Gospel of John, 8:44-9:33

Alright, where did we leave off? Trust me, I know we left off somewhere. What's that? 7 and 8 on 14. 7 and 8 on 14. I think that's right. 8. 8. Okay. Boy, it seems like I've gone from 8 to 10 in two weeks in terms of my notes, so I'm cranking along. Lesson 14. No rest for the wicked. The question eight is the Jews with their pride could not conceive of themselves to be in bondage. How do they declare themselves to be free? And so that's okay. Verse 33 says that we are the Abraham's descendants and we have never been in bondage to anyone. How can you say you will be made free?

So how did they view themselves to be a free people? Descendants of Abraham, which made them separate from other nations. But believe it or not, I think that they're thinking that we're a free people, yet they were in total bondage to Rome. They thought that physical descent from Abraham was tantamount to spiritual freedom. Understand that? They thought that because they were Abraham's seed, physically, that they were somehow spiritually free. And they did not share Abraham's spiritual passion. They never thought that they were in bondage to any man, yet how many times were they taken off into bondage? At least two or three that I know of.

So, they live in abject darkness, so their assumptions are kind of like... I had lunch on Friday with a couple of guys I went to school with, and we had political conversations, and I'm amazed that If you're outside of Christ, the dark mind you have, you don't know, you don't perceive anything. You certainly don't realize that God is, or the Lord Jesus is the creator and sustainer. They think the Republicans or Democrats or somebody else is the sustainer. So, anyway. So how did Jesus reply to them? And they said, hey, we're free because we're Abraham's seed. What did he tell them?

Thirty-four. Assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave to sin." Now, what does that mean, being a slave to sin? If you commit sin, you're a slave to sin. That's the principle. So, don't we have this mental idea that that I'm really a free person and not a slave to sin, but I do slip once in a while and commit a sin. Don't you think that way? Well, the Lord Jesus said, no, you sin because you're a slave to sin.

I love, this is one of my favorite questions, when did you become a sinner? Nope. When did you become a sinner? When Adam sinned. So, you know, if the principle of like begets like in Genesis is true, then you commit sins because you're a sinner. So he's telling them that if you commit sins, you're a slave to sin. You can't do anything about it.

Well, so in what sense were they Abraham's seed and in what sense were they not? According to the flesh, they were Abraham's seed. They were Abraham's children, right? But morally and spiritually, before God, they weren't Abraham's seed. They were not the children of faith, which Abraham was the father of. See that? Okay. Verses 39 through 42. Let's read them and then I have a question. Somebody who's a good reader like Courtney, go ahead and read them. 39 through 42. Okay.

Then they answered and said to him, Abraham is our father. Jesus said to them, if you are Abraham's children, do the deeds of Abraham. But as it is, you are seeking to kill me, a man who has told you the truth which I heard from God. This Abraham did not do. You are doing the deeds of your father. They said to him, we were not born of fornication. We have one father, God. Jesus said to them, if God were your father, you would love me.

For I proceeded forth and have come from God. For I have not even come on my own initiative, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear my word. You are of your father the devil. You want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning. He does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. That's good.

So what Pauline principle is he talking about here? You understand what I mean by the question? What principle are we taught by the Apostle Paul that the Lord Jesus really is referring to here? What do you think it is? Life begets life. Life begets life. Or maybe the principle of identification. The offspring behaves exactly like the father.

If you look at Romans 5.12 it says that by one man sin entered the world and death by sin. and death passed upon all men for all men sinned in Adam. And from there it goes on to talk about that you behave like your father behaved before you. So you either come from one of two men. You either come from Adam the first or the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so the identification principles are there although not expanded. And what proved that they were not they were of the old Adam race, was that they wanted to kill Jesus, even though they supposed that Abraham was their father. And Jesus says to them, well, if Abraham really was your father, you wouldn't want to do that, because it's not part of what he was about. So it can't be a part of what you're about.

What did he say were the requirements to be a child of God in these verses? What did he say? If you love me, if God were your Father, you would love me, for I proceed forth and came from God, nor have I come of myself, but he that sent me." So you would love Jesus and you would have done the works of him. You see that? So we think in our minds that we can come from Adam and do the works of the Lord.

You can't. You know, why would he say to Nicodemus, you must be born again. That's the big reason is because you can't produce fruit from the wrong tree. Just can't do it. Well, I don't think the Jews understood that necessarily, but what he's saying to them, where you come from matters. Because if you show up on the scene from the first Adam, you don't have the freedom you think you have, and you really are just going to be a sinner. You can't do anything about that. Right? So what's got to happen? You have to somehow change fathers. That's really what's got to happen. You have to get a new nature. You have to get life.

So question 12, which comes first? Learning the definition of words or understanding the meaning of the words? What do you think? That's a tough question, isn't it? The answer is yes. What's that? The answer is yes. I said, which comes first? You've got to say yes.

The definition of the words or the understanding of the meaning of the words. Now, you can have the definition without really understanding the meaning, can't you? No. Yeah, but you have to define the word. I just think reverse of Darby. You know, he thinks you've got to learn the things first and then you learn the meaning of the word.

I have to look in a dictionary and find the meaning of it and then I can figure out what comes later. All right. First, first. Go ahead. Well, you know, Darby says, observe here that to understand the meaning of the word in the way to apprehend the force of the word, one does not learn the definition of words and then the things. Yeah. One learns the things and then the meaning of the words is evident. What did I just say? It made sense on Thursday when he read it the first time, right? I've read that four times this morning and I still can't get my hands on it.

If you look at 1 Corinthians 12, Paul says, Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not with words of man's wisdom, teaches us, by which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." Now probably what I should have put in the question was, Which comes first, learning spiritual definitions of words or understanding spiritual meanings? That's probably what I should have done. I'll have to change that for the next time. What was the citation on that? Because it's not 1 Corinthians 12. What did I say? 2.12. 2.12 and 13 and 14.

Knowledge of the truth. If you know a truth from the Word of God that's a spiritual truth, What does God require you to do? To understand it or to believe Him? Do you have to understand before you believe? No. You take God at His word first, right? He'll reveal something to you and it'll make enough sense for you to say, oh yeah, I see that somewhat, but I don't understand the total meaning of it. Right?

I guess the point that I'm after is that knowledge of the truth acquired through experience doesn't bring the liberty that Christ is talking about here. Knowledge itself is a condition upon abiding in His Word, which makes spiritual revelation prior in importance to experiential knowledge.

In other words, I may know and have read the identification truths. that I was crucified with Christ. And I get it. I mean, you know, although to my natural mind it seems, how could that possibly be that I died on the cross 2000 years ago, but God said it, so I buy it. And I say to him, OK, I believe you. How much understanding do I have? But as I abide in Christ and trust him with that, then he begins through his spirit to show me depths of that understanding that if I didn't believe it I'd never see.

I would never see. The fact that I am totally and completely from God's viewpoint separated from my Adamic old man and I don't have to subject myself or be in bondage to him anymore. I'm free from the world. I'm free from Satan's influence. Not his influence, but his power.

Is that true or isn't it? Well, we say, yeah, it's true. It's in the Word of God. Well, if it's so true and you buy it, how come you don't live it? Is that the difference between knowing and believing, though? No, I don't think so. Knowing in the sense that you have a much greater saturation of the facts maybe is a lot easier. The biggest distance is between your head and your heart. Knowing it and really believing it. You can know the identification truths, but do you believe it?

Yeah, and I think, you know, it's like when the Lord comes to a non-believer and says to him, basically, you're lost. You're separated from me, and here's my son who died on the cross for your sins, was buried and resurrected. Do you believe it?" He's not waiting for you to have this tremendous revelation of the truth. He's just saying, do you believe me or not?

If you say, yes, I do, I believe you, then from then on, the fullness of what that means is laid out for me in terms of understanding. Does that make sense? I think it's the same way with all spiritual truths. We learn to take God at his word even though it doesn't make a whole lot of sense sometimes. But we will believe him and as we move on we begin to see, oh yeah, I understand now way more than I did when I first just took him. Is there an understanding of what he means?

Sure. presents the Lord Jesus Christ as a savior, you've got it clear. If I believe in him, he promises he's going to save me. Okay. Save me from what? Well, whatever the situation was at the time, but the fullness of what he's done plays out over time. That's what I mean. So, okay.

I believe in order that I may understand marks the beginning of the Christian's intellectual life, according to Merrill Tenney, one of the original good Dallas guys. I'll read that again. He says, I believe in order that I may understand. Yeah, I think so.

Now, you can't say that about sociology. or politics, or math, science, it isn't a matter of faith, it's a matter just strictly of knowledge. We were talking Thursday night, we were studying Colossians, and we were talking about the warning that Paul gives believers, one of the warnings is don't let world philosophy come in and influence your mind. that the Lord Jesus Christ himself is to take up all of your thought process. Anything that comes from the world, slash philosophy, is not the truth. Well, I remember going up to Frontier School of the Bible with Bruce, and one of the things that dawned on me, every course they teach up there is Bible-based. And I thought, well, that's kind of weird. You're going to teach something, you know, why do you have to include the Bible?

Is Christ the truth or isn't He? Do you understand? And if I bring in worldly philosophy just because I think, well, that's a good concept, I can kind of slide that in next door and I'll be better off than, but no. No. That in Christ Jesus dwells the fullness of the Godhead. All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are in Him. You know, not in Harvard Graduate School. Sorry. Okay,

13. In verse 44, What does Jesus declare about the fatherhood of all men? What does he say about that? We've been virtually talking about that. That all men, originally, their father is the devil because they do his works. And it's the Genesis principle that like begets like. Like begets like in the animal world, although the evolutionists don't want you to believe that, but I've never seen a cow bird. Well, I guess I have. But that also holds in the spiritual realm, that like begets like.

And he says, because they are from a liar, they cannot receive the truth when they hear it. So if you're from sin, you cannot hear truth, unless the Spirit interrupts you. But these guys don't. Why do they care? If you're from the devil, then you're characterized by being an opposer of the truth. A liar abides not in the truth. There is no truth in you. If falsehood speaks, it's only belonging to him that speaks. I find it interesting that what Christ is really doing is contrasting himself with the devil. That's what he's saying. And the devil is a liar, and he's the truth. That's really what he's saying.

You cannot live in one world and perceive what's going on in the other. Well, I say that. You can't live in darkness and perceive what's going on in light. You can certainly live in light and perceive what's going on in darkness. I kind of asked the same question, and I did that probably to try to keep the continuity going.

Verse 44 says, You are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks his own, for he is a liar and the father of it. All men come into the world as sons of Adam. All men are sinners. All men have their father.

Really, that's what he's saying here, is the devil. And sin must have a source. Do you understand what I mean by that? What does it mean that sin's got to have a source? That's not a hard question. Come on. Alright. Did you become a sinner the first time you sinned? The first time you sinned, you sinned because you already were a sinner. The source was sin. Sin has got to have a source. I don't care what the One Nature guys say, that the old man was eradicated. You've got to have a source. So is the source the devil or Adam? It's the nature. It's the sin nature that we got from Adam. Well, can people take this and say, well, the devil made me do it? They can. They can. And he may well have been the chief influence.

The problem is, is you're responsible for your sins. You know, at the Great White Throne Judgment, the Lord isn't going to stand up there and say, you know, Jack, you were fooled there and you sinned, so we won't charge that one against you. No, no. So the issue is people love to talk about what sins are and what they're not.

We were talking at the elders meeting and we were thinking about maybe doing a class for singles, which would be kind of cool. The gift of being single. And Burns said, yeah, and one of the big questions when it comes to sex with singles is how far can you go before it's a sin? Well, once you bring up the issue, you're sinning, because only Adam would ask that question.

So, you know, if I stick my toe in the lake of sin, how far do I have to go in before I'm really sinning? Come on. You have to look at it the other way. I sin because of the source of sin, my Adamic nature. James says in chapter 1 that I am tempted by my own desires. Now maybe the temptation is something external to me, but where's the temptation coming at? It's coming at my desire. It's my desire, that's why I'm responsible.

So what does it take in order to hear God's Word, verse 47? What does it take for you to hear God's Word? To be of God. Yeah, you've got to be of Him. So, one must be of Him. Was it clear to the Jews that He was the Son of God? No. What do you think? By the way, I want to point out something here. This conversation between these Jewish people, the Pharisees and people, and Christ, from their perspective was really a derogatory thing. They were really trying to embarrass him by asking him, where's your lineage? Where did you come from? their credentials. We're from Abraham, you know, we're up two, three, four.

You know, it's like the people that drive around in Colorado with these signs that say they're, what are they, front, front, not frontier, what's the word I'm looking for? Or I can trace my descendants back to the Mayflower or Pioneer. The Pioneer plates, you know, like that's something special, you know. It is special if you have them. Yeah, it is special, yeah, because you paid 25 bucks to get them or whatever it is.

So the Jews are trying to establish before Christ that they have the perfect lineage. And they're insinuating because Jesus is, well, he just doesn't have what they have. And so his counter, they're trying to say, well, you probably might be illegitimate, Who is your father anyway, Joseph, and you're saying you're from God? What are you talking about? He counters by saying, your father's the devil, and I'm from God. They know what he means. They absolutely understand what he means, and it'll get more evident as we go on. He makes it clear who he is. He manifests himself as the Son of God, and God. They know that that's what he's saying. They're not fooled.

When a person in Christ speaks with one who is not in Christ, can there be spiritual understanding by the one outside of Christ? What do you think? They don't have the capacity. It isn't that they don't have a rational mind and can't reason and that kind of thing, but that 1 Corinthians 2 So, if you're speaking to a non-believer, what's the only subject you're going to talk about? Salvation. Salvation. Period. Nothing else. Nothing else. Because if they don't become saved and come into Christ and get a new life, I don't care.

And I've made that mistake. I can remember sitting in a restaurant having breakfast with a guy, a lawyer friend of mine, who wanted to talk to me about Christianity and I'm trying to tell him about identification. And he's looking at me like, you're crazy. He was right. It didn't dawn on me until later. It wasn't that he didn't want to understand. He couldn't understand what I was saying. I should have spent all of my time talking about Jesus Christ as Savior and gone nowhere else.

I think that's a mistake we make sometimes when we talk to non-believers, for sure, and sometimes with really young believers. We're way over here somewhere, theologically, and they're still back over here wanting to make sure that their salvation is solid, you know, or they have some basic issue. That's why that class that we teach, The Basic Doctrines of Salvation, is such a great class, because it cements one in the foundational truth. How many of you know what justification means?

Nobody put their hand up. How about redemption? How about righteousness? How about propitiation? I love that word. You know what it means? Who sang the song Satisfaction? Tina Turner. She knew. She knew she couldn't get any because she wasn't a believer. I don't know where that came from.

So the Lord is saying to the Jews, Jesus answered, I do not have a demon, but I honor my father and you dishonor me. See what he's saying? You guys are trying to dishonor me by accusing me of of being a bastard or I don't come from any lineage that's recognizable. I honor my father and you dishonor me, and I do not seek my own glory. There is one who seeks and judges.

Most assuredly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he shall never see death. What does that mean? Get your spiritual push-ups going if you don't want to die. What does that mean? If you keep his word you will never see death. What does it mean to keep his word? That's the first thing. What is his will? What is his will? It's real simple. What is God's will? That we believe, right? So if you keep his word, if you believe him, you won't ever see death. Now wait a minute. I know Courtney's going to die. He's just a hard liver. Unless the rapture comes. What's the word death mean? It means separation.

So if he says, if you keep my word, you'll never be separated from God himself. Because he's light and life. You will never be separated. You may physically die in the sense that you may physically leave this planet, but I'm here to tell you the two greatest days in a believer's life is the day saved and the day gets to go home. That's the biggest day because you're finally out of here. Hal Molloy, that story of Hal and his feet starting to move right at the end was so wonderful because that's what he was doing. I'm gone man, see ya.

So, what gave the Jews away as enemies? How did we know they were enemies? The Jews said to him, now we know that you have a demon. Abraham is dead and the prophets and you say if anyone keeps my word he shall never taste death. Are you greater than our father Abraham who is dead and the prophets are dead?

Who do you make yourself out to be? I should love that. Who are you? So, what gives them away? The Lord answers and said, If I honor myself, my honor is nothing. It is my father who honors me, of whom you say he is your God." Now, how tough is that to understand what he's saying? My father is your God? Uh-oh. They're not happy about that.

Yet you have not known him, but I know him, and if I say I do not know him, I shall be a liar like you. but I do know him and keep his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day and he saw it and was glad." So, how did the Jews give themselves away? They had no spiritual understanding. That's right. They didn't. They're children of the enemy and they're embodied to sin and the law. Then the Jews in 58, then the Jews said to him, You are not yet fifty years old and you have seen Abraham. Verse 58, is this a plain enough statement? Oh, 58 and 59. And Jesus said to them, Most assuredly I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.

You know what the I am is? You hear it all the time. The Greek I am. Ego eimi. You know what that means? I am. I'm the preexistent one. If you stood in front of a Jew and made that statement, you are claiming to be God. Before Abraham was, Ego Emi. And he says it a lot in these verses. Ego Emi is the simplest and most emphatic way to claim to be God.

Because what did God say to Abraham on the mountain? When he says, who should I say? I'm not Abraham, I'm Moses on the mountain. Who should I say sent me? Yeah, Ego Emi. That's what he said. He said, you tell them Ego Emi. Even Pharaoh understands that. Ego Emi.

So, there's no doubt, there's no spiritual understanding in the Jews' mind, but there's no doubt in their mind who Jesus is claiming to be. Now, when you live in an environment and society like Judaism and the nation of Israel. And there are prophets and God and the law are the center of your culture and your life, your religion. Everything is curtailed around that. People are always on the lookout for people who claim to be something they aren't. If you claim to be a prophet in Israel, And you weren't.

What did they do? They stoned you to death. They didn't fool around with you. They got rid of you. Not that they didn't expect prophets to be around. They did. But you better not come around and say you're one and not be able to prove that you're one. Here's the Lord Jesus saying, well, ego eimi. I am that I am. What do you think their reaction is?

The guy's a blasphemer. Has to be. We don't have any spiritual understanding about who he is. He has to be a blasphemer. We can't let things go by like this. Then they took up stones to throw at him. Immediate reaction. But Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple going through the midst of them so he passed by. So he walked right through them. Just walked right through them. They couldn't touch him. a mental lapse, a senior moment, and when they came back they said, geez, gone, what do I do with this rock? Well, they're blinded and I think they're still, they've still got that veil over them. Oh, they have the veil, then there's no question about it.

I think they sort of recognize that he may be true, maybe we better err on the safe side. I find it interesting, Jews are very excitable people, lots of emotion. And when they pick up rocks, they are all picking them up. And it's like when they go read Acts about stoning Stephen. I mean, that was a highly charged emotional event. Same thing here. I mean, they're going to get him. Yet he walks right through them. And I'm picturing the Jews with all these rocks in their hands. And when they come back to consciousness, there's no Jesus to throw them at. He's gone. You would think so. But I mean, look at all the miracles he did and they just didn't believe him.

Okay. Okay. We're moving on to chapter nine. See, I told you we're moving. Yes, sir. Before you go on to that, you know, I think these verses we've just gone over are really a big turning point. He was not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel and here he is. tell him in as plain a word as he can, and I think these are monumental verses here in John. Yeah, I agree.

And he's about to, in not too distance of time, just shut down his ministry to the nation. And it's interesting that the same thing happens in Acts with the Apostle Paul. He says to him on three different occasions, you reject The Savior, you reject the grace of God, I'm going to the Gentiles, who will receive it.

It shows you the real value in being really religious. Chapter 9, a note before we start. As man becomes more hardened in unbelief, Christ becomes more pointed and plain in his assertions of the truth. Thus, the more it is pressed down, the more brightness of the truth makes its way out, that He is God.

They had fully heard now who He was. Therefore, He must be cast out. His words brought God too close, too close in reality, and they could not bear Him. And they wouldn't bear Him. You see what's happening here? He's coming at them. I'm God. And I'm the Messiah. They're saying, no, you're not. And the tension is building. So what was the thinking in Judaism and the disciples regards their statement of sin? Let's read the first seven verses. Somebody other than Courtney. Come on, anybody.

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. Then he said these things. He sat 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 me full of Siloam, which is translated sin. So he went and washed and came back sinning. Thank you.

So what's the thinking in Judaism and the disciples regard the statement as to who sinned? What do you think they're thinking? Why would they ask such a question? What's that? The man and his parents. I'm always asking Donna that, are you doing that because your parents sinned?

This was a fairly general philosophical understanding, not only in Judaism, but also amongst the Greeks and the Asiatics. The Pythagoreans believed the souls of men were sent into the other bodies for the punishment of some sin that they had been committed in previous state. So this is a fairly common thought process. It's really common in Judaism.

It's the foundation of the disciples' question of the Lord Jesus, because the sins of the fathers are visited on the children. Isn't this under the law? I mean, the basic law concept, cause and effect. They did something, so the effect is this. So the parents sinned, and it's the whole system of law under the Jewish system. Something had to have happened to have caused this. Yeah, I mean, they're saying, what did their parents do?

Or was this guy, some in another lifetime, did he sin? Whatever it was, what caused this for him to be born blind? Of course, sin has come into the world as the source of all evil and physical maladies, right? I mean, really, this man is blind. Why? Because sin is in the world. That's why. It's like people who say that they're living in a sinful environment and they need to be They need to have political protection because they're unique sinners. That's nonsense. I was born a sinner just like them. There aren't class A, class B, class C sinners. We're all the same. We're all sinners. The issue was that there was in Judaism, and thought to be true outside the Jewish world, Consequences for sins are the parents, grandparents kind of thing.

So, typical, the ways of God are not man's ways, and this revelation comes. And what did Jesus say was the reason that this man was blind? Why do you say? God and his works are greater, a greater overruling purpose everywhere, and his work manifests his love and his righteousness. This was a divine opportunity for Christ to work the works of God on the earth.

Now, again, maybe it's because I've got a warped mind. I'm sitting there reading this thinking, imagine the Lord Jesus saying, and I'm a blind man. You're blind because I decided I was going to use you to do my works. And if I'm sitting there blind, I'm thinking, couldn't you have picked on somebody else? But that's the real reason. This man is blind. It's very interesting. This man is specifically blind so that God can do his work.

Now, can you say that about any malady you have? That I have whatever so that God can do his work? Go ask Norm Avery what he thinks of his viewpoint of being in that chair. When Hal Malloy told him in the hospital one time, that he was uniquely blessed of God and worthy to be in that chair. It changed Norm's whole viewpoint of polio. The whole thing.

His whole viewpoint of what he's done most of his life now is that he is uniquely suited out by God for that. It's kind of cool. So in verse 4 and 5 Jesus indicates the reason for his timing and really the point of this chapter was. What's the timing? He's talking about things are coming to a close, fellas. I'm not going to be here very long.

He's the light of the Jews and the Gentiles, and so when he leaves and it becomes night, nothing's going to happen. So, do you think Christianity is the light of the world? Yeah, the Lord Jesus is the light of the world. It isn't Christianity, it's Him.

So what's the point? Jesus is working the works of God in free, unconditional grace while it's day. See that? If you look at John 9, I must do the works of Him that sent me while it is day, and the night comes, and when no man can work, as long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

I thought that God rested on the seventh day. How come they're working here? Doesn't it say in Genesis that God saw everything was good and so he rested? But he didn't lay it down as a law? Why did he go back to work is maybe a better question. Yeah, because of sin in the world. And that's what he's here to do, is to deal with the sin issue. And he and his father are working until now.

The works only happen in the light. They don't happen in darkness. So when he leaves, either the work's over and finished, or it wasn't done. Now we know it was finished, and we as believers have Christ in us, sends out light to individual persons, but we're not the light of the world. Christ is the light of the world.

12. Why were the Jews so interested in who made this man see? Let's read on. In verse 8, 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, nah, it's like him. I am he. The man said, I am he. No, I'm the one that's been blind. You all know who I am. Now, it's interesting when you. How many of you have ever known a person who's been blind from birth? You can see it in their face. Well, that look isn't there anymore. So the Jews would say, well, he looks like the guy, but he doesn't look the same. That's because his eyes work.

Therefore, they said to him, how were your eyes opened? And he said to them, 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. And they said to him, where is he? He said, I don't know. By the way, on the way to the pool I was blind, so I don't know where he is.

They brought him, who formerly was blind, to the Pharisees. Now it was the Sabbath when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees asked him again how he had received his sight, and they said to him, he put clay in my eyes, I watched and I see.

You know, to him it's real simple. So why are they so interested? And who was the guy who did this? What do the Jews love? Law keeping. They love law keeping. And what's the other thing they really like? They love signs, right? Well, initially, because they don't believe, they're trying to say, wow, this isn't the same guy.

But sure enough, it is. And the other issue here, because of the law, how dare he do this on Sunday or Saturday or the Sabbath? We're not supposed to be doing any of this grace stuff on the Sabbath. We need to be hunkered down and not doing anything.

So, the power which gave sight where blindness had before Everest had startled them and excited their curiosity with the desire of discovering a good source or an evil source? The Jews, an evil source. So what's interesting about this miracle is it's going to force these Jews out of their cover and they're going to be exposed for the hypocrites that they are. Why were the man's parents so timid with their answers to the Pharisees. I'm going to read on.

Then the Pharisees ask him again, verse 16, Therefore, some of the Pharisees said, This man is not from God, because he does not keep the Sabbath. I love this. This guy was blind and he now can see, and they said, Well, he can't be from God, because this was done on the Sabbath. That's really good reasoning. Others said, How can a man who is a sinner do such signs? There's another good reason.

But if he was a sinner, how could he do that kind of thing? And there was a division among them, no kidding, and they said to the blind man again, what do you say about him because he opened your eyes and he said, he's a prophet. Why would he say that? What's a prophet? One sent from God, right? I mean, he's convinced. He doesn't need any big theological argument. All he knows is he was blind and now he sees. It must have been somebody sent from God who did it. But the Jews did not believe concerning him that he had been blind.

Okay, we'll stop there. And we'll pick up with the parents. Question 13. Not too bad. I might get through lesson 16 next week. And by the way, there's a lot of questions. They're backside of the sheet of 16. So I'm going to try to get through by next week, all the way through to verse 6 of chapter 10. I know. I know. If I'm going too fast, you tell me and I'll slow down. You're going too fast. Am I? Okay, I'll slow down then. Let's close. Dear Father, how we thank you for your word and how we thank you for the light that is in the world, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is our very life. We pray in his precious name. Amen.