Focus Passage: John 9:25

‘One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.’

In some respects, this gloriously famous statement from that wonderfully blessed account given us by John in the ninth chapter of his gospel narrative, seems to anticipate the declaration that Paul later made to his young protégé in the second letter that he wrote him, when he said these equally well-known words,

I know him whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to guard that which I have committed unto him against that day.

The profession of faith by the apostle to Timothy is indeed similar in many ways, and yet the circumstances surrounding each occasion are strikingly different. We know, for example, how that Paul—Saul at the time—was ‘accosted’ by the Lord Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus, brought to his knees, having his sight taken from him in an instant, and restored just as remarkably, and led to confess this One whom he had been persecuting as King of kings, and Lord of lords. And now, after many trials and tribulations; after many preaching tours; after much in the way of both joy and sorrow, his faith remains strong, as he would be the first to say, by the grace of God. This blind beggar, on the other hand, knew very little of what had taken place in the removal of his blindness—we cannot say that his sight was restored, for being born blind, he never had sight; he was relatively ignorant about who this ‘Jesus’ was. He said to Jesus later about the Son of God, who is he, Lord, that I may believe on him? He now not only saw Him with his physical eyes, but perhaps with the eyes of faith as well. Jesus told him, ‘Thou hast both seen him, and he it is that speaketh with thee.’ Upon this account, the man was able to say, ‘Lord, I believe.’

This is a beautiful pictorial of the salvation of a sinner through the grace of God, whether this man born blind persevered to the end or not. The point of the narrative is that of the blindness of sinners by nature, or by their relationship to Adam. After all, when Jesus was in the synagogue on the sabbath day, and the book of the prophet Isaiah was delivered unto him, he opened the book and found where it was written; Isaiah 61:1f.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, Because he anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor: He hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives, And recovering of sight to the blind, To set at liberty them that are bruised, To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.

This is the occasion of His first preaching after His encounter in the desert with Satan. It is most noteworthy that one of the first points that He makes is that with reference to the requirement of sight for the blind. It should be recognized that in that place in the book of Isaiah, as it is found in our copies, there is no reference to the blind, not even in the entire pericope of the first three verses. Perhaps, there is a textual issue, or the New Testament citation is from the Septuagint, or the reference could have been to Isaiah 42:6-7, where we may read:

I, Jehovah, have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thy hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles; to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison-house.

In this particular passage, there are in fact, not only one, but two allusions to the blind, if we are willing to count them that sit in darkness to be blind persons. To be sitting in darkness surely is a fine metaphor for blindness, as well as a very apt description of the natural man outside of Christ. Whatever the basis of difference, it remains true that Christ came to give sight to persons blind; sitting in darkness, whether that be physical or spiritual darkness; whether for a sign or for salvation. Christ had need of informing some self-righteous Pharisees, that their blindness was most lamentable because it was spiritual blindness.

In a further confirmation of His God-given mission, when inquirers came from John the Baptist with the question from John, ‘Art thou he that cometh,’ He sent them back to the Baptizer with the following words: Tell John;

The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good tidings preached to them. —Luke 7:22

How these words should stir up the hearts of those of us that were brought to recognize our own spiritual blindness, lameness, deadness, and uncleanness. Jesus told someone in our day to go and tell us that the blind receive their sight, and so on, and the Holy Spirit drew us to this Healer who laid His hands upon us, and caused the scales to fall from our eyes that we might see Him who loved us and gave Himself for us that we might not only see, but that we might live. One can only wonder whether the persecutor Saul was familiar with the account, or aware of this man that had been born blind, who received his sight from the Nazarene.

From the narrative given to us from Luke, it is rather clear that Paul never forgot the physical blindness that resulted from his encounter with this One on the road to Damascus. Then to recall that this same One sent Ananias to lay his hands on him that he might recover his sight. Ananias said unto him, ‘Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, who appeared unto thee in the way which thou camest, hath sent me, that thou mayest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Spirit.’ O most memorable night; O memorable blindness! The shining of the light out of heaven that convinced him of his great need of the Lord; the light being returned to his eyes at the behest of this same Lord, surely caused the newly regenerated servant to proclaim with the man born blind, One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.

David Farmer, elder

Fellowship Bible Church