In my Bible, this passage–John 9:35-41–is headed with the phrase, “Spiritual Blindness”. Jesus had just healed the guy who had been born blind and who sat an begged (pan-handled) as people walked by.  Jesus had spat on the dirt, made mud and had placed it over the man’s eyes, instructing him to go wash his face at a certain pool and he would be able to see. So the man does exactly what Jesus tells him to do and comes away seeing! Now that’s pretty exciting–but the Pharisees were not impressed. They were, in fact mad,  because Jesus had healed the man on the Sabbath (the Hebrew’s weekly holy day, set side for rest and worship) and had caused him to have to work by washing his face on the Sabbath). So they begin to debate with Jesus  and even interrogate the formerly blind man about this.  Because the man finally stated the obvious:  that Jesus was a good man Who healed people with illnesses, even  causing the blind to see and can even command demons, so He must be the Messiah, since no one else in world history had ever been able to do such things! Well that statement resulted in the former blind man, turned Jesus follower, getting banned from the synagogue!  So when Jesus heard that the man had been “temple-tossed”, He found him and began to talk to him about not being spiritually blind, a condition that is ultimately much more serious than physical blindness.

So Jesus asks the man if he believed in Who He really was. The man responded with a “Who is He, please tell me so that I may believe in Him!” Jesus then tells him plainly, “its Me–I am Him!

Jesus further stated, I came into this world for judgment [to separate those who believe in Me from those who reject Me—to declare judgment on those who choose to be separated from God], so that the sightless would see, and those who see would become blind.” (vs. 39 amp). Jesus came to make a distinction between those who believed that He was the Messiah–which is Who He is–and those who did not believe. In other words, to give sight to those who are spiritually blind and to expose the blindness of those who thought that they had spiritual insight. 

Of course the Pharisee’s were listening in to the conversation became defensive and asked, “are you saying where blind now?” Jesus answers with, “if you were truly spiritually blind, you would have incurred no guilt, but since you know the scriptures, thus claiming you can see, you are truly guilty” (vs. 41)

James in James 3:1 says, “Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.” Those who have the Bible and its teaching at their disposal and especially those who teach from it, like the Pharisees did, are more responsible to God for its content than those who do not. Jesus was trying to get the religious hypocrites who knew the whole Old Testament, inside and out to see that their knowledge of the Book was not enough to save them from spiritual blindness, but that they needed to get to know the Author of the Book instead. 

So, are you spiritually blind. Do you know the Author of the Truth? Remember Jesus saying telling them that “you will know the Truth and the Truth will get you free?” (John 8:32) He also said that “I am the light of the world . . .”(John 8:12) The LIGHT and TRUTH of Jesus, Himself and is enough to set any of us free from spiritual blindness! Are you in?

Think about it!