Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him. John 9:3.
“And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?” …
In the question the disciples asked Jesus, they showed that they thought all disease and suffering the result of sin. This is indeed truth, but Jesus showed that it was an error to suppose that everyone who was a great sufferer was also a great sinner. While He corrected their errors, He spat upon the ground and made clay of the spittle, and anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay and said unto him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent),” and he went his way, and came seeing. Jesus answered the question the disciples put to Him in a practical way, and in the way He usually answered questions put to Him from curiosity. The disciples were not called upon to discuss the question of who had sinned or not sinned but to understand the power of God, His mercy and compassion, in giving sight to the blind. It was that all might be convinced that there was no healing virtue in the clay or in the pool wherein he was sent to wash, but that virtue was in Christ….
The friends and neighbors of the young man who had been healed looked upon him with doubt, for when his eyes were opened, his countenance had been changed and brightened, and made him appear like another man. From one to another the question was passed, “Is it he?” And some said, “It is like him,” but he who had received the great blessing settled the controversy by saying, “I am he.” He then told them of Jesus and by what means Jesus had healed him, and they inquired, “Where is he? He said, I know not. They brought to the Pharisees him that aforetime was blind. And it was the sabbath day when Jesus made the clay, and opened his eyes…. Therefore said some of the Pharisees, This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the sabbath day. Others said, How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles? And there was a division among them.” …
They knew not that it was He who had made the Sabbath, who knew all its obligations, who had healed the man.—Signs of the Times, October 23, 1893.
