This is from John 9, which is the story of Jesus healing a man who was born blind. The Pharisees are disturbed by this occurrence and bring the man before them to question him about the experience. The second time they question him, he asks why they want to hear it again, and if they want to become his disciples. They respond that they are disciples of Moses, but he is unwise to be a disciple of Jesus because they do not know where Jesus came from. His response is what I'm going to write about today: "The man answered, 'Why, this is amazing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes.
We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him.
Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind.' "
I love the juxtaposition of these last two verses. The divide between the two verses shows perfectly the difference between the old and the new testament. And this is important because we get to live in light of the second verse, not the first.
What does the first verse say? That you have to be good to go to God. That you have to not be a sinner, but a worshipper.
Now, I don't know what this says about actual Jewish culture at the time. I don't know if the blind man is expressing what is true to him or what he sees the Pharisees doing, so I'm not going to address this historically. I'm going to talk about it in a different context, the context of today.
Christians today often believe this first verse without even realizing that it's not correct. Satan takes our sin and smothers us with it and tells us that we can't go to God until we can breathe again. We look at our sin and see its depravity and look at ourselves and despairingly realize that we cannot look to God until we look better.
This attitude is false! Because we don't have to live in the first verse! We don't live in legalism like the Pharisees! Tell me, who is the main actor in this verse? and the entire New Testament? Jesus Christ! What does the second verse say that he did? "Opened the eyes of a man born blind."
Read that again. Who had the problem? (answer: the blind man) Who opened his eyes?
Answer:
Jesus. Jesus Christ.
Christ, who "became for us wisdom from God, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption" (1 Corinthians 1). Why? "So that, as it is written, 'Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.' " (same).
What does this mean for you? It means that Christ takes us out of our sin. So when we are saved and we sin, we do not have to clean ourselves up before we go to God. When we go to Him to repent we are covered in our sin, but he sees us covered by Christ's righteousness.
What if we are not saved? "Never since the world began has it been heard." Do you know what this means? Jesus Christ came and healed the sight of this blind man, then he died and took upon himself all of our sins. Never before had anyone done this. Never until that moment. But Christ did, and he was resurrected, and now He saves us. So if you are tired of your sin, turn to him and realize that he will open your blind eyes and remove your sin and place a seal upon you. He says "Go and sin no more," not because you will never sin again, but because you are free to not sin. But when you do sin, he has already covered you. God listens to sinners because we are redeemed from sin through Christ.
