The following looks at spiritual blindness and physical blindness. God can heal both kinds of blindness. But, in these accounts from the New Testament, God’s purpose seems to be to expose the spiritual blindness of hypocritical religious leaders in first century Israel. But God can use physical maladies or handicaps for His own good purpose as well. So God always wants to heal spiritual blindness. But He may not always want to heal a physical ailment. It all depends on His purpose.

Blindness to Sight

In John 9:1-41 Jesus heals a man who was born blind. It is worth noting that this man was not asking for Jesus to heal him. Rather, it was Jesus’ disciples who saw the man and asked Jesus about him. This is a fascinating miracle from Jesus because of how he used it to confront hypocrasy. Another interesting thing about this case is that Jesus put mud in the blind man’s eyes and then told him to go to the pool of Siloam to wash. This seems like an odd thing to do, and it was not something Jesus did in other healings of blind people. It is also an interesting account because this man was questioned afterwards by the Pharisees. The account in John addresses a misconception the Jews seemed to have about someone born with a birth defect. It says as they went along and encountered this man born blind, the disciples asked Jesus (John 9:1), “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus said “neither.” Jesus said it was so the work of God could be displayed in his life. Jesus went on to say (John 9:5), “While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” Then Jesus spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. Then he told the man to go “wash in the Pool of Siloam.” So the man went (presumably people led him there). The man washed and it says he came home seeing (John 9:7). An important thing to notice is that even after the man went to the Pool of Siloam, he had not yet seen Jesus. In this case, Jesus seemed to make the man’s reaction to seeing more visible to others. It seems that Jesus wanted to delay the man’s initial reaction to seeing for the first time in his life. So, this was handled to deliberately make some “public exposure” of a man who had been born blind being healed. The man’s first experience seeing in his entire life happened in a very public place where people gathered.

In verses 8-12 it tells about the reactions of neighbors and other people who had seen him begging before. Some people said he was the same man and was healed but others didn’t believe he was the same man, even though the man himself told them he was the man! The blind man knew that the one who had put mud in his eyes was called Jesus, but he didn’t seem to know much about Jesus. Also, when people asked him where this Jesus was, he didn’t know. Then people who knew of this took the man who had been healed to the Pharisees. It was something unheard of for a man born blind to be healed (John 9:32-33).

John 9:14 says that it was on a Sabbath that Jesus put mud on this man’s eyes and healed him. So Jesus used this to confront the Pharisees and help people to realize their corruption and unbelief. So, the Pharisees questioned the man. It says “the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. ‘He put mud on my eyes,’ the man replied, ‘and I washed, and now I see’.” The corrupt misguided reaction of the Pharisees is evident in that when they heard the man’s testimony, their reaction was not to acknowledge the healing, or to praise God, but it was to accuse Jesus. Verse 16 says, “Some of the Pharisees said, ‘This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.’ “ So the man realized this was contradictory. If he was a sinner, how could he do a miraculous sign? So the man told the Pharisees he was a prophet. This reflects an Old Testament kind of understanding, that if God sends a prophet, some prophets could do miracles. Now in verses 16-18 the passage switches from referring to the Pharisees to referring to “the Jews” not believing the man had been healed. So they sent for his parents. The parents were afraid of acknowledging Jesus to the Jewish leaders, because the leaders had decided that whoever believed in Jesus would be put out of the synagogue. Thus, the parents said that he was their son and that he was born blind. But they essentially “played dumb” about Jesus. It is not clear if the man’s parents believed in Jesus or not. The parents also said that he was of age, so their son could speak for himself. This suggests the man was a young man, but an adult.

The Jewish Pharisees again questioned the man. Again, they said that Jesus was a sinner. The man said he didn’t know if Jesus was a sinner, but he knew he had been healed. Then they claimed to be disciples of Moses, not of Jesus. They also said they didn’t know where Jesus comes from. The man’s answer is powerful in showing the contradictions of the Jewish leaders thinking. Verses 30-33 have the man’s reply, “The man answered, ‘Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly man who does his will. Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.’ “ The Jewish leaders reacted to this wrongly again, saying “ ’You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!’ And they threw him out.” So the Jewish leaders were stuck in a wrong way of thinking that said that the reason someone was born blind was because of the sin of their parents. Thus, this man was put out of the synagogue; it’s also possible his parents were put out also because they would have been blamed for his blindness. The Pharisees thinking that the man was blind because of the sin of his parents was wrong and this is not a concept from the Old Testament at all. The Pharisees added rules to the Old Testament law that were not necessary, in order to make themselves seem superior to others.

Only after all this happened did Jesus speak to the man about being “the Son of Man.” The man apparently had some time to deal with the whole thing and probably heard from others about Jesus. So in verse 38 he tells Jesus, “Lord, I believe.” Then Jesus’ response (verse 39) is profound. “Jesus said, ’For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.’ ” Jesus’ exposed the real spiritual blindness of the Jewish leaders who claimed to be spiritual guides to the allegedly spiritually blind common people. But the average Jew knew the truth better than the Pharisees. So the person that the Pharisees and Jewish leaders threw out of the synagogue as being “steeped in sin” was actually the one who was in the light from God’s perspective. The blind man didn’t know much in the beginning. But over the course of these events, you can see how his understanding of who Jesus is grew. By the end of the account (John 9:38) the formerly blind man said he believed to Jesus and he worshiped Jesus. Jesus judged very differently than the phony spiritual leaders of the Jews of the time. Some Pharisees heard about this statement Jesus said, and he told them their guilt remained. What a good lesson on spiritual blindness! Jesus was very effective at exposing the corruption and unbelief of the Jewish religious leaders. Also, Jesus exposed the Pharisee’s hypocrasy to the common Jewish people, without even being present for most of it. The people were able to see for themselves the unreasonable reaction of the Jewish leaders. They clearly hated Jesus and they worked to suppress faith in Jesus. This helped the people understand better who to follow and who to believe.

Sight to Blindness

Jesus said the blind would see and those who see would become blind. This is literally what happened in the life of Saul of Tarsus who became Paul the Apostle. But as it says in the Pilgrim’s Progress story, the bitter comes before the sweet. Saul was a Pharisee, so he likely would have thought that a blind man was blind due to sin as the Pharisees in John 9 thought. He thought that he had to oppose the early Christians spreading the gospel about Christ. He was working to get Christians arrested. But, Saul’s thinking was totally unraveled and rewoven by his encounter with the risen Jesus.
Saul’s case is very different from the man born blind. Saul was on his way to Damascus to arrest Christians (see Acts 9:1-19). Then Jesus appears to Saul on the road. Saul must have had some guards with him, likely temple guards I suspect. But the experience of speaking with Jesus left him blind. So in this case Jesus made a seeing man blind. It says in Acts 9:8 that when Saul got up from the ground, he could see nothing. So he was totally blind for 3 days. He must have depended on the guards to lead him into Damascus. The guards did not see or hear Jesus as Saul did. But Jesus told him to go into the city (Damascus). There, a man name Ananias found him and helped him. In this case, Jesus had a believer heal Saul of his blindness. Paul was likely in turmoil and was undoubtedly fasting and praying for some time. But Ananias healed Saul, placing his hands on him (Acts 9:17-18).

Thus, Paul’s sight was restored but most Bible scholars think it was not restored completely. Galatians 6:11 may support this because in this verse Paul mentions that he writes with large letters when he writes with his own hand. In 2 Corinthians 12 he writes that he was given a “thorn in the flesh” to torment him. Bible scholars have long suspected the “thorn in the flesh” was an eye problem that remained for the rest of his life. From 2 Corinthians 12 it seems it was to humble Paul, a permanent reminder of how the Lord humbled him. God has a purpose for both the abilities and the disabilities that we have. You could say we all have “disabilities” but some disabilities are more visible and more difficult than others. Saul went through a process so he could experience the changes from physical sight to physical blindness, physical blindness to physical sight, and spiritual blindness to spiritual sight. God was sovereign through it all and He gives us every ability we have.