Commentary - John 9:13-34

Bird's-eye view

In this passage, we see the inevitable collision that occurs when the kingdom of God breaks into the kingdom of men. A man born blind has been given his sight, an undeniable, glorious miracle. But instead of rejoicing, the religious authorities are thrown into a bureaucratic tailspin. Their entire system of control is threatened by this raw display of divine power. The central issue is not the miracle itself, but the authority of Jesus who performed it. The conflict spirals through interrogations, intimidation, and culminates in an excommunication. All the while, a marvelous contrast is on display: the man who was physically blind begins to see spiritually with ever-increasing clarity, while the Pharisees, the supposed seers of Israel, reveal themselves to be utterly and profoundly blind.

This is a courtroom drama where the witnesses are intimidated, the evidence is suppressed, and the judges are corrupt. But the truth has a power all its own. The simple, experiential testimony of the healed man cuts through all the theological fog and legalistic maneuvering of the Pharisees. He doesn't have their degrees, but he has his sight, and that one fact unravels their entire worldview. The result is a stark division, which is precisely what Jesus came to bring.

Outline

Commentary

13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who was formerly blind.

The machinery of the establishment grinds into motion. A great good has been done, and the first impulse of the neighbors is not to throw a party, but to report it to the authorities. The Pharisees were the self-appointed guardians of religious orthodoxy. They were the theological watchdogs, and something irregular had occurred. Notice the man is defined by his past; he was "formerly blind." This is how the world thinks. The gospel gives a man a future; the world wants to keep him tethered to his past.

14 Now it was a Sabbath on the day when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes.

And here is the tripwire. This is the pretext for the entire controversy. Jesus could have healed this man on any other day of the week, but He did it on the Sabbath. This was not an oversight; it was a deliberate challenge. The Pharisees had encrusted the Sabbath with a host of man-made regulations, turning a gift of rest into a burden of legalistic observance. Jesus, as the Lord of the Sabbath, came to restore its true meaning. Making clay was considered "work," and so, in their petty rulebook, Jesus was a lawbreaker.

15 So the Pharisees also were asking him again how he received his sight. And he said to them, “He applied clay to my eyes, and I washed, and I see.”

They begin their interrogation. The man's testimony is a model of simplicity and factual accuracy. He doesn't offer theological speculation. He doesn't embellish. He states the facts: clay, washing, sight. This is the power of a true testimony. It is grounded in reality, and it needs no ornamentation. The forces of unbelief will try to complicate and obfuscate, but the man sticks to his story. It is a story that cannot be refuted because it happened.

16 So then some of the Pharisees were saying, “This man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath.” But others were saying, “How can a sinful man do such signs?” And there was a division among them.

Here is the antithesis in action. Christ always brings a sword. The first group represents the hardened ideologue. Their theological system is their god. The facts must be made to fit the system, and if they don't, the facts must be discarded. Jesus broke their Sabbath rules, therefore He cannot be from God. End of discussion. But the second group is troubled by the sheer power of the miracle. Their common sense is wrestling with their tradition. A sinner doesn't have this kind of power. A man from the devil doesn't go around opening the eyes of the blind. This division is not a sign of failure, but of the gospel's power to sift and separate.

17 Therefore, they said to the blind man again, “What do you say about Him, since He opened your eyes?” And he said, “He is a prophet.”

Unable to agree among themselves, they turn back to the star witness. They are trying to lead him, to get him to say something they can use. But the man is growing in his understanding. He started with "the man called Jesus" (v. 11), and now he elevates his assessment. "He is a prophet." This is a significant step. A prophet is a spokesman for God. The man is connecting the miracle to its divine source. He is interpreting the evidence correctly, and his spiritual sight is beginning to clear.

18-19 Then, the Jews did not believe it of him that he was blind and had received sight, until they called the parents...“Is this your son, who you say was born blind? Then how does he now see?”

When you can't refute the logic, attack the premise. The authorities, here called "the Jews," which in John's gospel often refers to the hostile leadership in Judea, shift tactics. They decide to deny the miracle ever happened in the first place. Perhaps the man was never really blind. This is the last refuge of a bankrupt argument: conspiracy theories. So they haul in the parents to poke holes in the story.

20-21 So his parents answered and said, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but how he now sees, we do not know; or who opened his eyes, we do not know. Ask him; he is of age, he will speak for himself.”

The parents are in a terrible position. They confirm the two essential facts: this is their son, and he was born blind. Their testimony should have settled the matter. But then fear takes over. They punt. They refuse to draw any conclusions or name any names. Their answer is a masterpiece of cowardly buck-passing. "Ask him; he is of age." They throw their son to the wolves to save their own skins.

22-23 His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone confessed Him to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue...

John gives us the reason for their cowardice. The stakes were incredibly high. To be "put out of the synagogue" was not just a religious penalty; it was social and economic death. It meant being ostracized from the covenant community. The leadership had already made up their minds about Jesus and had turned confession of Him into a punishable offense. This is what corrupt authority does. It uses its power not to seek truth, but to enforce its own agenda and silence dissent.

24 Therefore, a second time they called the man...and said to him, “Give glory to God; we know that this man is a sinner.”

The second interrogation begins with a pious-sounding trap. "Give glory to God" is a formal adjuration, a way of saying, "Tell the truth under oath." But they immediately tell him what the "truth" is supposed to be: "we know that this man is a sinner." They are not asking for his testimony; they are demanding his agreement. They want him to praise God by denouncing Jesus. This is a classic tactic of spiritual manipulation.

25 He then answered, “Whether He is a sinner, I do not know; one thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”

This is one of the greatest lines in all of Scripture. The man refuses to get bogged down in their theological categories. He sidesteps their trap by appealing to the one thing they cannot deny: his own experience. He cuts through all the religious jargon with a single, massive, undeniable fact. This is the bedrock of Christian testimony. We may not have all the theological answers, but we have the testimony of a changed life. I was blind, and now I see.

26-27 So they said to him, “What did He do to you? How did He open your eyes?” He answered them, “I told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to listen again? Do you want to become His disciples too?”

The Pharisees are stuck on repeat. They keep asking "how" because they cannot deal with the "what." The healed man's patience is wearing thin. He has been delivered not only from blindness, but also from timidity. His reply is dripping with holy sarcasm. He exposes their bad faith. They aren't listening to learn; they are listening to find a charge. And then he lands the punchline: "Do you want to become His disciples too?" He is no longer a defendant; he is a missionary. He is calling them to repentance.

28-29 And they reviled him and said, “You are His disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where He is from.”

Their theological masks come off completely. When logic fails, resort to insult. They revile him. They hurl "His disciple" at him as an insult, but he would take it as a badge of honor. They then create a false dichotomy: Jesus versus Moses. This is profoundly ironic, because Moses wrote of Jesus (John 5:46). To be a true disciple of Moses is to become a disciple of Christ. Their claim to knowledge ("we know") is set against their profession of ignorance ("we do not know"). But their ignorance is willful. They don't know where He is from because they refuse to see.

30-33 The man answered...“Well, here is a marvelous thing, that you do not know where He is from, and He opened my eyes...We know that God does not listen to sinners...Since the beginning of time it has never been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, He could do nothing.”

Now the layman preaches a sermon to the seminary professors. He marvels at their ignorance. They, the teachers of Israel, cannot explain this event. He then lays out a simple, powerful, and devastating theological argument based on what every pious Jew knew. First, God does not hear the prayers of unrepentant sinners. Second, God does hear the prayers of the godly. Third, this miracle is unprecedented in all of history. Conclusion: Jesus must be from God. It is airtight logic, grounded in Scripture and evidence. He has reasoned his way from the miracle to its divine source.

34 They answered and said to him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you teaching us?” So they put him out.

This is the final response of a defeated argument. They cannot answer his logic, so they resort to an `ad hominem` attack. They throw his congenital blindness back in his face, ironically affirming the very superstition Jesus had corrected at the beginning of the chapter. "You were born in sin, so you have no right to teach us." And having lost the argument, they use their raw power. They excommunicate him. They cast him out. But in casting him out of their dead synagogue, they were unwittingly pushing him into the arms of the one who is the true temple, Jesus Christ.

Application

First, we must see the nature of entrenched unbelief. It is not a lack of evidence. The Pharisees had an undeniable miracle right in front of them, and they did everything they could to deny it, suppress it, and punish the one who received it. Unbelief is a moral problem, not an intellectual one. The heart that is in rebellion against God will twist any fact and deny any reality to maintain its autonomy.

Second, we see the glorious power of a simple, honest testimony. The healed man did not have a sophisticated theology at first, but he had a story. He knew what Christ had done for him. "I was blind, but now I see." This is the core of all evangelism. Our arguments are important, but they are powerful when they are connected to the reality of a life transformed by the gospel.

Lastly, we must count the cost of discipleship. Following Christ will inevitably bring us into conflict with the world's systems, including its religious systems. The parents of the blind man shrunk back in fear of being cast out. The man himself, however, spoke the truth and was cast out. But to be cast out by the world for Christ's sake is to be welcomed in by Christ Himself. The synagogue doors may close, but the door to the kingdom of heaven is thrown wide open.