The disciples asked a question that still puzzles many people today. Why is a child born with a physical defect? Is it a judgment of God upon the parents for some sin, or is it possibly God’s judgment upon the child for sins that God knows he will commit?

Jesus Himself had previously linked sickness with sin. In this instance, however, Jesus said this blindness was not caused by this man’s or his parents’ sins.

This has led many people to interpret the rest of this verse as saying that God made this man blind just so that He could heal him and be glorified thereby. From this thinking, many doctrinal teachings have risen about how sickness and other problems in our lives are actually blessings from God, intended to bring glory to God and correction to us. This reasoning, however, does not line up with the other truths of God’s Word.

It was not God who made this beggar blind. This man was not born blind because of any one person’s sins but because sin in general had corrupted the perfect balance that God had created in nature. Therefore, some maladies happen, not as a direct result of an individual’s sins but as an indirect result of sin in general.

Deuteronomy 28 settles forever the question of whether sickness, poverty, and oppression are really blessings in disguise. God says that sickness and poverty are curses – not blessings from God. Christ redeemed us from these curses of the law so that now the blessings may come upon us through Him (Galatians 3:13). God’s curses have been placed on Jesus and removed from those who accept Jesus’ sacrifice. You are blessed!

Jesus didn’t seek to clarify the Jews’ misunderstanding of His previous statements. Instead, He made a new statement that those who would not accept that Jesus was God in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:16) could not possibly understand. “Before Abraham was, I am.” He not only said that He existed before Abraham, but He was again associating Himself with the great “I AM” statement of Exodus 3:14. This statement could leave no doubt that Jesus was claiming deity in the highest sense of the word.

Jesus proclaimed “I am.” This is how Jehovah identified Himself to Moses in Exodus 3:14. When spoken under the anointing power of God, Jesus’ pronouncement that “I am he” knocked all of those who came to arrest Him backwards to the ground (Jn. 18:5-6). Jesus was the great “I AM THAT I AM” of Exodus 3:14 manifest in the flesh!

When the Jewish authorities heard Jesus call God “my (own) Father,” they immediately understood that Jesus claimed for Himself deity in the highest possible sense of that term. That claim was either blasphemy to be punished by death, or Jesus was who He claimed to be.

The purpose of the fourth gospel is clearly stated, “that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name” (Jn. 20:31). The object of John’s gospel was to show that Jesus is “the true God” (1 Jn. 5:20) who was “made flesh” (Jn. 1:14).

Jesus is referring to the day when men would be justified by putting faith in God and not in their own works. Abraham had this truth revealed to him (Rom. 4:13), and he believed it and was himself justified by faith (Rom. 4:3-4, 9).

Hebrews 11:6 says, “But without faith it is impossible to please him.” It was Abraham’s faith that pleased God. The Lord promised Abraham that his seed would be as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore and Abraham believed God. That pleased Him so much that he counted Abraham righteous right then, even though Abraham had not yet fulfilled the rite of circumcision and he was not living a holy life.

According to Leviticus 18:9, it was an abomination (Lev. 18:26) for a man to marry a half sister. Sarah, Abraham’s wife, was his half sister (Gen. 20:12). Therefore, Abraham’s marriage to Sarah was not what pleased God. Abraham had already lied about Sarah not being his wife so that he could save his own neck. He was willing to let a man commit adultery with his wife with no objections from him. Immediately after this instance is when the Lord counted Abraham’s faith for righteousness (Gen. 15:6). Abraham tried to accomplish God’s will in the flesh with Hagar (Gen. 16) and then repeated the terrible sin of denying that Sarah was his wife again (Gen. 20).

Anyone who really studies the life of Abraham and the favor that he found with God would have to conclude that it was Abraham’s faith that pleased God. It’s the same with any of us. The only thing that we can do to please God is put faith in Jesus as our Savior.

All of us were born in sin and were therefore “by nature” the children of the devil. That’s the reason we sinned. Our sins don’t corrupt our nature, but our corrupt nature makes us sin. That’s why we must be “born again” and become new creatures (or a new creation) in Christ.

The scriptures teach that everyone was born with a sin nature or old man. For the Christian, the old man is dead. We do not have a nature that is driving us to sin. If that is the case, then why do we seem so bound to sin even after we experience the new birth? The reason is that our old man left behind what Romans 6:6 calls a body. Just as a person’s spirit and soul leave behind a physical body at death, so our old man left behind habits and strongholds in our thoughts and emotions. The reason a Christian tends to sin is because of an unrenewed mind, not because of a sin nature.

Our old man ruled our thinking before we were born again. He taught us such things as selfishness, hatred, and fear and he placed within us the desire for sin. The old man is now gone, but these negative parts of his body remain. Until renewed, our minds continue to lead us on the course that our old man charted.

To experience the resurrection life of Jesus, we have to know that our old man is dead. Then, through the renewing of our minds, we destroy the body that the old man left behind. The end result is that we will not serve sin any longer.

The Jewish people were direct descendants of Abraham. However, as with so many biblical truths, there was much more to the Abrahamic covenant than what a casual glimpse would reveal. In truth, these Jews were not actually a part of the spiritual children of Abraham.

The Holy Spirit revealed through the Apostle Paul in Galatians 3:16 and 29 that God’s covenant was to Abraham and his singular “seed” or descendant, which was Christ. No one ever became an heir of God’s promises through his natural birth. Before Jesus gave Himself as an offering for our sin, the Old Testament saints were justified by faith in God’s promises concerning the Messiah who was yet to come. After Jesus’ death and resurrection, New Testament saints are justified by faith in what Jesus has already accomplished. No one has ever been saved because of who his parents are.

Those who have been born again through faith in Jesus have been circumcised in their heart (Col. 2:11-12) and are the true Jews. They aren’t Jews in nationality or religion, but they are the true people of God. Gentiles who are united with Christ in the new birth are now God’s people. Anyone who is saved through faith in Jesus is now Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise (Gal. 3:16, 22, 26-29). This leaves no doubt that the Church is now God’s chosen people on earth. This does not mean that God has forsaken the Jews. There are still prophesies which apply to the physical nation of Israel which will be fulfilled. However, the New Testament Church, composed of Jews and Gentiles, is now God’s kingdom on earth. We are all His.

The devil has been deceiving the world about sin since the Garden of Eden when he told Eve that through sin she could be like God. Time has proven, not only to Eve, but to each one of us, that this is not true. Sin brings death and not life. Jesus is making it clear that sin enslaves. We become slaves not only to the sin itself, but also to the author of sin, the devil. We are either servants of God through obedience or servants of the devil through sin.

Jesus is likening the bondage that sin produces to slavery, while comparing the freedom that comes through serving God to being a beloved son. No one would doubt that being a son is better than being a slave. Likewise, obeying God is better than yielding to sin. True freedom is found only in serving God. There is a false freedom that Satan has been promoting since the Garden of Eden. He has deceived all of us at one time or another into thinking that God is a tyrant who really doesn’t want us to enjoy life and consequently has told us not to do certain things. Because we believe this lie, we disobey God (or sin) in the name of freedom.

However, the Word of God and personal experience conclusively prove that the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23). Jesus is stripping sin of any glamour with which the devil may disguise it. Sin brings bondage. The only true freedom is found in Jesus. Jesus not only dealt with the original sin that contaminated the human race, but He also dealt with each individual act of sin. Even if an individual could stop all sinning, he could not change his sin nature with which he was born. That’s the reason we must be born again.

This is the second of three times that Jesus spoke of Himself being “lifted up” (1st – Jn. 3:14; 3rd – Jn. 12:32-33). As the scripture explains in John 12:33, this was a reference to crucifixion as the means of His death. The lifting up is speaking of being lifted up from the earth and suspended on a cross in crucifixion. The Jews understood that Jesus was speaking of death.

The crucifixion didn’t just happen. It was planned by God. Does this mean that God bears all responsibility and those who were actually instrumental in the rejection and crucifixion of Jesus are not guilty? Not at all. Jesus came to the earth to die in our place and thereby purchase redemption for us. That was His plan but He didn’t force anyone to fulfill it. His ministry and message placed Him in direct opposition with the devil and his followers. Their hatred for Jesus caused them of their own free will to crucify Jesus.

God, in all His wisdom, simply knew what man would do and He determined to use their rejection of His Son to accomplish His will. He never controls our will to accomplish His.

If a person truly understands the message of the cross, then he understands grace. Jesus didn’t just make a token sacrifice for us. He paid it all. There’s no sacrifice that we can make that will add to or replace the sacrifice of Christ. He did it all, and we can thank Him forever!

The scriptures teach Jesus’ oneness with the Father. This oneness is more than singleness of purpose and actually denotes “a single one to the exclusion of others” as in the statement, “There is one God” (1 Tim. 2:5).

This truth is so well established in scripture that some people make no distinction between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit but believe they are simply one God expressing Himself in three different ways. However, Jesus makes a distinction between Himself and His Father here and uses Himself and His Father as two different witnesses to fulfill the requirement of Deuteronomy 17:6. Jesus would have been deceiving these Jews if there was no distinction between His Father and Himself; and yet, they are one (Jn. 10:30; 1 Jn. 5:7). This is a great mystery and yet a very well established fact in scripture.

One of the great statements of the Old Testament from Deuteronomy 6:4 says, “The Lord our God is one Lord.” We do not have three Gods, but one God, clearly identifiable as three persons. This is a great mystery, which has not been adequately explained. Scriptures reveal the truth of the Trinity, but make no attempt to explain it. We simply accept this revelation as it is, until we know all things, even as we are known (1 Cor. 13:12).

Jesus said that the witness of His Father was the greatest testimony of who He was. Everyone can hear His testimony of Jesus through the scriptures.

Moses and all the Old Testament prophets spoke of the coming of Jesus, and Peter said the written word of God was a more sure word of prophecy than the audible voice of God. Read the Word today.

This was possibly the most potentially damaging temptation the scribes and Pharisees ever presented to Jesus. Much of Jesus’ widespread popularity with the people was because of His examples of and teachings about God’s mercy and forgiveness towards sinners. This was received with great enthusiasm by the people who, before this time had been presented with only a harsh, legalistic, judgmental picture of God.

The scribes and Pharisees had often tried to portray Jesus as condoning or practicing sin because of His association with sinners and His ministry to them when it violated Jewish traditions, such as the Sabbath. However, Jesus had successfully turned every attack into a victory for the side of grace and mercy.

This time, the Jews felt that they had Him “cornered.” If Jesus held to His teachings of forgiveness and refused to stone this woman, He would be in direct rebellion to the law of Moses. This would give these Jews legal grounds to kill Jesus. On the other hand, if He stoned the woman as the law declared, the people would forsake Him. It looked like they had Him trapped either way He went.

As always, the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and Jesus rose to the occasion. He did not condone the sin nor disregard the law of Moses. He simply told the one who was without sin to cast the first stone. As the Holy Ghost began to convict them of their own sin, they all had to leave. They, therefore, could not fault Jesus for not stoning the woman. Jesus was justified in His forgiveness of this woman because He was operating under the dispensation of grace. Think about God’s grace today.