Jesus' Fifth Sign Healing the Man Born Blind John 9:1-12

Some hold that John has a scheme of seven signs, culminating in the resurrection of Lazarus; others link the feeding of the five thousand and the walking on the water (Jn. 6) as one sign, making the

D. A. Carson, The Gospel according to John, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; W.B. Eerdmans, 1991), 175.

The first main section of the gospel is sometimes referred to as ‘the book of signs’ because of the sequence of ‘signs’ which John himself flags up as he introduces the first two (2:11; 4:54). John seems, with these, to be hinting at a longer sequence, which most assume will mean seven, but opinions differ as to which incidents in the subsequent narrative should be seen as the remaining five. There is a lot to be said for seeing the raising of Lazarus (11:1–45) as the seventh, which might suggest that the third is the healing of the crippled man (5:2–16), the fourth the feeding of the five thousand (6:1–15), the fifth the walking on water (6:16–21), and the sixth the healing of the man born blind (9:1–7). On balance, however, we prefer the perhaps bolder move of seeing Jesus’ crucifixion itself as the seventh sign, with the raising of Lazarus as the sixth, omitting the walking on water which, though obviously significant in various ways, does not stand out in the same way in John’s narrative. The point of the ‘signs’, as John says at 2:11, is that they reveal Jesus’ glory and elicit faith. For John, this is supremely true of the crucifixion.

N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird, The New Testament in Its World: An Introduction to the History, Literature, and Theology of the First Christians (London; Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic; SPCK, 2019), 665–666.

As Carson comments: ‘Like the seed whose death is the germination of life for a great crop, so Jesus’ death generates a plentiful harvest. The seed is thereby vindicated; the Son is thereby glorified.’

N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird, The New Testament in Its World: An Introduction to the History, Literature, and Theology of the First Christians (London; Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic; SPCK, 2019), 672.