9:30-33
The healed man is even more emboldened now, pointing out the ridiculousness of the Pharisees’ position. Would God listen to a sinner? Now we know God does listen to repentant sinners, that is central to Jesus’ message, but that is not what the man means here. Would God do miracles for a rebellious sinner? Jesus must be a godly person if God does miracles in response to His prayers.
The man then points out that the miracle in his case was truly unique. He had been born blind, it was not a condition that came upon him later in life. There were various “healers” who came and went, but none of them had done such great things. We need to be careful when we “venerate” healers. We should pray about all sorts of things, and be grateful for all the little healings that God does, but if someone truly has a God given gift of healing then the healings will be clear and demonstrable.
If Jesus was not from God then He could do nothing. The actions of Jesus demonstrated the truth of His words.
9:34
The Pharisees reacted in predictable fashion. They accused the man of being steeped in sin from birth. Indignant, they threw him out. Notice how this takes us back to the beginning of the story. The disciples also thought that the man’s blindness must have been due to his sin or that of his parents. The difference is that they took their questions to Jesus, the Pharisees were so convinced of their own rightness that they had no interest in listening to the truth. It was their own sin that they needed to face up to and be concerned about. This is true for all of us. We should be first concerned to deal with our own sin before we worry about that of other people.
No comments:
Post a Comment