John 9:39-41

For judgment I have come into the world

Christ’s mission to the world

I. HAS TWO APPARENTLY OPPOSITE RESULTS.

1. Of these

(1) One is the greatest blessing: “That they which see not might see.” All unregenerate men are blind spiritually. God and the moral universe are as much concealed from them as the beauties of this mundane scene are from those born blind. They grope their way through life and stumble on the great future. A greater blessing is not conceivable than the opening of the spiritual eye. It involves the soul’s translation into the real paradise of being.

(2) The other is the greatest curse: “That they which see,” etc., i.e., that those who are unconscious of their blindness and conceitedly fancy they see would be incalculably injured. By rejecting the remedial agency of Christ they would augment their guilt and gloom. These two results are taking place every day.

2. Of these

(1) One is intentional. The grand and definite purpose of Christ is to give “recovery of sight to the blind.”

(2) The other is incidental and directly opposed to His supreme aim. It comes because Christ does not coerce men, but treats them as free agents, and also because of the perversity of the unregenerate heart. As men may get food out of the earth or poison, fire out of the sun that shall burn them to ashes, or genial light that shall cheer and invigorate them, so men get salvation or damnation out of Christ mission.

II. IS MISINTERPRETED AND ABUSED.

1. Misinterpreted (John 9:40). Dost thou mean that we, educated men, trained in the laws and religion of our forefathers, and devoted to the work of teaching the nation, are blind? They would not understand that our Lord meant blindness of heart. So the great purpose of Christ’s mission has ever been misinterpreted. Some treat the gospel as if its object were to give a speculative creed, an ecclesiastical polity, a civil government, a social order, while they practically ignore that its grand object is to open the spiritual eyes of men, so that they may see, not men’s forms and phenomena, but spiritual realities.

2. Abused (John 9:41). Notwithstanding My mission, “Ye say, We see.” With Me you have the opportunity of illumination; without that your blindness would be a calamity, but now it is a crime. “Therefore your sin remaineth.” If, like this man, you were without the power of seeing, and had no opportunity of cure, you would have no sin; for no man is required to use a power he has not. What should we think of a man living in the midst of beautiful scenery but refusing to open his eyes? But the case of the spiritually blind, with the faculties of reason and conscience and the sun of the gospel streaming on them, is worse than this. “Men love darkness rather than light,” etc. (D. Thomas, D. D.)

The opening of the eyes

The man had been blind all his life; he was blind that morning; now, at night, he saw. The wonderful beauty of the world had burst upon him. The greatest luxury of sense that man enjoys was his, and he was revelling in its new-found enjoyment. He was intensely grateful to the Friend who had given it to him. He loved Him and thanked Him with his whole heart. And just then Jesus steps in and questions him; not, “Are you glad and grateful?” but, “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?” It is a new thought, a new view altogether. We can almost see the surprise and bewilderment creep over his glad face. He had it on his lips to thank his Friend, and lo! suddenly he was dealing with God, and with the infinite relations between God and man.

I. THE LORD’S QUESTION. What does it mean? This: Are you glad and grateful for these things as little separate sensations of pleasure? That amounts to nothing. Or are you thankful for them as manifestations of the Divine life to yours, as tokens of that fatherhood of God which found its great utterance, including all others, in the Incarnation of His Son? That is everything. No wonder that such a question brings surprise. It is so much more than you expected. It is like the poor Neapolitan peasant, who struck his spade into the soil to dig a well, and the spade went through into free space, and he had discovered all the hidden wealth of Herculaneum. No wonder there is surprise at first; but afterward you see that in the belief in a manifested Son of God, if you could gain it, you would have just the principle of spiritual unity in which your life is wanting, and the lack of which makes so much of its very best so valueless. If you could believe in one great utterance of God, one incarnate word, the manifested pity of God, and the illustrated possibility of man at once--then, with such a central point, there could be no more fragmentariness anywhere. All must fall into its relation to it, to Him, and so the unity of life show forth.

II. THE MAN’S ANSWER. “I do not know,” he seems to say, “I did not mean anything like that; I did not seem to believe, but yet I have not evidently exhausted or fathomed my own thought. There is something below that I have not realized. Perhaps I do believe. At any rate I should like to. The vague notion attracts me. I will believe if I can. Who is He, Lord, that I might believe on Him?” The simplicity and frankness, the guilelessness and openness of the man makes us like him more than ever. There is evidently for him a chance, nay, a certainty, that he will be greater, fuller, better than he is. Some natures are inclusive; some are exclusive. Some men seem to be always asking, “How much can I take in?” and some are always asking, “How much can I shut out?” One man wants to believe; he welcomes evidence. He asks, “Who is He, that I may believe on Him?” Another man seems to dread to believe; he has ingenuity in discovering the flaws of proof. If he asks for more information, it is because he is sure that some objection or discrepancy will appear which will release him from the unwelcome duty of believing. We see the two tendencies, all of us, in people that we know. Carried to their extremes, they develop on one side the superstitious, on the other the sceptical spirit. More than we think, far more, depends upon this first attitude of the whole nature--upon whether we want to believe or to disbelieve. To one who finds the forces of this life sufficient, an incarnation, a supernatural salvation, is incredible. To one who, looking deeper, knows there must be some infinite force which it has not found yet--some loving, living force of Emmanuel, of God with man--the Son of God is waiting OH the threshold and will immediately come.

III. How will He come? Read THE LORD’S REPLY. “Thou hast both seen Him, and it is He that talketh with thee.” The teaching that seems to me to be here for us is this--that when Christ “comes,” as we say, to a human soul, it is only to the consciousness of the soul that He is introduced, not to the soul itself; He has been at the doors of that from its very beginning. We live in a redeemed world--a world full of the Holy Ghost forever doing Christ’s work, forever taking of the things of Christ and showing them to us. That Christ so shown is the most real, most present power in this new Christian world. Men see Him, talk with Him continually. They do not recognize Him; they do not know what lofty converse they are holding; but some day when a man has become really earnest and wants to believe in the Son of God, and is asking, “Who is He that I may believe on Him?” then that Son of God comes to him--not as a new guest from the lofty heaven, but as the familiar and slighted Friend, who has waited and watched at the doorstep, who has already from the very first filled the soul’s house with such measure of His influence as the soul’s obstinacy of indifference would allow, and who now, as He steps in at the soul’s eager call to take complete and final possession of its life, does not proclaim His coming in awful, new, unfamiliar words, but says in tones which the soul recognizes and wonders that it has not known long before, “Thou hast seen Me, I have talked with thee.” (Phillips Brooks, D. D.)

Sight for those who see not

Jesus has come into the world for judgment, but not for the last and unchangeable judgment. “His fan is in His hand.” He sits as a refiner. His cross has revealed the thoughts of many hearts, and everywhere His gospel acts as a discoverer, a separator, a test by which men may judge themselves if they will. Light no sooner comes than it begins to judge the darkness. When the gospel comes, some hearts receive it at once, and are judged to be “honest and good ground,” and “come to the light, that their deeds may be made manifest,” etc. Other hearts at once hate the truth, because their deeds are evil. Observe

1. Wherever Christ comes the most decided effects will follow. Whoever you are, the gospel must be to you a savour of life or of death, antidote or poison, curing or killing. It will make you see, or else, because you fancy you see, its very brightness will make you blind. If you live without it, you will die; if you feel that you are dead without it, it will make you live.

2. Christ has come that those who see not may see.

(1) The gospel is meant for people who think themselves most unsuited for it and undeserving of it; it is a sight for those who see not.

(2) Since Christ has come to open men’s eyes, I know He did not come to open those bright eyes that seem to say, “No oculist is needed here.” When there is a charity breakfast the invited guests are not the royal family. So Christ comes to the needy.

3. Let us take the blind man for a model.

I. HE KNEW THAT HE WAS BLIND, and took up his proper position as a beggar. Many of you are too high, and must come down. You fancy that you have kept the law from your youth, are and all that you ought to be. As long as you think thus the blessing is delayed. But some of you say: “I scarcely know my condition. I am not right, I know; I feel so blind.” You are on your way to a cure.

II. HE HAD A SINCERE DESIRE TO BE ENLIGHTENED. Christ heals no one who evinces no desire to be healed.

III. HE WAS VERY OBEDIENT. As soon as the Lord said, “Go, wash,” he went; he had no Abana and Pharpar which he preferred to the pool. That is a good word in the prophet, “O Lord, Thou art the Potter and we are the clay.” What can the clay do to help the potter? Be pliable.

IV. WHEN HE SAW, HE OWNED IT. The least that you can do for your Healer is to confess Him.

V. HE BEGAN TO DEFEND THE MAN WHO OPENED HIS EYES. When the Lord opened the eyes of a great blind sinner, that man will not have Him spoken against. Some of your genteel Christians do not speak for Christ above once in six months.

VI. WHEN HIS EYES WERE OPENED, HE WISHED TO KNOW MORE. “Who is He?” And when he found that He was the Son of God, he worshipped Him. If you have not seen Jesus of Nazareth to be “very God of very God,” you have seen nothing. VII. HOW IS IT THAT SUCH BLIND MEN COME TO SEE?

1. They have no conceit to hinder Christ. It is easier to save us from our sins than from our righteousness.

2. They refuse to speculate; they want certainties. When a man feels his blindness, if you discuss before him the five nothings of modern theology, he says: “I do not want them: there is no comfort in them to a lost soul.”

3. They are glad to lean on God. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Are we blind also?--All quarrelling is about the application of general granted rules to personal private cases. (Epictetus.)

There is no such hindrance to proficiency as too timely a conceit of knowledge (Revelation 3:17; Luke 8:13; Luke 8:15). (Dr. Hammond.)

I suppose that many might have attained to wisdom had they not thought they had already attained to it (Jeremiah 8:8; Isaiah 42:18). (Seneca.)

It is a woeful condition of a Church when no man will allow himself to be ignorant (Psalms 12:4). (Bp. Hall.)

If ye were blind, ye should have no sin

The sense of sin leads to holiness and the conceit of holiness to sin

Some of the most significant of Christ’s teachings are put in the form of a verbal contradiction: “He that findeth his life shaft lose it,” etc.; “Whosoever hath not from him shall be taken,” etc. But the impressiveness of the truth taught is all the greater from being couched in terms that would nonplus a mere verbal critic. It is so with regard to John 9:39 and the text.

I. THE SENSE OF SIN CONDUCTS TO HOLINESS upon the general principle of supply and demand. This law holds good

1. In our earthly affairs. If one nation requires grain from abroad, another will sow and reap to meet the requisition. If our country requires fabrics it cannot well produce, another will toil to furnish them. From year to year the wants of mankind are thus met.

2. In the operations of Providence. God’s goodness is over all His works. He opens His hand and satisfies the desire of every living thing. Famines are the exception and not the rule. Seedtime and harvest fail not from century to century, and there is no surplus to be wanted.

3. In the kingdom of grace. If God is ready to feed the ravens, He is more ready to supply the spiritual wants of His sinful creatures. He takes more pleasure in filling the hungry soul than the hungry mouth. “If ye, being evil,” etc. If there were only a demand for heavenly food as importunate as there is for earthly, the supply would be at once forthcoming in infinite abundance. For no sinful creature can know his religious necessities without crying out for a supply. Can a man hunger without begging food? No more can a conscious sinner without crying, “Create in me a clean heart,” etc. And the promises are more explicit in respect to heavenly blessings. You may beg God to restore you to health, to give you a competence, and He may not see fit to grant your prayer. But if you say, “God be merciful to me, a sinner,” you will certainly obtain an answer, for this will not injure you as the other may; and God has expressly said that it is always His will that man should seek mercy, and always His delight to grant it. Come, then, for all things are now ready (1 John 5:14).

II. THE CONCEIT OF HOLINESS LEADS TO SIN. We are met at the very outset with the fact that a conceit is in its own nature sin. It is self-deception. The disposition of the Pharisee to say, “We see,” is an insuperable obstacle to every gracious affection. Christianity is a religion for the poor in spirit. Conceit opposes this, and puffs up a man with pride and fills him with sin.

1. Religion is a matter of the understanding, and consists in a true knowledge of Divine things. Self-flattery is fatal to all spiritual discernment

(1) It prevents a true knowledge of one’s own heart. The Pharisee who said, “God, I thank Thee,” etc., was utterly ignorant of his own heart, and impervious to any light that might fall upon it.

(2) It precluded all true knowledge of God. Humility is necessary to spiritual discernment. God repulses a proud intellect, and shuts Himself up from all haughty scrutiny. “To this man will I look,” etc.

2. Religion is a matter of the affections, and the injurious influence of a conceit of holiness in these is even more apparent. Nothing is more deadening to emotion than pride. If you would extinguish all religious sensibility within yourself, become a Pharisee.

Conclusion:

1. The practical lesson is the necessity of obtaining a sense of sin. So long as we think or say that we “see” we are out of all saving relations to the gospel. The foundation of true science is willingness to be ignorant, and so it is in religion. The instant a vacuum is produced the air will rush into it, and the instant any soul becomes emptied of its conceit of holiness, and becomes an aching void, and reaches out after something purer and better, it is filled with what it wants.

2. As an encouragement to this we may depend on the aid of the Holy Spirit. (Prof. Shedd.)

Blind yet seeing

A blind boy, that had suffered imprisonment at Gloucester not long before, was brought to Bishop Hooper the day before his death. Mr. Hooper, after he had examined of his faith and the cause of his imprisonment, beheld him steadfastly, and the water appearing in his eyes, said unto him, “Ah! poor boy, God hath taken from thee thy outward sight, but hath given thee another sight much more precious; for He hath endued thy soul with the eye of knowledge and faith.” (J. Trapp.)

Help for the needy

I have felt a wonderful satisfaction in feeding a poor half-starved dog that had no master and nothing to eat. How he has looked up with pleasure in my face when he has been fed to the full! Depend upon it the Lord Jesus Christ will take delight in feeding a poor hungry sinner. You feel like a poor dog, do you not? Then Jesus cares for you. (C. H.Spurgeon.)

The emptiness of self-righteous boasting

The governor of a besieged city threw loaves of bread over the wall to the besiegers, to make them believe that the citizens had such large supplies that they could afford to throw them away; yet they were starving all the while. There are some men of like manners; they have nothing that they can offer unto God, but yet they exhibit a glittering self-righteousness. Oh! they have been so good, such superior people, so praiseworthy from their youth up; they never did anything much amiss; there may be a little speck here and there upon their garments, but that will brush off when it is dry. They make a fair show in the flesh with morality and formality, and a smattering of generosity. Besides, they profess to be religious: they attend Divine service, and pay their quota of the expenses. Who could find any fault with such good people? Just so; this profession is the fine horse and trap with which they too are cutting a dash just before going through the court. There is nothing at all in you, and there never was. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Misery of unconscious blindness

In this unconsciousness lies the heart of the mischief. Helpless man is unconscious of his own helplessness. Because they say, “We see,” therefore their sin remaineth. If they were blind and knew it, it were another matter, and signs of hope would be visible; but to be blind and yet to boast of having superior sight, and to ridicule those who see, is the lamentable condition of not a few. They will not thank us for our pity, but much they need it. Eyes have they, but they see not, and yet they glory in their far-sightedness. Multitudes around us are in this plight. When the prophet says, “Bring forth the blind people that have eyes,” we can only wonder where we should put them all if they were willing to assemble in one place. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

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Introduction

The occasion of Christ’s teaching

The special form which the discourse here takes is probably and almost certainly due to the actual presence of a sheepfold with the shepherds and their flocks. We know that Bethesda was near the “sheepgate,” which is possibly to be identified with a covered portion of the pool of Siloam. We have, in any case, to think of an open fold surrounded by a wall or railing, into which, at eventide, the shepherds lead their flocks, committing them, during the night, to the care of an under-shepherd, who guards the door. In the morning they knock and the porter opens the door, which has been securely fastened, and each shepherd calls his own sheep, who know his voice and follow him. But we must remember that our Lord’s mind and theirs was full of thoughts ready to pass into a train like this. “Thy servants are shepherds, both we and also our fathers” (Genesis 47:3), was the statement of the first sons of Israel, and it was true of their descendants. Their greatest heroes--Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Daniel--had all been shepherds, and no imagery is more frequent in psalm or prophecy than that drawn from the shepherd’s work. We must fill our minds with these Old Testament thoughts if we would understand the chapter. Let anyone before commencing it read thoughtfully Psalms 23:1; Isaiah 40:11; Jeremiah 33:1; Ezekiel 34:1; and especially Zechariah 11:4, and he will have the key which unlocks most of its difficulties. We have, then, the scene passing before their eyes, and the Old Testament thoughts of the shepherd connected as they were, on the one hand with Jehovah and the Messiah, and on the other with the careless shepherds of Israel, dwelling in their minds; and we have in the events which have just taken place, that which furnishes the starting point and gives to what follows its fulness of meaning. The Pharisees claimed to be shepherds of Israel. They decreed who should be admitted to and cast out from the fold. They professed to be interpreters of God’s truth, and with it to feed His flock. Pharisees, shepherds! What did they, with their curses and excommunications, know of the tenderness of the Shepherd, “who shall gather the lambs with His arm,” etc.? Pharisees, feed the flock of God! What had they, with their pride and self-righteousness, ever known of the infinite love and mercy of God; or what had their hearts ever felt of the wants and woes of the masses of mankind? This blind beggar was an example of their treatment of the weaker ones of the flock. The true Shepherd had sought and found this lost sheep, who is now standing near, in His presence and that of the false shepherds. He teaches who the shepherd is and what the flock of God really are. (Archdeacon Watkins.)

The pastoral similitudes

I. FOUR ARE ON THE SIDE OF GOOD; and in all these may be various manifestations of Christ.

1. The door, as affording the sole admission to the Father.

2. The porter as bearing the keys of David, the keys of death and of hell.

3. The shepherd as the guide and guardian of the sheep.

4. And Himself the sheep also, as being made one with them, in order that He might be a sacrifice for them.

II. FOUR ARE ON THE SIDE OF EVIL.

1. The thieves.

2. The robbers; both such as enter not by the door, but prey upon the flock, whether Pharisees, infidels, or heretics.

3. The mercenary, who, though he may enter by the door, is of those who “seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ’s.”

4. The wolf, which is the enemy of the sheep, under whatsoever form he may assume. (I. Williams, B. D.)