With John 8, the great controversy between light and darkness is all but closed. Jesus of Nazareth is despised and rejected of men. When He announces Himself as “I am,” and again in John 10, where He declares His oneness with the Father, they take up stones to kill the “Prince of Life.”
In Matthew, they gather in classes against Him: chief priests and elders, Pharisees and scribes, Sadducees and Herodians; to be refuted, indeed, and denounced; but how different from the solemn scene before us (ch. 5-9), where all the sources of good and evil are revealed, and everything traced up to its own source: light and darkness; the Father and the world; heaven and hell; Christ and Satan; truth and falsehood; bondage and freedom.
In John’s first epistle, the Father and the world are in immediate contrast. Under the law His name as Father was not made known; nor was the moral judgment of the world pronounced, as in Jesus words, “now is the judgment of this world” (John 12).
Chapter 8 begins with the effort of the scribes and Pharisees to put the Lord in a place of apparent opposition to Moses, and thus to destroy the authority of His word amongst the people, it ends with their taking up stones to cast at Him. Hatred from first to last — already it was true that they had both seen and hated both Himself and His Father (John 15:2424If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. (John 15:24)).
It is interesting to note that the great subjects treated of in these chapters (5-9) are preceded by the history of the impotent man, and followed by that of the blind man, illustrating a great principle of divine action amongst men: My strength is made perfect in weakness.
We learn from 1 Corinthians 1, that “not many powerful, wise, or noble, are called; but that God has chosen the weak things of the world, that He may put to shame the strong things; and things that are not, that He may annul things that are; so that no flesh should boast before God.” The lines on which the world moves have neither starting-point nor goal in Him, as that passage very fully teaches; but God in the midst of it choosing, is a word of grace, and one that humbles all pride. Even in revealing the wondrous truth that the chosen ones are “of God,” man is regarded simply as an object of divine mercy and love. It is in Christ Jesus that the position is given to them.
It will be noticed that the healing, in each case, was on the sabbath day, to the deep offence of religious flesh. To touch that which was the sign of rest, and all that they possessed of it, was unpardonable. Of the import of the blessed truth contained in, “My Father worketh hitherto and I work,” they knew as little as many in our day.
What was God doing on those sabbath days, and what did this mean, God Himself present in the Person of Jesus, in the fullness of grace, amidst the ripened iniquity of perishing sinners? Where, then, but in Jesus alone, could the rest and sanctuary of God have been found on earth? And where, now, is rest in spirit realized by His people, save in Himself, at the right hand of God?
Verse 2. The disciples were thinking of God’s ways in government, in which He visited the iniquities of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hated Him; but the Lord interprets it as a case serving to illustrate God’s ways in grace rather than in government. “Neither has this man sinned, nor his parents, but that the works of God should be manifested in him.” It always comes to this (if man is to be happy before Him) — to the works of God — the great atoning work of the cross for him, the work of the Spirit of God in him. Let us hold fast the word of verse 3: The works of God “manifested in him.” It is no question here of mere profession, much less of man’s works, but of God’s, wrought and manifested in man. “He who has begun a good work in you will complete it unto Jesus Christ’s day” (Phil. 1). Saved by grace, through faith that is God’s gift, His workmanship. In John 9 we have the Lord’s word and testimony, He was Himself in principle what He said — the true Witness. But in chapter 9 we have His works. In chapter 8, He is the light of the world absolutely, here He says, “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” It was moral glory — that light that shone in the marred visage of Jehovah’s Servant, and by its brightness, even now, the saints are guided: yet not by that alone, for in the unveiled face of the Servant highly exalted, “the light of God’s glory changes the beholder into the same image. Outside that light, all is darkness and chaos, as every one will find in the end.
In chapter 8, He tells them His word has no place in them; and again, “Ye cannot hear My word.” See what the consequence was in each case, and what He says of their condition in John 5, they had not the Father’s word abiding in them, had neither heard His voice, nor seen His shape; Himself, as the Sent of the Father, they believed not. Not to have the Father’s word abiding in them, was to know Him not. It is evident that they did not believe in the Son, that is, that they had neither the Father nor the Son, and, consequently, had not eternal life abiding in them: “for this is the eternal life, that they should know Thee, [the Father], the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.”
What was wanting, in John 9, was eyes to see the Light: in chapter 8, it was ears to hear the divine word; so that, even to see, a work of God must be wrought (1 Cor. 2). “Take up thy couch and walk,” was not more directly from God, with accompanying power, than “Go to Siloam and wash.” But, surely, one will say, “We must see if the light is before us.” Then we are not blind spiritually, by nature, and do not want eye salve that we may see; it was a mistake too, to say that power belongs to God. Yet David says, “God hath spoken once; twice have I heard this, that power belongeth unto God.” And what do the following texts teach? No one can come to me except the Father who has sent me draw him. “Every one that has heard from the Father Himself, and has learned of Him comes to me.” And, again, “Every plant which My heavenly Father has not planted shall be rooted up.”
The believer learns that his sufficiency is of God only. It is the very sense of our own estate (“without strength” and sinful), that makes the power and grace of God so precious to him that believeth.
But the Father drawing, the Father teaching, the Father planting, words of divine power and grace, are necessary of those works which endure unto eternity. Here alone there is no rooting up, no one plucks from that hand, nor in that drawing does any one fail to reach in spirit the Person of the Savior.
Verses 4-7. “I must work the works of Him that has sent Me, while it is day. The night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. Having said these things, He spat on the ground and made mud of the spittle, and put the mud, as ointment, on his eyes. And he said to him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, which is interpreted, Sent.” This is the great subject of this chapter, Christ, in the power of God, communicating sight to the blind.
Nothing more glorious than Christ as light, but what is light to a sightless man? It has been explained, and I believe rightly, that the clay, mixed with that which came out of His mouth, signified the humanity of Christ, with the virtue of that which came from Himself. His presence in flesh can no man understand, even as He said Himself, “No man knows the Son but the Father.”
The energy of the Holy Ghost makes one understand that Jesus was the Sent One of the Father. Siloam means Sent. In His personal relationship to the Father, in the divine nature, and in His wondrous position in humanity, as the Sent One, He was equally outside the sphere and range of mere natural intelligence; but many have forgotten, or never learned, that the things of God knows no one except the Spirit of God.
In John 10 we read, “Do ye say of Him whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest, because I said, I am Son of God?” But this in reply to their heartless cavilings, here in the divine power of grace, and truly in the grace of that power, it is, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam.”
The Spirit of God causes it to be seen that Christ in humiliation is the Sent One. The Lord uses these three terms to express His relation to the Father in His path of service as Man; sent and sealed; taught. No words could more perfectly describe the obedient, dependent Man. It was in these relations that He shone as Light of the world, Light of life, and Light of man.
Let us mark the connection between the life of obedience and dependence, and the witness of light. The life and the testimony were one and inseparable, in this lay the true pathway of power also; but an unfrequented one. Of all the ways of Sion, none so little known as this, for it cannot be traversed, save in the spirit of Him whose footsteps first revealed it, and the burden of His testimony, His personal testimony, one may say, was ever, “the Son can do nothing of Himself”: for Him all was from the Father (He lived on account of, or by the Father). But to this was joined what no creature could utter or think: whatsoever He [the Father] doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise” (John 5:1919Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. (John 5:19)). A new and wondrous aspect of humanity; and one that had no counterpart in any previous history of man. Dependence and devotion the most absolute, to a supreme Object, realized in the enjoyment of a Son’s place with the Father, where His own will was never found; absorbed in that of the Father. But these perfections were seen in Man upon earth (a new thing there), the second Man out of heaven. Presently the glory of God would be seen in the face of Man in heaven, new truths also, and equally wondrous, for who had ever seen man in heaven, and the glory of the Lord Himself shining in the unveiled face? (2 Cor. 4). Created man as first presented to us in the garden of Eden, was not thus characterized, the glory of God never shone from the face of the first man, holiness and righteousness had no application to him, he stood before his Creator in the innocence of a creature unconscious of evil. Yet his position was a wondrous one, the image and likeness of God, head and center of the earthly system, a glorious position certainly; but how different from that of the Second Man, who, when Satan and the world had been overcome and sin put away, was set down at the right hand of God in the heavenlies, above every principality and authority and power, all things put under His feet, Head over all things to the church, His body, as much a Man in all that scene of exaltation, as in the day when he, whose eyes had been opened, gave his simple testimony: “A man that is called Jesus [Jehovah the Savior] made clay, and anointed mine eyes, and said unto me, Go to the pool of Siloam, and wash: and I went and washed, and I received sight.”
As to the work wrought in him being a work of God, no argument or reasoning was needed; neither the knowledge nor the wit of man could add anything to this, “I went and washed, and I received sight.” Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind. “In the language of the epistle (1 John 4) he had “the witness in himself,” he saw. The action of the Spirit is shown in the way the Man who had opened his eyes is connected in his thoughts with God, there was no place nor occasion for any uncertainty.
First, in reply to their query, “What sayest thou of Him, that He hath opened thine eyes? He said, He is a prophet.” Now a prophet is one who has the mind of God, an interpreter of His thoughts to man. The once blind cannot think of Him apart from thinking of God. Then next, Jesus is for him a holy person — a worshiper of God, a doer of His will. Such an one God hears. He must be of God, for otherwise He could do nothing.
There is something like this in John 4. The woman of Samaria takes Him for a Jew; after-wards she says, “I perceive that Thou art a prophet.” The light dawns. “I know that Messias cometh, he will tell us all things.” The morn is near. “I that speak unto thee am He.” It is daylight; the Light of the world is there. And we have a similar scene here, light breaking in on a dark soul. It was a marvelous thing to him, that they knew not whence He was who had opened his eyes. Such was the reasoning of faith, which for simplicity and truth has, one cannot but think, rarely been surpassed, whether amongst Jews or Greeks. We are reminded of it in Nicodemus, “We know that Thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that Thou doest, except God be with him.”
How true was his simple teaching, “If this man were not of God, he could do nothing.” But truth and simplicity have no attraction for the heart of man. This is especially manifested, when found connected with any true recognition of God. Already enjoying the effect of divine goodness, he is quickly called to share the Savior’s position in the world. “They cast him out.” It was but fellowship with the “despised and rejected of men,” whom he is now to know, not merely as a man called Jesus, or as a prophet of God: Jesus “said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God?” His heart is evidently prepared to receive what the prophet of God, who had opened the eyes of one who was born blind, had to say to him. All that was needed was to be pointed to the Person, and then there is no delay; “Lord, I believe. And he worshiped Him.”
It was a bright and blessed scene, the revelation of the Son of God in His own Person, by the Shepherd of Israel, to this once lost sheep, but an unspeakably solemn one for those who refused to hear the Shepherd’s voice.
We shall have more about the Shepherd and the sheep, the flock and the fold, in the next chapter.