John 9:14 - Printer Friendly

ESV: Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes.

NIV: Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man's eyes was a Sabbath.

NASB: Now it was a Sabbath on the day that Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes.

CSB: The day that Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes was a Sabbath.

NLT: because it was on the Sabbath that Jesus had made the mud and healed him.

KJV: And it was the sabbath day when Jesus made the clay, and opened his eyes.

NKJV: Now it was a Sabbath when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes.

The Pharisees were an extremely orderly, pious sect. They created an entire 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 misunderstanding of the Sabbath in order to provoke conversations. This has 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, it involved something the Pharisees considered taboo. Jesus was described as making clay from mud and saliva. According to traditional Pharisaical laws, this was one of the forms of work explicitly forbidden. Jesus' actions not only challenge their shallow views of spirituality, He highlights 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. Seeking 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 highlight 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. In typical fashion for that era, the disciples assume this condition is due to some specific sin--either the man's sin or his parents' sin. Jesus challenges this idea, and heals the man. His restoration leads to interrogation, as 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 is able to meet with the 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, where Jesus claimed to have existed before Abraham. This resulted in an attempted stoning for blasphemy. 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, recorded in chapter 10, including several crucial teachings on His role as Shepherd.

The gospel of John was written by the disciple John, decades later than the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. 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”—in order to prove that Jesus is, in fact, God incarnate. Some of the most well-known verses in all of the Bible are found here. None is more famous than the one-sentence summary of the gospel found in John 3:16.