Section 3
a matter of death. A dead person surely is blind. "The god of this age has blinded the thoughts of the unbelieving." So they need "the illumination of the gospel of the glory of Christ" to shine forth to them (2 Cor. 4:4), "to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God" (Acts 26:18). In the principle set forth in chapter two, this is also the changing of death into life.
BORN BLIND
Let us read 9:1-3. "And as He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, saying, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind? Jesus answered, Neither has this man sinned nor his parents, but that the works of God might be manifested in him." The question raised by the disciples was according to their religious knowledge. They thought that the blindness must have been due to the man's sin or the sin of his parents. This question, like those in 4:20-25 and 8:3-5, is a matter of yes or no, which be longs to the tree of knowledge resulting in death (Gen. 2:17), but the Lord's answer in 9:3 points them to God, who is the tree of life resulting in life (Gen. 2:9). The Lord in the Gospel of John