Blindness for God’s glory! John 9:1-3
By Tom Johns, Austin Texas.
One of the most puzzling yet thoroughly reassuring verse that we find in the Bible is here in Romans 8:28 - “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”
We may never realize its full significance or see it come to fruition to its fulness until God graciously reveals it to us when He indeed does. But this theme of God’s sovereign providence upon our lives is an overarching theme of the Bible. When we read the Scriptures from cover to cover, we start realizing how God brings this verse and its message to life. Let’s look at a passage from the Gospel of John in this context.
“As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” John 9:1-3 [NASB]
The whole chapter of John 9 is devoted to this miraculous healing. There are multiple themes in this chapter but let us focus on just one – ‘God receives glory from the lifelong blindness of a young man, a congenital condition.’ Jesus declared that this blind man’s condition from his birth was to bring glory to God’s name when others were focusing on other reasons.
Chosen Vessel
This blind beggar was a vessel specifically chosen by God to display God’s power and compassion at a critical juncture of Jesus’ public ministry. This miracle testified Jesus’s creative and divine power by transforming a totally blind person to see the daylight for the very first time. The dead nerves and cells felt the touch of its creator and they came to life.
Until now, he was an ordinary beggar and probably remained as a burden to others in the society and to his parents. They had to care for a blind child all his life and now, as an adult he had to wander the streets to curb his hunger. His life appeared to be worthless and purposeless. But Jesus made it clear that the life he spent so far, wandering in the dark, was to shed light in a focused way into the mysterious truth about God that ‘God can cause all things to work together for good.’
Until God reached out to this man, his life must have been a long saga of miseries. He had no hope, and he must have been going around with no purpose in life. His parents and others may have believed that he is none but an object lesson of hidden sins of either of himself in the womb or by his parents in some unknown ways. But little did people know that all along God was grooming this helpless beggar to display God’s power.
Mysterious Miseries
We could also be facing such miseries and uncertainties; a child with mental challenges, a person with chronic illness, someone going through mental illness, a premature or accidental death, financial crisis, not been able to get married, troubled marriages, etc. No matter what we who are followers of Christ go through, God will ultimately make it for good and He would receive glory through it all.
Bible has many such examples, and this is just one. Christian life is mysterious in many ways. Paul puts it so eloquently in 2 Cor. 6: 9-10. ”As unknown yet well-known, as dying yet behold, we live; as punished yet not put to death, as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing, yet possessing all things.” Apostle John wrote, “Now we are children of God, and it has not appeared yet what we will be. We know that when He appears.” (1John 3:2)
We are called to be faithful in serving God in the circumstances that He had placed us. When we do, God will make all things work together for good for us and give us the divine ‘peace that surpasses all our understanding’ [Phil 4:7] and lead us to a joyful Christian life. God received glory through the lifelong blindness of an insignificant beggar. If so, are there any situations that we are facing today that God cannot transform to a glorious end?
