Healed of Blindness

This morning I have been reading from John's 9th chapter, which is the story of the healing of the man born blind. I love this story for several reasons, but one of the main things I like is the realness of the conversation, the interaction of the Pharisees and the man, and then his parents. I can just imagine the circumstances, the pompous posturing of the Pharisees, the relative innocence of the man who was healed, etc. Here is a link to John 9 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=john+9&version=NIV

There are a few things that I think are very interesting in this story. First, Jesus doesn't stick around to experience his healing. Instead He sends the man to wash in the pool of Siloam, and it is then that the man is healed, but Jesus is nowhere to be found. In other words, Jesus just wasn't worried about acclamation. He wasn't worried about the turmoil that He caused the religious establishment. He ultimately came back and addressed the man personally and revealed Himself to him that he might believe. Jesus was concerned for the individual, and that was His main motivation.

Secondly, the whole idea of sickness relating to his sin is discussed. This was a common thought back then, and still exists in the church today in places. I have written about this in several blog entries, but it is always worth revisiting. The disciples ask Jesus who sinned to cause this man's blindness, the man or his parents? They were asking for clarification - was this and example of Deut. 5:9 or Ezek 18 - was the sin of the parents or the man himself responsible for his condition? Jesus responds simply "neither" was responsible. This was the perfect place for Jesus to have tied sin to sickness, but He didn't. We only have four recorded times where He speaks specifically of a person's sins, and yet we have recorded His healing of thousands, all with no comment from Jesus on their sin being the cause of their sickness. Sometimes we can learn from what is not said, and this is one of those situations where Jesus' lack of comment is very educational.

Thirdly, I love the last few verses concerning the man's interaction with the Pharisees - John 9:30-33 NIV: "The man answered, “Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. [31] We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly person who does his will. [32] Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. [33] If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

This is a perfect answer to those who in this day, hold to cessationist theology, namely that all miracles and healing and spiritual gifts ceased after the last of the Apostles died. This is their theology which then forces them to say that any healing, miracles or signs and wonders being performed in the church today are from the enemy, because they can't be from God. The Pharisees argued that Jesus couldn't be from God because He didn't follow the rules, which were clearly from God, via Moses. They clearly missed the fact that Jesus had created new eyes in the man and that is something only God can do, and a clear sign of the Messiah (see Isaiah 42:7) because He didn't follow their understanding of the rules. The same can be said of those who believe in cessationism, they are missing the very move of God in our midst, because of their own theology.

Finally, Jesus speaks of spiritually blind eyes - John 9:39-41 NIV: "Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.” [40] Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?” [41] Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains." Spiritual blindness really is the result of pride, believing that one understands all things. We need to have humility in coming before God, for none of us can fully understand Him or His ways. God is creative and never stops creating, and He understands all His ways, and will never act outside of His character. The problem is that we don't fully understand Him, so cannot rightly judge all His ways. There will be times that we will see Him act in wholly new ways, and we must not reject them because they don't fit into our understanding.

Let us pray that we can have our eyes opened by the Lord to see His wonderful salvation available to us all. Let us lay down old, wrong ways of thinking and judging, and let us pursue the truth of the Father, revealed by Jesus both in scripture as well as in our daily experience. Let us examine ourselves and rid ourselves of our spiritual blindness. Help us Lord!