Messianic mudpacks (9:1-41)

The context is the Feast of Tabernacles, where Jesus taught in the temple, and then hijacked the last great day of the feast by inviting people to come to Him for living water. The morning after, as he is conducting some "follow-up" teaching in the temple, a woman is brought to him having been caught in the act of adultery. The Pharisees are trying to discredit Jesus, having failed to get him arrested by the temple police. Jesus concludes his wonderful display of grace to the woman, by saying "I am the Light of the world”.

The Pharisees immediately attack again, trying to undermine him by claiming that he is blowing his own trumpet. But Jesus responds by warning them that their window of grace is going to close shortly, and they will only realise, too late, that He is the Son of Man.

Following that, he again tries to teach those who believe in him, about original sin, and how sin enslaves one: only those who continue in His word, will truly be His disciples, and come to know the truth and thereby be set free. This set the cat amongst the pigeons once again, leading to an increasingly heated discussion about whether their being descendants of Abraham guarantees them salvation.

Jesus eventually tells them the terrible truth, that they are, in fact children of Satan, so conditioned to the devil's lies that they cannot recognise the truth He (Jesus) is telling them. He tells them that unlike them, Abraham rejoiced when he foresaw Christ's coming: and that "Before Abraham was, I am”. This was so incensing that they tried to stone Him; but He somehow managed to walk right through the blood-thirsty crowd and leave the Temple safely.

The chapter starts, just as Jesus was leaving the temple.  We don't know whether this was through the ‘Gate Beautiful’, where Peter would later heal a man who had been paralysed from birth (Acts 3:2): but the Temple entrances were prime sites for beggars, since one way for a Jew to make atonement for his sins was to give alms.

As he is leaving the temple, Jesus's eyes fasten on a beggar. There are numerous occasions where Jesus gazed at someone, before healing them: it seems as though a person's eyes were His window into their soul, and that He saw into them spiritually. Sometimes that gaze seems to have engendered faith. Obviously the beggar, being blind, would not have seen Jesus looking at him: but he probably registered that a group of people had stopped nearby, and he may have overheard the disciples’ question to Jesus. Blind, people often develop increased sensory awareness in other ways, to compensate for the loss of sight.

With Jesus’s teaching fresh in their minds on how we are all enslaved by sin, and indeed are by nature children of the devil, it was perhaps natural that the disciples should ask Him about this man. They knew that God visits the sins of the fathers on the children, to the third and fourth generation; but Jews also believed that it was possible for a baby to sin while still in its mothers womb.

Underlying their question was the assumption that all suffering is the result of sin. While we know that this is true in general, in that there was no suffering before the fall of man, and there will be none in the new creation, we also know that it is not always the case that specific suffering is due to a specific sin. The paralysis of the man at the Pool of Bethesda seems to have been due to sin (5:14). But the book of Job in the Old Testament describes the intense suffering of a man who was ultra righteous. In his case, it was the result of a Satanic attack: however, the attack was allowed by God, and used by him to bring Job to the wonderful realisation that "I know that my Redeemer lives, and that one day, I will see him with my own eyes". And at the end of the book, God reveals himself in awesome Majesty to Job, humbling him, and bringing him to a new place of deeper surrender. In Jesus’s own time, there had been a major disaster when a high-rise tower at Siloam had collapsed, killing many. Jesus told his hearers that the victims were no more sinful than anyone else.

Whilst nowadays, we tend to think of much suffering as being either random, or the result of ‘natural disasters’ such as famines, floods, pandemics, wars etc. But we still often ask ourselves privately, ‘What did they (or we) do to deserve such suffering?’ And it multiplies our suffering when others imply that we must have done something bad - like Job’s friends did.

Jesus flatly denies that the sins of the man's parents, or his own actions in the womb, could have caused this man's congenital blindness. In one sense, he doesn't answer the question of the cause: but rather than looking backwards, He looks forward to the opportunity it presents for this man to experience, and to demonstrate, the wonderful compassion of God.

Jesus is aware that his time on earth is limited. (In the Middle East, as in tropical Africa, sundown comes very swiftly and suddenly. And in the absence of electric lights, such as we have today, it is completely impossible to work.) It is in fact less than six months till his crucifixion, and He has just miraculously escaped being stoned. He is very conscious of completing the work that His Father has given him to do, so that on the cross He will be able to shout, "it is finished!” He wants to convey to the disciples, the urgency of their own witness and work after he is gone. There will be a period immediately after his death, when "no man can work”: but after that, they will be ‘the light of the world’ (Matt 5:14). But while He is still in the world, He is the Light of the world. The meaning of the Greek here is rather different to 8:12. Unlike that instance where He is stating an eternal truth, here He is stating a temporal truth.

The nighttime illuminations of the Temple courts during the Feast of Tabernacles had reminded the Jews of God’s shekinah glory dwelling above their campsite during the Exodus. That light has been demonstrated in the grace and forgiveness Jesus offered the woman caught in adultery; but also, in His exposing the hypocrisy of those who wanted to use her as a pawns. It has been shown too, in his teaching about our fallen nature and the effects of sin. Now it will be shown in the opening of the eyes of this poor man. This miracle will manifest His glory, just as each of the previous "signs" have. And by enabling this man to see for the first time in his life, it will illustrate that Jesus is indeed ‘the light of the world’.

No doubt, as he listened intently, the blind man would have sensed that something major was about to happen. If this Man was indeed the Light of the world, might He heal him? Jesus spits on the ground, and uses the dust to form a paste of mud. He then plasters this over the man's closed eyelids, and tells him to walk down through the city to the Pool of Siloam. This is the same pool from which the priests have recently been drawing water during the Feast of Tabernacles. It was fed from a spring outside the city walls, channeled through an incredible underground tunnel, which had been dug during King Hezekiah's reign to enable the city to withstand siege. Its name meant ‘sent’: the water came from a spring five hundred yards away, outside the city wall.

We are not told how the man managed to get to Siloam: presumably someone led him there, but everyone would have noticed the mud packs on on his face, and wondered what on earth was going on. He would have been well known in the city, probably instantly recognisable to many people from their trips to the temple. Once he had washed, he needed no helper to find his way back! For the first time in his life, he could see! Imagine how startlingly bright the colours would have seemed, how fascinating to see the life of the city which he had previously only been able to hear. And how intense an experience it would be, to make eye-contact with your parents, friends and loved ones, for the very first time ever.

Why? Why did Jesus choose this incredibly odd method to bring healing to the man? We think of "mud in your eye" as meaning you are unable to see! We know that saliva was thought to have healing properties in those days, and some commentators think there is a link with the story of God creating Adam out of clay. The message made the man’s healing dependent on his obedience to Jesus's command, just as when Elisha told the Syrian army commander Naaman to go to the Jordan and wash. It also guaranteed that there would be many witnesses of the miracle, and means that Jesus could quietly exit before pandemonium broke loose.

Importantly, all this happened on the sabbath: and there were at least three specific ways in which Jesus’s action broke the detailed laws that the rabbis had created. Firstly, one was not supposed to heal on the sabbath unless a man's life was at risk; secondly, mixing saliva and dust into a paste was forbidden; and thirdly, using such a paste as eye ointment was specifically forbidden too! Jesus’s earlier healing of the man at the pool of Bethesda, eighteen months previously, had led to accusations that he was a Sabbath breaker. Whereas his concern was to be getting on with His Father’s agenda, the Pharisees’ concern was to do with the minutiae of the law. But behind that was their desire to discredit him, and eventually kill him.

The man’s family & neighbours were astonished when they saw him, and couldn't quite believe their eyes! When he confirmed that he was the same man they had known for all these years as a beggar, they asked him how his eyes had been opened. Of course, at this point he had not actually seen Jesus, but he must've heard one of the disciples, or someone else use His name. By now, Jesus had withdrawn, and the man had no idea how to find him again.

Everyone knew that the authorities had been trying to arrest Jesus and have him killed. The Sanhedrin had issued an edict that anyone who publicly acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah would be excommunicated (v22): perhaps this was why they took the man to the Pharisees (v13). They quizzed him all over again, about how he had been healed; but they couldn't agree on whether the miracle meant that Jesus was a holy man, or alternatively, that he was breaking God's law. So they asked the man what he thought: and he said "He is a prophet”. (Old Testament prophets like Elijah and Elisha performed many miracles which attested their prophecies as being of God.) Note that at this point he hasn't recognised Jesus as the Prophet of whom Moses had spoken.

This was the beginning of this man’s journey into faith. Later he will testify that Jesus is from God (v33) and then believe that Jesus is the Son of God (v35-38), coming to worship Him.  En route he gives feisty answers to those who want him to deny the reality of his experience. In this, he is very unlike the man at the Pool of Bethesda, who seems broken and passive (5:7), and rather than coming to faith in Christ, immediately betrays Him to the Jews (5:15).

Do you think of Jesus as a prophet? He was the greatest prophet of all time. He gave the Jews many many signs (of which John has selected seven) but the biggest was the ‘sign of Jonah’: His death and resurrection. He prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple, and that happened forty years (a generation) later. He gave the Apostle John an extended prophecy of the end times, which we call ‘The Book of Revelation’. In speaking to the Jews, He was also speaking prophetically to you and me. To quote only three examples out of many,

• “If you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins” (8:24)

• “He who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life and shall not come into judgement, but has passed from death to life” (5:24)

• “If you continue in My word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (8:31,32)

Since they couldn’t agree what the ‘sign’ said about Jesus, they decided to investigate further: if Jesus was a charlatan and this man's testimony was false, his parents would be the best people to corroborate or discredit his testimony. They asked them three questions: (a) Is this your son? (b) Was he born blind? (c) How was he healed? They confirm the first two questions; but since they were not present, state they cannot be eye-witnesses as to how or by whom he was healed. Whilst they presumably were overjoyed at their son's healing, they weren't willing to face ostracism from the synagogue on his behalf. Since he was past the ‘age of majority’, they argued, let him answer for himself.

During the Babylonian exile, when they had nowhere to worship, Jews began gathering in small groups called synagogues, to read and be reminded of the Law of God. The Temple was the only place authorised for sacrifice, so they had no altar. But each synagogue had an ‘ark’, which contained the scrolls of the Torah and Prophets. The service would start with the Shema (Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One), then blessings and prayers, then a set reading from the Torah and an optional reading from the Prophets, perhaps accompanied by a sermon. Reading and expounding the word of God was central to the life of the local community, but along with that the synagogue also functioned as a hub for education and civil governance of the local Jewish community. (The word ‘synagogue' simply means ‘coming together for a purpose’: its modern Hebrew equivalent is Knesset.)  In Nehemiah’s time he set up ‘The Great Synagogue’, a gathering of 120 elders of Israel which would later develop into the Sanhedrin. And in Jesus’s time there was a synagogue within the Temple, presumably where the rulers met. But there were also around four hundred separate synagogues within the city: apparently any group of more than ten men would be enough to found another.

Being banned from the synagogue was a serious matter. Being excluded from the community was as bad as being forced out of the campsite during the Exodus, such as had happened to Miriam when she spoke against Moses (Num 12:14). Such exclusion could take three forms. The lightest involved a rebuke and lasted a week. The next, lasted a month. But the most serious was indefinite, and involved total ostracism. No-one would talk to you, help you, employ you or do business with you; and all your property would be confiscated (Ezra 10:8).

If a local synagogue excommunicated you, you could go somewhere else. But if the Sanhedrin banned you, you were barred from all synagogues, everywhere. It seems that this is what had happened this case. And it must have happened very swiftly, since just a few days earlier, during the Feast, there had been people confessing faith in Jesus within the Temple itself (8:30).

The man now faces his third interrogation. He was invited to ‘give God the glory’ - a phrase meaning to confess one’s sin (Josh 7:19). They certainly didn’t want him giving Jesus any glory, asserting that they were 100% sure Jesus was a charlatan. Thus to disagree with their opinion meant going directly against the Sanhedrin authorities: and if his parents knew the dreadful cost that would involve, presumably he did too. But whilst tactfully denying any opinion about Jesus's character, he would not deny the reality of what had happened: “One thing I know: that though I was blind, now I see.”

They press him to explain exactly how the miracle was performed (v26), perhaps hoping to elicit some inconsistencies that will discredit his account But by now he understands that their motives are not to do with getting to the truth. He refers them back to his previous answer, suggesting sarcastically that maybe they want to become disciples too, like him. They start cursing him for stupidity: they (they say) are disciples of Moses, who everyone accepted had heard directly from God - whereas he is following this fellow from God-knows-where. In this they spoke truth; they thought they knew Jesus’s earthly origins (7:27), but they certainly didn’t know the God who sent Him (7:28,29).

The man will not be intimidated: quite astonishing for someone who has been used to being vulnerable all his life long. He mocks them for not knowing Jesus's origins, when the simple fact that He has done a miracle never ever seen before, attests that God hears Him. As such, He cannot be a sinner, but must be from God. He might have added that this miracle was known to be one that only Messiah could perform (Isa 35:5, Matt 11:2-5) - but they probably already knew that.

They respond with pure arrogance, as they have done previously (7:45-52). Since he has never been able to study either the scriptures or the Mishnah, let alone been 'a student of the learned’, they classify him as not just uneducated but no better than an animal. Ignoring what Jesus has told them about their own origins as ‘children of the devil’, they castigate him as being completely evil by birth - and excommunicate him.

Now comes, if you will, the meat of the chapter: the interpretation of this sign. How does this episode help us see the glory of Christ, full of grace and truth (1:14)?

Jesus heard that the man had been thrown out of the synagogue, and thus knew that the authorities considered him to have acknowledged Jesus as the Christ (9:22). He tracks him down, and asks him, “Do you believe in the Son of God?” The man hasn't yet come to the full realisation of who Jesus is, but addressing Him as ‘Lord’, asks for clarification ‘that I may believe in Him’. Such a different attitude to the High Priest, who only asks in order to condemn him (Mt 26:63).

Jesus now opens the man's eyes a second time: this time, his spiritual eyes. “You have both seen Him and it is He talking with you.” The man falls to the ground and worships Him as God: he has seen the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2Cor 4:8).  He who was born blind, spiritually as well as physically, can now see in both realms! His physical blindness, whilst very real, is also symbolic of his need for spiritual enlightenment: like the rest of mankind, all of us, we are ‘born blind’ and need Jesus to give us spiritual vision. Jesus is indeed ‘the Light of the world’!  ‘In Him was life, and the life was the light of men’ (1:4).

He goes on to explain the rejection the man has just experienced from the Pharisees. Whilst He did not come into the world to condemn people but to save them, those who won’t believe in the name of the only-begotten Son of God are condemned already; in that light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. They refuse to come to the light, lest their sins should be exposed (3:17-20). Those who ask ‘Who is He, Lord, that I may believe’ receive their sight. Whereas those who claim spiritual insight and refuse to acknowledge their sinfulness, thereby bind themselves to their sin and become blind to who Jesus is.

Whilst there is definitely personal responsibility for their refusing to accept the light, there is also a deeper dimension to this blindness. When Isaiah saw the Lord in the Temple, he was told to “Go and tell this people: keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on saying, but do not perceive. Make the hearts of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and return and be healed” (Isa 6:9-10). Later, he said “God has given them a spirit of stupor, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear, to this very day” (Isa 29:10). Paul says that the Jews’ minds were blinded and there is a veil over their hearts when they read the Old Testament, in that they cannot see that all Moses’s writings are testifying of Jesus. But nevertheless when a Jew turns to Christ, that veil is taken away, as it was for the disciples on the Emmaus Road (Lk 24:27).  He declares that this is all part of God’s mysterious plan which should keep us Gentiles humble: “Blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. Then all Israel shall be saved, when Christ returns as the Deliverer and turns away all ungodliness from Israel” (Rom 11:25-26)

Apparently the Pharisees had set some of their number to follow Jesus around, for there were some present listening to His words (v40). They must have realised that His remarks were directed at them, for they ask, “Are we blind too?” Jesus tells them that it is their hypocrisy that is tying them to their sins and preventing them seeing. Just as the blind man showed a progressive growth in faith, they show a progressive hardening of their heart. They start from the view that Jesus is not from God (v16), question the miracle (v18), label Jesus a sinner (v29) and finally are pronounced blind sinners themselves (v31).

This closing section highlights a major theme pf John’s: that the Incarnation itself brings about both salvation and judgement, depending on a man’s response to the Person of Jesus Christ. Believing in Jesus is the ‘work’ that God looks for (6:29). Unbelief in Jesus brings condemnation here and now (3:18) whereas belief means a man will never be judged and has already passed from death to life (5:24). Those who receive Him, are given the authority to become children of God where they have till now been children of the devil. Whereas those who shy away from His utter purity because their deeds are evil, inherit all their ancestors’ guilt: they are the ‘brood of vipers’, and will not escape the condemnation of hell (Mt 23:33) but will die in their sins.

Jesus repeatedly refers to Himself as having been sent by the Father, doing the works of the Father, speaking the words of the Father. Salvation’s plan is drawn by the love of God, seen in giving His only-begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. God's very act of injecting His Son into human history separates men into two camps: the redeemed, who receive and love Him, and the condemned, who reject and hate Him.