Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                 Chapter Nine

                                                                                                                                              Verses 39-41

Jesus then spoke up loud so that some Pharisees near Him could hear Him. The Pharisees always seemed to be near Jesus throughout much of His ministry. Jesus gave the Pharisees a spiritually symbolic message. Jesus told the Pharisees that His judgment in the world was to open the eyes of the blind so that they, like the healed man, could see only Him and become blind to the sinful world.

Jesus' symbolic message to them was that those who saw themselves as being so important to God and to their overbearing authority should be made blind to their excessive pride so that they could see only their need for a Savior. The Pharisees who heard Jesus seemed to at least partly understand His symbolic meaning because they asked Jesus if they were blind.

Jesus replied that if they would only blind themselves to their excessive pride and their oppressive rule over others and see themselves as being in need of a Savior, then He could take away their sins and make them see only their Savior and the new life that He could give them.

Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                  Chapter Nine

                                                                                                                                              Verses 35-38

Jesus knew that this man had stood up to the Pharisees, and Jesus looked for him and found him. Jesus asked this man if he believed "on the Son of God?" Jesus asked him this one, simple question because He knew that faith was all a person needs to be saved by grace. God's method of salvation by grace never changes because Jesus never changes. Hebrews 13:8. Since Jesus never changes, then His Holy Spirit never changes. God has never added any form of religious ceremony to salvation by grace.

This man answered that he did not know who the Son of God was, but he was ready to believe. Jesus just plainly told him that He was the Son of God.

This man instantly believed, and he proved that he had been saved by grace because he worshiped Jesus. This man's worship clearly demonstrates that all a person needs to be saved by grace is faith and worship of Jesus as being God. Salvation by grace means a commitment of one's whole life to Christ which, of necessity, includes repentance. One must commit one's whole life to the worship and service of Christ, including one's sins. Christ will receive that person forever, wash away all his sins with the blood and water He shed on the cross, forgive that person forever, and He will give that person His own everlasting life and an eternal home with Him in Heaven. Christ does everything a person needs for his salvation by grace. I John 1:7; II Corinthians 5:17; I Corinthians 6:11; John 17:24. Some may argue that some people worship Christ as God, but they do not become saved by grace. They do not become saved by grace because they only make a temporary worship of Christ. They do not commit their whole lives to Christ for Him to save them forever by His grace.  

The Holy Spirit developed within this man the desire to find and to know His Savior. The Holy Spirit caused this man to become bold and courageous enough to stand against the Pharisees false doctrines. The Holy Spirit caused this man to be unconcerned if the Pharisees put him out of the synagogue. The Holy Spirit made this man ready to be saved by grace when Jesus found him.

Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                 Chapter Nine

                                                                                                                                              Verses 28-34

These Jews became enraged when this healed man suggested that they should become Jesus' disciples. They stopped their investigation and made their judgments. They condemned the healed man for being Jesus' disciple, and they claimed that they were Moses' disciples. They thought of Moses as being the enforcer of God's Law, but they forgot that God had also given Moses and the people a sin offering and a burnt offering for their cleansing and forgiveness when they inevitably sinned. Leviticus 5:7-10. Jesus described their sinful attitude toward God's Word and His people. Matthew 23:23; Matthew 15:1-9. These Pharisees misused Moses' authority to enforce their own cruel authority.

The healed man became even bolder and more courageous toward these Pharisees. The healed man turned their own beliefs against them, They claimed that they did not know from where Jesus came, but they also knew that God does not hear the prayers of sinners. Yet, God had heard Jesus' prayer and had opened the eyes of one who was born blind. This healed man pointed put to them that they contradicted themselves in their own beliefs. Jesus could not possibly be a sinner.

These enraged Pharisees did not answer this man's charge against them, They simply invoked their supposed superiority over the healed man, and they made their final judgment that he was a nobody "born in sins" who had no right to teach them. Then they put him out of the synagogue. Their excessive pride caused them to forget that they too were sinners in need of God's cleansing and forgiveness. Leviticus 5:7-10.

Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                 Chapter Nine

                                                                                                                                              Verses 15-27

The Pharisees began their investigation of Jesus  by asking the healed man how he had received his sight. The man replied with the simple truth that he had obeyed Jesus, and he had been healed.

This man's answer provoked an argument among the Pharisees. Some of them knew that only God could perform miracles, but others held to a very strict interpretation of the Sabbath law. Those who held to a strict interpretation of the law, and who also invented their own commandments, did so because that condition gave them complete control over the people. The Pharisees were mostly interested in protecting their own authority, not God's. They instinctively realized that a God of love and compassion that Jesus preached would tend to liberate the people from their own overbearing rule.

The Pharisees then asked the healed man his opinion of who Jesus was. The man replied that he believed Jesus was a prophet.

The Pharisees did not like this answer because if Jesus were a prophet then He had to have come from God. The Pharisees then got a new idea that they hoped would prove that Jesus was not from God. They assumed that some people had hatched a plot to hide the blind man, and they had presented to them a man who was similar in stature to the blind man who had eyes and could see, and who would claim that he was the blind man whom Jesus healed. So they called his parents to testify if this man was the same man as their son because everyone knew that Jesus had healed their son. His parents answered that they knew that the healed man was their son and that he had been healed of blindness. But his parents claimed that they knew nothing about how he was healed, and they were anxious to put the focus of the investigation back onto their son. His parents wanted no connection of themselves to Jesus because they were afraid that the Pharisees would put them out of the synagogue. They believed that the power of the Pharisees to excommunicate them was tantamount to being rejected by God.

The Pharisees then told the healed man that he should praise God and reject Jesus as being a mere sinner. These Pharisees had forgotten that when Jesus had charged them to name one sin that He had committed, the Holy Spirit had caused them to be silent. John 8:46. These Pharisees were desperate to show the people that Jesus had to be a sinner because the love and compassion that Jesus demonstrated to individuals made them feel that they were important to God, and the Pharisees knew that that idea would lessen the power of the Pharisees over the people.

The healed man answered the Pharisees that he did not know whether Jesus was a sinner or not, but he did know that Jesus had healed him. This man was becoming less afraid of the Pharisees.

The Pharisees did not like the fact that this man would not submit to their judgment that Jesus was a sinner. He still clung to his gratitude that Jesus had healed him. So the Pharisees resorted to another tactic that investigators often use to try to prove whatever case that they are trying to make. They instructed the man to give them a detailed description of how Jesus had healed him hoping they could find some inconsistency in the man's testimony that would provide evidence that Jesus had done something wrong.

The healed man became bolder in his answer to them. He told them that he had already given them a detailed description of how Jesus had healed him, but they had not listened to him. He asked them why they wanted to hear his description again. Did they want to become Jesus' disciples? He was evidently being a little sarcastic.

Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                 Chapter Nine

                                                                                                                                              Verses 6-14

Jesus spat into clay and put that onto the place where this man's eyes should have been. The sense of this verse indicates that this man was born without eyes. Since God made Adam out of clay, then certainly Jesus could make eyes out of clay. Genesis 2:7. Everything that God creates happens to be generated by something that comes out of God. God created the universe by His spoken Word. Hebrews 11:3. God creates humans in His image. Genesis 1:27. God gave life to Adam by His breath. Genesis 2:7. Jesus spat into the clay so that He could create eyes for the blind man with something that came from God. Jesus then told the blind man to "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam." Every cell in the human body happens to be 70 per cent water. Jesus added the necessary water to His spittle and the clay to create eyes for this man. This blind man obeyed Jesus when he washed and so his eyes were created, and he could see perfectly.

This man's created eyes changed his appearance so drastically that those who knew him had trouble recognizing him. They wanted to know how he had obtained eyes. The healed man simply told them the truth about how Jesus had healed him. They asked him where Jesus was, but he did not know. These people then brought this man to the Pharisees probably because of simple curiosity to see what the Pharisees would do about this situation since they knew that Jesus had healed this man on the Sabbath.

Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                Chapter Nine

                                                                                                                                               Verses 1-5 continued

When Jesus died on the cross, He dismissed His Spirit who descended into Hell. Luke 23:46; Acts 2:27. Jesus gave His Spirit back to His Father, but His Father's Will was to send His Holy Spirit into the regions of death. The Father had to have a reason for doing this. The burnt offering sacrifice evidently symbolizes this reason. Genesis 8:20-21. Jesus shed His blood and water on the cross for every living human He would save by His grace, but His Spirit descended into Hell to leave behind there all of the evil and spiritual deaths of all living humans that Jesus bore on the cross. I John 2:2. The Holy Spirit then ascended immaculate from the regions of death to reanimate the perfect body of Jesus so that He could rise from the dead victorious over all sin and evil, and He could become the Savior of all living humans. Psalm 16:9-10; I Peter 3:18; Revelation 1:17-18; I Timothy 4:10.

Near the end of the world, God will renew the faith in the Lamb of God of all living humans confined to the regions of death so that He can save and resurrect them with a lesser form of salvation. Revelation 5:11-14; Revelation 20:5. Jesus saved by His grace all living humans when He shed His blood and water on the cross who will believe in Him while still alive in the flesh, but that salvation does not become active until the Holy Spirit delivers Jesus' blood to cleanse and forgive them on the day that they repent and believe in Jesus as their Savior. They must also repent from time to time to be cleansed by the water that Jesus shed on the cross. In this same way, the Holy Spirit accomplished the lesser form of salvation of all living humans confined to the regions of death when He left all of their evil and spiritual deaths behind there when He rose immaculate from the dead, but their salvation does not become active until Christ appears to them and causes them all to repent and believe in the power of the Lamb to save them. Revelation 5:11-14; I Corinthians 3:11-15. On this future day when they repent and believe, God will use His fiery wrath against evil to dissolve and separate their saved living souls and spirits that He will recreate from their dead and evil natures that He will cast into the lake of fire. II Peter 3:9-13; Psalm 75:3; I Corinthians 3:11-15; Revelation 20:11-15.

This man was blind simply because God must allow the Devil to do his worst to humanity so that God can prove that the faith that He puts into every living human can never fail because God's Love can never fail. I Corinthians 13:8. Jesus taught His disciples that this man was blind so that God could display His Love and compassion for him when Jesus healed him. Every human suffers from the effects of sin and evil so that God can show His Love and compassion for them when He heals and saves them. This blind man later became saved by grace, but Jesus healed him before he became saved by grace. Jesus healed many persons who never became saved by grace. Matthew 12:15. Jesus' underlying message to all who read the gospel of John is that God will heal and save all living humans ravaged by sin and evil whether their condition was their fault or not. John 5:14.

Jesus further taught His disciples and the rest of humanity that He is "the light of the world." Jesus said that He is the light of all mankind, not just those saved by His grace. John 1:9. It cannot make sense that Jesus would heal many who did not become saved by grace only to later cast them into a lake of fire.

While Jesus was in the world, He was the direct light of the world, but He remains the light of the world through His believers saved by grace; that is, His Church. Matthew 5:14-16. Jesus is "the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." John 1:9. In other words, Jesus provides a higher and a lesser form of salvation for every living human that He ever creates.

Jesus further taught that He would do the good and compassionate work of His Father while it was day; that is, in the light. When the night comes, which symbolizes spiritual darkness, no man can do any good works. Darkness covers the sins and evil that humans do. But Jesus came to bring all of His living humans to His Light, and He will condemn only their dead and evil natures within the dark regions of death to the lake of fire. Revelation 20:11-15. Spiritual death is totally evil, and total evil can never repent, but living humans retain the faith that God puts into them, and they can repent. John 3:17-21; Matthew 12:31-32; I John 3:8; John 11:25; Revelation 5:11-14. John 12:31-32 relates that Christ judged the world from His cross in order to cast out total evil and to bring all of His living humans back to faith in Him.

Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                 Chapter Nine

                                                                                                                                              Verses 1-5

Jesus' disciples assumed that the blind man that they saw had been punished with blindness for his sins or his parents' sins. While it happens to be true that a lot of pain and suffering results from sins committed, much pain and suffering also results from the simple fact that sin and evil pervade humanity. Jesus pointed out this fact to his disciples, but sin and evil also gives God an opportunity to display his power to heal and save.

No creation of God can ever be utterly destroyed, and God's Love for His creations can never fail. Ecclesiastes 3:14; I Corinthians 13:8. The book of Job symbolizes these facts. In the beginning of the book of Job, Satan challenges God that if God would allow Satan to take absolutely everything that Job has from him, including his health and the love of his wife, then Job would completely abandon the faith that God put into him, and he will "curse God and die" which means that the evil that also resides in him would utterly destroy the goodness that God put into him, and he would become demonic; that is, totally evil and lost from God's Love forever. Job 1:11; Job 2:5; Job 2:9. God allowed Satan to take everything Job had except his life which symbolizes the fact that God will never lose any life that He ever creates and puts into humans. Genesis 1:27; Luke 20:38. But the lives of humans happens to be that which the Devil most desires to utterly destroy. The Devil desires to use that same method against the whole human race in his attempt to prove that God's Love for His creations can fail, that he can weaken God, and ultimately he can attain the means to murder God. This man was blind because God will allow the Devil to do his worst to humanity so that God can prove that He can use the Almighty Power of His Love to heal and save every human life that He ever created. Satan got his chance to murder God when he caused an evil and sinful humanity to nail Jesus to a cross. But Jesus prayed from the cross that His Father would forgive every one of them. Luke 23:34. God certainly honors every prayer of His Son.

Everything God creates can only be good. God created humanity to be good, and no one can be good without faith. Genesis 1:27; Genesis 1:31; Romans 12:3. Although Job remained righteous, and he did not lose his faith, he came very close to doing so. Although every atheist imagines that he has no faith whatsoever in God, he has actually only lost his consciousness of his faith. The book of Job symbolizes the fact that God must allow Satan to do his absolute worst to humanity in order to prove that the faith that God puts into every human can never ultimately fail. God knows exactly how to awaken and renew His faith that He puts into every human. John 5:24; Revelation 5:11-14. God told Job in the end of the book to make a burnt offering sacrifice for his friends whose consciousness of their faith in the true God, at times, did fail. God accepted Job's friends again because of the burnt offering. Job 42:7-10; Leviticus 5:10. Job never lost his consciousness of his faith because he became saved by grace. Job 19:25-27.

God gave Noah the burnt offering to symbolize the fact that God will provide a lesser form of salvation for all living humans who do not become saved by His grace. Genesis 8:20-21. God told Noah that because of the burnt offering, He will remove the curse from the ground that He put on the ground in Genesis 3:17. This was a prophecy that God will open the regions of death located in the ground so that He can resurrect every living human that He had to send there. John 5:28-29. God also told Noah that the burnt offering symbolizes the fact that a day will come when He will separate the evil in humans for Him to cast into the lake of fire from their living natures that He created for Him to recreate to a new life on His new earth. Psalm 75:3; II Peter 3:9-13; I Corinthians 3:11-15; Psalm 36:6. God will awaken and renew the faith of every living human confined to the regions of death in a great worship service as recorded in Revelation 5:11-14.

Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                  Chapter Eight

                                                                                                                                              Verses 57-59

These Jews then railed at Jesus that He could not possibly have ever seen Abraham because to their minds Abraham was dead. Jesus replied by making His greatest claim to be God up to this time. Jesus told them that He had seen Abraham because He was and is the great I AM who had given His name to Moses. Exodus 3:13-14. The great name of God I AM can only mean that He has always existed and can never not exist.

These Jews then became enraged at Jesus because they clearly understood that Jesus had claimed to be God Himself. They took up stones to stone Him for blasphemy.

Then a very strange thing happened. The Bible (KJB) records that Jesus hid Himself, but it also relates that Jesus walked out of the Temple through the crowd. Since Jesus walked out, then He must have been seen, and yet, He was also somehow hidden. How was this possible? The only possible answer had to be that Jesus was hidden in the sense that God, knowing that Jesus' time of sacrifice had not come, simply paralyzed the minds and the wills of those Jews so that they were unable to throw any stones at Him. 

Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                 Chapter Eight

                                                                                                                                              Verses 52-56

These unbelievers then revealed to Jesus that they did not believe in life after death at all. They became certain that Jesus must have a devil because He claimed that those who believe in Him would never die. They claimed that Abraham and all the prophets were dead, and therefore, they and all their powers were gone. They believed that Jesus must have a devil for Him to claim to be able to provide life after death or a means to keep a person from dying at all. Then, in effect, they demanded that Jesus tell them plainly whether He was God or a devil. They would have their charge against Jesus no matter which choice He made. As evil people so often do, they set a trap for good people in some controversy that they have with them, but they have already prepared a condemnation of them no matter what the good people choose to answer.

Jesus answered that if He honored Himself by bragging on Himself as any ordinary sinful person might do, then His words would mean nothing. Jesus plainly told them that they could see for themselves that His Father honored Him by the miracles and compassion that He demonstrated. They claimed to believe in God, but they could not see God in Him. As Jesus so often did, He deftly avoided the trap by putting the judgment of the controversy back onto His accusers.

Jesus preached to them that they really did not know God and that they were liars to say they did, Jesus proclaimed that He could not be a liar because, as they already knew, He kept God's Word perfectly, and He demonstrated the love and compassion of His Father in whom they actually did not believe. The conviction power of the Holy Spirit protected Jesus until the time came for Him to be arrested.

Jesus then proclaimed that Abraham was not dead but was still alive. Jesus told them that Abraham "rejoiced to see my day," by which He could only have meant that Abraham could see Him in that very moment. When Abraham was alive in the flesh, he could only see the day of Christ as being far away, and therefore, he could only have had a vague understanding of what it meant. Hebrews 11:13. Abraham could not have fully rejoiced about the day of Christ until he actually saw it. Jesus meant that Abraham was still alive, and he was watching Him from Paradise.

Commentary on the Gospel of John

                               Chapter Eight

                                                                                                                                              Verses 48-51

The evil in these unbelievers then caused their hatred of Jesus to sink to its lowest level. Evil always desires to completely destroy goodness. They accused Jesus of being a Samaritan and of having a devil. They knew that Jesus was good, but evil can become so depraved that it will believe that even those who seem to be good secretly practice evil. Isaiah 5:20; Titus 1:15-16; II Timothy 3:3.

The Jews hated the Samaritans and thought they were evil. These Jews had learned that Jesus had visited the Samaritans, had preached to them, and had brought many of them to faith in Him as their Messiah and Savior. John 4:40-42. They thus assumed that Jesus had to be a Samaritan and that He had a devil. Those who adhere to their evil natures always practice hatred and make false accusations.

Jesus flatly denied that He had a devil. His flat denial demonstrated that He had become a little angry with them for allowing themselves to sink so low. Jesus explained His flat denial by pointing out to these Jews that He had honored His Father by showing His love and compassion for all humans, including the Samaritans. If these unbelievers would not honor their God of love and compassion, they then dishonored Jesus who had demonstrated that love and compassion. All evil humans, even atheists, believe in some form of god. These unbelievers had the wrong god because they believed that their god supported their self-righteous attitudes and their lust for power over others.

Jesus then told them that He did not seek to glorify Himself in the way that they understood self glory. Jesus had no desire to become a great, earthly king who would liberate the Jews from the Romans. Jesus sought only to honor His Father who sought to liberate His living humans from spiritual slavery to the Devil and to judge them accordingly. These unbelievers could not understand that spiritual liberty was of the utmost importance.

Jesus then made one of His most profound statements. Jesus taught that those who would believe in the spiritual truths that He preached would "never see death." John 5:24; John 11:26. Jesus never taught that physical death would be a punishment for sin and evil. If a person comes to faith in Christ as his Savior and immediately passes from death to life, then physical death cannot be a punishment for sin and evil. Jesus had to have spoken about passing from spiritual death into everlasting life. John 5:24; Psalm 116:15.  Jesus and the Apostle Paul often spoke about believers who were physically dead as being asleep, not dead. Mark 5:39; John 11:11; I Corinthians 15:51; I Thessalonians 4:13-14.

When Jesus, who is God, spoke to Adam and Eve in the garden, He warned them that He would apply two temporary punishments for sin and evil. He warned them that they would die on the same day that they sinned. After they sinned, He sentenced them to a temporary punishment for sin and evil by allowing them to suffer pain and sorrow while still alive in the flesh. God had to have meant spiritual death because they did not physically die that same day. God told them that they would suffer pain and sorrow until their physical deaths, but He did not say that physical death would be a punishment for sin and evil. God cursed the Devil and all evil, but He did not curse Adam and Eve. God clearly meant that a curse would be a permanent punishment for sin and evil. That can only mean that spiritual death had to be a temporary punishment. In fact, God told Eve that she would be "the mother of all living." Genesis 3:20. In the light of Genesis 3:15, Genesis 3:20-21, and Luke 20:38, God could only have meant by these pronouncements that He will purge the Devil and all evil from His creations, and He will eventually provide a way to save all of His living humans that He creates and loves from an eternal death. Revelation 21:5; I Corinthians 15:22; I Timothy 4:10. John the Baptist said that Jesus "taketh away the sin of the world." John 1:29. He did not say that Jesus would only take away the sins of humans saved by grace.