The Pharisees' first interrogation 9:13-23

"John evidently wants us to see that the activity of Jesus as the Light of the world inevitably results in judgment on those whose natural habitat is darkness. They oppose the Light and they bring down condemnation on themselves accordingly."³⁴¹

9:13 The man's neighbors probably brought him to their religious leaders to hear their opinion of what had happened to him.

9:14 John now introduced the fact that Jesus had healed the man on a Sabbath because it became the basis for much of the discussion that followed. Most of the Pharisees would have regarded Jesus' action as inappropriate work that violated Sabbath ordinances (cf. 5:9, 16; 7:21-24). He had healed a man, made clay, and anointed the man's eyes.

9:15 When the Pharisees asked the man how he had received his sight, he explained the method that Jesus had used.

9:16 Jesus' produced a division among the people again (cf. 7:40-43). Some of them, impressed with Jesus' violation of traditional Sabbath laws, concluded that He could not represent God who had given the Sabbath laws. Their argument was a priori, beginning with the law and working forward to Jesus' action. Others found the evidence of a supernatural cure more impressive and decided that Jesus must not be a common sinner but someone special who could do divine acts. Their argument was a posteriori, beginning with the facts and working back to Jesus' action. Ironically the second group had the weaker argument since miracles do not necessarily prove that the miracle-worker is from God. Still their conclusion was true whereas the conclusion of the first group with the stronger argument was false. At least some of the Pharisees considered the possibility that Jesus had come from God (cf. 3:2).

9:17 Faced with having to decide if Jesus was from God or not, the healed man concluded that He was a prophet similar to other miracle-working Old Testament prophets (e.g., 2 Kings 2:19-22; 4:18-44; 5:1-14). This was an advance over his previous description of Jesus as simply "the man called Jesus"(v. 11). His faith was growing.

9:18-19 The Jews in view are the Pharisees (v. 13). Evidently they chose to interview the healed man's parents because they could not unite on a decision about Jesus. They wanted more information from people closer to him than just his neighbors (v. 8). Only his parents could affirm that he had been truly blind from birth. If he had not been, the Pharisees could dispute Jesus' miracle.

9:20-21 The man's parents confirmed that he was indeed their son and that he had been blind from birth, so they testified that a genuine miracle had happened. Yet they were unwilling to give their opinion about how their son became able to see or to identify Jesus as his healer. They probably knew the answers to these questions since John proceeded to explain that they had other reasons for hedging (vv. 22-23). They suggested that the investigators question their son on these points since he was capable of giving legal testimony himself. Jewish boys became responsible adults at the age of 13. The age of this man is unknown, but in view of his confident responses to the Pharisees that follow he appears to have been at least in his twenties.

9:22-23 The reason for the parents' silence was their fear of excommunication from their local synagogue for affirming that Jesus was the Messiah. We now learn that the official position about Jesus was that He was not the Messiah, and anyone who affirmed that He was suffered religious persecution (cf. 7:13).³⁴²

"Already the Jews had decided' does not necessarily indicate a formal decree of the Sanhedrin. It might well mean that some of the leading men had agreed among themselves to take action against the supporters of Jesus, perhaps to exclude them from the synagogues, perhaps to initiate proceedings in the Sanhedrin."³⁴³

Interestingly the Apostle John considered confession of Jesus as the Messiah to be a litmus test that identifies genuine Christians (1 John 5:1). In 1 John 5:1 the title "Christ"(the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew "Messiah") comprehends all the biblical revelation about Messiah, specifically that He was divine as well as human. During Jesus' ministry, however, confessing Jesus as the Messiah did not necessarily involve believing in His deity (cf. 1:41; Matt. 16:16). It meant at least believing that He was the promised messianic deliverer of Israel, the popular conception of Messiah.