Healed on the Sabbath

Jesus healed on the Sabbath

JOHN 9 BIBLE STUDY ◄
John 9:7-12 Pool of Siloam

John 9:13-16 Healed on the Sabbath

JOHN 9:13-16 13 They brought to the Pharisees him who had been blind. 14 Now it was a Sabbath when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. 15 Then the Pharisees also were asking him how he had received his sight. So he said to them, “He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.” 16 Then some of the Pharisees were saying, “This Man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath.” Others were saying, “How can a sinful man do such signs?” And there was a division among them.

Who are recorded as being happy that the blind man received sight?
Neither the people who brought him nor the Pharisees who received him.

How do they treat him?
Like an accomplice to a crime.

What is the crime?
Jesus mixed His saliva with dirt on the Sabbath. Jesus applied the mixture to the blind man's eyes on the Sabbath. Jesus healed on the Sabbath. They considered all three actions to be “work” and therefore illegal on the Sabbath.

Were they right?
No, for two reasons. First, doing good on the Sabbath was lawful: “What man is there among you who has one sheep, and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not lay hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable then is a man than a sheep? Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath” (Matthew 12:11-12). Second, Jesus is the “Lord of the Sabbath,” not vice versa: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Therefore the Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27-28).

Why was there “a division among” the “Pharisees” (John 9:16)?
The Pharisees had made up a dizzying number of laws to try to discern what was and wasn't of God (see Pharisees). The healing of a man born blind was a powerful “sign” (John 9:16) that it was of God, but it had taken place on a Sabbath, which their man-made laws dictated wasn't of God. Some of the Pharisees voiced this conflict, while others tried to resolve it by siding with their man-made laws and deciding that Jesus “is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath” (John 9:16).