Why Did Jesus Use Spit and Mud to Heal?

00:00:04.000 | Welcome back. John chapter 9, verse 3 is a classic text for us at Desiring God

00:00:10.600 | when it comes to understanding God's good design in human disability.

00:00:16.000 | In six ABJ episodes, we've talked about the man born blind and Jesus' explanation for why he was born blind.

00:00:23.000 | Just a profound story, a profound revelation of God's purposes.

00:00:29.000 | But today we're looking at a different part of that story.

00:00:31.000 | You'll remember that Jesus spit on the ground, mixed his saliva with dirt, made mud,

00:00:36.000 | applied that paste to the man's blind eyes, and then he sent him off to wash it all off in a pool.

00:00:42.000 | And that's where his eyesight was restored.

00:00:45.000 | Let me read this account for us in John chapter 9, verses 1 to 7.

00:00:50.000 | Quote, "As he, Jesus, passed by, he saw a man blind from birth.

00:00:56.000 | And his disciples asked him, 'Rabbi, who sent this man or his parents that he was born blind?'"

00:01:03.000 | Got to be a reason why, right?

00:01:05.000 | "And Jesus answered, 'It was not that this man sent or his parents,

00:01:10.000 | but that the works of God might be displayed in him.'"

00:01:17.000 | There's the key text. Why does disability exist?

00:01:22.000 | Profound response with wide-ranging implications.

00:01:27.000 | Then we read this.

00:01:29.000 | "Having said these things, Jesus spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva.

00:01:33.000 | Then he anointed the man's eyes with the mud and said to him, 'Go, wash in the pool of Siloam,'"

00:01:39.000 | which means "sent."

00:01:41.000 | "So he went and washed and came back seeing."

00:01:46.000 | Here's Pastor John.

00:01:48.000 | Healed him with mud. Why?

00:01:51.000 | Could have said, "Eyes open," and they would have opened.

00:01:54.000 | He's done that.

00:01:56.000 | He used mud and spit.

00:01:58.000 | I have a lot of ideas why.

00:02:00.000 | I'll just give you the one that's most obvious in the text, least controversial.

00:02:04.000 | I think it's manifest.

00:02:08.000 | Namely, he used mud because he knew it was Saturday, Sabbath.

00:02:16.000 | And it's against the law to knead dough or clay or mud.

00:02:25.000 | One of the 39 interpretations of the Pharisees as to what it means not to work on Sunday was,

00:02:32.000 | "You can't knead dough."

00:02:35.000 | And the word for dough is identical, palon, to the word mud or clay.

00:02:43.000 | Like brick masons, "Give me some more mud."

00:02:46.000 | And all they mean is a big clump of moldable cement.

00:02:50.000 | And women working with their bread, they could call it mud.

00:02:53.000 | They usually don't.

00:02:56.000 | But it's the same word.

00:02:58.000 | He knew exactly what he's doing.

00:03:00.000 | "I'm going to break the law.

00:03:02.000 | I'm going to do it in a way that breaks the law."

00:03:05.000 | The law as the Pharisees understood it.

00:03:08.000 | Why would he want to do that?

00:03:13.000 | Because he's the Lord of the Sabbath, and he wants to show that he is,

00:03:19.000 | or to show what the point of the Sabbath is.

00:03:26.000 | Rest.

00:03:27.000 | Why?

00:03:28.000 | Why, why, why do you need rest?

00:03:30.000 | Healing.

00:03:31.000 | If you don't rest, you die.

00:03:35.000 | Rest is weekly therapy for dying bodies.

00:03:40.000 | Get well.

00:03:41.000 | Stop working.

00:03:43.000 | So I'm just really illustrating with this.

00:03:48.000 | What else would you do on the Sabbath but make eyes see?

00:03:57.000 | Especially if you're God, and you want to show that you're the creator

00:04:02.000 | and sustainer and healer.

00:04:08.000 | But that's--I don't think any of those is the main reason why he did it.

00:04:12.000 | I think the main reason was to trigger the controversy.

00:04:15.000 | Yes, and it sure did that.

00:04:17.000 | But there's a second reason why Pastor John thinks Jesus used the means of spit

00:04:21.000 | and dust and mud and a pool, a second reason Pastor John didn't deliver from the pulpit,

00:04:26.000 | and that's likely due to time limits, but it's included in his written manuscript online.

00:04:32.000 | The sermon notes that he had with him in the pulpit, he gives a second reason.

00:04:35.000 | So I'll read that second reason myself.

00:04:38.000 | Here's what he wrote in his manuscript.

00:04:40.000 | "The second reason for the mud is to show that God usually uses means

00:04:46.000 | in doing his wonderful works in this world.

00:04:49.000 | Jesus could have simply spoken and the man's eyes would have been opened,

00:04:53.000 | but most of the wonders of God in the Old Testament were brought about by the use of human means.

00:04:59.000 | The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to the Lord."

00:05:04.000 | (Roberts 21:31)

00:05:06.000 | God is decisive in the victory, but he uses means.

00:05:10.000 | He doesn't need the horse, but he uses the horse.

00:05:16.000 | Ponder this in the bigger picture of life for a moment.

00:05:19.000 | What this means is that God does not despise the physical world he has made.

00:05:22.000 | He uses the means of food to sustain life.

00:05:25.000 | He uses the means of sex to beget children.

00:05:28.000 | And he uses a thousand remedies to bring about healing,

00:05:31.000 | from sleep to penicillin, from vitamins to radiation,

00:05:35.000 | from sunshine on the skin to cough syrup for the throat.

00:05:39.000 | And lest you think this removes the mystery of God's wonderful work,

00:05:43.000 | consider boring down through layer after layer after layer of physical causes

00:05:49.000 | and why antibiotics work against strep.

00:05:52.000 | Forty or fifty layers down into the molecular subatomic activities

00:05:58.000 | of the smallest particles or non-particles,

00:06:01.000 | there comes a point where there is no explanation inside this closed material system.

00:06:08.000 | The final explanation is always God.

00:06:11.000 | And if our hearts are alive and humble and worshipful,

00:06:14.000 | we will not stop until we see God at the bottom of everything.

00:06:19.000 | It's no small thing to believe that God uses means to accomplish his purposes.

00:06:23.000 | And his purposes are that the glory of his work would be displayed.

00:06:28.000 | And therefore the heavens declare the glory of God,

00:06:31.000 | and the sky above proclaims his handiwork, Psalm 19, 1.

00:06:35.000 | And so does all the rest of creation, if we have eyes to see.

00:06:40.000 | Jesus used mud. We may use mud. Or medicine.

00:06:46.000 | The difference is how close to the surface the miracle is.

00:06:50.000 | Let your life be full of wonder at the works of God and full of worship."

00:06:58.000 | End quote.

00:07:00.000 | That's from a sermon titled, "The Works of God in the Worship of Jesus,"

00:07:05.000 | preached on June 4, 2011.

00:07:08.000 | The audio and full transcript can be found online at DesiringGod.org.

00:07:14.000 | Should the world admire us? Should the world love us?

00:07:18.000 | Should the world despise us? Should the world hate us?

00:07:21.000 | Which response means that we are most faithful to God?

00:07:26.000 | It's a great question. You want to ask Pastor John.

00:07:29.000 | I want to ask Pastor John that question.

00:07:31.000 | And we will next time when he's back in the studio with us on Friday.

00:07:35.000 | We'll see you then.

00:07:37.000 | [Silence]

00:07:43.000 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Why Did Jesus Use Spit and Mud to Heal?

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