The Pharisees Spiritually Blind (J39)

The altercation had caused quite a stir;
Jesus found him and said, “Do you believe
In the Son of Man?” “Tell me who He is, sir,
And my trust He will certainly receive!”
“You have seen Him; He is speaking with you,”
And the man Jesus had healed worshiped Him.
Then the Savior said, “I came to judge true—
The blind see; the seeing, to blind them!”
Some Pharisees heard Him, and they complained,
“What? Are you saying that we are blind, too?”
“If you were blind, your sins would not remain;
Since you claim to see, then guilty are you!”
The Pharisees claimed spiritual insight,
But truths of God to them were out of sight!

Commentary on: John 9:35-41 (NIV)
Jesus was speaking spiritually, as He nearly always did, when He used the terms “seeing” and “blind” in the latter lines of the poem. Since the Pharisees considered themselves spiritual masterminds (that is, "seeing") but were in reality dulled spiritually (that is, "blind")—they interpreted everything Jesus said literally—they could not “see” the real meanings of His words, so they were the “blind” ones, not the man born physically blind. Jesus Christ was to have the role of Judge at the end of time, and His first-hand experience in the flesh with the “unseeing” Pharisees guaranteed them a "guilty of sins" judgment, while those who humbly admitted their “blindness” (in spiritual matters) and accepted the words Jesus spoke would be judged innocent of sin.

Most non-believers in the world today, especially those in our culture who have easy access to Christian witness and Bibles, and who reject Jesus, think they are spiritually astute, but in reality worldly individuals do not understand the spiritual words of witness or Jesus’ words in the Scripture; in reality, they are"blind". It’s really a no-brainer that accepting Jesus and being saved from condemnation is much more preferable to ignoring Him and going to hell when you die. It’s like telling a cancer patient he will be cured and won’t die if he accepts Jesus, and he refuses to accept because the one telling him is speaking in language he doesn’t understand. If every person really understood the options, then every person would believe in Jesus. The natural person cannot understand spiritual terminology. The Pharisees were natural men, but the whole Jewish race also had been further spiritually dulled by God 700 years ago (See Isaiah 6:9-10) because of their sin.

Though the man born blind and healed by Jesus could now see physically, he could also “see” spiritually. He proved that by standing up to the Pharisees when they threatened to cast him from the synagogue if he didn’t change his testimony to suit them. He proved it again when he worshiped Jesus—he probably kneeled before Him.

“That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)