Reading: John 9.
We have pointed out
that with the sign of the feeding of the five thousand
Jesus entered upon a new phase of His ministry, that is,
upon the phase of conflict. There arose a great deal of
conflict out of that work, and from that time He was in
an atmosphere of controversy.
When we come to this
incident we see how the conflict is intensifying and the
division is widening, and the end of this incident is
complete division. The emphatic statement concerning this
man is: "And they cast him out", and
that made the division complete.
The two sides were
becoming increasingly distinct and definite. On the one
side there was religion, and over against that was
spiritual sight. On the one side there was tradition, and
on the other side there was revelation. On the one side
there was the historic system, and on the other side was
spirituality. On the one side there were disciples of
"Moses" - you notice what they said in verse
28: "Thou art his disciples; but we are
disciples of Moses" - and on the other side
there were the disciples of Christ. And these two sides
were getting further and further apart - the distinction
between these things was becoming more manifest. On the
one side religion, tradition, historic system,
"Moses": on the other spiritual sight,
revelation, a spiritual state and disciples of Christ.
The whole of this
conflict and division focused upon one thing. John had
opened his Gospel with these words: "In him was
life: and the life was the light of men" (John
1:4), and that was the focal point of all this
controversy: Light through life. And you see the
difference in the prospect or outlook of these two sides.
So far as the opposition was concerned the situation had
become quite hopeless. You have only to read the whole of
this story and you will see how hopeless was the Jewish
situation. The words at the end of the chapter we have
just read indicate that quite clearly. The verdict of the
Lord Jesus upon that whole side was: "Your sin
remaineth". It is a great thing to say that
religion, tradition, historic system and disciples of
"Moses" create a hopeless situation, but that
is not my verdict: it is the verdict of the Lord Jesus.
And you have only to read through these chapters of
controversy and come to that which we shall be
considering in the next chapter, and you will agree that
that whole situation was a hopeless one.
On the other side was
this man, the representative of another class. I trust
that we all belong to this man's class - the class which
is able to say: "One thing I know, that, whereas
I was blind, now I see." Over against this
hopeless situation was this wonderful hopefulness. A new
hope had come into this man's life, and he had come into
a new hope.
We were saying that the
whole conflict focused upon this one thing: light through
life. Jesus said that they were all blind, and to begin
with there was no difference between this man and all the
others. Of course, his was physical blindness, but it is
quite evident that that was only a sign of spiritual
blindness. All these others were just as blind as he was
in a spiritual way. But the thing which made the
difference between hope and hopelessness was just this:
he knew he was blind and they did not, and hope or
hopelessness turned upon that. There is no doubt about it
- this man knew he was blind: "One thing I
know... whereas I was blind". There is no
question about that. However, these people were just as
blind, but they did not know it. The difference was this:
that there was in this man a terrible natural limitation
of which he was conscious. He knew all about his
limitation. Every day that he lived he was made aware of
it. He had to be led by the hand and put in the same
place every day to beg for his living. The picture of
this man is of one who is every day aware of his
dependence.
Over against that were
these other people, and they lived every day in their own
sense of self-sufficiency. Natural limitation and natural
self-sufficiency were in conflict, just look at this man
again.
The disciples asked a
mysterious question, and we are not going to try to
explain it: "Who did sin, this man, or his
parents, that he should be born blind?'' That only
means they had the idea, which was a common one, of the
pre-existence of spirits, and that people had a history
before they came into this world. That may have been pure
superstition, but we are not going to try to wrestle with
that one, as it does not concern us very much. They asked
the Lord that question and He just disposed of it: "Neither
did this man sin, nor his parents". All it
amounts to is that the man was born with a handicap, and,
of course, that is true of everybody. It is just as true
of us as it was of this man - the handicap with which we
are all born is spiritual blindness.
Whatever form our
handicap may take, it is meant to be an opportunity for
the sovereignty of God. Here it is spiritual blindness,
but we all have various kinds of handicaps with which we
are born. What has been one of your greatest problems in
life? Is it not that you feel yourself to be quite unfit
for that to which the Lord calls you? You find that the
Lord makes demands upon you and are conscious that it is
not in you to meet them.
You remember Moses.
When the Lord met Moses and gave him the command to go
into Egypt for the deliverance of Israel, he tried to get
out of it, and at last he resorted to his handicap.
Perhaps he thought: 'This will beat the Lord, anyway!' He
said: 'I cannot speak. This job needs an orator, a man
who can preach. I am not the man for the job. Lord, You
have chosen the wrong person for this. Lord, You don't
know what You are doing.' And you can carry it on and on
like that. 'The fact is, Lord, that I am not just fitted
for the thing for which You have called me.' What did the
Lord say to Moses? 'Who made man's mouth? If I made your
mouth I know what kind of a mouth I made. And if I made
your mouth so that you cannot speak, that will provide
all the greater opportunity for Me to do it through you.
Have I not taken forty years to empty you of your own
ability? And all that I may have glory and you have
none.'
These people said: "We
are disciples of Moses" - but how false to
Moses they were! They would have said: 'Oh, we can
do it!' No, they were not true disciples of Moses.
You remember Jeremiah.
The Lord called Jeremiah and gave him a great commission
to Israel - and he did exactly the same thing that Moses
had done. He tried to get out of it and his argument was:
"I cannot speak: for I am a child." The
Lord said: "Say not, I am a child: for to
whomsoever I shall send thee thou shalt go, and
whatsoever I shall command thee thou shalt speak" (Jeremiah
1:6,7).
These are examples of
men born with a handicap but providing the Lord with a
great opportunity to show what He can do. If the Lord
requires of us that we should be righteous, we will at
once say: "In me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth
no good thing" (Romans 7:18). And how often we
turn to that side: 'Oh, I am no good. There is no good in
me. In this matter of goodness I am perfectly hopeless.'
Well, the Lord has
given us quite a lot in His Word about that. We have had
the Letter to the Romans for so long! "The
righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ" (Romans
3:22). We know all about the doctrine, and yet so often
we just come down under this natural handicap. I could go
on speaking about many handicaps with which we are born -
most of us do truly know that we in ourselves are not fit
for the thing the Lord requires of us. We have discovered
that we were born that way and it is not in us naturally.
We have this handicap. Well, the Lord Jesus has much
comfort for us in this sign.
This man had a terrible
handicap - he was born blind. He had never seen and did
not know what it was to see. He had to have everything
explained to him, having no faculty of his own. And Jesus
said over against that: 'This is just the greatest
opportunity for the glory of God.'
Now, dear friends, look
at this in the training of disciples. It will not be long
- only a few days - before these disciples discover that
side of the meaning of this sign. Peter will say: 'Though
all men forsake Thee, yet will I not forsake Thee. I will
go with Thee even unto death.' And it says:
"Likewise also said all the disciples" (Matthew
26:35) - already, 'We can do it.' Can you? Let us put it
to the test - and you know what happened when the test
was applied. Those two poor disciples on the road to
Emmaus give us a very good idea of their disillusionment.
Everything had gone for them, and all they could say was:
"We hoped that it was he which should redeem
Israel" (Luke 24:21), meaning to say:
'All our hopes are gone.' Oh, these disciples were a very
sad picture. And they had to discover their handicap -
they had to be brought there. It was necessary that they
made this discovery that it was not in them at all, but
that discovery was the ground of subsequent glory. We
have seen the tremendous change in those men on the Day
of Pentecost. Glory had just come down upon all their
handicap and covered it. The life of the Lord Jesus had
provided new capacities. This mighty life in Christ had
taken possession of them by the Holy Spirit, and they
were men who could do what they were never able to do
before. All the spiritual blindness of those three years
had gone. They were men with their spiritual eyes wide
open. Read what they said on the Day of Pentecost... "Peter,
standing up with the eleven" (Acts 2:14). I do
not know whether the whole eleven were speaking at the
same time! If not, Peter was speaking for them all. And
that discourse is a discourse of wonderful revelation.
They were now seeing what they had never seen before as
to the Lord Jesus.
Many years ago I made
an analysis of that address of Peter's, just to see how
many subjects he touched upon. If you do that you will be
surprised at the large number of subjects included in
that sermon. Indeed, his eyes had been opened! Not only
were the disciples seeing, but they were able to do what
they could never do before, and the life of the Lord
Jesus had effected this.
This is the kind of
training that disciples need. The disciples of Christ are
like this, but not the disciples of Moses. They are under
the law and have always to say 'I cannot'. The true
disciples of Christ can say: "I can do all
things in him that strengtheneth me" (Philippians
4:13). It is the power of His life within and means that
we have gifts and abilities that we never have by nature.
This is the beginning of the Gospel. I do not want anyone
to think that this is something advanced in the Christian
life. It is the very beginning of everything. The
commission to the Apostle Paul was in these terms. The
Lord said: "Unto whom I send thee, to open their
eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light" (Acts
26:17,18). That is the beginning of the Gospel, and this
sign ought to have been fulfilled in us right at the
beginning of our Christian life. The very first thing
that a true Christian and disciple ought to be able to
say is: 'I was blind, but now I see. The Lord has opened
my spiritual eyes and has removed my natural handicap.'
But while it is the
beginning, it is only the beginning. Everyone has noticed
the progressive feature in this man's case. They asked
him: 'Who opened thine eyes?' In verse 11 he says: "The
man that is called Jesus". That is a very simple
and elementary beginning. Later on they said: 'What have
you to say about Him?' In verse 17 he says: "He
is a prophet." That is quite a long way on from
'a man'. But in the end, when Jesus met him - or shall I
put it in another way, for this is what it really means -
when Jesus knew that they had cast him out and went to
find him and said: "Dost thou believe on the Son
of God?" he answered: "Who is he, Lord,
that I may believe on him?" Jesus
replied: "He it is that speaketh with thee. And
he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him." Worshipping
Him as God is a long way beyond calling Him just a man.
You see, this is all in
the sign: it is in the meaning of things. This life which
we receive in Christ has a simple beginning, but it is a
progressive life, and the progressive nature of that life
is a fuller and fuller discovery of the Lord Jesus. We "grow
in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 3:18 - A.V.). We
just detach words like this and separate them from their
context. Of course it is quite true, but where do those
words come from? Oh, Peter has told us - "Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
according to his great mercy begat us again unto a living
hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the
dead" (1 Peter 1:3). How shall we grow in grace
and in knowledge? By the power of resurrection life in
us. This life is a life of spiritual progress.
Now we must come back
to where we started. Have you recognized one thing that
is so important? We have spoken of the great division, of
how things were dividing into two classes, and that
division was because a man had received spiritual
illumination. That is the factor which always causes the
trouble. Dear friends, we can divide professing
Christians into two classes. The one class may believe
all the Scriptures as being inspired by God; they may
believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God; they
may believe in the deity of Christ and all the
fundamentals of the Christian religion; and they may
still be people without spiritual revelation - they may
still be unspiritual people. Is that true? Yes, the
division there was just as distinct as between believers
and unbelievers. And if the Lord really does open
someone's eyes and give them spiritual revelation, they
are in for trouble - and their trouble will come from the
religious world.
Well, here were these
orthodox Jews. They believed in the Bible and in all that
the Bible taught so far as the words were concerned. But
when one man in their midst received spiritual sight they
cast him out. Spiritual revelation always provokes
hostility - tradition never does. Orthodox religion never
does cause trouble, but if you are a man or a woman
living in the power of resurrection life, with your eyes
wide open, you will meet trouble, and, as I have said,
that trouble will come from the religious people.
What are you going to
do about it? Well, we have already pointed out that many
of the Lord's disciples said: "This is a hard
saying; who can hear it?" and "Many of
his disciples went back, and walked no more with
him" (John 6:60,66)... 'This way of spiritual
illumination is too hard. We are not prepared to pay the
price for it. We are not going that way.'
And so the Lord sifts
out on this one thing, and the true disciples are those
who have really had their eyes opened. The Lord make us
true disciples!
It is a costly way and
it does provoke a lot of opposition, but it is a very
precious thing to have had our eyes opened - just to be
able to see because the Lord has made us see. Those who
have counted most for the Lord have been men and women
who have come to see with spiritual eyes.
So here in the training
of disciples is the sign of the opened eye. May we be
able to learn the meaning of this sign!