The Gospel of John Made Easy
Chapter 9
Verses 1 – 41
Verses 1 – 34
Jesus and his disciples see a man who is blind. They knew he had been blind from the time he was born. The disciples asked Jesus: “Who sinned that this man was born blind?
Did his parents sin or did he?”
Jesus said, “This man did not sin, and his parents did not sin.” “The reason he is blind is for the works of God could be shown.”
Wow! We would never expect that answer. We think like the disciples—if trouble and sickness comes to us or our loved ones—it must be because we did something bad and God is punishing us.
Jesus said that it was not because of sin that these people did that this man was blind.
Do you remember the story of Job? Job’s children were killed, his animals were killed, then Job got painful boils on his body. Job’s friends try to tell him that he must have done some sin to make God angry and that was why Job was having so many problems.
But when we read the book of Job we see that God was proud of Job’s faithfulness to him and he was going to prove it to Satan. So God let Satan make trouble for Job. Job stayed faithful to God—no matter what happened to him.
Then there is the story of Lazarus. He became sick. His family called for Jesus to come.
He did not. He waited until Lazarus died. Then he came. The people who loved Lazarus could not understand why Jesus would not come to heal him. Why did Jesus wait until he died to come?
Jesus told them, he waited because more of God’s glory and power will be shown now that Lazarus was dead. Jesus gave Lazarus life again and he came alive from the dead.
So, Jesus is saying about this blind man—–God has his reason.
Since we live in a world full of sin—-we have sickness and disease all around us. Just by living in this world we will probably get sick.
There are things in some people’s lives that happen that we can not understand why it happens. Why would God allow this? Why did God not protect?
God’s ways are more than we can understand. Some things we just have to stop trying to understand it and just trust that God has a reason. Maybe some day in heaven we will understand.
In this story of the blind man, Jesus healed the man on the Sabbath day. The Sabbath day was Saturday. It was the day the Jews worship God in the temple. Christians worship on Sunday.
The Jewish leaders were angry about Jesus healing on the Sabbath. This was thought of as “work”. The Jews had rules about working on the Sabbath.
The Jewish leaders said that Jesus could not be of God since he broke the rules for the Sabbath.
If Jesus was not of God and was “a sinner” then the question is how can a sinner heal someone?
Verse 18 -29
The Jewish leaders could not decide what to think about Jesus so they said that the man had not been blind. So they called in his parents.
The parents said that this was their son. He had been blind. He now can see. How he was able to see they did not know. The parents were afraid of the leaders. So they told them to ask their son as he was an adult.
Verses 30 – 34
The man told the leaders, “You say he is a sinner, yet you know God would not work through a sinner to heal. Yet this man healed me. If he were not of God he could not heal.”
The Jewish leaders were angry that he tried to get them to see the truth. So they threw him out.
Verses 35 – 38
Jesus found the man and talked to him. The man had not known Jesus’ name or who he was.
Verses 39 – 41
Jesus said to the Jewish leaders, “I have come into the world to make those who see become blind, and those who are blind to be able to see.”
The Jewish leaders said, “Are we blind?”
Jesus said, “If you said that if you were blind—-you would have no sin,
But you say you can see—-so your sin is still with you.”
Jesus is saying that the Jewish leaders keep saying they know all about God and all the laws and scriptures. They know all about Jesus. They know it all. They see. They have understanding about all things about God.
Yet they are blind about Jesus. They do not see how Jesus has done what the prophets in the Bible told would happen. They can not see what the blind man told them was true. That God does not work healings through sinners. Those who do God’s will are the ones God uses to heal.
Yet the Jewish leaders will not believe in Jesus.
The Jewish leaders would say the common people are blind—yet they believe in Jesus.
The blind man believed in Jesus. Who then really had understanding? Who then could really see?