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Posted By Joe Haynes on February 3, 2010

Many of you have been following the AP story about Matt Chandler’s battle with brain cancer and his story of faith in God through it all. Geoff Ashley, writing at the Village Church blog, “Merely Theological”, posted his thoughts, back in December, on John 9:1-3, and what Jesus says in response to the question of God’s sovereignty over suffering.

Here’s the Bible passage:

John 9:1-3  ESV John 9:1 As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth.  2 And his disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"  3 Jesus answered, "It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.

Now there are lots of well-meaning Christian brothers and sisters who, not having taken into account the whole teaching of Scripture, default in favour of the superficial sense of verses that seem to imply that God only intends nice things to happen to His children and that He therefore never intends suffering to happen to His children. And there are verses (like Mat 7:11 or John 10:10) that can be misunderstood to suggest that God would never ordain suffering in the life of one of His children.

Yet such a shallow reading of Scripture needs to be balanced by an understanding of the teaching of the whole Bible, not just a verse here and a verse there. If we zoom out from the single verse and take in more of the context of Scripture we can see that there is more to the picture.

In John 10:10, for example, some like to quote Jesus saying, “I came that they might have life and have it abundantly”, as if that’s the sole reason Jesus came into this world and as if it’s that simple. But 12 verses earlier, in John 9:39, Jesus said, “For judgement I came into this world…”

Similarly, in Matthew 7:11, Jesus is often quoted as saying, “how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” But a few verses later, Jesus continued with these words,

Matthew 7:21-23   21 "Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.  22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’  23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

So the statement Jesus gave in John 10:10 which at first glance seems to declare His whole reason for coming is complicated by His statement in John 9:39. And His teaching in Matthew 7:11 which at first glance seems to mean that the Father would never give anything but good things to those who ask is complicated by Jesus’ own teaching in Matthew 7:21-23, when some people who ask God for good things actually get Judgement instead.

Back to John 9:1-3. Notice, in verse 2, in the disciples’ question, that they assume the man’s blindness was ordained by God (since they assume that someone’s sin was the reason for the ordained punishment of blindness). And notice that Jesus does not correct them or rebuke their assumption of God’s sovereignty over this particular instance of suffering by saying something like, “You ask this because you do not understand your Father in heaven! He is not responsible for things like blindness; He would never cause someone to suffer!” No. So much the opposite in fact. The answer that Jesus gives assumes that God did ordain this man’s suffering, but not because of this man’s sin or because of anyone else’s sin. Rather it was so that “the works of God might be displayed in him” (John 9:3). In other words, God made this man blind so that He could provide grace and display His own glory through what Jesus was about to do for him.

I’m pretty sure that some people will jump up and down at that last statement and recoil at the thought of God actually causing suffering in order to display His glory. The problem is that this is a clear teaching of Jesus that says exactly that. This teaching is not contradicted by the context. It is not refuted simply by quoting another verse like John 10:10. After all, if God’s glory was displayed through the healing of the blind man, and if God planned exactly that when He made the man to be born blind, and if through this healing and this account in Scripture, people come to put their trust in the Sovereign God who gives grace to sinners though they deserve His wrath, has not Jesus done what He said He came to do in John 10:10, “that they might have life and have it abundantly”?

If a man is willing to take the child he loves, hold him down on a table in a doctor’s office, and allow a stranger to plunge a sharp needle into the flesh of his own beloved son, in spite of the child’s cries of protest and pleas for mercy, in order to do some greater good for the child in the long run (such as protect him from a deadly disease), though the child may be too young to possibly understand such a reason at the time, how much more is our heavenly Father willing and able to lead His children through suffering He intended when it will lead to their greatest good and eternal joy?

WDJS? (What did Jesus say?)

Jesus answered, "It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. (John 9:3)

Geoff Ashley’s excellent study on John 9:1-3 can be found here: http://fm.thevillagechurch.net/blog/theology/?p=287

More related resources and updated videos by Matt Chandler on his faith in God’s sovereignty in the face of suffering can be found here: http://fm.thevillagechurch.net/blog/pastors/?p=489 

and here: http://fm.thevillagechurch.net/blog/pastors/?cat=8

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