The Blind Beggar
Charles Henry Mackintosh
Table of Contents
The Blind Beggar
“A blind beggar!” What an expression of helplessness and need! What a picture of the real condition of the Jewish nation, and of every unregenerate soul! Let us turn aside for a few moments and gaze upon this singularly striking picture, or to speak more correctly, this most interesting piece of living history, this scene from real life.
The study of John 9 suggests two very important questions; namely, first, What has Jesus done for me? Second, What is Jesus to me? These questions are very distinct and yet closely connected. We shall find them both forcibly illustrated in the glowing narrative of “The Blind Beggar.”
At the close of John 8, we find the Lord Jesus making His escape from the rude violence of the Jews whose wrath was raised to the highest pitch by His pointed and powerful testimony. “Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. Then took they up stones to cast at Him: but Jesus hid Himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.” Such was the return which the blessed Savior met for all His grace and truth. But no amount of rudeness and violence could interrupt Him in His unwearied course of service. The stream of goodness flowed on unhindered by all man's wickedness. If it could not find a channel in one place, it found it in another. If it failed of an issue here, it sought it there. The precious grace in the heart of Jesus must find an object somewhere. Eternal blessings on His name!
“And as Jesus passed by, He saw a man which was blind from his birth. And His disciples asked Him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. I must work the works of Him that sent Me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.” Thus it was with this blessed Workman He pursued His path of service unhindered by all the enmity and opposition of the human heart. “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” Yes, and that light should shine despite all man's efforts to put it out. The stones of the Jews could not hinder the divine Workman from working the works of God, and these works were to be made manifest in the case of any poor blind beggar who crossed His path in this dark and sinful world. How blessed to know that the most glorious, the most characteristic work of God is displayed in the salvation of lost, guilty, hell-deserving sinners!
“When He had thus spoken, He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay. And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent). He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.”
Reader, note this carefully. There is more involved in this mysterious act of Christ than we might, at first sight, imagine. The most likely way in the world to blind one who has his eyesight would be to put clay upon his eyes; but here the Lord Jesus opens the blind eyes of the beggar by that very means. What do we see in this? Just the deep and precious mystery of the person and work of Christ Himself, as He says at the end of this profound chapter: “For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.” (vs. 39).
This is deeply solemn! “For judgment I am come into this world.” How is this? Did He not come to seek and to save that which is lost? So He Himself tells us again and again. Why then speak of “judgment”? The meaning is simply this: the object of His mission was salvation; the moral effect of His life was judgment. He judged no one, and yet He judged everyone. The life of Christ down here was the most powerful test that ever was applied to man. Hence He could say, “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloak for their sin... If 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 15:22-24).
It is well to see this effect of the character and life of Christ down here. He was the light of the world, and this light acted in a double way. It convicted and converted, it judged and it saved. Furthermore, it dazzled by its heavenly brightness all those who thought they saw, while at the same time it lightened all those who really felt their moral and spiritual blindness. He came not to judge, but to save; and yet when come, He judged every man, and put every man to the test. He was different from all around Him, as light in the midst of darkness; and yet He saved all who accepted the judgment and took their true place.
The same thing is observable when we contemplate the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. “The preaching of the cross is to them that perish, foolishness; but unto us which are saved, it is the power of God.” “We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:18,23-24). Looked at from a human point of view, the cross presented a spectacle of weakness and foolishness. But looked at from a divine point of view, it was the exhibition of power and wisdom. The “Jew,” looking at the cross through the hazy medium of traditionary religion, stumbled over it; the “Greek,” looking at it from the fancied heights of philosophy, despised it as a contemptible thing. But the faith of a poor sinner, looking at the cross from the depths of conscious guilt and ruin, found in it a divine answer to every question, a divine supply for every need. The death of Christ, like His life, judged every man, and yet it saves all those who accept the judgment, and take their true place.
Now it is not a little interesting to find the germ of all this in our Lord's dealings with the blind beggar. He put clay on his eyes, and sent him to the pool of Siloam. This was “Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” It was the application of the doctrine of Christ, by the Spirit, through the Word. Thus it must ever be. If a man who thinks he can see, looks at that doctrine, it will blind him. If a man who is blind has that doctrine applied to his heart, by the power of the Holy Ghost, through the Word, it will open his eyes and fill him with divine light.
But let us trace the history of this blind beggar. No sooner were his eyes opened than he becomes an object of interest to all around. “The neighbors therefore, and they which before had seen him that he was blind, said, Is not this he that sat and begged? Some said, This is he: others said, He is like him: but he said, I am he.” The change was manifest to all. He might have lived and died in beggary and blindness, unheeded, unnoticed; but he had been brought into personal contact with the Son of God, and that contact had produced a mighty change which could not fail to attract the attention of all around. Thus it must ever be. It is impossible for anyone to have to do with Christ and not experience a something which cannot be hidden from those who are looking on. Personal contact with Christ is a divine reality. There is life and power in the very touch of Jesus. One believing look at the Savior of sinners-the Quickener of the dead-produces the most astonishing results.
We are more and more impressed, each day and each year of our existence, that the great object of preaching and writing-of oral or written ministry-is to bring the soul and Christ together. Till this is done, there is positively nothing done. Sermons may be preached and volumes may be written, but unless the soul of the sinner or the soul of the saint is brought into actual, living, and life-giving contact with the Son of God, there is no real, tangible, permanent result reached. The blind man in our chapter might have gone on all his days in his helpless and needy condition, even though surrounded by all the appliances of the Jewish system. Nothing was of any value to him save the name of Jesus. “None but Jesus can do helpless sinners good.”
But then I must be brought into vital connection with that divine and all-powerful name in order to partake of the good. I may go on forever saying, “None but Jesus” and be nothing better. The devils know that none but Jesus can do helpless sinners good, but it avails them nothing; and men may know, or profess to know, the same thing, and they may mistake the profession for the reality, and so deceive themselves and perish eternally. There must be a living link connecting the soul with Christ in order to lift the soul out of its condition of spiritual blindness and poverty; and not only so, but the power of this living union must be maintained and habitually realized in order to keep up in the soul the freshness and fruitfulness of the divine life. “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him; rooted and built up in Him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving” (Col. 2:6-7).
Here we have the two grand and essential points; namely, first receiving Christ, and second, walking in Him. The first meets all the need of the sinner; the second perfectly answers all the demands of the saint. Many there are who seem to receive Christ, and yet do not walk in Him. This is the secret of most of the meagerness and poverty which one meets among professing Christians. There is not the habitual walking in Christ. Other things intervene. We get occupied with the mere machinery of religiousness, with meetings, with ministry, with men and things. It may even happen that we allow our work, our very service, to come in between our souls and Christ. All these things, which surely are right enough in their right place, may through Satan's craft and our lack of vigilance, actually displace Christ in our souls, and superinduce barrenness and lifeless formality.
O beloved Christian reader, let us seek to walk in abiding communion with Jesus! May we keep Him ever before our souls in all His fullness and preciousness. Then shall our testimony be clear, decided, and unmistakable. Our path shall be as the shining light which shineth more and more unto the perfect day. May it be thus with all the people of God in this day of shallow profession!
The Blind Beggar: Much Needed Today
In pondering the record of this blind beggar, we notice a very striking development of character in the different classes of persons that are brought forward. In the poor man himself, we see an earnestness, a simplicity and a reality which we greatly covet. He illustrates very forcibly the value and importance of honestly following the light as it shines upon our path. “Unto every one that hath shall be given,” is a motto plainly visible on the face of our narrative; and a precious motto is a valuable incitement to a zealous and devoted career. It would manifestly have served the poor man's worldly interest to cushion the truth as to what had been done for him. He might have enjoyed the benefit of the work of Christ, and yet avoided the rough path of testimony for His name in the face of the world's hostility. He might have enjoyed his eyesight and at the same time retained his place within the pale of respectable religious profession. He might have reaped the fruit of Christ's work and yet escaped the reproach of confessing His name.
How often is this the case! Alas, how often! Thousands are very well pleased to hear of what Jesus has done, but they do not want to be identified with His outcast and rejected name. In other words, to use a modern and very popular phrase, They want to make the best of both worlds—a sentiment from which every truehearted lover of Christ must shrink with abhorrence—an idea of which genuine faith is wholly ignorant. It is obvious that the subject of our narrative knew nothing of any such maxim. He had had his eyes opened and he could not but speak of it and tell who did it and how it was done. He was an honest man. He had no mixed motive, no sinister object, no undercurrent. Happy for him! It is a terrible thing to have an undercurrent in the soul, a mixed motive in the heart, a personal interest before the mind, a secondary object before the eye. Such things give the deathblow to all genuine, practical Christianity and true discipleship. If we want to follow a rejected Christ, the heart must be thoroughly free. The true disciple must have his heart freed from all the objects of personal interest, as well as of expediency. These things are sure to prove extinguishers in Satan's hand for quenching the light of truth in the souls of men. A man may be ignorant of many things, but if he only honestly follows the light which God has graciously poured upon his pathway, he will assuredly get more. On the other hand, if for any object whatever, if to gain the most plausible and attractive end, light be extinguished, truth cushioned, testimony quashed, there is an end to all true devotedness.
Reader, do give this point your most serious attention. See that you are acting up to your light. It is a great thing when each fresh ray of light communicated produces a step in the right direction. This will always be so when the conscience is in a right condition. “The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day” (Prov. 4:18). Again, “If... thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness.” Matt. 6:22, 23. Solemn thought! “Give glory to the LORD your God, before He cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains.” Jer. 13:16. We know of nothing more awfully dangerous than familiarity with truth, without an exercised conscience. It throws one directly into the hands of Satan; whereas an exercised conscience—an upright mind—a single eye—keep us steadily going on in the holy, peaceful, lightsome ways of God. Hence, in our Lord's words in Luke 11 There is marked and beautiful progress. “If,” He adds, “thy whole body therefore be full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle cloth give thee light.” In other words, the man who has a single eye will not only have light for himself, but he will be a light-bearer for others; but a man whose eye is not single, who has a mixed motive, an undercurrent, a secondary object, a personal end, is not only involved in moral darkness himself, but he is a dishonor to the name of Christ, an instrument in the hand of Satan, and a stumbling block in the way of his fellow men.
This is a truth of the deepest solemnity in this day of easy profession and worldly religiousness. There is a wide diffusion of evangelical doctrine; and while we have to be truly thankful for the doctrine and its wide diffusion, we have to watch against the use which the devil is making of it. We are deeply impressed with the conviction that the self-indulgent, superficial profession of the present hour is paving the way for the dark and appalling infidelity of the future. We feel the urgent need of something far more profound, earnest, and wholehearted. We need more exercise of conscience. We are not sufficiently penetrated with the genuine spirit of the gospel. The enemy has not been able to shut out the pure light of the gospel. The dark cloud of ignorance and superstition which for many a long and dreary century had settled down upon Christendom, has been rolled away, and the bright beams of revelation's heavenly lamp have poured themselves upon the human mind and dissipated the gloom. We bless God for this. We are not insensible to the craft and subtlety of the enemy, nor can we shut our eyes to the startling fact that evangelical profession without an exercised conscience, is one of the devil's most potent agencies at the present moment. The doctrines of grace are widely promulgated and professed, but instead of being used for the subjugation of nature, they are made to furnish a plea for self-indulgence. The evangelical religion of the day in which our lot is cast is of a very light and fragile texture, ill adapted for rough weather. We are inclined to think that were the Church to be again visited by the stormy blast of persecution, it would thin her ranks amazingly; but it would doubtless be the means of developing a veteran band of witnesses, for amid much that is painfully superficial there is, we are persuaded, much that is real, solid, and true.
In one word then we urge upon the Christian reader the importance of honestly following the light communicated, and we use the case of the blind beggar to this end. Nothing could daunt him. Nothing could shut his mouth. His light could not be extinguished. When “the neighbor” inquired, “Is not this he that sat and begged?” his ready answer was, “I am he.” When they inquired further, “How were thine eyes opened?” he unhesitatingly replied, “A man that is called Jesus 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.” When they proceeded further to ask, “Where is He?” he as frankly replied, “I know not.” He neither lagged behind nor rushed beyond. but honestly acted up to his light. This is precisely what is needed. He had been brought into personal contact with Christ, and that personal contact formed the broad and solid basis of his testimony. This, we repeat, is what is needed. We should not go one hair's breadth beyond the measure of real personal knowledge of Christ; but then we should act faithfully up to that measure. It is our happy privilege to have to do with Christ, each one for himself, and our profession should be the result of that personal dealing. We are in danger of being merely propped up by the influences around, instead of being sustained by the vital principle within. In the case of the blind beggar, the external influences were all hostile, but he boldly confessed the truth, and that, moreover, just in proportion to his own personal experience, and no further. He acted up to his light and we shall see in the sequel, he got more.
Look at him in the presence of the Pharisees. These men, governed by blind prejudice, had deliberately closed their eyes against the light of the truth. Instead of calmly sitting down to investigate the pure and heavenly doctrines of that blessed One whose voice had sounded in their midst, they “had agreed already, that if any man did confess that He was Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue.” It was, therefore. obviously impossible that they could arrive at the truth while their eyes were covered with the bandage of prejudice. They professed to see; therefore their sin remained.' Solemn thought! “Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin; but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth.” The permanency of sin is judicially connected with the empty profession of sight. A man who knows he is blind can have his eyes opened; but what can be done for the man who thinks he can see while at the same time his eyes are covered with the bandage of blind prejudice? Alas! nothing. The light which is in him is darkness, and how great is that darkness! These Pharisees could talk of keeping the Sabbath, and of giving God the glory, and yet say of Christ, “We know that this man is a sinner.” So much for religiousness! A Sabbath without Christ is a vanity. To talk of giving God the praise otherwise than through Christ is a deadly delusion. And yet it was thus with those poor Pharisees. They were disturbed by the testimony of the poor man. They would fain have quashed it. Most gladly would they have put the extinguisher of their official authority upon that dazzling, disturbing, detested light. But they could not. They tried to enlist in their service a cold-hearted expediency as personified in the parents, but in vain. The parents feared the Jews. They did not want to lose caste. They knew nothing of Christ, of His work, or of His Person, and they were not going to encounter obloquy or reproach for Him. They knew nothing about the marvelous cure that had been effected. “He is of age,” said they, “ask him: he shall speak for himself. These words spake his parents, because they feared the Jews.”
What a terrible snare is religious position! It is sure to act as a hindrance in the path of bold decision for Christ. If I have to pause in order to consider how such and such a step will affect my religious position, my influence, or. my reputation, my eye is not single, my body is full of darkness; the very light which I profess to have is darkness, and I shall be an instrument in the hand of Satan, and a stumbling block in the way of men.
How refreshing to turn from the dark background of prejudice and heartlessness, and contemplate the fearless honesty of the blind beggar. We must confess we greatly admire it, and long to imitate it. He did not know much, but what he did know, he turned to good account. He boldly declared what Jesus had done for him. “One thing I know,” said this noble witness, “that, whereas I was blind, now I see.” There was no gainsaying this. All the arguments of the Pharisees could not shake his confidence in the fact that his eyes had been opened. It was this that constituted the power of his testimony. It was based upon a plain, palpable fact. The man that sat and begged was now sitting with his eyes open, and it was “a man called Jesus” that did it. Terrible fact! And yet the man was ignorant, but he was honest. He told the plain truth, and proved it in his person. He did not know much about Jesus. He neither knew who He was nor where He was; but he knew and said quite enough to disturb the Pharisees amazingly. Higher and higher he rose in his testimony. The gross irrationalism of his enemies actually forced him into clearer and yet clearer light until at length he breaks forth in these memorable and irresistible accents, “If this man were not of God, He could do nothing.”
It is positively quite a feast to read this record. To see an honest man boldly grappling with religious prejudice and intolerance, is something to do the heart good. Would to God there were many nowadays formed on the model of this blind beggar! We know of no more powerful breakwater wherewith to stem the rising tide of infidelity than the bold and vigorous testimony of those who have experienced aught at the hand of Christ. If such would only declare plainly what the Lord has done for them, and base their testimony on what is plain and palpable—so plain and palpable as to be unanswerable—what power there would be! What point! What pungency! In the case before us we see that one poor ignorant man who had sat as a blind beggar was more than a match for the Pharisees and all their
reasonings. He proved a most burdensome stone
to them—so burdensome that they could not endure him. “Thou wast altogether born in sins,” said they, “and dost thou teach us? And they excommunicated him” (Margin).
Happy man! He had followed the light in simplicity and sincerity. He had borne an honest testimony to the truth. His eyes had been opened to see, and his lips to testify. It was no “matter of wrong or wicked lewdness,” but simple truth, and for that they cast him out. He had never troubled them in the days of his blindness and beggary. Perhaps some of them may have proudly and ostentatiously tossed him a trifling alms as they walked past, thus getting a name among their fellows for benevolence; but now this blind beggar had become a powerful witness. Words of truth now flowed from his lips—truth far too powerful and piercing for them to stand—and they thrust him out.
Happy, thrice-happy man! again we say. This was the brightest moment in his career. These
men, though the knew it not, had done him a real service. They had thrust him into the most
honored position that any mortal can occupy; namely, a position of identification with Christ. And only see how the tender heart of the good Shepherd was moved by the bleatings of this outcast sheep! “Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when He had found him, He said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God?” This is deeply touching. No sooner had the poor sheep been rudely thrust out from the fold than the true Shepherd flew to his side in order to lead him up higher and bold and decided step. “Dost thou believe on the Son of God? He answered and said, Who is He, Lord, that I might believe on Him? And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen Him, and it is He that talketh with thee. And he said, Lord,
I believe. And he worshipped Him.” This is enough. This faithful witness here reaps a rich reward. He had followed on with plain decision along the path of simple, earnest testimony for Christ according to his light and, as a consequence, he was cast out by the religion of this world. He was forced outside the camp; but there Jesus found him and revealed Himself to his soul, and the curtain drops on this highly favored man as a worshiper at the feet of Incarnate Deity. What a place! What a contrast to the place in which we found him at the opening of his history! What a career!—first a blind beggar—then an earnest witness—and finally an enlightened worshiper prostrate at the feet of the Son of God. Happy, highly honored man! May the Lord raise up many such in these days of cold indifference and superficial profession! O for an earnest heart true to Christ—a heart that never calculates results, but presses on after Jesus regardless of consequences!
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