John Chapter 9 verse 3 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 3. - Jesus answered, Neither did this man sin, nor his parents (that he should be born blind). There was no immediate connection between the special sin of the parents and this particular calamity. Our Lord does not assert in those words the sinlessness of those people, but severs the supposed link between their conduct and the specific affliction before them. But (he was born blind) that the works of God should be made manifest in him. The disciples will soon see in the history of this man the meaning of his lifelong blindness. In the man himself' the grace of God will work mightily, both a bodily and spiritual illumination. Evil in this case is to redound to greater good. This provides no opportunity for any to fasten on one or another some charge of special transgression, but, as all evil ought to do, it provides opportunity for the redeeming work which Christ came to accomplish, and which he permitted his disciples to share.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(3) Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents.--The answer is, of course, to be understood with the limitation of the question, "that he was born blind." Neither his special sin nor theirs was the cause of the blindness. Our version does not give quite accurately the form of the answer. It should be, Neither did this man sin, nor his parents. Their question sought to establish a connection between the suffering and some definite act of sin. The answer asserts that no such connection exists, and our Lord's words remain a warning against the spirit of judging other men's lives, and tracing in the misfortunes and sorrows which they have to bear the results of individual sin or the proof of divine displeasure. There is a chain connecting the sin of humanity and its woe, but the links are not traceable by the human eye. In the Providence of God vicarious suffering is often the noble lot of the noblest members of our race. No burden of human sorrow was ever so great as that borne by Him who knew no human sin.But that the works of God should be made manifest in him.--They had sought to trace back the result of sin which they saw before them to a definite cause. He will trace it back to the region of the divine counsel, where purpose and result are one. Evil cannot be resolved into a higher good: it is the result of the choice exercised by freedom, and without freedom goodness could not be virtue. Permitted by God, it is yet overruled by Him. It has borne its fearful fruit in the death and curse of humanity, but its works have led to the manifestation of the works of God in the divine plan of redemption. It is so in this instance. The blindness of this beggar will have its result, and therefore in the divine counsel had its purpose, in the light which will dawn upon the spiritual as well as upon the physical blindness, and from him will dawn upon the world.