The Pharisees were an orderly, pious sect. They created a long list of oral traditions and secondary laws meant to "protect" the laws of Moses. At the time of Jesus' earthly ministry, these traditions were being treated with the same level of authority as the Word of God itself. The most sacred of these rules was that of honoring the Sabbath. In confronting religious hypocrites, Jesus seems to deliberately use their secondary laws to provoke conversations. This included performing healings on the Sabbath day (John 5:18).

Jesus' most recent miracle is the sixth of seven "signs" recorded by John in this gospel. In this case, the miracle was to give sight to a man born blind (John 9:1–7). Not only was this done on a Sabbath day, as this verse indicates, but it involved something the Pharisees considered taboo. Jesus made clay from mud and saliva. According to traditional Pharisaical laws, this was a form of work, and Sabbath work was explicitly forbidden. Jesus' actions challenge their shallow views of spirituality and highlight their unreasonable legalism.

John 9:13–34 describes the Pharisees' reaction to Jesus' healing of a man born blind. Rather than being swayed by an obvious sign of divine power, they look for excuses and criticisms to discredit the miracle. They interrogate the man's parents, who timidly defer back to their son. The healed man knows nothing more than this: ''though I was blind, now I see.'' His matter-of-fact responses to the Pharisees highlights their obvious prejudice. As a result, they excommunicate the healed man from the synagogue. Jesus will meet with the man in the next passage to give more context for the miracle.

Jesus encounters a man who has been blind his entire life. Consistent with notions of that era, the disciples assume the disability is due to some specific sin: either the man's or his parents'. Jesus challenges this idea and heals the man. His restoration leads to interrogation. The Pharisees try to discredit Jesus' miraculous work. The healed man's simple, straightforward perspective embarrasses the religious leaders, who excommunicate him in frustration. Jesus meets with the healed man, explaining more about His identity and the purpose of His ministry. Jesus also reminds the Pharisees that those who ought to know better, spiritually, will be held more accountable as a result.

Jesus has begun to actively confront the false teachings of local religious leaders. His most recent debate included a heated exchange with the Pharisees. There, Jesus claimed to have existed before Abraham. This resulted in an attempted stoning for blasphemy (John 8). Here, Jesus continues to antagonize religious hypocrites by healing a man who was born blind. The ensuing ruckus further exposes Jerusalem's religious leaders as shallow, prejudiced, and false. This event launches Jesus into another lengthy discussion of His ministry. That, recorded in chapter 10, includes several crucial teachings on His role as Shepherd.

The disciple John wrote the gospel of John decades after the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke were written. The author assumes that a reader is already familiar with the content of these other works. So, John presents a different perspective, with a greater emphasis on meaning. John uses seven miracles—which he calls "signs"— to prove that Jesus is, in fact, God incarnate. Some of the most well-known verses in the Bible are found here. None is more famous than the one-sentence summary of the gospel found in John 3:16.

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