64
John 9:39-41 THE JUDGMENT WHICH JESUS BROUGHT AT HIS
FIRST COMING
Introduction:
In this text
we see a sharp contrast between the new
found spiritual eyesight which the former blind man
gained
when he placed his faith in Jesus and the spiritual
blindness of the Jewish leaders who rejected Jesus as the
Christ.
I. A look back at
some of the events which had already
transpired
You will
recall that in our text last Sunday Jesus asked
the man to whom He had given physical sight if the man
believed on the Son of God. The man didn't at that time,
but he asked Jesus who the Son of God is and expressed a
willingness to believe if Jesus would tell him who the
Son
of God is.
Jesus did tell
him. He told the man that the Son of God
who was talking to him right at that time. The man believed
Jesus. He believed
that Jesus is the Son of God and he fell
down and worshipped Jesus as the Son of God.
You will
remember also that even before the Feast of
Tabernacles began, the members of the Jewish Sanhedrin
Council sat in judgment of Jesus without Him even being
present. They
decided that Jesus must be put to death.
They planned that as soon as Jesus would arrive at
Jerusalem
to observe the Feast of the Tabernacles that they would
quietly arrest Him and quietly put Him to death.
As you know,
their plan did not work out. The entire
week of the feast went by and they were unable to arrest
Jesus. On the very
next day after the feast ended, which
was a special sabbath, Jesus gave sight to a man who had
been born blind.
He had been blind all his life.
After Jesus
enabled the man to see, the Jewish leaders
tried to get him to say something which they could use
against Jesus.
They wanted an excuse to arrest Him and
charge Him with breaking the law of the sabbath, but the
man
refused to say anything against Jesus. He had come to think
of Jesus as a prophet of God and he had nothing but
praise
for Jesus.
Therefore, just as the Jewish court had sat in
judgment of Jesus and condemned Him to death, even so
they
now sat in judgment of the man and excommunicated him
from
the Jewish synagogue.
In our text
last Sunday Jesus went to the man and
informed the man that He is more than just a prophet of
God.
He is the very Son of God. The man believed Jesus. He
accepted Jesus as the Son of God. He place his faith in
Jesus as the Son of God
and worshipped Him as God.
In our text
today Jesus continues His conversation with
the man after the man's faith in Jesus, He informed the
man
that He had come into the world to bring judgment to the
world.
II. The
announcement of judgment
V. 39,
"And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this
world..." Now
it is true that God the Father has committed
all judgment of men into the hands of Jesus, John
5:22. In
the end-time before the millenniel reign Jesus will judge
the saved and give out rewards to the saved for the
service
which they have rendered to God. Then after the millenniel
is over, Jesus will judge the unsaved and sentence them
to
everlasting punishment in the Lake of Fire and Brimstone.
But in this
statement Jesus is not talking about a
judgment that would take place during end-time
events. He
is talking about His first coming to earth. He is talking
about the purpose of His first coming.
Back in John
3:17 Jesus said that He had not come to the
world at that time to condemn the world. He did not come to
judge and reward the saved. Neither had He come to
pronounce the final judgment on the unsaved. Rather at that
first coming He had come to save the world. He had come to
give Himself on the cross as a sacrifice for sin so as to
make it possible for all men to be saved.
Through the
Old Testaments prophets God had promised the
coming of a Redeemer and pledged that it would be by His
stripes that the guilty sinner could be saved. All of the
Old Testament blood sacrifices pictured the first coming
of
the Christ when His blood would be shed on the cross.
His first
coming to the world was to fulfill those
promises and to fulfill the types and shadows of the Old
Testament blood sacrifices and to provide redemption for
all
who would repent of sin and believe in the Christ.
He had not at
all come to pronounce sentence upon the
unsaved and to send them into the Lake of Fire and
Brimstone. That
kind judgment will take place in the
end-time and did not take place at His first coming.
However, Jesus
told this man that He had come to bring
judgment to the world.
That is, even in that first coming
He had come to bring judgment to the world. What judgment
was He talking about?
What judgment did He bring to the
world at that first coming to the world?
Let us allow
Jesus Himself give us the answer to that
question (V. 39), "...that they which see not might
see..."
Jesus had demonstrated one purpose of His coming by
giving
sight to that blind man.
That man had been born blind even
as all men have been born in sin. All men have inherited
the sin nature of Adam and have committed sin after sin
against God. All
have been spiritually blinded by Satan and
sin. Jesus came to
give Himself on the cross of Calvary and
to provide a way whereby all who were spiritually blind
could be made to see.
He came to die on the cross so that
all who are lost in sin can be saved and go to heaven
when
they die.
It is the
judgement of God through Jesus that every man
who will place his faith in Jesus as the Son of God and
as
his Savior is not condemned, but has everlasting
life. John
3:16 declares this truth.
It reads, "For God so loved the
world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever
believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting
life." John
3:18 declares this truth. It reads,
"He that
believeth on Him is not condemned..." This is the judgment
that God has already made and this is the judgment that
will
stand throughout all eternity.
Jesus came to
bring a judgment to the world which would
bring spiritual eyesight to those who had been
spiritually
blind.
I said
earlier, this very man who in our test stands
before Jesus is an example of this judgment. The Sanhedrin
Council had passed judgment on Jesus and condemned Him to
death. That same
Jewish court had passed judgment on this
man who had received his sight from Jesus. They had
condemned him to excommunication form the Jewish
synagogue.
But Jesus had given him his physical eyesight. More
important, because the man placed his faith in Jesus,
Jesus
had given him spiritual eyesight enabling him to see the
great truths of God.
Jesus gave him a spiritual eyesight
that would continue into the life beyond. It will continue
forever. To put it
simply, Jesus saved that man's soul and
that judgment will stand throughout all eternity.
But that man
is most certainly not the only one who is
judged by the Lord to have spiritual eyesight. Everyone who
places his faith in Jesus Christ the Son of God to save
his
soul gets that same kind of spiritual eyesight. In John
5:34 Jesus said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He
that
heareth my word and believeth on Him that sent me (that
is,
he believes on Jesus as being the Savior sent from God),
hath everlasting life, and shall not come into
condemnation;
but is passed from death unto life." That is the judgment
of God through Jesus Christ and that judgment will stand.
Every believer in Jesus is saved and will remain saved
throughout all eternity.
He gets everlasting life and he
gets everlasting spiritual eyesight.
III. The judgment
which Jesus brought to those who reject
Him and
neglect to place their faith in Him
(V. 39), "...and that they which see
might be made
blind." The
scribes and Pharisees fit into this category.
They prided themselves on their spiritual understanding.
They thought that anyone who differed with them in
anything
pertaining to religion was wrong. They thought that the
only way for anybody to be right was to be in agreement
with
them. They saw
themselves as the official teachers in
religion in Israel.
But they saw wrong. Their
spiritual
eyesight was distorted.
It was no good. They were seeing
things that were not there. The truth of God which was
there, they could not see at all. Well, --- let me change
that. It was not
that they could not see the truth of God.
Rather, it was just that they would not see the truth of
God. They chose to
reject the truth of God.
But the coming
of the Son of God on the scene put them
to the test. When
the Son of God came on the scene, He did
not come to the and seek their approval on the things
which
He taught. He did
not even attempt to do so. He openly
differed with them.
He outright contradicted many of the
things which they taught.
You see, He is the Son of God and
He did not have to come around to their way of thinking
in
order to be right.
It was the other way around. If
they
would be right, they must come around to His way of
thinking.
His judgment
was that because they refused to place
their faith in Him as the Son of God, they were still in
the
darkness of sin.
They were lost. Furthermore,
unless until
they would come to Him and place their faith in Him as
the
Son of God, they would continue to be in spiritual
darkness.
They were spiritually blind and they would remain
spiritually blind unless they would repent of their sin
and
trust in Him to be their Savior. This was the judgment that
He brought to them.
Therefore, by
their rejection of Him as the Son of God
and as their Savior, they show themselves to be
spiritually
blind. They, of
course, did not realize this at the time,
but surely they know it by now. They are dead now and they
have surely found out by now that they have missed out on
heaven. They were
already born in sin. They were already
lost in sin. It
was their rejection of Jesus which sealed
their judgment and sealed their destiny.
The Bible does
not teach that God picked out certain
ones to be lost forever and prohibits them from ever
being
saved. But the
Bible does teach that those who reject Jesus
as the Son of God and as the Savior are already judged to
be
spiritually blind because they have chosen not to believe
in
Jesus.
IV. The question
which the Pharisees asked
V. 40,
"And some of the Pharisees which were with him
heard these words..." Apparently some of the Pharisees were
either following the man who had been made blind or else
they had been following Jesus. They were present to hear
Jesus identify Himself as the Son of God. They heard the
man tell Jesus that he believed. They saw him fall to his
knees before Jesus and saw him worship Jesus as the Son
of
God. They heard
Jesus explain that His coming into the
world brought judgment to the world. They heard Jesus
explain that He had come to give sight to those who had
been
spiritually blind.
They heard Jesus explain that many
people who thought they had spiritual eyesight were
judged
by Him to be spiritually blind.
They did not
understand. Surely He could not be
talking
about them! Surely
He did not think of the Pharisees as
being spiritually blind!
And so they ask Him: (V. 40),
"...and said unto him, Are we blind also?" That is, "Do
really think that we are spiritually blind?"
V. 41,
"Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye
should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore
your
sin remaineth."
Let me put this in East Texas terms.
Jesus
said, "Yes, you are spiritually blind, but you are
not
totally blind. You
have the writings pertaining to the Old
Testament law and the writings of the Old Testament
prophets. In those
writings you have enough information to
enable you to trust in me if you would only open your
eyes
to the truth.
Furthermore, you have the mental capability
to understand the message of God sufficiently well to
know
how to be saved.
But you have closed your eyes to the truth
of God and, as a result, you have rejected the Son of
God.
If you were
totally blind, if you did not have
sufficient information to know how to be saved, you would
not be held accountable for your sins. But since you have
the word of God which informs you of the truth, you are
without excuse.
God will hold you accountable for your sin
and for your blindness."
This gives us
insight into God's dealings with all
mankind. Those who
never have sufficient mental capability
to understand that they are guilty of sin and to
understand
how to be saved from their sin are never accountable to
God
for their sin. But
those who are capable of understanding
and just will not believe the message are without excuse
and
God will hold them accountable. He will hold them
accountable for all their sin and He will hold them
accountable for rejecting the Christ.
Conclusion:
Let me appeal
to you not to make the same mistake which
the Pharisees made.
Do not reject the Christ. Rather,
do
as the man did to whom Jesus gave his sight. Place your
faith in Jesus.
Accept Him as the Son of God.
Call upon
Him and trust Him to save your from your sin. You will be
glad you did.
Let me also
appeal to you who are saved to live your
life in submission to the will of God.