Dennis Tuuri

# SERMON TRANSCRIPT – REFORMATION COVENANT CHURCH

As from the earliest days of the church, heresies regarding the nature of the trinity have abounded. That song we just sang as an attempt to put into music the eternal begottenness of the son—that he is fully God as well as fully man. This is why many churches throughout the world celebrate this Sunday as Trinity Sunday when the trinitarian nature of the God we worship today is declared and focused on. And so all the hymns today that John S. picked for us very skillfully reflect the trinity in the providence of God.

Our sermon text today is also related to the song we just sang. We sang of the shining of the moon and the burning sun and then that the Lord Jesus Christ comes and he now shines the light of God. In John chapter 9, Jesus is pictured as the light of the world. And that is our sermon text for today—John chapter 9. Please stand as we read John chapter 9. I’m going to read this with small pauses between each of the sections that I think comprise separate sections in this narrative.

If you want to, you could follow along in the text provided in the order of worship that has these sections broken out for us. That’ll give us a sense of the flow of the narrative.

John chapter 9, beginning at verse one. Now, as Jesus passed by, he saw a man who was blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, “Rabbi, who sinned? This man or his parents that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him. I must work the works of him who sent me while it is day. The night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

When he had said these things, he spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva. And he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay. And he said to him, “Go wash in the pool of Siloam, which is translated sent.” So he went and washed and came back seeing.

Therefore the neighbors and those who previously had seen that he was blind, said, “Is not this he who sat and begged?” Some said, “This is he.” Others said, “He is like him.” He said, “I am he.” Therefore, they said to him, “How were your eyes opened?” He answered and said, “A man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to the pool of Siloam and wash.’ So, I went and washed and I received sight.”

Then they said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I don’t know.” They brought him who formerly was blind to the Pharisees. Now it was a Sabbath when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also asked him again how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put clay on my eyes and I washed and I see.” Therefore some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God because he does not keep the Sabbath.” Others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” And there was a division among them.

They said to the blind man again, “What do you say about him? because he opened your eyes. He said, “He is a prophet.”

But the Jews did not believe concerning him that he had been blind and received his sight until they called the parents of him who had received his sight. And they asked them, saying, “Is this your son who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” His parents answered them and said, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. But by what means he now sees, we do not know. Or who opened his eyes, we do not know. He is of age. Ask him, he will speak for himself.”

His parents said these things because they feared the Jews. For the Jews had agreed already that if anyone confessed that he was Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore, his parents said, “He is of age. Ask him.”

So they again called the man who was blind and said to him, “Give God the glory. We know that this man is a sinner.” He answered and said, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I do not know. One thing I know—that though I was blind, now I see.”

Then they said to him again, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” He answered them and said, “I told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” Then they reviled him and said, “You are his disciple, but we are Moses’ disciples. We know that God spoke to Moses. As for this fellow, we do not know where he is from.”

The man answered and said to them, “Why, this is a marvelous thing that you do not know where he is from yet he has opened my eyes. Now we know that God does not hear sinners. But if anyone is a worshipper of God and does his will, he hears him. Since the world began, it has been unheard of that anyone opened the eyes of one who was born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

They answered and said to him, “You were completely born in sins, and are you teaching us?” And they cast him out. Jesus heard that they had cast him out. And when he had found him, he said to him, “Do you believe in the Son of God?” He answered and said, “Who is he, Lord, that I may believe in him?” And Jesus said to him, “You have both seen him, and it is he who is talking with you.” Then he said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped him.

Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world that those who do not see may see, that those who see may be made blind.” Then some of the Pharisees who were with him heard these words and said to him, “Are we blind also?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin. But now you say, we see.” Therefore, your sin remains.

Let’s pray.

Father, give us sight. Help us, Father, to see the true nature of this wonderful narrative. We thank you for John chapter 9 and pray that you would open our eyes, Lord God, to behold wondrous things out of your word—that we might give you glory and praise, that we may be transformed and built up as people of the Lord Jesus Christ who are sent into this world. Help us, Father, to go forth from this place sent with an increased commitment to witness to the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ in everything we do and say. In his name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

Proverbs 4:18 says, “The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter till the full light of day.” By the providence of God, we are at this season where the light lengthens every day. By the providence of God, we’ve come to Trinity Sunday, and it is the Trinity that is pictured by this increasing light in the world in which we live.

The Lord Jesus Christ is the light of the world. This is declared in John chapters 8-10. That is the section that we find ourselves in the midst of. This narrative from John chapter 9 has great significance for understanding John chapter 10. This man who is cast out of the synagogue is one of the sheep who hear the voice of Jesus in John chapter 10, the true shepherd, and come forth into his fold. Jesus is the great shepherd, the true shepherd and ruler of his people.

That’s what a shepherd did in the Old Testament—was to rule. The rulers of the Pharisees are judged in the context of John 9 and Jesus declares that he is the true shepherd and that the Pharisees are blind guides of the blind. The Pharisees are thieves and destroyers of the sheep. So nine and 10 are directly connected. And as with eight where Jesus declared himself to be the light of the world, we have this exposition of what it means—this increasing light of the Lord Jesus Christ that dawns upon this man born in utter darkness, a picture of the darkness of sin.

We’ll just deal with the first half of John chapter 9 today, reaching the climactic point which I think is at the center, the heart of this narrative. We’ll conclude John 9 two weeks from today. Next week I’ll be preaching in Salem. Please pray for the church in Salem as they think through their direction—what the light of God would shine upon them as they make decisions about the future. Should they begin to look for a pastor now or what should they do? I’ll be in extensive discussions with the men after church as well. So please pray for me in my absence next Lord’s Day.

Okay, and then you can continue to study the last half of our outline that was provided via email on Thursday as well as in printed form today for the sermon in two weeks. And then we’ll move on to John chapter 10.

But today we want to talk about this blind man. You know, the Samaritan woman at the well—we talked then about the progression, this dawning of the light on her through her discourse with the Lord Jesus Christ till at the end she and all the men of the village say he’s the Savior of the world. Well, the same kind of progression happens with this blind man in our narrative today. At first, he refers to him in verse 11 as a man—a man called Jesus. In verse 17, he identifies him as a prophet. In verses 31-33, he says he’s a man that is of God. Surely, he obeys God and prays to him and his prayer is answered because of his obedience and worship. And then finally, the culmination of the narrative is the declaration by the man that this is indeed the Son of God. He worships the Lord Jesus Christ and believes upon his full divinity.

And so we have this increasing light that should be our goal and desire with the rest of our lives—to grow in an awareness of the light of the Lord Jesus Christ and its application to every area of our lives. God gives us a tremendous light through the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ that’s to illuminate all of our lives. All of our understanding is to be seen in the context of the light of the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is a beautifully developed narrative that speaks about this.

But it’s interesting to note before we get into the text itself that the man—this increasing light begins with a simple act of obedience on the man’s part. In his darkness, Jesus comes to him, anoints him, and tells him to go wash, and he washes. Simple obedience is how the light of the Lord Jesus Christ grows in the context of our life. Oh, how many of us want light before we get obedience. But Jesus says here and throughout the scriptures that obedience precedes light and obedience is the way we get more light. We don’t understand things first. We obey them first.

We come to this supper here this afternoon not understanding the implications of what we do surely in its fullness. It’s mysterious. But we come obediently doing the will of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit blesses us with grace from on high. And we grow in an appreciation of his truth and his life. We become like this man—beginning in total blindness at the end, happy, happy, joyous man that he is. Now, it’s happiness in the context of difficulties, but he understands how all of these difficulties at the end of all this is moving for his well-being.

One commentator put it this way: “We cannot but envy you, oh happy man, who the Lord’s patient was privileged to become his advocate—who was the Lord’s patient and was privileged to become his advocate.” May we come together today as the Lord’s patients and understand that we are being called and sent forth from this place to be his advocates as this man’s gaining physical sight made way for spiritual sight. May we see this progression in our own lives. May we understand that the light that comes to our eyes is a pale foreshadowing of the light of spiritual insight and truth.

Who lost the synagogue but found heaven—who was kicked out from a den of thieves and serpents, sons of serpents, snakes, lost the synagogue but found heaven. Who abandoned by sinners was welcomed and embraced by the Lord of glory. Oh, this is our wonderful state in the world as we come to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as well. And this narrative should give us great joy in our Christian life, understanding the significance of it and what has happened.

As we said, we’ll continue speaking about this narrative in two weeks and then again as we go into chapter 10 as Jesus is the good shepherd.

Now the text begins with kind of a setup or an introduction, and this is Roman numeral one on your outline—blindness and sin—the first few verses, 1 to 5. This sort of introduces what’s going to be the central action of healing and then the conflict that happens. The basic idea of our sermon is that we have revelation again here of who Jesus is. There is crisis—that’s the Greek word krisis that is translated judgment that Jesus refers to at the end of the text. He has come to bring judgment to the world, crisis to the world. When Jesus comes, he always comes and brings a crisis to people. It brings division. He brings evaluation. And that this revelation and crisis happen in the context of witness.

Witness is central to this text. Shall we witness without equivocation to the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ? Or shall we through our complacency and pride like the Pharisees reject him? Or shall we through the equivocation and fear of the parents not give full witness to the Lord Jesus Christ?

The blind man is a picture of all that come to salvation and the blind man is empowered by the spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ to speak boldly and witness for him. Now we can have long discussions about who’s to do the work of evangelism in the church. But surely here this simple man born blind brought to physical sight witnesses to the Lord Jesus Christ. And it would be a horror to speak about this text and not speak about the need for our witness in the context of a correct application of the text.

Our witness to who Jesus is—as we go into this next week, Jesus reveals himself today to you. And he says, “A crisis has come upon you, a judgment. Which road will you walk down? The road of fear, the road of pride, or the road of obedience—the road of death, or the road of life?” And all this is sort of set up for us in the first five verses. And the narrative is clearly described here for us, is it not? Because at the beginning of the narrative the disciples ask the question—you know, for whose sin is the man blind? Him or his parents? And they don’t believe in reincarnation but maybe he sinned in the womb and so was born blind—imputation of the parents’ sin, et cetera. So it’s a question of sin and blindness. And at the end of the text the very last few verses, Jesus returns to that same theme, does he not? The judgment that he’s come is to say that if you think you can see you’re blind and if you understand your blindness then you can see.

So Jesus sees this relationship between sin and blindness and he says: if you thought you were blind then you could see. The Pharisees said, “Are we blind too?” He says, “Well, if you knew you were blind then you could see like this man—sins forgiven. But because you think you see now you’re blind and your sins remain upon you.” So Jesus relates it back to sin and blindness.

So clearly this narrative gives us a theme of the relationship that we’re going to see develop in the text between blindness, sin, and then the remission of sin in the context of salvation.

So this structure gives us an understanding that we certainly have bookends to the text and it begins then. We then ask perhaps there is a center to this text and of course I believe there is and we’ll see that as we continue to go on.

Now notice here before we leave this portion of the text that the disciples—you know, when you read a narrative like this you always want to say where am I in the narrative? Who am I? Well, you can identify with the blind man, but we also come together today not as those who are coming to initial faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We come together as those who are disciples of the Lord Jesus, right? There are neighbors in this text, there are the Pharisees in the text, there are the parents in the text, there’s the man born blind, but then there are also the disciples at the very beginning.

Like a lot of John’s narratives, the disciples really are not very prominent here. But here they’re mentioned and they ask a question that is interesting to me at least, and I hope it is to you. They seem to have this idea that there is a direct one-to-one correspondence between sin and particular judgments. This man must have done particular actions of sin and that’s why he is suffering the way he does.

Now this is repeated by the Pharisees at the end of the text in verse 34. They say to him in their rage, “You were completely born in sins and are you teaching us now?” No, notice what that does. That links together. See, the Pharisees are saying, “Well, you were born blind. Obviously, you were born in sins and your sins are worse than our sins. That’s why you’re blind. So, get out of here.” And they kick him out.

Well, the disciples, you and I, dear brothers and sisters of the Lord, we have these same initial reactions. We see people suffering with blindness or whatever it is, and we think, “Well, there’s some sin going on in their life.” Jesus corrects our attitude on that. But understand that if we see ourselves in the narrative, we’re not that far different from the Pharisees who expelled the man from the synagogue. Jesus’s disciples have the same line of reasoning and so do we more often than not.

The light that Jesus brings shines light on this question as well: Why do particular actions happen? Why is suffering going on? What Jesus tells him here is this—is for the glory of God. This is that God’s works might be manifest. It’s not because of their sin. They didn’t sin. Now, he’s not saying they never sin, but he’s saying there’s no direct correlation between their sin and blindness.

So, Jesus corrects us. Jesus brings light to us as his disciples. Whenever we enter into an activity, we are really usually we begin it sort of in the flesh. The difference though between the disciples and the Pharisees is key. I mean, we’re going to have some of the same reactions as unbelievers, but the difference is the disciples do the right thing. They don’t sit back there and slander the man speaking of his previous sin. They take their initial understanding of the situation to Jesus Christ for clarification. You see that? They have a question—something they think is going on here. He sinned. That’s why this happened. But they bring that to the Lord Jesus Christ and the light of the Savior for clarification.

And what we do in life—part of Jesus being the light of the world is he’s going to shed brightness and understanding upon our initial darkness. You know, we’re in transition. We’re moving from glory to glory. We’re like the righteous. As Proverbs says, the light is dawning on us more and more. And the way that works is when we take whatever we’re thinking about and bring it to the foot of the Savior, bring it to him, to his word, and to his people for clarification and more light.

You know, for instance, we had a meeting Wednesday night about starting a school, right? So, we want to start a school. Some of us do. Long-term goal, short-term, whatever it’s going to be. Well, let’s just do it. No, you don’t just do it. There’s a real joy to see a couple of people bring some books to the meeting. One on how to organize books. John S. bought some organizational books and Doug H. brought, you know, a bunch of stuff—philosophy, the Christian curriculum, other books on foundations of Christian scholarship, stuff to think through what we’re going to do because if we’re going to have a school, we don’t want it being a dark school. We want it to be shown, shined upon by the light of the Lord Jesus Christ and his word.

We want to think it through what sort of stuff we’re going to do. We want to talk about it. We want to shed some light on it because our initial reactions are probably not going to be quite right. We want to bring it to the light of the Lord Jesus Christ. Pray about it and think about it. And I hope that as the discussions continue at family camp that action steps are created, people are assigned tasks. I’ve decided somebody else ought to chair these meetings. I’m not going to do them anymore, but whoever chairs these meetings, you know, it’s important that we understand the necessity to bring everything as the disciples do here correctly to the Lord Jesus Christ for clarification.

And Jesus in his clarifying tells them an important truth. He tells them that our trials are for the glory of God—that his works might be manifested in us. I mean, God made this man blind. That’s clearly the implication. Exodus 4:11 says, “Who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not the Lord?” Yeah, of course God has. God does it for his purposes. He told Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you. My strength is made perfect in weakness.”

Oh, dear ones, I know some of you are struggling. Got a family, you know, wife. I don’t know if she’s going to get out today or not. Jennifer, big trials, big physical difficulties, struggles. Some of you are struggling with your children. Some of you are struggling with your money. Some of you are struggling with your health. Some of you are struggling with all those things all wrapped up together. You wonder what’s going on? Why doesn’t Jesus make it easier? Well, his strength is perfected in your weakness.

God gives us these things. God made this man blind that the works of God might be manifest in him—that you might be able not just to endure, but get to a point of seeing the light of the Lord Jesus Christ cast of the situation and seeing the mediation of the trial or grief that you might be in the context of for the glory of God. God says that this is who we are. The Lord Jesus Christ has come to perform his works in the context of our life and to bring us to grace in the context of difficulties in the world.

Now, this is Trinity Sunday and what we’ve got here in this narrative is a wonderful picture of the Trinity. Jesus tells these disciples that he has come to do the work of the one that sent him, right? Says that the works of God should be made manifest in him. “We must work the works of him that sent me while it is day.” Who is the one that sent Jesus? It is the Father. What did chapter one of John tell us? Jesus has come. No one has seen the Father at any time but the only begotten—he has come to explain him, to declare him, to exegete him.

And what we have in John chapter nine is an exegesis of the Father—that the Father sends difficulties in our lives but provides the grace sufficient to turn that weakness into a strength for him and a strength for you and your witness in the world. That’s the Father’s good pleasure and the Son loves the Father. And what the Father’s works are the Son wants to do. This is that loving Son here who is turned perpetually to the Father who looks for opportunities to please his Father and to do his work.

He says we must work while it’s day. The night comes. Don’t get hung up in thinking about what that means yet. But recognize that first and foremost it means there’s a time of opportunity for the Lord Jesus Christ to do the Father’s will. And as he’s passing by a situation, he is looking for opportunities to do the will of his Father in heaven.

Oh, that God would give us sons in our families—families who had that kind of devotion and love for their fathers. And God would probably give us such sons if fathers who are sons of God in our homes would be looking for opportunities to serve the Lord Jesus Christ and to serve the Father and the power of the Son in all that they do and say.

This is the spirit-anointed Son. Of course, we don’t want to leave the Holy Spirit out on Trinity Sunday because we read again early in the chapters of John that Jesus is baptized. The spirit descends upon him and does not leave him. Jesus is the spirit-filled man of all spirit-filled men. And what we see in Jesus is this Holy Spirit of God motivating the Son of God empowering him to do the will of the Father. We’ve got a trinitarian work going on here in the context of this miracle. And God be praised today for his triune declaration of who he is.

This is what we’ve got. A loving, spirit-anointed Son looking for opportunities diligently making use of the time allotted. What did we say two weeks ago? Sloth and diligence. Here’s the Son doing work, going about his Father’s work, providing the example. He says here, I believe the correct reading is we must work the works of him. And what’s going on here is that—and this isn’t the only place, this is the beginning picture of this throughout this narrative and into the rest of this gospel—Jesus declares that we now are going to do that work.

Remember, he says that you’re the light of the world in Matthew. He’s the light of the world. You’re the light of the world. You’re sent as lights by him. You’re going to be sent to do the works of the Father while it’s day. You have a particular time of opportunity. Night approaches, dear ones. I’m 50 something now, and night approaches. Death begins to become visible on the horizon as you go past this age. You have a short period of time. You young people think it’s forever. It’s not. It goes quick, very quick.

There’s a day appointed for you in which you’re to do your work. And are you diligent in looking for the Father’s work to do? Will you be diligent this week in witnessing and testifying to the Lord Jesus Christ in fit opportunities to do so? Will you be diligent the way Jesus was diligent? We are called to do these works. We are the light of God in the context of the world. How does the light of God shine? It shines through us. Dearly beloved, the spirit-empowered children of God who are called to be lights in the midst of an otherwise dark world.

Jesus says that we are the light of the world. Ephesians 5:8 says, “You were once darkness—like that blind man, like the Pharisees, but now you’re light in the Lord. You’re the light of this world. Let your light shine in the context of this.” Do not be afraid, Ephesians says, of the works of darkness. Do not participate or have fellowship with the works of darkness. Rather, expose them the way they’re exposed here in the context of this narrative.

We are to be the empowered ones who carry the image and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Father and the Spirit in the context of the world. We are now the light of the world. We do the works of Christ and the Father in the light and power of the Holy Spirit.

Remember children, how do you snuff out your light? Grumbling and disputing. Philippians says, “Do all things without grumbling and disputing.” Uting—a lot of grumbling and disputing in the world all the time makes me sad and it diminishes our light, dear ones. And we allow ourselves to become grumblers and disputers. Philippians 2 isn’t written just to children. You know, we children learn to grumble and dispute because us parents teach them how to grumble and dispute and that’s a denial of our light in Christ. May God grant us repentance from grumbling and disputing. May he empower us for testimony with thankfulness and grace in the midst of whatever difficulty he puts in the context of our lives.

So this introduction sort of sets us up for the great things that are going to happen and reminds us that today is our day of opportunity. The night comes for us all. Look for opportunities like this one. Be diligent as the Lord Jesus Christ was diligent.

What does Jesus do? He engages in a physical sign. Then he gives physical sight to this blind man in the next couple of verses. Now once more there’s this idea that this kind of is paralleled at the bottom with another part of the structure. You know, we’ve got sin and blindness, sin and blindness. And then moving in toward what I think is the heart of the matter is we’ve got the physical sight given to the man and that’s going to correlate at the bottom with the spiritual sight that he receives and falls down and worships the Savior.

Now, it’s dawning on him throughout. We can think of him as being regenerated throughout. By the way, that’s another good point here. All this “point action, you got to become a Christian, know the date, time, second”—that’s goofed up. This text tells us that conversion happens over a period of time with this man. The light starts to dawn and it happens more and more and more. The Puritans knew this. They had books about this. The different ways God brings people to conversion through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ differ. It differs. And here this light shines gradually. But at the end, the spiritual sight that he receives is the image of this physical sight that he receives as well.

Now, it’s an odd thing that Jesus does. It’s an odd thing that Jesus does, but not really. He makes spit. I thought I’ve been thinking for several weeks about the spit of the Lord Jesus Christ. What is that? What is the deal? And it’s not just here, you know, in Mark chapter 7, there’s a deaf man, and he takes the deaf man, puts his fingers in his ears and spit and touched his tongue. Apparently, maybe spit on his fingers, spit on the man—I don’t know where he spit, but he spit and then he touched the man’s tongue.

I think he probably, you know, like that, put it on his tongue, healed his tongue because he was both deaf and he couldn’t speak well. So Jesus’s fingers open his ears and his spit on his hand on the tongue opens his mouth. And then in Mark chapter 8, a different blind man is healed. And here we read what do we read that Jesus in Mark chapter 8—we read, he took the blind man by the hand, let him out of the town. When he had spit on his eyes and put his hands on him, He asked him if he saw anything. So the other blind man, he actually spits on his eyes.

Well, that’s odd, unless we think of a couple of things here. Jesus tells the man to go to the pool of Siloam and then tells us that means sent. Very important insertion into the text for us. We’ll talk about that in a couple of minutes. But, you know, Siloam was this place that really meant—the word sent is what it’s translated as here, but it meant waters gush out of is kind of what it meant. It’s the same as Shiloh in the Old Testament. And the waters kind of gush out of here is the idea.

Jesus Christ has told us in John chapter 7 that he, you know, come to me if you’re thirsty. He’s the water of God. And water will flow out of you from the center of your being—of those who drink of Christ. And it explicitly tied that to the Holy Spirit coming out of us. So water in John’s gospel is a picture of the Holy Spirit, spirit. Remember that Jesus had his water baptism. The spirit descends upon him and stays upon him. So water is a picture of the advent, the coming upon things of the Spirit of God.

And the spirit of God hovers in the context of the waters of the original creation. Jesus here takes dirt, spits on it, spits on the dirt, makes clay, and in one commentary on this says that he then made eyes out of the clay and stuck them in the man’s head. You can actually read the Greek that way. I guess probably not the best reading, but it kind of gives you a picture of what’s going on here.

Man is formed of the dust of the ground and God breathes humidified air into the man and he becomes a living creature. The picture of us is that we’re born of the flesh and then through water baptism, the spirit of God cleanses us, regenerates us, and empowers us. And so I think what’s going on here with the spit of the Lord Jesus Christ is a picture of the Holy Spirit and the recreative acts of Christ in making a new man. Here he makes clay, taking dirt and water, new creation, applies it to his eyes, and he has brand new sight. New eyes are in this man’s head.

Lord Jesus Christ, I think, shows us here again—he’s doing the work of the Father, bringing about a new creation. That is the motif of John in the beginning, right? And he does it by representing the work of the Holy Spirit through water, his own water, his own Holy Spirit, a holy water. Here’s holy water right here. And the spirit is pictured in the context of that is effecting a new creation.

So the spirit of God effects a new creation through the work of this Son who loves the Father and loves him deeply. Jesus is the water of life and that water of life gives this man new sight. New sight. We are also a new creation of the water working and wind anointing Holy Spirit of God. The spirit of God comes upon us as well. And I think that it’s probably a good idea to connect this to our baptisms. And if what we have here is this connection of new sight, new creation to the application of water by the Son of God, in baptism in the church, we have representatives of the Lord Jesus Christ pouring upon people the water from above, the heavenly potter representing the work of the Holy Spirit and bringing people through cleansing of sin into regeneration.

I’m not making a case for the immediate regeneration of baptism, but I am saying that the gospel throughout it sees water as a very significant element and over and over again there are elements to baptism. And here it doesn’t just spit on the man. He then tells him to go wash—to be baptized in the context of the pool of Siloam. And I think we ought to think of it that way. The church has always done this. Tertullian began his work on baptism with this quote, “Happy is the sacrament of our water if that by washing away the sins of our early blindness, we are set free unto eternal life.” Augustine wrote this, “It is not sufficient for the catechumens to hear that the word was made flesh. Let them hasten to the labor if they seek light. Hasten to the labor if they seek light. May we quickly bring our children to the labor of God if we want them to grow up with the light of the Lord Jesus Christ being their light as well.

Now I said that this thing “sent” is important for us in understanding this narrative because Jesus—you know, the word of God tells us this is Shalom but Shalom means something here and the particular meaning the text tells us is that it means sent. Jesus says he has come to do the works of the Father. In John 17 in his prayer he says in his prayer to the Father that you sent me into the world. Jesus is Shiloh. Jesus is Shalom. He is the one that really is represented by the pool at Shiloh, as well as I said, Shalom in the New Testament is the same word as the Hebrew word Shiloh.

And in Genesis 49:10, we read, “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh comes. To him shall be the obedience of the people.” Shiloh’s come. That’s what this text is telling us. Jesus has been sent by the Father. He’s Siloam. He’s the sent one. He’s the one sent to effect the new creation and to effect our regeneration and forgiveness.

Not only that though, the disciples are also going to be a discharge of this water. As I said, this word can be translated a discharge of water. Not only is Jesus the sent one, but in that high priestly prayer where he tells the Father, you sent me into the world and I’m sending them into the world now and therefore I pray you might empower them. We are the sent ones as Jesus was the sent one. We are sent ones down to the world.

And so right away here, the man is sent. The blind man is sent to bear testimony to the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who is the sent of the Father. And so we are, as Jesus said, these rivers of living water—the Holy Spirit flow out of us. We’re sent into the world. You’ve come together today in the holy mountain of God. He’s come down to be with us. We’ve gone up to be with him. This is special time. This whole day is set apart for contemplation of these things. But tomorrow morning, your alarm clock goes off. You’re sent ones into the world. You’re a Shiloh under the great Shiloh. You’re little Shiloh flowing into the world. Jesus is the one sent from the Father and we the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, yeah, are sent ones also into the context of this world.

So, we’ve had this introduction. We’ve had this miracle that shows us the triune God at work—these beautiful relationships of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit affecting new creation, affecting physical sight being imaged by the spiritual sight at the end of the text. And after this revelation, so we’ve had a revelation in these first two sections of what’s going on in the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And this revelation now leads to a crisis.

You know, it’s like the four horsemen of the apocalypse. It’s always like that. Purity of the gospel comes forth. Next horse comes out and takes away peace from the earth, brings about war and division. Whenever Jesus does stuff, division happens. John chapter 5—healed a lame man who had been begging. This blind man had been begging. Heals a lame man in John chapter 5 and lots of discussion happen and everybody gets all upset. John chapter 6 feeds the 5,000. Big discussion, dissent about him. John chapter 7, feast of tabernacles—he does some neat stuff, proclaims who he is and people argue and division happens.

Well, here it comes. The rest of this text is really about the judgment that happens as a result of the purity of understanding what’s going on here. And we have an inquiry that goes on first. The parents—not the parents rather, the neighbors begin to ask him questions and the neighbors bring them then to the Pharisees. And then we learn in the context of this inquiry that this crisis, this judgment concerns once more, as it did in John chapter 5, the nature of the Sabbath of God.

These men get it woefully wrong. Again, what we find out is it was on the Sabbath that Jesus affected this. It’s what we’re doing today. Jesus is coming today and he’s anointing us with his word by the Holy Spirit and he’s helping us to see light in the context of our path. The Sabbath is the day of the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ, who he is, and then what will men do with him in the context of that revelation.

The Sabbath is the day we are visited by the recreating spirit working evaluation in our lives, causing us to come to repentance for our foolishness, resulting in the transformation of who we are or other path in the road is judgment, a negative judgment that comes upon the Pharisees in the context of this inquiry and their evaluation.

We will either be sent ones into the world tomorrow for the Lord Jesus Christ and having courage and boldness to witness to him or we will be judged. The crisis and evaluation was not the Pharisees alone. It is ours. Our life is a similar narrative to the one we’re reading here. God shines upon us today. He opens our eyes. He does Sabbath work. And will we obey him or not? Will we be courageous and witness or not? Will we look for opportunities this week, tomorrow morning, when the alarm clock sounds, will you see yourself as a sent one to do the works of the Father—whether it’s in your vocation, in your recreation, in your community, and certainly in the context of this text, in your witness to other people of the lordship of Jesus Christ and the truth of the triune God and the need for all men to worship him?

Saw before the Lord Jesus Christ. Once more, even in the inquiry, we have this renewed emphasis on clay, water, anointing. It’s not just a little thing in the text. It’s a big thing that gets repeated three, four times. Has great significance. Again, this image of new creation that’s going on has great significance.

Notice as well, the neighbors see a change in this man. This man is no longer a beggar. Now he’s doing different stuff. You come to the Lord Jesus Christ, he prepares you for vocation. He prepares you for work. He says, “You can go into the temple and worship. You’re healed to the purpose of worshiping God in the Lord’s day and also during the week through vocation.” And people should see that kind of difference in your life. The neighbors saw the difference. Repentance, regeneration brings a man into the public.

Now the next few points really I think are what I see out of them at least—are things again to draw us to the center. You know we have these bookends: sight and blindness and sin. And we had these next bookends: physical sight, spiritual sight. Then we have this evaluation that’s going to eventuate in Jesus’s judging the people and what’s going to happen. They’re going to throw the man out in the context of the synagogue. They’re going to make their evaluation. And then we have at the middle here some verses that are written in a particular way, I think, to cause us to focus on the middle.

The Pharisees first asked the blind man how he received his sight. Okay? And once more in the context of the answer, there’s an emphasis on clay, water, and sight. But they ask him first how he did it, how it happened. Then they say they affirm that they think that Jesus is a sinner. Then they bring his parents in for the evaluation. And after that they tell the man again after he comes back that Jesus is a sinner. And then they ask the man again how it happened.

So they say, “How did it happen guy?” Then they tell the man Jesus is a sinner. Then they bring the parents in. Then they go back. They bring the man back in, say Jesus is a sinner. And then they ask again how it happened. God is drawing our attention to the heart of this matter. I believe at least by way of our application today to a heart of this narrative.

And so this form in which this is given—how did it happen and then asserting that he’s a sinner—brings us to a central point of this. And as I said it also shows us that Jesus works division. And that’s very much highlighted in the “is Jesus a sinner” verses 16 and 17. Division happens. Some say one thing, others says the other. “And there was a division among them.” Jesus brings division. He brings a crisis in the context of his revelation.

And then the Pharisees bring in his parents. Now, you’ll remember that I said that in John chapter 5, the center of that narrative of the healing of the lame man had a heart to it. The heart of that narrative was that it happened on a Sabbath day. If you look at the structure of John 5, the narrative structure, the very center is the Sabbath. It taught us what the Sabbath was. John chapter 6 begins at the feeding of the 5,000. And the heart of that matter was this odd phrase that there’s much grass right at the center of the narrative. If you look at the way it’s structured and it draws our attention to the fact that the feeding of the 5,000, you know, is the great shepherd coming and being with his sheep and compelling us to recline in green grass—Psalm 23. It’s what it’s about. And he tells us that when we meet on the mountain with him, he’s going to cause us to rest and recline in him.

He’s going to say, “I know you messed up. I know you’re like my disciples. You did the wrong thing. You thought it was sin that brought about this man’s judgement. You thought this, you thought that. I know you’re repentant of all that stuff. Lay down. I’m going to feed you now. Rest in my finished work.” And then we saw that the heart of the narrative in the crossing of the sea was the aloneness of the disciples out there rowing all night long without Jesus. Tomorrow it’s going to feel like that. The people that have difficulties, trials, and tribulations—the special presence means there’s an absence of special presence tomorrow as we go into the week. But we keep rowing knowing that Jesus is looking on us from heaven like he did from the shore to those men crossing that big sea rowing all night long. Jesus is with us praying and then Jesus will come and immediately we’re at our Capernaum. We’re at our port of rest and comfort.

Saw a heart to that narrative. We saw the heart of the narrative in his explanation of the sermon on the mount was that he was the greater Joseph that they rejected. They rejected specifically the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ asserting his humanity only. And that was the heart of the narrative. We come to the table being fed by the triune God. And Jesus is fully God. He is the greater Joseph. Give him his own flesh as life for all the world.

And I think that the way this narrative is structured, it’s taking us right to a heart as well, at least one of the central themes. There’s a theme at the end, which we’ll talk about in a couple of weeks, a climax there. But today, what is the heart of this text?

See, the parents equivocate. And when you first read my little outline, they think, “Well, now what is wait a minute?” All the parents said is, “Go ask my son.” That’s not a bad thing to say. But you see, right at the heart of this text, we have an obvious structural device. They say at the end of verse 21, “he is of age. Ask him, he shall speak for himself.” Verse 22 tells us why they did this. And then verse 23 goes right back to the parents saying—and it says this is why they said what they said about the Lord—about go ask him, he is of age, let him speak for himself.

So they say something. The reason they say something is given and then they say that thing. Now that’s the very center, I think, the heart of this text. That’s where these bookends that have been obviously structured together to bring us to an understanding of the heart leads us to. And that’s why we can say that the parents’ declaration was equivocation. It was not bearing witness to the truth as they knew it because the text tells us explicitly that the reason the parents said this is not because it was true and it was the right thing to do and their son really was the one who should be asked.

No, the text tells us explicitly: “these words spake his parents because they feared the Jews. For the Jews had agreed already that if any man did not or any man did confess that he was Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue.”

It is the fear of man at the heart of this narrative that produces a less than truthful witness to Jesus Christ and his actions in the world. The parents are liars and because of their fear, because of their lack of holy boldness, they fail to give witness to the Lord Jesus Christ.

I said that this text is a text about revelation of who Jesus is. And then it’s a text about crisis, evaluation, and judgment. And I said that all of this focuses upon witness. The witness of the blind man is emphasized here. And the equivocating, less than full failed witness of the parents is given to us to be a great warning to us against the fear of men.

It’s my belief. I believe at the heart of this narrative is that tremendous emphasis. We’ll talk more about this a couple weeks, but right after the man comes back, we’re amazed at his holy boldness, are we not? He starts almost making fun of him and being sarcastic. That’s what God does to you, Christian. God brings the light of his Holy Spirit upon you, empowers you. You’re not a weakling. You’re not a coward. You’re not a fearer of man. You’re a bold lion. That’s what we need to see ourselves at.

When that clock goes off tomorrow morning and you’re the sent one of Jesus Christ, you’re to see yourself sent not with the fear of man, but the fear of God, with a holy boldness before God to preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ in the very way you go about doing your vocation correctly and in a God-honoring way. And when you look for opportunities, speaking a word that Jesus Christ is the Lord of this earth and calling men to worship him, dear ones, we need badly to repent of our fear of men—to our fear of being, our desire rather to be men pleasers.

Now that’s not the only sin around. The Pharisees, their fear of men is a little different. They have a complacency and a pride. We’ll talk about that in a couple of weeks. But today, the great example for us that we do not want to be like our parents. I refer to the blind man here as Neo. It’s almost you can see the old generation, old Adam. Their equivocation is a picture of what Adam and Eve did in the garden—our first parents who were sinners. Our Adamic nature tends us to that way. We wish we could say we don’t see ourselves as the parents, but we can.

You think, you think about opportunities that you lost, you missed. The night has come for that particular time in your life to speak to the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ and the application of his word to other people. You think about it. You think about your fear of people. You’ve got it. You inherited it from Adam. And as a result, you inherited lying from him. Equivocation. What these parents do is a lie. It is a lie to fail to witness to the true truth in response to the questions of these Pharisees. These parents are cowards and liars. That’s who I am. That’s who you are in Adam.

But God says we are newborn. We are not Mr. Anderson anymore. We are now Neo. We are new creatures in the Lord Jesus Christ. And God does not give us a spirit of timidity or fear, but one of boldness because of his great love for us.

The Bible warns us over and over again, “the fear of man is a snare.” We talked about the structure of the proverbs. He said at the center of these sayings of the wise and the way the sayings of the wise concluded was this exhortation against sloth two weeks ago, right? Well, then the next section of proverbs—the next the last major section of Solomon’s proverbs before we get to Agur and Lemuel in 30 and 31—is Hezekiah’s collection put together a couple hundred years after Solomon died. And they have a climax to them, too. You know what their climax is? It’s what we’re talking about today. It’s found in chapter 29. The last three verses before you get to Agur’s sayings.

Proverbs 29:25-27 says, “The fear of man brings a snare. But whoever trusts in the Lord shall be saved.” These parents were snared. They were caught. And maybe they repented later, but if not, they’re in hell because of their failure to give testimony to the Lord Jesus Christ through fear of men.

Verse 26. “Many seek the ruler’s favor. But justice for man comes from the Lord.” These parents sought the ruler’s favor, forgetting that true justice comes from Yahweh. Jesus is going to issue proclamation and judgment. At the end of this text, he says, “For judgment, I’m coming to the world.” He judges those parents for their cowardliness and fear.

Verse 27, “An unjust man is an abomination to the righteous. He who is upright in the way is an abomination to the wicked.” The blind man is the picture of the new creation in Christ and he was an abomination to the wicked. They couldn’t stand him and they kicked him out of the synagogue. Good for him. Calvin says that when Luther was first coming into the light of the Reformation, what he needed was to be kicked out and excommunicated because otherwise he might have gotten trapped back in that doctrine.

I know a Christian man became a Christian through the work of a group in Poland and him and his wife and the work the particular ministry foolishly advised the wife to remain in the Roman Catholic Church. She stayed there and went back. The attack of Catholicism took the kids and now the kids are being raised in the context of an idolatrous and magic-seeking Catholic church in Poland. That is awful. The woman is apostasized. She’s gone bad. Good for us to be kicked out of places that hate Jesus Christ. Good for us to be abominations so-called by people that hate the Lord Jesus Christ.

“He who is upright in the way is the man.” And the parents are the ones who were unjust in their treatment of the Lord Jesus Christ and what he had accomplished for their son and they are an abomination to the righteous. That Hezekiah’s collection, one of the last collections of Psalms, major section of the proverbs, comes to an end with proverbs that seem to talk directly about the situation and certainly are all about the fear of men, trying to please men instead of pleasing God and the dire effects that come upon people because of it. Brings a snare. Dearly beloved, repent of it. Ask God for power.

Psalm 27, “the Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear?” How do we get over fear? By recognizing the truth of the light of the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s what’s going on as he’s bringing us into increasing light. He is our light. He is our salvation.

One problem we have in the Christian church—if we’ve identified salvation as deliverance from hell and that’s the end of it. You cannot sing the psalms that we sing week after week without beginning to glean a little understanding that salvation is not just not going to hell. It is the destruction of God’s enemies and your enemies as they hate you because of Christ. Salvation is always—nearly always in the Psalms related to the destruction of our enemies. And that’s what it is here in Psalm 27. “The Lord is my light, my salvation. Who shall I fear? Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked came against me, he my flesh, my enemies and foes. They stumbled and fell.”

Salvation is the destruction of the Pharisees. “For judgment, he’s come into the world.” See, if we understood salvation that way, then where is the fear of man in the context of that? Why would we be fearful and try to please somebody who is going to be judged by God—consigned temporal judgments and then if he fails to repent eternal judgments? God says don’t fear man. That’s what holds us back from saying the words “Jesus Christ is Lord” to our neighbors, our co-workers, our friends, and others that God provides us opportunities to say them to.

Isaiah 51 says, “Listen to me, you who know righteousness. You people in whose heart is my law. Do not fear the reproach of men, nor be afraid of their insults, for the moth will eat them up like a garment. The worm will eat them like wool, but my righteousness will be forever. My salvation from generation to generation—the basis for our confidence and lack of fear of men—is a sure knowledge of the King’s judgments that fill the world.”

Verse 12 of Isaiah 51. “I even I am he who comforts you. Who are you that you should be afraid of a man who will die? The comfort of God, the assurance of his love today gives us a holy boldness before him. Who are you to be afraid of the son of man who will be made like grass?”

Then verse 11, “of whom you have and of whom have you been afraid or feared that you have lied and not remembered me nor taken it to heart? Is it not because I’ve held my peace from of old that you do not fear me?” He says here, “The fear of men lead you to lie and not remember me. And the fear of men caused his the blind man’s parents to lie and not remember Christ and what he had done for their children.”

You know, in the Gospel of Luke, we’re told a rather scary thing. Verse 8, “I say to you, whoever confesses me before men, him the Son of God also will confess before the angels of God. But he who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God.”

Now, do you believe that? That’s the word of God. The red letter word of God. Jesus’s own word. Of course, the whole Bible is, but there’s Jesus talking here. You deny him before men like his parents denied him before men. And he says he will deny you before the Father. Jesus says that witness of him isn’t an option. You have to witness to him. And why would you not fear of men? You got to cast out fear of men and you with a holy fear of almighty God. And the gospels tell us that.

Why would you fear the one who can destroy your body? Yeah, he can do that. He can kick you out of the synagogue. He can even hang you. But why would you fear him as opposed to the one who can cast you into eternal death and damnation of eternal suffering and hell? He’s the one we must fear. And in that righteous, reverential fear and love for what he has done in our lives, we should bear full witness to the Lord Jesus Christ.

John chapter 12: “Many of the rulers believed in him, but because of the Pharisees, they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue.” Same thing is repeated several chapters later. The fear of men, the fear of men in power—even men in power in the context of the church—cast a snare to these people. They believed on him. But remember that in John’s gospel, that doesn’t mean they’re going to heaven. Means they had intellectual ascent. The end Jesus goes to the blind man and says, “Do you believe on me?” Not in me. Not intellectual knowledge. Do you trust and commit yourself to me? These spare these men did not. They had an intellectual ascent. They knew who he was, but they wouldn’t act on it because of the fear of man. They denied him before men. God denied him. Jesus then denies such a one before the Father.

Revelation 21:7 and 8 says this: there. It lists some people. Well, first it says “to overcome. And if you overcome, you’re going to inherit all things. I’ll be his God. He should be my son.” And then he gives a list of people that have a part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. Here’s a list of the sort of people that are going to be in hell. In this list are the unbelieving, the abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, and idolators. That’s the middle of the list. The beginning of the list are the cowardly. And the end of the list are liars. The cowardly and liars formed the beginning and end of the list of people that have their place not in heaven. They didn’t overcome their cowardliness and their equivocation for the Lord Jesus Christ. Rather, they’re assigned a place in the lake that burns forever and ever. They’re assigned a place in hell.

Now, Peter is an example to us. He denied the Savior three times—the Savior’s movement toward the cross. And you and I have denied Jesus this many more times than that. We’ve equivocated on our Christian testimony. We have failed to look for the opportunities as the Son looked for the opportunities to be spirit-empowered witness of the Father’s works. We’ve done it over and over.

We repent of those things, don’t we? Would you come forward today? Come forward repenting of your failures to be a witness for the Lord Jesus Christ. Recognize that the word of God has come upon you today. Jesus has revealed himself as the light of the world and as the one who has come to bring judgment—to say to some you’re on the wrong path, say to others, this is the path of blessing. May God transform us. May he make us truly the sent ones of him who are strong, courageous, fearing our Father in heaven who can cast us into hell—properly, reverentially fearing of God who is no buttercup but is a consuming fire—and our love for what the Lord Jesus Christ has done and bringing us to light. We can see ourselves in that blind man leaping for joy first with physical sight, but then with the great sight of the Lord Jesus Christ of the Messiah who comes to bring salvation. How can we deny him? We can’t. We’re going to be like that blind man this week, are we not? We’re going to be bold in our witness to the Lord Jesus Christ. We’re going to look for opportunities of the Father’s will, and we’re going to do the Father’s will with the spirit-empowered courage, boldness, and commitment that is befitting to saints of Christ.

Let’s pray.

Lord God, empower us for work this week. Empower us, Lord God, to seek out opportunities to testify to Jesus. Keep us from the fear of men which is indeed a deadly snare to us. Help us, Lord God, to have business transacted with you as we come forward offering ourselves to you once more. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.