Basic HTML Version
284
From Heaven With Love
in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent). He went
his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.”
It was generally believed by the Jews that sin is punished in this
life. Satan, the author of sin and its results, had led men to look on
disease and death as proceeding from God. One on whom some
great affliction had fallen had the burden of being regarded as a great
sinner. Thus the way was prepared for the Jews to reject Jesus. He
who “hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows” was looked
[319]
upon by the Jews as “stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted,” and
they hid their faces from Him.
Isaiah 53:4, 3
.
The belief of the Jews in regard to the relation of sin and suffering
was held by Christ’s disciples. Having anointed the eyes of the blind
man, Jesus sent him to wash in the pool of Siloam, and the man’s
sight was restored. Thus Jesus answered the question of the disciples
in a practical way. The disciples were not to discuss as to who had
sinned or had not sinned, but to understand the mercy of God in
giving sight to the blind. There was no healing virtue in the clay or
in the pool where the blind man was sent to wash; the virtue was in
Christ.
A Miracle on the Sabbath
The Pharisees, astonished at the cure, were more than ever filled
with hatred, for the miracle had been performed on the Sabbath day.
The neighbors who knew the young man in his blindness looked
on him with doubt, for when his eyes were opened, his countenance
was changed and brightened, and he appeared like another man.
Some said, “This is he”; others, “he is like him.” But he settled the
question by saying, “I am he.” He then told them of Jesus, and by
what means he had been healed, and they inquired, “Where is He?
He said, I know not.”
Before a council of the Pharisees 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 appeared wonderfully zealous for the observance of
the Sabbath, yet were planning murder on that very day. But many
were convicted that He who had opened the eyes of the blind was