3536. A Threefold Motto

A Sermon Published On Thursday, November 2, 1916.

One thing is needful. {Lu 10:42}

One thing I know. {Joh 9:25}

One thing I do. {Php 3:13}

For other sermons on this text:

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 927, “Martha and Mary” 918}

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1015, “One Thing Needful, The” 1006}

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3469, “Martha and Mary” 3471}

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3536, “Threefold Motto, A” 3538}

   Exposition on Lu 10:25-42 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3172, “Bright Prospects for Young Believers” 3173 @@ "Exposition"}

   Exposition on Ps 63; Lu 10:38-42 Joh 12:1-8 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2927, “Love at Leisure” 2928 @@ "Exposition"}

   {See Spurgeon_SermonTexts "Joh 9:25"}

   {See Spurgeon_SermonTexts "Php 3:13"}

1. I have “one thing” in view—”one thing” on which I want to rivet your attention. Bear with me if I detain you for a few minutes before announcing a text. It has been said that a man of one book is very strong in the force of his convictions. He has studied it so well, digested it so thoroughly, and understands it so profoundly, that it is perilous to encounter him in controversy. No man becomes eminent in any pursuit unless he gives himself up to it with all the powers and passions of his nature—body and soul. Michelangelo would never have been so great a painter, if his love for art had not become so enthusiastic that he frequently did not take off his clothes for weeks to sleep; nor would Handel have ever been such a great musician, if his ardour for celestial sounds had not led him to use the keys of his harpsichord until, by constant fingering, they became the shape of spoons. A man must have one pursuit, and consecrate all his powers to one purpose, if he would excel or rise to eminence among his peers.

2. When streams of water divide themselves into innumerable rills, they usually create a swamp, which proves dangerous to the inhabitants of the neighbourhood. If all those streams could be dammed up into one channel, and made to flow in one direction, they might resolve themselves into a navigable river, bearing commerce to the ocean, and enriching the people who lived on its banks. To obtain one thing, one comprehensive blessing from heaven, has been the object of many a saintly prayer, like that of David, “Unite my heart to fear your name.” The advice of Paul was, “Do not set your affection on things on earth,” not “your affections,” as it is often misquoted. The apostle would have all the affections tied up into one affection, and that one concentrated affection not set on earthly things, but on things above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God. The concurrence of all our powers and capacities with one single impulse, to obtain one object, and to produce one result, is one great aim of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

3. The “one thing” concerning which I am now about to talk very seriously to you will require three texts to explain it. There are three pithy passages of Holy Scripture which I shall endeavour to press home on your heart and conscience.

4. I. Our first point is:—ONE THING NEEDED.

5. Our first text is to be found in Luke’s gospel, “One thing is necessary.” {Lu 10:42} This one thing, according to this passage, is faith in Christ Jesus, the sitting down at the Master’s feet, the drinking in his Word. If I may expand for a minute the “one thing,” without seeming to make twenty things of what is only one, I will refer it to the possession of a new life. This life is given to us when, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are created anew in Christ Jesus, and it develops itself in a simple confidence in Jesus, in a hearty obedience to Jesus, in a desire to be like Jesus, and in a constant yearning to be near to Jesus. “One thing is necessary”; that one thing is salvation, created in us by the Holy Spirit, through faith which is in Jesus Christ our Lord. The new heart, the right spirit, a filial fear of God, love for Jesus—this is the “one thing necessary.” How I trust you all know how to distinguish things essential from things convenient, and that you are more concerned about necessary things than about things merely attractive, or, at most, only accessory to your welfare. The little child may admire the field which is covered with red and blue flowers; the farmer cares nothing for these flowerets; he delights in the wheat that is ripening for the sickle. So our childish minds are often fascinated with the flaunting flowers of fortune and fashion; craving after wealth, and fame, and worldly distinction; but our better reason, if it is allowed to speak, will prefer the necessary things, the things which we must have, or else must perish. We may do without earthly goods, for thousands have been happy in life and triumphant in death without any of the luxury which riches can purchase. The heart’s love of his fellow creatures has been fairly won by many a humble man who never courted popular applause. The patience of the poor has often counted for fine gold, while the pride of the affluent has passed for nothing but foul dross. Even lack of health, heaven’s priceless blessing to mortals here below, has not hindered some precious sufferers from serving their generation, glorifying God in a martyrdom of pain, and bequeathing treasures of piety to a grateful posterity. Ten thousand things are convenient; thousands of things are desirable; hundreds of things are to be sought for; but there is one thing, only one thing, the one thing we have described to you, of which our Saviour speaks as the “one thing necessary.”

6. And, oh! how necessary it is! Necessary for your children—they are growing up around you; and much joy they give you; for you can see in them many budding excellencies. To your partial eyes they give promise of goodness, if not of greatness. They will be the comfort of your declining years. You have carefully watched their education. You have attended to every one of their moral habits. To give them a fair start in the world has been your fond desire until their portion is the fruit of your providence. You would protect them from perils. Lest they should have to rough it, perhaps, as much as their father before them, you would pilot them through the straits.

7. Good! but, dear parents, do remember that “one thing is necessary.” For your children, that they may begin life, continue in life, and close life honourably, it is good that they should be educated; it is good that morality should be instilled into them, but this is not enough. Alas! we have seen many leave the purest parental influences to plunge into the foulest sins; their education has become only a tool for iniquity, and the money with which they might have helped to establish themselves has been squandered away in vice. “One thing is necessary” for that bright-eyed boy. Oh! if you can take him to the Saviour, and if the blessing of the Good Shepherd shall alight on him and renew him while still a child, the best will have been done for him—yes, his one chief need supplied. And if that dear girl, before she comes to womanhood, shall have been led to that blessed Saviour who rejects no one who comes to him, she will have received all she shall need for time and for eternity. Quicken your prayers, then, dear parents. Think of your children, to seek their welfare more intelligently. Be more persistent in intercession on their behalf. Truly, this is the one thing necessary for them.

8. One thing, too, is necessary for that young man just leaving home to go out as an apprentice and learn his trade. That is a trying time for an untried hand. The heart may well flutter as one, young and inexperienced, reflects that he is now about to sail, not on a coastal voyage, but to put far out to sea. Before long, it will be seen whether those fair professions had truth as a foundation. He will get to London—many of you have passed through this ordeal—the Metropolis, what a maze it seemed to you at first, and with what amazement you surveyed it! What with propensities within your heart, and profuse attractions without, temptation held you spell-bound. What could not be done in the village, what you dared not think of in the little market town, seems easily done unobserved in the great city. Hundreds of fingers point you to the haunts of pleasure, the home of vice, the path to hell. Ah! mother and father, you present the Bible as your parting gift; you write the youth’s name on the fly-leaf. You offer your prayers, and you shed your tears for him. Does there not steal over you the conviction that the one thing he needs you cannot pack in his trunk, nor can you send it up to him by a post office order? The one thing necessary is that Christ should be formed in his heart the hope of glory. With that he would begin life well. A sword of the true Jerusalem metal, that will not break in the heat of the conflict, will be serviceable all his journey through. Do I address some young man who has not forgotten his mother’s kind remarks when he left home? Let me just echo them, and say to him, “One thing you lack; oh! seek it, seek it now! Before going out of this house, seek until, through grace, you obtain this one necessary thing which shall bear you safely to the skies.”

9. But “one thing is necessary,” not merely for those youngsters at home, or for those about to go abroad in the world. One thing is needed for the business man. “Ah!” he says, “I need a great many things.” But what, I ask, is the one thing? You speak of “the necessary.” You call ready cash “the indispensable,” “Give me this,” says the man of the world, “and I do not care about anything else. Commend your religion to whom you please, but let me have solid gold and silver, and I will be well content.” Ah! sirs, you delude yourselves with phantoms. You fondly dream that wealth in your hands would count for more than it has ever done for your fellows. You must have seen some men make large fortunes whom you knew to be very miserable. They have retired from business to get a little rest, and yet they could find no rest in their retirement. You must have known others who the more they have, the more they have wanted, for they have swallowed a horse-leech, and it has cried, “Give, give!” Of course, you never suspected that the money did the mischief, or that the precious metal poisoned the heart.

10. But are you in quest of happiness? It does not lie in investments, whether in Consols {a} or mortgages, stocks or debentures, gold or silver. These properties are profitable. They can be used to promote happiness. As accessories to our welfare, they may often prove to be blessings, but if accredited with intrinsic worth they will eat as does a canker. Money circulated is a medium of public benefit, while money hoarded is a means of private discomfort. A man is only a muck-raker who is for ever seeking to scrape everything to himself. A miser is bound to be miserable. Before high heaven, he is an object to make the angels weep. One thing is necessary for you merchants, brokers, and warehousemen, to keep you from sinking under your anxieties and losses, or to preserve you from becoming sordid and selfish through your successes, and lest your greed should increase with your gains. One thing is necessary that your life may be a true life, or else, when it comes to its end, all that can be said of you will amount to this, “He died worth so much.” Must that be your only memorial? When you depart from this world, the poor and needy will not miss you; widow and orphan will not grieve for you; the Church militant will not mourn; the bright spirits above will not be waiting to greet you. The grand climax of your career, a will! A testament sworn under a very large sum!

11. What shall it profit any man whatever fortune he may have amassed, if he loses his soul? Do you think that riches possessed in this world will procure any respect in the nether regions? I have heard that in the old Fleet Prison the swell {b} that was put into jail for ten thousand pounds thought himself a gentleman in comparison with those common fellows who were put in for some paltry debt of twenty or twenty-five pounds. There are no such distinctions in hell. You who can boast your talents of gold and talents of silver, if cast away, shall be as complete wrecks as those who never had doit {c} or stiver, {d} but lived and died in deprivation and poverty. You need one thing, and if you get this one thing your wealth shall prove a blessing; otherwise it will be a curse. With this one thing your sufficiency for the day guaranteed to you by promise shall make you as one of heaven’s favourites, fed by the hand of God; ever needy, but never neglected.

12. You aged fathers—there are some such here—shall I have to remind any of you that one thing is necessary—indeed, most necessary for you? Death has already put his bony palm on your head, and frozen your hair to the whiteness of that winter in which all your strength must fail, and all your beauty fade. Oh! if you have no Saviour! You will soon have to leave these transitory scenes. The young may die, but the old must die. To die without a Saviour will be dreary and dreadful. Then, after death, the judgment. Brave old man, how will your courage stand that prospect, if you have no one to plead your cause? Oh! aged woman, you will soon be in the scales; very soon must your character be weighed. If it is said of you, “Tekel: she is weighed in the balances and found wanting,” there will be no opportunity to get right or adjust your relationship to God or to your fellow creatures. Your lamp will have gone out. There will be no chance of rekindling it. If lost, for ever lost; for ever in the dark; for ever cast away! Little enough will it avail you then that you have nourished and brought up children. It will not suffice you then that you paid your debts honestly. Vain will be the plea that you attended a place of worship, and were always respected in the neighbourhood. One thing is necessary; lacking that, you will turn out to have been a fool. Notwithstanding many opportunities and repeated invitations, have rejected the one thing—the one and only thing—what an irreparable mistake! Oh! how you will weep as one disappointed! How you will gnash your teeth as they do who upbraid themselves! You will mourn for ever, and your self-reproach shall know no end.

13. I wish I could move you, as I desire, to feel as I feel myself, that this one thing is necessary for every unconverted person present here. Some of you have already obtained this one choice thing that is so needed. Hold it firmly; never let it go. Grace gave it to you; grace will keep it for you; grace will hold you true to it. Never be ashamed of it. Prize it beyond all cost. But as for you who do not have it—I think I hear your funeral knell pealing in my ears, and as you speed away, your spirits made to fly for very fear, right into the arms of justice, I think I hear your bitter cry, “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved!” I would gladly grab you by the shirt-collar, if I could, and say to you, “Why not seek the one thing necessary without more ado? Get it now. It will not in any way harm you. It will make you happy here and blessed hereafter.” It is as necessary for this life as for the next, as necessary for the exchange as for the sick room, as necessary for the street and for the shop as for the death-bed and for the day of judgment. One thing—one thing is necessary. And now allow me to pause before taking you a stage further.

14. II. Allow me, as it were, to change horses. I must take another text:—ONE THING KNOWN. It is in John’s Gospel and these are the words, “One thing I know.” {Joh 9:25}

15. The man who was born blind, whose eyes were opened at the pool of Siloam, said, “One thing I know.” This simple statement I want to turn into a pointed question. Among the many things, dear friends, that you are acquainted with, do you know the one thing that this poor man knew, “Whereas I was blind, now I see?” Here is a wealth of self-knowledge in this single affirmation. Little enough, I daresay, he knew about other people, but he knew a great deal about himself. He was well aware that he once was blind, and he was quite positive that he now could see. Oh! can you say it with sincerity, “I know that I was once blind; I could see no beauty in Christ, though I thought I saw great beauties in the world. Then I could not love God. I did not hate sin; I had no repentance, nor had I any faith; I was blind; but now—oh! blessed change—now I see my sin, and weep over it; now I see a Saviour, and I trust him; now I see his beauties, and I admire him; now I see his service, and I delight to spend my strength in it. One thing I know.” What a marvellous experience of a marvellous change this implies!

16. Nor can its importance be overrated. There is no going to heaven unless you undergo a change which shall make you entirely new, and make all things entirely new for you. A young convert once said, “I do not know why it is; either the world is changed, or else I am, for nothing seems to me to be the same as it once was.” Ah! this old Bible, what a dry book it used to be; but, oh! how it abounds in marrow and fatness now! Prayer—what a tedious duty once, but what a delightful exercise now! The going up to God’s house on the Sabbath—did it not used to be a weariness of the flesh? How much better to be in the fields! Yet now, how delightful we feel it is to assemble with the Lord’s saints! With what pleasure we hail the festal morn! Everything has changed. Behold, all things are become new. What we once hated we love, and what we loved we hate.

17. Is it so, dear hearer—is it so with you? Please, do not be content with mere reformation. Were you previously a drunkard, and are you now a teetotaller? Good—very good; yet, good as it is, it will not save your soul. You once were dishonest and knavish, but you may now be truthful and trustworthy; yet do not rely on it for salvation. In former days unchaste, by stern resolve you may have given up the favourite lust, but even that will not save you. Those who never fell into your foul sloughs need the change. “You must be born again.” You must have an entire renewal—a radical change. It is not cutting off the limbs of a tree, nor moving it to another place, that will convert a bramble into a vine. The sap must be changed. The heart must be renewed. The inner man must be made completely new. Is it so with you? Why, I think if some of us were to meet our old selves walking down the street, we should hardly know ourselves. It is true our old self has taken good care to knock at our door pretty often since. Of all the knocks we hear, not even excepting that of the devil, there is no one we dread so much. The knock of the old man when he says, “Let me in with my corruptions and lusts, and let me reign and have my own way.” No, old man, you were once ourselves, but go your way, for we have put off the old man with his deeds, and put on the new man; we cannot know you, for one thing we know now that we did not know before—whereas we were blind, now we see.

18. Need I linger any longer on this point? Let it suffice if I leave it as a kind of awakening question for the heart and conscience. There are not twenty things, but there is one thing you have to enquire about. Do you know for certain this one thing—that you are not now what you used to be? Do you know that Jesus has made the difference; that Jesus has opened the eyes that were once without sight; that you now see Jesus, and seeing, you love him?

19. III. Our third subject is:—ONE THING DONE. The text is in the epistle to the Philippians. There the apostle Paul says, “One thing I do.” {Php 3:13}

20. Please observe that I did not introduce “doing“ first. That would not be right. We do not begin with doing. The one thing necessary is not doing. Coming to Christ, and trusting in him, must take the lead. Not until after you have gotten the one necessary thing, and know that you have it, and are conscious that, whereas you were blind, now you see, can you be fit to take the next step—”one thing I do.” And what is that one thing? “Forgetting the things which are behind, and reaching out to those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” It seems, then, that the apostle surrendered his whole mind to the glorifying of God by his spiritual life. He was never content with what he was. If he had a little faith, he sought for more. If he had a little hope, he strove to obtain more. If he had some degree of virtue, he coveted more.

21. Oh! Christians, never be satisfied with being merely saved. Up with you! Away! off! Go onward to the high mountains, to the clearer light, to the brighter joy! If saved and brought, like the shipwrecked mariner, to shore, is that enough? Yes, for the moment it is enough to warrant the purest satisfaction and the warmest congratulations. But the mariner must seek a livelihood as long as he lives. He must exert his energies. Whatever vocations open up before him, he must vigorously seek such favours of fortune as may possibly be within his reach. Just let it be so with you. Saved from the deep which threatened to swallow you up, rejoice that you are preserved from death, but resolve that the life bestowed to you shall be active, earnest, vigorous, fruitful in every good work. Be diligent as your traders are. See how they wake their servants up in the morning, how they scold them if they are not up early. This man must be hurried to one place, and that man to another. How sharp they speak! How quickly they move around! They will do their business; and they spare no pains to increase it. Oh! that we were half as diligent in the service of God. Here we are drivelling away our time. We do not use all our talents, augment our faith, and enlarge our domain. Why are we so indolent in going to that great giver of every good and perfect gift, for fresh supplies? Why do we not wait on him to be enriched? Oh that we were as diligent in spiritual as we are in temporal things! Oh! that we were avaricious with a holy covetousness for the best gifts God can bestow, and the choicest blessings saints can receive!

22. Paul was anxious to do more good, to get more good, to be more good. He sought to win souls. He wanted to make Christ’s name known. An ardent passion inflamed him; a high enthusiasm inspired him. Tent-making, it is true, was his trade, but tent-making did not quite monopolise all his heart, and soul, and strength. Does your secular vocation absorb all your thoughts? Though Paul was proud of his industry, and could say conscientiously, “My own hands have ministered to my needs,” yet preaching was the one thing he pursued as his life-work. He was a workman, just as many of you are; but where were his tools? They were ready at hand when he needed them. And do you think they ever crept up into his heart? I believe never. “For us to live,” he said, “is Christ.” That was as true, I will warrant you, when he was tent-making, or picking up sticks on the island of Malta, as when he was talking about heavenly wisdom to the worldly-wise, addressing the Athenians on Mars’ Hill or when he discoursed touching the resurrection of the dead to the Jews, or when he expounded the way of justification to the Gentiles. He was a man of one idea, and that one idea had entirely possessed him.

23. In the old pictures they put a halo around the head of the saints. But, in fact, that halo encircles their hearts, and penetrates every member of their bodies. The halo of selfless consecration to Christ should not only be around their brows, to adorn their portraits, for it encompassed their entire being, their spirit, soul, and body. It surrounded them, their whole being. “This one thing I do,” was the motto of early saints. Let it be your motto. Beloved, I address you as the saints of this generation. My earnest desire is that you should not come second in grace or in gifts. When the believers of all ages muster, and are marshalled, may you be found among the faithful and true. If not among the first or second class of worthies in the army of the Son of David, yet good soldiers of Jesus Christ. Our God is a loving Father. He likes to praise his people. To this end be clear about the one thing you need, the one thing you know, and the one thing you do; so you will stand well in that day. Amen.

{a} Consol: An abbreviation Consolidated Annuities, of i.e. the government securities of Great Britain. OED.
{b} Swell: One who is distinguished or eminent in achievement; one who is very clever or good at something. OED.
{c} Doit: A small Dutch coin formerly in use, the eighth part of a stiver, or the half of an English farthing; hence (chiefly in negative phrases) as the type of a very small or trifling sum. OED.
{d} Stiver: History A small coin (originally silver) of the Low Countries; applied to the nickel piece of 5 cents of the Netherlands (one-twentieth of a florin or gulden, or about a penny English). OED.

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {Joh 9}

1-3. And as Jesus passed by he saw a man who was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, “Master, who sinned, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered “Neither has this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be revealed in him.

We are not to look at such afflictions as any indication of special sin on the part either of the person or the parent. Of course, sin lies at the root of all our suffering as a great generic fact, but not so that we may attribute such an affliction to any one sin. The disciples, you see, dear friends, are thinking about difficult problems. Their Master is thinking about how, practically, to handle the difficulty, and to this day there are a large number of Christians, professors, and even ministers, who occupy their time about questions which really are not profitable. If they could be answered, no one would be any the holier or the better. What does it matter to us what is the origin of evil? Far more important to turn the evil out than it is to find out how it came in. Very frequently, you know, after there is a terrible calamity or accident, we have an enquiry as to how it happened, and then we think the thing is all attended to. It would have been better, perhaps, to have an enquiry, before it was done, as to how it could be prevented. Our Lord has that wisdom—that practicalness. He begins to deal with the evil rather than to raise questions about it. Yes, and he sees in that evil a good coming out of it. He says that this man was blind, so that the works of God might be revealed in him.

4-7. I must work the works of him who sent me, while it is day: the night comes, when no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” When he had spoken this, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay. And said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam,” (which is by interpretation, “Sent.”) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.

Our Lord used instrumentality. It did not appear, however, to be very likely to achieve his purpose. The clay seemed more likely to blind than to give sight, yet if the Lord chooses to use the poor and weak instruments that seem nothing better than dust and spittle, he has the glory of the grand result. If he takes the humble ministry of his servants and uses it in the pulpit, or in the Sunday School, or anywhere else, he has all the more glory, and is all the less likely to be robbed of it because he uses such unlikely means.

8, 9. The neighbours therefore, and those who had previously seen him that he was blind, said, “Is this not he who sat and begged?” Some said, “This is he”:

We are sure of it.

9. Others said, “He is like him:”

They were cautious people.

9. But he said, “I am he.”

He knew there was no mistaking his witness.

10, 11. Therefore they said to him, “How were your eyes opened?” He answered and said, “A man who is called Jesus made clay, and anointed my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to the pool of Siloam, and wash’: and I went and washed, and I received sight.”

Very straightforward, very concise, very accurate, and when we witness about our conversion, it is always good to take this for a copy—not too many flourishes, no colouring. He even leaves out about the spittle, but he gives it all as he can remember it; so when you are talking about the Lord’s love for you, and his way of converting you, it is quite sufficiently remarkable, without any touch of rouge. Let it be given just as it is.

12. Then they said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”

Enough for him to know what he did know—that his eyes were opened, and how it was done. So sometimes I have known people approach the new convert with a question which has rather baffled him, and he has been troubled, because he could not answer it. Do not let it trouble you. You are not expected to know everything. The very best and most honest thing is to say, “I do not know.”

13, 14. They brought him who previously was blind to the Pharisees. And it was the Sabbath day when Jesus made the clay, and opened his eyes.

So you may be sure that the Pharisees would be down on him for that, because, according to the rabbis, the making of the clay to put on this man’s eyes would be a kind of brick-making, and they would bring him in guilty of brick-making immediately. So these men perverted things and make men guilty where no offence had been committed whatever.

15. Then again the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and see.”

He is shorter with them. Some tales grow in telling. His gets shorter. Besides, he has to deal with argumentative people; and then the least said the soonest mended; and this shrewd man thought so.

16, 17. Therefore some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, because he does not keep the Sabbath day.” Others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such miracles?” And there was a division among them. They say to the blind man again, “What do you say of him who has opened your eyes?” He said, “He is a prophet.”

He could see that.

18-24. But the Jews did not believe concerning him, that he had been blind, and received his sight, until they called the parents of him who had received his sight. And they asked them, saying, “Is this your son, whom you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” His parents answered them and said, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind. But by what means he now sees, we do not know; he is of age; ask him: he shall speak for himself.” His parents spoke these words because they feared the Jews: for the Jews had agreed already that if any man confessed that he was Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.” Then again they called the man who was blind, and said to him, “Give God the praise: we know that this man is a sinner.”

How piously these Pharisees can talk; and generally in the name of God all kinds of mischief begins. When men are persecuting the Son of God, yet still they take the name of God on their lips. Did they not burn the martyrs to the glory of God? Oh! yes, and so did these men slander Christ like this by saying, “We know that this man is a sinner,” and yet they spoke about giving God praise.

25. He

Our shrewd friend of the opened eyes.

25-27. Answered and said, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I do not know: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.” Then they said to him again, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” He answered them. “I have told you already, and you did not listen. Why would you hear it again? Will you also be his disciples?”

The man is sharp, acute, cutting.

28, 29. Then they reviled him, and said, “You are his disciple; but we are Moses’ disciples. We know that God spoke to Moses: as for this fellow, we do not know where he comes from.”

The word “fellow” is supplied by the translators. There is no such word there, because they did not know a word bad enough with which to express their scorn.

30-33. The man answered and said to them, “Why this is a marvellous thing, that you do not know where he comes from, and yet he has opened my eyes. Now we know that God does not hear sinners: but if any man is a worshipper of God, and does his will, he hears him. Since the world began it was not heard that any man opened the eyes of one who was born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

He proves; he explains. The thing is as clear as possible, and yet they refuse to see it.

34. They answered and said to him, “You were altogether born in sins,

It is the old rule, “Abuse the plaintiff.” Nothing could be said. Now abuse the man. He has answered you, and his arguments are too hard for you. Now throw harsh words at him. “You were altogether born in sins.”

34. And do you teach us?”

Wonderful, that “us.” “Do you teach us?” Folly, ignorance, and pride go together. This man, in the simplest and most unaffected manner, had told his story and urged his argument, and now they abuse him and exalt themselves. “Do you teach us?” No, great Pharisees, he does not teach you, for you will not learn.

34. And they cast him out.

That is the last argument. Out with him. Now we have defeated him.

35. Jesus heard that they had cast him out: and when he had found him,

What a blessed thing to be cast out, if Christ finds us! Very many have been put out of the synagogue and treated with contempt, but then outside Jerusalem they found their Lord, for there he died outside the camp, and his people need not be ashamed to go after him bearing his reproach. “When he had found him.”

35-38. He said to him, “Do you believe in the Son of God?” He answered and said, “Who is he, Lord, that I might believe in him?” And Jesus said to him. “You have both seen him, and it is he who talks with you.” And he said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshipped him.

Therefore He does not appear to have been a Unitarian; {e} and if those people had their eyes opened, they would do the same. “He said, ‘Lord, I believe.’ And he worshipped him.”

39. And Jesus said, “For judgment I am come into this world, that those who do not see might see; and that those who see might be made blind.”

Christ is the turner of the tables. Did not the virgin mother sing, “He has put down the mighty from their seats, and he has exalted those of low degree. He has filled the hungry with good things, but he has sent the rich away empty?” So he always does.

41. Jesus said to them, “If you were blind,

Really could not see.

41. You should have no sin;

If you really did not know better, were totally and altogether without knowledge—then you would have no sin compared with what you now have.

41. But now you say, ‘We see’; therefore your sin remains.”

You acknowledge that you have sinned with your eyes open, and, therefore, your sin is all the greater.

{e} Unitarian: One who affirms the unipersonality of the Godhead, especially as opposed to an orthodox Trinitarian. OED.