That Jesus Was God

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I Am."
"I must work the works of Him that sent me, while it is day."
"That the works of God might be made manifest."
"As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world."

That Each of Us Was Born for a Purpose

Here the text gets interesting. This blind man was born for a very specific purpose: "That the works of God might be made manifest in him."

The narrator tells us plainly: "And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man…" Only a moment earlier, Jesus had been moving through a crowd that meant to kill Him — the Pharisees had stones in their hands (John 8:59), and He was slipping out of the temple, "going through the midst of them, and so passed by" (John 8:13). The dust of that near-stoning was still settling when John 9:1 opens: "And as Jesus passed by…"

At first glance it looks like Jesus simply being Jesus — preaching the gospel, working miracles, backing up with power what He had just claimed in words (John 8:58). The English text almost fools us into thinking this was incidental — that Jesus just happened to walk past a man who happened to be blind from birth. But it was no accident at all.

We're never told how the disciples knew this man had been blind since birth. We are told why he was blind. And what follows is one of the great revelations in all of Scripture: this man had a divine appointment fixed before he ever drew breath. Sit with that for a moment.

The disciples ask the obvious question — the one anyone raised on the Law would ask. Why was this man born blind? Did his parents sin? Did he? "That he was born blind?"

Did the Parents Sin?

Where would the disciples get an idea like that? Exodus 20:5 — "You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me." (See also Deut. 5:9, Ex. 34:7.) And Ezekiel 18:20, where God tells Ezekiel plainly, "The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself." Two threads of belief, pulling against each other — and the disciples caught in the middle, the way we still are.

Did the Unborn Sin?

In that world, as in ours, all sorts of ideas circulated about a child sinning before it ever drew a breath outside the womb. Think of Jacob and Esau, still tangled together in Rebecca's womb (Gen. 25:23; Rom. 9:10-12): "And not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac; (for the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth)."

This man had been blind for years — decades, maybe. Every sunrise a rumor. Every face a voice and a guess. He had no idea that one day he would see the world he'd been born into, for the very first time.

There was a day fixed in eternity, long before this man ever lay blind in his mother's arms, when he would cross paths with Jesus — this hour, this street, this appointed moment — and receive his sight. Not a chance encounter while Jesus happened to be walking by. Nothing God orchestrates is ever left to chance. And Jesus says as much, plainly: "Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him."

Born blind… so that the works of God might be made manifest — known, visible, unmistakable — in him. Romans 9:23 — "And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory." Born blind for the very purpose that, someday, far off in a future he couldn't see coming, God would open his eyes — for God's purpose. Not his own. That's a hard truth to swallow, let alone to live inside of for a lifetime.

It's hard to carry yourself with dignity when some part of you feels broken. But his appointed day was already on the calendar — not chance, but grace, moving toward him the whole time he sat begging in the dust.

As Christians, we were born to serve God. Not when it's convenient… not when it fits neatly into our schedule… not only when we can see the blessing on the other side of our obedience… It certainly wasn't convenient for this man. There was nothing pleasant about a lifetime spent begging by the road. It was a hardship, plain and simple. And yet it was God who had been quietly writing this story since before the man was born — building toward this one day.

Ecclesiastes 3:1 — "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven." God's timing, or ours? God's providence, or ours? God's will, or ours? "Your will be done, as it is in heaven."

Even Pharaoh was caught up in the same pattern. Exodus 9:16 and Romans 9:17 — "And in very deed for this cause have I raised thee up, for to shew in thee my power; and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth." Sound familiar? Jesus had already run this scenario before, more than once, across the pages of history (John 8:58).

Now, here, with God Himself walking around in human flesh (John 1:14), He does it again. He shows His authority. His power. Even this blind man — a man almost no one else on that street would have looked at twice, except God — was about to be used the same way Pharaoh was used: to put the power of God on display.

So What Do We Do With This?

This man didn't choose his blindness. He didn't choose the years of begging, the whispers about whose sin put him there, the dark that never lifted no matter how many mornings came. He simply carried it — not knowing that God had already fixed the day it would end, and why.

That's the part we skip past too quickly. We want the sight without the years of blindness that make the sight mean something. We want God's purpose to feel like our purpose, on our timeline, with our comfort built in. But this passage won't let us have it that way. "Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents…" Sometimes the hard thing in your life isn't punishment, and it isn't random either. It's an appointment. Set before you were born.

So ask yourself what this blind man could not have asked himself, because he didn't yet know he was in the story: What in your life have you been calling misfortune… that might actually be assignment?

Stop waiting for your circumstances to become convenient before you decide to serve God in them. Stop treating your hardship as evidence that God has overlooked you, when it may be the very place He intends to be made manifest. The blind man didn't get his sight because he found a way to earn it or fix his own situation — he got it because he stayed in the place God had appointed for him, until the appointed one walked by.

Wherever you are right now — however broken, however overlooked, however long you've been sitting in the dust — you are not there by chance. Stop asking "why me" and start asking "for what." Then get up and let the works of God be made manifest in you, too.