Enlightenment:
Let us read 9:1-3. “And as He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, saying, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind? Jesus answered, Neither has this man sinned nor his parents, but that the works of God might be manifested in him.” The question raised by the disciples was according to their religious knowledge. They thought that the blindness must have been due to the man’s sin or the sin of his parents. This question, like those in 4:20-25 and 8:3-5, is a matter of yes or no, which belongs to the tree of knowledge resulting in death (Gen. 2:17), but the Lord’s answer in 9:3 points them to God, who is the tree of life resulting in life (Gen. 2:9). We have seen that the Lord in the Gospel of John never answers such questions with an answer of yes or no, right or wrong. This is because the Gospel of John is a book of life, not a book of the knowledge of good and evil. Therefore, the Lord said that the man’s blindness was so that “the works of God might be manifested in him.”
When the Lord Jesus saw this blind man, He said, “While I am in the world, I am the light of the world” (9:5). The Lord is the light of life (8:12). Blindness comes from the shortage of the light of life. Every dead person is a blind man. Undoubtedly, the dead cannot see anything. Therefore, blindness indicates the lack of life. If you have life, then you have sight, for light opens your eyes. So, first of all, the Lord pointed out that the blind man needed the light of life.