JESUS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD

 

JESUS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD

As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. 2And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3Jesus answered, “IT WAS NOT THAT THIS MAN SINNED, OR HIS PARENTS, BUT THAT THE WORKS OF GOD MIGHT BE DISPLAYED IN HIM.

4WE MUST WORK THE WORKS OF HIM WHO SENT ME WHILE IT IS DAY; NIGHT IS COMING, WHEN NO ONE CAN WORK. 5AS LONG AS I AM IN THE WORLD, I AM THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD.”

6Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud 7and said to him, “GO, WASH IN THE POOL OF SILOAM” (which means Sent).

So he went and washed and came back seeing.

JOHN 9:1-7

COMMENTARY

That day, Jesus and his disciples were walking outside the walls of JERUSALEM, and passing near the pools of SILOAM, they saw a man blind from birth.

This man must have been known before by the apostles, since they suddenly asked the Lord, the reason why this man was born blind. Apparently knowing that it was so.

The curious thing is that they asked him, if this narrative is correct, if the blind man "had sinned" himself, to be born blind. Like professing personal guilt since before birth.

This statement undoubtedly implies the idea of the pre-existence of souls, in such a way that the physical failures of birth, or even the natural misfortunes that occur on this planet, respond to the faults of a past life, including being born on a planet that carries on itself the punishments of GOD on the faults of a previous life.

This doctrine was professed by some Pharisees, Essenes, and followers of the Kabbalah, of which Philo and Josephus speak, and the BOOK OF WISDOM of the Septuagint (Wisdom 8:19-20) which is part of the Catholic, Orthodox, and Coptic, also does.

This idea, that the world is a place of purging on the path of purification before being able to enter the Kingdom of God, commonly called 'metempsychosis' (See GILGUL, in the Jewish Dictionary), has been attributed to the influence of Egypt, Babylon and then Greece, since it was present since the return from captivity among the Jewish sects, and was also professed by Greek philosophers such as Perecides, Pythagoras, Socrates and Plato, and all the East from its beginnings, from Mesopotamia to China (See the terms Punarjanma and Samsara) since time immemorial.

It was also professed among some Christians at the beginning, such as Origen, Basilides, or at least not in progressive transmigration, but in a single pre-existence before this.

In any case, Lord JESUS, without declaring that this idea was wrong or not, simply said that 'in this case' this man was born blind, so that, on this day, through the miracle of restoring his sight, the Name of GOD may be lifted up high.

The Lord JESUS CHRIST, then expressed that it was important to act full of grace and mercy while He was on earth, because this was the will of GOD for men, because the time would soon come when He would no longer be with us, and that while He was in his public ministry, HE WAS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD, as he had already said before in John 8:12.

JESUS was the LIGHT OF THE WORLD, not only because he freed all men from the powers of evil, healing them from diseases, demonic possessions, and forgiving their sins in the Name of GOD; but also because of the morality of his teachings. In his teachings, such as 'Love your neighbor as yourself', or 'Be with others as you want them to be with you', and 'Knock and it will open, seek and you will find' and many more, JESUS broke the cycle of sin in the human soul, teaching the world to proceed with love and mercy, in the face of the evil that confronted them, knowing that they are not alone, but that they have GOD as their father.

Having said this, our blessed Lord made mud with his saliva and smeared the blind man's eyes, and ordered him to wash his face, to test his Faith.

The blind man, instead of doubting, or rejecting the act as a mockery of his misery, knowing that it was JESUS the Son of David, who commanded him to do this, he trusted and washed his face, in obedience to the Lord's command, and by his Faith, he recovered his sight.

This portent caused commotion among the people who knew him, and among the Jews of the Temple, who refused to believe in the miracle, but later, knowing that it was real, they decided in their wickedness, to sink further into the darkness, and perfidiously they rejected the power of GOD and his mercy (John 9:34; 40-41), while the blind man, now healed, received the mercy of GOD (John 9:35-38).

Omar Flores.