Глава 9

1–41. Healing a man born blind. John 9:1. And as he passed, he saw a man blind from birth. Christ, passing along the road from the church, saw a man blind from birth, who was probably sitting at the gates of the church along with other blind beggars (cf. Acts 3:2). The fact that the meeting with the man born blind took place after the removal of Christ from the church (John 8:59) is indicated by the connecting particle “and” at the beginning of the first verse and the absence of such expressions as, for example, “after this” or “again,” which are placed where a certain gap between events is meant (cf. John 2:12, 5:1, 8:12). John 9:2. His disciples asked Him: Rabbi! Who sinned, he or his parents, that he was born blind? This time, His disciples were with the Lord, whose presence was not mentioned during Christ’s conversation with the Jews (John 8). The disciples turn to the Lord with a theoretical question: how to explain the fact that a man born blind suffers so much? Who is to blame for his difficult situation? In the Old Testament, the disciples obviously could not find an explanation for this phenomenon. In fact, although the law of Moses says that God punishes children for the sins of their parents until the third and fourth generation (Exodus 20:5), on the other hand, the prophets foretold that with the advent of the Kingdom of the Messiah this order will be abolished and everyone will be punished only for their personal guilt (Jeremiah 31:29 et seq.; Ezek. 18:2 et seq.). This same Kingdom was presented to the apostles as having already arrived ever since the Angels proclaimed peace to the whole world after the birth of Christ. And this blind man, obviously, due to his age, seemed to them to have been born after Christ. How could God punish him for the sins of his parents after peace had been established on earth? But another explanation - the personal guilt of the man born blind - did not fit here, since this blind man did not have time, of course, to commit anything criminal before his birth. "That I was born blind". Here, instead of “what” one would need to put “so that” according to the particle ἵνα put here. Meanwhile, according to the general Jewish view, the disease still had to be caused by someone else’s guilt; Christ Himself gave reason to think so (cf. John 5:14). John 9:3. Jesus answered: Neither he nor his parents sinned, but this was so that the works of God might be revealed in him. Christ does not recognize the universal nature of such a rule. No special crime was committed either by the parents of the healed blind man or by himself (which is impossible). The disease was sent to the blind man so that the works of God would be revealed on him. This, of course, does not mean that a person became blind so that the power of God would later be revealed on him (Clement of Rome, conversation XIX, 2) or the glory of the Son of God (as St. John Chrysostom interprets), or so that one of the works of God would be accomplished on him. Christ only wants to say that in general the blind man revealed God’s care for people, which for the most part remains hidden from human eyes. Yes, the works of God's providence were not something clearly observable for people for a long time, but now they are revealed in the activity of the Son of God - the Messiah. He considered the healing of the blind man, which Christ intended to accomplish, as one of the revelations of Divine providence for people. John 9:4. I must do the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night comes when no one can do anything. John 9:5. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. “Yes,” Christ seems to say, “and the action that I intend to perform on the blind is only one link in the chain of many deeds of My calling. I need to do a lot of such things, but there is very little time left. We need to hurry. Night will come soon, that is. I will be deprived of the opportunity to act visibly, openly for everyone.” "I am the light of the world". Christ proclaims the Gospel of salvation to everyone (cf. John 8:12, 1:4, 9), just as the sun always sends sensitive light to people (John 11:9). As the true light of the world, Christ wants to drive out the darkness in which the blind man lives, i.e. wants to make him sighted. And since through this action of Christ the hidden activity of God will be revealed, it is clear that the healing of the blind man in the eyes of Christ had a symbolic meaning: it meant that God wants to heal the spiritually blind. The blind man is a symbol of man in his natural state, incapable of a proper understanding of the purpose of his existence, who needs to be enlightened by the light of Christ in order to achieve true knowledge and begin a holy life, i.e. in regeneration (John 3:3–7) or in liberation through the Son (John 8:31–36). Thus, Christ, with His last saying, gives a special symbolic character to the following miracle. John 9:6. And having said this, He spat on the ground, made clay from the spit, and anointed the eyes of the blind man with clay, John 9:7. and he said to him, Go and wash in the pool of Siloam, which means sent. He went and washed, and came back seeing. The actions that Christ used when healing a man born blind have the same symbolic character. Instead of healing the blind man with one word, as Christ performed His miracles on other occasions (cf. John 2:7, 4:50, 5:8, 6:10), Christ makes “spit clay,” anoints the eyes of the blind man with this clay and sends him to wash in the Pool of Siloam. The evangelist himself obviously attaches great importance to these details. What did the first action mean? The wide open eyes of the blind man gave the appearance that he seemed to see. But Christ covers his eyes with dirt - let a person not seem to be sighted if in fact he does not see anything! Likewise, from a person who by nature does not have knowledge of the truth and is even incapable of knowing it, but who nevertheless imagines that he has such knowledge, this false phantom of sight will be taken away from him by the hand of Christ, so that he can then receive real knowledge. This negative action was accompanied by a positive one, which was indicated by Christ’s command to the blind man to wash himself in the Pool of Siloam. The evangelist himself explains to us the meaning of this command. The name of the source where Christ sent the blind man means, according to John’s interpretation, “sent” (Siloam, more precisely in Hebrew - Shiloah). John obviously sees in the Spring of Siloam a symbol of the Messiah sent by God to enlighten the people. John 9:8. Then the neighbors, who had seen before that he was blind, said: Isn’t this the one who sat and begged for alms? John 9:9. Some said: this is him, and others: he looks like him. He said: it’s me. John 9:10. Then they asked him: how did your eyes open? John 9:11. He answered and said, The man called Jesus made clay, anointed my eyes, and said to me, Go to the pool of Siloam and wash. I went, washed and received my sight. John 9:12. Then they said to him: Where is He? He answered: I don’t know. The blind man without hesitation fulfills the command of Christ. He was prompted to do this by a natural desire to use any means to cure his illness, and on the other hand, he could have heard rumors about Christ as a miraculous healer (John 5:5–9, 7:21). Thus, he already had the beginnings of faith. But, having received healing, he does not yet seek Christ, but hurries home. In conversations with his neighbors and with other people who saw him previously sitting at the gates of the church, he speaks of his benefactor as a person almost unknown to him, he only knows the name of his Healer, and where He is is unknown to the healed one. John 9:13. They took this former blind man to the Pharisees. John 9:14. And it was the Sabbath when Jesus made clay and opened his eyes. After some time, the Jews who were most zealous for fulfilling the Law of Moses took the healed blind man to the Pharisees. They could not come to terms with the idea that some kind of miracle worker had appeared who performed healings on Saturdays, when even such insignificant works as, for example, the preparation of clay from spit were prohibited. The Pharisees to whom Christ was taken were considered experts in distinguishing between what could be done on the Sabbath and what could not be done. It is not said where these Pharisees were at this time. John 9:15. The Pharisees also asked him how he received his sight. He said to them, “He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.” John 9:16. Then some of the Pharisees said: This Man is not from God, because he does not keep the Sabbath. Others said: how can a sinful person perform such miracles? And there was a quarrel between them. John 9:17. Again they say to the blind man: What will you say about Him, because He opened your eyes? He said: this is a prophet. John 9:18. Then the Jews did not believe that he was blind and received his sight, until they called the parents of him who had received his sight. Among the assembled Pharisees there was no unanimity of views on this matter. To resolve the question of how a person could perform a miracle in violation of the Law of Moses, the Pharisees decided to interrogate the healed man again. When the healed man expressed to them the confidence that Christ is a “prophet”, i.e. stands in direct communion with God, the Pharisees, whom the evangelist now calls Jews due to their hostile attitude towards Christ (cf. John 6:41, 8:48), decided to assert that there was no healing itself. Hoping to find support for this statement, they invited the parents of the healed man. John 9:19. and they asked them, “Is this your son, of whom you say that he was born blind?” How can he see now? John 9:20. His parents answered them: We know that this is our son and that he was born blind, John 9:21. but how he sees now, we don’t know, or who opened his eyes, we don’t know. He himself is of advanced years; ask yourself; let him speak about himself. John 9:22. This is what his parents answered because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that whoever recognized Him as Christ should be excommunicated from the synagogue. John 9:23. That is why his parents said: he is of perfect age; ask yourself. When asked by the Pharisees whether the former blind man is really their son, the parents of the blind man answer that he is indeed their own son and that he was born blind. They do not know how his healing took place, because they were not there. They do not say anything about Christ as the author of the healing of their son, because, as the evangelist notes, they were afraid of the Jews, i.e. members of the Sanhedrin (cf. John 7:48), who decided to excommunicate believers in Christ from the synagogue or from Israeli society. The excommunicated person was deprived of some important advantages, for example, in his house it was impossible to perform circumcisions, cry for the dead, and, finally, no one except his wife or children could approach him closer than a distance of four cubits. John 9:24. So, they called the man who was blind a second time and said to him: Give glory to God; we know that Man is a sinner. John 9:25. He answered and said to them, “Whether He is a sinner, I don’t know; One thing I know is that I was blind, but now I see. The Pharisees again want to extract from the healed man some testimony against Christ. Perhaps they expected the healed person to say that Christ used some incantatory formulas when performing the healing (cf. Matt. 12:24 et seq.). Now they have already agreed with each other in their view of Christ. “We know,” they say, “that this man is a sinner!” The healed person should, according to their demand, “give glory to God,” i.e. quite sincerely show everything that he knew about Christ (cf. Joshua 7:19). But he does not want to go into discussions about whether Christ is a sinner or not; for him it seems quite sufficient to know only that Christ healed him of blindness. John 9:26. They asked him again: What did He do to you? How did I open your eyes? John 9:27. He answered them: I already told you, and you did not listen; what else do you want to hear? or do you also want to become His disciples? Then the Pharisees again raise the question of the method of healing used by Christ, but the emboldened man himself mockingly asks them if they also want to become disciples of Christ. John 9:28. They reproached him and said: You are His disciple, and we are Moses’ disciples. John 9:29. We know that God spoke to Moses; We don’t know where He comes from. The Pharisees, of course, felt offended by such a response from a man who belonged to the “cursed mob” (cf. John 7:49). Irritation prompts them to scold the healed one (ἐλοιδόρησαν, according to the Russian translation - “reproached”). They call him a disciple of Christ, although in fact he was not yet such, and they proudly call themselves disciples of Moses. Moreover, in contradiction to their previous statement (“we know”, verse 24), they say here that they do not know where Christ comes from, i.e. where did He get His teaching and powers? They are afraid to say now, as they said before, that Christ is a sinner and, therefore, not from God, due to the fact that the fact of the healing performed by Christ was in plain sight for everyone. John 9:30. The man who received his sight answered and said to them: It is surprising that you do not know where He comes from, but He opened my eyes. John 9:31. But we know that God does not listen to sinners; but whoever honors God and does His will listens to him. John 9:32. Since the beginning of time it has not been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. John 9:33. If He were not from God, He could not create anything. The healed man takes advantage of the predicament of the Pharisees and, not without humor, points out his healing, which, it seems, should explain to the Pharisees who Christ is. He reminds the learned Pharisees of what, in fact, was well known to every Israeli (“we know”), namely, that piety and fulfillment of the will of God is a condition for hearing any prayer. The healed one sees the occasion of just such hearing in the miracle performed on him by Christ (cf. John 11:41 et seq.). At the same time, he praises Christ for performing a miracle on him that had never been heard of before, and concludes that Christ is from God. John 9:34. They answered him: You were born entirely in sins, and are you teaching us? And they kicked him out. The infuriated Pharisees announce to the healed man that he was obviously already born a sinner, burdened with sins at his very birth. This is what the Pharisees said, taking into account his previous illness, which, in their opinion, was caused by the sins of the healed man (cf. Ps. 50:7, 57:4). Then they kick him out. By this they clearly showed that they had nothing to say against the truth that this simpleton expressed (verse 31). For his part, the man who suffered for Christ discovered by all his actions that a transition was gradually made in him from the trust that he first had in Christ as a miraculous healer, to faith in Him as a messenger of God, as a pious and powerful Prayer Book, to whom God gives the power to perform miracles. John 9:35. When Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and when he found him, he said to him, “Do you believe in the Son of God?” John 9:36. He answered and said: Who is He, Lord, that I should believe in Him? John 9:37. Jesus said to him: And you have seen Him, and He speaks to you. John 9:38. He said: I believe, Lord! And he bowed to Him. When Christ heard from someone that the Pharisees had thrown out the healed man, He approached him to help him achieve complete faith in Him. Having met him, Christ asked him: “Do you believe in the Son of God” 32? Christ thereby shows the healed man that He knows how this man defended Him before the Pharisees. The healed man, as stated above, claimed that Jesus was from God (verse 33). In this confession there already lay the germ of faith in Jesus as the God-sent Messiah. After all, the blind man should have realized that it was not in vain that Christ sent him to wash his eyes in the spring of Siloam. He could not help but understand that his healer was hinting at the coming of a “messenger from God” (Siloam means “sent”). At that time, the Jews, especially deprived of fate, like a blind man, only thought about the messenger who was supposed to come from God to alleviate their suffering, about the Messiah who was promised by the prophets. And in the soul of the blind man, naturally, hope could flare up: is this healer who turned to him not the Messiah for whom he was waiting? After all, This Man performed a miracle unheard of since the beginning of time... And now Christ comes to meet the need of the healed person to know the truth and brings his thought about Himself to full maturity. He asks the healed man: does he believe in Him as the Messiah? (The term “Son of God” here undoubtedly had not a metaphysical, but a theocratic meaning; it meant “Messiah” this time, since the healed one could now understand him only in this sense). The healed one willingly comes to meet Christ, asking: “Who is He?” Feeling that the Messiah is close to him, he seems to say: “Where is He? Hurry, hurry to Him!” And his wish comes true. Christ tells him that he has already “seen” the Messiah - he saw, of course, when his eyes were opened. The Messiah is still standing before him (“speaking to you”). The healed one then confessed his faith in Christ as the promised Messiah, and worshiped Him as the Divine Messenger (cf. John 4:24). John 9:39. And Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” John 9:40. When some of the Pharisees who were with Him heard this, they said to Him, “Are we also blind?” John 9:41. Jesus said to them: If you were blind, you would have no sin; but as you say what you see, the sin remains on you. The different attitude towards Christ on the part of the Pharisees and the healed blind man prompts the Lord to express the position that He came into this world to judge people, so that the blind would see and those who see would become blind. The word “court” (κρῖμα) here does not mean judicial proceedings (κρίσις), carried out according to known laws and rules: this is not why Christ came this time (cf. John 3:17). By “judgment” here we must understand the consequences that the appearance of Christ with the preaching of the Gospel will have for people: some will be able to accept this preaching, others will not. This will reveal the difference between people, which was hidden until then. We can say that by “judgment” here we mean what happens in the soul of a person (cf. Rev. 17:1; Rom. 3:8). The Pharisees understood the words of Christ in such a way that He calls them blind - of course, in a spiritual sense - the Pharisees, making it clear that only with Him can they find healing from their blindness. But this offends them. Do they really need such a service from Christ? They seem to be quite enlightened people! But Christ notices to them that it would be much better if they were blind, i.e. not knowing the truth at all. In this case, they could be helped, just as Christ helped the man born blind, and they “would have no sin on them,” i.e. would not be guilty of stubborn resistance to Christ, which stems from their false confidence that the truth is already known to them. The Pharisees are proud of their knowledge of the law or, as the Apostle Paul says, they consider themselves called to teach the ignorant, since in their law they see an immutable, unchangeable “model of knowledge and truth” (Rom. 2:20). Such people, who do not feel any need for spiritual healing, of course, cannot be helped! The intention with which John included this story in his Gospel was probably to show Christian readers on a specific occasion that Christ is the “light of the world” and gives to those who seek Him the “light of life” (cf. John 8:12), and to those who do not accept His testimony and reject Him Himself, He will bring the judgment that they will remain in the darkness of ignorance and sin. John reports the details of the interrogation carried out by the Pharisees on the healed man and his parents in order to show how the Pharisees tried in every possible way to instill in the people the idea that Christ did not perform any miracle. First, John depicted how the Jews did not accept the word of Christ (John 7), and now he adds that they did not want to recognize the work He had done. In the past, they did not dare to dispute the very fact of the miracle (John 5), but now they have come to the point where they deny the very performance of the miracle. It is clear that, on the one hand, their hatred of Christ intensified greatly, on the other, they decided to suppress any sympathy for Christ among the people, even by distorting the facts. Thus, the position of Christ becomes critical... Tsang, Holtzman and some others read, according to some ancient texts, this question as follows: “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” But such a change in the text is unlikely to be fundamental. Although Christ designated Himself as the Son of Man, this expression was not commonly used among the Jews to designate the Messiah, and a blind man might not understand what Christ wants to say with this expression. You might be interested in: