The Gospel of John 9:1-41
John 9 · Vern Peterman · May 26, 2013
Gospel of John (2013), No. 20
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926352451466

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

We're in John Chapter 9. I hope you have a handout with you here. This is one that's, we've got a number of pages in it, eight pages. And the last three pages are things we probably won't be able to get to in terms of any detailed study. But they're certainly available for you to take a look at. And I think there's a lot of interesting things to examine. We'll make brief reference to them and let you pursue those on your own time. We're in John chapter 9, 1 through 41, and unlike most of the time, we're going to go through the whole chapter here in one swell foop. So we'll go through this thing at once here.

And in this case, Jesus is still, and we've seen this for several chapters now, Jesus is still in Jerusalem. Jesus is still in Jerusalem as we've seen actually for several chapters now. He's still in Jerusalem and this is at a time just about six months before Christ will be spending the Last Supper with his disciples. Christ will be crucified, buried, and resurrected. So this is in the fall right before that time. He's in Jerusalem.

A lot of the actions center around the temple area. This particular event in chapter nine is probably near the temple, but not necessarily in the temple courtyards. Here's a model of the temple, just so we kind of keep that in context. The temple was about six football fields in size, and that's the greater courtyard area. And then the inner temple where only the Jews, and by the way, not all Jews could go in, it was qualified Jews, right? Only the Jews were allowed to go into this inner area. And we have a dramatic depiction of Jesus in the temple courtyards here and probably Really busy like this is is the right picture to have in mind Though we show in the model an empty courtyard During feast time that wasn't the situation the population of Jerusalem would go to somewhere around 40 or 50,000 people to a couple hundred thousand or more Swelling that much just during the feast time And they didn't have a lot of hotels and inns, so people who lived there were expected to house all of the excess.

One more thing, this is going to make reference to the Pool of Siloam. And that Pool of Siloam actually has a history that goes back to the time of at least Isaiah. It's called the Waters of Shiloh in Isaiah 8.6, the Pool of Shelah in Nehemiah 3.15, and now by New Testament times, the Pool of Siloam.

Just a little less than 10 years ago, the steps to the Pool of Siloam were exposed. They were working on a sewer project. And as happens often in projects in Jerusalem, you're digging to do some construction and they find things. So the steps to the Pool of Siloam were actually found just less than 10 years ago during work on a sewer project. So here's the way this came about. Up at the, let's see if I can get this to work here. Up at the top end, this spring of Gihon is the source of water. This was the place, that spring was where Solomon was anointed. So that's the source of water.

And then during the time of Hezekiah, about seven centuries before the time of Christ, this tunnel system was built and it's not straight. They had this complicated tunnel system. There was nothing quite like it for a number of centuries. They started from each end of the tunnel system and met in the middle on this you know, very complicated path. You can see it's real curvy and not necessarily according to any mathematical pattern. They reached very closely and one of the guys who was picking away could hear the people picking away at the other end when they got close and wrote the account on the wall right there where they met.

So that was the tunnel system. At the bottom of that, here was what was called the Waters of Shiloh, and then the Pool of Shelah, and then finally the Pool of Siloam, right down here. So here's the spring. It went through the tunnel system down into this pool. That was the pattern. So it has a long biblical history. All right, let's take a look here. Oh, one more thing.

You have on page two, here's a map shows where the Pool of Siloam is located. And so here's the temple area and the spring of Gihon is up here and then the tunnel system goes back and forth and then is here. And one of the reasons it's important that it was inside the wall is Hezekiah wanted the water to be inside the wall and not something that the attacking Assyrians could get hold of, right?

So, that's there. The other thing is you have several appendix items, we won't spend time on it, but this one is on the New Testament doctrine of proportional punishment, and it includes in it something in John chapter 8, and that is, if you do not believe, you will die in, that's positional, in your sins. So that's there.

Key events in end times, and so that's shown there in a color printout on page 7, and then finally on page 8, these are all the judgments and resurrections in the Bible. All of them. The ones that are highlighted with a light blue are ones that apply to New Testament, that is, church-age believers. So anyway, we won't be going into those in detail, but they're available for you to study on your own, and I'm available to talk about it outside the class as well. Alright, let's start in John 9, 1-41, and it starts off like this in the first five verses.

As he passed by, that is Jesus, he saw a blind man, a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind? Jesus answered, it was neither that this man sinned nor his parents, but it was so the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me as long as it is day. Night is coming when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world. It was common among the Jews, and so the disciples are just following the cultural pattern, common among the Jews to see blindness as a result of sin. So the only question is who sinned, right? If you've got blindness, it's because there was sin.

And there's actually a basis for that in the Law of Moses. Here we have Deuteronomy 28, 15, and then 28 and 29. But if it shall come about, you do not obey the Lord your God, to observe, to do all his commandments and his statutes which I charge you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you. The Lord will smite you with madness and with blindness and with bewilderment of heart, and you will grope at noon as the blind man gropes in darkness, and you will not prosper in your ways, but you shall only be oppressed and robbed continually, with none to save you. So from that, the Jews would conclude, here's this man born blind, either he sinned or his parents sinned, or both.

So that's the only question, which one? Which one? So where do we put the blank? You see the mindset there? So what did Jesus come up with? He says, neither one. What? What? Neither one. Pardon? Yeah, so neither one, it's not this one, it's not that one. And let's ask this question.

If Jesus said it's in order that what? What did Jesus say? The works of God might be displayed in him. Let's ask this question. If you're having a difficult time in some regard, is that the time to blame Satan? Or is it possible that you're having a difficult time in order that the works of God might be displayed in your life. You see that? Does that make some sense? Yeah. It may be that the difficulty is not because Satan is attacking you.

It may be that the answer is not in, you know, we've got to go bind Satan or rebuke him or something of that sort. It may be that, in fact, The reason for the difficulty is so that the works of God may be displayed in a parent. Yes, this is verse 3. It is neither this man, that this man sinned, nor his parents, but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.

And this perspective is important, because otherwise, you know, we can end up falling into like the Jews, where we're just, who sins? Realizing that no God may have you know another option in mind here altogether Okay, and then in the middle of that page then there was even some support in the law for the idea that the Consequences of not obeying the law might be carried on to the next generations Possibly down to the third or fourth generations after the sin had been committed. Here's Exodus 20 and Verse 5, I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and fourth generations of those who hate me. So is there justification in the law for thinking that a sin of parents might be carried on to those farther down?

Yes, there is. So according to the law, that might be some of the thinking. And so then it would make sense. Did this guy sin? Of course, he was born blind. How much chance do they have to sin yet? Right? So then there would be this contest, well, maybe it's the parents. And then they would look to verses like this to thinking, oh well, parents, maybe even grandparents are the problem. So within the Jewish context, the only question among them would be as to whether the parents had sinned or the man himself had sinned. Look at Isaiah 35, 5 and 6 at the bottom of page 1 there. Isaiah 42, 6 and 7 has some similar things to say.

This is about the Messiah and what he would do. Then the eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. Then the lame will leap like a deer and the tongue of the mute will shout for joy. Then, when? When the Messiah comes. If you look in the context, this is the Messiah times.

So the Messiah would be one who would deal with these by healings. Which also, you know, why is the Messiah healing somebody if their problem is from sin? Well, maybe the Messiah is healing because that's not the source of the problem. Maybe the Messiah is healing because, as verse 3 says, that the works of God might be displayed in him.

Okay, let's take a look at page 2. That's where you have the map of Jerusalem and it shows the location of the pool of Siloam there. So here's John 9, 6 through 5 at the top of page 2. When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made clay of the spittle and applied the clay to his eyes and said to him, go wash in the pool of Siloam. So that's this pool that's over in the corner that we saw that's on the map there.

One of the things to note is Jesus' healings were not uniform. Jesus did not heal cookie cutter style. In some cases, such as this, the action was required. Go wash. Right? So that was one circumstance. In order for the person to be healed, they had to go do something. This was a case in point.

In one instance, Jesus healed two blind men at once, but only touched their eyes. They didn't have to do anything. They didn't have to go anywhere. He didn't apply anything to their eyes. He just touched their eyes, and both of them at once were healed.

And then we have, in other cases, healings took place at the request of another person than the one to be healed, and Jesus even healed from a distance. And in more than one instance, we have a case where someone was told, you know, your son, servant, whatever, is healed and they're not here, and I don't need to see them, I can heal them from a distance. So we have that case. Then in some others, the element of faith is mentioned, while in others it is not.

Let's ask the man who was by the pool of Bethesda. Remember, he was lame. He was by the pool of Bethesda and his story was, I'm lame so I can never move fast enough to get into the pool when the angel stirs the water and therefore I can never be healed and everybody else beats me to it. Gets the healing, yes.

What's their original purpose for the pool? Were they for bathing or were they a water source? You actually have several of them. You notice here is the pool of Siloam, right? And here you have farther up the pool of Bethesda that we looked at. And so they had various pools and they also had various purposes. Some of these, like the pool of Siloam was from a spring. The pool of Bethesda appears to be more of a capture of runoff. situation. In the pool of Bethesda, it was looked upon more as a, this is a place to get healed. So everybody's hanging around trying to get healed, right? And so they had various water sources and a lot of them were everything from, you know, bathing to, you know, like that spring of Gijon, that was a good place to get good fresh water. So the answer is various.

Another point is that there was a huge cavern underneath the temple mount to save hundreds of thousands of gallons of water to help in washing off the temple area. Imagine after sacrificing hundreds and hundreds, imagine on a Passover, thousands of Passover lambs. How are we going to wash this stuff out of here? Otherwise you have an accumulation of blood and that sort of thing.

So it had various purposes, is the answer. You also had another one in that the mikvah baths that were used in Acts chapter 2 were also there in Jerusalem, and that was a washing for purification. And so different purposes for different ones. And some of them having more of an emphasis, like for the pool of Bethesda and healing than others. So the answer to your question is miscellaneous, right? Yeah. Maybe an insert. We now know that the National Naval Medical Center's name has been changed. It's all been reimbursed with it. Hold on. No, we need to stick to it here. We're chasing a rabbit trail.

Mark chapter 8, 22 through 26. This is an instance, the one that I'm aware of, of two stages of healing. Jesus was healing this man's sight, and then he says, how does it look? He says, it looks like men look like trees walking. So it's partway there, right? Very interesting. Why would Jesus heal in two stages? So that's another instance of a different thing. So Jesus didn't go around and just, okay, I always heal this way. Jesus did different things for different people.

And let's ask the question, why? Why? His people are different, okay? And what might that indicate? Yeah? He didn't want to do it in the same way because then there would be a lot of people who would come in later and try to do the same thing. Right. Copycat miracles, right? People trying to do copycat miracles would be one thing. Yeah, good. Any other ideas on that?

Why would Jesus do things differently almost each time? His powers weren't limited. He did it one way. He could. It wasn't regimented. Okay. It wasn't regimented and he wasn't limited. He wasn't saying, I always have to do it this way because that's the only way I know how to do it. Right? So if he changed, it wasn't because his powers were restricted in a certain way. If anything, he had the ability to do things different ways and to deal with different people according to different issues. And what needs to be learned here? What needs to be understood? Yes? So people see it in a certain way and think that's the way to do it, so they try to do it. Yes, so you have copycat healings.

Here's John 9, 7-12, which is at the bottom there. Therefore the neighbors and those who previously saw him as a beggar were saying, Is not this the one who used to sit and beg? Others were saying, this is he. Still others were saying, no, but he's like him. It's not him, but it looks like him. Right? He kept saying, I am the one. I'm not like this other guy. I'm the guy. Right?

Now, if you were there, why would you suspect that some people would say, yeah, that's the guy, and others would say, no, he just looks like him. Why do you think there would be the variety of opinions here? Yeah? It would be kind of like trying to identify all the people standing out there in the corner with their signs.

Right. Different people have different degrees of recognition of this fellow. Some guys say, well, yeah, I've seen him before. Somebody else says, hey, he's my neighbor. So you have different degrees of recognition. And is there anything else? There are other reasons why people might have a variety of opinions. Yeah? Yeah, this guy sees and the only explanation must be he just looks like the guy that was blind. Especially since I've known this guy for decades and he's just been blind. And so that's the only way I've known him. So this can't possibly be him.

Also, when you think about it, there had to be a change in his eyes. Before, he probably knew why he was blind. But there was some physical manifestation that he could not see. whether his eyes were white or they weren't there. Yeah, whatever the appearance was, yeah. Frequently people who are blind, especially from birth like that, will have an appearance that you'll say, well, the eyes themselves do not look normal. And so one of the things would be, well, there's something different looking about this guy. Not just he can see, but he appears different. Yeah, good point. Yeah. Yeah, he walks different.

He answered, the man who called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes and said to me, go to Siloam and wash. So I went away and washed and received sight. They said to him, where is he? He said, I do not know." By the way, he's blind. How is he going to get to the pool of Siloam? With difficulty, isn't he?

Right? Either he's, one, going to have somebody lead him, Or he's going to go groping along and... So wouldn't that be a manifestation of his faith? Yeah, isn't that interesting? In order for you to be healed, you need to go to the Pool of Siloam, which might not be right nearby. And you may need to negotiate things, and you can't see.

But that would be, without mentioning faith, that would be a display of faith for him to follow through in the way that he did, right? So a real good insight there into how this guy went about it. And by the way, let's ask one other question. How well did he summarize what happened? How do you think he did in summarizing what took place? Did he do pretty good or did you notice there was something funny? He actually seemed to do fairly well in summarizing what took place.

I don't see any huge lapse in there. Let's take a look at the top of page 3. We've seen this before when the groups among the Jews had varying opinions. And of course, it seems like every circumstances there's varying opinions. In this case, the neighbors of the man, having seen him completely healed, expressed different levels of belief in the healing. And therefore the identification of the man who had been blind, when asked, the man who had been blind gave a brief summary of the account.

When he credits the healing to Jesus, he doesn't know where he is. Jesus did, I don't know where he is. I went off to the pool of Siloam. And by the way, did Jesus intend not to be around immediately? Yeah. Yeah, because there's some events we're going to see here, Jesus intended that the man not know. Which is one good reason to send him off to the pool of Siloam, because first of all, he's not going to get there real quick, and by the time he gets back, Jesus is somewhere else.

Now, you have on the bottom of page 3 a table, Sabbath controversies it's labeled. This is something we showed earlier in the Gospel of John in our studies, and what you find is every single one of the Gospels has some degree of Sabbath controversy. The Gospel of Luke is the one that shows the greatest in number. This is the last one that shows up in John chapter 9, 1 through 34.

By the way, why would there be so many Sabbath controversies with Jesus. Could not Jesus, being the Son of God and being a well-trained Jew, could not Jesus have said, you know, I'm just not going to do these healings and things like that on the Sabbath because it just raises too much of a stink. Couldn't Jesus have avoided that? Yes, yes, he could have avoided that by simply saying, I'm not going to heal on the Sabbath.

So it looks as if he deliberately healed on the Sabbath multiple times. Multiple times. And what we find is between Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, we have here a half dozen instances, or better, in which Jesus healed or did something else on the Sabbath that brought up the controversy. Yes. Well, wouldn't that be what he would want to do?

Because that's the crux of the problem that the Pharisees had, and that's bringing glory to God instead of glory to themselves. So if you follow the Sabbath, which is a traditional thing, that they set up and they established, you're bringing glory to yourselves and to the Pharisees. But the point is, nobody's giving glory to God. They lack faith.

So this would be the perfect way to point that out to somebody who is willing to see. Jesus keeps doing it and notice what he's doing is a good thing every time. What he's doing is a good thing every time but he keeps doing it even though it's going to cause a problem every single time. He keeps going back to healing and doing things on the Sabbath for I think a couple of really big reasons.

One is it highlights all the Jews incredibly complex system of here's how I keep the Sabbath, which was all added on, all added on to what that law of Moses actually said. Craig, you were pointing out with the man who was by the pool of Bethesda, you were pointing out to me that it was legal for two men to carry somebody on a pallet on the Sabbath, but that this man was not allowed to pick up his own pallet and walk. Very strange set of rules. Very complex. And Jesus keeps doing this to underscore this point.

You guys have added to the law of Moses and what you're trying to stick me on is all the stuff you've added, not the actual law of Moses. You've got all these encrustations to the law. Six different laws to make sure I don't break this one. But it's all by your definition, not the one that's actually there. So that's part one.

The other thing is, as he does these things, instead of seeing, you know, hey isn't this wonderful, this guy was blind and now he sees, this guy was lame and now he walks. Instead of seeing, isn't this a great thing, giving glory to God, they're sitting there nitpicking. Based not on the law of Moses, but on their traditions. You very bad, bad, bad Jesus you. You've gone and healed somebody. What a horrible thing to do.

Right? Yes. Yes. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Yes. And let's look at the heart of the matter. They're going down their checklist. And their checklist is, of course, concocted. They've made this thing up about you can do this and can't do that, right? So they're going down the checklist. Is that what God wants? Is that God's heart that we just go down the checklist? No, that's not what God has in mind at all.

Let me give you an analogy. Later this year, I'll be married to Nancy for 40 years. We didn't get there by me going down the Love Nancy checklist. Okay, kiss her seven times. One, two, three, okay, all right, we did that. All right, and I go out and take out the trash. Okay, I took out the trash. Nancy wants a relationship, okay, not a checklist. See that?

And the same thing with the Lord. The Lord designed us for a relationship with Him. Not fulfilling some checklist where we've made a half dozen additional rules on top of the rule that he gave us that is really what it's about. The Lord wants relationship more than just all these checklists. But they're occupied with the checklist. And missing the Son of God walking right in front of them. Looking into the eyes of the Son of God. And not getting it. We have our checklist.

So what? Right? Okay. The words right underneath that chart, the Pharisees would have considered Jesus to have broken the Sabbath both by healing on the Sabbath and mixing and applying mud to the eyes as work. Notice that Jesus could have skipped that. Right? But he didn't. He didn't have to. We've seen instances where he healed using other means, even blindness. But mixing mud was breaking the Sabbath.

Yes? I think that's interesting because Jesus is a creator. That's how Adam was created. Out of the earth. Out of the earth, yeah. Right. So this would be since he was born blind. Makes sense. Yeah. It squares up. Right? Yeah. Okay, let's take a look at the top of page four.

So, as usual, the Jews had differing opinions among themselves when asked, the man who had been blind held the opinion that Jesus was a prophet. That was his initial conclusion. Was he correct? Was Jesus a prophet? Yes. It's not complete, but it's not wrong, at least as far as it goes, right?

The Pharisees were still divided among themselves and still skeptical of what the man who had been born blind said, so they widened their investigation to include the man's parents. We also will find out why the man born blind possibly called Jesus a prophet at first rather than calling him the Christ. So here's John 9, 18 through 23.

The Jews then did not believe it of him that he had been blind and had recovered sight until they called the parents of the very one who had received his sight. and questioning him, saying, is this your son who you say was born blind? Is this the guy? And questioning him, they said, is this your son who has been born blind? Then how does he now see? His parents answered and said, we know that this is our son and that he was born blind. OK. All right. This is the guy. He was born blind.

But how he now sees, we don't know. Or who opened his eyes, we don't know. Ask him, he's of age, we're really uncomfortable with this interrogation, right? Yeah, so his parents said that because they were afraid of the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone confessed him to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue. For this reason, his parents said, he is of age, ask him. Now, let's talk about this.

What does it mean to be put out of the synagogue? Does that mean Sabbath comes around and, no, you can't come in here? Does it mean more than just that? Yeah? Well, didn't the synagogue provide for a lot of different things for the people? Yes. It wasn't just a place of worship.

Okay, I'm going to get engaged. Where does that happen? Synagogue. I'm going to get married. Synagogue. And so you've got various kinds of things. Essentially, the synagogues were used as a place of court rulings as well. So there were a number of things that took place. So being put out of the synagogue is like, oh, man, I'm really out of the loop here.

I'm not included. in a lot of things. Now that I can see, I can actually go about living and talking about getting married and things like that. But no, not if I'm put out of the synagogue. I guess that's not going to happen. So, his parents say, he is of age. Ask him. Because after all, we're really uncomfortable with this interrogation. It's a little scary. So, John 9, 24-34.

So a second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner. Now, that's code. That's code. Why is it code? What do they mean by give glory to God? We know this man is a sinner. Fess up. Fess up, yep. Okay, what else? Okay, when they say, we know this man's a sinner, they've already judged who? Jesus. They've already drawn conclusions about Jesus. Have they talked to Him about this? No. So they've already judged, without having talked to Him in this context, that Jesus is a sinner. Right? So whatever... Yeah, go ahead.

Is the reference to this man Jesus is a sinner, or the blind man is a sinner? This man, not you, he didn't say you are a sinner, but this man Jesus is a sinner. Yep, is a sinner. Give glory to God, we know this man's a sinner, so that's code for whatever testimony you give better be consistent with the conclusion we've already drawn. Right? Whatever testimony you give had better be consistent with the conclusion we've already drawn. So, therefore, give glory to God means you'd better tell us what we want to hear.

Right? Yes. Yes, and that's one thing. But instead of looking at that, it's, did you heal on the Sabbath? And we have our rules. Yeah. We have our rules. He doesn't fit the profile. He's supposed to be coming in the clouds or at least, you know, born in Bethlehem or something like that. Yeah. And besides that, when the Messiah comes, He's going to think we're great. Right? And He doesn't, so obviously He's not the Messiah. Right? Nice set of conclusions, right? So then He answered, whether He is a sinner, I do not know.

One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see. Though I was blind, now I see. I was blind. Now I see. Do you guys not get it? All these judgments, that sinner thing, you've already concluded, this guy healed me. That's phenomenal. That's got my attention. That's got my attention. So they said to him, what did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?

So instead of saying, wow, isn't this great? This guy's been healed after decades of blindness. He's never known what sight is. But they didn't say, it's wonderful. What they want to do is catch him on how did he do it. And if he makes mud, that's breaking the law because that's work. That's work.

He answered them, I told you already and you did not listen. I've already given you guys testimony and you didn't listen to my testimony. Why do you want to hear it again? You do not want to become disciples of his, do you? Oh, of course, they just love that question. They reviled him and said, you are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses.

So they're already revealing, tipping their hand to their conclusions. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we don't know where he's from. Now, do they mean we don't know where he's from in terms of what town? Or we don't know where he's from, is what he's doing from God? That's the real issue. That's right. We don't know where his healing is coming from. So verse 30, the man answered and said to them, Well, here is an amazing thing, that you do not know where he is from, and yet he opened my eyes. I was blind, but now I see. I know that. We know that God does not hear sinners, but if anyone is God-fearing and does His will, He hears him. Since the beginning of time, it has never been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.

So verse 34, they answered him, you were born entirely in sins, and are you teaching us? So they put him out, put him out of the synagogue. He lost his synagogue privileges, and it doesn't just mean you can't come on Sabbath, but you also don't get all the other privileges and customary rights that go along with that.

Yes? So are they saying that they were not born entirely in sin? Could you draw that conclusion? Yeah, you were born entirely in sins. And by the way, did your parents sin or did you? What are they concluding? That it was Him. You were born in them, right? You were born in sins and you're teaching us.

And of course, let's ask the question, for them, were they concerned that they might not be saved. These judging Jews. They're not concerned. Why wouldn't they be concerned that they're not saved? Yeah, that's right. We're descended from Abraham. We're in. We're in.

He is, however, However, let's look at this, a person may be descended from Abraham, but they'll either be blessed or cursed depending on how they abide by or do not abide by the law. So the law, this is another thing that reveals, the law does not save or cause one not to be saved, the law determines blessings and curses. See the difference there? So they weren't disputing that he was born from Abraham, but they were saying, you're in sin, therefore you're cursed.

Right? Yeah. So is this just, again, the age old problem? I mean, the first is they don't refute the man's point. No. It said they go to a red herring logic. Well, we can't refute that, so you're a bad person. Yeah. Yeah. And we know we're good people. We know we're good people. We just do. Because we nitpick over the law and we just are real focused on it. We know we're good people and so if you, you know, point out any deficiency in our judgment, then certainly you are deficient. Okay? Yeah. Yeah. It seems like they're saying that he has no opportunity for getting out of this Senate. Yeah. Do you see that? Do you see any grace or mercy in this? In the way this man's treated? Yeah, Jesus showed this man grace and mercy, right? These Jews who are making these judgments show none.

Yeah. Isn't this kind of the elitist mentality that we kind of saw throughout the history of the church or certain groups? Yeah. You know, after they lost their focus on God and they became focused on themselves. This is an ongoing problem. We know you don't, right? Yeah. And oftentimes being very severe in the way things are handled.

In the early 5th century, it became a capital punishment offense for parents not to baptize their infants. So you're not going to do that? you're going to die, and then we're going to baptize him anyway. Okay? Okay, let's take a look at the middle of page 5, John 9, 35 through 41.

Jesus heard that they had put him out, that is, put him out of the synagogue, and finding him, and this is the interesting part, see, Jesus wasn't around, and I think this go to the pool of Siloam is one of the things that managed to have Jesus be separated from this guy for a time. They put him out.

Finding him, he said, Do you believe in the Son of Man? What's the most important issue in life? Do you believe in the Son of Man? He just asked him the most important question. The man had his sight restored. The man had just been put out of the synagogue, which for a Jew is really disruptive. I mean, he just had a major loss. Can you imagine in the same day, I just got my sight and now I've been put out of the synagogue among the people that I'm supposed to be a part of.

So Jesus comes up to him and really focuses on, with all the things that have happened today, what's the most important question? Do you believe in the Son of Man? He answered, Who is he, Lord, that I may believe in him? Jesus said to him, you have both seen him and he is the one who is talking with you. These are words similar to what Jesus said to the woman at the well, the Samaritan woman. You know that Messiah we talked about? You're looking at him, right? He's the one speaking to you now. Words similar. And he said, Lord, I believe, and he worshipped him. And by the way, He worshiped him.

If Jesus was not deity, would this be a proper thing to do? No. Jesus, like the angels that John encountered twice in the book of Revelation, Jesus should have, if he was not deity, said, whoa, stop, don't worship me, worship God. But he did not do that. He did not do that here.

He received the worship and Jesus said for judgment I came into this world so that those who do not see may see and that those who see may become blind. Let's figure that one out. Those of the Pharisees who were with him heard these things and said we are not blind too are we? Wink wink. Jesus said to them, if you were blind, you would have no sin, but since you say, we see, your sin remains. What's Jesus talking about with these things? Blind, not blind? What is this? Pardon? Certainly that. Yeah, we're not blind too, right? You're not accusing us of blindness, are you?

What's Jesus' point in making these kinds of statements? Isn't he looking at the spiritual aspect instead of the physical aspect? He's saying, if they're blind, but they can only see the physical aspect of it. He's talking about the spiritual aspect. Right. And all of Jesus' statements about seeing and blindness are all spiritual. Right? He's not talking about the physical thing. That's not the issue.

He used this man who was physically born blind, and by the way, he got his eyes opened twice that day. He got the physical eyes open, then he got his spiritual eyes open. So he's talking about that man who had a physical healing so as to see physically. But what he's talking about here is spiritual blindness and spiritual sight.

And one of the points he's trying to make in the middle and towards the end of this passage here is that because you claim to see, you will be held accountable for what you claim. You claim to see and are even in a position of judging others based on your claim. But when it turns out, in fact, that you don't see spiritually, you'll be held accountable to that.

Let's take a look here briefly. You have this chart here. It's got future things, key places and events. Let me turn back here. One of the things we've done here is there are three locations that are involved here. One is the present heaven. Secondly, the present earth.

And then thirdly, the lake of fire. And those three are involved in the resurrections and judgments. The present heaven, the present earth, and the present lake of fire. Which, by the way, Jesus said the lake of fire has been prepared. Perfect tense. Completed action, ongoing results. for Satan and his angels. So it's there. Present earth is there. Present heaven is there. They're all three there.

The judgment of these Jews who are condemning Jesus, condemning the man born blind, now who can see, the judgment of those will take place at the great white throne judgment that's on the right, on the bottom line there, would be a great white throne judgment. They will stand before Christ, the one that they judged, and called a sinner, and be judged themselves. And what will be the basis of the judgment? This is Revelation chapter 20, verses 11 through 15.

One will be, is your name in the book of life? Look it up. Nope, not there. Your name is not in the book of life, that's why you're here. Okay, now that that's clear, now we've got this other set of things. Here's your works. Certainly none of them are saving, right?

So then, since you denied the payment that Christ made for your sins, I mean, they were completely paid by Christ. Since you denied that payment, then it's up to your own works, you're going to pay for them yourselves. since you denied the payment that Christ made. You'll pay for them yourselves forever.

And you will, the warning in John chapter 8, you will, since you died in your sins, including, including hypocrisy in their judgment of Jesus, hypocrisy in their judgment of this man born blind. That hypocrisy counts too. Everything that you did and didn't do will be a part of the judgment and all those sins you're in them Positionally and you will pay for them forever The only way to get out of being in your sins that you'll pay for forever is what? To believe okay, so Jesus tells them that Unless you believe you will die in your sins for which you will be judged Unless you believe believing means that we take Christ's payment for our sins. We accept Christ's payment for our sins by faith, and then He's taken care of that. It's the one who denies Christ's payment, which can only be received by faith, the one who denies Christ's payment, that will have to pay for their own. They'll pay for their own. Alright. Now, you can take a look at the last three items.

All the biblical judgments and resurrections are also on this table, and some of them happen in this life. Some of them happen at the crucifixion of Christ. Some of them will happen at a future time. So different events, and those are all here on this table. The ones, again, that are highlighted with a light blue background are those that are for Christian Church Age Believers. The rest of them are for others, for example, Old Testament Saints, Tribulation Era Saints, etc. Okay, so we went through a whole chapter at once. It was, you know, quite a gallop.

But I think also just to see it all at once and to see, you know, this man who says, I was blind, but now I see. And there have been those who would say that spiritually. I was once spiritually blind, but now I see. Once spiritually blind, but now I see. Let's pray, okay? Lord, we do thank you for what you have made to be revealed here.

And we see that what's really at issue, is it that Jesus healed on the Sabbath? Is it that this man was physically blind and now he sees? Or do you believe in the Son of Man? And in truth, that's the key question of the entire chapter. And we just thank you for bringing things to the real point, the true point, the important point, the biggest issue. And we thank you for making these things clear. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.