=2. Who did sin?= It was not only a Jewish opinion that such afflictions were a divine punishment for sin, it is the teaching of experience that special diseases are frequently the natural consequence of sin either in the sufferer or in his ancestry, and the teaching of Scripture that all disease, and even death itself, is the fruit of sin. This truth Christ had already recognized in at least two instances (Mark 2:5; John 5:14), and it is enforced both by warnings and by historical illustrations in the O. T. (Lev. 26:16; Deut. 28:22; Numb. 12:10; 2 Kings 5:27). The Jewish error consisted in believing that all special afflictions were divine visitations for special sins (Job 4:7; 8:6), an opinion which was not confined to the Jews (Acts 28:4). This error Christ here corrects. The form of the disciples’ question has given rise to some needless perplexity. How could they, even in imagination, attribute a blindness from birth to the blind man’s own sin? All such explanations as that some among the Jews believed in the transmigration of souls and others in a pre-existent state, and therefore in sins committed in a previous life, and still others in the possibility of sin committed by the unborn babe in the womb, a doctrine deduced by the rabbis from such passages as Gen. 25:22 and Psalm 51:5, are inadmissible, because these refinements in theology, even if actually entertained among the Jewish rabbis, certainly were not accepted among the common people, from whom Christ drew his disciples. The question appears to be in spirit this: What is the explanation of this man’s blindness? his own sin? That cannot be, for he was born blind. Is he then punished for his parents’ sin? 3 Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that[357] the works of God should be made manifest in him. [357] ch. 11:4. =3. Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents.= That is, his blindness is not a punishment for his or their sin.--=But that the works of God should be made manifest in him.= Manifest to us by his miraculous cure; but this is not all. The work of God is to believe on him whom he hath sent (ch. 6:29), and to this belief the blind man was brought by his cure (ver. 38). Thus the work of God was made manifest, not only through him to us, but _in_ him. Thus Christ gives the key to the Christian doctrine of suffering. It is inflicted sometimes as a special punishment for special sins (see references above), but more frequently it is a means of grace, inflicted either that by our endurance we may manifest the grace of God to others (2 Cor. 12:9), or may be taught of God ourselves (Heb. 12:6, 11). Compare with Christ’s language here his declaration concerning the sickness and death of Lazarus (ch. 11:4). 4 I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work. 5 As long as I am in the world, I[358] am the light of the world.