John 9:8–23 Sermon

John 9:8–23 ESV

8 The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar were saying, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” 9 Some said, “It is he.” Others said, “No, but he is like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” 10 So they said to him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” 11 He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed and received my sight.” 12 They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.” 13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. 14 Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. 15 So the Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight. And he said to them, “He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.” 16 Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” And there was a division among them. 17 So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him, since he has opened your eyes?” He said, “He is a prophet.” 18 The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight, until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight 19 and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” 20 His parents answered, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. 21 But how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” 22 (His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.) 23 Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”

John 9:13–23 ESV

13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. 14 Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. 15 So the Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight. And he said to them, “He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.” 16 Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” And there was a division among them. 17 So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him, since he has opened your eyes?” He said, “He is a prophet.” 18 The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight, until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight 19 and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” 20 His parents answered, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. 21 But how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” 22 (His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.) 23 Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”

Sermon Text

Introduction

Outline

1. The Setting (v8-12)

2. The Issue (v.13-14)

3. The Division (v.15-19)

4. The fear of man (v.20-23)

1. The Setting (v.8-12)

Verse 8 The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar were saying, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?”

In the setting we see that there were neighbors and those who had seen the man who was healed and was a beggar.

Both the neighbors and those who knew the man as a beggar asked themselves, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?”

This was a reaction from what Jesus had done for the man which we can find in verses 6 and 7.

John 9:6–7 ESV

6 Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud 7 and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.

John 9:

John 9:7 ESV

7 and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.

They were in shock. So much that they couldn’t agree whether this man was who he said he was.

Verse 9 Some said, “It is he.” Others said, “No, but he is like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.”

Remember, that this man was born blind.

Meaning that there was never a time that he had been able to see.

They only knew him to be blind, sitting and begging.

Now, he is looking at them and speaking directly to them. Which would have been a shock to them.

This would naturally lead to the question in verse 10.

Verse 10 So they said to him, “Then how were your eyes opened?”

Verse 11 He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed and received my sight.”

In their having a hard time accepting that this man, was who he said he was, the man told them that it was Jesus who healed him.

We know

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

We know according to verse 12 that Jesus was not there.

So of course since there was disagreement as to what this man had said, the neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar, took the man to the Pharisees.

Why would they take him to the Pharisees?

I believe that the next couple of verses may answer that for us. Which is our second point.

2. The Issue (v.13-14)

Verse 13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind.

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

Here lies the issue.

The issue being that Jesus did this on the Sabbath.

If you remember in John chapter 5, Jesus had performed a miracle on the Sabbath when He healed the man who was invalid for 38 years.

After being healed the leaders there told the man that it was the Sabbath and that it was unlawful for him to take up his bed.

In , we see that this was their reason for persecuting Jesus.

Jesus would argue this in John chapter 7.

After being accused of having a demon, Jesus would point back to what He did in John chapter 5 with the invalid man and He would make His case.

John 7:20–24 ESV

20 The crowd answered, “You have a demon! Who is seeking to kill you?” 21 Jesus answered them, “I did one work, and you all marvel at it. 22 Moses gave you circumcision (not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers), and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath. 23 If on the Sabbath a man receives circumcision, so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because on the Sabbath I made a man’s whole body well? 24 Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”

The issue wasn’t that Jesus did the work on the Sabbath to make a man well. The issue is that they were doing works on the Sabbath themselves while accusing Jesus of what they were doing already.

The core issue really is that they did not know that Jesus was Lord of the Sabbath.

That title “Lord of the Sabbath” can be found in all three of the synoptic gospels.

, and have the story of Jesus going through the grainfields where the disciples began to pluck heads of grain.

The Pharisees pointed out that this was unlawful for them to do.

Then Jesus recalled when David, when hungry with those with him, had gone to the house of God and ate the bread of presence.

The account is found in 1 Samuel chapter 21.

The bread of presence were twelve loaves of unleavened bread that represented the twelve tribes of Israel.

The bread was placed on a table in the temple and they were replaced with a fresh batch every week.

The loaves that were being replaced were to be eaten only by the priests. But God compassionately allowed David and his men to eat due to them needing to eat.

The point about the Sabbath according to what Jesus had done is:

Mark 2:27 ESV

27 And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

Mark 2:28 ESV

28 So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”

The issue here is that man saw themselves as the reason for the Sabbath.

Mark

The mistake is that they began with themselves as the measure of what was acceptable to God.

Man was not made for the Sabbath. The Sabbath (the day of rest) was made for man.

It was meant to show man who God was.

But they turned it into a burdensome day of rules that made man a slave to regulations.

Instead of seeing the character of God in and on the Sabbath they only saw regulation and rules that pointed to man as the standard.

This mistake can easily be done by us today.

Think of the routine things we do today.

weekly fellowship

offerings

bible studies

outreach

missions trips

evangelism

prayer

reading and the study of Scripture

All of these things are essential. A Christian should do these things because they are Christian.

But to make these things regulations to be followed without compassion and a desire to please God and to see who God is, doing this would make us no different than the Pharisees.

We do not measure these things by how many people attend or how much money we get from offering.

The preoccupation of the believer is to remember the compassion of God. And in knowing and cherishing God, we will:

fellowship weekly

we would want to give offerings

we would desire to be at bible studies

we would want to reach our community

we would want to support missions

we would evangelize

and we would seek God in prayer

Instead of celebrating the healing of a man born blind they were concerned with the observance of the law when really the law was meant to show them who God was.

It was meant to show that God is:

Holy

Compassionate

Gracious

Abounding in steadfast love

They should have remembered how God saved in spite of.

But instead they were blinded by tradition. All because they believed that man was made for the Sabbath.

They were blind and refused to see Jesus as the Lord of the Sabbath.

This miracle done by Jesus should have pointed them to Jesus as the Messiah. Instead it caused division among them.

3. The Division (v.15-19)

Verse 15 So the Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight. And he said to them, “He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.”

Verse 16 Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” And there was a division among them.

What problem do we see here in their assessment?

Notice first what they said in verse 16.

First, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.”

Jesus was not just a man.

They continued to make the mistake that Jesus was not who He said He was.

Again, the message of Jesus being sent by the Father was not referenced or believed.

In fact, they said here in verse 16 that He was not from God. Which clearly is a rejection and it was evidence that they did not believe.

We also see another mistake made by what others had said about Him.

Second, Others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?”

The word sinner here was meant to call a person disobedient and unfaithful to what God had commanded.

They called Him a sinner because the accusation was that He was breaking the Sabbath.

any divine command or neglected any duty (whether intentionally or unintentionally).

This again reminded me of Steven Furtick’s comment about God breaking the law.

sinner n. — a person who has disobeyed any divine command or neglected any duty (whether intentionally or unintentionally).

Steven Furtick preached a sermon at Elevation Church from and it was titled “It Works Both Ways.”

In it he said “God broke the law for love.”

Furtick used an illustration by using the example of a child who was injured after falling from monkey bars.

The parent then took the child and ran to the car driving all the way to the hospital while breaking the speed limit.

He said it was justifiable because of love and concern for the child that the parent broke the law of the speed limit.

He would then turn and try to say the same for God. How God broke the law because of love.

Here is the problem with what Furtick was saying and what the Pharisees were saying in our text today.

If Jesus broke the law then He would have been a sinner and rightly called one by those who said this about Him.

James 2:10 ESV

10 For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.

Steven Furtick, in saying what he is saying about Jesus, is actually very pharisaical and false.

It was exactly what the Pharisees here were accusing Jesus of.

Jesus said Himself in ,

Matthew 5:17 ESV

17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

He didn’t say that He came to break the law. He came to fulfill it.

The problem with Furtick’s teaching and the pharisees is that they begin with man.

Man is the starting point when trying to understand God and His ways.

Man was not made for the Sabbath. The law was introduced to us in order for us to know God.

When we begin to humanize God we begin to exalt man.

But when we see Jesus as God, as the One sent by the Father, as One who had never sinned because He is God, then we can properly understand why Jesus did what He did.

He did what He did on the Sabbath because Jesus was Lord of the Sabbath.

They did not know this, In fact, they rejected it.

Verse 17 So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him, since he has opened your eyes?” He said, “He is a prophet.”

This was true. But this was not only what Jesus was. He was God in the flesh.

Even with the man right in front of them they refused to believe.

Verse 18 The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight, until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight

Verse 19 and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?”

It is amazing to see who is actually blind here.

They could not see that it was Jesus who made this man see.

They only saw a man who they thought was not from God and a man who they said was a sinner.

This is what the world sees and what the world continually tries to tell us about Jesus.

They will say that Jesus was just a man

Some say that He never existed

Others say that He was just like us (but that would mean He was a sinner like us)

Belief in these things about Jesus proves that one is blind to the truth.

It blinded the Pharisees and the others which caused them to refuse right in front of them a man who was healed from being blind all His life.

They called for the parents, refusing the man’s testimony of what Jesus had done.

The parents came as requested. And in them going to the Pharisees, they revealed something.

4. The fear of man (v.20-23)

Verse 20 His parents answered, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind.

Verse 21 But how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.”

Verse 22 (His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.)

Verse 23 Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”

The parents here were afraid.

They were afraid of being put out of the synagogue. Which meant that they:

could not fellowship with the covenant people of God

could not join them in prayer

and they

could not hear the reading of the Scritpures

This would also include being shunned by the community.

The fear of man comes from a lack of a fear of God.

Who should we really fear?

They were told that if one confessed Jesus to be the Christ (the Messiah) they would be put out.

And because they did not see Jesus for who He was, they were afraid and refused to give testimony to what Jesus had done.

The fear of man over the fear and belief of Jesus Christ is rooted in unbelief.

We are not called to fear. But we are called to have confidence in Jesus Christ.

The Lord over the Sabbath who Himself is the rest we need!

Close in prayer