John 9:13f

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John 9:13f

Sermon preached on July 2, 2006 by Laurence W. Veinott. © Copyright 2006. All rights reserved. Other sermons can be found at http://www.newlifeop.org/.


After you've been married to someone for awhile you get to know certain things that annoy them, things that will really set them off. And if you're smart you learn to avoid those things. For example, most husbands are smart enough to know that if your wife asks you,

"Does this outfit make me look fat?,"

you don't answer that in the affirmative no matter what. It's just too dangerous to go there. It's the wrong button to press.

It's like commenting on a woman's hair. Who was it that said to me recently that he never comments on a woman's hair? Some man told me that. It's a rule that he lives by. I think he's found that even if he tries to say something good and give a woman a compliment on her hair—it can backfire so easily. I mean, sometimes we men just can't win. You see a lady with a new hairdo and you think it's nice and you compliment her on it—but all day she's been thinking that she's having a bad hair day—so she thinks you're making fun of her or being sarcastic. You just don't want to find yourself in that situation. So he stays away from it completely. He said that he never comments on a woman's hair—either to say something good or bad. You ladies can rest easy—even if he saw you right after you stuck your finger in a light socket—he wouldn't say a thing about your hair!

With my wife I know there are certain things that I know never to say. For example, one thing I never say to Marg is,

"Rise and shine!"

I found that out very early in our marriage. When we were first married when I woke up I was wide awake and would jump out of bed and be raring to get on with our day. And I used to say, "Rise and shine." But I don't do that anymore. Marg likes to wake up slowly and not be bothered by cheery conversation while she's waking up. Now I never want to deliberately annoy her, but if I ever did, I know that a, 'Rise and shine!' first thing in the morning would do it.

What is interesting about our text is that

Jesus knew that healing people on the Sabbath would annoy many of the Pharisees and religious leaders—yet He did it anyway.

Time and again He healed people on the Sabbath in spite of the fact that it provoked the Pharisees and religious leaders. We see it here in our text. In verse 14 we read that the day that Jesus made the mud and opened the man's eyes,

"was a Sabbath."

Earlier in John's gospel, in John 5:16, after Jesus healed the man at the pool of Bethesda, John wrote,

"So, because Jesus was doing these things
on the Sabbath,
the Jews persecuted him."

We see that in John 9 as well. In verse 16 we read that some of the Pharisees said,

"This man is not from God,
for he does not keep the Sabbath."

They concluded that He was a sinner, that anyone who acknowledged that He was the Christ would be put out of the synagogue.

Thus we see that there was a lot of opposition to Jesus because of the fact that He healed on the Sabbath.

The great question is: Why did He do it?

They even told him not to do it. Remember what the ruler of the synagogue told the people in Luke 13? Jesus had been teaching in a synagogue on a Sabbath day and there was a woman there who had been crippled for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up. When Jesus saw her He called her forward and said, (Luke 13:12)

"Woman, you are set free
from your infirmity."

He then put his hands on her and healed her. She then straightened up and praised God.

But the synagogue ruler was indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath. He said to the people,

"There are six days for work.
So come and be healed on those days,
not on the Sabbath."

I think that if I had been there that would have sounded like very good advice to me. Jesus could have avoided a lot of opposition and hostility if He had not healed on the Sabbath. Healing on the Sabbath was a volatile matter with many of the Pharisees and religious leaders. It was the wrong button to press. But Jesus pressed it over and over again. He refused to back off. Indeed, when the synagogue ruler urged the people to come and be healed on the other six days, Jesus said to him and the others,

"You hypocrites!
Doesn't each of you on the Sabbath
untie his ox or donkey from the stall
and lead it out to give it water?
Then should not this woman,
a daughter of Abraham,
whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years,
be set free on the Sabbath day
from what bound her?"

John Calvin asks,

"Why then does He not avoid offence, as He could easily have done,"

Then he answers,

"Christ purposely chose a Sabbath day, which would give cause of offence to the Jews… Christ… knowingly and deliberately provoked the ungodly."

There are two things to note about this matter.

The first is that it was most appropriate for Jesus to heal on the Sabbath.

There was great theological significance to Jesus' healing on the Sabbath. When Jesus healed on the Sabbath He was not breaking it, but pointing to its fulfillment—the Sabbath-rest that awaits the people of God. It was most appropriate for Jesus to heal on the Sabbath. Hebrews 4:9-10 says,

"There remains, then,
a Sabbath-rest for the people of God;
for anyone who enters God's rest
also rests from his own work,
just as God did from his."

There is a Sabbath-rest for the people of God. This will come in glory, when we will be with God. What will it be like? In Revelation 21:4,

"He will wipe every tear from their eyes.
There will be no more death or mourning
or crying or pain,
for the old order of things has passed away."

Suffering, pain, crying belong to the old order of things. They do not belong to the new order. Thus it was perfectly appropriate for Jesus to heal on a Sabbath day and point to it's fulfillment. People who were oppressed and bound by disease or infirmity were to a certain extent prisoners under the power and dominion of the old order. By healing and restoring the afflicted to good health on the Sabbath Jesus was pointing to the fulfillment of the Sabbath. He was giving them a taste of the restoration, relief and rest that would be theirs in the Sabbath rest of the people of God.

Even more than that, by healing on the Sabbath Jesus was showing that He was the Messiah who would bring His people into their Sabbath-rest. Jesus was showing that He is the One who is able to restore people, make them right. He healed a man blind from birth. No one had ever done that. By doing so He showed that He is the one to come and give light, to open the eyes of those who are blinded by Satan, to release them from their blindness and bring them into the light of God's kingdom. By healing on the Sabbath Jesus was showing that He was the light of the world and that He could deliver people from darkness into God's wonderful light. (1 Peter 2:9f)

The second reason Jesus healed on the Sabbath had to do with His mission to save sinners.

In order to save us Jesus had to die for our sins. He came to die. After he fed the 5000 many in the crowd wanted to take Him and make Him King. But Jesus withdrew from them. (John 6:14-15) Jesus came to die. He came to provoke sinners. As Peter said in his Pentecost sermon, (Acts 2:23)

"This man was handed over to you
by God's set purpose and foreknowledge;"

It's interesting that one of the things that God used as an instrument to arouse opposition to Jesus was something from His law—the Sabbath. It's interesting that Jesus went about doing good, healing people of sickness, giving sight to the blind—and people hated Him for it. What we have here is a specific outworking of the principle that John wrote about in John 3:19,

"This is the verdict:
Light has come into the world,
but men loved darkness instead of light
because their deeds were evil."

Part of Jesus' mission was to expose sin and show people the extent of their sin and how the only way to escape sin was through Him.

Remember Jesus response to the synagogue ruler and others who wanted the people to come on the other six days to be healed? He exposed their hypocrisy. They would take care of their animals but didn't care about their fellow human beings. He came to expose the hypocrisy of people who had been blessed by God with good health, and yet, instead of being grateful and compassionate towards others—they looked down on those who were sick and didn't mind at all if they suffered another day—wanting them to be healed the next day rather than the Sabbath.

It's like that in our society today. Every spring I hear about the seal hunt in eastern Canada and how people are trying to get it shut down because of cruelty to animals. This past March former Beatle Paul McCartney and his wife were out on the ice protesting against it. There's nothing wrong with promoting the human treatment of animals. Jesus didn't criticize them the people of His day for giving their animals water on the Sabbath day. What he did criticize them for was if while doing that they had little compassion toward people and didn't at all mind their suffering. I hope that all the people that protest the seal hurt also are against abortion and are even doing more to protest against it and get it stopped. If they are not, they're hypocrites just like the people of Jesus day.

We see much the same thing in our passage. Here Jesus is exposing

the great hold that sin has on people.

One of the great truths that this chapter shows is that sin has a great hold on people, one that they can't overcome on their own. Who was the only one in this chapter who praised and glorified God and gave Jesus His due? It was the man Jesus gave sight to.

Jesus healed a man who had been blind from birth. How did people react?

Some closed their eyes to the miracle. They denied that it was the same man. D.A. Carson writes, (John)

"Some found it easier to believe that the blind man had somehow disappeared, and the fellow before them was someone else, someone who bore a remarkable resemblance to their blind neighbor."

There are many people like that in the world today. They talk about all the suffering in the world and wonder why God isn't doing something about it. All the while they've got their eyes closed and they are denying the greatest events in history—that God sent His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. They close their eyes to the fact that Jesus is working in the world and that He is going to bring forth a new heavens and a new earth, wherein will dwell righteousness. They deny it and stand in the way of its accomplishment. What a grip sin has on them. As we read in 2 Corinthians 4:4,

"The god of this age
has blinded the minds of unbelievers,
so that they cannot see
the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ,
who is the image of God."

They need to go to Christ and have their blindness removed.

We even see the great grip that sin has on people in the blind man's father and mother. One would think that they would be delighted with their son being given sight and have been filled with praise to God and thankfulness to Jesus. But we don't see that. It's like they're mute in that regard. We should not miss the irony here. They deny knowing how their son was healed. They tell the Pharisees to ask him instead. God had done such a great work and they're mute! They were afraid to give praise to God for healing their son. Fear had them in its grip. They knew that if they acknowledged Jesus as being from God they would be put out of the synagogue. The long awaited Messiah was in their midst, had healed their son—and they refuse to acknowledge Him!

But the crowd and the man's mother and father weren't the worst. Consider the Pharisees. Jesus did a great miracle, something that no one had ever done—healed a man born blind. Jesus showed compassion on those who were afflicted and healed them on the Sabbath, pointing toward its fulfillment and the fact that He was the Light of the world, the long awaited Messiah. They saw that and they reacted with hatred. They declared that Jesus was not from God. They declared that He was a sinner. They threatened and intimidated those who would believe on Him. They heaped abuse on the man who was healed and declared that he was steeped in sin. They not only cast him out of the place where all this took place.

D. A. Carson writes,

"So convinced are they that Jesus is at best a charlatan, at worst a dangerous sinner, that they do not remember the ancient promises that one of the signs of the dawning of the messianic age is the restoration of sight to the blind (Is. 29:18; 35:5; 42:7). But, stung by the impertinence of this untrained member of the common herd (cf. notes on 7:49) arguing with them and besting them at their own game, they opt for personal abuse instead of evenhanded evaluation. In so doing they unwittingly confirm one of the points their interrogation aimed to overthrow: You were steeped in sin at birth is a cruel reference to the man's congenital blindness… So the man was born blind after all! So Jesus must have opened his eyes! But the irony of their rage quite escapes them, so great is their own blindness (cf. 3:19–21; 9:39–41).

Jesus healed this man born blind and at the end of it they are filled with rage toward the man. Carson suggests that not only did they physically throw him out of the place where the discussion took place, but they excommunicated him from the synagogue as well.

But all this is merely a precursor to what was going to take place when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. (John 11) What a miracle! What a testimony to Jesus, to the fact that He was from God, to the fact that He had power over death, to the fact that He loved sinners. But what affect did it have on many people? They hated Jesus for it. They hated him so much that they not only plotted to kill Jesus, but Lazarus as well. (John 12:10)

I quoted John Calvin on this last week. He said,

"ungodliness is clever at obscuring the works of God and so many thought it was not the same man, since a new power of God appeared in him. The brighter the majesty of God in His works, the less credit do they obtain among men."

The grip that sin has on man!

If you're not a Christian you need to take note of this.

Many non-Christians think that they would believe if they saw a miracle, or something that would once and for all prove to them that Christianity was true.

But the fact is that that's not true. Thousands of people have seen God do miracles through His people and yet they have not believed. Indeed, many have become hardened in their unbelief. Pharaoh saw Moses do miracles—changing his rod into a serpent, putting his hand in his cloak and bringing it out and it being leprous, and putting it back in his cloak and it being healthy again. Pharaoh saw the ten plagues that Moses brought on Egypt—yet rather than believing, he actually became more hardened in sin.

If you're not a Christian, the problem with you is not just an intellectual one, that you need evidence that Christianity is true. No. You have a much greater problem than that—a much deeper problem. The problem with you is that sin and Satan have you in their grip and that apart from God's grace you can't escape. Only Jesus can do that.

Ephesians 2:1 tells us that sinful man is

"dead in your transgressions and sins,"

2 Timothy 2:25-26 tells us that in order for people to

"come to their senses
and escape from the trap of the devil,
who has taken them captive to do his will,"

God has to grant them repentance.

We see that miracles like Moses did, and other miracles like we see in the New Testament—miracles like healing the blind and raising the dead—are not enough to compel belief in Christ. John Calvin writes,

"The narrative… shows that the ungodly are so far from profiting by the works of God that the more they are pressed by their power, the more the discharge the poison conceived within them. The restoration of sight to the blind should have softened even minds of stone."

So those of you who are not Christians—you need to take this to heart. There's only one miracle that will convince you that Jesus is the Christ—that's the miracle of Jesus giving you a new heart. Ezekiel 11:19, 36:26)

Sin and Satan have such a hold that nothing you can do can break it. If you saw a blind man healed you wouldn't believe. If you saw a man raised from the dead you wouldn't believe. You need God to change you. Ask Him to lift the blindness of your eyes.

Are you getting just a glimpse of the glory of Jesus here, of His love, of His power, of His kindness to sinners? If so, that's God working in you. Ask Him to turn that glimpse into a full vision. You need Jesus more than anything else. Without Him you're in darkness and you'll be lost. Go to the light. Go to Jesus for salvation.

Secondly, you who are Christians need to take this to heart as well.

Sin has a great hold on people. Even though you have come to Christ and have a new principle of life in you—

realize that your old nature, which sin has such a grip on, is still present and that if you give sin a foothold in your life, it can make havoc of your life.

Remember a couple of weeks ago I mentioned how David didn't guard his eyes and how it led him into great and horrible sin? That can happen to you. In Romans 7:18 the apostle Paul declared,

"I know that nothing good lives in me,
that is,
in my sinful nature."

The old sinful nature in you has not been totally done away with yet. Fear led the blind man's parents to be mute when they should have been praising Jesus. Fear led Peter to deny our Lord.

Throughout history, many who have called themselves Christians have done the most horrific things in the name of Christianity. In the early 1200's Pope Innocent III ordered the Albigensian Crusade, to purge southern France of the Cathari heretics. It began in the summer of 1209. When the crusaders came to the town of Beziers, the Catholic faithful in the town refused to give up the Catharis among them. The crusaders decided to attack. Just before they did, Arnaud-Armaury, the Abbot of Citeaux, and "spiritual advisor" to the Albigensian Crusade, was asked by a Crusader how they might distinguish the Cathars, their enemies, from other citizens. He replied

"Kill them all. God will know his own."

It was thought that there were only two or three hundred Cathari in the city of 10 to 20 thousand. They slaughtered them all in order to make sure they got all the Cathari.

Now when you hear something like that you wonder whether such people were really Christians. And you could conclude that they were not.

But we still have to be careful. I've heard many horror stories of church splits, of Christians treating one another very badly. Don't give sin a foothold. Draw close to Jesus. Jesus came to bring us into the light—live accordingly. As the apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians 5:8f,

"For you were once darkness,
but now you are light in the Lord.
Live as children of light
(for the fruit of the light consists
in all goodness, righteousness and truth)
and find out what pleases the Lord.
Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness,
but rather expose them.
For it is shameful even to mention
what the disobedient do in secret.
But everything exposed by the light becomes visible,
for it is light that makes everything visible.
This is why it is said:
'Wake up, O sleeper,
rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.'"