One thing I know
“One thing I know: that though I was blind, now I see” (John 9:25).
It must have been bewildering for a man who had spent his life as an anonymous blind beggar to suddenly become the focus of everyone’s attention. The pressure increased as they brought him to the Pharisees. The man had not seen Jesus, but he had experienced His healing power. And we are privileged to see how his faith increased in the face of growing opposition. He is a great encouragement to us to witness to the Lord.
John tells us the Lord healed the man on the Sabbath day. The Pharisees asked how the man’s eyes were opened. He explains what happened, “He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.” Our witness is based on what the Lord has done. The Lord said to Legion, “Go home to your friends, and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He has had compassion on you” (Mark 5:19). With stunning arrogance, the Pharisees sweep aside a miracle the world had never seen before. And they declare with supreme self-righteousness and spiritual blindness, “This Man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath.” They took a glorious opportunity to recognise and worship the Saviour and turned it into a vivid example of John 1:11: “He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.” The Lord was rejected in the guise of spiritual thinking, They dismissed the Person who gave them the Sabbath and was using it to display His profound grace. At least some realised that such powerful signs of God’s kindness could not be the work of a sinner. The Pharisees asked the man what he thought of Jesus. In verse 11 he called Jesus “a Man”. In his response to the Pharisees he adds “He is a prophet” (v. 17). He honoured the Lord when so many dishonoured Him. Fundamentally our witness is to honour our Saviour in a world which still rejects Him.
The Pharisees then proceed to a diversion, that of asking the man’s parents if the man was their son. They confirm he is. To end the matter, with hearts full of spiritual pride, they tell the man to “Give God the glory! We know that this man is a sinner.” But the man was no longer a beggar who could be ignored; he was now a man of faith. In the power of that simple faith he gives his memorable reply, “Whether He is a sinner or not I do not know. One thing I know: that though I was blind, now I see.” He based his witness to the Lord on the evidence of His power to create sight where none had existed. The man teaches us to glorify the Person of Christ. Whatever the reaction to our witness is, when we honour the Son, the Father will bring blessing out of our testimony. The Pharisees struggled to cope with such a clear witness and asked again how he received his sight. He was witnessing to the spiritually blind Pharisees. Today there is still blindness to Jesus Christ. Our witness is to demonstrate how our blindness was removed. The man’s faith was direct and confident (v. 27). It challenged his hearers, “Do you also want to become His disciples?” In the face of such conviction, the Pharisees’ mask drops and they resort to attempting to belittle the man, and the Person of Christ: “As for this fellow, we do not know where He is from” (v. 29). The man, however, not only saw with his eyes; he also had spiritual sight. By God’s grace, as the man begins to suffer persecution for his witness to Christ, he is given the words to say, and he instructs the Pharisees in the ways of God (vv. 30-33), concluding, “If this man were not from God, He could do nothing.” Their only response was to intensify their abuse, describing him as “born in sin”, and they throw him out of the meeting.
Physical blindness had made our friend a lonely outcast. His faith and spiritual sight made him an outcast. But not a lonely one. Jesus found him.
