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.