Are We Spiritually Blind?

Spiritual Sight Begins Through A Divine Initiative

John 9:35 Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and finding him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” Jesus went after the man. That is divine initiative.

Luke 19:10 For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.

The miracle of the beggar’s spiritual sight depended upon a seeking Savior. In the physical sense, a blind man has no capacity to give himself sight.

Spiritual Sight Requires Faith

John 9:36 He answered and said, “And who is He, sir, that I may believe in Him?”

The blind man has come to the end of his confidence in the traditional religious authorities. Here, we see the human side of salvation—we must respond.
Even though divine initiative brings spiritual sight, a person must respond by personal faith to Jesus Christ. That’s the human side, the balance of salvation. It’s all in the divine initiative, but it demands a response from us.

Spiritual Sight Recognizes Christ

John 9:38 And he said, “I believe, Lord!” and he worshiped him.

Anyone who is going to come to Christ has to recognize Him. A poor beggar who saw nothing all of his life clearly recognized the Son of God. In contrast, a whole lot of religious leaders who thought they saw everything could not recognize their own promised Messiah.

Spiritual Sight Leads to Worship

John 9:38 And he said, “I believe, Lord!” and he worshiped him.

Jesus drives people to decide. The Pharisees had rocks in their hands, and this guy is kneeling at His feet in worship.

Spiritual Blindness

The Spiritually Blind Are Judged

John 9:39 And Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind!”

Jesus did not come to judge the world. He came to save the world, but the other side of the coin is: By virtue of bringing salvation and by what men chose to do with that salvation, judgment resulted. What starts out often as a willful rejection of Christ becomes a judicial thing. The man who chooses not to be saved, cannot be saved.

The Spiritually Blind Refuse To Admit Their Condition

John 9:40 Some of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these things and said to Him, “We are not also blind, are we?”

The learned spiritual leaders said, ‘we are not blind.’ They claim they can see and are satisfied with the light of the law, as interpreted by their received traditions. Consequently, they then reject the true light when it shines upon them. As a result, they remain spiritually blind.

Proverbs 26:12 Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.

The Spiritually Blind Reject Healing

John 9:41 Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now you say, ‘We see,’ so your sin remains.

It’s a tragic thing for people who do not understand that they don’t know God. They don’t understand that they are in sin, because they do not realize the condition they are in.

The Spiritually Blind Are Doomed

John 9:41b Your sin remains.

This same condition of the doomed is seen among the leaders Jesus spoke of in Matthew 15.

Matthew 15:14 Let them alone; they are blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.

Jesus said, ‘let them alone, they are blind willfully, and now also judicially. They are confirmed in their blindness. They have chosen it, they are kept in it … let them alone.’ They are blind leaders of the blind.

Let them alone, are shocking words coming from Jesus Christ. That’s how Christ treats willful, obstinate, stubborn unbelief. He will walk away and leave us with the decision we make.

He will do what He can do to arrest our attention, but He will also leave us with our decision.

Each of us has a choice in this life: Spiritual Sight or Spiritual Blindness

The result of spiritual sight is that we fall down and worship. The result of spiritual blindness is we will be judged because of our decision to reject Christ and His offer of salvation.