One Thing I Know

The parents had stepped back and pointed at their son. So the leaders called him in a second time (John 9:24). They’d already decided how this was going to end. They just needed him to agree.

John 9:24 — Give God the glory

They told him to give glory to God, because they knew this Man was a sinner (John 9:24).

That was a solemn charge. Joshua said the same thing to Achan when he was hiding stolen silver under his tent (Joshua 7:19). Joshua meant tell the truth before God and stop covering. So in effect the Pharisees put the man under oath, and then they told him what the truth was supposed to be.

Look at the irony. They wanted glory given to God, and they wanted it taken away from the Son. But Jesus had already told them that whoever doesn’t honor the Son doesn’t honor the Father who sent Him (John 5:23). You can’t glorify God by spitting on the One He sent. Every man who says he loves God and hates Christ is doing exactly what these men did.

And notice how sure they were. They said they knew. They’d settled it. They’d decided what they knew before they’d looked at what happened. A man who’s already made up his mind about Jesus can stare at a miracle and call it a sin.

John 9:25 — One thing

The man didn’t take the bait. Whether this Man was a sinner, he couldn’t say. He knew one thing. He’d been blind, and now he could see (John 9:25).

That isn’t a dodge. He wasn’t saying doctrine doesn’t matter, and he wasn’t conceding Jesus was a sinner. He just refused to argue a point he couldn’t settle yet, and he wouldn’t let go of the one he could. He wasn’t trained. He couldn’t out-debate a room full of scholars. He didn’t have to. Facts don’t need a seminary degree.

That’s what a witness is. Peter and John told the council they couldn’t stop talking about what they’d seen and heard (Acts 4:20). The psalmist called everybody who fears God to come and listen while he told what God had done for his soul (Psalm 66:16). You may not be able to answer every objection a skeptic throws at you. You can tell him what Christ has done. Nobody can argue you out of your own eyes.

John 9:26-27 — Do you want to be His disciples too?

So they started over. What did He do to him? How did He open his eyes (John 9:26)?

They’d already asked. He’d already answered. Now they wanted the story again, hoping for a crack in it. But the man was done playing along. He told them he’d already told them, and they hadn’t listened. Why did they want to hear it again? Did they want to become His disciples too (John 9:27)?

Look at what he slipped in there. He asked if they wanted to be His disciples as well. When Jesus sent him to Siloam, he hadn’t even seen Jesus’ face. Now he’s counting himself one of His disciples. The man the parents wouldn’t stand behind is standing on his own. Fear had shut his parents’ mouths. Grace had opened his.

And he’s got a little bite in it. A beggar was needling the leaders of Israel. That isn’t pride. It’s what happens when a man stops being afraid of men because he’s seen what God can do.

John 9:28-29 — Disciples of Moses

That did it. They heaped insults on him. He could be that Man’s disciple. They were disciples of Moses. They knew God had spoken to Moses. As for this Man, they didn’t even know where He came from (John 9:28-29).

They thought they were picking Moses over Jesus. There was no such choice. Moses wrote about Christ (John 5:46). He told Israel God would raise up a Prophet like him, and they’d better listen to Him (Deuteronomy 18:15, 18). Moses was a faithful servant in God’s house, but the One who builds the house deserves more glory than the house (Hebrews 3:3). If they’d really followed Moses, he would’ve walked them straight to Jesus.

And notice what they said about where He came from. In the temple at the feast, the crowd had said they knew exactly where He came from, and that’s why He couldn’t be the Christ (John 7:27). Now the leaders said they didn’t know where He came from, and that’s why He couldn’t be from God. Unbelief doesn’t care which argument it uses. It just needs one that ends with no.

John 9:30-33 — Never since the world began

Now the beggar started preaching. He told them this was amazing. They didn’t know where He came from, and yet He’d opened his eyes (John 9:30).

Then he reasoned it out, better than they did. Everybody knew God doesn’t listen to sinners. But if a man worships God and does His will, God listens to him. Since the world began, nobody had ever heard of anybody opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this Man weren’t from God, He couldn’t do anything (John 9:31-33).

Be careful with that first line. It’s true as far as it goes. God doesn’t listen to the man who holds on to his sin and prays anyway (Psalm 66:18) (Proverbs 15:29). He told Israel He’d hide His eyes when they lifted hands that were full of blood (Isaiah 1:15). But this man is a brand-new believer, and he’s not giving us a full doctrine of prayer. God does hear a sinner who comes to Him begging for mercy. The tax collector stood far off, beat his chest, and asked God to have mercy on him as a sinner, and he went home justified (Luke 18:13-14). If God never heard a sinner crying out for mercy, nobody would ever be saved.

The rest of his argument is airtight. Nobody in all of Israel’s history had opened the eyes of a man born blind. Not Moses, not Elijah, not Elisha. The prophets said that was the Messiah’s work (Isaiah 35:5, 42:7). The beggar didn’t know all of that. But he knew enough to see what the scholars wouldn’t. This Man was from God.

That’s his biggest step yet. First Jesus was a man people called Jesus. Then He was a prophet. Now He’s from God. And He’s still not done showing Himself to him.

John 9:34 — Cast out

They had no answer, so they did what men do when they lose an argument and still have the power. They told him he’d been born completely in sin, and now he was trying to teach them? And they threw him out (John 9:34).

Look at what they gave away. By saying he was born in sin, they were admitting he’d been born blind, the very thing they’d refused to believe a few verses earlier (John 9:18). And they’d fallen into the same mistake the disciples made at the start, assuming his blindness proved some special sin (John 9:2). They were right that he was born in sin. So were they. Every man is sinful from the moment his mother conceives him (Psalm 51:5). All have sinned (Romans 3:23). The only difference in that room was that one sinner could see, and the others still couldn’t.

Then they put him out. That was the threat that had shut his parents’ mouths (John 9:22). Now it had landed on him. He’d lost his place in the synagogue for telling the truth about what God had done.

But here’s what the men who threw him out didn’t know. God wasn’t driving him away from Himself. He was driving him straight to Christ. The synagogue could cast him out, but Christ never casts out anybody the Father gives Him (John 6:37). Nobody can snatch them out of His hand (John 10:28). Jesus Himself would suffer outside the gate, and we’re called to go out to Him there, outside the camp, carrying the shame He carried (Hebrews 13:12-13).

They thought they’d put him out of God’s house. They’d only put him out of theirs. And John tells us that Jesus heard about it.