The light of God had shone in Jesus (light, not of Jews only, but of the world); yet was He rejected, increasingly and utterly, and with deadly hatred. There was no miracle wrought; it was emphatically His words that we hear, but asserting at length the divine glory of His person. This roused, as it always does, the rancor of unbelief. They believe not on Him, because they bow neither to their own ruin nor to the grace of God, which thus comes down to meet it, revealing the God who is unknown. But Jesus pursues His way of love, and unfolds it in a new and suited form, only to meet with similar rejection afresh, as our chapter and the next will show.
"And passing along he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Rabbi, which sinned, this [man] or his parents, that he should be born blind? Jesus answered, Neither this [man] sinned nor his parents, but that the works of God might be manifested in him. I [or we] must work the works of him that sent me while it is day: night cometh, when no one can work. When I am in the world I am the world's light.” (Vers. 1-4.)
It was an act of pure grace which the Lord was about to do. Nobody, had appealed to Him, not even the blind man or his parents. The disciples only raised a question, one of those curious speculations in which the later Jews delighted: was it the man's sin, or his parents', which had involved him in congenital blindness? Certainly no such Pythagorean fancy prevailed then in Judea, as that a than might have sinned in a previous existence on earth, and be punished for it in an after-state also on earth. Nor is there any sufficient reason to endorse a pious and learned author's view, that the disciples might have entertained—what rabbis afterward drew front Gen. 25:2222And the children struggled together within her; and she said, If it be so, why am I thus? And she went to inquire of the Lord. (Genesis 25:22)—the notion of sin before birth. It seems easy to understand that they conceived, however strangely, of punishment inflicted anticipatively on one whose eventual sin was foreseen by God. Doubtless it was unsound; but this need be no difficulty in the way; for what question or assertion of the disciples did not betray error enough to draw out the unerring correction, so precious to them and us, of our Lord? He now puts the, case on its real purpose in the divine mind—that the works of God might be manifested in him. It is the day of grace now; therefore was Jesus come; and this was just an opportunity for the display of the gracious power. Yet man understands not grace but by faith, and even believers only so far as faith is in exercise. Government is the natural thought when one sees God's cognizance of everything and every one here below. But it was not then, nor is it now, the time for His government of the world. Here lay the mistake of the disciples then, as of Job's friends of old—a mistake which leads souls, not only to censoriousness and misjudgment, but to forget their own sins and need of repentance in occupying themselves with what they count God's vengeance on others.
Here, however, it is not the side of uncharitable self-righteousness which the Lord exposes. He speaks of the activity and purpose of grace as the key. It was no question of sin, either in the blind man or in his parents, but of God's manifesting His works in his grievous need and sorrow.
Further, the pressure of His rejection was felt by our Lord, whatever the holy calm which could so quickly turn from man's murderous hatred to a work of divine love. “I must work the works of him that sent me while it is day: night cometh, when no one can work.” He was the “light” of the “day” which was then shining for Him to do the will and manifest the love of the One who sent Him, yea, to declare God (see chap. 1:18), whom man otherwise was incapable of seeing. Truly the need was great, for man, like the one in question, was utterly blind. But Jesus was the Creator, though man amongst men. Let Him be in the world, He is its light. It attaches alike to His mission, and to His person, and to His divine nature.
"Having said these things, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and spread the clay over his eyes, and said to him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, which is interpreted, Sent. He went away therefore, and washed, and came seeing.” (Vers. 6, 7.) This was no unmeaning act on Christ's part, no mere test of obedience on the man's. It was a sign of the truth which the chapter reveals, or at least in harmony with it. For He who was there manifesting the works of God was Himself a man, and had deigned to take the body prepared for Him; most holy, beyond all doubt, as became the Son of God, who knew no sin, about to be made sin for us on the cross, but none the less really of the woman, of flesh and blood, as the children's were. But incarnation, precious as is the grace of the Lord in it, of itself is quite insufficient for man's need; yea, it seems rather to add at first to the difficulty, as did the clay on the man's eyes. The Spirit must work by the word, as well as the Son come into the world, Jesus Christ come in flesh. Without the effectual work of the Holy Spirit in man he cannot see. Compare John 3 So it is here; the man must go to the pool of Siloam, and wash there. Attention is the more fixed on this by the appended interpretation or meaning of the word. It signifies the soul's recognition that Jesus was the sent One of God, sent to do His will and finish His work, the Son, yet servant withal, to accomplish the great salvation of God. The heart is thus purified by faith. Now the man has eyes and can see, not when the clay was laid on, but when he washed in the pool of Siloam. Christ must be here, and a man too, in contact with men in all their darkness; but only when the Holy Ghost applies the word to the conscience do they, owning Him to be the Sent of God, receive sight. Not incarnation only but the efficacious work of the Spirit is needed that man may see according to God. According to His own mercy He saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Ghost, which He shed on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that, being justified by His grace, we might Become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
“The neighbors therefore, and those who used to see him before that he was a beggar, said, Is not this he that sitteth and beggeth? Some said, It is he; others said, No, but he is like him; but he said, It is I. They said therefore to him, How then were thine eyes opened? He answered, The man that is called Jesus made clay, and anointed mine eyes, and said to me, Go unto Siloam, and wash. Having gone away then and washed I received sight. And they said to him, Where is he? He saith, I do not know.” (Vers. 8-12.)
Those accustomed to the blind beggar could not conceal their surprise and perplexity; for as the sightless eyes are a prime disfigurement of the human face, so their presence thus unexpectedly changed the man's entire expression. No wonder that they wondered; yet was the fact certain, and the evidence incontestable. God took care that there should be many witnesses, and would make the testimony felt the more it was discussed and weighed. Had they known who Jesus was, and for what He was sent, they would have understood the fitness of the work done that day. But he on whom the work was wrought gave out no uncertain sound. He was the man whom they were used to see sitting and begging. His witness to Jesus is most explicit. He does not know much yet, but what he knows he declares with plain decision. How could he doubt whose eyes were opened? Did they ask how it was? His answer was ready and unreserved, “The man that is [or a man] called Jesus made clay, and anointed mine eyes, and said to me, Go to Siloam and wash.” And the mighty effect followed at once— “And having gone away and washed, I received sight.” They are curious to know where Jesus is, but the man is as frank in acknowledging his ignorance of this, as before in confessing the reality of what He had done. It might not be to his own praise that he did not return to Jesus in thanksgiving for God's grace; but God would use it to show how wholly the worker and the object of the work were above collusion. How few have the honesty to say “I do not know” when they know as little as he, who here owns it. Yet is it no light condition of learning more.
On the other hand we see that the Lord not only would draw attention by men's debate, and the man's distinct testimony, but leaves the man for the present, that, by his own reflection on what was done and answering their questions, he might be prepared both for trial that was coming, and for still better blessing from and in Himself. The agitation among the neighbors was to be followed quickly by the more serious inquisition of the religious chiefs. These, as we shall see, readily find matter in the good deed for their usual malevolence toward that which brought honor to God independently of them. Worldly religion, whatever its profession, is really and always a systematic effort to make God the servant of man's pride and selfishness. It knows not love, and values not holiness; it is offended by the faith that, feeding on the word, serves by the Spirit of God, glories in Christ Jesus, and has no confidence in, the flesh. It hates walking in the light as a constant thing, as it only wants religion at its fit times and seasons as a shield against the day of death and the hour of judgment. Hence, for the Son of God to be here on earth, a man presented to men's eyes, blind as they are, and sending them where they can wash and see, outside the regular established religion of the land and without the medium of the accredited guides, is intolerable. It comes out plainly in what follows, a most weighty and, I doubt not, intended lesson in this instructive narrative.