I am taking a class next week. We will be meeting on Zoom for 6 hours each day. Then on Thursday I have a final exam. I already know one thing that will happen during the first day of classes. Unless the professor makes it clear, one of the students will ask what we are expected to know for that test. Tests get us all worked up!
We are conditioned to be evaluated by how much we know.
And it is not always a healthy thing!
We have become obsessive knowers. We have overstocked bookshelves, access to audiobooks and podcasts. We have google! The time in history that we live in is known as the “information age”.
But with God, there is so much to be known. We are not going to pass a comprehensive exam on the character of God. If I believe I am evaluated by how much I know then my spiritual life will get out of focus.
In my denomination (Seventh Day Adventist) we have a wonderful heritage of knowing a lot. This man who was born blind didn’t sound like an Adventist. He knew one thing. He should have known at least 28 things. He had a few studies left before he was ready for baptism.
I am not belittling the knowledge of truth. I am so grateful for solid theology. I am highlighting the dangers of making how much we know the “one thing”. We might become proud because knowledge puffs up. We might give more attention to what we know than who we know. We might get lost in all the facts and forget the kind of knowledge that is at the heart of the Christian experience. That is the danger I want to guard against in this message. Accumulation of facts can blur our vision of what matters. Spiritual blindness is a condition of those who know that they see(John 9:41).
Here is the question that we will be asking of John 9. What kind of knowledge gives the right focus to the rest of our knowledge?
There is a lot of knowing in this story. The Geek word(eidó) translated “know” is used 11 times in this chapter.
- Verse 12 They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”
- Verse 20 “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind.
- Verse 21 But how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.”
- Verse 24 We know that this man is a sinner.”
- Verse 25 He answered, “Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”
- Verse 29 We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.”
- Verse 30 The man answered, “Why, this is an amazing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes.
- Verse 31 We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him.
There’s a lot of knowing going on here. Much of our wrong behavior is done when we know we are right.What kind of knowledge gives the right focus to the rest of our knowledge?
13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind.
“They” are the neighbors of the formerly blind man and those who had seen him(v8). They had already done their own investigation into the miracle.
There are many potential reasons why they brought him to the Pharisees? Maybe they turned to the experts because they just wanted to make sense of what had happened. Maybe they brought him for examination in the way they would bring healed lepers before the priest(Lev 13:19, 14:1-11, Luke 5:14, Luke 17:14). Maybe it wasn’t about the healed man but about the one who healed him. They wanted to know what to make of Jesus. They were all looking for the Messiah and the Jews understood that the Messiah would open the eyes of the blind (Is. 35:5; 42:7). They brought him for judgement. They were judging the man who was given sight, judging the one who healed him, and by the end of the chapter they are judged by the healer for their own blindness (John 9:39-41).
14 Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes.
“Made” and “opened”, those are work words. Jesus even called it work (verse 3&4). And it was Sabbath. Now we have a problem.
15 So the Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight. And he said to them, “He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.”
This is now the second re-telling of the story that is recorded in verses 1-7.
The disciples asked who sinned(v2). Jesus told them that it wasn’t about sin but that the works of God might be displayed(v3). This is a crucial shift of focus. Don’t spend your energies looking for sin in others. Our focus should not be on the guilt of people but on the glory of God. He also shifts the focus from cause to purpose. They understood that sin was the cause of suffering. This is true in a general way. We live in a fallen world. But they believed it to be true in a specific way, individuals were punished for the sin in their life or in their family. Trying to figure out the cause of our suffering is not helpful, it only feeds self pity and bitterness. But seeing the purpose in it gives meaning. His blindness was about the purpose of God being glorified. If you have a disability, a disease, or some specific suffering in your life, do not obsess over the cause but trust that God has a glorious purpose.
The man couldn’t see but it is possible the man heard these words of Jesus. Maybe he was feeling that hope that the works of God would be displayed in his life! He listened for the next words hoping that they went something like, “Be healed”. Whatever hopes he had were probably disappointed when he heard the sound of Jesus spitting.Then he didn’t hear anything for a moment while Jesus mixed it with the dirt. Then he felt something. Maybe it took a moment before he realized that Jesus just put spit-mud in his eyes. Rubbing saliva in someone’s eye is not COVID smart. These things didn’t build a lot of confidence. Then he told him to go wash. Which was necessary at that point. He washed. Likely, the first thing he ever saw was his own reflection in the pool.
It was a strange healing, but full of meaning. It is not like Jesus was just running out of creative healing ideas (“Well, I haven’t tried the spit-mud trick yet. Or should I really shock him with the onions and lemon juice ointment?”). No, it was a miracle that proclaimed that Jesus was the Messiah and each piece was choreographed for impact.
He was doing his best to break the sabbath. There is a Jewish collection of 39 Sabbath laws called the Melachot. One of the laws details the prohibition of kneading bread. How much spit does it take in order to knead mud? I eat a gluten free diet so I have a high tolerance for unsatisfactory breads. But I’ll pass on the dirt and saliva loaf. But the Sabbath law extends to non-food items to apply to any combining of small particles and liquid to make a paste. Jesus wasn’t making bread but He was making a point.
The saliva has Sabbath significance also, it was considered medicinal. Jews were only permitted to give minimal comfort care on Sabbath.
Then Jesus tells the man to walk. It gives us a beautiful picture of obedient faith but it also likely caused the man to exceed the distance allowed for a Sabbath walk. And it wasn’t necessary.
The story is over by verse 7. The next 34 verses are a 00big controversy about what it all meant. In the controversy we find some huge lessons about the kind of knowledge that gives focus to the rest of our knowledge.
What did the Pharisees know?
16 Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.”
They knew the law! Their response went something like this, “Let’s investigate. Oh, it was the Sabbath. Guilty!”.
What they “knew” about the Sabbath kept them from knowing the Messiah.
Their logic was this: breaking the law is sin, he doesn’t keep the law the way we understand it, therefore he is not from God. The fault in this logic is in their interpretation of the law.
We need to be careful about concluding that something is not from God just because somebody doesn’t keep the law or understand the truth the way we interpret it. We see God working through other churches and we almost want to approve but those are the people who don’t worship on the same day we do. They don’t dress like us, eat like us, believe the same about death as us. And then we throw in a Bible verse, “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them” (Isaiah 8:20). A bit of Bible helps us to feel justified in rejecting the work of God. It happens within our church. Someone does great work with the youth, but they wear jewelry. Someone has a gift for leading worship but their music style is not ours. For sure, we should have Biblical standards in our lives. What these Pharisees help us to see is that when someone doesn’t share our interpretation of truth it is not a proof that they are not from God.
What did the “others” know?
16 But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” And there was a division among them.
They had the opposite logic of the Pharisees. Instead of focusing on the law they focused on the miracle. They weren’t decisive but they saw what Jesus did and it seemed to suggest that He was from God.
What did the man know?
17 So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him, since he has opened your eyes?” He said, “He is a prophet.”
He knew that Jesus was special.
What did his parents know?
18 The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight, until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight 19 and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” 20 His parents answered, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. 21 But how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” 22 (His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.) 23 Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”
They weren’t going to say!
Being thrown out of the synagogue was devastating. It meant losing your ability to earn money because people could no longer do business with you. You were an outcast. The man’s parents weren’t willing to do that. And they give a response that feels like they had been coached by a lawyer.
Their son did experience being thrown out (v30). In a way he had less to lose. Because of his blindness he never did have full access to the synagogue, he had always been an outcast. But in that moment this man had just gained the possibility of acceptance for the first time in his life. His shame was lifted. If he played it right he might be pronounced clean by the very Pharisees he was talking with and be given access to the synagogue and be welcomed fully into Jewish society.
Let’s not be too hard on the parents. Parents of children with disabilities have it hard enough. If you are one of these parents, God bless you. You are doing a very worthy work.
Notice the word “until” in verse 18. This tells us that the Pharisee do become convinced that there was a healing. They admit that the man was blind in verse 34. From that point on they were not denying that Jesus worked a miracle they were only refusing to acknowledge what that meant about who Jesus is.
24 So for the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, “Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.”
Round two is a bit different. It is time for the sinner to fess up and testify against Jesus. The intimidation worked for the parents. They say, “Give glory to God”. This is the phrase used by Joshua when he confronted Achan about his sin (Joshua 7:19). He was caught in a lie. That is how the Pharisees interrogated this man. Interestingly, this man does give glory to God later (v38) when he worshipped Jesus.
The Pharisees called Jesus a sinner. Jesus had just pointed out their sin when he received the woman caught in adultery (John 8:7). Rather than repent of their sin, they tried to find guilt in Jesus.
25 He answered, “Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”
He said this before the song was written. It was personal.
What was the one thing he knew? He was blind and then he could see. He knew that Jesus had changed his life.
What kind of knowledge gives the right focus to the rest of our knowledge?
The knowledge of the work of God in our lives! (Remember verse 3, “So that the works of God might be displayed in his life”.)
We can know a lot of other things. But if we know that God has changed us and that He is still at work in us it gives focus to all the other things we know. When we don’t have that personal knowledge of the work of God in our lives we might try to mask this lack by accumulating more knowledge. You can mask it but you can’t substitute for it. We don’t need to know it all, we need to know Jesus, and that transforms us!
26 They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”
Their questions assumed that he knew more, but he knew one thing.
27 He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” 28 And they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses.
Here is an effort to justify their rejection of Christ by appealing to orthodoxy, “we are disciples of Moses”. But they are making a distinction that is not valid. Jesus told them, “if you believed Moses, you would believe me” (John 5:46).
29 We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.”
Interestingly, they critiqued Jesus with the opposite argument in John 7:27, “But we know where this man comes from, and when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from.”
30 The man answered, “Why, this is an amazing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes.
“Where he comes from” is factual knowledge. “He opened my eye” is personal knowledge.
31 We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him. 32 Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” 34 They answered him, “You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?” And they cast him out.
Turns out, he actually knew more than the one thing. He knew that nobody had ever opened the eyes of someone born blind. He knew the Old Testament Scriptures. So it is not that he only knew one thing. It was just that one thing rose to the top of all his knowledge. He had been changed.
What the man knew led him to spiritual sight! Notice the progressive clarity.
- Verse 11“The man called Jesus”
- Verse 17 “He is a prophet.”
- Verse 27 “Do you also want to become his disciples?”
- Verses 33 “If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”
- Verse 38 “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.
He received physical sight through Jesus with mud, spit and washing. The clarity of his spiritual sight grew as he acknowledged what Jesus had done in him. Every time he reviewed the story he grew bolder and more sure of who Jesus is.
What the Pharisees knew led them to spiritual blindness! Notice the progressive refusal to see.
- Verse 16 “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.”
- Verse 24 “We know that this man is a sinner”
- Verse 34 “You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?”
- Verse 41 Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.
The healed man acknowledged what Jesus had done in him and his faith grew. The Pharisees denied what Jesus had done and they grew in their unbelief.
The great miracle for the man was not physical but spiritual.
He was “born in utter sin” (verse 34), as we all are. But he experienced the new birth that Jesus had told Nicodemus about in chapter 3.
George Whitfield preached approximately 300 sermons on the new birth. He was asked why he always talked about the same topic. He responded, “Because you must be born again”.
The gospel is not about improvement but transformation. We need to be able to say, “I was blind and now I see.”
There are too many people in the church who know a ton but they don’t know the experience of conversion. They need to be born again. But we evaluate people by how much they know. So, they study the list of things they need to know, we give them a passing grade and they no longer feel their great need.
In addition to knowing that we are a new creation (2 cor. 5:17) we can know that we are being conformed into the image of Christ (Rom. 829) and transformed by the renewing of our minds(Rom. 12:2).
To belong to certain groups you need to know certain things. You don’t belong until you know how to ride a Harley, you don’t belong until you pass the NCLEX, you don’t belong until you know a good vegan cheese recipe, you don’t belong until you know advanced theology…
But in this group, the Church, you don’t need to know all that before you belong. You need to have the knowledge of the works of God in your life. You need to know Jesus as your healer.
Let’s make this a conversation!
What is some of the factual knowledge about God/truth that you are grateful to know?
How have you allowed your knowledge to blur your focus of what matters?
What has God done in you?
What is God doing in you?
Discuss the focus shift from the guilt of people to the glory of God and from cause to purpose.
How might this focus on the works of God in our lives influence our church culture?