No Remaining Guilt

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

NO REMAINING GUILT

John 9:35-41

35 Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?"  36 "Who is he, sir?" the man asked. "Tell me so that I may believe in him." 37 Jesus said, "You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you."  38 Then the man said, "Lord, I believe," and he worshiped him. 39 Jesus said, "For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind."  40 Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, "What? Are we blind too?" 41 Jesus said, "If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.

NIV

We have arrived at the main event, the climax of this whole thing about healing the man born blind. Although this was a real-life event, Jesus turns it into great teaching. Perhaps that was his intent all along when he first came across this blind man. After Jesus admits to this man that He is the Son of Man, He makes this metaphorical statement about the blind and those who see. This is not about the blindness or the seeing of the eyes, but of the heart. Jesus came into the world so we who were blinded by our life of sin, who lived in that darkened city of death, could see his light and find our way across the bridge, Jesus, into the city of light and life. Once we were blind, but now we can see. However, Jesus also responded to these Pharisees who were impertinent to his words. They were if fact blinded to the truth, but at the same time, they had the truth right before their eyes. They claimed to know the truth about God, about the Law of Moses, the scriptures, or scrolls of all the prophets, which they read. They claimed to be righteous by their obedience to the law, the very law which shows them to be sinners in need of a Messiah. In our country, if we break the law, and say that we did not know about that law, we will be told that ignorance of the law is no excuse, we are still guilty of breaking it and as such are required to pay the penalty. Could this apply to us as we either know the truth or are yet finding it? In other words, if we do not know, or are unaware of certain truths, are he held responsible for them? The fact is we have the whole truth, nothing but the truth, contained in the Bible. There should be no reason we do not know the truth, all the truth, for, in fact, Jesus sent the Spirit to lead us into all the truth. However, the truth is all we need is Jesus. Just like the Pharisees could not see that, but looked to their good works for righteousness, we too must be careful not to get caught up in looking to our good deeds as a form of righteousness. This blind man could not see Jesus until he was healed and now he sees Jesus and worships him. That is as simple as it gets, once we know who Jesus is, we worship Him. Once we were blind, but now we can see. Jesus is the Truth and the Truth will set us free. Our guilt no longer remains.