The Gospel of St. John: A Series of Discourses. / New Edition

by Frederick Denison Maurice

St. John IX. 39.

And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.

The reading of the last verse of the 8th chapter, which our version has adopted, connects it directly with the first verse of the 9th. 'Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by (παρῆγεν οὕτως). And as He passed by (καὶ παράγων), He saw a man blind from his birth.' Possibly the former verse ought to end at the word 'temple.' But if we lose that link between the incidents recorded in the two chapters, the internal relation between them will remain as strong as ever. The discourse of Jesus, which we have been considering on the two last Sundays, began with the sentence, 'I am the light of the world.' Every subsequent passage unfolded itself out of this opening one. The story which forms the subject of this chapter is introduced by the same announcement. Can we doubt that the words and the act had the same origin and the same object? Can we safely sever what Christ has joined together?

I am aware of the motive which induces us to sever them. I have had occasion to speak of it more than once already, and to acknowledge that an honest feeling is lurking in it. We are afraid of confounding what is sensible with what is spiritual. We are afraid of using light in two senses, and of fancying that they are the same. I complain of no desire to be religiously accurate in the use of language. Scrupulosity in this matter is far less dangerous than indifference. We are in continual peril of falling into confusions and equivocations; let all our faculties be awake to the risk,—let them all watch against it. But they will not be awake, they will not watch, unless they do homage to the fact, that light has been used, is used, must be used, in every dialect in which men express their thoughts, to denote that which the eye receives, and that which the mind receives,—the great energy of the eye, the great energy of the mind. Instead of repining at this fact, as if it were a hindrance to our perceptions of truth,—instead of labouring to reconstruct speech according to some scheme of ours,—instead of fancying that we have done a good work when we have got a scholastical or technical phrase substituted for a popular one,—let us earnestly meditate upon the principle which is latent under these forms of discourse, from which we cannot emancipate ourselves. Let us thankfully accept them as proofs that the sensible world and the spiritual, though entirely distinct, are related; and that the last is not closed any more than the first against the wayfarer and the child. This, at all events, is the doctrine which goes through Scripture, and which has made its words so mighty to those who can understand no others—so full of relief and discovery to those who do not wish to be separate from their kind, and who have convinced themselves that the deepest truths must be the commonest. Such is the doctrine implied in every parable of our Lord; such, above all, is the doctrine of St. John, who does not report many parables, but who takes us into the inmost heart of them, and shows us the divine law which is involved in the use of them.

I find an unspeakable blessing in following the order of St. John's narrative. It is the true order of human life. After we have listened to the divinest discourse, there is a sense of vacancy in the heart. We feel as if we were out of communion with the business and misery of the world,—as if the words had not proved themselves till they could be brought into collision and conflict with these. When we are in the midst of action, we want to know that it is not merely mechanical action,—that it is in conformity with some principle, and springs out of a principle. When Jesus has finished His discourse with the Jews, by assuming a name which lies beneath all discourse,—when they have finished their arguments by taking up stones to cast at Him,—He meets a man blind from his birth. He proceeds at once to do him good. But before He can enter upon that work, He must encounter a metaphysical doubt which has occurred to the fishermen who are walking with Him. A metaphysical doubt to fishermen! Yes; and if you go into the garrets and cellars of London, you will have metaphysical doubts presented to you by men immeasurably more ignorant than those fishermen were, even before Jesus called them; the very doubts which the schools are occupied with, only taking a living, practical form. Unless you can cause men not to be metaphysical beings—that is to say, unless you can take from them all which separates them from the beasts that perish—they must have these doubts. Thanks be to God, He awakens them! And thanks be to God, He, and not priests and doctors, must satisfy them for every creature whom He has made in His image!

The doubt which troubled the disciples is one that has exercised all generations—none more than our own. 'Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?' 'He came into the world under this curse. Was it for some sin he committed in another world, in some older state of existence? or is this an illustration of the doctrine, asserted in the second commandment? Are the sins of the father and mother visited on the child?' The former hypothesis has always connected itself closely with the sense of immortality in man. 'Am I merely to be hereafter? Does not the future imply a past? Do not shadows of that past pursue me? Can I interpret the facts of memory if I deny its existence?' The second doctrine is not more asserted in the law than it is justified by experience. The facts from which it is deduced belong to physiology as much at least as to theology. Every one who thinks of hereditary sickness and insanity confesses them and trembles.

'Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.'

A dogmatist who ventured, on the strength of this answer, to say that the bodily condition of this particular man, or of any man, had not been affected by the misdoings of his parents,—who should venture even to pronounce the other opinion respecting a pre-existent state a false and heretical one,—would speedily find himself at fault. To be consistent, he must take the sentence according to the letter of it, and say that the parents of this man had not sinned at all before he was born. One who really reverences our Lord's words will not trifle with them after this fashion. He will seek from them actual guidance for his own life, not an excuse for suppressing evidence or condemning the conclusions of other men. And if this is his object, he will not be disappointed. In a single case He gives us the hint of a law which is applicable to all cases. That law remains true, whatever may be the truth respecting our own sins or the sins of our parents. That law is one which reveals the mind of God, and removes all dark surmises respecting His government of the world. That law is one which we may use for the regulation of our own conduct.

The disciples were speculating about final causes. They would not have understood what any one meant who had told them they were doing so; they were doing it nevertheless. Jesus met them with the most final cause. 'I can give you a better reason for this man's blindness than those you have imagined. His blindness will be a means of showing forth the power and purpose of God. He will learn himself, he will be a teacher to the world through this blindness, whence light comes, who is the Father of light.'

It was not the mere announcement of a principle. Every principle He delivered embodied itself in an act. He added immediately: 'I must work the works of Him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.' He declares that what He was going to do He must do. He did not choose His own way. When He was most exercising power, He was obeying a power,—'He was working the works of Him that sent Him.' And every such work was a revelation. It showed forth the Will and the Mind that had been creating and ruling all things. That Will was proving itself to be a Will of absolute goodness,—that Mind, a light in which is no darkness. But there is a sorrow for Him who is about to impart joy. His countrymen had taken up stones to cast at Him. He has a vision of a time when they would have their way. The light for a while would be quenched. But as long as He was in the world, He must illuminate it. Here, again, we have the feelings of the Man, the presentiments of the Sufferer—not drawn out, but just indicated—that we may have a glimpse into the heart from which they came. They cannot be divided from the divine truth He is enunciating; they are the media through which that truth is exhibited to us. The Word is indeed made flesh; it is in the Son of Man that we know the Son of God.