Introduction
There is a deep irony woven throughout John 9. The man at the center of the chapter has never seen anything in his entire life. He was born blind. He cannot see the temple, the disciples’ faces as they question Jesus about him, or even Jesus himself. Yet by the end of the chapter, he is the one who sees most clearly.
Meanwhile, the Pharisees, men who have dedicated their entire lives to studying and interpreting God’s law and God’s word, men who can see perfectly well with their physical eyes, end the chapter more painfully blind than they were at the start. Jesus names their condition in verse 41:
Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains” (John 9:41 ESV).
Sight, it turns out, is not just about the eyes. It is about the heart as well.
The Light of the World
A man born blind sits outside the temple, and what most people see when they look at him is a byproduct of human sin. Jesus’s own disciples see it precisely this way:
And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:2).
The disciples are not asking a foolish question. They are asking the only question their current theological understanding allows them to ask. In their worldview, suffering and sin are connected. If something is wrong in your life, it means there is something wrong with you or someone close to you. The man’s blindness is seen as a problem to be explained and a case to be diagnosed.
Jesus refuses their question entirely. The disciples are looking at this man and looking backward, trying to find someone to blame. Jesus looks ahead, toward what God is about to do:
Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him” (John 9:3).
Before he heals the man, Jesus makes a statement that functions as the interpretive key to everything that follows:
“As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world” (John 9:5).
He then makes mud, anoints the blind man’s eyes, and sends him to wash in the pool of Siloam (John 9:6–7). The man goes, washes, and comes back seeing. The miracle is not accidental to the claim to be the light of the world. It is the enacted parable of that claim. Jesus says he is the light of the world, and here is what it looks like when the light of the world appears in the darkness of human suffering and misery: the blind see, people are restored, people are renewed, people are made whole.
The Closed System
The man who has been healed is brought before the Pharisees, and what follows is one of the most remarkable exchanges in the Fourth Gospel. Instead of celebrating what has happened in this man’s life, the Pharisees are offended. Jesus healed on the Sabbath. In their view, that one fact settles the matter.
God gave the Sabbath law. Jesus broke the Sabbath law. Therefore, Jesus is not from God.
The conclusion, in their minds, is airtight, and no amount of evidence will be allowed to reopen the case.
So they question the man. Then they question his parents. His parents, afraid of being expelled from the synagogue, defer to their son (John 9:20–23). The Pharisees call the man back a second time and demand that he give glory to God by renouncing Jesus as a sinner (John 9:24).
What happens next is extraordinary. The man who has spent his entire life on the margins, the man everyone assumed was under God’s judgment, the man with no theological training and no social standing, looks the most powerful religious authorities in his world in the eye and says:
“Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see” (John 9:25).
The formerly blind man will not be moved. The Pharisees press him further, asking him to repeat what Jesus did, and he turns the question back on them with a flash of dry wit:
“I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” (John 9:27)
He is mocking them, and they know it.
The healed man then makes a theological argument that is as simple as it is devastating. He points out that while blindness had been healed before, no one in the entire history of Israel had ever given sight to a man born blind (John 9:32), and that such power could only come from God (John 9:30–33). Their response reveals everything about the condition of their heart:
“You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?” And they cast him out of the synagogue (John 9:34).1
The Pharisees reach for the very assumption Jesus had already rejected (John 9:3). Because this man was born blind, he must have been born in sin, and a man born in sin has nothing to teach those who have given their lives to the study of God’s law and God’s word.
The Pharisees are not stupid men. They are not lazy. They have devoted themselves to Scripture with a seriousness that would put most people to shame. And that very devotion has become the instrument of their blindness. They are so certain they know what God would and would not do that when God does something unexpected right in front of them, they cannot see it. Their theological and moral certainty functions as a closed system that cuts off everything, even God. A man who yesterday could not see and today can is not sufficient to even question their theological formulas.
So Jesus says:
“For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind” (John 9:39).
The progression in this chapter is stark. The man born blind moves steadily toward the light. He calls Jesus “the man called Jesus” (John 9:11), then “a prophet” (John 9:17), then reasons publicly that Jesus must be from God (John 9:33). Then, finally, when Jesus finds him after he has been cast out, he falls before Jesus and worships him as Lord (John 9:38). Each encounter with or about Jesus brings him closer to the truth.
The Pharisees move in exactly the opposite direction. Each encounter with the evidence of what Jesus has done leaves them more entrenched, more hostile, and more blind. The more certain they are that they can see with absolute moral and theological clarity, the deeper their blindness becomes.
Beware of men who tell you that they have this all figured out. Beware of those who tell you that they know exactly whom God loves and precisely whom he condemns, and then expect you to fall in line. Beware of those who are so certain of their interpretation of the Bible and of their theological systems that to disagree with them is to disagree with God himself.
I don’t have this all figured out. You don’t have this all figured out. The Church doesn’t have this all figured out. Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Hooker, Barth, and yes, even N. T. Wright don’t have this all figured out. And it is the epitome of spiritual blindness for any preacher, teacher, or theologian, no matter how famous or well-published, to act as though they do.
Jesus cautioned his disciples:
“Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod” (Mark 8:15).
The Church, including today’s American church, rather than heeding that warning, has preferred to feast on that leaven of theological arrogance and political power.
Conclusion
Spiritual sight is not a human achievement. It is a divine gift, and the first condition for receiving it is the honest confession that we cannot see on our own, that we are indeed blind.
The blind man understood this instinctively. He had lived his whole life knowing he could not see. When the light of the world came near him, he had nothing to protect, no carefully constructed theological system to defend, and no reputation to preserve. He simply received what was given. And when it cost him his standing in the synagogue, he did not flinch. He had already lost everything the world said mattered, and what he had found in Jesus was worth much more.
The Pharisees are not a distant warning. They are a mirror. The history of the church is full of people who were certain they knew what God was doing and what God would never do, and who were wrong in ways that caused tremendous harm. Certainty closes us off. It closes us off from what God may be doing. It closes us off from the people God loves. And it closes us off from correction, especially when that correction comes from someone we have already dismissed.
It is worth asking ourselves honestly: where are we so certain that we have closed off our theological system? Where have we decided, quietly and perhaps without even realizing it, that we already know what God would and would not do, who God would and would not use, and where God would and would not show up? The Pharisees did not think of themselves as blind. They thought they saw so well that they were the guardians of truth. And they were so busy guarding “the truth” that when it stood right in front of them, they missed it.
The call of the gospel is not to self-assured control, but to faith.
Faith trusts Jesus. Faith trusts the work of the Holy Spirit. Certainty trusts its own ability to see, interpret, and control.
Faith trusts the light even when it cannot see the path. Certainty thinks it already knows the path, and walks off blindly in the wrong direction.
The Pharisees had certainty. Many Christians today have certainty. The blind man had faith. Only one of them ended up worshiping at the feet of Jesus (John 9:38).
Amen.
This post is the written version of a sermon preached at St. Dunstan’s Anglican Church in Largo, FL, on Sunday, March 15, 2026. If it resonated with you, consider sharing it with someone in your life. On the Way is free for everyone. If you find the work valuable and want to support it (and get access to older content), a paid subscription is the best way to do that.
Life Group Guide
Opening Prayer
Father, we come before you acknowledging that we do not have this figured out. Open our eyes to see what you are doing in your word and in one another. Give us the humility of the man born blind rather than the certainty of the Pharisees, and give us faith to trust your light even when we cannot see the path ahead. In the name of Jesus, Amen.
Icebreaker
What is one area of life where you were absolutely certain you were right, only to discover later that you were wrong?
Discussion Questions
Why do the disciples assume someone must have sinned when they see the blind man? What does their question reveal about how they understand suffering, and what does Jesus’s answer reveal about how he sees this man?
Jesus says the man’s blindness exists “that the works of God might be displayed in him” (John 9:3). How does that reframe the way we think about suffering and God’s purposes in it?
The healed man’s parents are too afraid to speak up, but the man himself refuses to be moved. What gave him the courage to stand his ground before the most powerful religious authorities in his world?
The Pharisees were not lazy or ignorant men. They had devoted their lives to Scripture. What does their blindness teach us about the difference between theological knowledge and genuine spiritual sight?
In John 9, the Pharisees’ certainty functions as a closed system that cuts off everything, even God. What does a closed theological system look like in practice, and what are the warning signs that we might be operating inside one?
Where in your own life might certainty be functioning as a closed system? Where have you quietly decided what God would or would not do, who he would or would not use, where he would or would not show up?
John 9 includes a contrast between certainty and faith. Certainty thinks it already knows the path. Faith trusts the light even when it cannot see the path. What is the practical difference between those two postures, and which one more accurately describes where you are right now?
Life Application
This week, identify one area where you have been operating with closed-off certainty. Bring it before God honestly, and ask him to show you what he might be doing that you have not yet seen. Look for an opportunity to listen to someone you might normally dismiss.
Closing Prayer
Lord Jesus, you are the light of the world, and we thank you for opening our eyes today. Protect us from the blindness that comes from arrogance, and give us faith to trust you even when we cannot see where you are leading. Make us more like the man born blind: quick to receive what you give, and willing to worship you regardless of what it costs. Amen.
Make sure you can hear the disdain in their voice as you read those words.