Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - Dial In - John 9:18-41 (Ep. 27)

Episode Date: May 5, 2020

Dial In is a devotional series with the intention of helping followers of Christ understand God’s word and love Him more. Jonny seeks to communicate the profound depth of scripture in a digestible and condensed format each weekday. The goal of the podcast is that our “minds would be renewed” as we behold who God is in His word. In this series, Jonny is walking sequentially through the Gospel of John.In this episode, Jonny covers John 9:18-41 which continues the story of the blind man that Jesus healed. The pharisees manifest their hard-hearted rejection of Christ by refusing to believe that Jesus is the Christ, even when presented with undeniable evidence. The story concludes with the man meeting his healer face to face. His response is the proper response of all those who have been changed by Christ: worship.Watch VideosVisit the Website Follow on InstagramFollow on Twitter

Hey guys, my name is Johnny Artavanis and this is Dial In. In this episode, we're continuing in the story that we saw in our previous episode where Jesus heals a man born blind. We're in John chapter 9 verses 18 through 41. Let's dial in. John chapter 9 verses 18 through 41. The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received a sight until they called the parents of the man who had received a sight. John chapter 9 verses 18 through 41. But how he sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him. He is of age. He will speak for himself. His parents said these things because they feared the Jews,

for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be the Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, He is of age. Ask him. So for the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner. He answered, Whether he is a sinner I do not know. They saidiled him, saying, You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses,

but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from. The man answered, Why? This is an amazing thing. You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened up 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. He said, he said, He answered, Jesus said to him,

He said, Jesus said, Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things and said to him, Jesus said, For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind. Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things and said to him, Are we also blind? Jesus said to them, If you are blind, you would have no guilt. But now that you say, We see, your guilt remains. So here we pick up in the same story that we saw in our previous episode. Jesus gives sight to a man who has been blind from birth.

This guy would have been reduced to a beggar his entire life. Jesus rubs some mud on his eyes, tells him to go and wash in the pool, and then come back and find him. This blind man would have been an outcast his entire life. He would have been excluded from the synagogue and from religious education because rabbinical tradition would have taught that this man was blind because of sin and his blindness was a punishment from God. So they would not only have excluded this type of man,

they would have avoided him and taught others to do the same. His only hope would have been that someone might come and be generous and drop a coin or a piece of food near him so that he might find something to eat. But so unlike the Pharisees and so unlike the Jewish leaders, Jesus sees this man and he comes to him. He's not avoiding him. He is pursuing him. Now, no one had ever healed a man that was born blind before in the history of the world. This is why blindness serves as such a strong analogy for the human condition throughout all of Scripture. Isaiah 43, verse 8 says,

Bring out the people who are blind, yet have eyes, who are deaf, yet have ears. Jeremiah 5, 21, Hear this, O foolish and senseless people, who have eyes but see not, who have ears but hear not. Jesus calls the Pharisees blind men and blind guides. Paul was sent to open the eyes of the blind. This is a constant metaphor throughout scripture to describe our condition apart from a miracle of God. Now, John writes his gospel so that blind sinners like you and I would believe, but like we will see in this passage, his gospel is doused and filled with rampant unbelief and rejection of Jesus. Even when the people are faced with undeniable

evidence, they continue to reject him. And their unbelief is not docile either. It is aggressive. It is hostile. And they will throw this man out of the synagogue and become more aggressive towards the one who healed him. They don't casually reject Jesus. They hate him and they hate those who believe in him. Now the healing of the blind man is over by verse 12. And from that point on until the end of the chapter in verse 41, we will witness a series of conversations. First, the man with the neighbors, then the Pharisees with the parents of the man, then the Pharisees with the man, and then finally the man with Jesus. So after the guy returns from washing his eyes, he sees, and then the neighbors come to him and say, wait, what the,

aren't you the guy that was blind? Get the Pharisees. We need to get the Pharisees involved to explain what has happened. There is not one case in the Old Testament of a blind person being healed. This is unheard of. They know this guy. He has been begging for years. They have never heard of or seen anything like this. And in verse 15, the Pharisees are mad because this has happened on the Sabbath. Jesus once again has violated the rabbinical tradition. So they want to get to the bottom of this and they start interrogating the man who was once blind. And they ask him, how did this happen? And the man responds and says, well, he applied mud to my eyes. I wash and now I see. And then they respond to him and say, well, what do you say about this man since he opened your eyes? And the blind man or the man who was blind responded and says, well, he must be a prophet. This is a logical conclusion. Of course,

this man was from God. This resembles Nicodemus in John 3 when he comes to Jesus and says, We know that you must be from God, for no one can do these signs unless God is with him. But the Jews, they don't buy this. They could not believe this. They didn't even believe that this guy had been blind. So in verse 18, they call the parents of the blind man and they ask them, is this your son?

Was he blind? Is this a trick? The parents just repeated the facts. They say, yeah, that's my son. And he was blind. But talk to him. He is a man. They keep it as basic as possible because they are fearing that if they say Jesus is

the one that healed their son, they will be thrown out of the synagogue and become a social, religious, and economic outcast. Everyone knew, though, who did this. Everyone would have known that this was Jesus, the same guy that shouts in the temple, I am the light of the world, the same guy who turned water into wine, the same guy that fed 20,000 people with fish and crackers. But the Pharisees refused to believe. They hate Jesus because he healed on the Sabbath. So for a second time, the Pharisees grab this man and say to him,

give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner. They wanted this man who was healed to admit that Jesus was a sinner because he had violated their traditions of the Sabbath. They were telling this man to glorify God by calling Jesus a sinner. Amazingly, he responds to this threat with his most famous statement in chapter 9. He says, Whether he is a sinner, I do not know. He responds to this threat with his most famous statement in chapter 9. He says, They ask him again, how did this happen?

I love the man's response in verse 27. Listen here. He says, Do you need me to tell you again? Do you also want to be his disciple? A sarcastic zing at the Pharisees. I love this. So they revile him and say, you are his disciples, but we follow Moses. We know that this man is a sinner. We don't even know where this guy comes from. So much disdain here. And then so much

confidence by the man in verse 30. He says, you don't know where he's from. Really? I know where he must be from, from God. Because verse 32, since the beginning of the world, no one has heard of anyone that has opened the eyes of the blind. The previous blind beggar is taking the most educated men in the world to school. He's saying, can't you see? Don't you get it? This guy just healed me. What else do you need? What other evidence do you need? He is from God.

The Pharisees respond by throwing him out of the synagogue. A societal outcast once more. And this is when Jesus finds him. I love this. Remember, this guy has never even seen Jesus because Jesus just kind of disappeared after he opened this man's eyes. And Jesus comes up and asks him, do you believe in the Son of Man? This guy's heart was already willing to believe.

He just needed Jesus to find him. He wants to know. And he says, sir, who did this? Help me find him. I need to find this man. Imagine the desperation, finding the man who had opened up your eyes. How precious it is. In verse 37, Jesus says, you have seen him and it is he who is speaking to you. And the man responds and says, Lord, I believe. And he worshiped him. He fell down and worshipped Jesus. The one who had given sight to his eyes

had now opened up his heart, and the man worshipped Jesus. This is the proper response of all those who experience a miracle of God in their life. How can we know if someone is truly saved? How can we know if the scales of their hearts have been removed? If they, like this man, worship and love Jesus Christ. Jesus sought out this rejected, blind man, this nobody, and this is exactly what he does today. He seeks blind sinners and offers them himself. Stay dialed in.