Blind for the Glory of God B

We can't see God. We can't see Christ.

We have no way to initiate any kind of deliverance or rescue, and then God in His mercy, Christ in His grace, finds us, and He gives us sight, and we forever see. Welcome, friend, to this Tuesday edition of Grace to You. Today, John MacArthur is going to show you details about the Lord Jesus Christ that you may never have considered, or maybe you've simply forgotten them. It's part of his compelling series, Rediscovering the Christ of Scripture. Well, before we get to today's lesson, John, it's been a year now since the world began facing the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and a really long year in some ways.

And it's not just about the health effects, but the ongoing economic challenges that are related to all the restrictions the government has put on us. And I'm sure there are many listeners wondering, how is Grace to You doing? What do you want them to know? Well, Grace to You is a no-contact ministry. Right. I mean, you're sitting here, and I'm sitting here, but we're not touching anybody, so... No, we're properly distanced. We're properly distanced.

We do not have masks on. Yeah, it's been amazing to think about the fact that while many churches have decided to shut down—not ours, and most of you know what we've gone through to stay open, and we still remain open—but for sure, Grace to You has not slowed down the pace at all. In the midst of this time when many people don't go to church, when many people are doing live stream or Zooming or whatever it is, and have missed a Christian fellowship and missed some opportunities at Bible study, the truth is Grace to You has flourished.

It's just flourished. Our ministry continues to grow through this period of time in the ways that you would want it to grow—people hungering for the Word of God, hungering to know divine truth. It's not just Christian people who want to keep being fed the Word of God, and they're not getting it in the usual way because their churches aren't open. It's non-believing people or people who are wondering what in the world is going on, and where can they find somewhere to anchor their souls?

Where can they go to find truth? So there's never been a higher amount of interest in Grace to You, and the Lord has provided our needs financially through the people who continue to believe in what we're doing. So it's amazing. The ministry of Grace to You hasn't missed a beat. We haven't missed any opportunities that God has laid before us, because the demand seems to be growing for the truth of the Word of God.

And I think that's not hard to understand as the days get blacker and blacker and darker and darker, and people lose hope. They're looking for light, and Grace to You is light. So we're so thankful. Radio, television, free books, CDs by mail, sermon downloads, and many, many millions of sermons being listened to even on YouTube. So we're seeing the ministry flourish, and we're thankful for the support of many, many people who make that possible. Yes, with all the turmoil in society and people still feeling the effects of the pandemic, clear biblical teaching is needed now maybe more than ever. So thank you for your commitment to reaching people with biblical truth.

And now with today's lesson, here again is John MacArthur. Open your Bible to John 9, the ninth chapter of John. Let me read the opening 12 verses of this chapter. Verse 1, as he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind? 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. We must work the works of him who sent me as long as it is day.

Night is coming when no one can work. While I'm in the world, I am the light of the world. When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made clay of the spittle and applied the clay to his eyes and said to him, go wash in the pool of Siloam, which is translated scent. So he went away and washed and came back seeing. 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? Others were saying, this is he.

Still others were saying, no, but he is like him. He kept saying, I am the one. So they were saying to him, how then were your eyes opened? 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. They said to him, where is he?

He said, I do not know. I want to break these 12 verses down into simple points of contact, darkness, light, sight, and back to darkness. Darkness, light, sight, and back to darkness.

So let's start with the darkness. Verse 1, as he passed by, he saw men blind from birth. Blindness, we see it all over the New Testament. It's a very common experience in New Testament times.

It was a very, very common reality. Blindness well illustrates man's spiritual darkness and lostness. Helpless from the start, this blind man is at the mercy of somebody who comes up, chooses to help him. He is like the sinner. God has to take the initiative with the blind man through Christ. God has to take the initiative through Christ for the sinner.

That's how grace operates. We're lost. We're dead. We're blind.

We know no truth. We see no Christ. We have no God and God sees us. It comes in compassion, grace, and bestows spiritual sight. It's a beautiful picture illustrated by this healing. So we see darkness then in verse 1.

In verse 2, we see light, verse 2 through 5. And his disciples asked him, rabbi, teacher, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind? That'll tell you where their theology was, essentially. But if something's wrong with you, it's a sin issue.

And not an indirect one, but a direct one. We would all agree that everybody's illness is related to the fall of Adam, right? But you can't make a direct link between I'm sick because three months ago, I committed a certain sin. But in their theology, that's how it worked. If you're deformed, if you're diseased, if you have some kind of illness, it's because of sin directly.

Not because of the fallenness of the world, but because there's guilt that you are bearing. So they want to know, did the man sin somehow? And did he sin in some way? Did he sin in the womb? Or did his parents sin and now he's cursed with blindness?

They would use a couple of cases. They would go to Achan and they would say, well, when Achan stole things that he wasn't supposed to steal when they went into the land and buried it in his tent, you remember God said, stone him and his whole family. Why did God want the whole family killed? Answer, complicity. They were all involved in it.

They were all guilty. And there are times when God did directly punish someone for sin by giving that person an illness and even killing some people in the Old Testament. Miriam received leprosy in Numbers 12 as a direct punishment from God. Isaiah, direct punishment from God died.

Touching the ark, direct punishment from God, death. So there are occasions of that happening in the Old Testament. But the question just reflects all of this theology. The answer Jesus gives is verse 3, neither this man sinned nor his parents.

This isn't about that. Which with one statement completely obliterates that whole theological system. Because Jesus is now saying somebody can have a severe congenital lifelong illness that has nothing to do with his own sin or the sins of his parents. That whole system, he wiped it out with one statement.

You can't make that conclusion. Here's the reason he's blind. So that the works of God might be displayed in him. He's blind for the glory of God. He's blind for the glory of God.

He's blind so that we could come to this moment and this healing and the power of God be put on display and the works of God be manifest and God be glorified. Not all disease, not all defect, not all suffering comes from personal sin. This isn't about this man's parents. Were they sinful? Sure. Is he a sinner?

Of course. But this has nothing to do with that. There are healthy sinners in the world. Have you noticed?

Really. And some of them are wretched. I mean, some of them are wretched sinners and they live a long time and they're healthy. And there are sick believers who are faithful to the Lord that you can't make those connections. Well, Jesus is done with that theology, just cuts the bottom out of all of it and says this is about the works of God. The purpose of the man's blindness is to reveal the miraculous power of God through the Son of God, to substantiate his claims to be the Messiah, to be God himself. He's going to do a creative miracle so that it becomes clear to everybody that he is the one who created, as John begins his gospel saying.

He's a prepared vessel to put God on display through Christ. Jesus doesn't want to discuss theology any more than just to knock it off, just cut it down at the root. So in verse 4, without any more theological discussion than just to obliterate that absolute connection that they had made, he says, we must work the works of him who sent me as long as it is day, night is coming, when no one can work.

Guess what? It's good to have a theological discussion, but sooner or later, you need to go to work. He's not going to stand there and debate theology with them at this point. It's time to go to work. Well, he says, night is coming when no one can work. He's not talking about physical night. I suppose it was daytime, and I think he probably wanted to heal the man during the day so the man could see that he could see. I mean, it would be sort of a rude if you're going to heal a guy to wait until it was dark. Come on, give me a break.

I mean, this is pretty monumental. At least do this in the day. So I think Jesus intended to heal him during the day, but that's not the point. The point is we, I love that we.

I'm going to camp on that in a minute. We must work the works of him who sent me. Back in chapter 5, verse 17 and following, Jesus said, I work and the Father works.

The Father and I work together. What the Father does, I do. What the Father says, I say. What the Father wills, I will. The Father and I work together, and they want to stone him for that because he was making himself equal with God.

Remember that? Here, he pulls the disciples in with a we. We are all together called to work the works of him who sent me as long as it is day.

What do you mean, it is day? Not daylight, lifetime. Lifetime. Far greater spiritual implication here. Death is looming on the horizon. He has months. The disciples, some of them don't have very long. They have years, but they're martyred.

There's a far greater reality here. We only have a brief time. This is not a time to get caught up in theological debates. We cut that theology at its foundation, and then we go to work. I love this, we.

Jesus says in John 5, I work with the Father, and here he says, and we all work together with the Father. What a calling is this? Staggering. Staggering.

I love that we. In the light of the fact that night is coming, the end of your life, we don't know how much time we have. We don't know.

Months, years, we don't know. Ephesians 5, 16, Paul puts it this way, making the most of your time. Making the most of your time because the days are evil. What are you doing with your life? What are you doing with your time? Frittering it away with a bunch of nonsense that doesn't matter? I love that we're in the we here. That elevates the whole idea, doesn't it?

As long as it is day. Listen, Christian, clean up your life. Get moving. Get the sin out, the worldliness out, the trivial stuff out, the compromise. Stop wasting time.

Stop flirting with the world. Stop doing those things that have no value at all in the future and get at it, hand in hand with the Lord, hand in hand with the Father. What an incredible thing to work with the one who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all we can ask or think.

Get to work. Jesus knew His death was coming just months. He says in verse 5, while I'm in the world, I am the light of the world, but that's only for a while. He will always be the light in one sense, but it'll never shine in the world as brightly as it did for those three years.

I must use my power and light while I'm here. He's going to use His power to give this man physical light, but more importantly, He's going to give this man spiritual light. If you go down to verse 38, the man himself said, Lord, I believe, and he worshiped him. So he not only heals the blind man, he saves him. So I say, verses 2 to 5, light breaks into the darkness. First, it's physical light so he can see, and then it's spiritual light so that he can see God.

First, he could see the world around him, and then he could see the world, the invisible world. I am the light of the world, chapter 8. He said, I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life. Jesus is feeling the end of His life coming, and He's saying, guys, we've got to work.

I can only shine at this level of brightness while it's day, and it's coming to an end. He repeated that kind of thing a number of times, at least four times in the gospels, where he talked about that He was the light, but that wasn't always going to be like that, that time was limited. So the darkness and then the light.

And then we come thirdly, verses 6 and 7, sight. When He had said this, He spat on the ground and made clay of the spittle and applied the clay to His eyes and said to Him, go wash in the pool of Siloam, which is translated scent. So He went away and washed and came seeing. Now, if you read commentaries, the question comes up, why did He use this method? Well, He did it a few times. Mark 7, He used saliva to mix with mud to put on somebody's ears. Mark 8, He did the same thing with another blind person. He did that. People say, well, why did He do that? Well, I found some interesting suggestions.

One guy said to make use of the healing quality of saliva. Really? That's a stretch. Another commentator said to make Him even more blind. You can't be more blind than totally blind. Piling mud on eyes that don't function doesn't make you more blind. Not a good perception. Another writer said to symbolize that man is made from dirt.

Don't see the connection. Another said to give the eyes time to heal. Those eyes didn't need to heal. They had to be replaced.

Those are silly. Why did He use this method? I have no idea. Furthermore, I couldn't care less. He did. He did. There's an element in it that I do understand. He could have just touched his eyes and he would have seen and sustained as he created eyes on the spot. Why does He send him somewhere? Because I think He's calling for obedience here. He's calling for the man to submit. Now remember, the man doesn't know who's talking to him. He's never seen anybody. But he obeys. He goes and does that. He went away, verse 7, washed, came seeing. Why would He do that? If you came up to a blind beggar and spit and put dirt on his eyes, he'd probably slap you.

If you didn't know who you were, it wouldn't matter who you were. Why does He do this? Because the divine compulsion of an irresistible power is beginning to work on his will. He's being transformed. Are we seeing here an illustration of regeneration? New life is bursting on his blackened soul?

I don't think he had any hesitation at all. I think a spark of faith ignited in his heart as the Spirit of God began to change him on the inside. It comes to fruition in verse 38 when he says, Lord, I believe and worships him.

Are these the first workings of the power of the Holy Spirit to draw this man to submit to Christ? Why the Pool of Siloam? That's a very special place. Outside the wall, there was a place called the Spring of Gihon, a lot of water. But the city was very vulnerable if it was under siege, and they were worried in Hezekiah's day about the Assyrians sieging the city and cutting off the water. So Hezekiah had a tunnel built from the spring up in under the city wall into Jerusalem so they would have a water supply, and the water was kept in the Pool of Siloam. It meant sent because the water was sent from the spring Gihon into the city. This was the water supply where they went at the Feast of Tabernacles to gather the water for the great festival when they poured out the water, remembering God's provision of water in the wilderness, and Jesus said He was the water, the living water.

Remember that? So this spoke of God's provision, spoke of God's cleansing, spoke of the water of life. It's really a beautiful picture, and it was water sent into the city, another wonderful symbol.

The waters flow from the temple hill and are regarded even in the Old Testament as symbolic of spiritual blessing. Isaiah 8 talks about that. So when the man went to wash at Siloam, there was an analogy there. He was going to the one who was the true Siloam, the spring of life, water from God. Christ is the true Siloam. That he even said back in chapter 7, verse 37, if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.

Beautiful imagery, beautiful analogies. This is how salvation works in this analogy. Sovereign grace confronts a blind and helpless, hopeless, beggaring sinner. He can't see. Can't see God. Can't see Christ. But sovereign grace comes to him, places his glorious, merciful hand on his sightless soul, asks only a response of simple faith, prompts that response. He finds his way to the cleansing waters, which is an emblem of Messianic salvation in Isaiah, and he comes back, and he can see spiritually.

It's really a beautiful picture. That leads us to the last little part of the opening, and we're back to darkness again because everybody's now in the dark about what's going on. The neighbors and those who previously saw him as a beggar were saying, is not this the one who used to sit and beg, which meant that it was a daily deal for him, survival. Very familiar.

Same beggar, always in the same place. They can't explain how this man can come seeing, so they say, isn't this the one that used to sit and beg? And others were saying, this is he. Still others were saying, no, but he's like him. He looks like him. He can't be. He steps up and says, I'm the one.

You guys don't need to debate. I can tell you, I'm the one. I can't imagine the rest of that conversation as he was trying to explain that he'd never seen anything in his life and process the whole world now in front of him. I don't know what kind of joy and exuberance he was expressing in saying it was him. So they were saying, how then were your eyes opened?

I love this. Verse 11, he answered, this is a simple, simple explanation. The man who is called Jesus, somebody must have told him that, the man who is called Jesus made clay, anointed my eyes and said to me, go to Siloam and wash.

So I went away and washed and I received sight. That does not explain how it happened. That just explains what he did.

There is no explanation for how it happened. That's a creative miracle, but the man can only describe the experience. So he's trying to push the darkness back for the rest of the folks.

All I can tell you, this man named Jesus came, put mud on my eyes, told me to go to Siloam and wash. And I did, and I can see. They said to him, where is he? He said, I don't know. I mean, he might've said, where's where? I've never seen where or anything else. So what do you mean? You want directions from me?

I don't know where anything is. So this darkness ensues and falls over everybody. How are they going to dispel the darkness? Verse 13, they brought to the Pharisees the man who was formerly blind.

They're going to go to the experts. And this is where unbelief begins to investigate a miracle with a predictable result. Really an incredible story.

Amazing story. The account of Jesus healing a blind man beautifully illustrates really the salvation process. We sit blinded by sin, begging. We can't see God. We can't see Christ. We have no capacity to recognize the Savior.

We have no way to initiate any kind of deliverance or rescue. And then God in His mercy, Christ in His grace finds us. That's salvation. And He reaches out to us in our blindness, and He gives us sight. And all He asks is a simple act of faith, which He empowers. And He washes us. And we forever see.

And that's what will happen to this man. First the physical healing came, and then the soul blindness was removed. This is Grace to You with John MacArthur. Thanks for being with us. I trust today's lesson helped you come a step closer to Rediscovering the Christ of Scripture.

That's the title of John's series. And friend, before the lesson, John expressed his gratitude for the support we received from listeners like you over this difficult past year. If John's teaching on Grace to You encouraged you during these tough recent months, we'd love to hear about it. So when you can, please jot a note and send it our way. You'll reach us by email at letters at GTY dot org. That's letters at GTY dot org. Or you can drop a note in the mail to Grace to You, Box 4000, Panorama City, California 91412. Recently we heard from a woman named Veronica who told us her life was in turmoil because of COVID. But Grace to You's Bible teaching helped her know peace and rejoice in her difficulties, and keep her mind focused on heaven.

Again, we'd love to hear stories like that. If you have one, write to Grace to You, Box 4000, Panorama City, California 91412, or send an email to letters at GTY dot org. Once more, letters at GTY dot org. And you may want to order a MacArthur Study Bible or John's two-volume commentary on the Gospel of John. The chapters of our current radio study are covered in the first volume of the Gospel of John commentary. If you want to order one, call us toll-free, 800-55-GRACE, or go to our website GTY dot org. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. Be here tomorrow when John looks at the only remedy for spiritual blindness. It's part of his study, Rediscovering the Christ of Scripture. Don't miss the next half hour of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You.