Seeing is believing!

All photos courtesy of Unsplash

‘Seeing is believing’ — or so some say. But try asking someone who is blind whether theirs is just a virtual world. God cannot be seen with our eyes but it does not mean God is not there and that He cannot see us. Actually, God knows everything about us.

One day, Jesus saw a man who had been blind since his birth. He could not see Jesus, but Jesus could see him, and soon actions and words revealed His presence. As Jesus’ disciples looked on, they wondered how such a condition had arisen. Could this man somehow have committed wrong before his birth? Or perhaps it was because of some blunder on the part of his parents? 

Whilst it is true that our mistakes can have repercussions both to ourselves and others, Jesus said that this was not the case here. The Bible says, ‘Jesus saw’ him. He not only saw the man’s physical condition but his spiritual state too. The man’s physical blindness gave Jesus the opportunity to perform a miracle that would show God’s power at work.

Furthermore, the opening of his darkened eyes helps to give light to ours and show that God can open the eyes of our heart — to see God by faith.

Jesus did something that might seem very odd to us, and unappealing to say the least! Spitting on the ground, He mixed it to make clay which he spread on the man’s eyes. He then told him to go and wash at the pool, Siloam. This open pool was gently fed from a hidden source, the Gihon springs higher up inside the city of Jerusalem. So the man went as he was told and his eyes were opened!

God sometimes works in strange ways — from our perspective that is, for His thoughts are not ours, nor are His ways our ways. After all, why should someone come down from the splendour of heaven, become a man and live on earth, eventually to die in a most unpleasant way having been nailed to a cross? And why does God ask us to trust in someone we have never seen, and tell us that we can receive eternal life from an invisible source? Yet it is God’s way.

The miracle of sight given to the man who was blind from his birth reveals the power of God at work and shows that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. Whilst many of the people around tried to explain away this wonderful work, they were left scratching their heads and hardly able to believe their eyes! First, they thought it was a case of mistaken identity but this was ruled out when the man gave his account.

Next, they refused to believe that he had been blind in the first place, but his parents confirmed that he had. Their last resort was to call him a liar. However, the fact remained, in the words of the man himself, though there was much he did not understand, ‘One thing I know: that though I was blind, now I see’. No-one but God could do this.

The man trusted in the Lord Jesus, believing Him to be the Son of God. Although he could not see Him, he had taken Jesus at His word. Later, with opened eyes, he looked on His Saviour.

This true story was recorded that we too might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing we might have life through His name. Faith firmly grasps things that are unseen and receives a heavenly reward.

‘Believing is seeing’.

John 9:1-11

Now as Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, saying, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him. I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

When He had said these things, He spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva; and He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay. And He said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which is translated, Sent). So he went and washed, and came back seeing.

Therefore the neighbors and those who previously had seen that he was blind said, “Is not this he who sat and begged?”

Some said, “This is he.” Others said, “He is like him.”

He said, “I am he.”

Therefore they said to him, “How were your eyes opened?”

He answered and said, “A Man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to the pool of Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed, and I received sight.”

John 9:39

And Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind.”

Messages with Meaning (11/01/21) Written by Tom Merriman for Your542Day and used with permission.