What are the works of God in John 9:3?

They had nothing better than Jewish thoughts about the case. But all through the gospel of John Christ is setting aside these thoughts on every side, whether in enquirers outside, or more particularly in disciples, who were under this pernicious influence like other people. Here the Lord answered, "Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents." The ways of God are not as man's; and their revelation stands in contrast with Jewish notions of retributive justice. The reason lay deeper than what his parents deserved, or the foresight of what he would do amiss. Not that the man and his parents were not sinners; but the eye of Jesus saw beyond nature, or law, or government, in the man's blindness from his birth. To divine goodness, the inner and true and ultimate reason, God's reason — if one may be permitted such a phrase — was to furnish an opportunity for Christ to work the works of God on the earth. How blessedly grace operates in, and judges of, a hopeless case! That it was wholly outside the resources of man made it just the occasion for Jesus, for the works of God. This is the point of the chapter — Jesus working the works of God in free unconditional grace. In John 8 the prominent feature is the word of God; here, the works of God made effectual and manifest in grace. "I must work the works of him that sent me while it is day." Therefore can one say, that it is unqualified grace, because it is not merely God mercifully answering man's appeal, and blessing man's work, but God sending, and Christ working. "I must work the works of him that sent me." What grace (save in Jesus all through) can be compared with this? Jesus, then, was doing this work "while it is day." Day was while He was present with them. Night was coming, which would be, for the Jew, the personal absence of the Messiah; indeed, such for any would be the departure of the Son of God. "The night cometh when no man can work." (Verse 4) Higher things might follow in their season, and brighter light suited to them when the day should dawn, and the day-star arise in hearts established with grace. But here it is the time of the absence of Jesus in contrast with His presence on earth as He then was. "As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world." (Verse 5)

John 9 opens with the case of a man that gives rise to a question from the disciples, in relation to the government of God in Israel. Was it his parents' sin that brought this visitation on their child, according to the principles God had given them in Exodus? Or was it his own sin, known to God though not manifested to men, that had procured him this judgment? The Lord replies, that the man's condition did not depend on the government of God with respect to the sin either of himself or of his parents. His case was but the misery which gave room for the mighty operation of God in grace. It is the contrast that we have continually seen; but here it is in order to set forth the works of God.

God acts. It is not only that which He is, nor even simply an object of faith. The presence of Jesus on earth made it day. It was therefore the time of work to do the works of Him that sent Him. But He who works here, works by means that teach us the union which exists between an object of faith and the power of God who works. He makes clay with His spittle and the earth, and puts it on the eyes of the man who was born blind. As a figure, it pointed to the humanity of Christ in earthly humiliation and lowliness, presented to the eyes of men, but with divine efficacy of life in Him. Did they see any more? If possible, their eyes were the more completely closed. Still the object was there; it touched their eyes, and they could not see it. The blind man then washes in the pool that was called "Sent," and is enabled to see clearly. The power of the Spirit and of the word, making Christ known as the One sent by the Father, gives him sight. It is the history of divine teaching in the heart of man. Christ, as man, touches us. We are absolutely blind, we see nothing. The Spirit of God acts, Christ being there before our eyes; and we see plainly.

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 power of work. The veil is off the glory in Christ in testimony; so to all. It is on the heart, so that, save the power of the Spirit taking it off, revealing it still remains unseen. In the former chapter we have had the word, here the work, of Christ and the manner of the revealing.

The blindness from birth is too significant to need comment, but the Lord in the Remnant regarded it as no sin to be reckoned, nor as matter of sin reckoned, but as occasion of grace. This is the position in which (sovereign) grace views it. It was not judgment, "that." But as the fact were not so it was "that … should be manifested." This was the resulting point; then the exercise of power: "That the works of God should be made manifest in him." The light shone, yea, to all; but it was in darkness men hated the light; but the work was in him definite and effectual; grace that regarded its condition, and knew no cause but itself, as it were, and the fruits it was to produce, "that … should be manifested." This was the end, the sovereign acting of grace coming in, in the most helpless, when the sight of the world had rejected the Light of the world.

Verse 2. The disciples were thinking of God's ways in government, in which He visited the iniquities of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hated Him; but the Lord interprets it as a case serving to illustrate God's ways in grace rather than in government. "Neither has this man sinned, nor his parents, but that the works of God should be manifested in him." It always comes to this (if man is to be happy before Him) — to the works of God — the great atoning work of the cross for him, the work of the Spirit of God in him. Let us hold fast the word of verse 3: "The works of God manifested in him." It is no question here of mere profession, much less of man's works, but of God's, wrought and manifested in man. "He who has begun a good work in you will complete it unto Jesus Christ's day." (Phil. 1.) Saved by grace, through faith that is God's gift, His workmanship. In chapter 8 we have the Lord's word and testimony, He was Himself in principle what He said — the true Witness. But in chapter 9 we have His works. In chapter 8, He is the light of the world absolutely, here He says, "As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world." It was moral glory — that light that shone in the marred visage of Jehovah's Servant, and by its brightness, even now, the saints are guided: yet not by that alone, for in the unveiled face of the Servant "highly exalted," the light of God's glory changes the beholder into the same image. Outside that light, all is darkness and chaos, as every one will find in the end.

The question which the disciples raised may seem curious to us, but it expressed thoughts which were common among the Jews, finding their basis in Exodus 20:5, which speaks of the iniquity of the fathers being visited upon the children. The Lord's reply shows that affliction may come without there being any element of retribution in it, but simply in order that God's work may be manifested. It was manifested here in working a complete deliverance from the affliction. It may just as strikingly be manifested by complete deliverance from the depression and weight of the affliction, while the affliction itself still persists; and so it is often seen today. It was then the "day," marked by the presence on earth of "the Light of the world." Jesus knew that the "night" of His rejection and death was approaching, but until that time He was here to do the Father's works, and this blind man was a fit subject for the work of God, though he had made no appeal for it, as far as the record goes.

(1) Passing on out of the hands of His persecutors, the pitiable condition of a man blind from birth arrests the Lord's attention; and the disciples (of whom we now hear for the first time during His present visit to Jerusalem) inquire as to a matter full of perplexity to such as believed with the Rabbis in every physical evil as the result of some specific sin. Was this man so born for sin committed even before birth? or was it for the sin of his parents? Neither explanation of it seems to satisfy them; and indeed, looked at, as they contemplate it, as mere punishment, it must be ever hard to satisfy oneself as to the inequalities of it that seem upon the face of the things. The Lord lets in the light of a higher purpose, as applicable to any other as to the man then before Him, — "that the works of God should be made manifest in him." Of course, the sin which has come into the world has been the cause of all the evil in it; and, of course, there is very commonly specific punishment for specific sin. With this the heart can have no rest, however, until we realize that God is manifesting Himself in all human history; for this cannot be in mere righteousness only, but in love as well. We have a whole book in the Old Testament devoted to the working out of this problem of the mission of evil, which in Job's case was mistaken by his friends in the same fashion as the disciples, question would indicate here. But if the manifestation of God in His works be the great overruling purpose everywhere, then not only must there be in general love as well as righteousness, but in every one of His works there must be love. Where love is not, there God is not: if "God is love." And here the miracle (or as Scripture would speak of it from its having this very character of manifesting God, the "sign") is only a special manifestation of Him who everywhere is the same God.

The Saviour had just delivered Himself from the malice of His enemies, who took up stones to cast at Him because He declared Himself the "I am." As He passed by, He noticed a man who had been blind from birth (John 9). The disciples enquired whose sin was responsible for this affliction — the man's, or his parents'? They were as narrow-minded as Job's three friends, who regarded suffering as a special mark of divine displeasure, having no other thought as to it. The Saviour pointed out a higher purpose — "that the works of God should be manifest in him." The man's misery furnished occasion for the display of divine power and goodness.

John 9:2-3. The disciples, with their Jewish prejudices, thought that the blindness might have been inflicted anticipatively for some sin foreseen by God or as the result of the sin of his parents. In His reply the Lord shows that God can use affliction to make manifest the works of God. A life-long sickness is not necessarily the outcome of a specific sin, but may be allowed for the display of the grace of God.

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). It is strange that they could think that one might have committed such a sin before birth as to render him blind when born! But sin, the root of 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.

But the supreme wisdom of God is above this, and He has decreed that this particular man should be born blind in order that the work of God in superior power should be manifested in him. Can we not say of every case of trouble or illness, that God has a special reason for allowing it? A submissive spirit will learn the reason, and be blessed, while insubjection will resist God's working and suffer the consequences.

The Lord now saw him, though he could not see the Lord. And the disciples asked a question: "Master [rather, Rabbi], who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?" (2). To some governmental dealing on the part of God such an affliction was vulgarly attributed. Governmental dealing it might be, because of the parents' offences (Ex. 34:7); but rabbinical teaching carried the matter further, and maintained that one whilst in the womb could sin, grounding such a supposition, it is stated, on Gen. 25:22, where we read that the two children struggled together in Rebekah's womb. Every bodily affliction, however, is not sent in chastisement, though at times that may be the reason for it (1 Cor. 11:30; Mark 2:5-10). In the case of Lazarus (John 11:4), as in this, governmental dealing was the cause neither of the sickness nor of the blindness. We need spiritual discernment as to such dealing on the part of our God, men being too apt, like the friends of Job, to attribute God's hand on the individual as a token of Divine governmental dealing for some sin or course of evil.

Answering at once, and that fully, the question of the disciples, "Neither has this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him," the Lord proceeded to take up the case. "We," He said probably, rather than "I," "must work the works of Him that sent Me, while it is day: the night comes, when no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the Light of the world" (9:4-5). Looking forward to His departure, He thus spoke. And now He would give proof of being the Light of the world, by giving sight to that blind beggar. He might, of course, have just spoken the word, and the hitherto sightless eyeballs would have become the lamp of the man's body (Matt. 6:22). But He acted otherwise in His wisdom, spitting on the ground, and making clay of the spittle. He first anointed the man's eyes, and then commanded him to go, and to wash in the pool of Siloam, "which," as the Evangelist adds, "is by interpretation, Sent." He went his way, therefore, and washed, and came seeing. It was the obedience of faith. He suffered the Lord to anoint his eyes with the clay. He went then, as told, to the pool, washed, and received sight. No known virtue was generally recognised as being in clay. Nor, why his eyes were anointed only to have the clay washed off directly afterwards, could any one have explained to him at that moment. The Lord did what He pleased, and bade the man do as He directed. Then sight was granted to him. Varied have been the conjectures as to the meaning of the procedure on this occasion. The Evangelist has not explained it, so we cannot dogmatise about it. We give, however, here, for the benefit of our readers, a quotation from another, which, if there be spiritual teaching in the matter, seems the most reasonable explanation of it: "He makes clay with His spittle and the earth, and puts it on the eyes of the man who was born blind. As a figure, it pointed to the humanity of Christ in earthly humiliation and lowliness, presented to the eyes of men, but with Divine efficacy of life in Him. Did they see any the more? If possible, their eyes were the more completely closed. Still the object was there; it touched their eyes, and they could not see it. The blind man then washes in the pool that was called 'Sent,' and is enabled to see clearly. The power of the Spirit and of the word, making Christ known as the One sent by the Father, gives him sight. It is the history of Divine teaching in the heart of man. Christ, as man, touches us. We are absolutely blind; we see nothing. The Spirit of God acts, Christ being there before our eyes; and we see plainly."*