Blind for God’s Glory

In a sense, all our suffering serves to glorify God, for when He uses difficult circumstances to refine us into the image of Christ, we come to reflect His own character and holiness more fully. However, God also may use suffering to show forth His own glory in dramatic ways. John 9 presents an example of this.

It so happened that Jesus one day encountered a man who had been blind since his birth. The sight of him prompted Jesus’ disciples to ask a question: “ ‘Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ ” Their underlying assumption was that the man’s affliction of blindness must be divine retribution for some sin. Either God punished the parents for something one or both of them did by giving them a disabled child, or He punished the man himself for something he did while still in his mother’s womb. While suffering may be divine chastening for some transgression, Jesus denied that was the reason for this man’s blindness. “ ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned,’ ” He said. There can be no doubt that the man and his parents were sinners, but Jesus was saying no sin on their part had led to the man’s blindness. Instead, He went on to say, the blindness was intended “ ‘that the works of God should be revealed in him.’ ” In other words, God in His providential planning had fixed a moment during the ministry of Jesus for a miracle to be performed. And He had caused a man to be born blind, then decreed that he should meet Jesus at just that time. When the moment came, Jesus gave the man sight. The miracle pointed to the fact that Jesus was the divine Son of God. It therefore lifted Jesus up and, by extension, exalted the Father who had sent Jesus into the world as the Messiah. Though the man’s blindness may have been used by God in some way to refine his character, it certainly served to exalt God’s glory.

Did the man who was born blind enjoy his blindness? Most likely he did not, for he had no way of knowing that he was so afflicted that he might participate in a demonstration of Jesus’ power. But imagine the joy he experienced after his healing, both in the pleasure of sight and in the knowledge that he had been called to suffer for God’s glory. Surely he could say then that it was well worthwhile to have endured years of blindness.