DO YOU BELIEVE IN THE SON OF MAN? JOHN 9:8-41 DAN BROOKS, PASTOR SUNDAY MORNING, JUNE 29, 2014

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1 DO YOU BELIEVE IN THE SON OF MAN? JOHN 9:8-41 DAN BROOKS, PASTOR SUNDAY MORNING, JUNE 29, 2014 INTRODUCTION The eye may be the most fascinating organ in the human body. The principles are simple, but the system is spectacularly complex. The individual components of the eye work in a manner similar to a camera. Each part plays a vital role in providing clear vision. So think of the eye as a camera with the cornea, behaving much like a lens cover. As the eye's main focusing element, the cornea takes widely diverging rays of light and bends them through the pupil, the dark, round opening in the center of the colored iris. The iris and pupil act like the aperture of a camera. Next in line is the lens which acts like the lens in a camera, helping to focus light to the back of the eye.... The very back of the eye is lined with a layer called the retina which acts very much like the film of the camera. The retina is a membrane containing photoreceptor nerve cells that lines the inside back wall of the eye. [One source estimates that there are 96 million photoreceptors in the eye.] The photoreceptor nerve cells of the retina change the light rays into electrical impulses and send them through the optic nerve to the brain where an image is perceived. The optic nerve consists of a bundle of about one million nerve fibers. The center 10% of the retina is called the macula. This is responsible for your sharp vision, your reading vision. The peripheral retina is responsible for the peripheral vision. As with the camera, if the "film" is bad in the eye (i.e. the retina), no matter how good the rest of the eye is, you will not get a good picture. The human eye is remarkable. It accommodates to changing lighting conditions and focuses light rays originating from various distances from the eye. When all of the components of the eye function properly, light is converted to impulses and conveyed to the brain where an image is perceived. 1 Last Sunday we watched Jesus Christ miraculously remake all of that. The testimony of John the Apostle is that Jn 9:6 7 6 Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man s eyes with the mud 7 and said to him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing. You don t have to understand ophthalmology and the science of eyesight to grasp that this is spectacular. Even in our day with all the advances in medical science and human tissue transplants, we cannot transplant an eye. The more than 1 million nerve fibers connecting the eye to the brain make it nearly impossible. How could it be done? The most important question is not what happened or even how it happened, but Who has done this and why. I. THE REACTION TO GOD S SIGN A. Some are confused by what they see (8-12). 1. Is this not the man who used to sit and beg? a. It is he b. no, but he is like him. c. I am the man! 2. Then how were your eyes opened? (10) a. The man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said, God to Siloam and wash. 3. Where is he? a. I do not know 4. These folks are confused by what they see. So they go to those who have expertise in things spiritual and supernatural. 1 Taken from pasadenaeye.com

2 P a g e 2 B. Some refuse to believe what they see (13-34). 1. Prejudicial judgment dulls their understanding (16). a. Some of the Pharisees said, This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath We know that this man is a sinner. b. It would have been better to say, This man does not keep the oral traditions concerning the Sabbath law. c. Their understanding of keeping the Sabbath had led them into applications like this: 1) Healing on the Sabbath is forbidden. 2) Kneading of any kind is forbidden dough, in this case mud because it s work. 3) Anointing the eyes is also a violation because it too is work. d. Question: Is the point of the Sabbath simply a cessation of work or is the bigger point ordering your day so as to find rest for your soul and body? e. Their judgment is prejudiced by their tradition. f. Point: And so is ours. There is a Pharisee living in every one of us. That is why we must always submit even our firmly held traditions to the word of God. g. But others said, How can a man who is a sinner do such signs? 1) Remember that the word sign has reference to divine acts of God. 2) They know this is supernatural. h. And there was a division among them. 2. Stubborn refusal dims their understanding (17-23). a. They examine the man. 1) 17 What do you say about him? 2) He is a prophet b. They examine the parents. 1) 19b How then does he now see? 2) 20 His parents answered, We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. 3) 21 But how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself. 4) 22 (His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.) c. They cross-examine the man (24) 1) 24 Give glory to God... a) See Joshua s exhortation to Achan, give glory to the Lord God of Israel. b) They are sure that this man is withholding some piece of truth that will reconcile the discrepancy between the evidence of a miracle and the suspicion that according to their tradition Jesus has broken the Sabbath. 2) One thing I do know, that once I was blind but now I see a) You don t have to know one thing about the macula or photoreceptors or optic nerves to give this testimony. b) Decisive faith is characterized by the testimony of personal witness. Certainly countless Christians throughout the ages have applied the same words to their own transformation, their own experience of the move from darkness to light. 2 c) Point: Every follower of Jesus Christ can say something like this. You may not know much about Christian doctrine or apologetics. You certainly don t have to know the 2 D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter- Varsity Press; W.B. Eerdmans, 1991), 373.

3 P a g e 3 difference between infralapsarianism and supralapsarianism. But one thing you can declare to the world around you is this: I once was lost, but now am found; was blind but now I see! 3) What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes? a) The scientific answer is that if the man had all the necessary parts of his eye in place, Jesus had to refurbish them and align them and put them in working order. The cornea, iris, lens, macula, photoreceptors, the optic nerve and the blood vessels connected to them. b) No school of ophthalmology is teaching saliva & mudpack therapy today. c) The evidence stands clearly before them: divine power is present in the Person of Jesus Christ. d) And they won t acknowledge it. They are not simply obtuse; they are stubbornly refusing to listen. 4) 27 You would not listen a) A refusal to hear God as He speaks to you always results in greater spiritual darkness. b) To pray, God show me your will, while are refusing to do things that He has already made plain is no different from the response of these Pharisees at this moment. 5) Question: What are you refusing to practice that God has already revealed to you? This is what keeps you from receiving more light. 6) Stubborn refusal to listen and obey always dims our understanding. 3. Pride in position darkens their understanding (27-34). a. The arrogance of their response. 1) 27b Do you also want to become his disciples? 2) They reviled him: to insult strongly 3) A foreshadowing of the abuse Christ will endure. b. The arrogance of their pedigree. 1) You are his disciple 2) We are disciples of Moses 3) Check out our pedigree. Our theology and tradition can be traced all the way back to Moses. 4) We do not know where he comes from 5) With a touch of irony, the man says, Now here is an amazing thing! You do not know where he comes from and yet he opened my eyes! c. The arrogance of their self-perception. 1) You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us? (34) a) This is brutal! b) Your birth defect is an evidence of household sin. The fact that we were not born blind is evidence that we are not in utter sin. 2) They cast him out: to throw or drive out. a) This is more than sending him away in frustration. It is an act of communal expulsion, of religious shunning. b) It is the very thing that his parents feared would happen to them. 3) They are not simply driving away a man who has insulted them, they are driving away one of God s luminaries. 4) God is displaying His works in their midst in order that they might believe in Him and they throw him out.

4 P a g e 4 4. Question: Has God sent people into your life to bring the light of His truth and are you driving them away in the same fashion of these Pharisees? 5. Question: Is that you? Are you like the Pharisees? Refusing to believe the truth that God brings into your life? Refusing to acknowledge that Jesus Christ really is Lord? a. Some of you would rather maintain a religious and spiritual façade than to submit yourself to the lordship of Jesus Christ. b. Your tradition and façade may give you a feeling of security now, but they will be little comfort in that great day of judgment when you stand before God Almighty. C. One who professes because he sees (35-41). 1. Have you noticed the progression in his confession? a. 11 the man called Jesus b He is a prophet 2. Jesus calls us to believe the revelation of God s salvation (35). a. 35 do you believe in the Son of Man? 1) Why does our Lord use this title as part of the question? 2) John 5:27 Jesus stated that God has given him [Christ] authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. 3) Daniel 7: I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. 14 And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed. 4) This is the theological significance loaded into that title Son of Man. b. He is leading him to believe! 1) 36 Who is he, sir, that I may believe in Him? 2) 37b It is he who is speaking to you! 3) 38 Lord, I believe: (πιστεύω) 4) The man confesses that Jesus Christ is the Son of Man. 5) He confesses that Jesus Christ has the right to receive the dominion and glory and kingdom from the Ancient of Days. 6) He confesses that Jesus Christ has the authority to rule all peoples, nations and languages. 7) He confesses that Jesus Christ will rule forever and that His kingdom cannot be destroyed. c. This confession of his heart is a greater testimony to the authority of Jesus Christ than the seeing eyes in the once-darkened sockets of his head! d. Point: And so is your testimony of salvation! 3. Jesus seeks our worship as we find salvation (38). a. He worshipped him: (προσκυνέω) to do reverence or homage to someone, usually by kneeling or prostrating oneself before him. 3 b. He immediately responds in the way that Daniel declared as appropriate. c. All peoples... should serve him. implying submission and so giving honor and worship 4 :פּ ל ח 1) 2) If you believe that soccer is a beautiful game, you have probably spent a good deal of time in this past week arranging your schedule around key games at the World Cup. d. Point: There is always a connection between what we believe and what and how we worship. 3 Spiros Zodhiates, The Complete Word Study Dictionary: New Testament (Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 2000). 4 James Swanson, Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains: Aramaic (Old Testament) (Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997).

5 P a g e 5 II. e. If you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of Man, the Lord of All, then arranging all of life under Him is the only reasonable response of faith. f. Jesus Christ is calling you to worship Him today! 4. Jesus judges the world according to this offer of salvation (39) a. For judgment I came into this world b. What is the nature of this judgment? 1) That those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind. 2) The physical healing is a vivid parable of instruction. 3) When the Light of the World appears, He brings spiritual illumination and sight with Him. Those who know and admit that they need light will receive it in glorious, gracious abundance. 4) But those who do not believe or admit that they need the light of Christ will actually remain under and receive spiritual condemnation because they reject the true Light. 5) Christ will render an ultimate and eternal verdict on the basis of how you respond to this question: do you believe in the Son of Man? 6) 41 Jesus said to them, If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, We see, your guilt remains. APPLICATION A. Who do you most closely identify with in this story? 1. The neighbors who are confused 2. The Pharisees who refuse to believe what they clearly see 3. The parents who are more afraid of expulsion from the community than they are of not speaking the truth 4. The man who doesn t understand exactly how it happened, but just knows that now he sees and worships Jesus B. What does Jesus seek from you today? 1. Are you sincerely confessing that He is the Son of Man? 2. Are you actively worshiping Him because of the mercy He has shown you?