BLIND MAN FROM BIRTH Part 1.

JOHN 9:1-41.

We shall look closely to this an interesting biblical incident: the man blind from birth.

John 9:1 As Jesus passed by, he saw a man, which was blind from his birth.

A blind man from birth! How could God allow this? We often asked this question. This particular text was puzzling to me and many others for a long time.

We often see deformed children, which, by no fault of their own are deformed. Children are supposed to be innocent; then we accused God for causing it. Some claim it is God’s will. But this is blasphemy.

2. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?

It is true that the Old Covenant informs us that sin can be manifested it self up to the third and fourth generation (Ex 34:7). It is especially related to idolatry. We see it today as in the pass of plenty. We live in the dispensation period of grace, under the New Covenant. Diseases and sicknesses are curses of the law, whether we believe it or not, but if someone has been forgiven the sin, then that sin is legally gone.

The sin has no longer has the power it used to have. It does not have dominium over us.

It is true but diseases transferred from generation to generation are present only if they are not redeemed or there is the sin of unbelief.

3 Jesus answered, neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. 4 I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.

5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

It appears that God wanted to glorify Himself to make the man blind. Many get sick and people assume God has a plan with it.

It is not truth at all.

God cannot give diseases since he does not have them. If I do not have the flu I could not give it to others. God is not blind and therefore He cannot give blindness to anyone. If someone does not have a million dollars he cannot give it to anyone.

But God allows, some say. Well God allows many things. He allows sin, lies, blasphemy, but it is not His property. He allows us to sin and allows us not to sin. God allows sickness but He allows healing. God allows premature death, and He allows long life until one is satisfied. He allows many other things but He does not commission it.

If God allows sickness, sin then He would be guilty by association (an accessory to sin).

We have to say that the Bible is written with capital letters without punctuations. There were no commas or periods. The translators were adding the capital letters at the beginning of the sentences, periods at the end and commas depends. They put the punctuation as best they saw it.

Now we will go to original scripture and will quote the scripture without modern arrangement. We will see an interesting look.

JESUS ANSWERED NEITHER HAS THIS MAN SINNED NOR HIS PARENTS BUT THAT THE WORKS OF GOD SHOULD BE MADE MANIFEST IN HIM I MUST WORK THE WORKS OF HIM THAT SENT ME WHILE IT IS DAY THE NIGHT COMMES WHEN NO MAN CAN WORK.

Now just to make the point we will make a different punctuation. I will use the small letters.

Jesus answered: Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents.

But that the works of God should be made manifest in him, I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day…

As we see I placed the period in the original comma. I started new sentence, where before they put comma. In second I put comma instead of period. The entire meaning of it changed.

The Lord Jesus said to His disciples that nobody sinned – him or his parents, but because the man was blind Jesus has to do what He was sent for.

The rest is easy to figure it out.

According to Tanakh (Old Testament) grandparents or great grandparents could be the problem. We do not know. But it is not to blame God for it. We know that Satan is troublemaker and hiding himself behind God’s will. We often buy it. We all have the Adamic genes, which lead to destruction.

The second point is that the only measurement of sin in past was the Ten Commandments. It is a different measure of sin as we have now. In the Ten Commandments faith and love were not mentioned. Those are the qualities of the spirit and not the flesh and soul. The Old Testament was short because it was able to control only the flesh. The law was Holy and it is the truth, but man’s flesh was not. This is why it was planned and changed to the New Covenant, the covenant of the spirit after New Birth was available.

As we said we have three possibilities:

1. The sin may be manifested by the sin of an individual.

2. Ancestors

3. Nobody’s sin.

There was sin according to the Old Testament standards. The third event was possible. Even though we know nobody can keep the law.

In the second sentence quoted text, the Lord said that He must do what was Fathers’ will independently of what is the cause of blindness. The Heavenly Father showed to the Lord Jesus to destroy the works of the devil. His will was healing.

As matter of fact, the sin and the devil are always responsible for diseases. Important is healing and not the original cause at that time.

The Lord Jesus wanted agreement by disciples in healing. He was teaching them not to question but to believe.

Many people always argue about who is guilty. Jesus was always ready to heal.

Jesus healed from compassion and He loved man. At the same time He hated sin, sickness and diseases. He hated suffering.

His purpose was to eliminate suffering.

No. 3591-1

© 1991 Vladimir Uhri