Letters to the Prison - Week 99

Greetings!  We miss you.  We look forward to when we can return to worship God with you.  We’re continuing our study of John 9 and the heated conversation between the man born blind and the Jewish leaders who ask him to repeat his testimony about how Jesus restored his sight.  During the back-and-forth argument that ensues, the Jewish leaders say something interesting about Jesus:
•We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man [Jesus], we do not know where he comes from.” -John 9:29
Let’s be real for a minute.  These men know that God spoke to Moses the same way everyone else on the planet knows God spoke to Moses.  It’s recorded in Scripture (Exodus 3 and then for pretty much the rest of Moses’ life).  We saw earlier in our study, however, Jesus claiming that Moses wrote about Jesus:
•For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me.  -John 5:46
Jesus has already claimed to be the fulfillment of what Moses –as he was hearing from God—wrote.  So, these Jewish leaders have nowhere to go with their argument –at least nowhere that makes sense.  They can’t deny the miracle that has occurred.  The restoration of sight to the man born blind was a public event witnessed by numerous people.  Retreating to Moses isn’t going to work, either, since Moses would direct them back to Jesus.  But rather than point that out, the man born blind sticks with what he knows with certainty --His own experience of Jesus:
•“Why, this is an amazing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. 31 We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him. 32 Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” -John 9:30-33
The undeniable physical event gives credibility to the spiritual truth.  You can’t affirm the one without affirming the other, nor can you deny the one without denying the other.  Jesus speaks of this very thing elsewhere --and with another undeniable, public, physical miracle (Matthew 9:1-8).  The man born blind knows this because he has experienced it first-hand.  Later in our study, we’ll see Jesus saying things like this:
•If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; 38 but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”-John 10:37-38
This is as true for us today as it was back then.  We could argue (successfully!) for months about how logical and rational it is to believe that Jesus is God incarnate come to save sinners –and we will catch glimpses of such arguments along the way.  But nothing can top the empirical evidence of a transformed life.  The man born blind is a living testimony to this.  Believers:  What about our own testimony?  How has Jesus transformed our lives?  Is it evident?  What undeniable transformation can we point to in our own experience and say, “Jesus did that.”  Consider this, friends.  We’d love to hear your testimony!  Maybe someday soon!  We love you.

Dean A.