Sign #6: Jesus Heals a Man Born Blind
John 9As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
Jesus answered, “This man didn’t sin, nor did his parents, but this happened so that the works of God might be revealed in him. I must work the works of ʜɪᴍ who sent me while it is day. The night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
After he said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva. He applied the mud on the blind man’s eyes, and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means “Sent”). So he went away, washed, and came back seeing.
Then the neighbors and those who had previously seen him as a beggar said, “Isn’t this the man who used to sit and beg?” Some were saying, “It is he,” while others were saying, “He looks like him.”
He said, “I am he.”
So they asked him, “How were your eyes opened?”
He answered, “A man called Jesus made mud, anointed my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to the pool of Siloam and wash.’ So I went away and washed, and I received sight.”
Then they asked him, “Where is he?”
He said, “I don’t know.”
The Pharisees Investigate the Healing
They brought the man who had been blind to the Pharisees. Now the day on which Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes was a Sabbath. The Pharisees asked him again how he received his sight. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes, I washed, and I see.”
Then some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, because he doesn’t keep the Sabbath.”
Others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” So there was division among them.
Then they asked the blind man again, “What do you say about him, because he opened your eyes?”
He said, “He is a prophet.”
Therefore the Jews didn’t 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 y’all’s son, whom y’all say was born blind? How then does he now see?”
His parents answered them, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind. As for how he sees now, we don’t know; or who opened his eyes, we don’t know. He is of age. Y’all ask him. He will speak for himself.” His parents said these things because they feared the Jewish leaders. For they had already agreed that anyone who confessed him to be Christ would be put out of the synagogue. So his parents said, “He is of age. Y’all ask him.”
So they called the man who had been blind a second time, and said to him, “Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.”
He answered, “I don’t know if he is a sinner. One thing I do know: that though I was blind, now I see.”
They said to him again, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”
He answered them, “I told y’all already, and y’all didn’t listen. Why do y’all want to hear it again? Y’all don’t also want to become his disciples, do y’all?”
They insulted him and said, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses. But this man—we don’t know where he comes from.”
The man answered them, “How amazing! Y’all don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does ʜɪꜱ will, ʜᴇ listens to them. Since the world began, no one has ever heard of someone opening the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he would not be able to do anything.”
They answered him, “You were born entirely in sin, and yet you are teaching us?” Then they threw him out.
When Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, he found him and he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Humanity?”
He answered, “Who is he, Lord, that I may believe in him?”
Jesus said to him, “You have seen him. He is the one speaking with you.”
He said, “Lord, I believe!” and he worshiped him.
Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, that those who don’t see may see and that those who see may become blind.”
Some of the Pharisees with him heard these things, and said to him, “Are we also blind?”
Jesus said to them, “If y’all were blind, y’all would have no sin. But because y’all say, ‘We see,’ y’all’s sin remains.