“I Once Was Blind, but Now I See”: Faith and Unbelief in John 9Sample

SEARCHING FOR LOST SHEEP

“Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, ‘Do you believe in the Son of Man?’” JOHN 9:35 (ESV)

Jesus’ encounter with the blind man in John 9 is part of the great panorama of God’s redemptive purpose from all of eternity. This apparently inconsequential stop in the middle of the day was part of the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham that “in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 22:18). It’s part of the great, ongoing, unfolding purpose of God to put together a company of people that no one can count from every tribe, nation, language, and tongue (Revelation 7:9).

The healing of this man, as well as what follows from it, is remarkable. It raises questions: How did Jesus find this man? And how did Jesus change this man? In the answers, we gain a better understanding of how Jesus finds men and women in their lostness and then changes them into sheep that have been found.

This story is not only an illustration of saving faith but also, as C.H. Spurgeon says, “an example of what you may do in endeavoring to lead [souls] to exercise faith in Jesus.” If you want to follow Christ’s example in reaching people, the first thing you must do, says Spurgeon, is “seek out the oppressed … seek out the sick, the sad, the weary, the poor, the broken-down ones, and especially such as have been put out of the synagogues.”[1]

The people that no one wants and no one will have, Jesus wants and Jesus will have. Jesus has every right to anticipate that His followers will do the same. It’s only in knowing that you were once lost that you understand what it means to be found. Jesus has sought you and found you—and if He did that for you, He can do it for anyone! Our tendency is to spend time with those who are like us. But the Son of God did not do that—otherwise He would never have been born as a man, to seek and to save sinners like us. Who are the “broken-down ones” the Lord is calling you to reach out to with the gospel of the Son of Man? With God’s help, go out and tell them that Jesus is alive and that He seeks and saves those who are lost.

• How is God calling me to think differently?
• How is God reordering my heart’s affections—what I love?
• What is God calling me to do as I go about my day today?

[1] “A Pressed Man Yielding to Christ,” The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit 46, no. 2667, p 142.