Continuing our
reflections on the healings of John chapters 5 and 9:
In both
instances, the Pharisees challenged the men healed. In Chapter 5 they wanted to
know why the man was carrying his pallet on the Sabbath. In Chapter 9 the
Pharisees challenged the man by saying that the man who healed him, Jesus, was not
of God and was a sinner (9:19, 24, 31). This is along the line of what we see
earlier in Jesus’s ministry, when the scribes from Jerusalem were saying of
Him, “He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons” (Mark 3:22). That is,
the religious leaders were attributing the works of God to Satan and saying
that Jesus had an “unclean spirit,” a perilous practice indeed (Mark 3:28 – 30)
Put more bluntly,
in John Chapter 9 the Pharisees were telling the man whom Jesus healed, “An
ungodly man healed you. God did not heal you. You have been touched by a demon.”
Now then, if you
were the blind man, how would you have liked to hear that?
In Chapter 5,
when asked by the Pharisees, the man did not know who healed him (5:13). In
Chapter 9 the man knew who Jesus was, “The man who is called Jesus made clay,
and anointed my eyes…”
There seems to
have never been any doubt about Jesus by the man healed of blindness; his
understanding of Jesus blossoms in the narrative. He goes from considering
Jesus a prophet (9:17) to believing in Jesus as the promised “Son of Man” and
worshipping Him (9:35 – 38; Daniel 7:13 – 14; Luke 22:66 – 71).
On the other
hand, the man healed in John Chapter 5 shows no thankfulness toward Jesus. Unlike
the man born blind, instead of giving Jesus glory he reports Jesus to the
religious leaders. After later encountering Jesus later in the temple, “The man
went away, and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. For this
reason the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because He was doing these things on
the Sabbath” (5:14 – 16).
[Note: When John
uses the term “Jews” in his Gospel, he is typically referring to the religious
and civic leaders of the Jews. John himself was a Jew, as were all the
apostles, as were most of the people of Jerusalem.]
Perhaps, in
comparing the two men whom Jesus healed in John, there is an element of the ten
lepers of Luke 17:11 – 19. “One of them, when he saw that he had been healed,
turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice, and he fell on his face at His
feet, giving thanks to Him.”
In response, Jesus
asks, “Were there not ten cleansed? But the nine – where are they?”
Perhaps there is
an element of the Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:3 – 9, 18 – 23)? The man of
John 5 is an example of the “seed bedside the road” which “the evil one
snatches away.” The man born blind is a picture of the good seed bearing much
fruit.
Are we thankful
for the work of Jesus in our lives? When He answers payer do we fall on our
faces, worshipping Him?
Do we, as the
man born blind, testify to Jesus no matter the opposition? Or do we align
ourselves – actively or passively – with those determined to destroy Jesus?
What else do you
see when you compare these two men?
We’ll pick
this back up, the Lord willing.
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