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As we have mentioned before, the nine cases in the Gospel of John are divided into two groups. The first six cases signify how the Lord as our life can deal with positive things, while the last three cases signify how the Lord as our life can deal with negative things. Let us review them once more. The first six cases reveal that the Lord as life is for regenerating, satisfying, healing, enlivening, feeding, and quenching. These six signs compose one group because they deal with the positive aspects of His life. The last three cases deal with the negative matters of sin, blindness, and death. Sin causes blindness and results in death. Therefore, these three — sin, blindness, and death — are grouped together showing how the Lord is our life in dealing with the negative things. In the first six cases the Lord brings us to something positive, but in the last three cases the Lord delivers us from something negative because He delivers us from sin, blindness, and death.
According to 20:30-31, the writer indicated that Jesus did many signs. From all of these cases, the writer selected only nine as signs. Therefore, these signs must be very meaningful, and the order in which they are presented must also be quite significant. For example, the first case is about regeneration, and the last is about the resurrection from the dead. Thus, the first case is about the regeneration in the beginning of life, and the last is about resurrection after the end of life. Furthermore, in the last group of cases, sin is placed first among the negative things because sin is the origin of blindness and death. Blindness originates from sin, and death is the ultimate end of sin. In this message we shall deal with the matter of blindness.
Some readers of the Bible are not clear that John 10 is a continuation of John 9. However, if you read carefully, you will see that chapter ten is a continuation of chapter nine. Hence, these two chapters form one section of the Holy Word. John 10:21 helps us to realize that chapter ten is a continuation of chapter nine, for the question is asked, “Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?” Nevertheless, each chapter covers a different point. In these two chapters, two major aspects of the Lord’s being are revealed: the Lord’s giving sight to the blind and the Lord’s shepherding of the believers outside of religion.
This case continues to prove that the religion of law could not do any good to a blind man, but that the Lord Jesus, as the light of the world, could impart sight to him in the way of life (10:10, 28). This sign was performed on the Sabbath day. It seems that the Lord again did a sign purposely on the Sabbath day to expose the vanity of the rituals of religion.
Blindness, as sin in the previous chapter, is a matter of death. A dead person surely is blind. “...the god of this age has blinded the thoughts of the unbelieving.” So they need “the illumination of the gospel of the glory of Christ” to shine forth to them (2 Cor. 4:4), “to open their eyes, to turn them from darkness to light and from the authority of Satan to God” (Acts 26:18). In the principle set forth in chapter two, this is also the changing of death into life.
Let us read 9:1-3. “And as He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, saying, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind? Jesus answered, Neither has this man sinned nor his parents, but that the works of God might be manifested in him.” The question raised by the disciples was according to their religious knowledge. They thought that the blindness must have been due to the man’s sin or the sin of his parents. This question, like those in 4:20-25 and 8:3-5, is a matter of yes or no, which belongs to the tree of knowledge resulting in death (Gen. 2:17), but the Lord’s answer in 9:3 points them to God, who is the tree of life resulting in life (Gen. 2:9). We have seen that the Lord in the Gospel of John never answers such questions with an answer of yes or no, right or wrong. This is because the Gospel of John is a book of life, not a book of the knowledge of good and evil. Therefore, the Lord said that the man’s blindness was so that “the works of God might be manifested in him.”
Why is it that the Lord never answers with a yes or a no? Because yes-or-no answers are from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Good and evil are just like yes and no. While both yes and no belong to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, in this gospel the Lord comes to us as the tree of life. The tree of life is God as our life. Consequently, in this gospel the Lord never answers people with a yes or a no. He always refers them to God. The Lord does not refer to yes or no for an answer, but to God as the tree of life. The Lord’s answer in 9:3 brought His disciples directly to God, that is, it brought them to the tree of life. At this point, the disciples were still very religious, holding to their religious concepts, which belong to the tree of knowledge of good and evil, but the Lord was trying again and again to turn them from the tree of knowledge to the tree of life. Those disciples were under the Lord’s training in this matter for three and a half years. Even after that time, one of the disciples, Peter, had not thoroughly been delivered from the religious concepts, for in Acts 10:9-16 we see that Peter was still religious, still influenced by the knowledge of good and evil. Perhaps we consider ourselves as free from the tree of knowledge, but even now we may still be mainly under its influence.
When we were sinners, we lost our sight and could not see anything. Our blindness was due to our sinful nature. In chapter nine the man was born blind, signifying that blindness is in the nature of a person when he is born. We sinners were blind by nature because we were born that way. Have you ever realized that every sinner was born blind? Therefore, if we confess that we are sinful, we must also admit that we are blind.
When the Lord Jesus saw this blind man, He said, “While I am in the world, I am the light of the world” (9:5). The Lord is the light of life (8:12). Blindness comes from the shortage of the light of life. Every dead person is a blind man. Undoubtedly, the dead cannot see anything. Therefore, blindness indicates the lack of life. If you have life, then you have sight, for light opens your eyes. So, first of all, the Lord pointed out that the blind man needed the light of life.
Verse 6 is very interesting. “When He had said this, He spat on the ground and made clay of the spittle and anointed his eyes with the clay.” When I was a young Christian, not understanding the meaning of this verse, I laughed at what the Lord did. What He did was very strange. No one likes to touch a person’s spittle. But the Lord Jesus mixed His spittle with the ground and made clay. Then He used the clay to anoint the man’s eyes. The Gospel of John is a book of pictures, and this incident is a picture. We should not understand it merely according to the black and white letters. We must pray and look to the Lord that we may receive the true meaning.
I cannot tell you how much time I have spent in studying this point. I consulted various books in my attempt to find an interpretation, but I did not find one. One day, not more than twenty-five years ago, I saw the matter of the mingling of the divine life with humanity. This word “mingling” has been in use by us for not more than twenty-five years. If you go to the Christian bookstores, you will not find even one book that speaks about mingling. The most that the books speak of is union with Christ or identification with Him. Not one book discusses this matter of mingling. In 1958, when I first visited this country, I delivered a message on the mingling of the divine life with humanity. A preacher, a graduate of Oxford, immediately corrected my English, saying that mingling was not the right word and that I should use the word “co-mingling.” I replied, “Whether this word is the right English word or not I am not sure because English is not my mother tongue, but I do know that there is such a fact between the divine life and humanity.” Later, I received a confirmation from the book of Leviticus that the word mingling was the right word.
The word mingling is used in Leviticus 2:5. “And if thy oblation be a meat offering baked in a pan, it shall be of fine flour unleavened, mingled with oil.” This is a type. The fine flour typifies the humanity of the Lord Jesus, and the oil typifies the Holy Spirit, the divinity of the Lord Jesus. Therefore, in the Person of the Lord Jesus there is the mingling of divinity with humanity. Thus, when I visited this country the second time, I began to speak boldly about the mingling of the divine life with our humanity. Some cautioned me not to speak much about this, but rather to stay within the limits of identification and union. I said, “Brothers, I don’t care for the human concept. I only care for the pure Word. How about Leviticus 2:5 — the fine flour mingled with the oil? Do not come to me. You should go to Moses. He was the first one to use this word.” Since 1963 the Lord has burdened us to publish the magazine entitled The Stream. Again and again in that magazine we have spoken about the mingling. Now many people are picking up this thought.
Now we may return to John 9 and apply to it this concept of the mingling of divinity with humanity. The clay in 9:6, as in Romans 9:21, signifies humanity. Man is clay. We all are clay. What is the spittle? Spittle here, as something “that proceeds out of the mouth” (Matt. 4:4) of the Lord, signifies His “words which...are spirit and life” (John 6:63). Figuratively speaking, the spittle is the Word, which is spirit and life, that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. The Word that proceeds out of the mouth of Christ is spirit. Thus, to mingle spittle with the clay signifies the mingling of humanity with the Lord’s living Word. The word “anointed” proves this, because the Lord’s Spirit is the anointing Spirit (Luke 4:18; 2 Cor. 1:21-22; 1 John 2:27). The spittle, then, signifies the Word, the outflow of the very element or essence of the Lord Himself. The clay was mingled with the spittle. This signifies that the Lord mingles His essence with us by and even with His Word. We are clay by nature, and the very essence of the Lord in the Word is the spittle. Formerly, when we were sinners, we were dead. When we heard the Word of the Lord, His Word came into us as those made of clay. When we heard and received the gospel, it was actually the spittle of the Lord that came into us, men of clay. In other words, the clay received something that proceeded out of the mouth of the Lord and was mingled with it.
The mingling of divinity with humanity is the most prevailing ointment on the whole earth. No other ointment can surpass it. The Lord anointed the man’s blind eyes with the clay that was mingled with spittle. This signifies the anointing of the Spirit of life. The anointing of the Spirit of life follows the mingling of the Lord in His Word with the clay. Immediately after you receive the Lord through His Word, there is the anointing of the Spirit of life. The Lord’s anointing the blind eyes with the clay made of His spittle signifies that by the anointing of the mingling of the Lord’s Word, which is His Spirit, with our humanity, our eyes, which were blinded by Satan, may have sight.
After the blind man’s eyes had been anointed with the clay, he was more blind than before. Now a thick layer of clay covered his eyes. The Lord told him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (9:7). The man went, washed, and came seeing. To wash here is to cleanse away the clay. This signifies the washing away of our old humanity, as we have in baptism (Rom. 6:3-4, 6). That the blind man went and washed means he obeyed the life-giving Word of the Lord. So he received sight. If he had not gone to wash off the clay after being anointed with it, it would have blinded him even more. Thus, our obedience to the anointing brings us sight.
The word Siloam means sent. This is very meaningful. The anointing of the Spirit of life means that you are always in the position of being sent. The anointing puts us on the ground of being sent. Therefore, we must obey. The Lord Himself always stood on the ground of being sent by the Father and He was always obedient. Now the Lord puts us in the same position as His sent ones. After we receive the Lord in His Word and have His anointing, He puts us in the position of being sent. We must now be obedient to His sending. After you receive the Lord in His Word, what is the first step that you should take in order to be obedient? Once you have believed in the Lord and received Him in the Word, the Lord will ask you to go to a “pool.” The first step is that the Lord will send you to a “pool.” He will send you to wash and be baptized. From then on, you must daily and throughout the day apply this washing. Day by day, you must realize that you are being washed during the whole day. Even today, I have been washed several times. An order from the Lord always follows the anointing of the Spirit of life within you: “Go and wash.”
This chapter portrays the blind man, the Lord making the clay, the eyes of the blind man being anointed with the clay, and the Lord telling him to go and wash in the pool of Siloam. Once the blind man washed his eyes, the clay was gone. What is the clay? It signifies the natural life or the human self. When you went to be baptized, the old man, the old clay, was washed away. After the washing, it was buried in and under the water. Your old man was buried in the water after you were baptized. However, do you also realize that you must apply the washing of the baptism day by day? In every day of your Christian life you have to apply the washing of baptism by putting the self and the nature of the old man under the water of death.
You must remember that the anointing within always demands that you apply the washing of baptism to yourself. If you do not apply this, you can never be obedient in following the anointing. The anointing within always demands that you go to Siloam and put yourself to death. You must bury yourself as the clay under the water of death. Perhaps you received an anointing this morning. If you neglect to apply the washing of baptism to yourself, you cannot obey that anointing. The command to put yourself under the water of death immediately follows the anointing. The anointing demands that you eliminate the old clay. When you do this, you will receive sight and light. According to our experience, after we follow the demand of the anointing to put ourselves into the water of death, we are very much in the light with the sight. Everything is clear to us because now we have both the sight and the light. The sunshine is actually within us. Our eyes are opened and we can see very clearly because we have received sight and are now in the light.
What would have happened if the blind man had refused to obey the Lord’s command to go and wash? Although his eyes had been anointed with the clay, his refusal to obey would have made him even more blind. What the Lord had done thus far would have been a veil or a covering instead of an unveiling. Likewise, if we do not obey the anointing of the Spirit of life, the anointing will become a veil that covers our eyes instead of opening them. However, if we obey the anointing of the Spirit of life and put ourselves into death, our eyes will be opened. In short, we will have sight and will be in the light. Otherwise, our disobedience will cause the anointing of the Spirit of life to become a veil covering our eyes. Then we will become more blind and will be brought into deeper darkness.
When I first received this interpretation, I laughed. I said, “My, the mixing of the clay with the spittle was strange enough. Now I have been given such a strange interpretation.” At first I could not believe it. However, as I prayed and checked with my experiences, I came to believe it. If you do the same, you will see that this is the correct interpretation. Many times you have received sight by the Divine Spirit being mingled with your humanity. For a short while, your eyes were covered and, temporarily, you were more blinded than ever. Eventually, after obeying the life-giving Word, your old nature was washed away. Then you had a clear sky. Please check with your experience. This was the procedure every time you received light.
Simply reading or studying the Bible is inadequate. Without the mingling of the divine life with your humanity, you can never see the light of the Word. You may read it, but you cannot see it. Perhaps you have read a certain sentence in the Bible many times. But you just could not see the light in it. One day, you begin to see. Immediately your eyes are covered and temporarily you are even more blinded. However, if you obey the living Word and say, “Amen, Lord Jesus,” you immediately have the sensation that something has fallen off your eyes and you have light. Your old humanity has fallen away and you can see into the heavens. This is the way to receive light.
There are three steps which we must follow in order to receive sight for our eyes. First of all, the clay must both receive and be mingled with the spittle. In other words, you, the old man, the clay, must receive the Lord’s Word as the spittle and be mingled with the Lord in His Word. Then the second step will follow — that is, after you have received the Lord in His Word, you will have the anointing. Finally, the third step follows the anointing: the demand to put the old self to death. The old clay must be put into the water of death. By these three steps your eyes will be opened. You will then have the sight and will always be in the light. Brothers and sisters, even today if you are going to have the sight and be in the light, you must first receive the Lord in His Word. Even though you have been regenerated, you must receive the Lord in His Word and be mingled with Him more and more. You are still clay and you need the spittle out of the Lord’s mouth, which signifies the very essence of the Lord Himself. Each time you receive the Lord in His Word, the anointing will follow. Then the anointing will command you, as a man of clay, to be put into the water of death and stand in the position of a sent one. A sent one never does his own will; he does the will of another. As a sent one, you must work and act as a sent one. A sent one does nothing according to his own will, but everything according to the one who sends him.
Do not consider that this story of healing the blind man is so simple. When I was young, I thought that it was simple and even funny. If I had been there, I probably would not have allowed the Lord to do this. I would have said, “It’s not healthy and not sanitary. How terrible! How dirty! Both the clay and the spittle are dirty. You just put dirty things on his eyes. No, no! I would not do this!” This story seems quite funny, but with the help of the Lord’s Spirit we can realize the wonderful principle contained in it. We can see that we must first receive and be mingled with the Lord in His Word. Then we will have the anointing of the Spirit of life within us, which will put us all into the position of being sent ones. We will then be willing to be put aside and to eliminate the clay that is in us. We will be willing to be buried under the water of death in order to put the self to death. Finally, our sight will be recovered and we will enjoy the light. We must live by this principle daily. This also is the changing of death into life.
It is a good thing to receive sight. However, be prepared to suffer persecution at the hands of blind religion. The blind man who received his sight was cast out (9:34), meaning that he was excommunicated, ostracized, from the Jewish synagogue. This means that he was put out of the sheepfold, as spoken by the Lord in 10:3-4. Although he was excommunicated from Judaism, he was received by the Lord Jesus.
The blind man came to believe in Jesus as the Son of God (9:35-38). The blind man received his sight by a kind of obscure believing. He believed, but he was not clear. He was simply innocent. He believed without really knowing who Jesus was. He believed in an innocent way. Although he did not know adequately who Jesus was, he did believe that Jesus was someone special and he argued about this with the Pharisees. Eventually, the Pharisees cast him out. Then, the Lord Jesus found him and said, “Do you believe in the Son of God?” (9:35). The blind man replied, “And who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?” (9:36). He believed, yet he did not know the Lord Jesus. Then the Lord said to him, “You have both seen Him, and He is the One who is speaking with you” (9:37). Then the blind man declared, “Lord I believe. And he worshipped Him” (9:38). He believed that the man Jesus is the Son of God. Thus, the blind man not only received his sight, but he himself was received by the Lord Jesus.
This means that the Lord, as the shepherd, entered the sheepfold, saw a little, blind sheep, opened his eyes, and then led that sheep out of the sheepfold. In one sense, the sheep was cast out; in another sense, the Lord led him out. The Pharisees cast him out, but the Lord Jesus carried him out. The Lord did not carry him out of hell but out of the sheepfold. As we shall see more in the next message, the sheepfold was Judaism, the law-keeping religion. The blind man, like the blind and lame people on the porches in chapter five, was kept on the law-keeping porch. Then the Lord Jesus came, not only as life, but also as the shepherd, to lead him out of the fold.
The Lord is sovereign. Many of us were in the fold of religion. Perhaps you were there as one who was lame. We all were on that porch. Thank the Lord Jesus for His sovereignty. He came as life to heal our blind eyes and as the shepherd to lead us out of the fold.
In 9:39-41, Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind. Some of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these things and said to Him, Are we also blind? Jesus said to them, If you were blind you would have no sin; but now that you say, We see, your sin remains.” The Lord told the Pharisees that He came to judge. But He told Nicodemus that He came not to judge but to save (3:17). He found a seeking soul in Nicodemus; therefore, He will not come to condemn the world, but to save the world. However, He saw pride in the Pharisees; hence, He will come to judge them. Whether the Lord will come to judge or to save you depends upon your attitude. If your attitude is like that of Nicodemus, He will come to save you. If your attitude is that of the Pharisees, He will come to judge you. Whether the Lord will become a Judge or a Savior to you depends upon your attitude.
The Lord will seriously vindicate Himself when anyone is proud to assert himself with many claims. This simply indicates that he does not need the Lord. Consequently, the Lord will leave such a person in his blindness. We must be very careful not to proudly say that we can see. If we claim that we see, the Lord will leave us blind. The Lord said that He will give sight to those who cannot see, but that He will make blind those who claim to see. This is a serious vindication of the Lord. Thus, we must be humble and not proud. Pride simply means blindness and darkness.
