John 9:13-17

¹³They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. ¹⁴Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man's eyes was a Sabbath. ¹⁵Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. "He put mud on my eyes," the man replied, "and I washed, and now I see." ¹⁶Some of the Pharisees said, "This Man is not from God, for He does not keep the Sabbath." But others asked, "How can a sinner do such miraculous signs?" So they were divided. ¹⁷Finally they turned again to the blind man, "What have you to say about Him? It was your eyes He opened." The man replied, "He is a prophet."

This portion of our text departs from John’s usual style of relating Jesus’ own teaching about Himself, following His miraculous signs. In fact, Jesus is not even present while the Pharisees investigate His latest healing, and He will not show up again until the end of the chapter, when He comes privately to the man He had healed. But it has a crucial role in John’s Gospel, because it continues to relate the unfolding controversy that the Jewish religious leaders had with Jesus, and it further illustrates the manner in which the sign-miracles were meant to lead sinners to a true faith in Jesus as the Messiah and the Son of God. We notice first that the multitude brings the healed man to the Pharisees. What is their motive? Surely they knew that the Pharisees did not approve of Jesus. Do they foolishly seek the favor of the religious leaders? Perhaps the custom was to bring matters before them for arbitration.

Next we notice the hardened state of some of the Pharisees’ hearts, for as soon as they had heard of this unprecedented miracle, which took place on the Sabbath, their sole concern was not to glorify God for His mercy, or remember the prophecies about the Messiah’s giving sight to the blind; instead they just wanted to know how the miracle was performed, so that they might accuse Jesus of breaking the Sabbath again. And the act of making mud and anointing the blind man’s eyes was apparently enough like manual labor to give them cause to condemn Him. And so they immediately discern that He must not be of God, since He violated God’s law. Instead they ought to have noted that such a clear work of God, which they certainly did not deny, could not have been a violation of the law of God. Of course, Jesus’ actions were not technically forbidden by Moses, who recorded the very words of God, but were in fact carried out in keeping with both the spirit and the letter of the Sabbath commandment. The work(s) of God is/are not forbidden, but rather appropriate – even commanded (ala the Puritans) – on the Sabbath. But the Pharisees had placed the oral traditions and interpretations of the law on the same authoritative plane as the Scriptures themselves – and He had clearly violated the traditions of the elders. Let us remember that no interpretation of God’s Word is infallible, no matter how ancient or widespread it is; only the Word itself has that distinction.

Finally, it appears that the nature of this particular miracle, as well as the fact that Jesus did not command the healed man to carry his bed, was enough reason to cause some diversity of opinion, even among the Pharisees (though it appears they are united in condemning Him by they end of the investigation). Divided in opinion after hearing the man’s detailed account of what happened, the Pharisees also ask him what he believed about Jesus. In doing so, they do not wish to abide by his judgment, or set any value on it, but they hope that the man, struck with fear, will reply according to their wish. But the man boldly maintains that Jesus is a prophet. And if he so boldly and freely acknowledged Christ to be a prophet, though he did not yet know that the Lord Jesus was the Son of God, how shameful is the treachery of those who, subdued by fear, either deny Him, or are silent respecting Him, though they know that He sits at the right hand of the Father, and that He will come to judge of the whole world! Since this blind man did not quench a small spark of knowledge, we ought to endeavor that an open and full confession may blaze forth from the full brightness that has shone into our hearts.