Charles Ellicott Commentary John 9

And as Jesus passed by.—Better, And. as He was passing by. The words are immediately connected with those of the preceding verse, and went out of the Temple.

It was then, as He was leaving the Temple to escape the fury of His enemies who had taken up stones to cast at Him, and was passing by the place where the blind man was, that His eye fell upon him.

The day was the Sabbath of the preceding discourse, now drawing to its close (Compare to John 9:4, John 9:14, and John 8:12). The place was probably some spot near the Temple, perhaps one of its gates. We know that beggars were placed near these gates to ask alms (Acts 3:2), and this man was well known as one who sat and begged (John 9:8).

A man who was blind from his birth.—The fact was well known, and was probably publicly proclaimed by the man himself or his parents (John 9:20) as an aggravation of his misery, and as a plea for the alms of passersby. Of the six miracles connected with blindness which are recorded in the Gospels, this is the only case described as blindness from birth. In this lies its special characteristic, for since the world began, was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind (John 9:32).

Who did sin, this man, or his parents?—The disciples noticed that He looked at the man, and it may be that He halted as He was walking by. Their attention is directed to the sufferer, and with suffering they connect the idea of sin. They ask a question that may have come to them many times before, and that has in various forms come to people’s hearts many times since.

Some of them may have heard it discussed in Rabbinic schools, and may have wished to know what answer He, whom they had come to regard as greater than the Rabbis, would give.

But it is a question not of the learned only, but of people generally. Those who now ask it do not propose it as a matter for discussion, but as a mystery of human life brought home to them in all its darkness, and for which they seek a solution at His hands.

His teaching on the wider questions of the existence of evil and the connection of sin and suffering—though coming in the order of events after these words, and in part probably arising out of them—has in the order of the record occurred before them, and has been already dealt with in Notes on Luke 13:1-5.

What is special to the question, as we encounter it here, is that what is considered to be the punishment had come with birth, before the possibility of thought or action, and therefore, as we think, before the possibility of sin.

The form of the question puts two alternatives on precisely the same grounds; and we therefore have no right to assume that one of them is excluded by the questioners themselves. The fact of sin is stated as beyond question. The problem is, “Was the sin that of the man himself, or that of his parents?” The latter alternative is familiar to us, and daily experience shows us that within limits it applies in both the moral and the physical worlds.

It was clearly taught in the Second Commandment, and there is abundant evidence that this belief was widely spread at this time. We have greater difficulty in tracing the origin of the former alternative.

It is not easy to accept the view that they thought of sin in his mother’s womb, though it seems certain that the Jews commonly interpreted passages such as Genesis 25:22 and Psalms 51:5 in this sense at that time. That a more or less definite belief in the transmigration of souls was common among Jews at the time of our Lord’s ministry is made probable by references in Philo and Josephus. We know it was a doctrine of the Essenes and of the Kabbalah; and we find it in the nearly contemporary words of the Wisdom of Solomon, Yea rather being good, I came into a body undefiled .

Still, it has been urged that it is not likely that such a belief would have made its way among the fishermen of Galilee. We have to remember, however, that among the disciples there were now individuals from Jerusalem as well as from Galilee, and that questions which people found hard to understand were constantly being raised and answered in the Rabbinic schools. In the meetings of the yearly festivals, the answers of great Rabbis would be discussed and become generally known, and be passed on as maxims to those who knew little of the principle on which they were based.

It was, then, probably with some thought that the life in this maimed body may not have been the first stage of his existence that they asked, “Did this man sin?”

Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents. The answer is, of course, to be understood with the limitation of the question, “that he was born blind.” Neither his special sin nor theirs was the cause of the blindness. Our version does not give quite accurately the form of the answer.

It should be, Neither did this man sin, nor his parents. Their question sought to establish a connection between the suffering and some definite act of sin. The answer asserts that no such connection exists, and our Lord’s words remain a warning against the spirit of judging other men’s lives, and tracing in the misfortunes and sorrows which they have to bear the results of individual sin or the proof of divine displeasure. There is a chain connecting the sin of humanity and its woe, but the links are not traceable by the human eye. In the Providence of God vicarious suffering is often the noble lot of the noblest members of our race. No burden of human sorrow was ever so great as that borne by Him who knew no human sin.

But that the works of God should be made manifest in him. They had sought to trace back the result of sin which they saw before them to a definite cause. He will trace it back to the region of the divine counsel, where purpose and result are one. Evil cannot be resolved into a higher good: it is the result of the choice exercised by freedom, and without freedom, goodness could not be virtue. Permitted by God, it is yet overruled by Him. It has borne its fearful fruit in the death and curse of humanity, but its works have led to the manifestation of the works of God in the divine plan of redemption. It is so in this instance. The blindness of this beggar will have its result, and therefore in the divine counsel had its purpose: in the light which will dawn upon the spiritual as well as upon the physical blindness, and from him will dawn upon the world.

I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day.—The better reading is probably that which has we, instead of “I,” and perhaps also that which has us, instead of “me”; but this latter change is not so well supported by manuscript authority. The clause would read then, We must work the works of Him that sent Me (or us) while it is day. He identifies the disciples with Himself in the redemptive work of His mission.

There is before them a striking instance of the power of evil. He and they are there to manifest the power of good. They must gird themselves to the task.

If we are right in placing the whole section from John 7:37 to John 10:21 on the same great day of the Feast (compare Note on John 9:14), then this work must have come near the close of the day. The sun sinking to the west may have reminded them that the day was passing away, and that the night was approaching.

He was reminded of the day of life, and the night of death. He will not be long in the world (John 9:5). That night will be the close of His human work, and the shadows of evening are already falling upon Him.

The night cometh, when no man can work.—He does not except even Himself from the proverbial law. The day of opportunity passes, never to return. His own great work of doing the work of Him that sent Him, could only be done when that day was present. It has, of course, always been done in the work of His church under the guidance of His Spirit; but the work of His own human activity on earth ceased when the night came. Compare John 11:9 for this thought of the hours of the day.

As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.—Better, when I am in the world. The thought is that the two things necessarily coexist. He is the true Light, and this true Light cannot be in the world without shining in its darkness. (Compare Note on John 1:5.) The thought is here closely connected with His teaching in the Temple but a short time before (John 8:12, I am the Light of the world), and also with the removal of physical and spiritual darkness which immediately followed.