John 9:39-41

“ And Jesus said, I am come into this world to exercise this judgment, that those who see not may see, and that those who see may become blind. 40. And those of the Pharisees who were with him heard these words and they said to him, And are we also blind? 41. Jesus said to them, If you were blind, you would not have sin; but now you say, We see; therefore, your sin remains. ”

Here is a simple reflection to which Jesus gives utterance, and which is connected with the dignity of light of the world which He had attributed to Himself at the beginning of this scene (John 9:5).

So the verb εἶπεν, he said, is left without a limiting personal object such as: to them. The coming of Jesus has for its end, strictly, to enlighten the world; but as this end cannot be attained in all, because all are not willing to allow themselves to be enlightened, it has another secondary end: that those who reject the light should be blinded by it. It is not necessary to see in the term κρίμα, judgment, the indication of a judicial act. Such a judgment had been denied in John 3:17. The question is of a moral result of the attitude taken by the men themselves with regard to Jesus, but a result which was necessary and willed from on high (ἦλθον εἰς). The term in this world recalls the expression: light of this world (John 9:5). The greater part of the interpreters (Calvin, Lucke, Meyer, etc.) give to the expression: Those who see not, a subjective meaning: “Those who feel and acknowledge that they do not see.” This interpretation arbitrarily weakens the sense of the expression employed by Jesus and it does not suit the context, since the man whose cure occasions these words, did not feel his blindness more than other blind persons, and since, speaking spiritually, he did not simply feel himself more ignorant than others, but he was so in reality. Those who do not see are therefore men who are really sunk in spiritual ignorance. They are those whom the rulers themselves call in John 7:49: “ This multitude who know not the law,” the ignorant in Israel, those whom Jesus designates, Matthew 11:25; Luke 10:21, as the little children (νήπιοι) contrasting them with the wise and intelligent. Those who see are, consequently, those who, throughout this whole chapter, have said, in speaking of themselves: We know, the experts in the law, those whom Jesus calls, in the passage cited, the wise and intelligent (σοφοὶ καὶ συνετοί).

The former, not having any knowledge of their own to keep, yield themselves without difficulty to the revelation of the truth, while the others, not wishing to sacrifice their own knowledge, turn away from the new revelation, and, as we have just seen in this chapter, presume even to annihilate the divine facts by their theological axioms. Hence it results that the former are immediately enlightened by the rays of the sun which rises upon the world, while the imperfect light which the latter possess is transformed into complete darkness. We must notice the delicate contrast between μὴ βλέποντες (those who see not) in the first clause, which denotes a sight not yet developed, and τυφλοί, blind, in the second, which denotes the absolute blindness resulting from the destruction of the organ. This passage expresses, therefore, the same thought as the words of Jesus in the Synoptics: “ I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and intelligent, and hast revealed them unto babes ” (Matthew 11:25; Luke 10:21). Meyer objects that in this sense the seeing or not seeing would relate to the law and the becoming blind to the Gospel, that there would thus be a twofold relation which is not to be accepted. But in the view of Jesus (comp. John 5:45 ff.), the law, when thoroughly understood, and the Gospel are only one and the same increasing moral light. The knowledge of the law must lead, if it is earnestly applied, to the acknowledgment of the Gospel; if the latter had not come, the law itself would have covered the sight with an impenetrable veil (2 Corinthians 3:14-15).

The Pharisees who were at this moment in the company of Jesus, ask Him ironically if He ranks them also, the doctors of Israel, in the number of the blind. I do not think that they make a strict distinction between the non-seeing and the blind of John 9:39. They keep to the general idea of blindness and ask if He applies it to them also.

The answer of Jesus to this sarcasm (John 9:41) is one of crushing severity. Instead of treating them as blind, as they no doubt expected, Jesus says to them, on the contrary: “It were a thing to be wished for, for your sakes, that you were so!” The expression: Those who see not, in this answer, designates those who have not the religious knowledge furnished by the profound study of the law. If those who interrogate Him at this moment had belonged to the ignorant portion of the nation, their unbelief might have been only a matter of surprise or of seduction, something like that sin against the Son of man which can be forgiven in this age or even in the other. But such is not their position. They are possessed of the key of knowledge (Luke 11:52), they possess the knowledge of the law and the prophets.

It is, then, with full knowledge that they reject the Messiah: Behold the Son, this is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours. Here is the exact rendering of their feeling. Their unbelief is the rejection of the truth discerned; this is what renders it unpardonable: ἁμαρτία μένει, their sin remains. Weiss gives to this last word a slightly different sense: the sin of unbelief remains in them because the pride of their own knowledge prevents them from attaining to faith. But the expression sin which remains has certainly a more serious meaning (John 3:36); it has reference to the divine judgment. The meaning of this verse which we have just set forth (comp. Luthardt, Weiss, etc.) appears to me more natural than that given by Calvin, Meyer and most: “If you felt your ignorance, I could heal you; but you boast presumptuously of your knowledge; for this reason your malady is incurable.” The expression: You say (yourselves say), proves nothing in favor of this meaning and against that given by us, as Meyer asserts. These words contain, indeed, an allusion to the ironical question of the Pharisees (John 9:40), by which they had denied their blindness. Their own mouth had thus testified that it was not light which had been wanting to them. “You yourselves acknowledge, by saying constantly, We know, that you are not of those who are ignorant of the preparatory revelations which God has granted to His people. You are therefore without excuse.”

The relation here indicated between the ignorant and the learned in Israel is reproduced on a large scale in the relation between the heathen and the Jews, and with the same result. The sin of the heathen, who so long persecuted the Church, has been forgiven them, while the crime, consciously committed by Israel, of rejecting the Messiah, still rests upon that people. Jesus knew well that this judgment, in which His coming must issue, embraced the whole world; this is the reason why He said in John 9:39: “I am come into this world, in order that...” We shall find the same sentiment at the basis of the following section. Comp. John 10:3-4; John 10:16.