BLIND LEADING THE BLIND

KEY VERSES:

⁹ “As long as I AM (Jesus) in the world, I AM (Jesus) the light of the world.” ³⁸ And he (the previously blind man) said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshipped him. ³⁹ And Jesus said, “For judgment I AM come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.” ⁴⁰ And some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words, and said unto Him, “Are we blind also?” ⁴¹ Jesus said unto them, “If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, ‘We see;’ therefore your sin remaineth.” (John 9:9; 38-41)

  Of course, Jesus came into the world to save, but he also came to judge. Those who He judged as innocent, would be saved, and those who were judged guilty would perish. The Pharisees were very righteous, but far from innocent. Rather than the humility to admit that Jesus healed the blind man, and rejoice, they accused Jesus of having a demon, and the blind man to be liar. In the story of the blind man who was healed from congenital blindness by Jesus, Jesus broke the Sabbath by molding the mud into a ball and heal. The Pharisees seemed to have a larger problem with remolding the blind man than molding the clay.
  Jesus came into the world to thresh-out the seed of Adam from the seed of God. Generally, judgment was done on the “threshing floor” of the Temple in previous times, whereon the good seed was threshed from the tares, and God winnowed the chaff from Ornan’s threshing floor into the abyss below.
  In this example (of the blind man) Jesus used a different tactic to persuade the Jews to believe. Jesus was in Galilee and would cross Samaria into Jerusalem. The Temple was in Jerusalem, and there was no threshing floor in Galilee. Hence, Jesus used spiritual vision as the test for who should be saved.
  Those who have great sight see things from a rational standpoint. Those who have been born blind cannot be convinced by observable things. Faith is believing in things unseen as is written, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb 11:1).
  The blind mand had faith because he could not see Jesus but called him the “Son of God.” The Pharisees could see Jesus but called Him “demon.” You see, their sight not only failed to convince them, but confounded them as well. It is irrational to believe, as it had never been done before, to make a congenital blind man see. Because Jesus made the blind man see, and kept the Pharisees in darkness, He calls Himself, “The Light of the World.”
  The “Enlightenment was an era in the western world in the 17^th and 18^th centuries. That was a period when the philosophers began to persuade the people that the Church was the cause of darkness and philosophy the way of the enlightened ones.  They laid claim that they were the light and Jesus was not. Since that time, the vain philosophies of men have blinded people. Of course, there is scientific proof for things seen, but science disregards things they cannot see or detect. The Enlightenment was also called the, “Age of Reason” because faith, for them is unreasonable, and logic is reasonable. Logic depends on cognition, and that is a sorting of the body of knowledge in two categories: reasonable and unreasonable.
  Now look at what happened — FACTS: (1) They all knew the blind man had been born blind, (2) The skeptical Pharisees could plainly see that the man was no longer blind, (3) A man born blind had never been able to see before, (4) The blind man was impartial; he only knew that he had been blind but now could see, (5) The man gave Jesus credit, finally, as the Son of God, (6) and that Jesus  claimed to be the True Light. Rational people would consider the evidence, and the preponderance of it points to Jesus as able to heal the blind, and God, they should admit, is the only one that can Heal. Those “enlightened” Pharisees failed to see the truth and were spiritually blind.
  Now consider that some were more unbiased. They looked at the evidence and were persuaded. However, the “blind” Pharisees persuaded, using Mosaic Law, that what they believed was true, was truly false, because healing the blind could only be by God, and this “man” broke Moses’s law of keeping the Sabbath. Again, they were more offended that Jesus had formed clay than healed the blind man. Is that rational thinking?
  They also failed to admit that a “man” who they knew could do what only God would be able to do, although there was evidence that Jesus did it. They had no faith because faith is believing that an unseen Power healed, and by not crediting God, they blasphemed Him; albeit they perceived that Jesus was the one who was blasphemous. Cognitive “enlightenment” is false because is disallows the supra-natural. Spiritual Enlightenment is truthful because it allows for things unseen as reality.
  There are two types of real “substances” in the universe: the seen and the unseen. Skeptics rule out half the substances in existence by denying that there are things unseen. Scripture calls seen things “earth” and the unseen, “heaven.” Because the Pharisees were so blind that they could only see earth, they could not see the heaven. They were blind to half of existence because they refused to believe Jesus is indeed the Light of the World.
  Jesus came to sort out the two countenances of people: the spiritually astute from the spiritually blind. Some believed, and certainly the blind man understood, as he finally credited Jesus as God. However, the spiritually blind Pharisees convinced those who saw the truth to be blind with them. Jesus by that one miracle, caused a sorting to occur, and his miracle served the same purpose as the threshing floor which was then by then the Temple.
  Jesus’s purpose was, “that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.” Jesus came in the Flesh so that men could either walk with Him or deny Him. The Pharisees had great vision, except they could not see the truth. And the truth is… that there is more than meets the eye. There is an unseen existence that only a few can see because the world blinds them so. Is that not true? Do not Christians to this day accept the “enlightened” scientists as more credible than God? Scientists deny what they cannot see; are they really the enlightened ones, or are they confounded into believing that what is seen or can be measured is all there is?
  As a Christian, do you believe in evolution? If you do, you are blind to the greatest miracle that God ever performed. Do you believe in the general resurrection? If not, that will be an even better miracle. How about those who believe they will be made whole at the Re-creation, but do not believe in the Creation? You deny the Creation because men who are blind to the truth, in what they cannot see nor understand, have persuaded you… and you claim that you are free-thinkers who rely on observable evidence. In fact, even if you claim to be a Christian, you are blind to truth. Jesus came to sort those out from the previously blind who now see the truth.
  The blind man was born again. How so? He never re-entered his mother’s womb, but he saw the Light of Jesus. He knew not how, but he believed that only God could work that wonder, and he sensed Jesus there when he was came to see, and with sight he saw that Jesus had healed him. He surely heard of Jesus’s miracles before but did not believe before He experienced Jesus. He did not see Jesus, but felt the virtue flowing out of Him as he received his sight. The Pharisees just could not believe that, even though they believed in God. Hence, they failed the test, and Jesus’s miracle had made them blind to truth.
  The Pharisees were so blind-thinking that they only believed what they had been taught to believe. Free-thinkers would allow, that just maybe, Jesus healed the blind man. Most free-thinking people in this Age of Reason are blind to ultimate truth. Jesus will sort them out in the end.

(picture credit: Shutterstock)