The Hopelessness of the Stubbornly Blind

Throughout the whole Bible, blindness is used metaphorically to represent the human condition of corruption and fallenness and the inability to comprehend God and divine truth. And in the Old Testament, when God begins to talk about the Messiah, He talks about the Messiah coming to bring light. A light will shine when Messiah comes. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. A St. Augustine said, I never have any trouble believing in miracles since I experienced the miracle of change in my own heart. Now that's a striking description of conversion, the miracle of spiritual transformation. Well, as you think about that amazing transformation in a believer's life, maybe you wonder exactly how does that come about?

Does the sinner choose God, or does God choose the sinner? What is it that happens, precisely, that brings spiritual sight out of spiritual blindness? John MacArthur considers those questions today as he continues his series called Rediscovering the Christ of Scripture.

Now with a lesson, here's John MacArthur. Open your Bible to the ninth chapter of John. Jesus is in Jerusalem. He's going through one of the temple entrances, temple gates, and He comes across a blind man who has been born blind. He's never seen. He has some kind of congenital blindness. He is reduced to being a beggar. Jesus comes across this man who is blind, who obviously can't see him. Jesus walks up to him, gives him eyes, gives him new eyes, creates new eyes. He is immediately able to see, and then some encounters begin. First of all, his neighbors are trying to figure out how this happened, how this man they know who is blind can now see. So he goes through an interrogation with his neighbors, and he can't really answer who did this because he never saw him and doesn't know just exactly how this happened. But he is convinced that whoever did this is from God. He then is brought to the Pharisees who are supposed to render some kind of explanation, some kind of spiritual explanation, or religious explanation, or some kind of divine explanation as to how this could happen because, as the blind man says, it's never been heard in the history of the world that anyone blind was made able to see. And so there's an interrogation by the Pharisees. They already have their verdict before they start the questioning. They believe that Jesus is an insane, demon-possessed, satanic imposter. And with that conclusion, their investigation is going to go nowhere. So they reject the testimony of the man.

They reject the testimony of the neighbors. And they eventually end up throwing the man who can now see out of the building and really out of the life of the nation, out of the life of Israel. He's already been an outcast because anybody who was born blind was believed to have been cursed by God for sin, maybe the sin of his parents, maybe his own sin. And so he's already been out of the synagogue, unable to interact in the synagogue. He has been a pariah and an alien and consequently a beggar.

So this is a man who has been completely rejected by everyone. And now when he can see, he's struggling to get people to accept what has happened. Those who are his neighbors see it but can't explain it. The Pharisees see it but refuse to see it for what it is. His own parents treat him with disdain.

And finally, when the interrogation is over, verse 34, the Pharisees' last words, "'You were born entirely in sins, and are you teaching us?' So they threw him out." They reject Jesus. They reject the man.

They reject the miracle. Jesus is not there at this point. He had healed the man, and then he fades out of the story.

And the man is taken to the Pharisees by these neighbors for this interrogation, which ends up with him being thrown out, continuing as an outcast, even though he can now see. Jesus enters the scene then in verse 35, and we read this. Jesus heard that they had put him out. And finding him, he said, "'Do you believe in the Son of Man?' He answered, "'Who is he, Lord, that I may believe in Him?' Jesus said to him, "'You have both seen Him, and He is the one who is talking with you.' And he said, "'Lord, I believe.'

And he worshiped Him. And Jesus said, "'For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.' Those of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these things and said to Him, "'We're not blind too, are we?' Jesus said to them, "'If you were blind, you would have no sin. But since you say we see, your sin remains.'" Now we're moving from physical blindness to spiritual blindness.

The healing, that's physical. This section that climaxes this amazing story is about spiritual blindness and spiritual sight. Throughout the Bible, really, throughout the whole Bible, blindness is used metaphorically to represent the human condition of corruption and fallenness and the inability to comprehend God and divine truth. Spiritual ignorance, spiritual darkness, spiritual corruption, the inability to know God or to know the truth. But natural blindness because of sin is compounded by Satan's power and deception, which makes a kind of double blindness spoken of in 2 Corinthians 4, the God of this world, Satan, has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God.

Naturally blinded, satanically blinded. And in the Old Testament, when God begins to talk about the Messiah, He talks about the Messiah coming to bring light, Isaiah 9, Isaiah 29, Isaiah 42, Isaiah chapter 60, all those places. The Messiah is seen as the one who brings spiritual light to the world in the midst of darkness. A light will shine when Messiah comes.

And as the New Testament opens up, what do we hear? In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Everything that was made was made by Him, and in Him was life, and the life was the light of men. So that the initial introduction of the Lord Jesus Christ in His supernatural reality is as light. And later in John chapter 8, He says, I am the light of the world. He who follows Me will not walk in darkness, but have the light of life. And in John 12, 46, I have come as light into the world so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness. All of that to give you the sense that God in His divine purposes has designed to use blindness and darkness as a metaphor for the spiritual condition.

Consequently, when we come to this text in John 9, you can look at it, this is all set up for the concluding verses that I just read to you. Verses 1 through 34 are about physical light, physical sight. But also, there are overtones of spiritual blindness and spiritual darkness manifest by the Pharisees. When we come to verses 35 to 41, the subject changes from physical sight and light completely to spiritual sight and light and spiritual blindness and darkness.

Now as we look at these just brief verses, straightforward and simple, I just want to break them into two sections. Spiritual sight, verses 35 to 38, that's the beggar. Spiritual blindness, verses 39 to 41, that's the Pharisees. You have here a comparison built on this miracle between spiritual sight, which the beggar receives, and spiritual darkness in which the Pharisees remain. Now let's look at the spiritual sight and the beggar, the opening verses 35 to 38. Just to give you a little bit of a pattern to follow, four things define this spiritual sight.

Okay? Four things. He's going to be an illustration of one who not only sees physically for the first time, but who will see spiritually for the first time.

There are four elements. First of all, and this is very important, the first element is spiritual sight requires divine initiative. Spiritual sight requires divine initiative. This man doesn't have any capability to make himself see physically, nor does he have any capability to make himself see spiritually. That's why this transition is made because it's such a graphic illustration.

He can't do anything to help himself. If he is going to see, heaven has to come down and find him, locate him, and that's exactly what happens, verse 35. The buzz around the temple area and wherever it was that this interrogation took place is still going on. So Jesus hears that they had put him out, and I love this, and finding him, finding him. This is how you receive spiritual sight. It all started in a divine initiative.

It all started by a sovereign purpose in the mind of God. Luke 19, 10, Jesus says, the Son of Man is come to seek and save that which was lost. Not just the saving, but the seeking. Romans 3, no man seeks after God, we wouldn't know where to go, wouldn't know who to look for. So he's the seeker.

He says to his apostles in John 15, 16, you have not chosen me, I have chosen you. That's why he came. He's the finder. He's the one who's seeking us. And so Jesus finds the man. This is where spiritual sight begins. This is a powerful illustration of it, a very powerful illustration, because this is a helpless, hopeless man, and so is every sinner.

So is every sinner. So he finds him, and he initiates a conversation. He says, do you believe in the Son of Man?

That's a really important question, very important question. Do you believe in the Messiah? Do you believe in messianic theology? Do you believe the Messiah is coming to establish His kingdom?

Do you believe that? So here is the first step in bringing spiritual sight. A darkened, spiritually blind man is found by Christ for Christ's own saving purposes. All spiritual sight initiates from heaven because God is the seeker.

The second thing that I want you to see here in this case of spiritual sight is that spiritual sight not only begins in divine initiative, but it requires faith. Verse 36, this is just an amazing statement. He answered, who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?

What an amazing statement. Here is a man who is ready to believe. He just wants to know who to believe in. That's a prepared heart.

That's good soil. What an amazing divine miracle. This is not some kind of rational act where you've convinced this guy he needs to believe based on facts. The Holy Spirit has enabled him to believe even before the facts become clear. So divine initiative and a response of faith.

Who is He that I may believe in Him? There's a third feature in spiritual sight. It starts in divine initiative. It requires faith. Thirdly, spiritual sight confesses Jesus as Lord. Where there is the miracle of spiritual sight, there will be a confession of Jesus as Lord. Notice verse 37. Jesus said to him, He's saying, who do I believe in?

You have both seen Him, and He is the one who is talking with you. It's interesting to me that I don't know how much this man had heard Jesus teach. Certainly he hadn't seen any miracles. There were lots of people who saw miracles.

The whole population saw miracles. Couldn't overcome spiritual darkness. But God is overcoming His spiritual darkness by giving Him faith. And all He wants to know is who He's supposed to put that faith in. Jesus says, you've seen Him, and He's the one talking with you. It is I.

This is a divine miracle. He said, Lord, I believe. He didn't say, could you give me some evidence why I would believe that? I don't know what He had heard, what He had known. It was sufficient for Him that Jesus had made Him able to see that He had already declared about Jesus all those things I said. He's from God. He's of God. He is heard by God. He is a prophet. Now He knows He's a prophet from God, and if a prophet from God says, I am the Son of Man, I am the long-awaited Messiah, that's enough for this man, prepared heart. How do you know when spiritual sight comes to someone?

Well, it's initiated by God. The heart is prepared. The heart opens up to accept the truth and confesses Jesus as Lord. It's just an astounding and marvelous miracle, like the miracle of physical sight. A poor beggar who had seen nothing all his life, now sees physically, and more important, sees clearly the Son of Man. He's been given sight. He's gazing on the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. He's been given sight. And finally, spiritual sight basically requires divine initiative, responds with faith, recognizes Jesus as Lord, and fourthly, results in worship.

And that's how verse 38 ends. He worshiped Him. You know, it's all in that simple statement, He worshiped Him. The whole of what it is to be a believer is there. All of it is there.

Every bit of it is there. John 4, do you remember verses 20 to 24, the Father seeks true worshipers who worship Him in spirit and truth. How do you know when someone's a believer?

Because he becomes a what? A worshiper. How do you know you're a Christian? Not because you prayed a prayer, not because you asked the Lord to do something for you, not because you got emotionally moved in a meeting and felt sentimental about Jesus. How do you know you're a believer? How do you know you've been transformed? Because you have become a worshiper, a worshiper.

This man falls on his knees in adoration. The opposite of back in verse 59 of chapter 8, where when Jesus declared who He was to the Pharisees, they picked up stones to stone Him. That's what spiritual blindness produces. This is what spiritual sight produces. So if you're asking the question, how do I know if I'm saved?

Ask yourself if you love Christ, if you love God, if you love the Holy Spirit, if you desire to be obedient, if you desire to honor, to please the Lord, if you're a worshiper. So here is a man with two biographies. He's blind physically. He's blind spiritually. He's sought by the Lord physically. He's sought by the Lord spiritually. He's given physical sight.

He's given spiritual sight. He's given an opportunity to testify about the Lord. He's forsaken by His family. He's hated by the enemies of the gospel. He's thrown out of the system of His day because of His association with Christ. He's kind of a picture of what it is to be a Christian.

He takes His place at the feet of the Savior, becomes a worshiper, as all believers do. In contrast to that, just quickly, spiritual blindness in the case of the Pharisees, verse 39, and Jesus said, "'For judgment I came into this world so that those who do not see may see like the blind man, like sinners who repent and believe. And those who see, like the Pharisees, thought they saw, like Jesus says, I've not come to call the righteous the people who think they're righteous. I have come into this world so that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.'" Obviously, play on word on this whole concept of blindness, which is, as I said, is all over the Scripture. When Jesus sees this man worshiping Him, He compares this humble, confiding, trusting, believing heart of the beggar with the hostile, stubborn hatred of the Pharisees.

And He admits, this is how it's going to be in My coming. Even though the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost, even though He doesn't come for judgment, as He says in John 3, He didn't come to judge the world, but to save the world, still, even though He came in His incarnation to save, His salvation becomes in itself a dividing reality. There is a judgment bound up in it, like Simeon said, this child is for the rising and the falling of many.

He's the divider. This is not final judgment. This is a kind of immediate judgment that happens at the point at which the gospel is introduced and at which Christ is introduced. There is a dividing that takes place between the believer and the unbeliever.

If a sinner sees in Jesus nothing to desire, nothing to long for, nothing to want, nothing to put trust in, that's a self-condemnation. That's the Pharisees. They didn't need anything. They could see clearly. They saw it all. They knew God.

They knew the truth. They knew that Jesus was a vile sinner, a satanic, demonic, insane man because they thought they see they are totally blind. So that's the point of verse 39. The first thing then about spiritual blindness is spiritual blindness brings judgment. Spiritual blindness brings judgment, tragic judgment, now and in the future. Spiritual blindness, secondly, is stubborn, verse 40. Those of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these things and said to Him, we're not blind too, are we? Again, speaking metaphorically, they refused to admit their blindness. We're not blind in the sense that they say this with disdain and arrogance and scorn. You're not saying we, the most learned, erudite, righteous, holy, virtuous representatives of God, you're not saying we're blind, are you? Well, that's exactly what He was saying.

That's exactly what He was saying. This man was spiritually blind, but now he can see spiritually. You think you can see spiritually, which simply demonstrates that you are spiritually blind. The idea of spiritual blindness to them is a joke.

There's a third point here, quickly. Spiritually blind people receive judgment, refuse to admit their blindness, and thirdly, reject sight when it's offered. Verse 41, the beginning, Jesus said to them, if you were blind, you would have no sin.

Now, this is continuing this little play on words on the notion of blindness, but Jesus using the term in a completely different way. In verse 40, you are blind. You are blind in the sense that you don't see your sin. You are blind. You are blind. But in verse 41, you're not blind.

How do you do that? You're not blind. If you were blind, you would have no sin.

What does that mean? You are not blind as to the truth. You are blind in the sense that you don't see your own sin. You are not blind in the sense that you have been exposed to the truth.

You have the law, the prophets, the covenants, everything, the promises, the Old Testament. You've had me. You've heard my words.

You've seen the miracles. You have no excuse. Yes, blind to your own sin. No, not blind to the truth. Spiritual blindness then receives judgment, refuses to admit its blindness, rejects the offer of light and sight when it's given such as they had received, finally results in doom.

End of verse 41. But since you say we see, your sin remains. You're doomed. You are accepting the condition you're in of spiritual blindness as spiritual sight. You are doomed. You are hopeless. If you think you can see, you're doomed.

Amazing play on words. Your sin remains. Wow, finality. So the light shines in the darkness. The darkness cannot extinguish it. The darkness cannot put it out.

But the darkness rejects it. Came to His own. He believed in Him now. In the world the world was made by Him. The world knew Him now. They are the religious elite.

They're in the darkness. And a blind beggar who's a total outcast sees physically, more importantly, sees spiritually. It's John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary, and featured speaker here on Grace to You. John's titled our current study, Rediscovering the Christ of Scripture. John, I think one of the significant things that stands out to me in this study is that this blind man did absolutely nothing to save himself. It was Jesus who saw him and called him and opened his spiritual eyes. But it's also true, isn't it, that the blind man himself had to exercise faith in Christ in order to be saved.

Do you see any contradiction there? No, because the Bible presents both of those things. The Bible presents sovereign election, salvation as an act of God. The Bible also presents the fact that a believer is a believer because he exercised faith. So you have the believer exercising faith, and you have God sovereignly saving him. It might be hard for us to see those two come together, but there's no confusion in the mind of God.

The opening of his eyes is a great metaphor, isn't it? It's Jesus who gave him his sight, and he's the one who saw. In the same way, Christ opened his heart, and he's the one who believed.

Right. There's no salvation apart from faith. There's no faith apart from God's sovereignty. So they work together in the mystery of salvation. But that mystery extends into all of spiritual life. God is working in us. Paul, the apostle, says, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is working in you to will and to do of his own good pleasure.

So God is doing the work in you, and at the same time, you're working it out. It's all of God, but not apart from the believer's repentance and faith and obedience. We want to mention some helpful articles on this doctrine of election, because so many people have questions about that. A few of the articles on the Grace To You blog that you'll find helpful are the following. What is the doctrine of election?

Is the doctrine of election biblical, making sense of grace and election, God's freedom to elect, election and predestination, the sovereignty of God in salvation? Now what you need to do is go to the Grace To You website and find the blog, and you can go back into the archives and find these articles. We have more than 1,400 articles on our blog, with many more to come as the Lord allows.

So the Grace To You blog features rich, thoughtful, thoroughly biblical content to help you grapple with some of these tough issues in Scripture. Search for a topic that interests you, click on the latest post, and start reading. Look for the blog tab at GTY.org.

Come back often. There are new articles every few days. At the blog, you'll find everything from deep theological studies to practical guides on how you can be a better parent, or pray more faithfully, or communicate the gospel more effectively. Browse the hundreds of articles that are available at GTY.org. You should spend some time there today.

Again, you'll find over 1,400 articles at our website, GTY.org. And keep in mind, too, the blog is just one of many Bible study tools we have created to help you better understand God's Word. You'll also find three different daily devotions you can use to supplement your daily Bible reading, and there's John's Entire Sermon Archive.

That's over 3,500 sermons covering all of the New Testament and many parts of the Old. Also, don't forget about our Study Bible app. It's a free app that gives you the full text of Scripture in the English Standard, King James, and New American Standard versions. And with an affordable in-app purchase, you can also get the notes from the MacArthur Study Bible. Again, you can find the Study Bible app and all of our free resources at GTY.org. That's our website, GTY.org. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson reminding you to watch Grace to You television this Sunday on DirecTV channel 378, or check your local listings for Channel and Times. Then be here next week when John continues his study, Rediscovering the Christ of Scripture, with another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You.