Charles Spurgeon Commentary John 8:4-7

"they say unto him, Teacher, this woman hath been taken in adultery, in the very act. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such: what then sayest thou of her? And this they said, trying him, that they might have [whereof] to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground. But when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." — John 8:4-7 (ASV)

I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, and said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.

You notice, brothers, that the disciples wanted to know how the man became blind, but Christ removed his blindness and gave him sight. I have known a great many people puzzle themselves about the origin of evil. Christ did not come to explain that mystery; He came to put an end to evil. That is an infinitely more practical objective than speculating about how evil first entered the world, or how it entered any individual soul. He will tell you how to get rid of it.

What a blessed way of healing Christ used! He could have spoken, and the man's eyes would have opened at once. He who said, Let there be light, and there was light, in the first creation, could have said the same thing to this blind man, and light would at once have entered his eyes.

Instead of that, He chose to use means, and the means did not appear to be very likely to effect the cure. Jesus covered the man's eyes with clay and told him to go and wash it off again. Is this the way to give him sight? Yes, our Lord often uses means that seem very unlikely to accomplish His purpose. But He always uses the right means.

Often, when He is going to open a person's eyes spiritually, He first makes them feel more blind than they ever were before in their life. A sense of deeper darkness hangs over them just before the dawn of eternal day. Perhaps, even this very hour, some words of mine, human and imperfect as they must be, may, nevertheless, have the truth in them, just as the clay was made efficacious by the spittle from the Savior's blessed mouth; and if so, healing work will be accomplished among blind hearts tonight.

God grant that it may be so!