Man Born Blind

Before we begin today's episode of Renewing Your Mind, we invite you to stay with us through the end of the program to hear how you can request a featured hardcover book from Ligadier Ministries. Coming up next on Renewing Your Mind, The Man Born Blind. If he would have stayed blind for 80 years or 90 years, what's that compared to eternity? In the presence of the glory of God. But he didn't have to wait.

They go to heaven. to be able to see the face of Christ. Indeed, that man didn't have to wait. And what an incredible and gracious gift that this man who was born blind. with receive sight.

Hello and welcome to this, the Sunday edition of Renewing Your Mind. Today we're closing out a series of sermons from the Gospel of John with R.C. Sproll.

So let's join him now as he turns to John chapter 9, beginning with verse 1.

Now, as Jesus passed by. He saw a man who was blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Rabbi. Who sinned? This man or his parents That he was born blind.

And Jesus answered, Neither this man nor his parents sinned. but that the works of God should be revealed in him. I must work the works of him who sent me. While it is day The night is coming. When no one can work But as long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

And when he had said these things, he spat on the ground. and made clay with the saliva. And he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay. And he said to him, Go wash in the pool of Siloam. which is translated sent.

And so he went. And washed. and came back seeing. And therefore, the neighbors and those who previously had seen that he was blind said. Is not this he who sat and begged?

Some said this is he. Others said he is like them. But he said I am he. Therefore they said to him, How were your eyes opened? He answered and said, A man called Jesus Made clay.

And anointed my eyes. and said to me, Go to the pool of Siloam and wash.

So I went and washed. And I receive sight. Then they said to him, Where is he? And he said. I do not know.

The disciples of Christ. call attention to this well known beggar, who had been blind from the day of his birth, And so they come to Jesus. With a theological question. They asked him, saying, Rabbi. Who sinned?

This man Or his parents. That he was born blind.

Now, notice that Jesus' answer to their question. indicates that the way they phrase the question They committed an informal fallacy of logic called the fallacy of the false dilemma, or sometimes more popularly, the either or fallacy, when people will say it's either this or it's that, when in fact there may be A tertium quid.

Now You gotta watch out for those tertium quids. Yes, I can jump up. and bites you. That means another option, a third alternative. And sometimes we do that.

We are not thinking clearly when we reduce options to two when. There are actually more than two.

Now there are certain issues that can be reduced. justly to either or situations. God either exists or he doesn't. There's no middle ground. But if I say let's paint the house either red or blue, there are still a host of other colors that could be selected besides those two.

Now it's important here. that when the disciples asked this question, They made an assumption. That Jesus had to correct. And the assumption they made was this. That somebody's sin.

was responsible For the affliction of blindness that this man had endured throughout his entire life. That was the operating assumption. And the assumption could be stated even further that the idea was that all afflictions. All pain. All suffering.

is directly a result of somebody's sin. That was the idea that was addressed throughout the entire book of Job. You remember, Job's friends came to believe that Job was the worst sinner in the land because he was the most grievously afflicted person in the land. And the logic of the time was this. There had to be some kind of mathematical proportionate ratio between the degree of a person suffering.

And a degree. of their San And of course the entire book of Job. is written to Refute. that falsehood And it's nowhere also more clearly refuted than in chapter 9 of John's Gospel in this discussion here.

However, Before we dismiss the disciples as being stupid In the question that they raised. We need to consider some other things. And that is that the disciples were aware that on many occasions in the history of God's people. And in the biblical record. Personal afflictions were visited upon individuals.

Because of sin. Throughout biblical history, when people violate the law of God, God will visit them with judgment. What happened to the baby born of David and Bathsheba? The judgment of God came upon the child. God took that baby's life.

As judgment upon David and upon Bathsheba. Right? How about the sister Miriam of Moses When she protested against Moses' marriage, And acted in a sinful manner against Moses and rebelled against his leadership. God, we are told, not the devil, visited her With leprosy. That is, a physical affliction came upon her as a direct result of her sin.

So the point is, there are times. When God disciplines his people, judges his people by giving them affliction.

So we must never say That can't be. The hand of God. But on the other hand, We can never rush to the judgment. that every affliction Is directly a result of God's judgment upon our sin. because there are other reasons for which we are sometimes subjected to great affliction.

Obviously, the suffering of Jesus was there because of the sin of the world. But not because of his sin. And there are many times that we suffer. At the hands of a Father who is putting us through the crucible to refine us, as it were, by fire, to teach us how to be more and more dependent upon Him, to the end that we are being sanctified and molded through those difficult tribulations. And so the New Testament redounds with those teachings that warn us from making the assumption that because we're suffering, it's because of a specific sin.

Now, again. In general terms. Had there never been any sin in the world, There would never have been deaths. Never, never been pain. And in heaven there'll be no death.

and there'll be no pain, and there'll be no sin.

So there is an overarching relationship between the reality of sin in this world and the reality of pain. But it's when we reduce that to a one-to-one relationship in individual people's lives. That we getting messed up.

Well, I preached on this once before over at the school. And I think I told you the story I had of a friend. who, while he was in college, would spend his Januaries with us and living in our home, studying a January term that I was teaching for the local colleges, and he was a victim of cerebral palsy. Nothing wrong with his mind. But his body was profoundly afflicted.

And one day he came to me and asked me if he could talk to me. privately and I said yes Harvey And in Harvey's distorted speech pattern. which he was very difficult to understand. He poured out his heart He said that he had some friends at his college. That were convinced.

In the power of faith healing. And they came to him and they laid hands on him. For his healing. But he didn't. Get healed.

And so they told him it was because he didn't have enough faith, and so they tried it again. And still he wasn't healed. And then they told him to claim his healing in advance. In order to have the healing work. Like telling the blind man to say Claim that you have vision.

While everything is black. That that's the kind of faith you need. to receive the blessing.

Well, Harvey tried that. And it didn't work.

So then they said, well, it must be because of some secret sin in your life.

So he confessed all his sins. And they laid hands on him again, and still. He had cerebral palsy.

So finally, they came to the ultimate explanation. They said, Well, Harvey. You must be demon possessed. And so they tried to exercise. The demon of cerebral palsy.

out of his body. And he came to me in tears. And he said, R. C. Do you think?

I'm demon-possessed. And I prayed for him. And I thank God for the incredible. brilliant testimony of his life. and faithfulness to the things of God, for the triumph over sickness and disease he had manifested so many times.

And I said in that prayer, I said, Lord, I thank you that you've given this man such a sweetness of disposition. And such A profound Faith in you. And when I finished praying, he He looked at me and the smile went from ear to ear and he said, Do you know what you said in your prayer? and I said, What's that, Harvey? He said, You called me.

A man. He said, that's the first time. Anybody. Has ever called me. On me.

Now. I have no idea. why Harvey had cerebral palsy. And he doesn't either. But it doesn't matter.

God gave him the greatest gift he could give any person. He gave him Jesus. And Harvey was happy, With that. Until people came with this distorted view of the relationship between pain, suffering, and sin. and tried to take away The joy.

of his salvation. And so they come to Jesus.

Well, which was it? This man Or his parents. that he's born blind. Jesus said, Nor his parents sinned.

Now hold it. Jesus is not saying that the man born blind was sinless. Nor is Jesus saying that the man born blind parents We're sinless. But what he's saying in straightforward terms to his disciple is His affliction is not A direct result of his sin. or the sin of his parents.

But there's another reason why he was born blind. And what was the reason? That the works of God Should be revealed in him. How many years Did that man grope in the darkness? Asking God Why me?

When everybody else can see I can't see anything. My whole life, I listen to people talk about what they're saying. And I can only imagine, but I don't even have any backward experiences or memories to aid me in my imagination. Because I've never seen anything. Why me?

Imagine the frustration. The Torment Year after year he had no idea. that one day The Son of God. would come to him. And heal him.

He had no idea. The 2,000 years later, Somebody would be preaching a sermon in a church on Sunday morning. about his contribution To the epiphany Of the glory of God. Who knows why we go through the things that we go through? But the promise of God.

is that he brings Good out of everything that befalls us, and that He uses the worst pain, the worst suffering, the most confusing events in our lives to bring about ultimately His glory. That's one of the hardest things. I've said to you many times: it's easy to believe in God, it's not so easy to believe God. But here we see a concrete example. How a man's suffering that went on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on for year after year after year after year after year.

Finally yielded itself. in glory. That's why the Apostle said those sufferings and afflictions that we endure in this lifetime aren't worthy to be compared with the treasures that God has laid up before us for eternity. If he would have stayed blind for 80 years or 90 years, what's that? Compared to eternity, In the presence of the glory of God.

But he didn't have to wait. They go to heaven. To be able to see the face of Christ. Listen to what happened. Jesus said, I must work the works of him who sent me while it is day.

The night's coming when no one can work, and as long as I'm in the world, I am the light of the world. I'm the light of the whole world. Just to show you. I'm the light of this man. That you're asking me about.

When he said these things, he spat on the ground. Made clay with the saliva. Notice the difference between this and how Jesus does some of his other miracles. At the wedding feast of Canaan, he didn't go in and mix up a recipe with the water and the purification jars in order to produce the wine. When he goes to the tomb of Lazarus and raises Lazarus from the dead, he doesn't go in there and administer mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a corpse or rub some balm on his forehead.

He just stands outside the tomb and commands Lazarus to come out. Lazarus, come forth. And see, we see there the immediate power. Of God, And we mean the immediate power, that is, where God works without means. But sometimes God brings His results to pass Through means.

You notice when the Red Sea parted for the children of Israel, Moses didn't just stand there and say, Separate, O C. But God brought a great wind, and he used the medium of wind to bring about the The mighty work of the Exodus. Jesus didn't need spit. And dirt. To heal this man's eyes.

Don't think that there's some chemical formula in Palestinian clay that will bring sight to blind people. That's not the point. Jesus is just simply administering a touch, an object lesson. For reasons we don't know. He dramatizes this.

He spits on the dirt, turns the dirt into clay, takes this clay. Almost as if he's saying. Not everyone who was born from the clay Got everything right the first time around.

Some people are born from the dust. with birth defects. And this man was one of them. Let's go back to the clay. Maybe.

I don't know. That's pure speculation on my part. But here, He takes this clay and puts it on the man's eyes. And then sends him to the pool of salaam and say, go wash in the pool. I think he maybe said something like, go wash in the pool.

Come back and see me. Yeah. And so he went and washed. And he came back. Seeing What was going through his mind?

I didn't know the scripture is the master of understatement. The man ghost. That's what Jesus told him to do. Washes that dirt and the mud off his eyes, and when he wipes away the mud from his eyes, opens his eyes. The first time in his entire life, he sees light.

He sees people. He sees all these things that he had only heard about throughout those many years of blindness. And so he comes back. Seeing And he is looking. For Jesus.

But Jesus isn't there, but all the people are there, and they see him coming back. And they say, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait, just a minute. Isn't that the guy that's always out here begging the blind man? Look at him. No, no, no, no.

That can't be him. It's his twin. Or he just looks like the man that we're used to seeing groping. In the darkness. But he said.

I am he. I can see. And so they said, How were your eyes opened? Yes. This man called Jesus.

That's all we know so far. How is it that you can say, well, this man. Called Jesus. He didn't say the incarnate Logos came along and opened my eyes. He said, All I know is.

A man But they call Jesus Came by. He made clay from the dirt. And anointed my eyes and told me to go wash in the pool of Siloam.

So I went. I washed. I received sight. At Lawy. at Wheedie.

You've heard Wene Weedy Weechy. the most famous triad of Latin terms. I saw I we cheat. Right. I conquered.

This is the phrase that should be memorialized in all time, right? I went. I washed. I see. I did all that he told me to do.

I saw this man, Jesus. He gave me this stuff. He put it on my eyes. He told me to go to the pool of Salaam. He sent me.

So I went. He says, go, I go. He said, wash, I wash. And now I see.

So they said to him, Where is he? I don't know. I don't know what he looks like. I see all of you, but I don't know if he's standing in your midst because. I never saw before now.

But the moment would come. When he would behold him. Jesus didn't just say He was the light of the world. He gave that light. To those who had none.

That's the light. that comes into the world. That the darkness cannot overcome. And you know as well as I do. that the Bible uses the metaphor of blindness again and again and again.

For people who have never perceived the sweetness of Christ. that their eyes are blind. Until God the Holy Spirit Without the help of Spit, and clay. opens our eyes. that we Behold him.

We are eternally grateful that He has opened our eyes. Thank you for joining us here on Renewing Your Mind, the daily discipleship podcast of Ligonier Ministries. Today's sermon from John's Gospel is one of many that R. C. Sproll preached while serving at St.

Andrew's Chapel. And all of these sermons became the foundation of his one-volume commentary on John. For the final day, you can request your own copy when you give a donation in support of this outreach at renewingyourmind.org. After your donation is processed, We will put a hardcover copy in the mail for you as our way of saying thanks. But respond now as this offer ends at midnight and won't be repeated next Sunday.

Thank you.

Well, next time we'll begin a new sermon series from Paul's letter to the Ephesians.

So I hope you'll join us next Sunday here. on Renewing Your Mind.