John 9:2-8 And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?… There was no special connection between the parents' sin in this instance and the blindness of their offspring. "On the contrary," Christ seems to say, "great sufferers are not always or of necessity great sinners, or the children of great sinners. Far otherwise. There is pain and suffering caused by no vice in the sufferer, inherited from no transgressions of their parents: pain and suffering, not indeed created by God, but allowed by God, allowed in mercy as a favour, and in proof of love. The natal blindness of this afflicted man was for the glory of God." And to suffer for such a purpose and with such a result is not a punishment but a privilege — a distinct and honourable privilege. This Divine philosophy of suffering was a new revelation given to the world by Jesus Christ. It was a revelation which apparelled suffering in robes of attractiveness, and turned the murmurs of lamentation into songs of rejoicing. The apostles gloried in suffering, directly the purpose of it had been unfolded and interpreted by their Lord. When they understood that the cause of suffering lay sometimes in the privilege of the sufferer to be the means of the manifestation, through his sufferings, of the Divine glory, they "rejoiced in their infirmities, if so be the power of God might be manifested in them." They "counted it all joy" when it pleased God to let them fall into manifold trials, inasmuch as their trials afforded an opportunity for the glorification of God. Many other acknowledged advantages flow from suffering. It tends to wean men from the world, to purge away the dross of selfishness and strip off the tinsel from conceit. There is nothing like an abundance of trouble for keeping a man straight and helping him to remember his prayers. Suffering is not seldom thus its own reward Yet it is one thing to realize the benefits of suffering, another and far higher thing to realize its privilege. Think, e.g., of the man blind from his birth. How many long and weary hours he had sat near the Temple Gate, dark, lonely, miserable! How dreary his existence had been — sightless and hopeless, a stranger to the sense of beauty, looking only through the deep darkness of life to the still deeper darkness of death! And yet how truly privileged he was! What a recompense after all those years of weary blindness to be permitted to be the instrument for "showing forth the glory of God!" It was worth being a blind and desolate beggar for! We, of this latter day, are not permitted to be the instruments for showing forth the glory of God miraculously. Our blind do not receive their sight, our dead are not raised, our lepers are not cleansed. But none the less truly does every Christian glorify God in his suffering body and his suffering spirit, whenever, by sweet holiness of patience, and heavenly-minded rejoicing in tribulation, he convinces the world that though the cause of all suffering is sin, yet no Christian suffering is without privilege. (J. W. Diggle, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?WEB: His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" |
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