GOOD NEWS FROM ST. JOHN
Meditations in the Gospel of St. John
St. John 9:13-34 (Part 1)
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WE now look at the rest of the conflict which the healed blind man experienced from the Pharisees as this experience really can’t be broken up. However there is more in these verses than that which can be considered in one meditation, so we will spend more than one Sunday on this section of St. John.

The first thing to be considered is the darkness which existed in the church of that time. By this I mean the darkness within the Jewish people, as they were the church of the day, and claimed to know God. It is a sad fact that a church, which claims to know the truth and to defend the truth, can be in great darkness and not really know God. This has been true in history apart from the Jewish religion at the time of Christ, and also can be seen to be present in our day.

Although the signs which Jesus performed, recorded here in the healing of the blind man and elsewhere in the Gospels, are so clear and compelling, and truly reveal that Jesus was God incarnate, yet the Pharisees, the leaders of the Jewish community, refused to believe. It is plain that they came prejudiced against Jesus and faith in him. They just did not want to become his disciples.

The miracle of healing of the man born blind was undeniably a good act, and miraculous. In verse 16b some of the Jews saw this, and expressed the truth in the words “How can a sinner do such miraculous signs”. They saw the act, and it compelled belief in Jesus as good and as God. Yet still the darkness was so great that the Pharisees would rather call Jesus a sinner than accept the truth.

The nature of spiritual darkness is not that the truth can not be seen, but is a state of heart which hates the truth, and will seek to bring any defence to deny the truth.

Let us notice how darkness will twist the truth of God and the commands of God to defend itself against the light. Satan did this in his attack on Jesus when Jesus was tempted in the wilderness. There Satan used Scripture to support his temptations. Here Satan’s work is seen in the argument the Pharisees brought against Jesus in his healing of the blind man. The commandment to keep the Sabbath holy was never meant to exclude good works on the Sabbath, and to prevent people being helped in time of need. The teaching of the Jews had turned the commandment concerning the Sabbath into a burden, when it was meant as a blessing - that is to give time to people to meet with God and be blest in a busy world.

Darkness also seeks to avoid the truth. As we see from verse 18 the Pharisees refused to believe that the man who claimed to be healed was really the man who had been born blind. Spiritual darkness will seek to deny the truth if it can. This is seen in people refusing to believe the resurrection of Jesus, and denying the historical veracity of the miracles of Jesus, and explaining away parts of the Bible which they do not want to believe.

In this case the Pharisees could not maintain their position that the man was not really the man who had been blind. They appealed to the man’s parents who confirmed that he was truly their son and had been born blind. Even though they could not deny the miracle, they would rather call it an evil act, than believe. This is the bondage of spiritual darkness.

The next ploy of the darkness was threats and violence. The parents of the blind man were reluctant to support their son, because of the threats of the Jews, that anyone who supported Jesus, would be put out of the synagogue. This is always the last resort of darkness. They turned on the healed man in this way. In verse 24 we see the Pharisees placing sinful pressure on the man by telling him he was denying the truth when he held to faith in Jesus, and that really the truth was that Jesus was a sinner. The implication in the words of the Pharisees is that Jesus was in league with the devil, and that his power was from the devil. There is no end to the evil that darkness will drive people to espouse.

In the end the darkness in the Jews caused them to use threats, abuse, and violence against the man healed from his blindness. In verse 28 we read that they hurled insults at him, and then in verse 34 we read that they threw him out. This was undeniably a physical act of violence, but it also included throwing him out of the synagogue, and cutting him off from the society of the day.

The terrible thing was that this darkness was in the church. It was the defenders of the faith that were denying the truth. When darkness gets into the church of God, how great is that darkness, and how difficult it is to put away. We must not be surprised when we come across darkness in the church. We must not be afraid to stand against it in humble faith.