In John 9, the man's life was radically changed when Jesus healed him of blindness. This healing was so dramatic, his friends couldn’t believe it was the same person and had no idea how to process this.
But instead of celebrating this man’s healing they began to investigate, interrogate, and then tried to intimidate him into submitting to their estimation of who Jesus was. But they soon found out that this tactic didn’t work.
13 They brought the man who was previously blind to the Pharisees. 14 Now it was a Sabbath on the day that Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. 15 Then the Pharisees also were asking him again how he received his sight. And he said to them, “He applied mud to my eyes, and I washed, and I see.”
16 Therefore some of the Pharisees were saying, “This man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath.” But others were saying, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And there was dissension among them. 17 So they said again to the man who was blind, “What do you say about Him, since He opened your eyes?” And he said, “He is a prophet.”
18 The Jews then did not believe it about him, that he had been blind and had received sight, until they called the parents of the very one who had received his sight, 19 and they questioned them, saying, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? Then how does he now see?” 20 His parents then answered and said, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; 21 but how he now sees, we do not know; or who opened his eyes, we do not know. Ask him; he is of age, he will speak for himself.”
22 His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already reached the decision that if anyone confessed Him to be Christ, he was to be excommunicated from the synagogue. 23 It was for this reason that his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”
24 So for a second time they summoned the man who had been blind, and said to him, “Give glory to God; we know that this man is a sinner.” 25 He then answered, “Whether He is a sinner, I do not know; one thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” 26 So they said to him, “What did He do to you? How did He open your eyes?” 27 He answered them, “I told you already and you did not listen; why do you want to hear it again? You do not want to become His disciples too, do you?”
28 They spoke abusively to him and said, “You are His disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. 29 We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where He is from.” 30 The man answered and said to them, “Well, here is the amazing thing, that you do not know where He is from, and yet He opened my eyes! 31 We know that God does not listen to sinners; but if someone is God-fearing and does His will, He listens to him.
32 Since the beginning of time it has never been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, He could do nothing.” 34 They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and yet you are teaching us?” So they put him out.
35 Jesus heard that they had put him out, and upon finding him, He said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” 36 He answered by saying, “And who is He, Sir, that I may believe in Him?” 37 Jesus said to him, “You have both seen Him, and He is the one who is talking with you.” 38 And he said, “I believe, Lord.” And he worshiped Him.
39 And Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” 40 Those who were with Him from the Pharisees heard these things and said to Him, “We are not blind too, are we?” 41 Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now that you maintain, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.
After the Pharisees heard how Jesus healed this man of blindness, they came to the conclusion that Jesus could not be of God, because He didn’t keep the Sabbath. According to the Rabbinical tradition, healing was classified as “work” and therefore prohibited. But if someone was dying you could do what was necessary to keep him or her from dying but not too much. Here Jesus completely healed the blind man.
The question is: Did Jesus keep the Sabbath? Absolutely.
“The Scriptures tell us that Jesus was the Lord of the Sabbath.”
That the Sabbath was created for man, not man for the Sabbath. When Jesus healed people on the Sabbath it revealed God’s mercy, goodness, and compassion and how we are much more valuable than any animal you would pull out of a ditch on the Sabbath for example. Jesus’ actions also revealed the Pharisees’ hardness of heart.
But others were not so sure - they couldn’t ignore this miracle and were struggling to make sense of it asking, “How can an ordinary person like this perform such signs?”
At the same time, we could see how the Pharisees were struggling to come up with an answer for how this man received his sight without confessing that Jesus was the Messiah.
They were not investigating the facts to come to the truth because
“they didn’t like where the facts were leading.”
They were interrogating the man to find holes in the story, to the point that they refused to believe he had been healed of his blindness. So, they took the next step and found out who the parents were and began interrogating them hoping to get the parents to validate their stance.
In Jesus day this religious group used their position in society and their knowledge of the Scriptures to intimidate a man they thought was just a poor ignorant loser. They were trying to get him to agree with them that Jesus was a sinner because He healed on the Sabbath.
“But this man was not intimidated by their position nor by their arguments against Jesus”
and the fact that he was healed. This man knew that he was born blind, that Someone touched his eyes, and now he could see. He could also see through these Jews - that they didn’t want to know the truth and they were looking for evidence to prove Jesus was a sinner and not the Savior.
What shocked this man who was blind his entire life was not his newfound belief in Jesus but the Jews unbelief in the only one who has ever in recorded history healed a person that was born blind. "You, the religious experts, can't you even use common sense to figure out a simple thing like this?” What was the Pharisee’s response to this man’s biblically correct response? They attacked his character and personal attributes and then threw him out of the temple.
So, when Jesus heard he was kicked out of the temple He went and found him and asked him a simple question - Do you believe in the Son of man? In other words -
“Do you really want to know who the Son of man is?”
This is such a simple question. This is a question He asked and has asked all of us.
This man could tell that Jesus wanted him to believe. Jesus wanted this man to know who He was - that is why he opened his eyes. This man's response was truly amazing -
““I want to know who He is so that I may believe in Him.””
Jesus says the one you are looking at and listening to is He. This man said, “I believe.” God asks you the same question – “Do you really want to know the Son of Man?” How would you answer?
