And as he passed on, he saw a man blind from birth.
Jesus has just left the temple, where men picked up stones to kill Him. At once He sees a man who has never seen anything, and one question runs through the chapter: who moves first when a person is beyond help?
One writer asks what set off the violence in the temple, and then watches how the Lord walked out through it.
What was it that brought this hatred surging up from their evil hearts? It was the declaration of His eternal Godhead. He had said, "before Abraham was, I am." He did not say, "I was before Abraham." That would mean He began to exist as Abraham did, only earlier. No, He declared Himself to be "I am" — always existing, self-existent God. He is before angels, men and worlds, the originator and Creator of them all. Look at Him, and see how He walks in the middle of their hatred: "As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth."
Another writer contrasts the Pharisees' indifference with the compassion of Christ.
Their hostility and Satan's cunning tricks did not move Him. He "passed on." How precious that the next chapter begins, "And as He passed on" (an older translation; the ESV reads, "As he passed by") — nothing stopped His movements of love! On His way, "He saw a man blind from birth." His condition seemed of no interest to the Pharisees and quite unexplainable to the disciples — but it moved the compassion of Jesus!
The man does not call out. One writer sets this Gospel beside Luke to show who moves first.
So as Jesus leaves the nation, He blesses a poor man. He brings him from blindness to faith, and from begging to worship. As always in this Gospel, the sovereignty of grace stands out. In the Gospel of Luke, the woman comes to Christ in the house of Simon. In this Gospel, the Lord approaches the woman by the well. The blind man of Luke cries to the Lord; here the Lord comes to the blind man. We learn from the Gospel of Luke that any needy sinner is welcome to come to Christ. In John we learn the even greater truth, that God has drawn near to sinners in the Person of His Son to tell us that He loves us.
This man never lost his sight; he never had it. That detail carries a meaning wider than one beggar.
The man blind from his birth is no doubt a picture of Israel, and indeed of all mankind by nature. Of course the root of this is sin, but not, as the disciples supposed, some particular sin. It is strange that they could think a person might sin before birth, and so be born blind! But sin, the root of all sins, has infected the very nature that we all have as children of Adam. This is the reason for all sickness and for spiritual blindness from birth also.
One writer measures how long the darkness had lasted.
His age is not given. We do learn, though, that he was of age. So he must have spent more than twenty years of his life in that afflicted condition, with no prospect of ever receiving sight. Blind from birth, and to be blind for ever on earth — what a hopeless future in this world lay before him!
Chapter 8 ended with men refusing what Christ said.
Our Lord had spoken of Himself as the Light of the world, and the general results. Here we have the specific results on one blind from his birth. There we had it in simple testimony rejected; here in the power of work. In the earlier chapter we have had the word; here we have the work of Christ.
The cure of the eyes is only the start of what this man receives.
The Lord had just had the fullest proof of how blind the Jews were. They could not recognise Him even when He plainly declared Himself. As He passes out from them, however, He sees one literally blind, as they were spiritually. This man, then, will be a fitting instrument to display the grace which the leaders were rejecting. Here is the particular charm of this chapter. The man is not only cured of his physical blindness; his soul fully responds to the grace. He not only receives the personal benefit, but receives the knowledge of the Son of God.
- Passing by. Stones were in their hands. Nothing stopped His movements of love: He walked out of their hatred straight toward a man in need.
- Seeing. The leaders had no interest in the beggar. The disciples could not explain him. Christ saw him, and the seeing was all on His side.
- Blind from birth. The man never lost sight — he never had it. That pictures Israel, and everyone by nature, blind from the root of sin, not from one particular sin.
- Hopeless. More than twenty years in the dark, with no prospect of a cure. That is where grace acts and no one can earn a thing.
- Word, then work. They rejected His words; His work went on. The man ends with sight, faith, and the knowledge of the Son of God.
And his disciples asked him, saying, Rabbi, who sinned, this [man] or his parents, that he should be born blind?
Jesus sees a man who has been blind since birth, and His disciples turn the sight into a debate. Their question assumes that someone must be to blame. It raises a deeper issue: does every affliction come from a particular sin?
Their either/or was not random. It grew out of a principle they already knew: God visits the sins of fathers on their children.
The question the disciples raised may seem strange to us, but it expressed thoughts that were common among the Jews. Those thoughts rested on Exodus 20:5, which speaks of God visiting the sin of the fathers on the children. The Lord's reply shows that affliction may come with no element of punishment in it at all. It may come simply so that God's work may be shown.
An affliction like this was usually put down to God's government — His hand dealing with sin here and now. But how could a man be blind from birth for a sin of his own?
People commonly blamed such an affliction on some governmental dealing by God. It might indeed be governmental dealing, because of the parents' offences (Ex. 34:7). But the teaching of the rabbis carried the matter further, and held that a person could sin while still in the womb. That idea, it is said, rested on Gen. 25:22, where we read that the two children struggled together in Rebekah's womb.
Commentators differ here. Another rules out any idea of a previous life, and finds no good reason to think the disciples held to sin before birth.
No such idea existed in Judea then as the one Pythagoras taught: that a man might have sinned in an earlier life on earth, and be punished for it in a later life on earth as well. Nor is there enough reason to accept the view of one devout and learned writer, that the disciples may have held the notion of sin before birth — the notion rabbis later drew from Gen. 25:22.
Reading every sorrow as a verdict feels natural. But this is not the time when God settles accounts, and the mistake costs the one who makes it.
When we see that God takes notice of everything and everyone here below, government is the natural thought. But it was not then, and it is not now, the time for His government of the world. Here lay the mistake of the disciples, and of Job's friends long before them. It is a mistake that leads people into harsh criticism and misjudgment. It also makes them forget their own sins and their need of repentance, while they busy themselves with what they count as God's vengeance on others.
The disciples want the case explained. Jesus refuses their way of looking at it and answers from God's side.
This question is so like the mind of man. Christ says, "I do not take it up in that light." He takes God's side, showing that sorrow and loss are linked in God's mind with some work of power not yet brought out. That this man was born blind was, as it were, a blemish in providence. Christ says, "I have come into a scene where everything is out of order, to gladden hearts and display the glory of God."
Ruling out a particular sin does not mean sin has nothing to do with it. The trouble runs wider than one man's record.
The man blind from his birth is no doubt a picture of Israel, and indeed of all mankind by nature. Of course the root of this is sin, but not, as the disciples supposed, some particular sin (v. 2)... But sin, the root of sins, has infected the very nature that we all have as children of Adam.
A man born blind was beyond any human remedy. That is exactly what made him the right subject.
God's ways are not man's ways, and what He reveals stands in contrast to the Jewish idea that God simply pays each person back. The reason lay deeper than what his parents deserved, or than God's foresight of the wrong the man himself would do... The inner, true and final reason — God's own reason, if we may use such a phrase — belonged to God's goodness: to give Christ an opportunity to work the works of God on the earth. How wonderfully grace acts in a hopeless case, and how it judges such a case! That it lay wholly outside the resources of man made it just the occasion for Jesus.
- Wrong question. The disciples ask who is to blame. Christ refuses that question. He answers from God's side, and treats the man's sorrow as the setting for a work of power not yet brought out.
- Wrong timing. Job's friends made the same mistake: reading present affliction as a present verdict. This is not the time of God's government of the world.
- Wrong target. Blame aimed outward makes people harsh. It also lets them forget their own sins and their need of repentance.
- Right root. Sin is behind the blindness — not a particular sin, but the nature every child of Adam inherits.
- Right result. The case lay wholly outside human resources. That is what made it the opportunity for Christ to work the works of God in free grace.
Jesus answered, Neither has this [man] sinned nor his parents, but that the works of God should be manifested in him.
The disciples looked at a man blind from birth and asked whose fault it was — his or his parents'. Jesus refuses both options. His answer raises the question every sufferer asks: is my trouble a punishment, or is God at work in it?
The disciples were not being cruel. They were working from a principle they had been taught about how God deals with His people on earth.
John 9 opens with the case of a man who prompts a question from the disciples about the government of God in Israel. Was it his parents' sin that brought this trouble on their child, following the principles God had given them in Exodus? Or was it his own sin, known to God though not seen by men, that had earned him this judgment? The Lord replies that the man's condition did not depend on God's government dealing with the sin of the man or of his parents. His case was simply the misery that made room for the mighty work of God in grace.
The Lord is not declaring this family innocent. He is saying that their sins do not explain this blindness.
God's ways are not like man's. When He makes them known, they stand against the Jewish idea that suffering pays back sin. The reason lay deeper than what his parents deserved, or than God's foresight of the wrong the man would do. It is not that the man and his parents were not sinners. But when Jesus looked at the man's blindness from birth, His eye saw beyond nature, law and government… The case was completely beyond human help, and that is just what made it the occasion for Jesus to do the works of God.
Trouble can come with no punishment in it. And God can show His work in two very different ways. One of them leaves the trouble in place.
The Lord's reply shows that suffering can come with no punishment in it at all. It can come only so that God may show His work. Here He showed it by delivering the man from the affliction completely. He can show it just as powerfully by delivering someone from the weight and depression of an affliction while the affliction itself stays; and that is often seen today… this blind man was a fit subject for the work of God, though he never asked for it, as far as the record goes.
The Lord looked at the same blindness and saw something else. Not a case to settle, but a place for grace to start.
The meaning of blindness from birth is too plain to need comment. But the Lord, dealing with the faithful remnant in Israel, did not count it as sin, nor treat it as a case of sin being charged to anyone. He treated it as an occasion for grace. This is how sovereign grace views such a case… the work done in him was definite and effective. It was grace that looked at his condition, and knew no cause but itself and the fruit it was going to produce.
Writers point out that this chapter follows a chapter of speech with a chapter of action, and that "the works of God" has a definite content.
The Lord treats it as a case that shows God's ways in grace rather than in government… It always comes back to this, if a person is to be happy before Him — to the works of God: the great atoning work of the cross for him, and the work of the Spirit of God in him. Let us hold on to the words of verse 3, "the works of God might be displayed in him" (older translations read "manifested in him"). This is not about merely saying you believe, and even less about man's works. It is about God's work, done and displayed in a man.
Commentators read the man's condition as more than a medical fact.
The man blind from birth is surely a picture of Israel, and indeed of all mankind by nature. The root of this is of course sin — but not, as the disciples supposed, one particular sin… Sin, the root of all sins, has infected the very nature we all share as children of Adam. That is the reason for all sickness, and for spiritual blindness from birth too.
- Wrong question. The disciples asked whose sin caused the blindness. The Lord answers that it did not come from the man's sin or his parents' sin at all.
- Not innocence. Jesus does not call the family sinless. He says the reason lay deeper than anything they deserved.
- Occasion, not verdict. The case was beyond all human help. That is what made it the moment for the works of God.
- Grace without a cause. The man never asked. Grace here knew no cause but itself, and the work done in him was definite and effective.
- Two ways it shows. God's work may show as full deliverance from the trouble. Or it may show as full deliverance from its weight while the trouble stays. In the end, the works of God are the cross for a person and the Spirit of God at work in him.
I must work the works of him that has sent me while it is day. [The] night is coming, when no one can work.
The disciples had asked whose sin caused a man's blindness. Jesus refused that question. He put a different one in its place: not who is to blame, but who is at work. His answer sets His whole ministry inside a deadline — a day that is running out, and a night in which working stops.
The disciples looked at the blind man and searched backwards for a cause. The Lord looked at him and saw an occasion.
His disciples ask, "Who has sinned?" It was all wrong. The question now was, "Who is at work?" God was there in the person of the Son, at work to bring men out of darkness into light. There was no time to lose. The night was coming, when no one can work.
The case lay far beyond any human remedy. That is what made it the right occasion for God to act:
In God's goodness, the deepest and truest reason — God's own reason — was to give Christ an occasion to work the works of God on the earth. How wonderfully grace works in a hopeless case, and how rightly it judges one! That it was wholly outside the resources of man made it just the occasion for Jesus, for the works of God.
Christ does not call them His own works. They belong to the One who sent Him, and this marks a shift in the story:
The eighth chapter has presented the testimony of the Lord's words. He spoke to the world those things which He had heard of the Father. The ninth chapter presents the testimony of His works. Before, He had spoken the words of the Father. Now He says, "I must work the works of Him that sent Me." The Lord brings the light into the world and makes known the heart of God. He also works in grace to open blind eyes to see the truth.
The world had already rejected Christ. That might have ended His labour. Instead it drove it on.
He had to do this. The world had rejected Him, and He might have turned aside because of that rejection. Still He had to work the works of the One who sent Him. The work of grace all remained... He had to work, and He had to work while it is day. The day is the time of the presence of the light. But while Christ was in the world He was its Light. The night is His absence.
These are not ordinary hours. A Person sets this clock.
Notice how day and night take on a new meaning once we look at them in relation to Christ's stay and work on this earth.
And His presence could never be idle time:
It was the day of His presence in the world in active grace. The night of His absence was coming, when no one can work. As long as Christ was in the world, He was the Light of the world. While He was here He had to work. Love could not rest where there was sorrow, and light could not rest in the presence of sin. When Christ departs, all is over with the world until His return. Yet because of His death and ascension, a testimony still goes out to the world declaring the grace of God.
Some translations read "We must work" here; others read "I must work," as several writers quoted above do. One writer objected to the change:
There is little to note in the revisers' work on John 9, except that they accepted "us" in verse 4 in place of the first "me" — without even a word of caution in the margin.
Writers have long turned the verse on the reader, and on the work of telling others about Christ:
The duty of evangelising always remains... Let us work, dearly beloved, while it is day; the night comes, when no man can work. The love of Christ is the best guide for our daily duties.
Yet service itself carries a trap:
But the most blessed service has its snares. Let us be careful. We can be busy telling others about Him while our own hearts are cold to His love. Christ is not first. Instead of judging ourselves for it and confessing it, so that communion is restored, the heart feels the distance and throws itself into more and more service. But that only keeps the distance in place, because it hides the soul's real condition.
- Question — The disciples asked who sinned; Christ answered who is working. A hopeless case becomes an opportunity, not a puzzle about blame.
- Sender — The works are not His own. They are the works "of Him who sent Me." John 8 gave the Father's words; John 9 gives the Father's works.
- Must — Rejection did not cancel the work; it pressed it on. Love could not rest where sorrow was.
- Day — Christ's presence, not the sun, marks the day and the night. His being here made it daytime.
- Now — The verse turns the same urgency on us: work while it is day — but let the love of Christ, not mere busyness, be the motive.
As long as I am in the world, I am [the] light of the world.
Jesus speaks in front of a man born blind. He has just called the man's blindness an occasion for God to work, and now He makes a claim about Himself — one with a time limit built into it.
The claim is not a small one, and the words "as long as" put a clock on it.
The Lord's claim to be the Light of the world was the assertion of the greatness of His Person and His mission. Who but the Son of God could make such a claim? And how serious it was for those who refused to acknowledge His claim. In chapter 9 the Lord opens the eyes of the blind man. There He confirms that He is the Light of the world (verse 5). He confirms it by saying it again, and by the divine power that opened eyes which had never seen. This time the Lord says, "As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world." He was hinting that the time for Him to leave the world was near.
In chapter 8 the Lord had already said He was the light of the world. One writer notes that the Greek wording is not the same in the two places. The difference tracks a shift — from who He is, to what He came to do.
In chapter 8 He is the Light presented to man, and rejected. In chapter 9 He lights up a man's heart. He is the One who in chapter 8 was the Light in His own personal glory and title. The relation of chapter 9 to chapter 8 is that of the work to the person. So in chapter 8 He says, ego eimi to phos tou kosmou. This was part of His personal glory and title. But in chapter 9 it is phos eimi tou kosmou — a work said of Him, something that He came to do.
The same writer puts the point in the Lord's own voice.
It is as if He said: I am not only here as the Light offered for you to receive. If that were all, My mission would be useless. It would only bring out your hatred of the light and your love of darkness. But that is not all. I am going to work as light in your hearts and consciences, and by that work I will reveal Myself to you.
Verse 4 says He must work while it is day. Being the light was not a still fact — it moved Him to act.
If the man's condition was an occasion to manifest the works of God, the Lord was here to work the works of God. It was the day of His presence in the world in active grace: the night of His absence was coming when no man can work. As long as Christ was in the world, He was the Light of the world. While He was here He had to work. Love could not rest where there was sorrow, and light could not rest where there was sin.
The light did visible good while it was here. Then men did the one thing that explains "as long as."
He proved that He alone could dispel the darkness by declaring the love of the Father. He relieved man of every pressure, met every need, and delivered from the power of the Prince of darkness. Hunger and want, pain and sickness, sorrow and death, all fled in His presence. Sadly, men loved darkness rather than light. They loved the sins which, in the presence of the light, troubled their consciences. They could not chase their sins and satisfy their desires while the light was there, so they put out the light of the world.
So what shines while He is away? One writer answers by pointing to His people — and to the moon.
Believers are light in the Lord (Eph. 5:8). They are here to show the moral character of Christ to men who are in darkness. And the whole source and power of their light rests in the Lord of heaven. He is hidden from the world, but He is made known to His own in faith and in the Spirit. The moon shines at night because it is in the light of the sun. Believers shine while Christ is away because they are in the light of the risen Son of God.
- Person. "I am the light of the world" is a claim no one but the Son of God could make, and refusing it is serious.
- Work. In chapter 8 the Light is presented and rejected. In chapter 9 the same Light works, opening a blind man's eyes.
- Urgency. Light could not sit still while sin and sorrow were in front of it — He had to work while it was day.
- Limit. The phrase "as long as" signalled that His departure was near. Men who could not bear the light put it out.
- Reflection. While He is away His people shine like the moon at night. The light is borrowed, and its source is the risen Son.
Having said these things, he spat on the ground and made mud of the spittle, and put the mud, as ointment, on his eyes.
The Lord had just called Himself the light of the world, and He proves it by an action: clay on the eyes of a man born blind. Why use a method that leaves the man's eyes covered, and why send him to a pool whose name John stops to translate?
A word from Him had healed in other cases. So the clay was chosen, not needed — and the choice itself carries the lesson.
Our Lord was under no necessity to put clay on the man's eyes. In other cases His word of power was enough for the miracle. He had evidently a meaning to teach by His action, possibly not so much for the blind man as for ourselves.
Commentators call this mud "clay." They read it as a picture of the Son of God taking a real human body — a step no one would have expected.
He lays clay on the man's eyes; an extraordinary step at first sight. In truth, it was the shadow of Himself become man, a fitting figure of the human body which He took to do God's will in it. He was not simply Son of God, but Son of God with a body prepared by God. He became man. And the fact of the body of Christ — God's Son found in the form of a man — only makes the difficulty greater at first sight. Nobody, apart from the word of God, would look for a divine Person in such a form.
Clay on the eyes covers them. The same humanity that blinded His critics is what makes Him known to those who believe.
Clay plastered on seeing eyes would blind them, and it made blind eyes doubly blind. It was the same for the spiritually blind: the flesh of the Word was a stumbling block, and they saw only the carpenter's Son. For us who believe in Him as the Sent One the reverse is true. It is by His revelation in flesh that we have come to know Him... His flesh is darkness to the world: it is light to us.
The clay is not the end of the story. The man must still go and wash, and the pool bears the name "Sent."
The blind man washes in the pool called "Sent," and then he can see clearly. The power of the Spirit and of the word makes Christ known as the One sent by the Father, and this gives him sight. It is the history of divine teaching in the heart of man. Christ, as man, touches us. We are completely blind; we see nothing. The Spirit of God acts, with Christ there before our eyes, and we see plainly.
The Lord gave the man no reason for any of it. He could not have argued for the treatment, and no one asked him to.
People recognised no healing power in clay. And no one could have explained to him at that moment why the Lord anointed his eyes only to have the clay washed off straight afterwards. The Lord did what He pleased, and told the man to do as He directed. Then he received his sight.
The same clay gave others a reason to reject Him. The day of the healing settled the question for the religious leaders.
But this took place on the sabbath day, and their religious prejudice consumes them at once. Imagine one spitting on the sabbath day and putting clay on a blind man's eyes! This proved, they thought, that this Man could not be of God.
- Chosen, not needed — a word alone would have healed him. He chose this method to teach, and the lesson is for us as much as for the blind man.
- Clay is manhood — the earth mixed by His own hand pictures the body the Son of God took to do God's will.
- Clay blinds first — smeared eyes see less. His lowly humanity did the same to those who saw only a carpenter's son.
- Siloam clears it — the pool's name means "Sent." Sight comes when a person knows this lowly Man as the One sent by the Father.
- Faith obeys first — he could not explain the clay, only obey. He washed, and received his sight, while those who could explain everything stayed blind.
And he said to him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, which is interpreted, Sent. He went therefore and washed, and came seeing.
Jesus does not heal the blind man on the spot. He sends him off with mud on his eyes, to a pool whose name the verse stops to translate: Sent.
Mud smeared over sightless eyes does not look like a cure. Writers point out that everything in the Lord's action pointed downward — to the dust man was made from, and to the shame connected with being spat upon.
The Lord now spits on the ground, makes clay with the spittle, and puts the clay on the blind man's eyes. That might seem more likely to confirm his blindness than to remove it. The symbolic meaning points the same way. Man was made out of the ground, and spittle is so often linked with humiliation and insult. Both add such thoughts to the lowly place that being a man already meant for Him. So with Christ. The pride and self-righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees misunderstood and objected to the very grace which brought Him down so low. It seemed, in fact, only to make the blind eyes blinder. The plain fact of His humanity became for them an unanswerable argument against His claim to deity.
The verse pauses to tell us what the pool's name means. One writer links that name to a truth running through John's Gospel.
The picture is complete when the Lord tells him to wash in the pool of Siloam, which means "sent" (v. 7). This shows an outstanding truth of John's writings: the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world (1 John 4:14). In other words, in the spiritual sense the man is told to wash in John 3:16. He obeys and at once sees.
The clay was more than a test of the man's obedience. One writer reads it as a sign, and says why Christ come in flesh still leaves a man blind by itself.
This was no meaningless act on Christ's part, and no mere test of obedience on the man's. It was a sign of the truth which the chapter reveals... The grace of the Lord in the incarnation is precious. But by itself the incarnation is not enough for man's need. At first it even seems to add to the difficulty, as the clay did on the man's eyes. The Spirit must work by the word, as well as the Son being sent into the world, Jesus Christ come in flesh. Without the effective work of the Holy Spirit in a man, he cannot see... It means that the soul recognises Jesus as the sent One of God, sent to do His will and finish His work.
The man could not have explained why dust should heal eyes. He simply went. That, one writer insists, is where the whole thing turned.
The whole value of the cure lay in this, that the blind man took the Lord's word. If he had not gone, would he have been healed? No. Why? The same God who had power to cure had the right to say how it should be done, and the man obeyed the word. It was not the clay that cured his eyes — a strange thing, to cure a man's eyes by filling them with dust. The working of faith is a very simple thing; it obeys the word of God because it is His word.
Notice the order. The Lord did not give him sight and then send him to the pool. He sent him while he was still blind.
On the whole, Scripture is plain, and the principle is always the same. Obedience is the way of blessing. We are not to wait for power before we obey a command; we obey so that we may find power. The Lord did not restore the hand so that the man could then stretch it out and show it. He told him to stretch it out, so that it might be restored... So it was with the poor blind man in the days of the Lord. Having been faithful in this, he was able to teach his teachers, because he had obeyed the word.
What blinds one man gives light to another. And what happened at the pool did not stop with the man's eyes.
For us who believe in Him as the Sent One the reverse is true. It is by His revelation in flesh that we have come to know Him, as 1 John 1:1-2 shows. His flesh is darkness to the world: it is light to us. We can take the words in a spiritual sense and say that we too "washed and came back seeing." The rest of the chapter shows that the blind man had the eyes of his heart opened as well as the eyes of his head.
- Clay — mud on blind eyes only seemed to blind him more. Christ's lowly humanity became, for proud men, their argument against His deity.
- Sent — the verse translates the pool's name: the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. The man washes in that truth.
- Spirit — Christ come in flesh is not enough by itself. The Spirit must work by the word before a man can see.
- Obedience — the whole value of the cure lay in taking the Lord at His word. We do not wait for power before we obey. We obey, and find power.
- Seeing — he came back able to see. Before the chapter ends, the eyes of his heart are open too, and he can teach his teachers.