects and empowers us to live in ways that honour him. We are no longer free to live as we would like. We are slaves of Christ who have been bought with a price paid by Christ in order to live for him. Christ makes us ‘sons by permanent adoption, with family rights and a certain hope.’
“For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Ephesians 2:10
Titus is reminded that salvation requires a miracle
Paul’s letter to Titus stresses the same points as he made to the Ephesian church. Before conversion all people are in a desperate situation.
“At one time we were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another.” Titus 3:3
But then God took the initiative and stepped into our lives. Most of us can look back at the people we met or the circumstances that drew us to consider how God regarded us.
“But when the kindness and love of God our Saviour appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Saviour.” Titus 3:4-6
Again Paul is stressing that the initiative is all from God. Adoption into a family is always instigated by the new parent. To be justified means to be freed from all accusation and guilt. Paul continues,
“ . . .so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. This is a trustworthy saying.” Titus 3:7-8
It is only because we have been adopted into God’s family, made his heirs on God’s initiative, that we have any hope of inheriting eternal life.
However we, God’s chosen People, have been chosen by God for a purpose,
“And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good.” Titus 3:8
A remarkable testimony
The healed ’man born blind’ was first interrogated by his neighbours and those who had seen him begging at the gate of the temple. They could not understand how such a man could now see. Was he a double or a twin? The healed man explained what had happened to him. His enquirers then asked where this healer was and to this he simply replied,
“I don’t know.” John 9:12
This was simply beyond their understanding so they took the man to the educated in their society, the Pharisees. Peterson, in his paraphrased translation says,
“So they marched the man to the Pharisees.” John 9:13
The Pharisees were also puzzled about how ‘a man born blind’ could now see but they detected another problem, mud had been applied to the man’s eyes on the Sabbath and that was against their law. Why could they not share in the joy of this man who could now see for the first time. Why did they want to discredit this man and incriminate Jesus? The reason is that they had got their priorities wrong. They thought God wanted them to keep to the law and the law was clear that spitting on the sabbath was forbidden, let alone making mud from the spittle and applying it to someones eyes. That was three wrongs in one!
a. Formalism
This refers to those who keep the externals of religion but whose hearts are far from God. Elsewhere Jesus had referred to many of the religious of his day as ‘whitewashed tombs’ that were acceptable on the outside but were rotten or dead inside.
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.” Matthew 23:27-28
Jesus reserved scathing comments for religious people whose religion was just skin deep. As God said to Samuel when he was looking for a future king of Israel,
“The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7
Jesus had already faced the problem of his breaking the sabbath laws when he had healed a lame man at the pool of Bethesda and had then told the man to pick up his mat (John 5:8-9). Again the religious were less interested in the supernatural healing of a man who had been paralysed for 38 years than in the peccadillo of breaking the law. They didn’t even say,
“Good to see you walking again after all those years.”
Their religious formalism had been offended so they used the sabbath laws to distance themselves from the dramatic miracle. Jesus didn’t keep the sabbath their way even though, being God’s son, he did keep the sabbath God’s way.
The great church reformer, John Calvin, suggested that Jesus performed these miracles on the sabbath deliberately. He wanted to confront the contemporary religious norm with himself. He is Lord of the sabbath, the Lord of everything.
Religious formalism cannot cope when a person’s life is turned upside down, or put better, turned the right side up if it has not occurred according to protocol. Their interest was to discredit Jesus, so they hid behind the smokescreen of religious law. The problem is that new Christians find religious formalism a real problem. The formalists cannot live as God wants yet they still put rules and regulations in people’s way. Nothing is more embarrassing for a formalist than to meet someone whose life has been turned round when they have met Jesus Christ.
b. Honest realism
When the Pharisees interrogated the healed man they wanted to know how he had received his sight. Were they really interested in understanding or were they wanting to find some fault? John’s wording is significant,
“Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a sabbath. Therefore the Pharisees also asked . . .”
It was the sabbath problem that bothered them. After all everybody knew that the devil could do miracles too. The simple realism of the man faced with this antagonistic interrogation is so attractive. When asked how he had received his sight the man simply replied,
“He put mud on my eyes . . . and I washed, and now I can see.” John 9:15
No unnecessary words there.
This caused a debate amongst the religious. One group concluded,
“This man is not from God, for he does not keep the sabbath.” John 9:16
Another group reasoned,
“How can a sinner do such miraculous signs.” John 9:16
Both groups assumed that religious orthodoxy was the main test of God’s involvement. They tried to resolve this question by returning to the healed man for further evidence. Their interest is now less in the miracle but in Jesus who had broken the sabbath law. They ask him,
“What have you to say about him. It was your eyes he opened?” John 9:17
The man replies simply,
“He is a prophet.” John 9:18
The Jews were still perplexed. They think that somehow they were being misled. They next approach the man’s parents and ask them for an explanation.
“Is this the son you say was born blind. How is it that now he can see.” John 9:19
They clearly appreciate what the Pharisees were trying to do so they also give an answer that is unhelpful to them,
“We know he is our son . . . and we know he was born blind. But how he can now see, or who opened his eyes, we don’t know. Ask him. He is of age; he will speak for himself.” John 9:20-21
John explains that they did know considerably more, they knew that Jesus had been involved but were scared of getting drawn into the controversies going around about Jesus. John explains,
“His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews, for already they had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Christ would be put out of the synagogue.” John 9:22
To be excommunicated from the synagogue meant being ostracised from all social and business life. Nobody would talk or trade with you. It would mean you had to move to a completely new area and hope the news of your excommunication didn’t follow you.
It is clear that people were thinking about who Jesus really was. Earlier, during the Feast of Tabernacles, Jesus had not been arrested so people were asking,
“Have the authorities really concluded that he is the Christ?” John 5:26
Ever since the beginning there have been divisions about Jesus. Even his brothers did not believe in him at first, although that was to change after the resurrection, with Jesus’ brother James becoming the head of the young church in Jerusalem.
We must all take sides
The conflict that John describes over the identity of Jesus is the question that has divided families and societies ever since. Jesus says that it is a vital decision that each one of us must make, saying,
“I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.” John 5:24
Refusing to join Jesus means the same as to reject him. Salvation is only given to those who believes in him.
BVP
