This chapter focuses on the healing of the man born blind by the Lord Jesus. It is the sixth sign that John brought forth to show who Jesus truly is.
The healing pictures Jesus’s ability to bring someone from darkness to light. One striking feature of the story is that the blind man takes centre stage in the debate with the Pharisees.
The disciples ask Jesus whether the man or his parents are responsible for this situation. The common understanding among the people is that sickness or calamity is the direct result of sin of the individual or that of the parents. The book of Job shows that this understanding, the retribution principle, stating that the upright will prosper because of their righteousness and the wicked will suffer because of their evil, does not always hold true in outworking; it is more complicated than this simplistic principle, for bad things can happen to good people and good things can happen to bad people as seen in the life of Job.
However, Jesus places the event at the feet of God’s glory, since it was an opportunity for the works of God to be made evident. These works are something that Jesus and His disciples must do while the day of His ministry is present. When night comes, such work will cease, alluding to Jesus’s arrest and death.
Jesus works the miracle by taking some spittle and making a mud cake. In the ancient world, spittle was believed to have some ‘powers’ although here the symbolism could be the creative work of a fresh creation, using the dirt of the ground (cf. Gen. 2:7). Jesus then anointed the man’s eyes with the mud mix and told him to wash in the pool of Siloam (which means sent). The washing may allude to Elisha’s healing of Naaman by having him wash in the Jordan (2 Kings 5:10-13) and the name of the pool “Sent” is consistent with the theme of Jesus as the sent one from God the Father.
The reaction to the healing comes from those who have known him only as a neighbour or a beggar. They recognise him as the blind beggar but some think that it was someone like him – such was the impact of the miraculous healing. The man confesses that he is the one and explains that Jesus healed him – he recounts the details but could not tell where Jesus has gone.
The crowd takes the man to the Pharisees and he narrates the details again but the discussion that follows centres on the fact that the healing took place on the Sabbath and there are contrasting opinions on whether Jesus is from God. The healed man himself concludes that Jesus is a prophet.
The healing bothers the Jewish leaders and so they question the parents to be certain that the man is their son who was born blind. The potential threat that those who confessed Jesus as the Christ would be put out of the synagogue probably caused the parents to pass the buck and to direct the interrogators to ask the son who is old enough to speak for himself.
The leaders turn to the man and invoke an oath to get him to speak the truth. They insist that God should be given the praise, and that the man should know that the one who healed him and whom he confessed as a prophet is a sinner. The man cleverly responds that he cannot comment on whether Jesus is a sinner, but he can state that he himself is now a man who can see. When the retort comes as to how this was done, the man shoots back that he already has told them, but they do not listen. Then he toys with them, remarking that perhaps they want to hear the story again so that they can become disciples of Jesus. The interrogators reply that they are disciples of Moses and not disciples of Jesus as the man is. Furthermore, they know that God has spoken to Moses, but they do not know where Jesus is from. The man is amazed. How can they question where Jesus is from when he has opened the man’s eyes? God does not listen to sinners. However, if someone is a worshipper of God and does God’s will, then God hears that person. How else could someone heal one born blind? This never has been done before. The man concludes his logical argument by noting that if Jesus were not from God, he could do nothing. The leaders reject the argument and respond angrily that this man was born in sin, so there is no way he can teach them about such matters. The discourse ends with the man being cast out.
The passage drips with irony as a formerly blind man sees better than the religious leaders do. Here is a matter of seeing with the heart that is open and teachable to God and His revelation rather than with ‘head knowledge’, hardened heart and proud attitude and demeanour. This is a warning to us too that we ought to know God rather than knowing about God; it is a relationship open to all who will humble themselves in repentance before the almighty transcendent God who has become immanent in the person of Jesus Christ. God has revealed Himself in His Son, Immanuel, God with us, but do we receive Him, bow down before Him and worship Him?
The healed man is sought and found by Jesus. Jesus asks him if he believes in the Son of Man. This probably is an allusion to the One with real authority to judge, a counter to the judgement he just received from the Jewish leaders. The man asks for Jesus’s identity so that he can believe in him; he speaks as one who is ready to follow Jesus’s lead. Jesus’s reply is ironic: “You have seen him.” Jesus had given the man sight, and the new ability allows him to know who the Son of Man is. Jesus says “it is he who is speaking to you. The man responds, “Lord, I believe” and he worshiped Him.
Jesus’s statement is rather telling: “For judgement I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” The language here has Old Testament roots: “And He said, ‘Go, and say to this people: Keep on hearing, but do not understand, keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed” (Isaiah 6:9-10). What a sad pronouncement! Let us take heed lest we become a people who keep on hearing and do not understand, who keep seeing but do not perceive!
The Pharisees listening to Jesus ask if they too are blind, sensing the implications of Jesus’s remarks. Jesus’s reply allows no room. If they really were blind, they might have reason to claim innocence; but they claim to see when actually they do not. So the guilt “abides”. They claim to see when they do not, or more specifically, they would not. Do we understand with our hearts? More specifically, are we willing to surrender to him and commit to Him with our hearts? How often we may claim that we understand and we can see the truth; but how much more we need to confess that we do not uphold this understanding and truth in our hearts and lives. Only the Holy Spirit can illuminate the Word of God to us; only He alone can give us a discerning heart but our posture must be one of humility and teachability, willing to sit at His feet, with eager ‘ears’ and contrite ‘hearts’, not with ‘pride’, ‘arrogance’ and ‘puffed up knowledge’ like those of the Pharisees who claim to be teachers of the Law but cannot see what a healed blind man can see in all clarity.