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.