John 9:41. Alas! Jesus intends to say, Ye are not blind. Were ye blind (as I intended the μὴ βλέποντες in John 9:39), that is, people who are conscious of being destitute of the true knowledge,[55] then ye would be without sin, i.e. your unbelief in me would not be sinful, just because it would involve no resistance to divine truth, but would simply imply that ye had not yet attained thereunto, a result for which ye were not to blame. But now ye assert we see (profess to be possessors of divine truth); the consequence whereof is, that your sin remaineth (is not removed),[56] i.e. that your unbelief in me not only is sinful, but also this, your sin continues to exist, remains undestroyed (ἀνεξάλειπτος μένει, Theodoret, Heracleon), because your conceit is a perpetual ground for rejecting me, so that you cannot attain to faith and the forgiveness of sin. “Dicendo videmus, medicum non quaeritis,” Augustine. “Si diceretis: caeci sumus, visum peteretis et peccatum jam desiisset,” Bengel. According to Lücke (so also substantially Baeumlein), whom J. Müller follows (Lehre v. d. Sünde, I. p. 286, ed. 5), the meaning is: “Were you blind, i.e. without the capability of knowledge, there would be no sin (guilt) in your unbelief; you would then be unable to believe with knowledge. But so long as you say, notwithstanding all your blindness, We see, and therefore do not put away your conceited self-deception, so long your unbelief cannot depart, but must remain.” Against this view are the following objections: 1. Τυφλοί, because answering to ΜῊ ΒΛΈΠΟΝΤΕς in John 9:39, cannot denote incapacity for knowledge; 2. The antithesis λέγετε ὅτι βλέπ. suggests for ΤΥΦΛΟΊ, not the objective, but the subjective meaning; 3. ἉΜΑΡΤΊΑ is thus taken in different senses in the two halves. Other imported meanings are: Were you blind, like the multitude which you regard as blind, perhaps you would have no sin, etc. (Ewald, as though besides ἄν John had written also ΤΆΧΑ or ἼΣΩς); or (Hengstenberg), if ye suffered merely from the simple blindness of the human race, which is blind from birth, ye would have no sin of decisive significance, no unpardonable sin; as though there were the slightest reference to anything of the kind! Substantially correct are Erasmus, Beza, Grotius, and several others; comp. Luthardt and Ebrard; still ΟὐΚ ἊΝ ΕἼΧ. ἉΜ. ought not to be transposed into, “then would your sin forgive you.” The explanation of Godet is a natural consequence of his interpretation of John 9:39, but founders on the words λέγετε ὅτι βλέπομεν.[57]

[55] Not, physically blind, as Nonnus, Theophylact, Euth. Zigabenus, and several others here, as well as in ver. 40, after the example of Chrysostom, wrongly understand.

[56] Not, “The sin remains yours” (Ewald). Comp. John 15:16.

[57] “S’ils appartenaient à la multitude ignorante, leur incrédulité à l’égard de Jésus pourrait n’être qu’une affaire d’entraînement (it would be merely a sin against the Son of man); mais éclairés, comme ils le sont, par la connaissance de la parole de Dieu, c’est sciemment, qu’ils rejettent le Messie” (this is a sin against the Holy Ghost). In this case, however, Jesus must have said: νῦν δὲ βλέπετε, not νῦν δὲ λέγετε ὁτι βλέπομεν, which Godet, it is true, regards merely as an allusion to the question in ver. 40; whilst in reality it is the key to the correct understanding of the entire passage.

OBSERVATION.

The absence from the Synoptics of the miracle performed on the man born blind ought to have found its explanation simply in the circumstance that it did not take place in the (Galilean) sphere of the synoptic narrative, and ought not to have been made the ground of an attack on its historical credibility, as was done by Strauss (who compares the healing of Naaman in 2 Kings 5:10); by Weisse (who derives the narrative, by means of a misunderstanding, from John 9:39); and by Baur (who regards this story as the intensified expression of the healings of the blind recorded by the synoptists, p. 245 f.); whilst Gfrörer, on the contrary, content with asserting the presence of unhistorical additions, comes to a conclusion disadvantageous to the synoptists.

According to Baur (p. 176 ff.), the narrative of the miracle was definitely and intentionally shaped, so as to set forth faith in its pure objectivity, the susceptibility to the divine as it is affected by the pure impression of the divine element in the ἔργα θεοῦ, even when it is not yet aware who is the subject of these ἔργα. “It clings to the thing itself; and the thing itself is so immediately divine, that in the thing, without knowing it, one has also the person.” In such wise are arbitrary, and not even relevant (see Brückner), abstractions from history converted into the ground of history. Ammon makes the occurrence a natural healing of an inflammation of the eyes! a counterpart to the converse travesty of some of the Fathers, who express the opinion that the blind man lacked eyes altogether, and that Jesus formed them out of the πηλός, as God at first formed man from the earth (see especially Irenaeus, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and Nonnus); comp. on John 9:6 f.

41. If ye were blind] Christ returns to His own meaning of ‘blind’ or ‘they which see not’ in John 9:39. ‘If ye were conscious of your own spiritual darkness, if ye yearned and strove to reach the light, ye would not have sin (see on John 15:22); for either ye would find the light, or, if ye failed, the failure would not lie at your door.’ For the construction comp. John 5:46; John 8:19; John 8:42; John 15:19; John 18:36.

therefore your sin remaineth] Better, your sin abideth (see on John 1:33): ‘therefore’ is an insertion, and must be omitted. ‘Ye profess to see: your sin in this false profession and in your consequent rejection of Me abideth.’ It was a hopeless case. They rejected Him because they did not know the truth about Him; and they would never learn the truth because they were fully persuaded that they were in possession of it. Those who confess their ignorance and contend against it, (1) cease to be responsible for it, (2) have a good prospect of being freed from it. Those who deny their ignorance and contend against instruction, (1) remain responsible for their ignorance, (2) have no prospect of ever being freed from it. Comp. John 3:36.

John 9:41. Ἁμαρτίαν sin) If ye would say, we are blind, ye would seek sight, and your sin would have already ceased. Sin exists even in the intellect; for blindness affects the sight, and is synonymous with sin.

Verse 41. - The reply of our Lord is not meant to be a crushing and final retort, condemning them to hopeless night, but was obviously intended to show them that they are not yet free from sin, that they are only partially appreciating the light which shines upon them. If ye were blind - incapable of sight; if ye had all along been deprived of the faculty of perceiving the true Light that shineth in the darkness (a condition of things which would have emancipated them from responsibility, and which Christ would not admit to be the case); perhaps more, if ye had been utterly blind to the light which is shining upon you now, which, however, is not true - ye would not have sin. This is akin to the solemn language of John 15:22-24. They did not themselves admit that there was any congenital blindness about them. They did not pretend or expect to ride off on such a πρόφασις, such an excuse. Could they be, judicially or naturally, blind? The very idea was an absurdity, and so Jesus added, But now ye say, We see. You even boast that you are "instructors of the ignorant, and leaders of the blind; a light to those who sit in darkness, having the form of knowledge and truth in the Law" (Romans 2:17-21). You are the very opposite of the "not-seeing" (μὴ βλέποντες); you are self-satisfied; you will not come to the Light. What is the issue? The Lord seems to pause before his answer (the οϋν, "therefore," is rejected by the best manuscripts and critics): Your sin abideth; or, remaineth. It will remain until you fully admit the great principle and reason, the motive and characteristics, of my mission. The very facility you profess, the intimacy you claim with the Law and its founder, and your partial knowledge of my claim, take away your excuse. The discourse which follows shows how entire must be the submission to Christ, how complete the union with him, of those who say, "We see."



John 9:41Ye should have no sin (οὐκ ἀν εἴχετε ἁμαρτίαν)

Or, ye would have had. The phrase ἁμαρτίαν ἔχειν, to have sin, occurs only in John, in the Gospel and First Epistle.

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