JOHN 9:35-41 (ESV) FOUND BY JESUS, JESUS IS GOD, WORSHIP JESUS

35 Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”

News travels fast and it seems that bad news travels even faster than good. For the formerly blind man, being cast out would have been bad news. His parents and friends should have shunned him and had nothing to do with him anymore. When Jesus heard, it is no indication of his omniscience, but it does point us toward our risen Savior who hears our prayers and knows everything that is happening to us. We don’t have to depend on the gossip chain to inform him and then wait for his comfort. Hebrews 7:24-25 says, "But because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them" (NIV). If we are suffering or being tempted, he is making sure we are safe in his salvation.

Jesus does the exact opposite of what was required of the community when someone is cast out of the synagogue. Jesus went and found him. This is a great picture of our salvation. We are first given eyes to see, in other words, we are regenerated. But that isn’t all that happens. Jesus finds us When we were dead in our sins and trespasses, God comes to us. This is echoed in Galatians 4:9 where Paul says, “You have come to know God, or rather to be known by God” (NASU). It is interesting that both are true. There are many verses that show that God finds us, but there are also many that say we should seek him. And in this case, it is clear that Jesus found him.

Jesus’ question is fundamental to salvation. He knew that the man had some scriptural knowledge, and he didn’t need to elaborate on who the Son of Man was. The title was clearly a reference to the Messiah. In today’s world, this question would not elicit a positive response as people are not acquainted with the Bible nor are they particularly inclined to believe in anyone other than themselves. We would have to educate them about Jesus before we could ask them if they believed or wanted to believe in Jesus.

36 He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?”

This response can only come from someone who has been regenerated by the Holy Spirit. This is a person who wants to believe and not just believe, but believe in the coming Messiah. Compare the response of the Pharisees who were doing everything in their power to keep people from believing in Jesus. Such opposition is in contrast to such eagerness and can only be explained by God’s sovereign election and work in a person.

37 Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.”

This is the second time that Jesus has clearly identified himself as the Messiah and it wasn’t even to his own disciples. The woman at the well and this formerly blind man have the privilege of having Jesus tell them that he is the Messiah. Compare the way Jesus interacted with this man and the formerly paralyzed man in Chapter 5 after he was healed. The paralyzed man’s reaction to his healing was to report back to the Pharisees without even saying one word to Jesus. He was not ready to believe, and Jesus didn’t do anything other than warn him. The contrast is between the way God deals with those whom he has elected and those he hasn’t. The elect are found and they are shown the Messiah, whom they then embrace. Those who are not elect are found and warned.

Since we don’t know who is elected and who isn’t, our action in sharing the Gospel requires us to not only tell people about Jesus but warn them of the consequences of unbelief. If they are elect and it is their time, they will embrace the Lord. If not, they will walk away like the formerly paralyzed man.

38 He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.

This is the only response that a believer can have regarding Jesus. We believe and we worship. We call him Lord and we give him the adoration, worship, and obedience that comes with declaring him Lord. Many believe but don’t call him Lord. Many call him Lord but don’t worship him. Many think they worship him but don’t know him.

I hear person after person declaring on social media that Jesus isn’t God. While this verse doesn’t make the declaration that Jesus is God it is quite clear that he is. Worshiping other gods is the one fundamental problem that plagued Israel from the time of the exodus through the Babylonian exile. If Jesus was not God, then his acceptance of this worship would have been the grossest sin a person could commit. It was breaking the first commandment to the max! God will not tolerate us worshiping anyone else. When Herod simply accepted being called a god, he was struck down (Acts 12:21-23). Herod knew better, how much more did Jesus know better than to accept worship unless he is indeed God in the flesh? If Jesus were not God, then he should have responded as the angel did in Revelation:

8 I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me, 9 but he said to me, “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God” (Rev 22:8-9 ESV).

But Jesus accepted worship from this man. His disciples were there watching, and they didn’t object. How can anyone read this and other passages about Jesus’ deity and conclude that he never claimed to be God or that the Bible doesn’t claim Jesus is God?

39 Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.”

Jesus uses healing the blind man as a parable for understanding salvation. His very presence in the world brings judgment on people. Those whom he touches and enables to see are the only ones who will see and be saved. Those who think they see but are in fact blind are established in their blindness.

40 Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, “Are we also blind?” 41 Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.

We don’t know how much of the conversation with the formerly blind man was heard by the Pharisees. Based on their question, I believe they only heard Jesus’ last statement. If they had heard him reveal that he is the Messiah, they would have been picking up rock to stone him. If they had seen the man worship Jesus, they would have done the same. So, I believe they only heard Jesus saying they would become blind. The implication is that they had already declared that they were seeing. If they hadn’t stated it, then that is what they and been implying in all their previous confrontations. That is why Jesus could state that they were guilty. They claimed to know the Law and the ways of God. If they could see so clearly, and didn’t recognize Jesus, then they are doubly judged.

JOHN 9:13-34 (NASU) BIAS, CORRECTING THEOLOGY

13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who was formerly blind. 14 Now it was a Sabbath on the day when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. 15 Then the Pharisees also were asking him again how he received his sight. And he said to them, "He applied clay to my eyes, and I washed, and I see."

Why would this man’s neighbors bring him to the Pharisees? He has been healed from blindness and everyone should be rejoicing. Perhaps they are bringing him so that he can now be a full-fledged member of the synagogue. Leviticus 21:18 specified that no blind person could draw near to offer sacrifices to God. While this applied to the priests, I wouldn’t doubt that the Pharisees legalized this to the point that they limited the ability of a blind person to engage in worship even in the local community. If this is so, then they want to have their once blind neighbor become an equal in the community and they couldn’t do that without the Pharisees’ blessing.

Another option is that these people want to gain favor with the Pharisees. If they bring the blind man’s healing on the Sabbath to the Pharisees’ attention it would enable them to chalk up one more offense against Jesus. The neighbors would gain some brownie points.

This brings up a question about what we do when we have told someone about Jesus, and there is a salvific response. Do we bring them to our church rejoicing that someone is now in the kingdom? Do we bring them because they will make us look good in the eyes of others? Maybe we have mixed motivations. Hopefully we want them to grow and know the Lord more and more out of genuine concern for their spiritual life. Which also brings up a point that occurred when I was going to a church that wasn’t following biblical principles. I thought I might be able to make a difference there but was convicted that if I led someone to the Lord, I would have to advise them to go to a church that I didn’t attend.

16 Therefore some of the Pharisees were saying, "This man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath." But others were saying, "How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?" And there was a division among them.

Judgementalism raises its ugly head again. Previously, we saw the disciples engaged in it and now we see the extreme in the Pharisees. While the disciples could be excused because they had poor teaching, the Pharisees were the ones that were supposed to be teaching correctly. Nicodemus was called the teacher of Israel, and this is the way people regarded the Pharisees. So, when they declare that Jesus isn’t from God for breaking the Sabbath you would think that everyone would fall in line.

From our viewpoint, they were basing their conclusion on what they believed was required on the Sabbath. Or I should say on what people couldn’t do on the Sabbath. It’s interesting to see that all their objections were prohibitions, not obligations. Regardless, they were not looking at God’s requirements but their own rules and regulations. We are no better than the Pharisees when we judge people based on our traditions, rule, and regulations that have no clear biblical incentive. We really need to avoid this kind of judgmentalism.

Some of the Pharisees were coming from the opposite direction as they observed what Jesus was doing and it puzzled them. They were calling him a sinner, but their theology didn’t allow miracles to be performed by a sinner. This was a crisis in their theology. When we observe something that contradicts our theology, we should stop and consider why we believe what we believe. We know that the Bible is true so we either have misunderstood it or we may have misunderstood what we saw. This is probably why we have such large divisions in our denominations today. Are we are resting our theology on a misunderstanding of the Bible? What do we do when what we see doesn’t make sense according to our theology? We need to admit we have a problem and dig deeper.

17 So they said to the blind man again, "What do you say about Him, since He opened your eyes?" And he said, "He is a prophet."

The Pharisees start digging deeper; however, they don’t go to the Word of God but to what they saw. Their logic said that Jesus was a sinner and therefore he couldn’t do miracles. Therefore, the apparent healing must have been a hoax. They were right to make sure that the healing was true, but their question wasn’t going to clarify anything.

The formerly blind man may have been a lot wiser than the “learned” Pharisees. His conclusion was biblical. Prophets performed miracles. Prophets were sinners just like everyone else. Jesus must be a prophet. Pure logic with no theological problems. In fact, Jesus is a prophet. That is one of his roles as Messiah. However, it isn’t all that Jesus is.

18 The Jews then did not believe it of him, that he had been blind and had received sight, until they called the parents of the very one who had received his sight, 19 and questioned them, saying, "Is this your son, who you say was born blind? Then how does he now see?" 20 His parents answered them and said, "We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; 21 but how he now sees, we do not know; or who opened his eyes, we do not know. Ask him; he is of age, he will speak for himself." 22 His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone confessed Him to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue. 23 For this reason his parents said, "He is of age; ask him."

Still not believing that the man had been blind, they look for someone who could vouch for his previous condition. Who better than the man’s parents? In the face of this irrefutable evidence, the Pharisees are going to have to come up with some way to negate the effect of this miracle.

The parents’ reaction to the Pharisees’ question shows how much the common people feared the Pharisees. They had the power to excommunicate people from the synagogue which would be disastrous for their religious and social live. Nelson’s Bible Dictionary explains the importance:

In synagogues, on the other hand, the people took part in worship, reading of the Scriptures, and prayer. By New Testament times synagogues were very numerous and popular. They became centers of community activity, playing a number of roles.

Sometimes they were local courts of justice which could sentence the offender as well as inflict the punishment of scourging (Matt 10:17; 23:34). The synagogue was also an elementary school for teaching children to read. It was, no doubt, a center of social life for the Jewish community.[1]

Jesus’ popularity had become so great that the Pharisees had resorted to this threat of excommunication if anyone admitted he was their Messiah. We often have to weigh the threat to our social and economic situation for our faith in Christ. While it isn’t that much of a problem in the United States, it certainly is in other nations. The parents didn’t know who Jesus was, but they also didn’t want to get into trouble, so they worded their answer carefully. Their answer was wise in that they directed the Pharisees back to their son. There are times when we don’t need to make answers for other and this was one of them.

24 So a 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." 25 He then answered, "Whether He is a sinner, I do not know; one thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see." 26 So they said to him, "What did He do to you? How did He open your eyes?" 27 He answered them, "I told you already and you did not listen; why do you want to hear it again? You do not want to become His disciples too, do you?"

I can only imagine that the wisdom of this man came from God. God used him to stand up to the Pharisees with simple logic. He told what he knew. He didn’t know anything about Jesus except that Jesus healed him. That is all he could say.

We too should be careful about what we say. Too often, we just keep our lips flapping and our tongue wagging when we should shut up after stating the facts. However, the Pharisees didn’t let up. They wanted more from him. They wanted something they could use against Jesus.

The blind man was not willing to put up with their nonsense and turned the tables on them. His question was a definite slap in the face. I think of Proverbs 26:5 when I read his answer, “Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes” (NIV). They wanted him to say something he couldn’t truthfully answer. But his answer made them questioning look foolish.

28 They reviled him and said, "You are His disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. 29 "We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where He is from."

It seems the Pharisees were very good at accusing people of things without any basis. The facts were simple. This guy was healed. He only knew that Jesus healed him. He knew next to nothing about Jesus. How ridiculous to accuse him of being Jesus’ disciple. But they aren’t working on logic or reason. They are working on hate. On top of that, they are absolute liars. They knew where Jesus was from, physically speaking. They also had a good idea that God had sent him because of the miracles. Their lie is obvious.

30 The man answered and said to them, "Well, here is an amazing thing, that you do not know where He is from, and yet He opened my eyes. 31 "We know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is God-fearing and does His will, He hears him. 32 "Since the beginning of time it has never been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. 33 "If this man were not from God, He could do nothing."

Their lie is so obvious that even this “uneducated” man could see through it. How did he know that God doesn’t hear sinners? The Lord revealed it to Isaiah “But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear” (Isa 59:2 NASU). Even though this man was blind, it doesn’t mean he didn’t know the Scriptures. As was mentioned above, the synagogue was where people were taught the Scriptures. He is simply using Scripture to show their foolishness. 

Does God Hear Sinners?

Of course, God hears sinners. He is omniscient so that he hears and sees everything everywhere. The meaning of Isaiah 59:2 is not that God can’t hear sinners because of the separation of sin, it is that He will not pay attention to their prayers unless it is a prayer of repentance. It is dangerous for an unbeliever to pray and have that prayer “answered.” He may think that his relationship with God is good.

 His conclusion is based on solid biblical theology and historical evidence. It is so obvious that you would think anyone would be able to follow it.

34 They answered him, "You were born entirely in sins, and are you teaching us?" So they put him out.

So, the only thing the Pharisees can do at this time is excommunicate the man born blind. They have no grounds because he has only told them the truth. However, they have been proven liars and that is more than they can tolerate.

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[1]Herbert Lockyer, “Synagogue,” in Nelson's Illustrated Bible Dictionary(Nashville, TN: T. Nelson, 1986).