The Pharisees, who considered themselves enlightened, now tried to badger the formerly blind man into denying that he saw the light.
9:24 The Pharisees now questioned the healed man again. They had already decided that Jesus was not the Messiah, but they had to admit that He had done a remarkable miracle. Having failed to prove Jesus a sinner they now hoped the healed man would cave in to pressure from the authorities and testify that Jesus was a sinner. Moreover they suggested that the man would be glorifying God if he agreed with their verdict and admitted his guilt in glorifying Jesus (cf. v. 15). Another evidence of Johannine irony appears. The Pharisees assumed that glorifying God and glorifying Jesus were mutually exclusive whereas to glorify the Son is really to glorify the Father.
Their disdain for Jesus comes through in their calling Him simply "this man."A sinner in the Pharisees' eyes was someone who broke the oral traditions as well as the Mosaic Law. They hoped the restored man would identify some instance of disobedience that would confirm their conclusion. Notice that these judges prejudiced everyone against Jesus from the start by saying that they had already determined that He was a sinner.
9:25 The healed man refused to speculate on Jesus' sinfulness. He left that to the theological heavyweights. However, he refused to back down and deny that Jesus had given him sight. Here is another of many instances in the fourth Gospel of personal testimony, which John consistently presented as important and effective. Regardless of a believer's understanding of Christology, he or she can always testify to the change that Jesus Christ has affected in that person's life.
9:26 The Pharisees hoped that as the man repeated his story he would contradict himself or in some other way discredit his own testimony. This is the fourth time that the Pharisees asked how the miracle had happened (vv. 10, 15, 19, 26). People are often more curious about the mechanics of miracles than they are about the man who performs them. Likewise people are often more concerned to identify whom to blame than they are in really helping people.
9:27 The restored blind man refused to review the obvious facts. He now knew that the Pharisees did not want the truth but information they could use against Jesus. They had not listened to him in the sense of believing him the first time (cf. 5:25). Sarcastically he suggested that perhaps they wanted to hear about Jesus one more time because they wanted to follow Him as disciples. This response indicates that the man felt no intimidation from his accusers. He knew that he stood on solid ground with his testimony, so much so that he could jibe his examiners with a bit of humor.
9:28-29 The Pharisees saw nothing funny in the man's reply, however. They were deadly serious in their attempt to execute Jesus. They undoubtedly realized that this former beggar had seen through their veiled attempt to condemn Jesus unjustly. They met his good-natured prod with insult. They turned his charge back on himself and presented following Jesus as irreconcilable with following Moses. Of course, the Pharisees were not the disciples of Moses that they claimed to be. Ironically Jesus was. Failure to know where Jesus came from amounted to failing to know where He received His authority. Moses had come from God, but Jesus' critics claimed not to know whether He came from God or from Satan (v. 16). Most of them suspected the latter.
"The Pharisees were cautious men who would consider themselves conservatives, when in reality they were preservatives.' . . . A preservative' simply embalms the past and preserves it. He is against change and resists the new things that God is doing."344
We see here an essential difference between Judaism and Christianity (cf. 1:17). The Jews continue to profess allegiance to Moses as the Pharisees did here while Christians claim to follow Jesus, which is what they charged the restored man with doing. Following Jesus involves accepting Moses' revelation as authoritative since Jesus authenticated Moses' writings.
Earlier Jesus' enemies said they knew where He came from, namely Galilee (7:27). They were wrong in their assessment of Jesus' earthly origin as they were wrong about His heavenly origin. Here they were speaking of His authoritative origin, specifically who had sent Him.
9:30-31 The healed man not only possessed a sense of humor but also common sense. It seemed remarkable to him that the Pharisees could not see that Jesus had come from God. Their unbelief in view of the evidence was incredible to him. The proof that Jesus had come from God was His ability to perform such a powerful and constructive miracle as giving sight to the blind. A fundamental biblical revelation is that God responds positively to the godly, but He does not hear (in the sense of granting the requests of) those who sin (Job 27:9; 35:13; Ps. 34:15-16; 66:18; 145:19; Prov. 15:29; 28:9; Isa. 1:15). Obviously not all miracle-workers had come from God (cf. Exod. 7:22; 8:7), but these had been exceptions to the rule. The former blind man showed considerable spiritual insight.
"It is always risky to identify spiritual power with divine power. But such theological niceties do not trouble the healed man. His spiritual instincts are good, even if his theological argumentation is not entirely convincing."345
9:32-33 The man was correct in that Scripture recorded no former healing of a man born blind. Evidently Jesus had not healed anyone in this condition previously either. At least this restored man had not heard of any such cases. He concluded that Jesus must have come from God. He did not qualify as the sinner that the Pharisees where making Him out to be.
9:34 Scorn has often served as a final resort when evidence fails, and it served the Pharisees this way here. They implied that this man's congenital blindness was the result of a sinful condition that rendered him incapable of intellectual insight (cf. v. 2). By saying this they unintentionally admitted that Jesus had cured a man blind from birth.
"How could anybody be steeped in sin at birth? Everybody is born with a sinful nature (Ps. 51:5; Rom. 5:12), but a baby can hardly commit numerous acts of sin moments after it is born!"346
The Pharisees did not argue the exceptions to the rule that the man cited nor did they offer any other possible explanations. No one seems to have remembered that when Messiah would appear He would open the eyes of the blind (Isa. 29:18; 35:5; 42:7).
This poor man lost his privilege of participating in synagogue worship for taking his stand supporting Jesus (cf. v. 22). Many other Jewish believers followed him in this fate in the years that have unfolded since this incident happened. This is the first persecution of Jesus' followers that John recorded.
