The Gospel of John

The 6th Miracle; The Challenge

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons

Lesson: 28- 70

Genre:

Track: 028

Dictation Name: RR197Q30

Location/Venue:

Year:

Let us worship God. Thus sayeth the Lord ye shall seek me and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. Jesus said blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled. Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God Father of heaven and earth, maker of all things, our savior and our redeemer. We come into Thy presence rejoicing in Thy mercies, in Thy blessings and in Thy providential care. Make us ever joyful in all Thy ways knowing that Thy purpose for us is all together righteous and holy. Teach us day by day to walk not in terms of sight but in terms of faith. Trusting in Thee and casting our every care upon Thee for Thou carest for us. Our God how great Thou art and we praise Thee. In Christ’s name, Amen.

Our scripture is John 9:1-7. Our subject: The 6th Miracle; The Challenge. John 9:1-7.

“And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth.

2 And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?

3 Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.

4 I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.

5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

6 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,

7 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.”

We have here a key miracle in that verse fourteen tells us it was performed on the Sabbath. It was a deliberate challenge to the religious leaders and their unbiblical sabbitarianism. Jesus as He passed by stopped before a man who was blind from his birth, it was an asked for miracle, it was a deliberate provocation as it were to the religious leaders, performing a miracle on the Sabbath. He was challenging their Sabbitarian rules, man-made rules. There had to be a confrontation sooner or later and He made it immediately. Now healing the blind is a very important kind of miracle. Blindness from a variety of causes was once a very common affliction. Even in my lifetime blindness was worldwide with a devastatingly prevalent fact. Many were blind from their birth. Many became blind by their forties because of the diseases that were so commonplace. Even in my life time children at birth received drops in their eyes to prevent certain diseases from setting in. It used to be commonplace that the first thing any immigrant who came in was examined for was certain diseases of the eyes which spread with great rapidity and brought on blindness. This area many Christians and non-Christian missions have been most noteworthy in reducing this ancient curse. Let me say a word here for somebody not often praised from an orthodox pulpit, the Rockefeller money that has gone into fighting diseases has over the past couple of generations been very, very helpful in eliminating blindness from diseases.

And the oil companies, Aramco, Arabia, have almost eliminated some of the diseases that were turning Arabs very early on into blind men. Much good will for the United States has been gained by such medical work over the years. An older generation all over the year saw Americans as the people who restored sight. It’s sad that that is now forgotten especially in this country but also overseas. When the disciples saw the blind man they raised a theological question. They assumed that sin was the cause of blindness so their question was who sinned, did this man sin while in the mother’s womb. It was then held falsely in terms of Genesis 5:22 and Psalm 51:5 and like verses that the unborn baby as already a person could sin. Perhaps the disciples suggested his parents sinned and they were punished by blind child. Their thinking was man centered, they wanted an explanation that would place causality in man primarily whereas God is the supreme cause in all of history, in all of nature. Our Lord’s answer was blunt: neither the child nor the parents sinned, God ordained this so that His works should be revealed in this man. J.A. Bernard observed in his comment on this verse:

“The doctrine of predestination is apparent at every point in the fourth gospel, every incident being viewed under the aspect of determinacy as predetermined in the mind of God.” Unquote.

We are all here so that God’s works may be made manifest in us. So there is no life under the sun that is without meaning or reason. It is our duty to recognize that God created us for purpose not for our own purposes.

Then our Lord says I must work the works of Him that sent me while it is day, the night cometh where no man can work. This He said for the disciples and for us. While we are alive we must serve our God with all our heart, mind and being, not ourselves. Death comes soon and the time for our work here is then ended. That issues our questions of focus and causality. The question of the disciples, whose sin caused this blindness was man centered. Because they were man centered in their view of causality they were man centered in their focus. For them there had to be an answer to such questions in terms of this life, the here and now, whereas our Lord tells them their focus must be eternity. Why do some people experience so much pain, grief and trouble. If we seek a man centered answer in terms of this world and this time frame we will be miserable and ignorant. If we seek the answer in God we know that our focus then will have eternity in mind. Our common failure is to limit our reaction to what we can see and this warps our focus. Our Lord then declares as long as I am in the world I am the light of the world, He is indeed the light of the world, and He here tells the disciples why He performs the miracles, this miracle which will make obvious that He is the light of the world. Because He, Jesus, the light of the world gives light to a man blind from birth. If we follow the light we will give light by also doing His works in all spheres of life and thought. Before the raising of Lazarus in chapter 11 of John He states that He is the resurrection and the life.

Now we see Him as the source of light. Supernatural light, physical light. Christ is light to the world as well as the one light of the world. The implications of this text are far reaching. Calvin in his commentary observed and I quote:

“For he compares himself to the sun which though it illuminates the whole earth by its brightness yet when it sets takes away the day along with it. In this manner He states that His death will resemble the setting of the sun. Not that His death extinguishes or obscures His light but that it withdraws the view of it from the world. At the same time He shows that when He was manifested in flesh that was truly the time of the daylight of the world.” Unquote.

The apostolic writings give us that sense of having beheld His glory, of having been history’s most privileged people. First John 1:1 makes this emphatically clear when it speaks of the glory of having seen, heard and touched the very incarnate God Jesus Christ. In fact there is an ancient record that tells us that in the last days of the people who had lived, known and walked with Jesus when they would be taken to church these very elderly people helped along by younger ones when they saw one another had a ritual whereby they greeted one another: have you seen? We have seen. Have you heard? We have heard. Have you touched? We have touched the Lord of Glory. This was their joy. Our Lord then mixed some of His spit with the clay on the ground to anoint the blind man’s eyes. He then ordered the blind man to go to the pool of Siloam, Sent, because the waters came gushing out and there to wash his eyes.

He didn’t promise him anything, he didn’t say anything more than that, and with his eyes covered with clay the blind man had no choice whether he wanted to or not to go and wash off his eyes. Nothing was promised, he was simply ordered to go and wash up. This is very clear from verse fifteen after on when the man answered the question of the Pharisees. He had been told nothing other than to wash the clay off his eyes. This was an unasked for miracle, it was performed on the Sabbath, it was a direct challenge against false religion. The Pharisees were the epitome of zealous and self-righteous piety. Our Lord confronts them with the miracle that challenges their Sabbitarian rules. It was confrontational because it required them to choose between their self-styled holiness and a miracle from God. They too had to face the question of causality, who was responsible for this miracle? Was a miracle of healing more important than their manmade rules? What were they going to say. Also there was the matter of focus. The Pharisees saw their rules about the Sabbath as more binding than the obvious work of God. They judged Jesus but God judged them. They were given a choice, the very hand of God and rules that they had made. Rules as to how many yards you could walk on the Sabbath, what you could not do because it would become work. You could not light a fire, you hired a gentile to do that. You could not light a lamp or a candle, you hired a gentile to do that.

Were those rules more important than a miracle from God and a miracle performed by God incarnate? They chose their rules and too many do the same today. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God we give thanks unto Thee for this Thy word. We continually face the same challenge as the Pharisees, Thy ways or the ways of men, Thy will to be done or our will. Give us grace to see that it is Thy will that must be done. Thy law and not our rules that must be obeyed. Give us grace day by day to move wisely, to decide in terms of Thy word, to rejoice not in our rules nor to honor our rules but to rejoice in Thee and Thy word and to honor Thee. Grant us this we beseech Thee in Christ’s name, Amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Unintelligible Question]

[Rushdoony] Yes. Men can get so set in their ways and the rightness of their ways that they forget that at best we are saved sinners and that without Christ we are depraved men and women.

The next miracle that comes after this is even more confrontational, it’s the raising of Lazarus from the dead after three days. Whom will they choose, Christ who raises the dead, the third raising of the dead, the first two were shortly after death, Lazarus three days after death in a hot country so that even his sister said Lord by this time he stinketh. And yet even in the face of that the conclusion that the religious leaders came to was that it was time for Jesus to die. Because He would lead the people His way and the nation would perish. So we see something of the stubbornness of man in his self-righteousness. We tend to see as fearful sins and rightful so some of the depravities which are so commonplace all around us but we forget in its own way self-righteousness is equally bad and can surpass all these other offenses. Yes?

[Unintelligible Question]

[Rushdoony] Yes. They would have preferred that if He had gone therefore a license, and if He had said now boys I’m here to represent you so give me a license and tell me when I’m doing something you don’t approve of. That’s the human tendency. Both church and state want to license and control everything and nothing outside of it will they tolerate. I recall, well I won’t get into it, some of the absurdities the churches have perpetuated in saying that a good work is not acceptable because it was not approved by them.

And the number of examples of that sort are legion. Any other questions or comments, now this, with this I will close, this is the 6th miracle, a great one because it deals with blindness, a worldwide curse until very recently and the last one deals with death, a universal fact. So our Lord is saying I am the light of the world and I am the resurrection and the life. So these two miracles constitute as direct an assault, as direct a challenge to the religious leaders of His day and every age as could possibly be made. And this is why Paul at the conclusion of Hebrews speaks of our Lord being taken outside of the gate and we too must as it were go outside the established institutions with their self-righteousness in order to be Christ’s. Well let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father Thy word is truth and Thy word is a joy and a light and life to us and we thank Thee for it. Make us zealous in the study of Thy word and in the things of Thy kingdom so that we may always have life and that more abundantly. We thank Thee that Thou hast chosen us to be Thy people by Thy sovereign grace. Bless us now and always as we seek to obey Thee. And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always, Amen.