John 9 - Introduction

The Healing Of The Man Born Blind (John 9).

It is no accident that this incident follows Jesus' claim to be ‘the light of the world' (John 8:12) who enables those who ‘walk in darkness' to see. And as He had a habit of doing Jesus now took the opportunity of performing a miracle in such a way as to teach an important spiritual lesson. That it was Jesus Who intended the lesson and not just the writer comes out in His use of spittle in the healing, to show that it was from His mouth that sight came, and His sending of the man to the Pool of Siloam, which meant ‘sent'. While the pool was probably called this because the water was artificially fed to it, it is clear that John sees significance in the name for he mentions it twice.

For such an acted out parable we can compare Mark 8:22 where the story of the man who was healed in two stages comes before the gradual opening of the eyes of the disciples at Caesarea Philippi.

The placing of this miracle of the man born blind after the arguments of John 8 is thus not coincidental. In John 8 we have seen men who were unwilling to see the light of the world, and refused to believe that others could see, and in John 9 they are unwilling to believe that a man born blind can be made to see. And certainly, to the blind man Jesus becomes the light of the world twice over (see v. 5 and compare John 8:12).

One other thing which we should consider about this miracle recorded here is its Messianic significance. In the Old Testament it was God himself who was associated with the giving of sight to the blind (Exodus 4:11; Psalms 146:8), and in a number of passages in Isaiah it was considered to be a Messianic activity (Isaiah 29:18; Isaiah 35:5; Isaiah 42:7; Isaiah 61:1 as quoted by Jesus in Luke 4:18; compae also Matthew 11:5), in words applied by Jesus to Himself (Luke 4:18). Thus Isaiah 29:18 tells us, ‘On that day the deaf will hear words from a book, and out of their gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind will see,' and Isaiah 35:4 adds, ‘Behold, your God will come with vengeance, the recompense of God will come, but He will save you. Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped.' While to the Servant of God in Isaiah 42:6 the promise is given, ‘I am the LORD, I have called you in righteousness, I will also hold you by the hand and watch over you, and I will appoint you as a covenant to the people, as a light to the nations, to open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the dungeon, and those who dwell in darkness from the prison.'

So when Jesus gave sight to the blind, He was fulfilling Messianic prophecies and showing that as the Light of the world He had defeated the darkness (compare John 1:5). This Messianic significance comes out later in the chapter in that the crowds were discussing whether Jesus was the Messiah, although secretly for fear of the Jews. All this then leads up to Jesus' revelation of Himself as ‘the Son of God' (or ‘the Son of Man') in Whom men must believe, which is found in John 9:35.

The miracle recorded here has, therefore, significance for John as one of the seven ‘signs' which he employed to point to Jesus' identity as Messiah and Son of God (John 20:31). That the man was ‘ born  blind' was also significant, for it spoke of the spiritual condition of all who are in the world.