The world, according to Jesus is divided into two groups:
o those who are in darkness, the spiritually blind, and
o those that have sight, the spiritually seeing.
There are only two kinds of people. There’s no half-sight. There are no partially blind. You either see or you are totally blind. As the country preacher said, “There are only two kinds of people in the world, the saints and the ‘saints, and that’s all!”
Now, this entire issue of blindness and issue as the whole of sight is really what governs chapter 9 of John.
So as we open to John chapter 9 we open to the 6th of the 7 special sign miracles. At the end of chapter 8 they are trying to stone Christ to death. Chapter 9 open right after that as Jesus passed by the entrance to the Temple, He sees this particular blind man. And then one of the greatest miracles in all of the scriptures happens. He heals him. That’s the story. What is the message? After healing his eyesight, Jesus heals his soul.
Remember we learned that each of these 7 sign miracles is Christ is presenting Himself as God in human flesh. He’s presenting Himself as the Messiah, the Savior of the world, God incarnate. And this is the burden of John’s message. This is what John the Apostle is doing in this whole gospel. He is presenting the deity of Jesus Christ. On every page it is Christ is God, Christ is God, Christ is God, Christ is God relentlessly, tirelessly, constantly.
And remember that Isaiah prophesied that Messiah would give sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, speech to the dumb, and healing to the lame (Isa. 29:18; 32:3; 35:5–6). When John’s disciples came to inquire of Jesus, He reminded them of these prophecies and applied them to Himself (Matt. 11:4–5). The miracles that Jesus performed were attestations to His deity. But to really grasp the wonder of this miracle make some observations:
o That blind man couldn’t have seen Jesus. No way, couldn’t see Him. He wouldn’t have known if Jesus had walked right by him. Wouldn’t have had any idea about it.
o God’s grace dominates this whole miracle. It isn’t this man running to Jesus saying, "Oh! Heal me, heal me!" No, Jesus saw him, and see that’s the way grace is, isn’t it?
o It’s Christ seeking us. We could not see Him except He saw us. We are blind, we’re absolutely blind. We have no capacity to see God. We have no capacity to see Jesus Christ. We are incapacitated, we are stone-blind, spiritually speaking. We can’t see.
Now here is the most precious, striking, and beautiful truth from this whole account – Jesus had time for this blind man. Remember the circumstance?
o Jesus is running for His life. Running to get away from being stoned. But Jesus never too busy to stop, to gather up a blind sinner, and bring him along.
o If we found ourselves running away from being stoned, I don’t really think we’d stop to share the truth with anybody. I think I’d be hightailing it so fast there’d be a cloud of smoke. Not Jesus. He was threatened with His life but He had time to stop and give sight to a blind man. And you know what, He just kept ongoing. But the blind man finally found Him, again. And He gave sight to his soul.
o You know, it reminds me of Jesus on the cross. Jesus was dying on the cross, bearing the sins of the world, the whole sin of the world, on the sinless Son of God. Talk about problems. Talk about the guilt, the shame. And so unoccupied with His own problems, that He was hanging there on a cross, gathering into His arms a dying thief to carry along to paradise with Him that same day. That’s always the way Jesus is, isn’t it? Always concerned about the one who needs.
(WFM-51; 020612AM)
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