John 9:18-34

John now refers to the Jews again, remember the Jews usually signifies the ruling religious leaders in John's gospel. It therefore seems that the there was some division over Jesus amongst the Pharisees, but the religious leaders were strongly against Him.

The Jews initial reaction was to disbelieve that a miracle could have happened at all, so they sought out his parents and questioned them. The parents were very cautious, because the Jews had agreed to excommunicate anyone who said that Jesus was the Messiah. In the society of the day this would have been a very serious matter. Therefore the parents were careful only to say what they were sure of, and in fact they probably did not have first hand knowledge of the healing itself. Finally they suggested the Jews question the man himself. any man over 13 years of age was able to give testimony.

So the Jews questioned the man again. "Give glory to God", means give importance or weight to God. Ie answer the question knowing that you are answering before God and that He knows everything anyway, so you should tell the truth.

They wanted the man to declare that Jesus was a sinner, but he refused to do so. The man refuses to give in to their pressure, and even becomes quite cheeky, asking if the Jews want to become disciples of Jesus. The Jews fall back on their supposed being disciples of Moses. The man declares that the evidence clearly shows that Jesus was a man of God, and proceeds to give the Jews a theology lesson.

As a result the Jews expelled the man form the synagogue.

John 9:13-17

The people brought the man to the Pharisees. They might have done this just because the Pharisees were the respected religious authorities, or it may have been to cause trouble, or keep on the right side of them. Whatever the case, the Pharisees were more interested in the supposed Sabbath breaking than the fact that God had healed someone.

Now Jesus had broken their rules on the Sabbath, but from all the confrontations between Jesus and the Pharisees on this matter it is clear that God's view of the Sabbath was quite different from that of the Pharisees. All of us need to be careful with man-made rules. Every church, whether an old denomination or a relatively new charismatic church, has rules. Now there is nothing necessarily wrong in having rules, we need some guidelines to enable us to function, but we need to always watch ourselves that we do not start putting the rules above God's purpose.

It is also worth noting that it would be perfectly possible to put together a case saying that the Bible says we must observe the Sabbath, therefore Jesus was in contravention of the Old Testament. Such a case would be worthless and wrong, but we need to be careful of our innate tendency to produce sets of rules, and totally misunderstand God.

There were some Pharisees who were impressed with the miracles that Jesus did, and wondered if perhaps He could be from God. Ironically they turned to ask the man (ironic because of their general view of the common people).

John 9:6-12

This is another healing that occurred on the Sabbath. Both healing, and mixing the mud, broke the Jewish Sabbath rules. Notice that there is no record of the man actually asking to be healed, though maybe it is implied that he did.

Jesus put the mud on the man's eyes and told him to go and wash. The man, being blind, would not have known what Jesus looks like. Jesus gave the man something to do. Strictly speaking, there was no need for this, for Jesus could have just spoken the work and the man would have had his sight restored.

The man obeyed and went to wash in the pool of Siloam. He was then able to see. His neighbours were amazed, and found it difficult to believe. This is not unusual. If we see someone in a context that we do not expect to see them, we will often wonder if it is really who we think it is.

The man recounted what had happened, but Jesus had left by this time. Why did Jesus leave? Was it because He knew what would follow?

John 9:1-5

Giving sight to the blind is one of the signs associated with the Messiah in Isaih (Isaiah 29:18, 35:4, 42:7).

The disciples first reaction on seeing the blind man was to ask who was to blame. The rabbis taught that all suffering was directly correlated to sin. They even went so far as to say that a child could sin in the womb. Now it is true that ultimately all sickness and death is a result of sin. It is also true that some suffering is a direct consequence of sin. We can see this in obvious ways, for instance if someone drinks too much they will be likely to have liver disease and other health problems as a direct result. There are also instances where sin is a direct spiritual consequence of sin (1 Cor 11:30). However, it is not true that all sickness is a direct consequence of sin, and in general you cannot say that someone is a worse sinner because they are ill!

Jesus took a very different approach to the disciples. He was concerned with the works of God being displayed in the man. Jesus was going to heal the man. v3 reads a little like saying that the man had been inflicted with blindness so that the works of God could be displayed. However, there is another way of reading it (Kruse). In the original Greek there were no punctuation marks, and it is possible to take v3 with v4 (rather than two separate sentences), so that it reads "but so that the works of God might be displayed in him we must do the works of Him who sent me". Whatever the case, the focus of Jesus was on healing the man.

This incident has implications for us. Sometimes we too can be overly obsessed with why someone is suffering from something, and overly concerned with digging back into someone's past (our own past). The emphasis of Jesus was on setting free and healing.

The section finishes with Jesus reminding us of the urgency of doing God's work. There is a limited amount if time within which God's work can be done, so we need to take every opportunity.

John 8:48-58

The dispute becomes more intense. The Jews had a very low view of the Samaritans. In accusing Jesus of being a Samaritan they may have just been saying He was very lax in regard to the Law. This is not the only time Jesus was accused of being in league with the devil (Matt 12:23, Mark 3:22).

Jesus' response is to be ever more emphatic about His divinity. This is a lesson to us that we must never backtrack on claims about Jesus. He is the Son of God, He is the Lord of Lords, He is both fully human and fully God. Jesus honoured His Father, the fault of the Jews was to dishonour Jesus. The Father seeks the glory of the Son. God's will is that Jesus is honoured and worshipped.

Jesus then says that whoever obeys His word (note He does not say the Father's word, Jesus is amking no bones about the matter that they need to obey Him) will have eternal life.

The Jews cannot grasp this at all. Note that the disciples were no better either at understanding Jesus' later statements about His need to die, and then rise again. Notions that the 1sr century people were credulous and readily accepted talk about rising again are without foundation. Resurrection was as radical a concept to them as it is to us. Abraham and all the prophets had died, yet they had obeyed God. So Jesus could only be speaking nonsense, or so the Jews thought. "are you greater ...", of course Jesus was greater than all who had gone before Him.

It was the very One the Jews claimed to worship who glorified Jesus, yet the Jews refused to believe in Him. Jesus was the one who spoke the truth. Abraham, and all the prophets, were looking forward to the coming of the true messiah.

The Jews think Jesus has finally gone too far, but then Jesus goes even further, using a term (I am) that could only be applied to God.

John 8:39-47

The Jews thought they were Abraham's children, and humanly speaking they were. But if they were his children spiritually they would recognise who Jesus was, instead they intended to kill Him. Abraham is one of the most important figures in the Old Testament, especially in the writings of Paul.

"We are not illegitimate" may have been a slur on Jesus. Whether it is or not, they were very proud of their Abrahamic ancestory.

Jesus again replies that if this was true then they would love Him. The Son and the Father are one, and we cannot have one without the other. Jesus came only to do His Father's will. The Jews were actually children of the devil. Note that this is referring specifically to the Jewish religious leaders, it is not anti-Semetic. The devil has been a liar from the very beginning, it is fundamental to His very nature, The Jews were taking on his nature.

Jesus challenged them to prove Him guilty of any sin.

John 8:31-38

We have just been told that many of the Jews believed in Jesus, but this is not the end of the matter. There was still much that they had to learn, and Jesus starts right away. Jesus starts talking about freedom, and says that continuing in His word (ie living by His word) is crucial. Now this caused a problem for the Jews, because they already counted themselves as free. They were very proud of their Abrahamic background, and the prospect of needing to be made free offended them.

When we come to Christ there will be areas in our lives where He needs to work and bring changes, and in some cases we might react against this. We need to watch ourselves carefully if this is happening, and make sure we are not reacting against the truth.

Jesus then goes on to talk about sin. Sin is every person's biggest problem, and usually the one we do not want to face up to. But the truth is that sin makes us slaves of sin, and we need to be set free from this. Sin ties our lives up in knots in many ways. We are set free from some things the day we turn to Christ, but other matters take time.

The good news is that Jesus came to set us free from sin, and while sin makes us a slave, Jesus makes us a child of God. He brings true freedom into our lives.