JOHN - Chapter 9 - "For Judgment, I AM
JOHN – Chapter 9 – “For Judgment, I AM”
Tuesday Morning Bible Study
May 9, 2017, the Year of Our Lord
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
As we progress through John, I see the pattern that Jesus’ miracles are a demonstration of the message of revealing His Deity and His Kingdom.
Jesus performs a miracle; and then preaches a sermon to the Pharisees, Sadducees, Levites, etc. of self disclosure of His character as revealed in the miracle that He is the Son of God.
In chapter 9, the healing of the blind man who had been judged as being born in sin was healed and given sight to reveal that Jesus Christ came to separate those who are blind in sin from those who can see Spiritually that He is the Son of God. His healing of the blind man and his subsequent` accepting Christ as the Son of God was a judgment on the Pharisees who could see, but refused to believe even though they saw with their physical eyes His miracles.
Chapter 1 - Jesus is presented as the Word of God made flesh and He was with God in the beginning.
Chapter 2 - Jesus reveals Himself as the Temple of God (2:19).
Chapter 3 – Jesus reveals Himself as the Kingdom of God (3:5); Savior (3:18); Name of the Only Begotten Son; the Light (3:19) and the seal of God for those who receive His testimony (3:33).
Chapter 4 – Jesus reveals Himself as the Living Water (4:10); The Messiah (4:25); The Prophet; and Christ, the Savior of the World.
Chapter 5 – Jesus reveals that those who believe in Him will have eternal life (5:24); that He is the Son of God (5:25); He is the Resurrection (5:29).
Chapter 6 – The Bread from Heaven (6:32); Bread of Life (6:35, 48); Everlasting life (6:40); Living Bread (6:51); whoever drinks His Blood and His flesh has eternal life; (6:54) His words were Spirit and Life (6:63).
Chapter 7 - Jesus reveals Himself as the Lord of the Sabbath (7:23; Lk. 6:5); In the power of the Holy Ghost (7:37-39);
Chapter 8 – The Light of the world (8:12); Jehovah is His Father; (8:18); before Abraham was, I Am. (8:58); The Great I Am.
Chapter 9:39: Jesus said, for judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and they which see might be made blind.
John – Chapter 9: - “For Judgment, I AM…”
The feast-action of chapter 8 continues. Jesus has a divine appointment with a beggar. Jesus is leaving the temple.
9:1-3: As Jesus passed by, He saw a man which was blind from his birth. His disciples asked Him, saying Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, neither has this man sinned, nor his parents; but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.
Jesus repudiates any notion that there is a direct causal connection between his blindness and some sin. The right attitude is to see in suffering not a reason for imputing guilt, but an occasion for the revealing of God’s glory.
I was judged by a religious spirit by the same legalism here implied by the disciples. It was 1984, and the beginning of a series of events which eventually dominoed into the breaking which ultimately catapulted me into ministry.
We had trouble in our life. The legalistic church I was attending told me the trouble was due to sin in my life. I already knew this in WORD in John 9, my SAVIOR and the Old Testament declaration of Ezekiel. God makes this clear through the words of the prophet. Ez. 18:2: Let this parable no longer be spoken, the fathers have eaten unripe grapes, and the children’s teeth shall be set on edge. The Lord also gave this commandment through Moses: And the sons shall not be put to death for the fathers; everyone shall be put to death for his own sin (Dt. 24:16).
Some might object, “Yet it is written, I am the Lord your God, a jealous God, recompensing the sins of the fathers upon the children, to the third and fourth generation (Ex. 20:5).
This does not say that the children are punished for the sins of their fathers, but rather that the sins of the fathers---meaning, the punishments for their sins will be recompensed upon their children. This is because the children have committed the same sins as the fathers. The sins of your fathers (that is the penalty for their sins,) will come upon you also, because you did not repent and receive Christ, but have committed the same sins and even worse.
All this is hidden in the abyss of God’s judgments.
Every soul is without excuse because we either accept Christ and His sayings, or we reject him. He has left the world with a witness of Creation and Conscience which reveals him to all mankind. Mankind is without excuse.
The Lord Jesus again reveals that all judgment has been given to Him. Acceptance or rejection of Him will judge those who will not repent of their sins and receive Him as Savior.
9: 3-5: Neither has this man sinned, nor his parents; but that the works of God should be manifest in him. I must work the works of Him that sent Me, while it is day; the night comes when no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.
This man is to receive not only physical vision, but that incomparable blessing---the enligtment of the eyes of his soul. Through his healing, he met and received the Sun of Righteousness who he worshipped as the Son of God.
Jesus refers to Day as this present life, when we are able to work, as we do during the day. For Jesus’ earthly ministry, time is running out. Through this miracle, He is demonstrating the truth that He is the light of the world and the Judgment of the world. He will again preach a sermon declaring this truth after He does the miracle. He first declared he was the light of the world symbolically when he stood by the candelabra in the women’s court.
Each miracle became a declaration of who Jesus Christ is.
He is going to bring daylight and spiritual light to a blind man.
9:6-7: When He had thus spoken, He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle. He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, and said unto him, Go wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation Sent.) he went his way, washed and returned seeing.
By using the clay, He showed that it was He Who formed Adam out of clay. He demonstrates this truth with an irrefutable deed. He created eyesight for the blind man out of clay, just as He did for Adam.
Why did John add the interpretation of the word “Siloam”? The pool of Siloam is a figure of Christ. Just as Christ is the spiritual rock, so is He the spiritual Siloam. As the gush of the spring of Siloam was fearful in its strength, so too, was the advent of the Lord, He overwhelmed all sin by His power.
Staggered by this extraordinary miracle, the neighbors still did not believe. Remember Jesus did this work as he was “passing by” going out of the temple. Jesus “sent” him away knowing the Pharisees would soon hear of His “clay-making” on the Sabbath.
The neighbors then were satisfied it really is the blind man from birth and they ask him, how is eyes were opened.
9:11: A man this is called Jesus made clay, and anointed my eyes. He said to me; Go to the pool of Siloam and wash. I went, washed, and received sight.
9: 12-23: Then they said, “Where is He?” He didn’t know. Right on schedule, the neighbors brought him to the Pharisees. It was the Sabbath day when Jesus made the clay, and opened his eyes. He told the Pharisees the same thing he told the crowd. The Pharisees said, this man is not of God, because he does not keep the Sabbath. Others said, "How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles?" There was a division among them.
Pharisees will always look for our mistakes, not the good that we do.
The Pharisees ask him to repeat the story. When they question him further as to whom he thought Jesus was, the man described him as a prophet. The Jews then began to question whether or not the man had in fact been born blind. They summoned his parents and questioned them.
These poor people were scared. It had already been agreed by the rulers that anyone claiming Jesus was the Messiah should be excommunicated from the synagogue and cut off from the religion of Israel. No one was allowed to eat or drink with them or conduct any kind of business. This could be enforced by anyone. The more severe form involved flogging and exclusion from all social contact, except within the family. By the time of John’s writing, this was enforced by local synagogues against Christians
The parents replied, “We know that he is our son and that he was born blind. But as to how he can now see or who it was that opened his eyes, we have no way of knowing. Why don’t you ask him. He can speak for himself.” The Pharisees called him in a second time. They admonished him. You should give God the glory. We know this man is a sinner. “Whether or not he is a sinner,” replied the man, “I wouldn’t be able to say. But One thing I do know that once I was blind, but now I can see.”
With boldness this man refuses to be intimidated by the Pharisees. The man refused to be coerced away from the plain fact. They pressed him again. “Tell us exactly what he did to you.” “I told you already, and you did not hear. Will you also be His disciples?” The blind man understood they were not interested in his answer, but only wanted to revile Jesus. They may know their theology; he knows his cure. He rebuked them saying, I no longer wish to speak with you. I answered you many times, and you did not hear.
In John 7:12, they saw with their own eyes Christ working miracles, and heard Him speaking divine words from heaven. Malice now leads to madness. This is also happening in the United States at this time as we see the liberal media and politician’s malice becoming madness.
They claim to be Moses’ disciples. Again they lie. If they had been, as the Lord told them, “Had you believed in Moses, you would also believe in Me” (Jn. 5:46).
The man is bold. He says you are rejecting the One Who healed me because you do not know from where He came. Clearly, He has some greater power and needs no help from man. How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles (Vs. 16)” ? We all know, that God does not hear sinners; but if any man is a worshipper of God, and does His will, him He hears.
The man declared this miracle was unlike any other since the world began. Others had opened the eyes of those who had lost their sight because of disease, but never of someone blind from birth. What occurred here is without precedent. Clearly, the worker of this miracle has greater power than any man.
The grace of truth is here bestowed on a beggar unused to public debate. He boldly confesses Christ and rebukes the high and mighty. Great is the power of truth.
9 34-38: They answered him. You were born in sin and you presume to teach us? They cast him out.
Again the judgment is made by the Pharisees against the man that he was born in sin and had an immoral legacy because he was blind. Quite foolishly they refer to his blindness, thinking that he had been condemned before he was born and was punished with blindness at birth. This is blasphemy. These sons of falsehood expelled from the temple the confessor of truth. Cast out of the temple, he was at once found by the Master of the Temple.
The Presence of the Lord was no longer in the Jewish Temple. He was walking around in Jerusalem in a Carpenter.
Jesus heard he had been cast out of the synagogue. When he found him He said to him, do you believe on the Son of God? He answered, Who is He, Lord that I might believe on Him? Jesus replied. You have both seen Him, and it is He that talks with you. He said, Lord, I believe, and he worshipped Him.
The man once blind believes showing his fervent and true faith by falling prostate before Him, thus confirming his own word by his deed and giving glory to Jesus as the Son of God! For according to the law, worship must be rendered to God alone. (Ex. 34:14)
Jesus then reveals Himself as the instrument of God’s judgment in the world. Those who choose Jesus shall be saved and receive the Light of life. Those who do not will remain in sin and darkness. This is the message he demonstrated using the miracle of the healing of the blind man.
9:29-41: Jesus said, “For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and they which see might become blind.” Some of the Pharisees which were with Him heard these words, and said to Him, Are we blind also? Jesus replied, If you were blind, you should have no sin; but now you say, we see; therefore your sin remains.
Carolyn Sissom, Pastor
Eastgate Ministries Church
Scripture from K.J.V. I entered into the labors of Most Blessed Theophylact (1055-1107) and F. F. Bruce Bible Commentary. Comments and conclusions are my own and not meant to reflect the views of those who I entered into their labors.