John Bible Study - Lesson 27

John Bible Study - Lesson 27

Read the passage below using the 2 different Bible translations:

John 9:35-41 New International Version (NIV)

Spiritual Blindness

³⁵ Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”

³⁶ “Who is he, sir?” the man asked. “Tell me so that I may believe in him.”

³⁷ Jesus said, “You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.”

³⁸ Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.

³⁹ Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”

⁴⁰ Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?”

⁴¹ Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.

John 9:35-41 New Living Translation (NLT)

Spiritual Blindness

³⁵ When Jesus heard what had happened, he found the man and asked, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”

³⁶ The man answered, “Who is he, sir? I want to believe in him.”

³⁷ “You have seen him,” Jesus said, “and he is speaking to you!”

³⁸ “Yes, Lord, I believe!” the man said. And he worshiped Jesus.

³⁹ Then Jesus told him, “I entered this world to render judgment—to give sight to the blind and to show those who think they see that they are blind.”

⁴⁰ Some Pharisees who were standing nearby heard him and asked, “Are you saying we’re blind?”

⁴¹ “If you were blind, you wouldn’t be guilty,” Jesus replied. “But you remain guilty because you claim you can see.

Note:

Here are the 3 questions for you to answer. I have given some basic answers below the questions to help you understand the passage. Answer the questions first yourself before you look at my answers. Take a moment before you begin and ask God to help you understand what you are reading.

3 questions to answer:

1.    Content: What is this passage about?

2.    Lesson: What do I learn from this passage?

3.    Application: How can I apply what I have learned to my life?

Answers to the questions above and some background:

Content: What is this passage about?

·        Jesus heard that they had thrown the blind man He had healed out of the Synagogue.

·        Jesus finds the man and asks him if he believed in the Son of Man.

·        The man asks Jesus who the Son of Man is and how he could believe in Him.

·        Jesus declares to the man that He, Jesus, is the Son of Man.

·        The man believes Jesus and begins to worship Him.

·        Jesus tells the man that one of the reasons He came into this world was to give sight to the blind and show the ones who think they can see how blind they really are to spiritual truth.

·        Some Pharisees overheard Jesus say this and ask Jesus if they were blind too.

·        Jesus points out to the Pharisees their spiritual blindness.

Lesson: What do I learn from this passage?

·         Jesus is the Son of Man:

Jesus is referred to as the “Son of Man” 88 times in the New Testament.

In the Old Testament, the Prophet Daniel had been given a vision about the Son of Man:  

Daniel 7:13-14 New International Version (NIV)

¹³ “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. ¹⁴ He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

The description “Son of Man” was a Messianic title. Jesus is the One who was given dominion and glory and a kingdom. When Jesus used this phrase, He was assigning the Son of Man prophecy to Himself. The Jews of that era would have been intimately familiar with the phrase and to whom it referred based on the Isaiah prophecy about the Messiah. Jesus was proclaiming He Himself as the Messiah.

A second meaning of the phrase “Son of Man” is that Jesus was truly a human being. God called the prophet Ezekiel “son of man” 93 times. God was simply calling Ezekiel a human being. A son of a man is a man.

Jesus was fully God:

John 1:1 Amplified Bible (AMP)

The Deity of Jesus Christ

In the beginning [before all time] was the Word (Christ), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God Himself.

Yet, Jesus was also fully human:

John 1:14 Amplified Bible (AMP)

The Word Made Flesh

And the Word (Christ) became flesh, and lived among us; and we [actually] saw His glory, glory as belongs to the [One and] only begotten Son of the Father, [the Son who is truly unique, the only One of His kind, who is] full of grace and truth (absolutely free of deception).

1 John 4:2 Amplified Bible (AMP)

² By this you know and recognize the Spirit of God: every spirit that acknowledges and confesses [the fact] that Jesus Christ has [actually] come in the flesh [as a man] is from God [God is its source];

So Jesus was the Son of God—He was in His essence God. Yes, Jesus was also the Son of Man—He was in His essence a human being. In summary, the phrase “Son of Man” indicates that Jesus is the Messiah and at the same time that He is truly a human being.

(Excerpts from Got Answers)

The two natures of Jesus are referred to as the Hypostatic Union:

Jesus is both fully God and fully man:

(excerpt from Dr. Paul Enns)

The two natures of Christ are inseparably united without mixture or loss of separate identity. He remains forever the God-man, fully God and fully man, two distinct natures in one Person forever. Though Christ sometimes operated in the sphere of His humanity and in other cases in the sphere of His deity, in all cases what He did and what He was could be attributed to His one Person. Even though it is evident that there were two natures in Christ, He is never considered a dual personality. In summarizing the hypostatic union, three facts are noted:

(1) Christ has two distinct natures: humanity and deity

(2) There is no mixture or intermingling of the two natures

(3) Although He has two natures, Christ is one Person

In the New Testament, Jesus referring to Himself as the Son of Man can be fully understood if we take His nature and apply it to His purpose:

Mark 10:45 Amplified Bible (AMP)

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”

Jesus came into this world as the Lamb of God for the purpose of paying the debt for sin and saving God’s people:

John 3:16 New International Version (NIV)

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

·        Jesus asks the man if he believes that He, Jesus, is the Messiah.

·        When the man asks Jesus who this Son of Man is and how he can know the Son of Man, Jesus tells him that He, Jesus, is the Son of Man.

·        When the man heard this he believed and worshiped Jesus.

So Jesus revealed Himself to the man in a couple of ways:

1^st: Jesus made a personal connection with this man.

2^nd: When Jesus told the man to go wash the mud from His eyes He did and   

       the man’s actions proved His trust and faith in Jesus’ power to heal him.

3^rd: Jesus healed the man of his physical & spiritual blindness.

So what does this tells us about a real relationship with Jesus?

We must have faith and believe that Jesus is the Messiah and has the power to heal us from our sin and separation from God.  When we meet Jesus on a personal level we can trust and really experience the healing of our spiritual blindness.  If we desire it, Jesus will reveal the truth about our purpose in this world and the truth about life and death with or without Him. Once we come to know and embrace the truth, we will experience a renewed mind, heart and perspective. When we embrace the truth Jesus offers, we will then desire to worship and revere Jesus as Lord & Savior because we know why Jesus came; Jesus came to save us from the consequences of sin and spiritual death. We then can live a transformed abundant life filled with spiritual blessing if we stay connected to Jesus. This does mean we will have an easy life, but we will have the joy of a supernaturally connected life with the Holy Spirit who will be our guide and comforter no matter how difficult life gets.

·        Jesus tells the man He came into this world was to give sight to the blind.

·        The Prophet Isaiah tells about the coming Messiah long before Jesus came into the world:

Isaiah 35:4-5 Amplified Bible (AMP)

⁴ Say to those with an anxious and panic-stricken heart,
“Be strong, fear not!
Indeed, your God will come with vengeance [for the ungodly];
The retribution of God will come,
But He will save you.”
⁵ Then the eyes of the blind will be opened
And the ears of the deaf will be unstopped.

Isaiah 61:1Amplified Bible (AMP)

Exaltation of the Afflicted

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
Because the Lord has anointed and commissioned me
To bring good news to the humble and afflicted;
He has sent me to bind up [the wounds of] the brokenhearted,
To proclaim release [from confinement and condemnation] to the [physical and spiritual] captives
And freedom to prisoners,

Read the passage below and see if this prophecy reveals the Messiah to you:

Isaiah 53 New International Version (NIV)

Who has believed our message
    and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
² He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
    and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
    nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
³ He was despised and rejected by mankind,
    a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
    he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

⁴ Surely he took up our pain
    and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
    stricken by him, and afflicted.
⁵ But he was pierced for our transgressions,
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
    and by his wounds we are healed.
⁶ We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
    each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
    the iniquity of us all.

⁷ He was oppressed and afflicted,
    yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
    and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
    so he did not open his mouth.
⁸ By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
    Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
    for the transgression of my people he was punished.
⁹ He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
    and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
    nor was any deceit in his mouth.

¹⁰ Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
    and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
    and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
¹¹ After he has suffered,
    he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
    and he will bear their iniquities.
¹² Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
    and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
    and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
    and made intercession for the transgressors.

·        Jesus tells the Pharisees that they are blind to the truth:

 “If you were blind, you wouldn’t be guilty,” Jesus replied. “But you remain guilty because you claim you can see. One of the reasons the Pharisees hated Jesus was because Jesus exposed their hypocrisy:

Jesus pronounced seven woes on the Pharisees and scribes in Matthew 23:13-31

1. They kept people out of God's kingdom   

2. They took advantage of widows  

3. They misled men to eternal destruction  

4. They were covetous of worldly things   

5. They refused to show compassion   

6. They were inwardly corrupt  

7. They afflicted the righteous    

The Pharisees claim to know God yet they did not know His Son Jesus even though God Himself pronounced Jesus as His Son:

Matthew 3:16-17 New International Version (NIV)

¹⁶ As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. ¹⁷ And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

·        By rejecting Jesus, the Pharisees rejected God and His truth. So even today, all those who reject Jesus as the Messiah, Lord and Savior, reject God and the truth of His Word. Those who receive Jesus receive eternal life.

Application: How can I apply what I have learned to my life?

·        Read the Prophecies about Jesus and ask God to show you that Jesus is the Messiah.

·        Take the time to thank God every day for His salvation and truth.

·        Spend time in prayer and bible study to strengthen you faith and trust in God.

·        Live a Spirit filled life.

Don’t forget:

John’s main purpose in writing this Gospel:

·        To tell the world that Jesus is the Messiah for the Jews and Gentiles

·        The events were recorded so that we might believe and have eternal life

John 20:30-31 New International Version (NIV)

The Purpose of John’s Gospel

³⁰ Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. ³¹ But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

Questions to ponder:

·        Do you trust Jesus with all areas of your life?

·        Do you believe Jesus can heal you of your sin?

·        Are you willing to have an identity in Christ even though it may mean some people will reject you?

·        What areas of your life are you battling for God’s truth to take hold?

·        What things in your life do you worship more than God?

Have a great week…………….Dave