3. Ibid., 209.
He Opens Blind Eyes
that must be believed for salvation. It contains these facts: (1) man is a sinner, (2) Christ is the Savior, (3) Christ died as man's substitute, and (4) Christ rose from the dead."2 The writer then goes on to argue that surrender to Christ's authority has no place in the gospel message: "Everyone who believes the gospel believes that Jesus is the Savior (1 Cor. 12:3). But not everyone who believes the gospel realizes that the Savior has the right to be sovereign over his life. The Child of God should also let Christ be sovereign over his life (Rom. 12:1 – 2), but obedience to that command is not a condition for salvation. . . . All that is required for salvation is believing the gospel message."3
And so informing an unbeliever that "the Savior has the right to be sovereign over his life" is challenged as extraneous doctrine added to the gospel. It is, we are told, tantamount to trying to make a theologian out of an unbeliever.
I reject that. A cultist who denies the deity of Christ could wholeheartedly affirm those four truths from 1 Co rin thi ans 15:3 – 4, but that does not make him a true believer. Along with everyone else who rejects the Savior's right to be sovereign, that person is an unbeliever, no matter what other points of evangelical doctrine he or she might accept. True faith embraces not only the data of the gospel, but the Person of Christ as well. It comprehends not merely the truth that Jesus died and rose again, but also the corresponding implication: that He did this to deliver us from our sins in order to be the sovereign Master of our lives (Rom. 14:9).
The gospel is not a sterile set of facts; it is the dynamic through which God redeems sinners from the bondage of sin (Rom. 1:16). It calls not simply for the acquiescence of the mind, but for the full surrender of the heart, soul, mind, and strength (cf. Mark 12:30). Its work is not to make a theologian of a heathen, but to open the eyes of the spiritually blind.
John 9 is a clear case in point. There Jesus heals a man born blind, and in a second encounter with the same man, opens his spiritual eyes. In the interim, confronted by hostile Pharisees, the man — clearly no theologian — nevertheless gave a forceful and accurate testimony on behalf of Christ. Yet he was unregenerate, having not yet come to full faith in Christ. In fact, though Jesus had healed his sightless physical eyes, he was still in the dark about who Jesus was (v. 25). But when Jesus finished opening his spiritual eyes, he worshiped Christ as Lord (v. 38). It was not a theology lesson that brought about this transformation, but a miracle of divine grace.
2. Th omas L. Constable, "Th e Gospel Message," in Walvoord: A Tribute (Chicago: Moody, 1982), 203 – 4. 3. Ibid., 209.
Jesus Heralds His Gospel
The Physical Miracle
The man in John 9 was born blind. It is noteworthy that this is the only miracle recorded in the Gospels where Scripture specifically states Jesus healed a congenital illness or disability. There was no way for skeptics to dismiss this miracle as a psychological healing or any kind of trickery on Jesus' part. Everyone who knew this man knew he had been blind from birth. His blindness was a birth defect, not a temporary affliction from which he could hope to recover — such is the case with the sin of the human race.
We might expect the witnesses to this healing to say, "That settles it! This must be the Christ." But they didn't. They were locked into unbelief. Instead, this incident became a turning point in the ministry of Christ. From here on, He began to withdraw from the Jewish crowds and their unbelieving leaders. Instead, He turned His attention to the Gentiles.
Note carefully the setting in which the miracle took place. At the end of John 8, Jesus was engaged in a toe-to-toe confrontation with the religious leaders in the temple, where He made a dramatic proclamation of His deity: "Before Abraham was born, I am" (John 8:58). The next verse says the Jews were so incensed that they tried to stone Him. In the midst of the confusion, Jesus was able to get out of the temple.
John 9 picks up the narrative just as Jesus left the temple: "As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth" (v. 1). Although our Lord's life was in danger and the mob from the temple would almost certainly be looking for Him, Jesus stopped to deal with this blind man. Even though He was dodging bloodthirsty men, He had time to stop and minister to a blind sinner.
The man was a beggar (v. 8). Yet he did not initiate contact with Jesus. He didn't ask Jesus to heal him. It seems unlikely that he even knew who Jesus was. But the Lord saw him (v. 1). Sovereign grace had chosen him to receive a miracle.
The disciples raised an interesting theological question: "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind?" (v. 2). As far as they were concerned, those were the only possible options. That was standard rabbinical teaching. As far back as the time of Job, the common assumption was that suffering and illness were always traceable to an individual's specific acts of sin. In fact, some of the rabbis taught that a child could sin in the womb and then pay the penalty all his life for his prenatal sin.
Jesus, avoiding a lengthy discussion on the relationship of sin and suffering, simply answered, "It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was in order that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of Him who sent Me, as long as it is day; night is coming, when no
He Opens Blind Eyes
man can work" (vv. 3 – 4). In only a matter of months, Jesus would be crucified. The time for discussing theological trivia was long past. What our Lord could do by healing this man would speak volumes more than a discourse on the theology of sin and suffering. The blind man was a miracle waiting to happen! He had been selected in eternity past and specially prepared for Jesus to pass by him and manifest His glory.
Although Jesus and the disciples were discussing him, the Lord had not yet said anything to the blind man, who just sat there. The beggar was not asking for any favors or seeking to enlist Jesus' power. He probably did not realize who Jesus was or what He was doing. Without even speaking to him, Jesus "spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and applied the clay to his eyes" (v. 6).
We cannot attribute any special significance to the method Jesus used to heal this man. It is not the way He healed others who were blind. But His sovereign choice for this particular man was an amazingly simple miracle. No flash of bright light, no angels singing, no sound of trumpets. Just a little clay made from spittle.
Jesus told him simply, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam" (v. 7). This must have made a very strange sight — a blind man with mud on his eyes crossing Jerusalem. But something, possibly the authority with which Jesus spoke, compelled him to obey. He responded with unquestioning obedience. Scripture says, "He went away and washed, and came back seeing" (v. 7). Through this act of obedience, God opened the man's physical eyes. Thus the man began a pattern of response to Christ that would culminate in his seeing spiritually.
The Inquisition
The miracle stirred up an extraordinary furor. When the man returned and the people realized who he was and what had happened to him, they were understandably perplexed. Some asked, " 'Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?' Others were saying, 'This is he,' still others were saying, 'No, but he is like him.' He kept saying, 'I am the one' " (vv. 8 – 9). This was very hard to believe!
"How then were your eyes opened?" they asked (v. 10). No one had ever witnessed a miracle like this.
Notice the man's theological naivete. They wanted an explanation, but all he could provide was a reciting of the events: "The man who is called Jesus made clay, and anointed my eyes, and said to me, 'Go to Siloam, and wash'; so I went away and washed, and I received sight" (v. 11). He was unsure who Jesus was, did not know where He was, and had no logical or theological explanation for what had happened to him. After questioning the man at length, his neighbors bundled him off to the Pharisees.
Jesus Heralds His Gospel
Suddenly the story turns nasty. When the formerly blind man told the Pharisees, "He applied clay to my eyes, and I washed, and I see" (v. 15), they were indignant. Jesus had violated their Sabbath tradition.
"This man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath" (v. 16), they concluded.
A few of the Pharisees tried to be more reasonable. "How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?" they asked (v. 16). And they began to argue among themselves. The militant unbelievers among the Pharisees were not about to let up. Most of John 9 describes how they went to everyone they could find, arguing desperately that Jesus had sinned by violating the Sabbath, furiously looking for evidence to corroborate their unbelief. It makes a pathetic picture — these legalistic, unbelieving zealots, groping around trying to investigate a miracle without the capacity to see or believe it.
What a contrast! The beggar, devoid of any theological explanation or rationale for what had happened, simply rejoiced in what Jesus had done. The Pharisees, fat with theological information, wanted only to deny what had obviously happened, because they could not harmonize it with their predetermined system.
They turned to the blind man again and asked: "What do you say about Him, since He opened your eyes?" (v. 17). It was a challenge, not an honest question.
Theologically uninformed though he was, this man was not about to be intimidated by a group of Pharisees. "He is a prophet" was his candid appraisal (v. 18).
Almost frantic in their passion to disprove the validity of the miracle, the Pharisees sought out the man's parents. "Is this your son, who you say was born blind? Then how does he now see?" (v. 19). They were asking the same question over and over, not looking for an answer, but rather desperately seeking some way to dismiss the unwelcome miracle.
The parents acknowledged that this was their son and that he had indeed been born blind, but they dodged the second question. Verse 22 says they were afraid of the Pharisees, who had threatened to put anyone out of the synagogue who affirmed that Jesus was the Christ. Excommunication was a terrible thing. The synagogue was the center of the Jewish community. Those who were excommunicated were cut off from everything. They could not buy or sell, and they were excluded from religious life. They became total outcasts. And when they died, they were given no funeral.
This man's parents were not taking any chances. They replied to the Pharisees, "Ask him; he is of age, he shall speak for himself" (v. 21).
These Pharisees were militant unbelievers. They went back to the man again, and said to him, "Give glory to God; we know that this man [Jesus] is
He Opens Blind Eyes
a sinner" (v. 24). Of course they had no evidence that He had sinned — for He was without sin (Heb. 4:15). But they had already passed judgment, using their artificial standards in an attempt to justify what they had already concluded. Exposed to all the evidence, unbelief always remains resolute. Their minds were made up, and they were not going to be confused with the facts.
The blind man's reply was tinged with sarcasm: "Whether He is a sinner, I do not know; one thing I do know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see" (v. 25). He challenged their certainty that Jesus was a sinner, almost as if he said, "I'm not sure He's a sinner. I'm not that informed. But I do know that I couldn't see before He came along, and now I can."
What response did they offer for that? None. It is hard to argue against the simplicity of the obvious. Frantic, they repeated the same questions the man had already answered: "What did he do to you? How did He open your eyes?" (v. 26).
"Why do you want to hear it again?" he shot back. "You do not want to become His disciples, too, do you?" (v. 27).
Now they were furious. They began to revile him, to curse at him. "You are His disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses; but as for this man, we do not know where He is from" (vv. 28 – 29).
The calm, simple, obvious logic of the blind man vanquished their attack. Clearly, he was in control of this debate: "Well, here is an amazing thing, that you do not know where He is from, and yet He opened my eyes. We know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is God-fearing, and does His will, He hears him. Since the beginning of time it has never been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, He could do nothing" (vv. 30 – 33). As they became more and more antagonistic, he became more and more convinced that Jesus was from God! The more they challenged him, the clearer his testimony became.
Finally, when the Pharisees had no more to say, they turned to mockery: "You were born entirely in sins [as if they were not], and are you teaching us?" Scripture adds, "And they put him out" (v. 34). That means they threw him out of the building and excommunicated him from the synagogue. Thus this once-blind beggar became the first person recorded in Scripture to be put out of the synagogue for Christ's sake. This incident began the breach that finally resulted in the separation of the church and Israel.
The Pharisees' inquisition was over. They had heard the testimony, they had seen the miracle, and still they were not swayed. Theirs was hardened, vicious, determined unbelief. Ultimately their hatred of Christ would ascend to such a fever pitch that they would sell their souls to put Him to death.
Meanwhile, the beggar's faith was still incomplete. He had responded positively to Christ, even defended Him against the Pharisees. But he was as yet
Jesus Heralds His Gospel
unregenerate. His physical eyes were healed, but his spiritual blindness still needed to be removed.
The Spiritual Miracle
When Jesus heard that the man had been put out of the synagogue, He sought him out. Again, the Lord made the overture; the beggar did not come looking for Him. Though his trade was begging, neither of the two miracles he received from Christ — the physical healing nor his subsequent salvation — came in response to his asking.
This episode illustrates perfectly the working of divine sovereignty. Salvation always results because God first pursues sinners, not because sinners first seek God. In John 15:16 Jesus said to His disciples, "You did not choose Me, but I chose you, and appointed you." Luke 19:10 says, "The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost." In Scripture, Christ is always portrayed as the seeking Savior. His divine initiative made redemption possible, and it is through His initiative that individuals are sought out and saved.
No one seeks God unless God has first sought that person (cf. Rom. 3:11). Salvation is first of all a work of God and in no sense the result of human enterprise or individual longing. A blind man has no capacity to give himself sight. Spiritual sight depends on God's initiative and God's power, offered in divine and sovereign grace.
Here is an important point. This blind man in John 9 did not gain his sight because he was exposed to the light. No amount of light affects blindness. A blind man in daylight is equally blind in the dark. All the light in the world will not make blind eyes see. The only things that can cure physical blindness are either surgery or a miracle. And the only thing that can change spiritual blindness is a divine miracle — not mere exposure to light.
Teaching theology to a heathen will not bring him to faith in Christ. He may learn the evangelical vocabulary and verbally affirm the truth. He may intellectually accept a list of gospel facts. But without a divine miracle to open his blind eyes and give him a new heart, he will only be a theologically informed pagan, not a Chris tian.
If, on the other hand, salvation is truly a work of God, it cannot be deficient. It cannot fail to impact an individual's behavior. It cannot leave his desires unchanged or his conduct unaltered. It cannot result in a fruitless life. It is the work of God and will continue steadfastly from its inception to ultimate perfection (Phil. 1:6).
Obviously God had begun to work in this blind man's heart. He stood up for Christ before the Pharisees and paid a great price for it. He was excommunicated