From Heaven With Love

A Miracle on the Sabbath

The Pharisees, astonished at the cure, were more than ever filled with hatred, for the miracle had been performed on the Sabbath day. HLv 319.2

The neighbors who knew the young man in his blindness looked on him with doubt, for when his eyes were opened, his countenance was changed and brightened, and he appeared like another man. Some said, “This is he”; others, “he is like him.” But he settled the question by saying, “I am he.” He then told them of Jesus, and by what means he had been healed, and they inquired, “Where is He? He said, I know not.” HLv 319.3

Before a council of the Pharisees the man was asked how he had received his sight. “He said unto them, He put clay upon mine eyes, and I washed, and do see. Therefore said some of the Pharisees, This man is not of God, because He keepeth not the Sabbath day.” The Pharisees appeared wonderfully zealous for the observance of the Sabbath, yet were planning murder on that very day. But many were convicted that He who had opened the eyes of the blind was more than a common man. They said, “How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles?” HLv 319.4

Again the rabbis appealed to the blind man. “What sayest thou of Him, that He hath opened thine eyes? He said, He is a prophet.” The Pharisees then asserted that he had not been born blind. They called for his parents and asked them, saying, “Is this your son, who ye say was born blind?” HLv 319.5

There was the man himself, declaring he had been blind and had had his sight restored; but the Pharisees would rather deny the evidence of their own senses than admit that they were in error. So powerful is prejudice, so distorting is Pharisaical righteousness. HLv 320.1

The Pharisees had one hope left, and that was to intimidate the man's parents. They asked, “How then doth he now see?” It had been declared that whoever should acknowledge Jesus as the Christ should be “put out of the synagogue,” that is, excluded for thirty days. The sentence was regarded as a great calamity. The great work wrought for their son had brought conviction to the parents, yet they answered, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind: but by what means he now seeth, we know not; or who hath opened his eyes, we know not: he is of age; ask him: he shall speak for himself.” Thus they shifted all responsibility to their son. HLv 320.2