God's Redemptive Purpose

This chapter tells of Jesus healing a blind man: but why did He do it? It was not just divine compassion, but also a focussed opportunity to teach His disciples the principles of the Gospel, in a way they would never forget. As they walked down the road, on the Sabbath day, they saw a young blind man. They were thinking, why is he blind, whose fault is it, and if he was blind from birth was it his parent's fault? They knew from Genesis (chapter 3) that sin caused illness and death, but who had sinned? So they asked Jesus.
 
Jesus did not answer directly. He said that this congenital blindness was not divine retribution for sins in that family. Although the whole world is corrupted by sin, and there is much suffering, God had a reason for allowing it. It was not purposeless. God was going to be at work; the disciples would see a powerful transformation - from blindness to sight, from sadness to joy, and from fear to faith. This healing would demonstrate that Jesus had divine power to reverse the grip of Satan's destructive power.
 
Jesus Christ did not create His church out of perfect angels, but transformed sinners. Instead of destroying this sinful world and eliminating its corruption, He chose to redeem sin-bound people and transform their future. There is no blindness He cannot illuminate, no paralysis He cannot mobilise and no death He cannot make alive. Although we see most of life through the small window of our earthly experience, and nothing is impossible with God, the final transformation will only be seen in heaven. And so every time we see, or hear of, His transforming power, we should trust Him to fulfil everything which we cannot know and do not see now. Those who trust like that will never be disappointed or ashamed (Romans 10:11).