A Study of John 9:13-23

“They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. So the Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight. And he said to them, “He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.” Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” And there was a division among them. So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him, since he has opened your eyes?” He said, “He is a prophet.” The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight, until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” His parents answered, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. But how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” (His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.) Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.””

John 9:13–23 ESV

Observation/Summary (short explanation of what the passage says in your own words):

On a Sabbath day, Jesus miraculously cured a blind man by covering his eyes with mud and telling him to wash in the pool of Siloam. The Pharisees asked the man how his blindness had been cured and the man told them Jesus put mud on his eyes, told him to wash, and now he could see. At this, some of the Pharisees said Jesus could not be from God because He did not keep the Sabbath. But other people rightly said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?”. And because of this there was a division among them. So, they asked the formerly blind man what he thought about Jesus, since Jesus healed his eyes, and the man said, “He is a prophet.”

On hearing this, the  Jews still did not believe the man had been blind and then miraculously healed, so they called for his parents and asked them if this was their son who had been born blind, and if so, how had his sight been restored. The parents said it was their son who had been born blind, but they did not know how his sight had been restored or who did it. Then they told the Pharisees to ask their son, saying, “He is of age, he will speak for himself.” The parents said this because they feared the Jewish religious leaders who had already said that anyone who claimed Jesus is the Christ would be put out of the synagogue.

Textual Analysis and Implication (what is being said and what does this mean?):

After discovering the man born blind had been healed, the people brought him to the Pharisees for comment. There was not necessarily any ill will in their bringing the man to the Pharisees. The Pharisees were influential religious leaders in Jewish society at this time, and their opinion and authority held a lot of sway over the people. In the same way people today look to leaders, political or otherwise, to comment on significant events, the people wanted to hear what their religious leaders had to say on this matter. So, they went to the Pharisees with the man who had just been miraculously healed to get their take on it.

Just as John tells us the people went with the healed man to the Pharisees, he also mentions, in verse 14, that this healing had taken place on the Sabbath. Jesus had already garnered the ire of the Pharisees for healing a man who was disabled for decades at the pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem on the Sabbath (John 5), so as we read this, we might rightly anticipate the Pharisees will be none too thrilled to hear of the miraculous healing. According to the Pharisees, Jesus had broken the Sabbath law in a few ways. Now, Jesus had not broken the Sabbath law as it was given by God, but He had violated the man made additions to the law by the Pharisees.

Firstly, according to the Pharisaical version of the Sabbath, healing or medical treatment was only permitted if a person’s life was in danger. Because the man had been blind from birth, they viewed it as a Sabbath violation for Jesus to heal him. Secondly, making mud from spittle and dirt was viewed as “kneading”, and kneading ingredients to make dough or even mud, was viewed as work, and therefore a Sabbath violation. Thirdly, it is likely they also took issue with Jesus anointing, or covering, the man’s eyes with the mud. Ironically, all of these so-called issues served to blind the eyes of the Pharisees to the magnificence of the miraculous healing they would witness in this man and in other instances of Jesus’ Sabbath healings. Instead of being filled with awe and wonder at the power of God, their pride blinded them with doubt, suspicion and fear that their man-made power structure might be threatened.

Once the man was brought before the Pharisees, they questioned him and asked what happened. No doubt the man gave a full account of the event, but John records a condensed version in verse 15 with the man simply stating, “He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.” Upon hearing this the Pharisees reacted in two different ways. One group immediately said Jesus could not be from God because He did not keep the Sabbath (again, it was their version of the Sabbath, not the true Sabbath). This group was right not to be swayed by miracles only because Deuteronomy 13:1-5 warned against false teachers who would perform miraculous signs, but then lead people away from God. Of course, they failed to see Jesus was in fact leading people to God, but this speaks to their own spiritual blindness. In contrast to this first group, the second group asked how a sinner could do such signs. They concluded that only God could heal a man born blind. They believed the miraculous sign to be so incredible, it could only be accomplished by the power of God. Therefore, they thought Jesus and His actions needed to be carefully considered.

There is much irony in the response of the two Pharisaical groups. The first group had the strongest argument because they were correct in saying miraculous signs alone do not attest to a prophet being sent by God, but they of course ignored all the other evidence and teaching of Jesus that more clearly revealed Him to be from God. The second group had the weakest argument, because signs alone do not prove a prophet is from God, but they are one piece of evidence. Jesus does prefer faith based on miraculous signs to no faith at all, but in the gospels we see time and time again that such faith is generally rather weak. Now, the real irony here though is the first group, with the stronger logical argument, is incorrect. And the second group, with the weaker argument based solely on signs, is correct. Jesus is from God. In fact He is God Himself incarnate.

This is not the first time Jesus has caused division in John’s gospel account. We never see a lukewarm response to Jesus in the gospels. As the Pharisees divided over their opinion of Jesus they turned back towards the man and asked him who he thought Jesus was, to which the man replied simply, “He is a prophet.” Even though the formerly blind man, unlike the Pharisees, had no theological or scribal training, they asked him what he thought because he was the one healed. And the man boldly took a side saying Jesus was a prophet from God.

This statement does not fully identify who Jesus is, but it was a step in the right direction which the man was willing to take even though he knew many of the Pharisees would be upset to hear him speak positively of Jesus. This man was not overly concerned with the minutiae of the Pharisaical Sabbath law. He knew that he had been healed by the power of God and he was not afraid to say so. The man seemed to decide that whatever else this Jesus might be, He is at the very least a prophet from God who healed him by the power of God. While the man’s physical eyes were healed in an instant, his spiritual sight is also slowly coming into focus on Jesus, while the spiritual sight of the Pharisees is clouding over as they reject what is plain to see before them.

Continuing on in verses 18-19, we read that the “Jews” did not believe the man had been born blind and received his sight. In this case John is still referring to the Pharisees. John likes to vary the terms he uses; the term “Jews” can refer to different subgroups of the broader Jewish people group appropriate to the context of a given situation. At this point in their investigation the Pharisees have a problem; they are divided in their opinion and therefore cannot unify in their opposition to Jesus. So, having already spoken first to the neighbors and then to the formerly blind man, they decided to probe deeper and seek out the man’s parents to ask them if the man was truly born blind and if so, then how had his blindness been healed. After having already heard a plethora of eyewitness testimony, the Pharisees still wanted to probe deeper because the evidence brought forward was not to their liking. They hoped to uncover some sort of conspiracy that would negate the evidence which bore witness to the fact that there was a man sent from God in their midst with the power to perform miraculous healings.

In verses 20-21, the parents readily attested to the facts that this was their son and he was born blind. These two facts, while probably irksome to the Pharisees, were also attested to by everyone else and would not get them into trouble. However, the next couple facts of the case, that the man had been healed miraculously by a certain someone, could get them into trouble with the Pharisees, so on these points the parents were less forthcoming. They did affirm this was their son who was born blind, but then they said they did not know how or by whom he had been healed.

I think it is incredibly unlikely that they did not know Jesus healed him. Even if they were not present at the healing, everyone from the neighborhood knew about it, and parents whose child had been healed of a lifelong disability would want to know every detail about how it happened. But, while they might not have shared the whole truth, the parents did speak truthfully about the nature of their son’s condition and the effectiveness of the miraculous cure, they just happened to do so in a way that preserved their relationship with the religious authorities. Of course, in doing so they missed an opportunity to give glory to Jesus, but as we will see later in the chapter, their son would choose to provide a bold witness to the works of God which had been displayed in him.

Next, John the gospel writer provides a parenthetical statement to explain the parents said these things because the Pharisees had said that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Christ (Christ is a title, not a name), would be thrown out of the synagogue. This is what the parents were afraid of, so for this reason they deflected the attention back to their son and told the Pharisees, “He is of age; ask him.” The synagogue was the center of Jewish society and to be thrown out of it essentially meant being thrown out of the community. While we might expect parents to defend their children, here, these parents sensed danger, but instead of trying to protect their son or even just affirm the truthfulness of his words, sadly, they distanced themselves from him to preserve their status in their community. They were not alone in their fear. John 12:42 tells us there were even many among the rulers of Israel that believed in Jesus but they were also afraid because of the Jewish religious leaders.

Response (How does this change how I think, act and pray?):

This passage should cause us to consider our own spiritual blindness in regard to Jesus, the one true God. Is there anything that we, like the Pharisees, refuse to acknowledge as the work of God? Does the magnificently complex universe we live in fill us with awe and wonder towards the One who created it? Or do we simply shrug our shoulders when faced with the finely tuned universe and say it could have all been an accident; that everything came from nothing? Or how do we respond to the gospels, the eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ ministry on earth? How do we respond to the hundreds of prophecies fulfilled by Jesus, the miraculous healings, and His rising from the dead?

This evidence that God has revealed to us should cause us to respond in faith, like the healed man in this passage, and acknowledge the glorious works of God in creation and salvation. And ultimately, this information should cause us to trust in and worship Jesus for who He is, the one true God who died and rose again to pay the penalty for our sin and give us eternal life. We must not be like the unbelieving Pharisees. We must be willing to surrender our little manmade, earth-bound kingdoms and submit to the authority of the Kingdom of Heaven, of which Christ is King. For in Christ Jesus we will find life; abundant and overflowing with joy forever.

Self Reflection:

1. How do I typically respond to evidence that contradicts my ideas?
2. What did Jesus do, besides performing miracles, to prove He came from Heaven?
3. How do I respond when people do not believe me?