The Blind Man’s Testimony (John 9:13–25) — A Sermon by R.C. Sproul

0:25 Now they brought him who formerly was blind to the Pharisees. And now it was Sabbath when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also asked him again how he had received his sight. And he said to them, He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.

0:52 Therefore, some of the Pharisees said, This man is not from God, because he does not keep the Sabbath. Others said, How can a man who is a sinner do such things? And there was a division among them. And so they said to the blind man again, What do you say about him? Because he opened your eyes.

1:20 And he said, He is a prophet. But the Jews did not believe concerning him that he had been blind and received his sight until they called the parents of him who had received his sight. And they asked him, saying, is this your son who you say was born blind? How then does he now see? His parents answered them and said, we know that this is our son and that he was born blind. But by what means he now sees, we do not know. Or who opened his eyes, we do not know. He's of age. Ask him. He will speak for himself.

2:02 Now his parents said these things because they feared the Jews. For the Jews had agreed already that if anyone confessed that he was Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, He is of age. Ask him. So they again called the man who was blind and said to him, Give God the glory. we know that this man is a sinner.

2:30 And he answered and said, whether he is a sinner or not, I do not know. One thing I know, though I was blind, now I see. He who has ears to hear the word of God, let them hear it. You may be seated. our Father and our God give us eyes to see and ears to hear this manifestation of the person and work of your only begotten Son in whose name we pray Amen Last Sunday morning, we looked at the account of Jesus healing the man born blind and considered some of the important theological issues that related to it.

3:37 This morning, we want to continue with this narrative to look at the responses of those who beheld what was going on. we see that there's a wide diversity of responses to this miracle that Christ performed. The first response that we encounter here is the response of the Pharisees as the man was once again brought into their presence, and we're told it was Sabbath when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. And so the Pharisees inquire of this man how Jesus did it. They agree that Jesus was the one who did it, and they obviously acknowledge that the man can see, but now they want to inquire as to the method that Jesus used, the how of the miracle.

4:32 And the man responded simply, he had put clay on my eyes and I washed and I see. Now John notes for us that all of this took place on the Sabbath day, and we've already seen in John's gospel how Jesus was accused of violating the Sabbath when He healed the crippled man, and now the Pharisees are again accusing Him of disobeying the Sabbath laws because one of the prohibitions set forth by the Pharisees to define that labor that was not permitted on the Sabbath day was the kneading, not N-E-E-D-I-N-G, but K-N-E-A-D, the kneading of dough. And they're looking and they said, well, so Jesus made clay, did He? Well, in order to make clay, He'd have to scoop up the dirt from the ground, mix it with the saliva, knead it together, and applying the case law of their own standards, they're basically accusing Jesus of violating the Sabbath law because he made clay.

5:54 never mind the reason for which he made it. Never mind that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. Never mind that the Lord of the Sabbath declares that it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. And if these people were really people of God, they would have been throwing their yarmulkes in the air, praising God for this manifestation of His mercy and healing of this poor beset man. Instead, they're quibbling over their own technicalities, and they accuse Jesus of breaking the Sabbath. And if breaking the Sabbath, then obviously He would be a sinner, and if a sinner, He could not have been sent from God.

6:49 So their conclusion, we read in verse 16, this man is not from God because he does not keep the Sabbath. He failed the test of Sabbath keeping, therefore he must be an imposter. Now others raised the opposite side of the coined question by saying, well, how can a sinner do these things? Again, I've labored this point throughout John's gospel that John often introduces these miraculous works that Christ performs, these signs that indicate that He is a teacher sent from God. And I've labored the point that the purpose of the miracle is to authenticate agents of revelation. Nicodemus understood that when he visited Jesus at night when he said, we know you're a teacher sent from God, or you wouldn't be able to do these things.

7:48 And so that group who understood that principle are speaking against the other Pharisees and they say, wait a minute, if this man is a sinner, he wouldn't be able to do these things. They understood the purpose of divine attestation that went with miracle. So there was a division.

8:17 And so again they come to the blind man, and they ask his opinion of the matter. And they ask it this way, what do you say about him? Because he opened your eyes. And his response was simple. He's a prophet. He didn't say he's the son of God. He doesn't say he's the Messiah. He hadn't come to that full realization yet, but like the woman of Sychar, his initial conclusion was no man can do these things unless God were with him, unless he were a prophet. And so the man born blind said, I think he's a prophet.

9:00 Well, they didn't want to hear that. But the Jews did not believe concerning him that he had been blind and received his sight. Now do you see what's going on here subtly? There is this growing awareness among the Jews of the soundness of the conclusion that if Jesus really did heal a man who was born blind, then that man must be, that just Jesus must at least be a prophet. That's why I warn you about being careful about these claims that you see on television, about all these guys who are healing everybody. And when you see them healing somebody that was born blind, I want to know about it. Somebody that's been blind for 30 years and goes to the chapel and has somebody lay hands on him. If you see somebody doing that, you can come to the conclusion legitimately that you're in the presence of a real live prophet.

9:56 And the man's inference was a sound one. I see that he's a prophet, and the rest of the people are saying, well, you know, it's really going to come down to this. Was He or wasn't He? Was he blind all his life? Or do we have a case of mistaken identity? So we better check into that. So we're going to now go to somebody else, we're going to get his parents and see if they will verify that he in fact was the one who was born blind. And so they now go to the parents and listen to this. They asked him, is this your son who you say was born blind? How then does he now see? So the parents answered and said, well, we know that this is our son, and we know that he was born blind.

10:52 No doubt about that. But by what means he's now able to see? Who it was who opened his eyes beats us. Can you believe this? This is an incredible manifestation of corruption.

11:13 How many years had these people agonized over the sightless condition of their son? He was their own flesh and blood. What a crushing blow it is to bring a child into the world and discover that the child cannot see and that there's no hope that the child ever will see. Put yourself in the place of a parent who brings such a child into the world and imagine helping that child grope through the darkness year after year after year. And then one afternoon in that child's adulthood, the child walks into your house and says, Mother, Father, I can see. you'd want to crawl over glass to thank whoever it was who made this possible that's what you would think But when they were asked at this point, you know, what about this fellow that made him see?

12:19 Huh. We know he's blind, he was born that way, we can verify that, no crime there. But how he can see and who did it, don't ask us. Can you believe that? That's who we are. when God works in our lives and gives us blessings that we could not possibly describe and the heat is turned on, we want to have them ask somebody else. I pray that each of us in that hour of decision, when we're called upon to profess our faith in Christ before hostile people, that we will have the integrity and the courage to do it. Remember that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.

13:16 But even in apostolic days, no less than the apostle Peter caved in in his first encounter with the authorities that were hostile to his confession of faith. And so the parents are not that different from ourselves, but how ungrateful they are that they duck the question.

13:46 So he's of age, ask him. He will speak for himself. The parents said these things, John tells us, because they were afraid of the Jews. For the Jews had already agreed that if anyone confessed he was Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore, the parents said, he is of age. Ask him.

14:11 So finally, they come back again to the man himself. and they said, give God the glory. We know that this man, that is Jesus, is a sinner. You should give glory to God, not to him. And listen to what he says. He said, I don't know whether he's a sinner. How do I know? I don't even know the guy. I don't know if he's a sinner.

14:32 All I know is this. Once I was blind. and now I see. That's it. I can only tell you what I know, and that's what I know. Now, ladies and gentlemen, what this man does is bears witness to Christ.

14:59 He gives testimony to the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. Let me tell you what he doesn't do. He doesn't preach the gospel. Today, we celebrate Epiphany Sunday, and it's a tradition in many churches on the Sunday of Epiphany to celebrate the coming of the Magi to bring honor and gifts and adoration to the Christ child who was born in Bethlehem. And remember we are told in the biblical account of the wise men or the magi that when they came they followed the star and they went to Herod and they talked about having seen this star and it indicated the birth of a king and they came to worship this king and Herod said, well, when you find him, come back and tell me where he is so that I can come and worship him too.

16:05 Of course, Herod's way of worshiping was to do it with the sword. But the coming of the wise men who come and bear witness to Christ as the newborn king and lavish his parents with these precious gifts do not preach the gospel. Now, what am I getting at? we have language in the Christian community that's not always really sound or biblical. And you've heard the lingo, it goes something like this, well, I want to be an evangelist so that I can testify to Christ, that I want to bear witness to Christ. And the idea is that you will hear people say, well, I was witnessing the other day, meaning I was sharing the gospel with people.

17:01 Ladies and gentlemen, evangelism and witnessing biblically are not synonymous. Any time I call attention or try to make manifest the person and work of Christ, that is giving testimony, that is bearing witness to Christ. But bearing witness to Christ and preaching the gospel are not the same thing. I remember many years ago, over 30 years ago, I learned the evangelism technique called Evangelism Explosion, and I trained over 250 people in that program and led people through the evangelism efforts in Ohio. And I used to, you know, one of the first portions of that program was that everybody had to memorize their testimony. And again, in Christian jargon, and Christian lingo. Your testimony is your story, your story of how you became a Christian.

18:14 Now, I think it's very important that people are able to articulate to other people how and why they became a Christian. We all should have a testimony, and we should be willing to speak it at the drop of a hat, but don't ever confuse your personal testimony with the gospel. your personal testimony is not evangelism your personal testimony is pre-evangelism sort of a warm-up for evangelism and it may or may not be significant or meaningful to the person to whom you're relating it there are lots of folks who can relate to my story because they say well yeah i know what he's talking about i used to live like that too and so on but not everybody relates to my story. But the gospel is not what happened to R.C. Sproul. There's no promise by God that God will use my story as His power unto salvation. The gospel is not about me.

19:20 It's not about the man born blind. It's not about the magi. The gospel is about Him. The gospel is the proclamation of the person and work of Christ. It is our proclamation of who Jesus is, what Jesus did, and how we can appropriate the benefits of the work of Christ to ourselves by faith alone.

19:50 And beloved, as important as it is to give testimony, as wonderful it is to read this blind man saying, hey, I'm not a theologian, I'm not a preacher, I don't know what the gospel is, never heard the gospel in life. All I can tell you is once I was blind and now I see. That's a wonderful thing. It's not the gospel. And so we need not only to learn our own testimony, we also need to know the concrete elements and content of the biblical gospel. because evangelism takes place when the evangel is proclaimed and announced to people. That is the gospel.