Scripture Daily

Context No. 1306 of 4322 · John

Context · Reflection

John 9:24-29: in context

24So they called the man who was blind a second time, and said to him, “Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.” 25He therefore answered, “I don’t know if he is a sinner. One thing I do know: that though I was blind, now I see.” 26They said to him again, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” 27He answered them, “I told you already, and you didn’t listen. Why do you want to hear it again? You don’t also want to become his disciples, do you?” 28They insulted him and said, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. 29We know that God has spoken to Moses. But as for this man, we don’t know where he comes from.”

The man born blind, now healed by Jesus, is hauled before the Pharisees a second time. They press him to denounce his healer: give glory to God; we know this man is a sinner. But the man refuses to be drawn into their theology. Whether he is a sinner I do not know, he says; one thing I know, that though I was blind, now I see. When they badger him again about how it happened, he grows bold, even sharp: I told you already and you would not listen; do you also want to become his disciples? They revile him, insisting they are disciples of Moses and know nothing about where this Jesus comes from.

The healed man's answer is one of the great simple confessions in scripture: one thing I know, that though I was blind, now I see. He is not a trained theologian; he cannot match the Pharisees in their arguments about whether a sinner could do such a thing, and he does not try. He simply holds to the one thing he cannot be argued out of, what actually happened to him. They can debate the theology all they like; he was blind, and now he sees, and no clever objection can undo that fact. There is a real strength in that for anyone who has met Christ. We may not be able to answer every hard question raised against the faith, every objection about doctrine or history or philosophy; but no one can argue us out of what God has actually done in our own lives. The changed life is the testimony that stands when the arguments run out. The Pharisees have all the learning and lose the argument; the healed man has one fact and cannot be moved from it. And notice that his simple honesty makes him bolder, not more timid, until he is asking his interrogators whether they too would like to follow Jesus. The one who holds firmly to what Christ has plainly done for him has a ground no amount of clever opposition can take away.

When my faith is challenged by arguments I cannot fully answer, can I hold, like this man, to the one thing I do know, what Christ has actually done in my life, the testimony no objection can take from me?

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