Before we conclude our study in the ninth chapter of John’s Gospel, consider for a moment the man-born-blind, who was now healed. His first hours of sight could not have been easy ones. To begin with, he knew a man named Jesus healed him, but after he returned to where he had been a beggar, Jesus was gone, and he didn’t know how to find him. Secondly, almost immediately, he was brought before the court, whether the high court, the Sanhedrin, or the lower court, a sanhedrin, isn’t mentioned in the text. In any case, however, he had been interrogated, insulted, and finally thrust out of Jewish society. These things occurred, not because he was healed, but because his healing didn’t fit the expectations of the then current Jewish doctrine.
The man had shown great courage before the court and didn’t reject Jesus, although he was pressured to do so. Up until a few hours prior, he had perceived truth from his other four senses. In a manner of speaking, he couldn’t be fooled by the false appearances, which the court thrust upon him in order to achieve their purpose. Rather, he perceived motives from what he heard, and he was able to see that the court’s motives were insincere. He was cast out of Jewish society, because he faced the rulers on equal terms, telling them they were blind, not he (John 9:30-34).
When others, who heard that the man was cast out by the court and excommunicated from Jewish society, told Jesus what had occurred, he looked for him and found him. The text doesn’t say, but Jesus or one of the others must have told him this was his healer. So, the man knew and had already testified to the court that Jesus was sent by God (John 9:17, 30-33). Therefore, when Jesus asked, if he believed on the Son of God, vis-à-vis Messiah who was the Savior of the world, the man asked who that might be, and, if Jesus, his healer and a man sent by God, would point him out, he would believe (John 9:35-36).
The man’s faith was very simple, yet profound. The Jewish authorities, the educated, the religious scholars and rulers of the land, also knew that Jesus must have been sent by God, because no man could ever do the miracles Jesus did (John 3:1-2). Yet, because Jesus didn’t fit the mold of who the Messiah should be, vis-à-vis a mold of their own crafting (cp. John 7:41; 52; 12:34), they discounted the miracles—the finger of God, and believed they, not the miracles, were better equipped to identify who the Messiah should be.
Jesus then told the man that he, Jesus, was the Messiah, the Savior of the world (John 9:37). Then the man-born-blind and now healed bowed and dropped to his knees before the King and testified: “I believe!” (John 9:38). With this confession of faith, Jesus concluded, “For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind” (John 9:39). To be clear, Jesus did not say he came to judge the world. He came to save the world (John 3:16), which the healing of the man-born-blind pointed to (cp. John 9:1-7). Rather, his reference to judgment has to do with what had been passed down from Eden. Men are in rebellion against God and are, therefore, cast out of his presence (Genesis 3:6-7, 22-24). Because the court had cast out the man who testified that Jesus was sent by God, they proved they were still in rebellion against God. Therefore, **that** judgment passed down from Eden still applied to them (John 9:39). In other words, they loved darkness (spiritual death) rather than light (spiritual life), as understood in the fact that they cast the man out of Jewish society, rather than accept his rebuke of their attitude (John 9:30-34; cp. 3:19-20).
Therefore, when the Pharisees, who were with Jesus, heard this, they asked, “Are we also blind?” (John 9:40). Jesus then replied, saying, if they admitted that they were blind, they wouldn’t be in rebellion/blind. However, because they claimed they were able to see, and judge for themselves, apart from the miracles of God,[1] whether or not Jesus was the Messiah (cp. Genesis 3:6-7; note their eyes were opened; we are able to judge for ourselves what’s good or evil), their sin remains, and they were still in rebellion against God (John 9:41).
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[1] To believe that education or scholarship, while useful and important in many matters, is able to show anyone what is good and what is evil, instead, embraces Adam’s decision to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, which rejects the Lord’s guidance in favor of man’s opinion. That is, it rejects receiving the Table of the Lord (viz. the other trees in the Garden) in the manner in which it was intended to be received, namely with the Lord’s input.
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