9:39
In 3:17 and 8:15 Jesus has said that He did not come to judge the world, but He has also said that the Father has appointed Him as judge (5:22) and here He says that He has come into the world for judgement. This should be a severe warning first against interpreting any single verse out of context. Secondly, it demonstrates that in order to get a complete and accurate picture we need to look at all the relevant scriptures. So the idle notion that Jesus says it is wrong to judge people and that He will not judge anyone is nothing more than lazy thinking without any foundation in Scripture.
So what is Jesus saying here and what are God’s plans? First God does not desire that anyone should perish, He would far rather that everyone would repent and receive new life. However, He knows full well that many will not. In the precise context here it is saying that those who were lost in sin and come to a recognition of their need and believe that Jesus can set them free will be saved, they will be able to see. In this context it is significant that the healed man was blind from birth. We were all born in sin and were slaves of sin, even from birth, but Jesus can set us free. Conversely, those who claim to be able to see will be shown to be blind. This refers specifically here to the Pharisees and Jewish leaders. They had the reputation of being the spiritual leaders of Israel, but were in fact blind.
9:40,41
There were some Pharisees with Jesus at the time that He said this. They knew what Jesus was saying and they were shocked that they could possibly be blind. They knew that Jesus was saying that they needed to have their eyes opened. Their pride had been offended, but it was their pride that was making things even worse for them. If they were truly blind they would not be guilty, but they claimed to have insight, so they would be judged on this basis and found guilty.
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