Journey Through The Bible
     Old Testament Reading: Psalms 60-66
     New Testament Reading: John 9

“This is an amazing thing!” the man told them. “You don’t know where he is from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners, but if anyone is God-fearing and does his will, he listens to him. Throughout history no one has ever heard of someone opening the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he wouldn’t be able to do anything.”(John 9: 30-33)

Here in the ninth chapter of John is a lengthy account of Jesus healing a blind man. To heal his blindness, Jesus spit on the ground, making mud, and placed the mud on the man’s eyes. He then told the man to wash in the pool of Siloam. We do not know why Jesus did not heal him instantly as He had done previously. Possibly it could be because this man had not sought Jesus for healing and Jesus desired the man’s obedience to show his faith.

The man obeyed and received his sight. Can you imagine what this man experienced? Had the hymn been written then, I’m certain this man would have broken out in singing, “For the beauty of the earth, For the beauty of the skies, Lord of all, to Thee we raise, this our hymn of grateful praise.”

Whatever this man’s joy was, it was short-lived. First, there were the neighbors who debated whether he was the man that they knew who was born blind. The man kept insisting it was him, but they wanted proof. They wanted an explanation.

I love the man’s answer. He simply testified to what he knew. He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and told me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So when I went and washed I received my sight” (John 9:11).

The neighbors asked him where Jesus was, and He replied, “I do not know.” How was he to know where anything was? He had never seen anywhere before!

As if their interrogations weren’t enough, the neighbors then took him to the Pharisees. Here was a man who had only envisioned the gift of sight being questioned and humiliated by those with the gift of sight, but without vision.

When questioned, the man simply told the Pharisees, “He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.”

Next, the man’s parents were then called in and questioned. Unfortunately for this man, his parents feared the Pharisees more than they loved their son and copped out.

The man born blind was called in a second time, and the Pharisees continued to badger him and ask him how he was healed. I love the man’s answer, what courage he had. He said, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become His disciples?” (John 9:26).

The Pharisees chastised him, but the man never backed down. “This is an amazing thing!” the man told them. “You don’t know where he is from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners, but if anyone is God-fearing and does his will, he listens to him. Throughout history no one has ever heard of someone opening the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he wouldn’t be able to do anything” (John 9:30-33).

This man knew his Bible. Nowhere in the Old Testament was anyone ever healed of blindness. Even though he was blind, he had studied the scriptures.

Jesus first gave him physical sight and now he received spiritual sight, and the man believed and worshiped Him. Truly the Blind Man Sees More Than the Pharisees!