Spiritual Blindness
SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS
JOHN 9:35-41
The Jews thought they knew God’s truth. But like many, they were in fact blind and needed sight as much as the blind beggar did.
Hitherto in this chapter the whole discussion has been concerned with the physical healing of a blind man and the identity of a person who was able to perform it. Now Jesus draws out the further lesson of his spiritual mission to the world and to individual people. Not even a miracle was sufficient, by itself, to create faith—a personal meeting with Christ was required.
Jesus had disappeared from the scene (9:12) but had kept an interest in the man, and on hearing that he had been thrown out by the Jews, he found him (cf. 5:13f.). He now asks him the direct question whether he believes in the Son of Man. The man is baffled as to who such a person might be and Jesus has to explain that it is he himself (cf. 4:26). The man gives him his trust and his reverence up to the limit of his understanding.
Jesus then utters one of his hard sayings. His purpose in coming into the world was judgment. There has just been a perversion of the judicial process. He will set things right by giving sight to the blind and blindness to the seeing. Some of the Pharisees were disturbed enough by the whole affair to ask whether they too were in some measure blind. Jesus replies that the really incurable blindness is that which has convinced its victims that it is in fact sight.
Notes 9:35: some manuscripts read “Son of God” but “Son of Man” is more likely to be correct. Jesus is still revealing himself cryptically. 9:38: these words may not have their full Christian content yet, for “Lord” may be only “Sir” and “worshiped” need only mean “bowed before” (NEB). To us, who know the risen Lord, they mean so much more. 9:39: a hard saying, but all the Gospels allude to the saying about blinding in Isaiah 6:9f. Though salvation was the primary purpose of his coming (3:17), judgment was its inevitable consequence and so could be said in one sense to be its purpose. “Those who see” are those who have some understanding of spiritual truth which they regard as sufficient, and so they fail to see the true message of the gospel.