“Go,” he told him, “wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means “Sent”). So he left, washed, and came back seeing.
John 9:7 CSB
Sight to a blind man
Previously we looked at John’s introduction to Jesus healing a man who was blind from birth. We left off with the Messiah sending the man to Siloam (which means ‘sent’) with mud Jesus had created by spitting on dust covering the blind man’s eyes.
Besides being a clear sign of the Messiah’s mysterious power from God the Father, it’s important to note two things here:
- Right in the middle of John 9:7 at the beginning his witness of the Good News of Jesus healing a man blind from birth, time passes as the blind man leaves then returns later with sight.
- Witnesses would have been familiar with the mysteries of God associated with the Pool of Siloam, but also the tragic deaths of those who had been killed in this same place when the Tower of Siloam fell upon them. (Luke later records this in his Gospel.)
John tells of this sign of the blind man healed after he washed at Siloam, but to a later audience not present his testimony is scene of what others witnessed firsthand like him. Like most miracles of the Messiah those present had to debate the seemingly impossible scene which confronted their faith. Were they really seeing a miracle?
I am the one
John 9:
So he … came back seeing.
8 Therefore the neighbors, and those who previously saw him as a beggar, were saying,
“Is not this the one who used to sit and beg?” (Yes.)
9 Others were saying,
“This is he,” (Yes, I am that man.)
still others were saying,
“No, but he is like him.” (Friend, you know it is me. Neighbor, you see that it is me.)
He kept saying, “I am the one.”
Of course any witnesses of the miraculous must ask: HOW?
10 So they were saying to him, “How then were your eyes opened?”
Therefore once again the man formerly blind, speaking to the crowds of Jerusalem (some who were not present before and others who were), now retells what has just happened.
The Messiah however has moved with the crowds to other parts of Jerusalem.
He ‘Sent’ me
I remind us here of the context of what we already learned about Jesus, the true Light ‘sent’ to the world.
When John writes, “Siloam” (which is translated, Sent), the Apostle uses a Greek word which should sound familiar to the Christian of this day: apostellō, ἀποστέλλω related to the word “Apostle,” ἀπόστολος – apostolos.
The Apostle John also previously witnessed Jesus’ light hidden from the eyes of the Pharisees, using this same word for ‘sent’ and describing that He the Son was sent by God the Father.
- Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent G649 Me. – John 8:42 (after which the Lord said: Before Abraham was, I AM.)
- “What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?” Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.” G649 – John 6:28b-29 (after Jesus had feed 5000 and walked on the Sea of Galilee)
Same word as John uses to describe Siloam as meaning sent: apostellō. You likely know it best from John 3.
“For God did not send G649 the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.
John 3:17 NASB – Strong’s G649 = apostellō
11 He answered, “The man who is called Jesus made clay, and anointed my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash’; so I went away and washed, and I received sight.”
I went and received sight
Miraculous! We know how (after Jesus sent him to Siloam).
12 They said to him, “Where is He?”
He said, “I do not know.”
Confirming the Sign (of the Messiah)
We will find no group working harder on the Sabbath than religious authorities working to enforce religion.
Pharisees believe in the resurrection, but deny the true life through the Messiah of God. John witnesses rejection of Jesus by their works of darkness.
13 They brought him who formerly was blind to the Pharisees. Now it was a Sabbath when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes.
15 Then the Pharisees also asked him again how he had received his sight.
Once again, controversy like in previous debates within the crowds witnessing the miracle.
He said to them, “He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.”
16 Therefore some of the Pharisees said, “This Man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath.”
Others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?”
And there was a division among them.
The Pharisees in charge continue to prosecute the man who can see even after rendering their judgment of the Messiah Jesus as witness to the court.
“What have you to say about him? It was your eyes he opened.”
“He is a prophet.”
Calling Jesus a prophet compares Him to John the Baptist, Elijah and others. Refusing his truthful answer, they call the man’s parents to the stand.
“Is this your son, who you say was born blind? Then how does he now see?”
20 “We know this is our son and that he was born blind,” his parents answered. “But we don’t know how he now sees, and we don’t know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he’s of age. He will speak for himself.”
Confess, for we find you guilty
John now gives us an earlier insight from the trial here in addition to their judgment that Jesus is not the Messiah.
22 His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had agreed already that if anyone confessed that He was Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue.
So again they call the defendant who could now see to the stand.
Give glory to God
“Give God the glory! We know that this Man is a sinner.” – John 9:24 NKJV
Give God (Theos) glory (Doxa)! Nothing wrong with that.
Certainly those in the audience riveted to the outcome of this man’s trial to determine if he may remain a part of the community of the Jews with full participation in the worship of their places of learning (synagogues) would tend toward a praise of their opening. But then these judges (of the Sanhedrin) betray who they really put on trial here.
The Messiah, a sinner?
“We know this man (anthropos) is a sinner (hamartōlos).”
Is JESUS ‘devoted to sin,’ a sinner? (For this is the definition of their judgment NOT of the defendant, but of their Messiah.)
Has the Son of Man, as Jesus self-identifies as One born of Mary, a King of the Jews in the line of David, — has He shown Himself to be “pre-eminently sinful, especially wicked,” or even a lesser violation of Pharisaic interpretation of ‘work’ on the Sabbath as a lesser accusation that Jesus is not free from sin?
Jesus has already accused them (not the man formerly blind on trial here):
“You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me.
“Which one of you convicts Me of sin? If I speak truth, why do you not believe Me?
John 8:44-46 NASB – Jesus the Messiah on Truth
The Apostle John has already laid the foundation of Truth behind the accusations against the blind man who now sees and the Pharisees who convict out of the darkness.
Conclusive evidence: Now I see
25 He then answered, “Whether He is a sinner, I do not know; one thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”
“Now I see,” the man truthly states ONLY the facts. One thing further he does in which the court fails, he judges rightly that he cannot know if the man who healed him is a sinner. You see the evidence, I see. (Why ask me about another man, even the One who healed me?)
“What did He do to you? How did He open your eyes?”
“I told you already and you did not listen; why do you want to hear it again?
(Perhaps a pregnant pause, as the audience hears his indisputable evidence.)
Then a more personal question to the Court which certainly must have brought silent smiles to some witnesses of this precursor of a trial yet to come before them.
You do not want to become His disciples too, do you?” (We can only imagine the uproar, but their reaction is severe.)
You are His disciple?
Their next accusation, false at this time because the blind man had never known Jesus’ teaching, draws the line of the Pharisees by which they held tightly their religions authority.
But first for the crowds, they restate their tenuous authority.
“We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where He is from.”
Now the answer from the man who repeatedly said, “now I see” that offends most.
“Well, here is an amazing thing, that you do not know where He is from, and yet He opened my eyes… (Again, now I see!)
Witness of the man who now sees
The man who was once blind continues. John concludes with his witness and expulsion from the religious Jewish community.
31 We know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is God-fearing and does His will, He hears him. Since the beginning of time it has never been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, He could do nothing.”
Guilty of witness of the Messiah
34 They answered and said to him, “You were completely born in sins, and are you teaching us?”
And they cast him out.
It’s not just that the Court of the Pharisees ‘cast the man who witnessed ‘now I see’ and the sign that Jesus IS the Messiah; he would now be excluded from Jewish culture as well and subject to further persecution.
The New King James Version of John’s Gospel emphasizes the gravity of the Court’s predetermined verdict:
The Pharisees Excommunicate the Healed Man
John will continue his Good News of the Messiah Jesus with yet another encounter with the blind man who witnessed, ‘I washed and I see.’
What must you do?
On a more personal level I ask you, as the man once blind asked the Pharisees, ‘Do you want to be His disciples too,’ what will you do with the mud covering your eyes?
Siloam – Sent by the Messiah
… but have you washed?
Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, “These who are clothed in the white robes, who are they, and where have they come from?”
I said to him, “My lord, you know.”
And he said to me, “These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ to John: 7:13-14 NASB
To be continued...
