The Pool of Siloam was the place where the conduit from the Virgin’s Fountain issued in the city. It was an open-air basin twenty by thirty feet across. That is how the pool got its name. It was called Siloam, which, it was said, meant sent, because the water in it had been sent through the conduit into the city. Jesus sent this man to wash in this pool; and the man washed and saw.
Having been cured, he had some difficulty in persuading the people that a real cure had been effected. But he stoutly maintained the miracle which Jesus had performed. Jesus is still doing things which seem to the unbeliever far too good and far too wonderful to be true.
PREJUDICE AND CONVICTION
John 9:13–16
They brought him, the man who had been blind, to the Pharisees. The day on which Jesus had made the clay and opened his eyes was the Sabbath day. So the Pharisees asked him again how sight had come to him. He said to them: ‘He put clay on my eyes; and I washed; and now I can see.’ So some of the Pharisees said: ‘This man is not from God, because he does not observe the Sabbath.’ But others said: ‘How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?’ And there was a division of opinion among them. So they said to the blind man: ‘What is your opinion about him, in view of the fact that he opened your eyes?’ He said: ‘He is a prophet.’
NOW comes the inevitable trouble. It was the Sabbath day on which Jesus had made the clay and healed the man. Undoubtedly Jesus had broken the Sabbath law, as the scribes had worked it out, and done so in fact in three different ways.
(1) By making clay, he had been guilty of working on the Sabbath, when even the simplest acts constituted work. Here are some of the things which were forbidden on the Sabbath. ‘A man may not fill a dish with oil and put it beside a lamp and put the end of the wick in it.’ ‘If a man extinguishes a lamp on the Sabbath to spare the lamp or the oil or the wick, he is culpable.’ ‘A man may not go out on the Sabbath with sandals shod with nails.’ (The weight of the nails would have constituted a burden, and to carry a burden was to break the Sabbath.) A man might not cut his fingernails or pull out a hair of his head or his beard. Obviously, in the eyes of such a law, to make clay was to work and so to break the Sabbath.
(2) It was forbidden to heal on the Sabbath. Medical attention could be given only if life was in actual danger. Even then, it must be only such as to keep patients from getting worse, not to make them any better. For instance, it was not permitted for anyone with toothache to suck vinegar through the teeth. It was forbidden to set a broken limb. ‘If a man’s hand or foot is dislocated he may not pour cold water over it.’ Clearly the man who was born blind was in no danger of his life; therefore Jesus broke the Sabbath when he healed him.
(3) It was quite definitely laid down: ‘As to fasting spittle, it is not lawful to put it so much as upon the eyelids.’
The Pharisees are typical of the people in every generation who condemn anyone whose idea of religion is not theirs. They thought that theirs was the only way of serving God. But some of them thought otherwise and declared that no one who did the things Jesus did could be a sinner.
They brought the man and examined him. When he was asked his opinion of Jesus, he gave it without hesitation. He said that Jesus was a prophet. In the Old Testament, a prophet was often tested by the signs he could produce. Moses guaranteed to Pharaoh that he really was God’s messenger by the signs and wonders which he performed (Exodus 4:1–17). Elijah proved that he was the prophet of the real God by doing things the prophets of Baal could not do (1 Kings 18). No doubt the man’s thoughts were running on these things when he said that in his opinion Jesus was a prophet.
Whatever else, this was a brave man. He knew quite well what the Pharisees thought of Jesus. He knew quite well that if he came out on Jesus’ side he was certain to be excommunicated. But he made his statement and took his stand. It was as if he said: ‘I am bound to believe in him, I am bound to stand by him because of all that he has done for me.’ Therein he is our great example.
THE PHARISEES DEFIED
John 9:17–35
Now the Jews refused to believe that he had been blind and had become able to see, until they called the parents of the man who had become able to see, and asked them: ‘Is this your son? And do you say that he was born blind? How, then, can he now see?’ His parents answered: ‘We know that this is our son; and we know that he was born blind; how he has now come to see we do not know; or who it was who opened his eyes we do not know. Ask himself. He is of age. He can answer his own questions.’ His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone acknowledged Jesus to be the Anointed One of God, he should be excommunicated from the synagogue. That is why his parents said: ‘He is of age. Ask him.’ A second time they called the man who used to be blind. ‘Give the glory to God,’ they said. ‘We know that this man is a sinner.’ ‘Whether he is a sinner or not,’ the man answered, ‘I do not know. One thing I do know – I used to be blind and now I can see.’ ‘What did he do to you?’ they said. ‘How did he open your eyes?’ ‘I have already told you,’ the man said, ‘and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear the story all over again? Surely you can’t want to become his disciples?’ They heaped abuse on him. ‘It is you who are his disciple,’ they said. ‘We are Moses’ disciples. We know that God spoke to Moses; but, as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.’ The man answered: ‘It is an astonishing thing that you do not know where he comes from, when he opened my eyes. It is a fact known to all of us that God does not listen to sinners. But if a man is a reverent man and does his will, God hears him. Since time began no one has ever heard of anyone who opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man was not from God, he could not have done anything.’ ‘You were altogether born in sins,’ they said to him, ‘and are you trying to teach us?’ And they ordered him to get out.
THERE is no more vivid character drawing in all literature than this. With deft and revealing touches, John causes the people involved to live before us.
(1) There was the blind man himself. He began by being irritated at the persistence of the Pharisees. ‘Say what you like’, he said, ‘about this man; I don’t know anything about him except that he made me able to see.’ It is the simple fact of Christian experience that many people may not be able to put into theologically correct language what they believe Jesus to be, but in spite of that they can witness to what Jesus has done for their souls. Even when we cannot understand with our intellect, we can still feel with our hearts. It is better to love Jesus than to love theories about him.
(2) There were the man’s parents. They were obviously uncooperative, but at the same time they were afraid. The synagogue authorities had a powerful weapon, the weapon of excommunication, whereby a man was shut off from the congregation of God’s people. Back in the days of Ezra, we read of a decree that if anyone did not obey the command of the authorities, ‘their property should be forfeited, and they themselves banned from the congregation’ (Ezra 10:8). Jesus warned his disciples that their name would be cast out for evil (Luke 6:22). He told them that they would be put out of the synagogues (John 16:2). Many of the rulers in Jerusalem really believed in Jesus, but were afraid to say so ‘for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue’ (John 12:42).
There were two kinds of excommunication. There was the ban, the cherem, by which a man was banished from the synagogue for life. In such a case he was publicly denounced. He was cursed in the presence of the people, and he was cut off from God and from society. There was sentence of temporary excommunication which might last for a month, or for some other fixed period. The terror of such a situation was that
