Sermon Tone Analysis

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Intro:

9:39–41.

The reversal of physical and spiritual blindness is a motif in the prophets (e.g., Is 42:16–19; Jer 5:21); the religious authorities, who are sure they are not spiritually blind, are the blindest of all.

Trans:

Context: SEE PENTECOST PAGE 292 for CONTEXT)

Whenever we read the eighth chapter of John we should keep in mind that scene with the great charred torches.

It was an unforgettable dramatization of the difference between the realms of light and darkness.

And as we come to the ninth chapter, we see that the theme is sustained.

The two chapters are meant to be read together because as Christ now leaves the temple, it is a conscious portrayal of what happens when light goes out into the world.

As the chapter opens, our Lord immediately encounters one who has never known light—a man blind from birth—and miraculously gives him sight and light.

It is used as an illustration of Jesus’ utterance recorded in 8:12: “I am the light of the world.

Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Tenney, M. C. (1981).

John.

In F. E. Gaebelein (Ed.),

The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: John and Acts (Vol.

9, p. 100).

Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.

This miracle in is notable because Jesus had just proclaimed Himself as “the Light of the world” (8:12).

As a public demonstration of His claim, He gave sight to a man born blind.

This miracle in John 9 is notable because Jesus had just proclaimed Himself as “the Light of the world” (8:12).

Blum, E. A. (1985).

John.

In J. F. Walvoord & R. B. Zuck (Eds.),

The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures (Vol.

2, p. 307).

Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.

Read v.1-

God works in our weakness

THIS is the only miracle in the gospels in which the sufferer is said to have been afflicted from his birth.

Helen Keller: “Gradually I got used to the silence and darkness that surrounded me and forgot that it had ever been different until she came—my teacher—who set my spirit free.”

In Acts, we twice hear of people who had been helpless from their birth (the lame man at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple in Acts 3:2, and the cripple at Lystra in Acts 14:8), but this is the only man in the gospel story who had been so afflicted.

He must have been a well-known character, for the disciples knew all about him.

Darkness was all the beggar had ever known.

He could not conceive of blue, green, red, orange.

A million glories of nature were hidden from him—the green of spring grass, the magic of a sunset.

Perhaps there had been a time when, as a child, he had reached up and felt the softness of his mother’s face, and possibly even a hot tear upon her cheek, but he did not know what she looked like.

He was always dependent either on a friendly arm or his uncertain cane.

When I say blind, you have to forget most of what you know.

No surgeries, special glasses

We have to forget images of seeing-eye dogs and Braille books.

He sat at the roadside and begged.

No employment, no prospects for marriage, no social honor.

He was at the bottom of the social ladder.

His future was bleak and he knew it.

He was like the paralytic of chapter 5, only worse.

This man’s world had foreclosed on him.

There was no social net to catch people like this.

This hopelessness and darkness provide us with a potent image because John describes men and women without Christ to be in a crisis no less desperate.

In 8:12 and 12:35 Jesus refers to those who “walk in darkness,” and this is precisely the condition of the blind.

They stumble and get lost.

Jesus lifts this image above the commonplace in order to make it a spiritual metaphor for the condition of the world that he has come to remedy.

The glory of this man’s healing stands in stark contrast with the desperation of his condition.

Jesus did not simply give him sight; he gave him life.

Some features of the story bear reflection.

(1) Healing was important to Jesus’ work, and likewise it should be important in the church’s work today.

I do not want to spiritualize this story utterly, making the spiritual renewal of the blind man the only important thing.

Jesus also recognized that making the blind man whole was a gesture of his love for the man.

Unfortunately many of us are predisposed not to believe in healing such as this.

The guys who claim to “KNOW” are left in the dark.

Those who profess their ignorance are given spiritual sight

For instance, the blind man confesses twice that he does not “know,” that he is ignorant (9:12, 25).

Even when he meets Jesus in the end, he betrays how little he understands (9:36).

Even his parents confess their ignorance (9:21).

Yet at the end of the story, this man gains not only physical sight but spiritual insight (9:34–38).

The religious leaders, by contrast, possess physical sight, but in the end are told that they are blind (lacking spiritual wisdom) even though two times they proclaim to “know” (9:24, 29).

They even make pronouncements betraying their confidence in their knowing (9:16).

The message here is fascinating: What one claims about spiritual insight cannot always be trusted.

Sometimes those with numerous academic degrees and positions of religious power know less truth than the simple religious inquirer.

This question reflects a view that all suffering was punishment for sin of one kind or another.

There is a general connection between sin and suffering due to the fall.

There is sometimes a direct connection between a particular sin of an individual and suffering (see 5:14), but not always (see Luke 13:2–5).

Congenital afflictions raise the problem of sin and suffering in a particularly sharp fashion.

The disciples’ question implied that congenital afflictions were punishments (1) for sins of unborn children committed either in their mothers’ wombs or by their pre-existent souls; (2) visited upon children for the sins of their parents.

Verses 3 and 4, punctuated as they are in the NIV (and most other English versions and modern Greek texts), present an unattractive theodicy.

They imply that God allowed the man to be born blind so that many years later God’s power could be shown in the restoration of his sight.

However, it is not necessary to read the text in this way.

Two things need to be noted.

First, the words ‘this happened’ have been added by the NIV translators and there are no corresponding words in the Greek text.

Second, early Greek manuscripts of the NT were not punctuated; later editors added the punctuation.

Rendered literally and without punctuation 9:3–4 would read, ‘Jesus replied neither this man sinned nor his parents but so that the works of God may be revealed in him it is necessary for us to work the works of him who sent me while it is day night is coming when no-one is able to work.’

It is possible to punctuate this so as to provide the following translation: ‘Jesus replied, “Neither this man sinned nor his parents.

But so that the works of God may be revealed in him it is necessary for us to work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no-one is able to work.”

’ Punctuated in this way, the text implies not that the man was born blind so that the works of God may be revealed in him, but that Jesus had to carry out the work of God while it was day so that God’s work might be revealed in the life of the man born blind.

Their query, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blinds” was based on a principle stated in the law: “He [God] does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation” (Exod 34:7).

They construed this to mean that if a person suffered from any ailment, it must have been because his parents or grandparents had committed some sin against God (cf.

Exod 20:5).

The purpose clause now explains that Jesus must work so that God’s work may be displayed in this man’s life.

God had not made the man blind in order to show his glory; rather, God has sent Jesus to do works of healing in order to show his glory.

Jesus performed more miracles related to giving sight to the blind than any other miracle.

Such an activity was forecast in prophecy as a messianic act (Isa 29:18; 35:5; 42:7).

Jesus came to clear the sight of human beings who had become blinded to the things of God.

9:2.

Jewish teachers believed that suffering, including blindness, was often due to sin; one could suffer for one’s parents’ sins or even for a sin committed by mother or fetus during the pregnancy.

Instead of asking, “Why did this happen to me? Who’s to blame?” we begin to ask, “Where is God in this situation?

What is he up to?

How may his glory ultimately shine through this?” Grace leads us to ask more vertical questions and fewer horizontal ones.

Only the gospel of eternal purposes and hope beyond this world can enable us to accept suffering as a normal part of the Christian life.

For the ultimate suffering, condemnation, and separation from the Father in hell has been undergone by Jesus in our place.

All current suffering in the lives of those who are in Christ can therefore only be by the loving hand of a caring Father, who is training us to walk with him—and enabling others touched by our lives to do so also, as they walk through this broken world with us.

One other thing which should be pointed out about the miracle recorded in chap.

9 is its messianic significance.