I am notoriously bad at looking for things. My wife will ask me to find something in the house, and I can search everywhere for it, only for her to walk over and point to the thing sitting right in front of me. Much to her frustration, our eldest daughter seems to have inherited the same ability, so if something goes missing in our house, my wife is basically on her own.
The ironic thing is that my eyesight is actually really good. I have better than 20/20 vision. I can see perfectly well. I cannot always see what is right under my nose.
That’s part of the irony running through John 9. The man who starts the chapter physically blind gradually becomes the person who sees Jesus most clearly. Meanwhile, people with perfectly functioning eyes keep missing what stands right in front of them.
The Problem Revealed in the Passage
The first thing I want us to notice in John 9 is that the blind man isn’t the only person in this chapter who cannot see properly. By the end of the story, he sees Jesus most clearly. The people around him, especially the Pharisees, have working eyes; they know their Bibles and their theology, but they still cannot see what is right in front of them.
You can see that right from the start. The disciples look at this man and ask Jesus:
“Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
Their question assumes that suffering like this must be the direct punishment for someone’s sin. Either this man somehow sinned before birth, or his parents must have done something to deserve this.
Jesus rejects that assumption. He is not saying that sin has nothing to do with suffering in the world. Scripture is clear that suffering, sickness and death belong to a world broken by sin. Often our own sinful choices bring painful consequences. But Jesus says we cannot look at someone’s suffering and assume that God must be punishing them for some specific sin. This man’s blindness is not evidence that he or his parents were worse sinners than anyone else.
Instead, Jesus turns the disciples away from trying to work out who is to blame and towards what God is going to do. “This happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” The disciples want to look backwards and ask, “What caused this?” Jesus points them forward and says, in effect, “Watch what God is about to do.”
Then Jesus says something really important in verse 5:
“While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
That is the key to the whole chapter. Jesus has already said that back in chapter 8, but now John shows us what it looks like. Jesus gives sight to a man who has been blind from birth. But as the chapter goes on, we realise this is about more than eyesight. The bigger question becomes, who can actually see who Jesus is?
And this is where I think John is very deliberate. Listen to how the man talks about Jesus as the chapter goes on. In verse 11, he says, “The man they call Jesus.” That is about as far as he can go. Then in verse 17 he says, “He is a prophet.” Later, in verse 33, he says, “If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” He still does not understand everything, but he is moving in the right direction. He is beginning to see.
At the same time, the Pharisees are moving in the opposite direction. Their problem is not a lack of evidence. They have the man standing right in front of them. They hear his story. They speak to his parents. His parents confirm that he was born blind. Nobody really seems to be disputing anymore that something remarkable has happened.
But instead of asking, “What does this tell us about Jesus?”, they keep trying to find a reason not to believe it.
You see that in verse 16. Some of them say,
“This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.”
They have already decided what kind of person Jesus must be, and now everything must fit inside that conclusion. Even when some of them ask the obvious question, “How can a sinner perform such signs?”, it does not really move them anywhere.
That is what makes this chapter so uncomfortable. The Pharisees are not dumb. They are not ignorant. They know the Scriptures. They care about holiness. They care about the Sabbath. But they are so sure they can see clearly that they cannot recognise what God is doing right in front of them.’
Then you have the man’s parents. Their problem is a little different. They know what happened. They know their son was born blind. They know he can now see. But John tells us they are afraid. They know that publicly siding with Jesus could cost them. So they keep their distance: “He is of age; ask him.”
So already we have different kinds of blindness in the chapter. The disciples jump too quickly to an explanation. The parents are held back by fear. The Pharisees are held back by pride and certainty. And then you get that great line in verse 25. The Pharisees tell the man that Jesus is a sinner, and he says,
“Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind, but now I see!”
I love that answer because he does not pretend to know more than he does. He does not have all the answers yet. He cannot give them a full theology of Jesus. But he knows what Jesus has done for him, and he refuses to deny it. This reminds me of the woman at the well in John 4. She didn’t have a theological treatise on Jesus and a working explanation of predestination, regeneration, justification or eschatology. No, she doesn’t know, and she doesn’t need to right now. She just tells people,
“Come and see the man who told me everything I ever did” John 4:29
It’s a beautiful, simple and crystal-clear picture of who Jesus is.
Back to this chapter, as the questioning goes on, the formerly blind man gets bolder.
By verse 30, he is basically saying, “How can you not see this?” He says, “Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes.” The experts are saying, “We do not know where this man comes from,” while the man who was blind can see that God must be at work through him.
That is the irony John wants us to notice. The man who started the chapter unable to see is slowly seeing more and more clearly. The people who started the chapter convinced that they could see are becoming more and more blind.
By the end of this section, the Pharisees have no argument left. So they insult him, and they throw him out.
That is where the real problem in John 9 becomes clear. This chapter is not mainly about physical blindness. It is about spiritual blindness. It is possible to know a lot about God, to know the Scriptures, to be deeply religious, and still fail to see Jesus.
The man who knows he has been blind is beginning to see. The people who are certain they can see are the ones missing him.
The Problem in the World Today
That’s where this passage starts to become uncomfortable for us. Spiritual blindness doesn’t always look like someone who knows nothing about God. In John 9, some of the blindest people in the chapter are the people who know the most.
The Pharisees know the Scriptures. They care about obedience. They care about the Sabbath. They have spent years thinking about God and teaching other people about God. If anyone should have been able to recognise what God was doing, you would think it would be them. And yet they miss Jesus.
That means you can know a lot about God without actually seeing Jesus clearly. You can be around church for years, be in the pews for years, know the stories, know the right answers, know what Christians believe, and still become so familiar with it all that we stop letting Jesus challenge us.
I think that is one of the dangers of being around Christianity for a long time. We can become very sure that we already know what Jesus is going to say. We hear the Bible read and think, “I know this one.” We hear a sermon passage announced and already know where we think it is going. We have our categories worked out. We know what kinds of people are right and wrong. We know how God should work. And sometimes our confidence can actually stop us from listening.
That is what happens to the Pharisees. They have already decided that Jesus cannot be from God because he does not fit the category, they have created for him. So, when something happens that should make them rethink their conclusion, they do the opposite. They keep looking for a way to protect the conclusion they already have. And we can do that too.
We can read the Bible looking for confirmation of what we already believe rather than allowing God’s Word to correct us. We can hear something uncomfortable and immediately think about the person sitting three rows ahead who really needs to hear it. We can become very good at spotting everybody else’s blindness while never asking whether we might be missing something. At times, it’s almost like we have a log in our own eye.
And sometimes it is not pride that stops us. Sometimes it is fear.
That is what we see in the man’s parents. They know what has happened, but they also know what it might cost them to say too much about Jesus. So, they keep quiet and step back.
We probably understand that response, too. Sometimes identifying ourselves with Jesus can feel costly. Perhaps it is a conversation at work. Perhaps it is with friends or family. Perhaps we know exactly what we believe, but we also know that saying it out loud might make the conversation awkward, change how somebody sees us, or cost us something socially.
So, John 9 gives us different ways of failing to see clearly:
- We can be so certain that we refuse correction.
- We can be so afraid that we refuse to speak.
- We can be so familiar with Jesus that we stop being amazed by him.
That is why I think the question we need to ask ourselves is not simply, “Can I see?” Of course, we think we can. The Pharisees thought they could too.
The better question is,
“Am I willing for Jesus to show me where I cannot see?”
Because one of the hardest things about blindness is that you may not realise what you are missing.
And if the answer to spiritual blindness was knowing more, the Pharisees should have been fine. If it was simply trying harder, they should have been fine. If it was being more religious, they should have been fine.
But they were not.
Which means the answer to our blindness cannot simply be, “Look harder.”
We need someone who can give sight.
And that is exactly what Jesus does next.
The Grace Offered in the Text
And that is exactly what Jesus does next.
Verse 35 is one of the most important moments in the whole chapter:
“Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him…”
Notice who takes the initiative. The religious leaders have just rejected the man. He has been thrown out because he refused to deny what Jesus had done for him. And Jesus hears about it, goes looking for him, and finds him.
That matters because, up until this point, the man has been slowly working out who Jesus is.
He has moved from “the man they call Jesus,” to “a prophet,” to someone who must be “from God.” He is seeing more clearly, but he is still not there yet.
And he cannot get himself the rest of the way.
Jesus has to come to him.
Jesus asks him, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” And the man answers, “Who is he, sir? Tell me so that I may believe in him.”
There is something wonderfully honest about that answer. He is ready to believe, but he still needs Jesus to show him who he is.
And then Jesus says, “You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.”
That word “seen” matters after everything we have just read. This man has spent his whole life unable to see. At the beginning of the chapter, Jesus gave him physical sight. But now Jesus gives him something even greater. He opens his eyes to see who is standing in front of him.
The man responds, “Lord, I believe,” and worships him.
That is really the climax of the chapter.
The biggest thing that happens to this man is not that he walks home able to see the colour of the sky or the faces of his family for the first time. As extraordinary as that is, John takes us somewhere greater.
This man comes to see Jesus for who he really is.
And notice again that Jesus is the one who makes that happen.
Jesus sees the man at the beginning of the chapter.
Jesus gives him sight.
Jesus finds him after he has been thrown out.
Jesus reveals himself to him.
And the man believes.
That is grace.
The Pharisees spend the chapter demanding that the man explain Jesus to them. Jesus comes to the man and shows him who he is.
And once Jesus reveals himself, the man does the only appropriate thing. He worships.
That is where the progression we have been watching reaches its destination. “The man they call Jesus.” “A prophet.” “From God.” And finally, “Lord, I believe.”
Then Jesus explains what has been happening throughout the whole chapter. In verse 39 he says,
“For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”
Jesus is not saying that he came because some people have good eyesight and others do not. He is talking about what happens when people encounter him.
Those who know they are blind can receive sight. Those who insist that they already see have no reason to ask him for it.
And that is why the final exchange with the Pharisees is so sharp. They ask Jesus, “What? Are we blind too?”
Jesus says,
“If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.”
Their great problem is not simply that they cannot see. Their problem is that they are convinced that they can.
The man knows he needs sight, and Jesus gives it to him.
The Pharisees insist they already see, and so they remain blind.
That is the grace at the centre of John 9. Jesus does not stand at a distance and tell blind people to try harder to see. He comes to them. He finds them. He opens their eyes. He shows them who he is.
And when Jesus opens someone’s eyes to see him, the right response is the response of this man:
“Lord, I believe.”
And he worships.
Grace Offered to Us Today
So what does this mean for us?
For many of us, the danger is probably not that we know too little about Jesus. The danger may be that we have known about him for so long that we assume we already see him clearly.
Some of us have been Christians for twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years. We have heard hundreds of sermons. We know the stories. We know the songs. We know how church works. We know what we believe. And all of that is a gift.
But John 9 also warns us.
You can be very familiar with the things of God and still become blind to what God is doing in us.
That was the danger for the Pharisees. Their problem was not a lack of Bible knowledge. Their problem was that they became so confident in their own sight that they stopped asking whether they might be wrong.
And I think that is where this passage needs to press us.
When was the last time God’s Word genuinely corrected you?
When was the last time you read something in Scripture and thought, “I need to change”?
When was the last time another Christian challenged you and, instead of immediately defending yourself, you stopped and asked whether they might be right?
One sign of spiritual maturity is not becoming harder to correct. Instead, we should become quicker to recognise how much we still need Jesus.
The man in John 9 is such a helpful picture of that. He never pretends to know more than he does. He is willing to say, “I don’t know.” But every time he sees something more clearly, he responds. And perhaps that is a good question for those of us who have followed Jesus for a long time:
Are we still willing to see something new about ourselves?
- Are we still willing to repent?
- Are we still willing to have our priorities challenged?
- Are we still willing to admit that there are parts of our character, our habits, our relationships, our attitudes, where we may not be seeing clearly?
Because none of us graduates from needing Jesus to open our eyes.
We can become blind through familiarity. We can hear a passage and think, “I know this already.” We can sing words about grace without being amazed by grace anymore. We can pray without really expecting God to answer.
We can come to church every Sunday and slowly begin to go through the motions.
And John 9 reminds us that the Christian life is not simply about seeing Jesus once and then carrying on by ourselves.
We need him to keep showing us where we are blind:
- Maybe we have learned to live with bitterness.
- Maybe there is pride that we now call experience.
- Maybe there is a habit we stopped fighting years ago.
- Maybe there is someone we refuse to forgive.
- Maybe we have put Jesus in a box where we believe in our own spirituality and have a general belief in God, but it’s no more than that.
- Maybe we have become cynical about church, or cynical about other Christians, or even cynical about what God can still do in us.
And sometimes the hardest thing is that we may no longer see any of it as a problem.
That is why the grace of this passage matters so much.
Jesus finds the man.
Jesus opens his eyes.
Jesus shows him who he is.
And Jesus is still the one we need.
So perhaps the prayer John 9 leaves us with is a very simple one:
- “Lord, help me to see.”
- Help me to see where I have become proud.
- Help me to see where I have become comfortable.
- Help me to see where I have stopped listening.
- Help me to see you clearly again.
And this takes us back to what Jesus said near the beginning of the chapter: “While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
That is what light does. Light exposes what we could not see before. It shows us what is really there. And sometimes that is uncomfortable, because when Jesus shines his light into our lives, he shows us things about ourselves we would rather not see.
But that same light is also grace.
Jesus does not expose our blindness and then leave us in the dark. He is the light who gives sight.
The man in John 9 does not simply realise that he was blind. He comes to see Jesus.
And that is what we need as well. We do not simply need better eyesight. We do not simply need more information, more experience, or more years in church. We need the light of the world to keep shining into our lives so that we can see him clearly.
The goal of the Christian life is not to reach a point where we no longer need Jesus to correct us. The goal is to become people who see him more clearly, trust him more deeply, and respond to him more readily.
And notice where the man’s journey ends.
It ends in worship.
“Lord, I believe.”
And he worshipped him.
That is where the light leads.
The light of the world opens blind eyes so that we can see Jesus for who he really is.
And after twenty years, forty years, sixty years of following him, that is still what we need.
Not simply to know more about Jesus.
But to see him more clearly.
And having seen him, to respond again:
“Lord, I believe.”
Let’s pray,
