402
The Desire of Ages
Then they brought him before a council of the Pharisees. Again
the man was asked how he had received his sight. “He said unto them,
He put clay upon mine eyes, and I washed, and do see. Therefore said
some of the Pharisees, This man is not of God, because He keepeth
not the Sabbath day.” The Pharisees hoped to make Jesus out to be a
sinner, and therefore not the Messiah. They knew not that it was He
who had made the Sabbath and knew all its obligation, who had healed
the blind man. They appeared wonderfully zealous for the observance
of the Sabbath, yet were planning murder on that very day. But many
were greatly moved at hearing of this miracle, and were convicted that
He who had opened the eyes of the blind was more than a common
man. In answer to the charge that Jesus was a sinner because He kept
not the Sabbath day, they said, “How can a man that is a sinner do
such miracles?”
Again the rabbis appealed to the blind man, “What sayest thou of
Him, that He hath opened thine eyes? He said, He is a prophet.” The
Pharisees then asserted that he had not been born blind and received
his sight. They called for his parents, and asked them, saying, “Is this
your son, who ye say was born blind?”
There was the man himself, declaring that he had been blind, and
had had his sight restored; but the Pharisees would rather deny the
evidence of their own senses than admit that they were in error. So
powerful is prejudice, so distorting is Pharisaical righteousness.
The Pharisees had one hope left, and that was to intimidate the
man’s parents. With apparent sincerity they asked, “How then doth he
now see?” The parents feared to compromise themselves; for it had
been declared that whoever should acknowledge Jesus as the Christ
should be “put out of the synagogue;” that is, should be excluded
from the synagogue for thirty days. During this time no child could
be circumcised nor dead be lamented in the offender’s home. The
sentence was regarded as a great calamity; and if it failed to produce
repentance, a far heavier penalty followed. The great work wrought
for their son had brought conviction to the parents, yet they answered,
“We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind: but by what
means he now seeth, we know not; or who hath opened his eyes, we
[473]
know not: he is of age; ask him: he shall speak for himself.” Thus they
shifted all responsibility from themselves to their son; for they dared
not confess Christ.