Christ's Doctrine of Faith: A Study of "Believing" in John's Gospel (John 9:35)

Custom Image

In John 9:35, we find this: “Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when he had found him, he said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God?” (KJV). In this text, we find the forty-ninth occurrence of the idea of believing in the Gospel of John. So, we will now examine the context of this passage as well as some facts about faith we can gather from this text!

First, what is the context of this passage? Well, we are still in the conversation between the formerly blind man, whom Jesus healed of His blindness, and the Pharisees. Right after we hear that the Jews did not believe that the man was blind and then had his sight restored (that is, until they called for the man’s parents), we see them asking his parents if this man is indeed their son, who they claim was born blind, as well as how the man now sees. His parents answer that they know he is their son and that he was born blind, but they don’t know how he currently sees or who has opened his eyes. They go on to say that he is of age and tell the Pharisees to ask their son and he will speak for himself. However, the text tells us that his parents said this out of fear of the Jews, since the Jews had agreed that, if anyone confessed that Jesus was the Christ, or Messiah, he should be put out of the synagogue. And the text repeats that this was the reason the formerly blind man’s parents told the Pharisees to ask him. We then see the Pharisees calling for the man, telling him to “Give God the praise,” and asserting that they know Jesus is a sinner. The man says that he doesn’t know whether Jesus is a sinner or not, but he knows one thing: he was once blind, but he now sees. The Pharisees then repeat their earlier question of what Jesus did to the man and how He opened the man’s eyes. The man, picking up on this repetition, answers that he already told them and they didn’t listen, before asking them why they want to hear it again, after which he asks them if they also want to be Jesus’s disciples. The Pharisees respond by reviling him and telling him that he is Jesus’s disciple but they are Moses’s disciples, before asserting their claim that they know God spoke to Moses but, as for Jesus, they don’t know where He is from. The formerly blind man counters by saying that this is a marvelous thing that they don’t know where He is from and yet He opened his eyes. The man goes on to say that they know God doesn’t hear sinners but does hear those who worship Him and do His will, before saying that, since the beginning of the world, it wasn’t heard that any man opened the eyes of someone with blindness from birth. The formerly blind man sums up his rebuttal by declaring that, if this Man (Jesus), wasn’t of God, He could do nothing. The Pharisees respond by telling the man that he was altogether born in sins, before derisively asking him if he is teaching them. And they cast the man out as a result. Upon hearing of the man’s being cast out, Christ finds the man and asks him if he believes on the Son of God. This is the context of John 9:35!

Second, what are some facts about faith we can glean from this passage? The only fact I can so far think is that the object of faith, or who is believed, is a person. In past posts in this series on faith in John’s Gospel, we’ve talked about how the Bible presents the Word of Christ, or what Christ says, as the object of faith. However, other texts in the Gospel, like this one, present Christ Himself as the object of faith, or who is believed. Putting the two kinds of text together, we can see that, for the Christian, what Christ says is believed because it is the Lord Himself who says it. [1] So, do you believe what Christ says because you trust Christ Himself (and Christ alone)? If so, you are a Christian! This is a fact about faith we can derive from John 9:35!

[1] One of the sources that God has, in His providence, used to teach me the idea that God’s Word is worthy of trust because it is God who says it is this sermon: https://immanuelky.org/podcasts/sermons/2017-10-29-what-is-saving-faith