Whenever God acts, the men of religion set up to judge, and the neighbors fear their displeasure more than they pitied the blind man or rejoiced in his healing. Such men are accredited of the world, and count it their province to decide such questions, while others love to have it so. What then will the Pharisees say? They had caviled before.
"They bring unto the Pharisees him that was once blind.” (Ver. 13.) Nor are the Pharisees slow to detect a flaw, as they supposed. Not that the man had not been blind, nor that Jesus had failed to give him sight; but had they not both, Jesus especially, broken the law? “Now it was sabbath [on the day] when Jesus made the clay, and opened his eyes.” (Ver. 14.) How little men, particularly those whom public opinion regard as pillars, are apt to suspect that their will exposes them to Satan But so it is, and above all, where the Son of God is concerned, who was manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil, and give us an understanding that we should know Him that is true. But those who, confident in their traditions, dare to arraign the Savior, commit themselves the more to the enemy, because they flatter themselves that they are upholding the cause of God. Thus are they ensnared to the destruction of themselves and of all who heed them.
"Again therefore the Pharisees also asked him how be received sight. And he said to them, He put clay upon mine eyes, and I washed and do see. Some of the Pharisees said, This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the sabbath. Others said, How can a sinful man do such signs? And there was a division among them.” (Vers. 15, 16.) They are uneasy, whatever may be their affectation of superior sanctity and zeal for God's honor. The power which gave sight where blindness had ever rested hitherto startled them, and excited their curiosity, with the desire of discovering an evil source if not of alarming the man. But grace wrought in him, and gave him quiet courage to confess the good deed wrought, albeit on a sabbath and without a word about it. “He put clay upon mine eyes, and I washed and do see.” God calls us, when blessed through Christ, all to be confessors, though not all martyrs; and surely it is the least we owe Him in praise and our fellow-men in love.
But all true confession is odious to the religious world and its leaders. “Therefore said some of the Pharisees, This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the sabbath.” This malicious plea had been already refuted; but Pharisaism has no heart for, no subjection to, the truth. It had never entered their consciences, or they had forgotten it in their zeal for forms and traditions. But how sad the self-deceit of men destitute of true holiness, or of real obedience, daring to arraign the Holy One of God!
Yet others there were among them not so blinded by party passion or personal envy, who ventured to say a word, if they took no further step. “Others said, How can a sinful man do such signs?” All they meant was, that He who wrought thus could be no such deceiver or impostor as the rest conceived. They had no right view of Himself, of His person, or His relation to God. They had not the faintest idea that He was God manifest in flesh; but they questioned whether He must not be “of God,” since He did such signs. “And there was a division among them.” Thus, as they were not yet of one mind, there was a delay for Satan's design.
But in their restlessness they examine once more the man, and are used unwittingly by the God of grace to help him on in the apprehension and acknowledgment of the truth which is according to piety. “They say, therefore, to the blind [man] again, Thou, what sayest thou of him, because he opened thine eyes? And he said, He is a prophet.” (Ver. 17.) The first examination was as to the fact and the manner. Now they want to force out of the man his thoughts of his benefactor, in their malice wishing to find a plea for condemning both. On the other hand, the grace of God is as manifest as it is sweet in using the painful trial and exercise of soul to His own glory, through the man led on and blessed only the more. He knew their hatred of Jesus, yet he answers their challenge boldly, “He is a prophet” —a decided advance on his previous confession, though far from the truth he is soon to learn. He owns that Jesus has the mind of God as well as His power.
Baffled by his quiet firmness, the religious inquisitors turned to another and accustomed means of assault. As the neighbors in their perplexity appeal to the Pharisees, so these work on and by natural relationships. They would try whether some disproof could not be suede out of the parents. Clearly unbelief lies at the bottom of all. Man, being fallen and evil, is unwilling to believe in the goodness of God, above all in His grace to himself. Had the neighbors bowed to the clear evidence Of God's intervention, they would not have brought the man to the Pharisees; had the Pharisees, they would not have persisted in sifting again and again beyond the ascertainment of the fact, still less would they have awakened the fears of the family. “The Jews therefore did not believe concerning him that he was blind, and received sight, until they called the parents of him that received sight, and asked him, saying, Is this your son who, ye say, was born blind? how then doth he now see? His parents therefore answered and said, We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but how he now seeth we know not, or who opened his eyes we know not; ask himself, he is of age, he will speak for himself. These things said his parents because they feared the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that, if any one should confess him [to be] Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue. On this account his parents said, He is of age; ask him.” (Vers. 18-23.)
The matter of fact is thus again the cardinal question as it really was; and as to this the parents answered conclusively. That the man saw now was undeniable, and this through Jesus, as he declared; that he was their son and born blind, the parents maintained unhesitatingly. The conclusion was irresistible, if unbelief did not resist everything where God is concerned. The parents answer only where they are concerned. It was not that they, or any reasonable person, doubted that Jesus had wrought the miracle; but they dreaded the consequence, from Pharisaic enmity, of going beyond their own circle of natural knowledge, and pleaded ignorance of how it was done, or of who it was that did it. Overborne by fear of the Pharisees, they forget even the affection that would otherwise have sheltered their offspring from the impending blow, and they throw all the burden on their own son. “Ask him; he is of age, he will speak concerning himself.” Thus their very fears, on which the Pharisees reckoned for a denial of the facts, God used to make it solely a controversy between the Pharisees and the man himself, when they were compelled by the evidence of the parents to accept as a certain fact that he who now saw had been ever blind, and blind till just now.
Another thing also comes out very plainly, that the enmity of the Jews to the Lord Jesus was known to have gone ere this, so far as to threaten with excommunication every one that confessed Him to be the Christ.
Hence the man is once more appealed to, and all question of the miracle is dropped. “Therefore they called a second time the man who was blind, and said to him, Give glory to God; we know that this man is a sinner. He therefore answered, If he is a sinner I know not. One thing I know, that, blind as I was, now I see.” (Vers. 24, 25.) They now assume the highest ground; they at least bold to the divine side, if others are carried away by the apparent good done to man. Accordingly they call on him to give glory to God, whilst they assert their unqualified assurance that Jesus was a sinner. Nor has it been an uncommon thing, from that day to this, for men to profess to honor God at the expense of His Son; as the Lord warned His disciples to expect to the uttermost, where the Father and the Son are unknown. But the man in his simplicity puts forward the fact which he deeply felt, and they would fain hide. “If he is a sinner I know not. One thing I know, that, blind as I was, I now see.” No argument can stand against the logic of reality, above all of such a reality as this. He certainly did not know Jesus to be a sinner; but that it could not be he alleges the most distinct and irrefragable proof, and this on their own ground of what was before all. If reasoning is unseasonable and powerless, what is religious antipathy in presence of an undeniable fact which proves the mighty power and goodness of God? Their efforts showed their ill-will to Him who had thus wrought: the blessed reality remained, whatever the insinuations or the assaults of unbelief.
It is well also to remark that with faith goes a mighty operation of God, with its own characteristic effects, and more important in every soul that believes the gospel than even that of which the man, once blind but now seeing, was so sensible. Those who believe are quickened from death in trespasses and sins, and they henceforth live to God. Crucified with Christ, they nevertheless live, yet not they themselves properly, but Christ lives in them. They are thereby partakers of divine nature, being born of God. It is no improvement of their old nature as men. They are born of water and of the Spirit, begotten by the word of truth. With faith goes this new life, which shows itself in wholly different thoughts and affections, as well as ways or walk. Of its gradual progress in the midst of opposition and persecution the story of this blind man, who now saw, is no unapt illustration.