John 9:25

Joh_9:25

One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.

Truly did Christ say, I came not to send peace on the earth. Little did the man dream of the stir the miracle would make. So our blessings often get us into trouble, and become tests of character. The man here was tested as to whether he would stand by the truth. Let us not imagine that we can travel through life unchallenged. All the circumstances here are of a deeply interesting character.

1. Look at the parents. Sometimes you will find character transmitted with marvellous accuracy. Like parents, like children. Occasionally children degenerate from the type of their parents, and in others are a manifest improvement. This seems to have been the case with this young man. His parents were timid. This fear of man always brings a snare. What multitudes there are who dare not tell the truth or do the right for fear of the Gentiles, or the Church, society, or clique. There is no hope for them but in that perfect love which casteth out fear.

2. Look at the Pharisees. They heard enough, surely, for conviction, but they were afraid of the conclusion, and hence sought to terrify the parents and extract a contradiction from the young man. Then they reviled him. Men must have keen eyes who can detect in these men any of that instinctive love of truth which is vaunted as the glorious attribute of humanity. Men love darkness, etc., is the testimony alike of Scripture and experience. Men are much more anxious to have the truth on their side than to be on the side of truth. The mind does not turn to the truth as the flower turns to the sun. No one is very sanguine of dislodging men from a theology which screens them in their sins, or in separating them from an iniquitous traffic in which they are gaining wealth; and the more truth you put before them, the more they will hate both you and it.

3. Note, as in the case of the young man, that experimental evidence of religion is marked by

I. ITS CERTAINTY. One thing I know.

1. It is too common to imagine that the term knowledge ought to be restricted to science, and is too strong to be introduced into the realm of religion, where we can only expect strong probability. But it would be strange if the greatest and most essential realities were the most doubtful.

Men think of religion as something shadowy and impalpable. They can understand what can be placed on a table and seen and fingered, but to talk of strong and weak faith, high and low hopes, knowing whom you have believed, etc., as fanaticism.

2. It must be acknowledged that religious assurance does not rest on precisely the same grounds as in other relations. From the fact that religion involves the exercise of the moral faculties, its evidence must not be such as to overbear irresistibly these moral conditions. A religion that should make its evidence glare upon us like the sun would be no religion at all. If religion be the willing service of the soul, the soul must be left free in its exercise. To leave no room for doubt would be to reduce religion to the low level of material things. God is not as visible as His universe; but those who are willing to see Him come at length to believe in Him as firmly as in the universe, and just as they say every house is built by some man, whether they have seen him or not, so they exclaim, He that built all things is God.

3. With this exclamation we affirm that the evidence which God has supplied to give the soul religious assurance is as abundant as any that He has given us on any matter. There is in the Word of God, and may be in our life, enough evidence to make our salvation the most assured thing in the universe. Other evidences are of great value. When men are showing the actual rooting of Christianity in the soil of history, it is for us to welcome their efforts. But this sort of evidence must be inaccessible to many. To the poor the gospel is preached, and this preaching was meant to be its own light and proof, so that men should say, One thing I know, etc.

4. When one carries his evidence within him he is thrice armed. Not that every strong feeling indicates faith. We may have a fanatical joy, and be the dupes of sentimentalisms and early prejudices. But where we can distinctly recognize that we are not what we once were; that God, who was scarcely at the circumference of our life, is now its centre; that Christ, who was once a root out of a dry ground, is not the altogether lovely, etc., this is evidence that can withstand the assaults of men and devils.

II. ITS MODESTY. One thing. He strictly stated the facts as he knew them. What is required of a witness is to testify what he knows, and no more. His thoughts and speculations will compromise his evidence and render it worthless. Had the man reasoned with the learned Pharisees they would have worsted him. He did not philosophize about the mode of his cure, because he knew nothing about it. And so with spiritual illumination. We can form no philosophy of salvation. It transcends our reason. It is accomplished in different ways, as in the case of Lydia and the jailor. Sometimes men know the time and instrumentality; sometimes they do not. The main thing is, Am I saved? Are these doctrines you cannot comprehend? Do men puzzle you with the mysteries of the Trinity, the origin of evil, Providence, prophecy? Oppose to them the one thing you know.

1. One thing. It might seem a scanty knowledge, but it is with knowledge, as other things, its value is determined by what constitutes its object matter. You might possess a thousand jewels, but one Kohinoor would outweigh them all.

2. One thing, but what a thing--the one thing needful. (E. Mellor, D. D.)

The blind mans creed

1. A whole chapter is taken up with this poor man. This is unusual. Though an author be inspired, we can tell what he enjoys. An evangelist, as well as a Gibbon, betrays his interest and his sympathies.

2. In some unusual way the blind man was wrought into the plan of Christs ministry. He had been born blind, and remained so that when Jesus passed by he might be ready to be healed by Him. All lives and events are wrought into that scheme.

3. The blind man was the first confessor. He was the sort of person that our Lord found it pleasant to do something for. He was ready to do what he could for himself, and what he could not do the Lord would do for him. Unlike Naaman, willingness was one characteristic of him, sturdiness was another. He spoke his mind at the risk of excommunication. His thoughts were distinct, and therefore his utterances were so. Crisp thinking makes crisp speaking. Let us look at his creed.

I. IT WAS SHORT. A creed with one article. Soon it enlarged, but it all developed out of this one thing, etc. It is no matter whether a creed be long or short, provided a man believes it as this man believes his. What would a Christian be capable of if he so believed the Apostles Creed? If a creed is believed, the longer it is the better; otherwise the shorter the better. Creed is like stature, it has to be reached by the individual, by slow growth from a small beginning. The vitality of a seed will determine how much will come out of it. Every fire begins with a spark. Some of us are trying to believe too much; not more than is true, or more than we ought, but more than we have at present inward strength for. We may extinguish a fire by putting on too much fuel.

II. IT WAS FOUNDED IN EXPERIENCE. I know I see. You notice how close the connection between the creed and the confessor. His creed was not separable from himself. It was wrought in him, and so was one he could not forget. Whenever the sun shone or a star twinkled, he would feel his creed over again. We might be perplexed to tell what we believe if we had it not in print to refer to; but experience can dispense with type. We used to hear a good deal about experiencing religion: is the expression going because the thing is going? Christ works a work in me and I feel it. That is experiencing religion, although the feeling may be differently marked in different people. Even the truths of God to become my true creed have got to be reproduced in the soil of my own thinking and feeling. Faith is languid because experience is languid. The creed of our confessor began in one article, but it did not end there. Soon we hear him saying he believed that Christ was the Son of God. Our creeds have got to come out of our experience of God, and not out of our Prayer Book. That is a poor tree that looks and measures as it did a year ago. He is a poor believer who believes exactly as he did a year ago.

III. IT WAS PERSONAL AND PECULIAR. Two living Christians cannot believe alike any more than two trees can grow alike. Two posts may. Two men only think alike, as they think not at all, but leave it to a third party to do it in their stead. Excessive doctrinal quietness implies lethargy. It is only dead men who never turn over. In nothing does a man need to be loyal to his individuality as in his religion. This is what makes the Bible so rich. The inspired writers did not throw away their peculiarities. Each mans experience will be characteristic, and so, then, must his creed be that grows out of it. A mans proper creed is the name we give to his individuality, when inspired by the Holy Ghost. Is it not a splendid tribute to Jesus that we can each of us come to Him with our peculiarity and find exactly that in Him which will meet and satisfy it? There is only one Christ, but He is like the sun, which shines on all objects and gives to each what helps it to be at its best. No two alike, the sea not the forest, etc., but each finding in the sun that which helps it to be itself perfectly. The poor man obtains from Him just what he needs, and the rich man, the Fijian, and the Greek, etc.

IV. IT DID NOT EMBARRASS ITSELF WITH MATTER FOREIGN TO THE MAIN POINT. Whether He be a sinner or no, I know not. The point with him was that he could see, not how he could see. Sight does not consist in understanding how we see, nor health in understanding the organs of the body, nor salvation in knowing how we are saved. The physician can cure an ignorant man as readily as a scholar, because his medicine does not depend on the intelligence of the patient; so Christ can be the physician of all, because salvation consists just simply in being saved. (C. H.Parkhurst, D. D.)

Experimental evidence

There is a man who is enjoying his food. He seems healthy and strong. He says he is so. You assure him, however, that his mode of life is wholly wrong. You have been reading some learned work on dietetics, and, full of theoretic wisdom, and you warn him that he is not observing the due proportions of nitrogen and carbon and the other elements, and that, according to your principles, he ought to be out of health and ready to perish. With what calmness he listens to your serious homily, and smiles as he finishes his repast! He is but an ignorant man, knows nothing about the high-sounding names you have used to denote the chemical constituents of food, tells you that whether he is eating according to learned books or not he knows not, but one thing he knows, that what he does eat agrees with him, strengthens him, and enables him to do his work; and so he lets learned men and books talk on. A friend has been sick, and is now recovering. You ask him what medicine he has been taking, and on learning it you are astonished. On hearing who his physician is, you venture a doubt as to his qualifications, whereon the valetudinarian says, Well, I know nothing about the properties of medicine, or the technical qualifications of the physician; but one thing I know, that every dose of the medicine has been to me like life from the dead. This was the spirit of the reply of the healed man. (E. Mellor, D. D.)

We know

One cannot but notice how constantly the phrase we know occurs. The parents of the man used it thrice. The Pharisees have it on their lips in their first interview with him--We know that this man is a sinner. He answers, declining to affirm anything about the character of the Man Jesus, because he, for his part, knows not, but standing firmly by the solid reality which he knows in a very solid fashion, that his eyes have been opened. So we have the first encounter between knowledge which is ignorant and ignorance that knows, to the manifest victory of the latter. Again, in the second round, they try to overbear the cool sarcasm with their vehement assertion of knowledge that God spake to Moses, but by the admission that even their knowledge did not reach to the determination of the question of the origin of Jesus mission, lay themselves open to the sudden trust of keen-eyed, honest humilitys sharp rapier-like retort. Herein is a marvellous thing, that you know-alls, whose business it is to know where a professed miracle-worker comes from, know not from whence He is, and yet He hath opened mine eyes. Now we know (to use your own words) that God heareth not sinners, but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth His will, him He heareth. Then observe how, on both sides, a process is going on. The man is getting more and more light at each step. He begins with A Man which is called Jesus. Then he gets to a prophet, then he comes to a worshipper of God, and one that does His will. Then he comes to If this man were not of God, in some very special sense, He can do nothing. These are his own reflections, the working out of the impression made by the fact on an honest mind, and because he had so used the light which he had, therefore Jesus gives him more, and finds him with the question, Dost thou believe on the Son of God? Then the man who had shown himself so strong in his own convictions, so independent, and hard to cajole or coerce, shows himself now all docile and submissive, and ready to accept whatever Jesus says--Lord, who is He, that I might believe on Him? That was not credulity. He already knew enough of Christ to know that he ought to trust Him. And to his docility there is given the full revelation; and he hears the words which Pharisees and unrighteous men were not worthy to hear: Thou hast both seen Him--with these eyes to which I have given sight--and it is He that talketh with thee. Then intellectual conviction, moral reliance, and the utter prostration and devotion of the whole man bow him at Christs feet. Lord, I believe; and he worshipped Him. There is the story of the progress of an honest, ignorant soul that knew itself blind, into the illumination of perfect vision. And as He went upwards, so steadily and tragically, downwards went the others. For they had light, and they would not look at it; and it blasted and blinded them. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

The power of a fact

This man, who is released from his native blindness by Christ, is one of the strongest characters which the Gospels paint for us about the person of our Lord. Follow him through the chapter, and through all its various situations and discussions, and you feel that he is the man of the most real manhood among them all--disciples, neighbours, parents, and Pharisees. Wherein does his great strength lie? What is it that makes him so real and firm a man? It is, I believe, the consciousness of a fact, a great fact, in his lifes history. One thing I know, he says, that whereas I was blind, now I see. That is the great, wonderful event which has happened to me, which fills all my consciousness, before which everything else is little, which influences and colours everything, and the remembrance of which rules me. In every knot of men which clusters around him, with their little wondering questions of curiosity or malice, he simply tells his one great fact. We can hardly think of him as the former beggar. He is too imperious for a beggar now.

1. See how this man first appears after his cure by Christ. The neighbours and his former acquaintance gather around him, and begin to question as to his identity: Is not this he that sat and begged? Some said, Yes, this is he. Others, He is like him. But he said, I am he. There is the first effect of the coming of this great fact into his life, to make him honest in regard to self. It is as if he had said, Here is a great event that has happened to me, unprecedented and marvellous. I am its subject. Such an attention has been bestowed upon me and my wants and my condition as I never heard of, as shows that I am the object of care to a Divine mind and power. A new value has been given to my nature. I have a new, stronger sense of self. Yes, I am he. I was blind, and now I see. I will not leave you to dispute my identity. That is the first great value of the consciousness of a fact in ones life history, the new honest view of self and its value. Oh, my friends, the system which teaches us to know ourselves the best is that which brings the greatest fact into our history--the gospel and its fact. And yet multitudes of us go through life, while all about us, above us, and beneath us point to us, Is not this one for whom Christ died? Is not this one of those wonderful saved human natures? and we practically deny ourselves, because our consciousness is so dead.

2. Go on in the chapter to the next appearance of this man who knows one thing--the critical event of life. See how concentrated it makes him! They ask him, Where is He, your healer? He says, I know not. All I know is this. To know one great fact and to be full of it makes him unwilling to guess a conjecture about other things. He either knows or he knows not. He has learnt what true knowledge is. We should save much stumbling and sorrow in life if we would not so often build the air castles of conjecture and live in them as though their walls were of the solid masonry of real knowledge. The disaster is most serious in the spiritual sphere, when one does not know where to say, I know, and where I know not, when religion is only a broad field of conjecture. Many are anxious concerning such unessentials as the origin of evil, predestination, spiritualism, the exact nature of the future life, etc.; forgetful that, the one fact of practical religion--mans salvation and purification by Christ--being known, you may for the present safely say, I know not, to other items which cannot be yet known in the same personal way.

3. The chapter goes on to furnish another instance of the strengthening value of this one possession of the healed man. It makes him a messenger, a continual repeater of his wonderful story, as often as he can relate it. Any man, however ignorant and humble, is listened to if he have a genuine event of life to tell. Facts never grow old. This man, the relater of a fact, represents Christianity. Christianity has gone on from age to age, from circle to circle, giving its simple, solid, eventful message--human redemption and enlightenment by Christ.

4. But, still again, as this man so full of his story tells it, the Pharisee says to him, Give God the glory. Do not ascribe it to this Man. He is a sinner. They endeavour to hush his statement by a command, Do not say, He (Jesus) opened mine eyes. That is to say, these men were striving to do what has been a very usual human infatuation--to legislate against events, by simple authority, as when the old Saxon king sat by the waters edge and with his kingly decree forbad the sea to come nearer or its tide to rise higher. These men did not appreciate the firmness of a fact. They did not know that commands were merely pebbles that rebounded shattered from its rocky undisturbed surface. All men fall into this error--good men legislating against an evil fact, evil men legislating against a good fact. To bid it be different is nothing at all. This is another value of the blind mans possession. He was instantly above all mere commands, all mere human assertion of power. This is the value of Christianity always--its exaltation of a man above earthly power. The world, by its persecution or force and might, says, Deny Christ. But if you conceive of Christ and His gospel as the worlds great fact, if His influence is an event in your own life, you will be able to answer, How can I deny a fact? I should only stultify myself to do that. One thing I know, I was blind, and now I see. That will last after your command has been forgotten. There is no fear, no servility in this man, who is armed with his great conscious fact of life, beggar as he had been of old. The Pharisees cast him out. Ay, and the worse for them. They east out the only man resting on solid truth, and remained upon their fictions.

5. Once more, as this man goes out into the outer cold solitariness of excommunication, yet happy and warm in the garment of the consciousness of that wonderful miracle, Christ meets him, and says, Now you must believe on Me, for you have seen Me. Think how it must have sounded, how the warm heart must have been doubly grateful for that word seen. Yes I see at last, I see, I who was blind. It is as if Christ were echoing his own thoughts, his own one piece of all-absorbing knowledge. Now, that piece of knowledge must lead to belief. Fact must lead to faith. A fact merely means a thing done, and there must be a doer, greater in his invisibility than the great thing itself in its visibility. That is the faith of Christianity; it rests on real events, on actual things done. It does not ask faith with no basis. But it furnishes the greatest event of history as a foundation, an event happening to us and yet not through our means; and any man full of that great event will say, I will and must believe in its doer. Just as the building which has the broadest base upon the ground can rise to the highest upward point in safety, so he who is fullest of the greatest seen fact of life is fullest also of the richest, most aspiring, most practical and most spiritual faith. (Fred Brooks.)

The experimental evidence of Christianity

Here we see a practical conviction of the claims of Christ set against speculative doubts of those claims; and so this dispute between the restored blind man and the Pharisees is a symbol of what often happens in the world. It would be easy to find men now who have doubts concerning Christianity born of intellectual inquiry, which they find it impossible to appease; while there is another class of persons who feel a confidence in Christianity born of inward experience, which it would be impossible to overthrow. And if two persons representing these two classes should meet and attempt a discussion, they could not understand each other, for their souls would not touch. The believing man could not confute nor dispel the doubts that would be reported to him by his opponent, because he had never felt those doubts, and could not judge of their validity. The sceptical man could receive no immediate aid from the practical conviction of the believer, for that conviction could not be translated from feeling into effective statement in words. One is troubled with doubts about the miracles; the other can tell only of the sweet peace of Christian duty and a sense of pardoned sin. One cannot see that the links are complete in the historical chain of evidence for the authenticity of the four Gospels; the other can only answer that the words of those Gospels have nourished his soul, and made life a more noble experience, and bereavement less painful, and the tomb less dark. One cannot be entirely sure that such a person as Christ ever lived; the other feels that it is his highest privilege to follow the spirit of the recorded Christ and to be a disciple of His published temper. One may anxiously be waiting for the last book by some great German theological scholar, to settle or confirm his wavering mind upon some point of the evidence; the other strengthens his faith by the daily responses that are vouchsafed to Christian prayers. One questions from a darkened intellect; the other answers from a sunlit soul. One cannot but say, from the force of the doubts which his philosophy has started, As for this Man Jesus, I know not from whence He is; the other replies, Why, herein is a marvellous thing, that you know not from whence He is, and yet He hath opened mine eyes! A truly Christian man, although he may never have looked into a volume of the evidence for the genuineness of the Christian records, feels a testimony for the Christian religion in his own heart which raises him above scepticism about the record. Jesus referred to this proof when He said Joh_7:17). Perhaps such a man had long been wholly selfish and worldly. But by being brought within the circle of Christian influences his best faculties have been awakened and developed. And now he sees life in a different light. The wisdom and goodness of God are suggested to him from every side of nature; it is a delight to cherish a sense of reliance upon the Deity and to feel at all times that God is the Father; the darkness of selfishness is exchanged for the deep satisfaction of devotion to duty, the slavery of passion for the peace of purity, the misery of fear for the joy of love, the fever thirst after worldly goods for the serene bliss of faith, and holy longings for the favour of God and the perfectness of Christ; existence is recognized as a spiritual privilege, death regarded as the door to immortality, and the universe becomes a temple for the worship of the Almighty. Find a heart in which this conversion of principles, feelings, and aims has been experienced, and you find a heart that feels an immovable conviction of the truth of Christianity. Its peace, its joys, its consciousness of spiritual health, its insight into a new world of which before it had no conception, all bear testimony to the reality of Christs religion. (T. Starr King.)

Experience the condition of Church membership

When Moody, the great evangelist, wanted to join the Church in Boston, under the pastor of which he had been awakened, he was questioned about doctrines, and seemed to know nothing about them.. He could only say, Whereas I was blind, now I see. He applied to this Church three times before he could get in. (J. F. B. Tinling, B. A.)

An undoubted cure

George Moore once dislocated his shoulder, and after suffering great agony for weeks, all the surgeons failing to relieve him, he went to Mr. Hutton, the bone setter, who in a few minutes gave him lasting relief. He was much taken to task then by his professional friends for going to a quack. Well, said he, quack or no quack, he cured me, and that was what I wanted. Whereas I was blind, now I see. (S. Smiles.)

Living Christians an argument for Christianity

An unhappy woman who has associated herself with a notorious atheist in this country, went down to a great northern city in England to deliver a lecture against Christianity, and the object of her able deliverance was to prove that Christ was a myth. A great crowd of working men assembled to hear her, drawn together, as I believe they often are on such occasions, a good deal more by curiosity than by sympathy with the lecturer. When the lady had finished, a man got up at the other end of the room and said, My friends, you know me. I have lived among you for twenty-five years. Twenty-five years ago I was a drunken brute. I used to beat my wife and make my home a hell upon earth. Now, this lady says that Jesus of Nazareth is a myth. I am not quite sure that I know what a myth is, but I suppose that she means that He never existed, or, at any rate, is not what we declare Him to be. Now, my friends, twenty-five years ago, when I was a drunken, wife-beating rascal, Jesus of Nazareth met me and opened my eyes, and I saw that I was a sinner, and He forgave my sins; and you know what a change took place in me then, and you know what sort of a man I have been for the last twenty-five years. Perhaps the lady will be kind enough to explain me. Down he sat. The lady said that she could not explain him, and she did not deliver the two other lectures in that course, I have no doubt that she was perfectly familiar with all that Strauss has written, and with what Renan says, and with the difficulties which the great men of science have suggested, and she went down to that northern city flushed with the anticipation of victory; but there was one very awkward fact which she had overlooked--that there happened to be living in that very city a well-known man whose eyes Jesus of Nazareth had opened twenty-five years ago. What is the use of making most difficult and endless inquiries into the origin of ancient documents until you have explained me? And standing here addressing some whom I shall never meet again until we meet at the judgment seat, I present myself as a living witness. What you have to explain is me. My mind goes back twenty-three years, when, in a beautiful little village in Wales, Jesus of Nazareth opened my eyes, and I saw that He was my Saviour, and that God was my Father; and in that light I have been walking with perfect happiness for twenty-three years. That is what you have to explain, and you are in a very great difficulty, because there are so many of us. Two thousand years ago there was only one at Jerusalem, and they were able to dispose of him pretty quickly. They lost their tempers; and bullied him, and finally excommunicated him. But you cannot excommunicate us all. Let every man speak of that which he knows. (H. P. Hughes, M. A.)

Agnosticism and Christian experience

Is there a God? Dont know! Is the soul immortal? Dont know! If we should meet each other in the future world will we recognize each other? Dont know! This man proposes to substitute the religion of Dont know for the religion of I know. I know whom I have believed. I know that my Redeemer liveth. Infidelity proposes to substitute a religion of awful negatives for our religion of glorious positives, showing right before us a world of reunion and ecstasy, and high companionship, and glorious worship, and stupendous victory; the mightiest joy of earth not high enough to reach to the base of the Himalaya of uplifted splendour awaiting all those who on the wings of Christian faith will soar toward it. (T. De Witt Talmage.)

Conversion a real experience

This man knew that he could see. Possibly some of you have been decent people all your lives, and yet you do not know whether you are saved or not. This is poor religion. Cold comfort! Saved, and not know it! Surely it must be as lean a salvation as that mans breakfast when he did not know whether he had eaten it or not. The salvation which comes of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is conscious salvation. Your eyes shall be so opened that you shall no longer question whether you can see. He could see, and he knew that he could see. Oh, that you would believe in Jesus, and know that you have believed and are saved! Oh, that you might get into a new world, and enter upon a new state of things altogether! May that which was totally unknown to you before be made known to you at this hour by Almighty grace. (C. H.Spurgeon.)

Value of a personal knowledge of salvation

I recollect the lesson which I learned from my Sunday school class: I was taught, if the other boys were not. Though yet a youth, I was teaching the gospel to boys, and I said, He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. One of them asked somewhat earnestly, Teacher, are you saved? I answered, I hope so. The boy replied, Teacher, dont you know? As if he had been sent to push the matter home to me, he further inquired, Teacher, have you believed? I said, Yes. Well, then, he argued, you are saved. I was happy to answer, Yes, I am; but I had hardly dared to say that before. I found that if I had to teach other people the truth I must know and believe its sweet result upon myself. I believe, dear friends, that you will seldom comfort others except it be by the comfort with which you yourself are comforted of God. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The value of experience

A hundred thousand tongues may discourse to you about the sweetness of honey, but you can never have such knowledge of it as by taste. So a word full of books may tell you wonders of the things of God in religion, but you can never understand them exactly but by the taste of experience. (N. Caussin.)

Personas knowledge valuable

The first qualification, then, of a faithful witness is a personal knowledge of the facts to which he witnesses. If a witness in a court of justice begins to talk of what he thinks, feels, and believes, Oh! hush, hush, says the judge, we cant have that; we want to know what you know--what you have seen, heard, and felt of this case; and these are the sort of witnesses Jesus Christ wants, who get up and say, I know! That is what the Lord Jesus Christ wants--people who know, who experience, who realize, who live the things they witness to. This is what the world is dying for--people who can get up and say, I know.

What did He to thee

The quibbles of infidelity

Pertness and ignorance may ask a question in three lines, which it will cost learning and ingenuity thirty pages to answer. When this is done the same question will be triumphantly asked again next year, as if nothing had ever been written on the subject; and as people in general, for one reason or other, like short objections better than long answers, in this mode of disputation, if it can be styled such, the odds must ever be against us; and we must be content with those of our friends, who have honesty and erudition, candour and patience, to study both sides of the question (chap. 10:25). (Bp. Horne.)

Infidelity can only go round and round the same topics in an eternal circle, without advancing one step further. It produces no new forces: it only brings those again into the field which have been so often baffled, maimed, and disabled, that in pity to them they ought to be dismissed, and discharged from any further service (Act_19:28; Act_19:34). (J. Seed.)

Will ye also be His disciples?--Bold irony this--to ask these stately, ruffled, scrupulous Sanhedrists. Whether he was really to regard them as anxious and sincere inquirers about the claims of the Nazarene prophet! Clearly here was a man whose presumptuous honesty would neither be bullied into suppression, or corrupted into a lie. He was quite impracticable. So, since authority, threats, blandishments had all failed, they broke into abuse, Thou art His disciple, etc. Strange, he replied, that you should know nothing of a man who has wrought such a miracle as not even Moses wrought; and we know that neither he nor anyone else could have done it unless he was from God. What! Shades of Hillel and Shammai! Was a mere blind beggar, a natural ignorant heretic, altogether born in sins, to be teaching them? Unable to control any longer their transport of indignation, they flung him out of the hall, and out of the synagogue. (Archdeacon Farrar.)

Thou art His disciple

I. THE CHARACTER OF A TRUE DISCIPLE. This was the first name attached to Christs followers. It is a correlative to His title, Teacher: hence they who received His instructions were His disciples. And when they obtained the more distinctive name of their Master, this was recognized, The disciples were first called Christians at Antioch. Names are but arbitrary signs of things, and are really characteristic no further than as the things themselves exist. The Christians were no worse for being called Nazarenes, and Judas was no better for being called an apostle. Hence the necessity of distinguishing between the proper and the lax use of words. A man may be a disciple universally or really. Such a distinction is coeval with the use of the term. Many of His disciples went back, Ye are My disciples indeed. A true disciple

1. Believingly embraces the doctrines of Christ. They are received into His heart as the basis of conduct; they are the mould which gives its impression to the character. Such doctrines as credible, require faith; as authoritative, bind; as graciously given, are to be used for the benefit of a guilty and erring mind. So close is the affinity between Christ and His truth, that believing His Word is believing in Him. But it is one thing to believe the gospel to be true, and another to believe its necessity to our own wellbeing; the former will make a man a disciple in name, the latter in truth.

2. Cherishes an ardent affection for Christs person. Faith is His word by realizing to the mind His great excellencies and gifts, engages its esteem, desire, and delight. It opens the springs of gratitude and awakens the purest sensibilities. This love is a master grace, leading a train of other virtues, which receive their highest worth from it.

3. Devotes himself to the cause of Christ--giving himself up to Christs disposal--living or dying. This devotedness includes self-denial, confession of Christ before men, lively activity in extending His kingdom.

II. THE NECESSITY AND IMPORTANCE OF BEING A TRUE DISCIPLE.

1. From the absolute requirement of God, My son give me thy heart. Everything short of this is robbery. He who delays obedience holds out his enmity against God; and can this succeed?

2. From a principle of consistency. Shall God be treated as we deem it base for man to be treated? In common affairs mere outward respect is insulting. With whom do men trifle when they assume the form of godliness without a care of the power.

3. From a regard to our safety and peace. (Congregational Remembrancer.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joh 9:25. Ἐι, if [whether]) In a case, concerning which he has as yet no certainty, he nevertheless does not yield to the false authority of others; and he rather believes, that Jesus is not a sinner, than that He is a sinner.—τυφλὸς ὤν, whereas I was blind) The participle has the force of a præterite tense, which is manifest from that which follows, now I see. Comp. Gal 1:23, “They had heard only, That he which persecuted us in times past, now preacheth the faith, which once he destroyed, ὄτι ὁ διώκων ἡμᾶς πότε, νῦν εὐαγγελίζεται τὴν πίστιν, ἥν πότε ἐπόρθει.”

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joh 9:25 . But they find in the man a kind of independence and obstinacy they are not used to. Εἰ ἁμαρτωλός … βλέπω . He does not question their knowledge, and he draws no express inferences from what has happened, but of one thing he is sure, that he was blind and that now he sees.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

He answered and said, Whether he be a sinner or no, &c.--Not that the man meant to insinuate any doubt in his own mind on the point of His being "a sinner," but as his opinion on such a point would be of no consequence to others, he would speak only to what he knew as fact in his own case.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 25. Whereas I was blind, now I see.] He pays no attention to their cavils, nor to their perversion of justice; but, in the simplicity of his heart, speaks to the fact, of the reality of which he was ready to give them the most substantial evidence.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

25. Whether he be a sinner, I know not. The blind man appears not to have been at all prevented by fear from giving a sincere testimony. For there is no reason to believe that he had any doubts about Christ, as his words seem to imply; but I rather think that he spoke ironically, in order to wound them more deeply. He had already confessed that Christ was a Prophet, (verse 17.) Perceiving that he gains nothing by doing so, he suspends his judgment about the person, and brings forward the fact itself, so that, while he makes this admission in their favor, he is not free from ridiculing them.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(25) Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not.—The words, “or no,” are added to the text, but rightly complete the meaning. He, like his parents, will confine himself to matters of fact coming under his own certain knowledge. They had declared authoritatively that they knew this Man to be one whose life was characterised by sin. He is convinced that this cannot be so (Joh_9:31; Joh_9:33), but he does not dispute their assertion; he simply makes his own, which cannot be gainsaid, and which cuts the ground from under them.

One thing I know.—For this use of “one thing” to mark the chief thing which is so important that all others are excluded, and it is left as the only one in the mind, comp. Mar_10:21 (“one thing thou lackest”) and Luk_10:42 (“one thing is needful”).

Whereas I was blind, now I see.—Better, Being a blind man, now I see. He places the two things in contrast. He was the well-known “blind man,” whose experience of his own blindness had extended from birth to manhood. They declare that he has not been healed. He is conscious of his power to see, and this one thing he affirms. The difficulty is of their making; let them explain it as they think best.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

25. He answered] Better, Therefore he answered. He will not commit himself, but keeps to the incontrovertible facts of the case.

whereas I was blind] Literally, being a blind man, but the Greek participle may be either present or imperfect; either ‘being by nature a blind man’ or ‘being formerly blind.’ In Joh_3:13 and Joh_19:38 we have the same participle, and a similar doubt as to whether it is present or imperfect: so also in Joh_9:8.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Then said they to him again,.... Finding they could not bring him to deny the fact, or cause him to entertain an ill opinion of him that did it, they examine him again about the manner of it:

what did he to thee? how opened he thine eyes? These questions they had put before, Joh 9:15, and propose them again, in hope he would vary in the account, which they would not fail of improving against him; or that it would appear that he had not been really blind, at least from his birth; or that Christ made use of some unlawful means, as magic art, which they were always ready to charge him with, and to impute his miracles to a diabolical familiarity and influence; and they would have been glad to have had something to support such a calumny.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

25 He answered and said, Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.

Ver. 25. Whether he be a sinner or no, &c.] That is, a notorious impious man, as you affirm him. And this is an ironic speech; as if he should say, You may make of him what you will, and call him at your pleasure; he is as he is. And this one thing I know, and will testify, that whereas I was blind, now I see; yea, and I see day at a little hole too. If this man were not of God, he could do nothing, Joh 9:33.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not - The man had just said that he believed Jesus to be a prophet, Joh 9:17. By his saying that he did not know whether he was a sinner may be meant that though he might be a prophet, yet that he might not be perfect; or that it did not become him, being an obscure and unlearned man, to attempt to determine that question. What follows shows that he did not believe that he was a sinner, and these words were probably spoken in irony to deride the Pharisees. They were perverse and full of cavils, and were determined not to believe. The man reminded them that the question was not whether Jesus was a sinner; that, though that might be, yet it did not settle the other question about opening his eyes, which was the chief point of the inquiry.

One thing I know ... - About this he could have no doubt. He disregarded, therefore, their cavils. We may learn, also, here:

That this declaration may be made by every converted sinner. He may not be able to meet the cavils of others. He may not be able to tell how he was converted. It is enough if he can say, “I was a sinner, but now love God; I was in darkness, but have now been brought to the light of truth.” We should not be ashamed of the fact that we are made to see by the Son of God. No cavil or derision of men should deter us from such an avowal. Sinners are perpetually shifting the real point of inquiry. They do not inquire into the facts. They assume that a thing cannot be true, and then argue as if that was a conceded point. The proper way in religion is first to inquire into the facts, and then account for them as we can.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

This poor man being of no higher quality than a beggar, can be presumed to have had no great education; yet his answer is as good as could be expected from one of the greatest breeding, both for security to himself, and his stout asserting what was truth. As to their charge upon our Saviour of his being a great sinner, he avoids it, telling them, as to that he knew nothing, nor was it his concern to inquire; but this he knew, that he had wrought a great work on him, for whereas he had been blind from his mother’s womb, he now had his sight by his means: so as all their frowns could not tempt him to deny the miracle wrought upon him, nor yet to speak the least in abatement of it.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

25. Whether… a sinner—Rather, If he be a sinner I know it not. He stands first upon a profoundly conscientious know not, and next upon his own infallible

know. Was blind, now I see—Upon this point his knowledge was surer than any Sanhedrim’s that ever sat. A feeble character might have surrendered; but in soul this is a most princely beggar.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

He therefore answered (and said), Whether he be a sinner using the words of "the Jews" ironically I know not. You assert it, but the facts of my experience are altogether of a different kind. I do not know, as you say that you do. The Jews reason from foregone prejudices; the healed man has no such evidence, no such grounds he adds in immortal words, One thing I know with invincible conviction, that whereas I was blind (De Wette says there is no need to regard the wn as an imperfect participle, and the present suggests the whole career of the man from birth till that memorable morning), now I see. The plain consistent testimony of the man triumphs over their logic, which sought to bewilder his judgment. The language which a deeply felt experience can always bring against the a priori demonstrations of the insufficiency of the evidence of Divine revelation. I was blind; now I see the face of God in nature, the kingdom of God all around me, the fact of my own forgiveness, the dawning of a brighter day.

Spiritual sight contrasted with spiritual blindness.

In this instance, as in many others, the miracle is also the parable. The whole narrative is full of spiritual teaching and beauty. The candor and sagacity of the man who received his sight from Jesus are evident in the witness he bore witness to what was within his own experience, witness which none other was so competent to bear as he. All who have felt Christ"s spiritual power will adopt this language. Whatever they know not, this they know, that, whereas they were blind, now they see.

I THE SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS OF SINFUL MEN.

1. This is compatible with keenness of natural vision and of intellectual discernment. Men "having eyes, see not." It is marvelous how far-sighted people may be in worldly affairs, and yet may lack spiritual vision.

2. It evinces itself in privation:

(1) Of true knowledge the knowledge of self, and, above all, the knowledge of God.

(2) Of Divine guidance. In great darkness the blind man is led, not knowing whither he goeth. The spiritually unenlightened sees not the way of life, of safety.

(3) Of heavenly joys. Sight is the occa sion of much natural pleasure; and they who see not Divine realities know nothing of the highest delights of which the soul is capable.

3. It is unconscious of its own loss. As the blind from birth are, whilst in their blindness, utterly unable to conceive how much they lose, so those whom the god of this world hath blinded say, "We see," and know not that they are blind and miserable.

II THE MISSION OF CHRIST TO GIVE SIGHT TO THE SPIRITUALLY BLIND.

1. Observe the motive which animated him in the fulfillment of this beneficent work. It was pity. Common humanity pities the naturally blind; Divine love commiserates those who lack spiritual vision.

2. The power that effects this marvelous change. The poor man upon whom Christ wrought this miracle justly argued that his Benefactor must possess Divine authority. Spiritual enlightenment is the prerogative of God. He "hath shined into our hearts." And we are justified in attributing to a Divine Savior the many glorious miracles of spiritual illumination which our Lord has wrought for men.

3. The means by which Christ works. The provision of the gospel dispensation is all-sufficient for this purpose. On the side of man, there is faith exercised by the sufferer in the Healer, without which no soul is opened to the heavenly rays. On the side of God, there is the illumining Spirit, whose agency is indispensable, who sheds forth the light, and who cleanses the spiritual organ, and renders it susceptible to the quickening, celestial beams.

4. The manner of this enlightenment. It is immediate, thorough, and enduring.

III THE SPIRITUAL SIGHT WHICH CHRIST CONFERS. The exclamation, "Now I see!" was an indication of present experience, and an earnest of future development. Christ, in bestowing the gift of spiritual vision, opens the eyes:

1. To self and sin.

2. To God himself his attributes and his purposes.

3. To the meaning of life its realities and opportunities.

4. To the unspeakable privileges of the Christian calling.

5. To the unseen realities of eternity.

APPLICATION. The language of the man who received his" sight is especially encouraging to those who are troubled in their mind because they have not consciously undergone changes of which others speak with confidence. It is neither the process, nor the time, nor the mode of enlightenment, which is of supreme importance. It is the fact that the change has taken place. Our natural state is one of spiritual blindness. If "now we see," then we have reason for rejoicing, and for grateful acknowledgment of our Savior"s healing mercy. T.

The testimony of individual blessing.

I THE REST ANSWER TO CRITICS OF JESUS. Here are the fitting representatives of that vast multitude who in all ages have striven to heap scorn on the Name of Jesus. "We know," they say. That was just the way Nicodemus talked when he came to Jesus. He came with patronage on his tongue know thou art a Teacher come from God." Thus also we read concerning some of Jerusalem that they were sure Jesus could not be the Christ, for as to the Christ no one knew whence he would come; but as to Jesus, they knew whence he was. And the quondam blind man did well in not meeting argument with argument. Let the opponents of Jesus bring forth the knowledge in which they are so confident; those give them their best answer who can point to some indubitable change in their own experience. Christianity is propagated by testimony rather than argument. Many people are quite capable of appreciating evidence who would be utterly bewildered at the very entrance of an argument. Controversy, which some are so fond of, has done little for the cause of Christ. But testimony has done a great deal, even such testimony as was here presented testimony to the senses. He who used to be seen as a blind man is now seen with full power of vision. Here is a welcome change a change that has to be accounted for, not as to the disposition producing it, but as to the power. It must be a kind and gracious power that gives sight to the man born blind. if the reverse had happened, if the seeing man had been struck blind, this would need explaining, even as really happens in the case of Elymas. (Act_13:11) There, of course, the explanation lies ready to hand in the judicial and admonitory. Happy those who, when specious and conceited arguments against faith in Jesus are laid before them, can fall back on the testimony of their own experience. Something good has happened to them which they believe Jesus to have produced.

II THE STRONGHOLD OF A CHRISTIAN"S FAITH. A Christian is under no compulsion to answer the questions, the doubts, the arguments, of other people, unless indeed he has set himself the task of convincing them. If we would win people to Christ, we must be all things to them, and meet argument with argument, if that will do good. But questions and doubts may sometimes rise in our own minds, and the true answer to them is in getting down to fact, and observing how those who once were blind have now come to see. A living Christianity, actual and manifest results of the gospel, these are our strongholds when the struggle comes.

III A QUESTION AS TO OUR OWN EXPERIENCE. All our intellectual conclusions concerning Jesus are in vain unless there has been a deep personal experience. No matter how careful the search, no matter how sound the reasoning, it is all in vain. Many have written to support Jesus as the Christ, but when we read between the lines, we see how all their talk is from the outside. They can recommend Jesus to others, but it is pretty plain they have not accepted him for themselves. How can we truly know Jesus, how can we be sure of our hold upon him, unless there has been some deep beneficial change in ourselves? A far deeper experience is possible for every one of us than this man went through. Of all those born naturally blind, only a few have ever had natural vision added to them the few, namely, that Jesus dealt with. But of those born spiritually blind, i.e. all of us, it is the Divine intent that we should all say in due season, "Whereas I was blind, now I see. Y.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

25. ἐκεῖνος. See on Joh 9:11. He will not argue or commit himself, but keeps to the incontrovertible facts of the case.

τυφλὸς ὤν. As in Joh 3:13 and Joh 19:38, we are in doubt whether the participle is present or imperfect; either ‘being by nature a blind man,’ or ‘being formerly blind:’ so also in Joh 9:8. Winer, p. 429.

ἄρτι. Now, in contrast to the past; see on Joh 2:10.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

25. ὤν] See on ver. 8. The man shrewdly evades the inference and states again the simple fact. Bear in mind, that ὤν must here be strictly kept to its present sense, as being joined with a present verb βλέπω: the rule for the construction of a pres. part. being, that it is contemporaneous with the verb which rules the time of the sentence. So that we must render, not ‘whereas I was blind, now I see,’ as E. V.: but as A.V.R., being a blind man [or, though a blind man], now I see. The shrewd and naïve disposition of the man furnishes the key to the ænigmatical expression. He puts it to them as the problem, the fact of which he knows for certain but the reason of which it was for them to solve, that he, whom they all knew as a blind man, now saw. So that the ὤν carries not so much present matter of fact, as common designation and title.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

25. The shrewdness and obstinacy of the man reveal themselves in his answer. He refuses to discuss their assertion that Jesus was a sinner. “One thing I know, that being a blind man, now I see.” That is all he will say.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.