Enlightenment:
The Lord told him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (9:7). The man went, washed, and came seeing. To wash here is to cleanse away the clay. This signifies the washing away of our old humanity, as we have in baptism (Rom. 6:3-4, 6). That the blind man went and washed means he obeyed the life-giving Word of the Lord. So he received sight. If he had not gone to wash off the clay after being anointed with it, it would have blinded him even more. Thus, our obedience to the anointing brings us sight.
The word Siloam means sent. This is very meaningful. The anointing of the Spirit of life means that you are always in the position of being sent. The anointing puts us on the ground of being sent. Therefore, we must obey. The Lord Himself always stood on the ground of being sent by the Father and He was always obedient. Now the Lord puts us in the same position as His sent ones. After we receive the Lord in His Word and have His anointing, He puts us in the position of being sent. We must now be obedient to His sending. After you receive the Lord in His Word, what is the first step that you should take in order to be obedient? Once you have believed in the Lord and received Him in the Word, the Lord will ask you to go to a “pool.” The first step is that the Lord will send you to a “pool.” He will send you to wash and be baptized. From then on, you must daily and throughout the day apply this washing. Day by day, you must realize that you are being washed during the whole day. Even today, I have been washed several times. An order from the Lord always follows the anointing of the Spirit of life within you: “Go and wash.”
This chapter portrays the blind man, the Lord making the clay, the eyes of the blind man being anointed with the clay, and the Lord telling him to go and wash in the pool of Siloam. Once the blind man washed his eyes, the clay was gone. What is the clay? It signifies the natural life or the human self. When you went to be baptized, the old man, the old clay, was washed away. After the washing, it was buried in and under the water. Your old man was buried in the water after you were baptized. However, do you also realize that you must apply the washing of the baptism day by day? In every day of your Christian life you have to apply the washing of baptism by putting the self and the nature of the old man under the water of death.