John 9:35–41 Why God Saves - The Purpose of Salvation

Salvation is bigger than rescue from guilt. It has a destination. Walking through John 9:35-41, we watch the story of the man born blind reach its final outcome, and it answers a question most of us do not ask often enough: what is God ultimately accomplishing when He saves a sinner?

We trace the movement of grace as Jesus hears the man has been cast out and goes looking for him. The outcast does not find a path back into the system; the Shepherd comes to him outside the gates. When Jesus asks, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” the man’s growing knowledge becomes spiritual sight, and his response lands with simple weight: “Lord, I believe,” and he worships. We also slow down to redefine worship and praise in biblical terms. Worship is not a mood or a musical moment we try to produce. It is the full alignment of a life with the One it now sees as Lord, and praise is the outward testimony that grace creates.

Jesus’ words about judgment push the conversation even deeper. We unpack judgment as revelation, not condemnation: light exposes blindness, and the claim “we see” can be the very thing that keeps a heart from receiving sight. That leads us into spiritual blindness, legalism, the Pharisees’ self-glorification, the law as a mirror rather than a ladder, and why God’s sovereignty is not a reason to stop praying but a reason to pray with hope.

If you want a clearer view of grace, spiritual sight, and the purpose of salvation in the Gospel of John, press play. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

Transcript

Framing Salvation’s End Goal

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Have you ever stopped to ask what salvation is actually for? Not simply what God says is true, but what he is ultimately accomplishing through it. What is the end goal of God's saving work in the life of a believer? What is God after from beginning to end? Throughout John's gospel, we have been watching God's answer unfold. And in John chapter 9, we have seen it displayed in the life of one man born blind, a man pursued by Jesus, transformed by his power, tested through opposition, and brought step by step into a deeper understanding of who Christ truly is. As this chapter comes to its conclusion, we are invited to see the final outcome of that journey, and in doing so, gain a clear understanding of God's purpose in saving sinners. Here's Pastor Harry Barns with today's message.

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Hello, welcome again to the Takeaway. I'm your host, Pastor Harry Barens, and today we're going to be looking at the end goal of God's work, the purpose of everything he has done, what salvation is actually for, and the end of the movement that God initiated before the foundation of the world, carried through the law and the prophets, embodied in his son, and demonstrated in the life of one man born blind in Jerusalem. That is the pattern we have been following through John chapter 9 and throughout this gospel. And today we're going to see the completed work, the man who was born blind, who was made to see, who testified under pressure, who was cast out by the institution, and ultimately found by Jesus. And what the man does when he finds out who Jesus is is the answer to every question this chapter has been asking. That God's end goal in salvation is forming a people who praise him for his glorious grace. And this episode is where we see that in its fullest form.

The Blind Man’s Salvation Arc

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Now, before we get started, let me take a few minutes to pull the whole chapter together before we read these final verses. Because what happens here only carries its full weight when you feel the whole movement behind it. We established back in episode 43 that this chapter is a salvation story from beginning to end, not a healing story with a theological lesson attached, a salvation story, a man moving from blindness to sight, from not knowing who Jesus is to worshiping him, from being cast out of the community to being found by the one who sent him. The movement began when Jesus left the temple, the place that represented God's dwelling among men, and walked toward a man who could not approach. He anointed the blind man with mud, which should have been an unclean act, but revealed instead that holiness makes clean what it touches. The command Jesus gave him was to go to Siloam, which means sent. And the man went without being able to see where he was going. That was faith like Abraham's. Leviticus 14, 34, God said, I put a case of leper's disease in a house. Job walked through suffering he did not deserve and emerged saying, Now my eye sees you. The blindness this man had was never punishment. It was a canvas. And what God was painting on it was a demonstration of who he is. And then in episode 45, we watched the man's testimony grow under pressure. Each round of interrogation sharpened his sight rather than diminishing it. To the neighbors he was, the man called Jesus. To the Pharisees, the first time he said he was a prophet. The second time, he said, if this man were not from God, he could do nothing. His theology completed its progression under the pressure the institution applied. And when they could not silence him, they cast him out. And that's where we're going to pick up today. The man is now outside, alone, cast out of the religious community he had just been brought into by his testimony. And the one who anointed his eyes hears what happened, and he goes looking for him.

Jesus Finds The Outcast

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Now in John 9, 35 to 41, we read, Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him, he said, Do you believe in the Son of Man? He answered, And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him? Jesus said to him, You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you. He said, Lord, I believe, and he worshipped him. Jesus said, For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind. Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things and said to him, Are we also blind? Jesus said to them, If you were blind, you would have no sin. But now that you say we see, your sin remains. Now watch the first three words of verse 35. It says, Jesus heard that. Jesus heard that they had cast him out. He was not present when it happened. He did not prevent it, and he did not intervene to stop the institution from doing what institutions do to people whose testimony they cannot control. He let the cost arrive. He let the man stand alone in it, and then he heard and he went looking. This is the shepherd movement that Jesus is about to describe in detail in John chapter 10, which we'll pick up in the next episode. But here, before he ever teaches what's happening, he demonstrates it. The man who was cast out of the synagogue did not have to find his way back. The shepherd came to where he was. That is the whole pattern of John chapter 9 in one moment. The blind man could not come to Jesus. Jesus came to him. The man cast out cannot return to the community. The shepherd comes to him outside the gates. God does not wait for the separated to find their way back. He crosses the distance himself. That is grace. That has always been grace. And Jesus asks him a question: Do you believe in the Son of Man? The man has been testifying about Jesus through this entire chapter without knowing fully who Jesus is. He knew the name, he saw the work, and he reasoned his way to the man of God. But he has never had the full picture confirmed. And now the one who anointed his eyes is standing in front of him and asking directly, Do you believe in the Son of Man? And the man's answer is exactly right. Who is he, sir, that I may believe in him? He is not deflecting, he is asking. He wants to believe. The desire to believe is already present, and Jesus names himself. He says, You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you. The man who was born blind, who never saw anything until today, has now seen the one through whom all things were made, the light of the world, standing in front of him, identifying himself. And the sight that began physically at the pool of Siloam is now complete spiritually. The man sees Jesus for who he actually is. And the man says, Lord, I believe. And it says, and then he worshipped him.

From Sight To Worship

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Now I want to slow down here because this is the moment the entire chapter has been moving toward. And I want to make sure we receive it for what it actually is rather than what our culture has taught us to expect. The text does not say he fell on his face. It doesn't say he broke out in song or that he wept or raised his hands or felt something overwhelming. It says he worshiped. And it does not define what that looked like. That is not an oversight. It's the point. Worship in our culture has been collapsed almost entirely into a feeling, a musical expression, or a physical posture. We think of worship as something we produce in the right environment with the right atmosphere. We measure it by how it feels. And when the feeling isn't there, we assume the worship isn't either. But what this man offers is something older and deeper than any of that. He has just been told that the one who gave him sight is the Son of Man, the one sent from God, the I am, he has been testifying about without knowing his full name. And his response is complete orientation. He says, Lord, I believe. You are everything. You are the source of the sight I have been defending at cost of everything I had. And I worship you, not as a feeling, but as a posture, a complete surrender of the self to the one he now recognizes as Lord. That is worship. The full alignment of a life with the one it now recognizes as its source and its destination. It is not generated by music or atmosphere. It is produced by sight. When you see God, when you really see him, see who he is and what he has done. Worship is the only response that makes sense. It is not something you work up, it is something that happens when the seeing is complete. Worship is directed at God. It's vertical. The man giving himself entirely to Christ. That is what we see in verse 38. But praise is what he has been doing throughout this entire chapter. It's the outward horizontal, the testimony he gave to his neighbors, his parents, the Pharisees. He was declaring what God did in him to everyone who would listen. That is praise, the outward expression of an inward work. And both are produced by God's work in him. Neither of them is the man's contribution. The worship in verse 38 is the completion of the salvation ark. The praise across verses 8 through 34 was the salvation arc in

Praise That Grace Produces

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motion. Together they are Ephesians chapter 1, verse 6. To the praise of his glorious grace, Paul says, lived out in a single human life from the moment mud was placed on his eyes to the moment he said, Lord, I believe. And this is the answer to the question we open the episode with. What is the ultimate end of God's work? It's this a man who was blind, who offered nothing, who could not approach, who did not choose to be standing at the right place when Jesus passed by. He is now worshiping the Son of God. That is what God was after, not the healing itself. He was after the worship that the healing produced, the praise that the completed work generated in a man who had nothing to offer but the canvas.

Judgment As Revelation Not Condemnation

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And now Jesus speaks to the larger crowd, and he says something that will stop every careful listener. He says, For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind. Now this sounds like a contradiction. In John 3.17, Jesus said, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save it. In John 8.15, he told the Pharisees, I judge no one. And now he says, For judgment I came. The judgment Jesus is describing here is not condemnation, it is revelation. The arrival of light into darkness does not primarily condemn, it reveals, it makes visible what was already there. The man born blind was always blind. The Pharisees were always operating in darkness. What the light did was make both conditions visible, and then deal with both on its own terms. Those who do not see may see, that is mercy, the man at the pool, the woman at the well, the disciples who stayed when others left, the ones who knew they were blind, who had no claim to sight of their own, they received it. When he says, those who see may become blind, that is exposure. The Pharisees who claimed they already saw, who believed their keeping of the law had justified them, who used their religious position as a credential before God. The light confirmed what was already true of them. Their claim to sight was the very thing preventing them from receiving it. And this is where election sits honestly in the text. Jesus said elsewhere, My sheep hear my voice. John 6.37, he says, All that the Father gives me will come to me. The division the light produces is not arbitrary, it is revealing what God has purposed. Those who receive sight are those the Father is drawing. Those who remain in blindness are those who have not been given eyes to see, at least not yet. And that word yet matters pastorally, and I want to say it clearly. The Pharisees who did not believe during Jesus' ministry, many of them came to faith after the resurrection. Acts 6, 7 tells us a great many priests became obedient to the faith. Paul himself was a Pharisee who was persecuting the church when the risen Jesus appeared to him on the Damascus Road. The appointed time for any individual life belongs solely to God, not to our observation or where they currently stand. As long as there is breath, there is the possibility of new birth. And that is why we pray. Not because we can produce sight in someone else, but because we are asking the one who gives sight to do what only he can do. A sovereign God who controls new birth is a God worth praying to. If salvation rested on man's free choice alone, our prayers for the lost would be irrelevant. But because we believe God is sovereign over the giving of sight, our prayers carry full weight, and therefore we can trust that God will accomplish what we cannot produce, which is life.

When Claiming Sight Keeps You Blind

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Now, with that, moving on to verse 40, the Pharisees hear what Jesus says and respond immediately. Are we blind also? And Jesus answers with the full weight of everything this chapter has been building toward. If you were blind, you would have no sin. But now that you say we see, your sin remains. He says, if you were blind, or if you recognized your condition, if you stood where this man stood before the healing, unable and dependent and without any claim to sight of your own, you would be in the same position he was, and I would meet you there. But because you say you see, because you claim the law has been sufficient, that your performance has justified you, that your religious position secures your standing before God, your sin remains. Not because Jesus is withholding something from them, but because their claim to sight is exactly what prevents them from receiving it. Now, let's go back to what the Pharisees said when they called the man back the second time. They said, give glory to God. That was the demand. And what they meant was, agree with us, submit to our authority, confirm your testimony to our verdict. They used the language of God's glory to demand allegiance to their own. That is self-glorification dressed as righteousness. They were not giving glory to God, they were stealing it, using his name to secure their own authority, their own position, their own claim to be the mediators between God and men. And this is the same original sin that runs from the Garden of Eden forward, the same movement Satan made when he said, I will be like the Most High. The Pharisees saw themselves as they were, their knowledge, their keeping of the law, their religious precision, and they declared that sufficient to justify their nearness to God. They were glorifying themselves while using God's name to do it. And the blind man, by refusing to submit to their authority and simply testifying to what God did in him, actually gave God the glory they were demanding in name, but stealing in practice. They told him to glorify God. He did, just not in the form they required.

The Law As Mirror Not Ladder

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So let me say this. The law was always meant to do the opposite of what the Pharisees were doing with it. The weight of Leviticus, the day of atonement, repeated year after year, the separation of the unclean, all of it was designed to produce one conclusion in the person reading it honestly, that I cannot come near. I am not holy. I need someone to come to me. Had the Pharisees received the law for what it actually was, a mirror showing their inability, not a ladder they could climb, they would have stood where the blind man stood, dependent, unable, waiting for the one who was coming. But as long as they believed they could see, they would not ask for sight. As long as they believed they could climb, they would not wait to be carried. The glory stayed in their hands, and God will not share his glory with another. Now, this chapter closes with a question still hanging in the air, not for the Pharisees, but for every person listening. What did you offer to the work God did in you? The blind man offered nothing but the canvas. He was simply where he was when Jesus passed by. The man's part was to go where he was sent. And when he came back seeing, the testimony that followed was not his achievement. It was the overflow of what God had done. That is what we are. We are not contributors to the cathedral God is building. We are not bricklayers adding something to the finished work of Christ. We are instruments of praise. We are the sound that the completed work produces. And the praise that comes from us, the testimony, the worship, the recognition of God's worth, is itself the gift. We did not generate it. Grace produced it in us. Paul said it in Ephesians chapter 1, verse 6. He says, to the praise of his glorious grace. That is the destination of the whole movement. Everything God does, from election before the foundation of the world, through the law that exposed inability, through the grace that provided what the law demanded, all the way to the worship of a man who was born blind and now sees. All of it moves toward that. The praise of his glorious grace, the recognition of his worth by the ones he made alive, the sound of a life that has seen God and cannot stay silent about it any longer.

Fighting Self Glory In Believers

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And now the struggle the Pharisees represent does not belong only to them. It lives in every believer. The pull toward self-glorification, toward placing a brick in the cathedral, toward justifying our nearness to God by something we have done or kept or maintained. That pull does not disappear at new birth. Paul named it plainly in Romans chapter 7. The things I want to do, I do not do. What I do not want to do, I keep doing. The flesh keeps reaching for the glory that belongs to God. But by the grace of God, I am what I am. That is Paul's answer, not his discipline, not his theological precision, the grace of God that keeps drawing him back to what he actually is. A man who was blind, a man who receives sight, who offers nothing to the work but the praise the work produced in him. That is what the trials and tribulations accomplish in us. They keep stripping away the illusion that we are contributing something. They keep returning us to the posture of the blind man before the healing, unable, dependent, waiting for the one who comes where we are. And he always comes because the shepherd goes after the one who is cast out. And what he produces in them when he finds them is the ultimate end of everything he set out to do. To the praise of his glorious grace.

Prayer, Listener Invitation, Next Steps

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Let's pray. Father, we have watched the completed work of salvation in this chapter. A man who was blind, who offered nothing, who was found by your son, who worshiped when he finally saw, who had given him sight. Forgive us for the ways we keep reaching for the glory that belongs to you, for the ways we dress self-glorification as faithfulness, for the ways we use your name to secure our own authority and our own position. Show us clearly what the Pharisees could not see, that the law was never a ladder. It was always a mirror. And what it shows us is our need for the one who comes to where we are. We are not contributors to this work, Father. We are the praise it produces. Let us live accordingly, not reaching for what we cannot earn, but resting in what you have completed. And let the resting itself become the praise that declares your worth to every person watching our lives. In Jesus' name. Amen. Now I want to thank you again for joining us today, and I hope this message has helped you take a step closer in knowing just how much God loves you and wants you to know Him. Now, if anything in today's message resonated with you, if you have any questions or comments, please visit us at thetaway. On our website, you can send us an email or you can click on the text us link in the episode description. Either way, we would truly love to hear from you. Now, next time we are going to move into John chapter 10. And what Jesus says there is the direct continuation of everything we have just watched. The shepherd who goes looking for the one cast out now describes himself in full. He says, I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep, and my sheep know me. The chapter 9 demonstration we just covered becomes the chapter 10 declaration that explains it all. God bless, and we'll see you next time on the takeaway.