John 9 Verses 1 to 3 Dignity and Disability November 17, 2024 Sacred Life

John 9 Verses 1 to 3 Dignity and Disability November 17, 2024 Sacred Life Lesson 8 Class Presentation Notes AAAAA

Background Scriptures:

1 Corinthians 12:12–24 (NASB95)

12 For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ.

13 For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

14 For the body is not one member, but many.

15 If the foot says, “Because I am not a hand, I am not a part of the body,” it is not for this reason any the less a part of the body.

16 And if the ear says, “Because I am not an eye, I am not a part of the body,” it is not for this reason any the less a part of the body.

17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole were hearing, where would the sense of smell be?

18 But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired.

19 If they were all one member, where would the body be?

20 But now there are many members, but one body.

21 And the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you”; or again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.”

22 On the contrary, it is much truer that the members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary;

23 and those members of the body which we deem less honorable, on these we bestow more abundant honor, and our less presentable members become much more presentable,

24 whereas our more presentable members have no need of it. But God has so composed the body, giving more abundant honor to that member which lacked,

2 Corinthians 12:6–10 (NASB95)

6 For if I do wish to boast I will not be foolish, for I will be speaking the truth; but I refrain from this, so that no one will credit me with more than he sees in me or hears from me.

7 Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself!

8 Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me.

9 And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

10 Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.

Main Idea:

• God works through our weaknesses to display His greatness.

Study Aim:

• To learn that God celebrates and affirms all image bearers, regardless of abilities or qualifications.

Create Interest:

• Just as the man in this passage is blind and unable to see Jesus, so the same applies to the Jewish leaders. They are blind—spiritually blind. They can’t see Jesus for who he really is. So, when Jesus comes along and tells everyone that they are more wicked than they can possibly imagine, yet more loved than they can ever dream, the Jewish leaders just don’t get it; it goes right over their heads. They are blind to it; there is no room in their thinking for such a verdict.

 How would you…did you react to a statemen like this????

• There is a gut instinct within most people that you get what you deserve in this life. Good happens to the good, and bad happens to the bad. It’s a way of thinking that is revealed by the disciples of Jesus when they come across this man who has been blind since birth (v. 2). The reasoning is obvious (they think): there is something bad in this man’s life, so it must be because he or his parents have done bad in the past. He is only getting what he deserves.

• So as Jesus leaves the temple, the hub of religious life full of dignified and proud religious people who are rejecting him, the contrast can’t be more extreme. By all accounts, the man deserves nothing, but what he experiences is grace. For no other reason than his own sovereign choice, Jesus decides to heal this man. It even seems that the blind man has not asked to be healed.

• This is grace, and this is what offended religious people then and still offends them today. This is the core truth concerning salvation: it’s not something earned or merited.

Lesson in Historical Context:

• Sometimes the most apparently “enlightened” people are less insightful than those who have been less well educated or instructed. There’s none so foolish as an educated fool, as the saying goes. While learning can give genuine light, it does not necessarily allow us to be wise, or spiritually insightful, or give what we often call “common sense.” What does it take to really “see” the meaning of life, and “perceive” the best way to live life? Our story in this part is all about sight and blindness.

• Isaiah predicted that in messianic times various signs would occur. The Messiah would “open eyes that are blind” (Isa. 42:7; cf. Isa. 29:18; 35:5). Jesus often healed the blind (cf. Matt. 9:27–31; 12:22–23; 15:30; 20:29–34; 21:14). This miracle in John 9 is notable because Jesus had just proclaimed Himself as “the Light of the world” (8:12). As a public demonstration of His claim, He gave sight to a man born blind.

Bible Study:

John 9:1–12 (NASB95)

Healing the Man Born Blind

1 As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth.

2 And His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?”

3 Jesus answered, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.

4 “We must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day; night is coming when no one can work.

5 “While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world.”

6 When He had said this, He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and applied the clay to his eyes,

7 and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which is translated, Sent). So he went away and washed, and 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?”

9 Others were saying, “This is he,” still others were saying, “No, but he is like him.” He kept saying, “I am the one.”

10 So they were saying to him, “How then were your eyes opened?”

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.”

*pool of Siloam Part of the water system of the city of David, in the older southeastern part of Jerusalem. Siloam likely had some mythological reputation surrounding it, suggesting that someone could be healed by entering the pool at particular times under certain conditions.

*(This word means Sent). The etymology of Siloam as Sent is not artificially created for the sake of the author’s symbolism. The water in the pool was, after all, literally, sent, or conducted, from the Gihon Spring by way of Hezekiah’s tunnel.

12 They said to him, “Where is He?” He *said, “I do not know.”

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• About the only thing a blind man could do in that day was beg, and that is what this man was doing when Jesus passed by (John 9:8). No doubt there were many blind people who would have rejoiced to be healed, but Jesus selected this man. Apparently, the man and his parents were well known in the community. It was on the Sabbath when Jesus healed the man (John 9:14), so that once again He was upsetting and deliberately challenging the religious leaders (John 5:9ff). Note the following Scripture😊.

o John 9:14–16 (NASB95)

14 Now it was a Sabbath on the day when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes.

15 Then the Pharisees also were asking him again how he received his sight. And he said to them, “He applied clay to my eyes, and I washed, and I see.”

16 Therefore some of the Pharisees were saying, “This man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath.” But others were saying, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And there was a division among them.

o John 5:9–10 (NASB95) (reference to a man crippled healed)

9 Immediately the man became well, and picked up his pallet and began to walk. Now it was the Sabbath on that day.

10 So the Jews were saying to the man who was cured, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not permissible for you to carry your pallet.”

 What goes through your mind when you see a disabled person?

 How long had the man Jesus saw been blind? (9:1) Since birth.

 Why had this man been born blind? Consider the following……….

9:3 the works of God Rather than being the result of sin, hardship and suffering may be part of God’s plan to reveal His power.

 In what ways are we spiritually blind?

• The disciples did not look at the man as an object of mercy but rather as a subject for a theological discussion.

 Are we sometimes guilty of the same approach? If so, Why?

• We’re intended to understand this miracle in connection with what Jesus taught during the Festival of Shelters.

o During this festival Israel gathered luxuriant boughs and built booths in which to live for the span of the festival. These acts were meant to remind them of the time spent wandering in the desert. The Feast of Tabernacles is the last of the seven feasts described in the TORAH (תּוֹרָה, torah). (The first five books of the Hebrew Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Also known as the Pentateuch or Law). starting four days after the Day of Atonement, (Yom kippurim. A day on which Israel fasted, cleansed the sanctuary of impurity, and dealt with their sin through blood rituals and sending a goat into the wilderness. Took place on the 10th day of the seventh month.) . It begins after the completion of grain threshing and pressing grapes, on the fifteenth day of Tishri (the seventh lunar month, which falls in late September to late October).

• Jesus stood before the crowd and said he was “the light of the world” (8:12). He makes the same claim here in verse 5, and this miracle authenticates his claim. He is indeed the light of the world. He has the power to remove the darkness and give light. Healing a blind man is the perfect illustration of his unique power and prerogative.

• Prior to the healing, his disciples ask whose sin caused the man’s blindness (v. 2). Was it the man’s sin or his parents’? This question reveals a legalistic outlook on life—an outlook fostered by the example of the religious establishment.

o Legalism is the attempt to earn God’s favor through our own righteous works. A legalist operates under the (usually unspoken) assumption that people earn or keep God’s favor through righteous deeds, so legalists begin to view themselves as deserving of certain blessings.

o In other words, if I can earn God’s favor by my good works, then the more good works I do, the more God becomes indebted to me. He must reward my good deeds with blessings. If something “bad” happens to me, it must be because I did something bad.

• The disciples look at this man born blind and conclude that he or his parents had sinned, because if they had not done something wicked, then God would be forced to respond with blessing. That’s textbook legalism. Jesus has no sympathy for legalism. This man’s blindness had nothing to do with his sin (though birth defects and disease are indicators of the world’s fallen state due to sin in general). His blindness had a far greater purpose. This man was born blind so Jesus could teach the profound truth of spiritual blindness and reveal himself as the light of the world.

o That puts a different perspective on trials we face.

Thought to consider:

o Whenever I face a trial, I struggle with viewing it legalistically: “God, how could you allow this to happen to me? Haven’t you noticed everything I’m doing for you?” My next response is to see how quickly I can make the trial stop, all the time missing the fact that God has a bigger purpose in mind for my suffering. To short-circuit the trial would be to miss out on the display of God’s glory in the trial.

o It is much easier to discuss an abstract subject like “sin” than it is to minister to a concrete need in the life of a person.

To sum this up:

• The disciples were sure that the man’s congenital blindness was caused by sin, either his own or his parents’, but Jesus disagreed with them.

• In the final analysis, all physical problems are the result of our fall in Adam, for his disobedience brought sin and death into the world (Rom. 5:12ff).

o Romans 5:12–14 (NASB95)

12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned—

13 for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law.

14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.

• While it is certainly true that all suffering is a result of the fall, and so a consequence of sin in general, it is not true that therefore there is a direct line between an individual’s personal, moral failure and an individual’s personal suffering.

• This truth is implied in Jesus’ answer, for this man’s blindness exists so that the works of God might be displayed in him (John 9:3). What higher calling could there be? It would have shocked those listening as much as it perhaps shocks us to think that God’s saving power might be displayed in a suffering person, rather than a successful person.

o F. F. Bruce underlines just what kind of glory will be revealed in what is about to happen to this man:

o “The healing of the blind man is presented as a parable of spiritual illumination. Thanks to the coming of the true light of the world, many who were formerly in darkness have been enlightened; this is not only the effect, but the purpose of his coming.”

• To blame a specific disability on a specific sin committed by specific persons is certainly beyond any man’s ability or authority. Only God knows why babies are born with handicaps, and only God can turn those handicaps into something that will bring good to the people and glory to His name.

• Certainly, both the man and his parents had at some time committed sin, but Jesus did not see their sin as the cause of the man’s blindness. Nor did He suggest that God deliberately made the man blind so that, years later, Jesus could perform a miracle. Since there is no punctuation in the original manuscripts, we are free to read John 9:3–4 this way:

o “Neither has this man sinned nor his parents. But that the works of God should be made manifest in him, I must work the works of Him that sent Me, while it is day”.

• Our Lord’s method of healing was unique: He put clay on the man’s eyes and told him to go wash. Once Jesus healed two blind men by merely touching their eyes (Matt. 9:27–31), and He healed another blind man by putting spittle on his eyes (Mark 8:22–26). Though the healing power was the same, our Lord varied His methods lest people focus on the manner of healing and miss the message in the healing.

• There were at least two reasons for our Lord’s use of the clay.

o For one thing, it was a picture of the Incarnation. God made the first man out of the dust, and God sent His Son as a real Man. Note the emphasis on the meaning of “Siloam”—“sent.”

 Relate this to John 9:4, “The works of Him that sent Me” (see also John 3:17, 34; 5:36; 7:29; 8:18, 42). Jesus gave a little illustration of His own coming to earth, sent by the Father.

o The second reason for the clay was irritation; it encouraged the man to believe and obey!

 If you have ever had an irritation in your eyes, you know how quickly you seek irrigation to cleanse it out! You might compare this “irritation” to the convicting work of the Holy Spirit as He uses God’s Law to bring the lost sinner under judgment.

• But the illumination now led to a problem in identification: was this really the blind beggar, and who caused him to see? Throughout the rest of John 9, a growing conflict takes place around these two questions. The religious leaders did not want to face the fact that Jesus had healed the man, or even that the man had been healed!

 Describe fears you’ve had about speaking plainly regarding your beliefs about Jesus because of the social consequences!

Thoughts to Soak On😊

• The miracle in John 9 deals with the restoration of health.

 Why did Jesus perform miracles?

 What was the purpose or goal of miracles? The reasons include:

 The Confirmation of Christ’s deity. He is the Son of God, the Messiah.

 The Demonstration of His divine power.

 The Glorification of God.

 The Subjugation of Satan’s power and evil.

 The Alleviation of burdens and needs in people’s lives.

 The Education in spiritual matters.

• The miracle in John 9 was performed on the Sabbath day.

o In fact, seven of the thirty-three miracles were performed on the Sabbath. This upset the Jewish leaders immensely.

o They were more concerned about their rules, than the people.

o Yet, they would help an animal on the Sabbath (Luke 13:15). I have observed in my own lifetime that when men reject Christ and His Word, they honor and care for animals above people.

 Animal rights groups protect dolphins, whales, and owls, but not human babies.

• The miracle in John 9 is recorded only here. It is not in the other gospels. There are six miracles in John that are not recorded in the other gospels.

o A total of four miracles in the gospels deal with blindness.

 This story is recorded only in John.

LET’S LOOK A LITTLE DEEPER:

• Jesus does not try to follow out or to explain the connection of sin and suffering. He says that this man’s affliction came to him to give an opportunity of showing what God can do. There are two senses in which that is true.

o For John the miracles are always a sign of the glory and the power of God. The writers of the other gospels had a different point of view; and regarded them as a demonstration of the compassion of Jesus.

 When Jesus looked on the hungry crowd he had compassion on them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd (Mark 6:34).

 When the leper came with his desperate request for cleansing Jesus was moved with compassion (Mark 1:41). It is often urged that in this the Fourth Gospel is quite different from the others. Surely there is no real contradiction here. It is simply two ways of looking at the same thing.

 At its heart is the supreme truth that the glory of God lies in his compassion, and that he never so fully reveals his glory as when he reveals his pity.

o But there is another sense in which the man’s suffering shows what God can do. Affliction, sorrow, pain, disappointment, loss always are opportunities for displaying God’s grace.

 First, it enables the sufferer to show God in action. When trouble and disaster fall upon a man who does not know God, that man may well collapse; but when they fall on a man who walks with God, they bring out the strength and the beauty, and the endurance and the nobility, which are within a man’s heart when God is there.

 It is told that when an old saint was dying in an agony of pain, he sent for his family, saying: “Come and see how a Christian can die.” It is when life hits us a terrible blow that we can show the world how a Christian can live, and, if need be, die. Any kind of suffering is an opportunity to demonstrate the glory of God in our own lives.

 Second, by helping those who are in trouble or in pain, we can demonstrate to others the glory of God. Frank Laubach has the great thought that when Christ, who is the Way, enters into us “we become part of the Way.

 God’s highway runs straight through us.” When we spend ourselves to help those in trouble, in distress, in pain, in sorrow, in affliction, God is using us as the highway by which he sends his help into the lives of his people.

 To help a fellow-man in need is to manifest the glory of God, for it is to show what God is like.

Is there more we can learn…You decide as you read the following:

• Jesus’ disciples were Jews. Yet they, and the Pharisees in verse 34, assume that there was indeed a connection between present disability and previous sin. The only question then is, whose sin was it? So, faced with a man blind from birth, they deduce that someone must have done something wrong for which this is a punishment.

• Thinking like this is a way of trying to hold on to a belief in God’s justice.

o If something in the world seems ‘unfair’, but if you believe in a God who is both all-powerful, all-loving and all-fair, one way of getting round the problem is to say that it only seems ‘unfair’, but actually isn’t. There was after all some secret sin being punished.

o This is a comfortable sort of thing to believe if you happen to be well-off, well fed and healthy in body and mind. (In other words, if nobody can accuse you of some secret previous sin.)

• Jesus firmly resists any such analysis of how the world is ordered.

o The world is stranger than that, and darker than that, and the light of God’s powerful, loving justice shines more brightly than that. But to understand it all, we have to be prepared to dismantle some of our cherished assumptions and to let God remake them in a different way.

• We have to stop thinking of the world as a kind of moral slot-machine, where people put in a coin (a good act, say, or an evil one) and get out a particular result (a reward or a punishment).

o Of course, actions always have consequences. Good things often happen as a result of good actions (kindness produces gratitude), and bad things often happen through bad actions (drunkenness causes car accidents). But this isn’t inevitable. Kindness is sometimes scorned. Some drunkards always get away with it.

John 9:4–5 (NASB95)

4 “We must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day; night is coming when no one can work.

5 “While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world.”

o “We must work” (NASB), which would indicate that Jesus included the disciples and perhaps even the blind man (vs. 7) in the divine imperative to do the works of God. The phrase him that sent me, referring to God, and often occurring in this Gospel, is of particular importance here in view of the meaning of Siloam.

• 9:4 while it is day Jesus’ enigmatic saying invokes the opposition of light and darkness. They must accomplish the mission while the light of the world (John 8:12; 9:5) is still among them

So what to we make of all of this?

• God’s work and man’s work are for the light and all its corollaries; they are against darkness and all that it represents. The apostles “… by the power of the Spirit and as witnesses of what they had seen, became Sons of light for the illumination of the world.”

o It was the habit of Phineas Bresee, regardless of the time of day, to use the greeting, “Good morning.” It is well to remember that “for the believer it is always day.”

• The expression as long as I am in the world (vs. 5) literally translated would read, “Whensoever I am in the world.” This is the idea of the universality of Jesus’ mission, and is reminiscent of the prologue statement concerning the Light (1:5, 7–9).

Blessings as you go your way😊