They were annoyed because they could not meet the man’s argument, which was based on Scripture. It was: ‘Jesus has done a very wonderful thing; the fact that he has done it means that God hears him; now God never hears the prayers of a bad man; therefore Jesus cannot be a bad man.’ The fact that God did not hear the prayer of a bad man is a basic thought of the Old Testament. When Job is speaking of the hypocrite, he says: ‘Will God hear their cry when trouble comes upon them?’ (Job 27:9). The psalmist says: ‘If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened’ (Psalm 66:18). Isaiah hears God say to the sinning people: ‘When you stretch out your hands [the Jews prayed with the hands stretched out, palms upwards], I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood’ (Isaiah 1:15). Ezekiel says of the disobedient people: ‘Though they cry in my hearing with a loud voice, I will not listen to them’ (Ezekiel 8:18). Conversely, they believed that the prayer of a good person was always heard. ‘The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their cry’ (Psalm 34:15). ‘He fulfils the desire of all who fear him; he also hears their cry, and saves them’ (Psalm 145:19). ‘The Lord is far from the wicked, but he hears the prayer of the righteous’ (Proverbs 15:29). The man who had been blind presented the Pharisees with an argument which they could not answer.
When they were confronted with such an argument, see what they did. First, they resorted to abuse. ‘They heaped abuse on him.’ Second, they resorted to insult. They accused the man of being born in sin. That is to say, they accused him of pre-natal sin. Third, they resorted to threatened force. They ordered him out of their presence.
Often we have our differences with people, and it is well that it should be so. But the moment insult and abuse and threat enter into an argument, it ceases to be an argument and becomes a contest in bitterness. If we become angry and resort to wild words and hot threats, all we prove is that our case is disturbingly weak.
REVELATION AND CONDEMNATION
John 9:35–41
Jesus heard that they had put him out, so he found him and said to him: ‘Do you believe in the Son of God?’ ‘But who is he, sir,’ he answered him, ‘that I might believe in him?’ Jesus said to him: ‘You have both seen him, and he who is talking with you is he.’ ‘Lord,’ he said, ‘I believe.’ And he knelt before him. Jesus said: ‘It was for judgment that I came into this world that those who do not see might see, and that those who see might become blind.’ Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this. ‘Surely,’ they said, ‘we are not blind?’ Jesus said to them: ‘If you were blind, you would not have sin. As it is, your claim is, “We see.” Your sin remains.’
THIS section begins with two great spiritual truths.
(1) Jesus looked for the man. As John Chrysostom, the fourth-century Bishop of Constantinople, put it: ‘The Jews cast him out of the Temple; the Lord of the Temple found him.’ If our Christian witness separates us from others, it brings us nearer to Jesus Christ. Jesus is always true to those who are true to him.
(2) To this man, there was made the great revelation that Jesus was the Son of God. Loyalty always brings revelation; it is to those who are true to him that Jesus most fully reveals himself. The penalty of loyalty may well be persecution and ostracism at the hands of others; its reward is a closer walk with Christ, and an increasing knowledge of his wonder.
John finishes this story with two of his favourite thoughts.
(1) Jesus came into this world for judgment. Whenever people are confronted with Jesus, they at once pass a judgment on themselves. If they see in Jesus nothing to desire, nothing to admire, nothing to love, then they have condemned themselves. If they see in Jesus something to wonder at, something to respond to, something to reach out to, then they are on the way to God. Those who are conscious of their own blindness, and who long to see better and to know more, are men and women whose eyes can be opened and who can be led more and more deeply into the truth. Those people who think they know it all, those who do not realize that they cannot see, are men and women who are truly blind and beyond hope and help. Only those who realize their own weakness can become strong. Only those who realize their own blindness can learn to see. Only those who realize their own sin can be forgiven.
(2) The more knowledge people have, the more they are to be condemned if they do not recognize the good when they see it. If the Pharisees had been brought up in ignorance, they could not have been condemned. Their condemnation lay in the fact that they knew so much and claimed to see so well, and yet failed to recognize God’s Son when he came. The law that responsibility is the other side of privilege is written into life.
GREATER AND GREATER
John 9
BEFORE we leave this very wonderful chapter, we would do well to read it again, this time straight through from start to finish. If we do read it like this with care and attention, we will see the loveliest progression in the blind man’s idea of Jesus. It goes through three stages, each one higher than the last.
(1) He began by calling Jesus a man. ‘A man called Jesus opened my eyes’ (cf. verse 11). He began by thinking of Jesus as a wonderful man. He had never met anyone who could do the kind of things Jesus did; and he began by thinking of Jesus as a uniquely gifted man.
We do well sometimes to think of the sheer magnificence and greatness of Jesus. In any gallery of the world’s heroes, he must find a place. In any anthology of the loveliest lives ever lived, his would have to be included. In any collection of the world’s greatest literature, his parables would have to be listed. In Julius Caesar, Shakespeare makes Mark Antony say of Brutus:
His life was gentle, and the elements
So mix’d in him that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, ‘This was a man!’
Whatever else is in doubt, there is never any doubt that Jesus was a truly great man.
(2) He went on to call Jesus a prophet. When asked his opinion of Jesus in view of the fact that he had given him his sight, his answer was: ‘He is a prophet’ (verse 17). Now a prophet is someone who brings God’s message to men and women. ‘Surely the Lord God does nothing,’ said Amos, ‘without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets’ (Amos 3:7). A prophet is someone who lives close to God and has penetrated into his inner councils. When we read the wisdom of the words of Jesus, we are bound to say: ‘This is a prophet!’ Whatever else may be in doubt, this is true – if people followed the teachings of Jesus, all personal, all social, all national and all international problems would be solved. If ever anyone had the right to be called a prophet, Jesus had.
(3) Finally the blind man came to confess that Jesus was the Son of God. He came to see that human categories were not adequate to describe him. Napoleon was once in a company in which a number of clever sceptics were discussing Jesus. They dismissed him as a very great man and nothing more. ‘Gentlemen,’ said Napoleon, ‘I know men, and Jesus Christ was more than a man.’
If Jesus Christ is a man
And only a man – I say
That of all mankind I cleave to him
And to him will I cleave alway.
If