Why Would A Blind Man Want To See?

I've been thinking more lately about the dynamics of how God saves us. Of course there will always be an element of mystery. But at least some aspects have come into a clearer focus for me lately. The age-old debate as exemplified between the extremes of Arminius and Calvin largely hinges on the question of how someone who is spiritually dead in his sins can possibly respond to God's gracious offer of salvation. The applications then become how we should pursue evangelism. Should we pour our heart into passionate pleas, apologetics, and testimonies of how wonderful the Christian life is? Or should we focus instead on praying for God's Spirit to supernaturally and inexplicably draw people to salvation regardless of any direct effort on our part or theirs?

In John 9, we see Jesus healing a man of blindness. What is unique with this miracle is that we are specifically told that the man was blind from birth. I never gave that much thought before. Surely anyone who is blind or otherwise handicapped would desire to be healed, right? Except that: how can the man know that he needs to be healed unless someone has told him that there is a wonderful gift of sight that he has been missing out on for his whole life? Of course he could live in denial of his blindness in spite of how obvious it is to everyone. Or he could refuse to believe that being able to see is really as great as people claim. Or he could determine that sight is an impossible dream that fate has cruelly denied to him and there's no use giving it any further consideration. Since he has never seen before and has no way to verify that "seeing" is real, why would he want to see?

The parallels to our "sin problem" are striking. How can we know that we are separated from God by our sin unless we are told? That knowledge should naturally come from the witness of Scripture, the Holy Spirit, and believers (working together). The sinner may of course deny his condition. Or he may determine that it's not really such a big deal and spending eternity with God just doesn't appeal to him that much anyway. Finally, he may be fooled into believing that there's no way that God could redeem someone so worthless. Just as the blind man must be convinced of his handicap and of its remedy, the sinner must be convinced both of his sinfulness and of Jesus' power to save.

How does a sinner reach that point of conviction of sin and hope for salvation? The certain truth is in God's Word. The evidence of it should be witnessed in the lives and words of believers. But the final persuasion on a spiritual level must depend upon the working of the Holy Spirit. As believers, God's work of grace in our lives should be so evident that the natural desire of an unsaved person would be "I want whatever he has". Then we need to be clear in testifying to them that we too once were blind, that God's salvation is available to all, that indeed today is the day of salvation (2 Corinthians 6:2).

The blind man in John 9 not only was convinced that it would be a good thing to be able to see, but he also had a providential encounter with the Lord Jesus. No one that he had met before ever had the power to give him sight. In God's timing, Jesus came to him. Although we are not told much about the man's heart at this time, we can see later that he had a remarkable amount of spiritual maturity when addressing the Pharisees. We also see that he exercised faith by following Jesus' instructions to go wash in the Pool of Siloam, not necessarily an easy matter for someone who was not yet seeing.

However convinced a sinner may be of the Gospel, they will never experience forgiveness and new life without making a conscious choice to follow the Savior. God has given us the free will to choose life or death. So yes, we must do whatever God enables us to bring the plain truth of the Gospel to sinners. We must be fully aware of the role (and providential timing) of the Holy Spirit. And the sinner must ultimately bear the final responsibility for what he does with God's amazing offer.

Pray. Testify. Pray. Testify.

And marvel at God's amazing grace.