John 9:29Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Therefore, one who thinks contrary to him is a transgressor of the Sacred Scriptures. The ordinance concerning the Sabbath has clearly been violated, for you were healed on the Sabbath.

It is right not to recognize the one convicted and guilty in this matter. We affirm with complete reason that He has not kept the divine law.

Therefore, when they say of Christ, "We do not know where He is from," they do not say this because they do not know who He is or whence He is.

For elsewhere they are clearly shown confessing that they know about Him: "Is this not the carpenter's son, whose father and mother we know? How then does He say, I have come down from heaven?" (Mt 13:55; Jn 6:42).

We should not take this statement, "We do not know where He is from," as an indication of ignorance. Rather, we should see in it the fruit of their inborn arrogance.

They subject Him to contempt and count Him as nothing at all. Therefore they speak about Him in this way.

It seems that something further is also indicated here. The nature of contemplation urges us to turn to a more subtle inquiry.

It is said, "We know that God spoke to Moses." Therefore, we must believe his words without hesitation and keep the divine ordinances.

"But this man we do not know," because God did not speak with Him, and we acknowledge nothing of the kind about Him.

Yet the Pharisees, though accustomed to count themselves wise and to boast greatly of knowledge of the divine oracles, should have considered this.

God the Father, foretelling through wise Moses the coming of Jesus at the proper time, says: "I will raise up for them a Prophet from among their brethren, like you. I will put My word in His mouth, and He shall speak to them according to all that I command Him. And the man who will not listen to whatever that Prophet shall speak in My name, I will require it of him" (Deut 18:18-19).

Anyone may say to the Jews, rebuking them with all justice: O you who know only how not to believe!

If you more readily trust the words of Moses, because God spoke to him, should you not have done the same with respect to Christ?

You heard Him loudly and clearly declare: "The words that I speak are not Mine, but the Father's who sent Me" (Jn 14:24).

And again: "I do not speak from Myself, but the Father who sent Me has Himself given Me a commandment, what I should say and what I should speak" (Jn 12:49).

Thus the words of the Pharisees were only an excuse and an invention of empty arguments.

If they say that Moses must be followed precisely because God spoke with him, why do they not think the same about Christ, though He also clearly spoke the words we have just cited?

On the one hand, they value the law and pretend to regard God's will as worthy of honor. On the other hand, they violate it still more grievously.

They dishonor it by refusing to accept the preaching more fitting to the time. This preaching proclaimed Christ as the Prophet, because of His coming in the flesh.

"But we are disciples of Moses. We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this Man, we do not know where He is from" (Jn 9:28-29). If only you knew what God spoke to Moses, then you would know that God foretold Him through Moses.

For you know that the Lord said: "If you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote of Me" (Jn 5:46). What then? Do you go after the servant and turn away from the Lord? But you do not even go after the servant, otherwise you would be directed by him to the Lord.

Besides the moon, they received another luminary, new and far more excellent (Ex 13:21). Yet, as though not perceiving the divine power at all, they urgently demanded new and exalted gods for themselves.

This happened when Moses, detained a little on the mountain while the law was being given to him, delayed in returning.

You are true heirs of their senselessness. You have not loved the law. You hate goodness. You need the rule of a rod, not of almond, but of iron (Ps 2:9; cf. Rev 2:15; 19:27; Jer 1:10-12).

You see a man who has passed from darkness to light. Until now he spent a long time of life in darkness, with eyes inactive, guided by the eyes of others.

He sat daily before the temple. He made his misfortune known to all, so that he might draw many to mercy. He had the city as witness of his affliction.

Now he sees, and he was swiftly healed, not by a compound of various medicines, nor by a cut of steel, but by clay alone, made with spittle from the dust.

How then are you not struck? How are you not amazed? How do you not fall to the ground and worship Him who made eyes from the earth? You do not honor the divine power.

Are you torn by envy? Do you rival God as though He were your competitor in craft, as artisans rival an artisan, or as kinsmen rival one equal to themselves?

When you read the books of the Old Testament, written for the divine economy concerning the people, which report the reigns of kings and their history, you obediently accept what is said of each.

You almost count Moses as a god. You revere Elisha. You praise his teacher, the Tishbite.

All the saints of every age, who were endowed with powers from God and performed great and glorious deeds, you honor as though they were angels.

You do not arm yourselves at all against the ancients. You do not reject the traditions of the fathers, though people do not usually arrive very easily at faith in what they hear.

But what in these last times you see with your own eyes in the eyes of the man once blind, what can be touched with the fingers and exactly perceived by hearing, against this you act treacherously and dishonorably.

You trample down the prophecies and reject the fulfillment of the predictions.

For what is now seen in experience was long before proclaimed by Isaiah in these words: "Behold, our God renders judgment and will repay. He will come and save us. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall hear. Then the lame man shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the stammerer shall be clear" (Is 35:4-6).

These are not the sayings of Peter and John, nor of any of the new and suspect persons in your eyes. You cannot suspect the joyful prediction and so reject the truth.

They are the words of your prophecy, if you acknowledge the Tekoaite as the son of Amos, prophet, child of a prophet, a man by race an Israelite, and head of guidance under the law.

To God be glory, dominion, and honor, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Moreover, John the Forerunner and Jesus Himself preached that He came from heaven and was sent into the world by God the Father. Besides this, they saw great miracles bearing witness to it. See, then, how the blind man answers these false words of the Pharisees.

The contrast here, disciple of Jesus and disciples of Moses, chiefly concerns the Lord's supposed violation of the Sabbath law given by Moses. You are a disciple of this violator of the Sabbath law, while we are disciples of him through whom that law was given to us.

From this reproach one should not conclude that the healed man already belonged to the Lord's disciples in the proper sense. Nor should this be concluded from his mocking question to the Pharisees, whether they too already wished to be His disciples.

He was not yet a disciple and follower of the Lord; compare Jn 9:35 and following. But judging by his statements, he was ready to become one. He could know that his Healer had disciples (Jn 9:2). Therefore he asked the Pharisees whether they too wished to join the company of these disciples. They then repeated, in reference to him, the word he had used.

That truth was on their side in this case, and that they were orthodox disciples rather than the former blind man, they prove, in their opinion, irrefutably. Moses, their teacher, was the greatest of the prophets who received immediate revelation from God.

He was therefore unquestionably God's messenger, with whom alone God spoke mouth to mouth. He was thus an immediate witness of divine truth. "But this Man," whom they contemptuously do not even name alongside Moses, "we do not know where He is from." That is, we do not know by whom He was sent, nor by whom He is authorized to teach and act; compare Jn 8:14.