The Expositor's Bible: The Gospel of St. John, Vol. IDods, Marcus
Religion
The Expositor's Bible: The Gospel of St. John, Vol. I
Dods, Marcus
Bible. John; Bible. John -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Though very pleasant to contemplate, it is impossible adequately to
imagine the sensations of a man who for the first time _sees_ the world
in which he has for years been living blind. The sensation of light
itself, the new sense of room and distance, the expansion of the nature,
as if ushered into a new and ampler world, the glory of colour, of the
skies; of the sun, of the moon walking in brightness, the first
recognition of the “human face Divine,” and the joy of watching the
unspoken speech of its ever-changing expression, the thrill of first
meeting parent, child, or friend eye to eye; the sublimity of the towers
of Jerusalem, the glittering Temple, the marble palaces, by the base of
which he had before dimly crept, feeling with his hand or tapping with
his stick. To a man who, by the opening of one sealed sense, was thus
ushered into so new a world, nothing can have seemed “too grand and
good” for him to expect. He was prepared to believe in the glory and
perfectness of God’s world, and in Christ’s power to bring him into
contact with that glory. If the opening of his bodily organs of vision
had given him such exquisite pleasure, and given him entrance to so new
a life, what might not the opening of his inward eye accomplish? He had
no patience with the difficulties raised by those who had not his
experience: “How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles?” “Give God
the praise; we know that this man is a sinner.” To all these
slow-brained, bewildered pedants, he had but the answer, “Whether He be
a sinner or no, I know not; _one_ thing I know, that, whereas I was
blind, now I see.” No arguments, happily, can rob me of the immense boon
this Man has conferred upon me. If it gives you any satisfaction to
apply your paltry tests to Him, and prove that He cannot have done this
miracle, you are welcome to your conclusions; but you cannot alter the
facts that I was blind, and that now I see. He who has given me so
Divine a gift seems to me to carry with Him in some true form the Divine
presence. I believe Him when He says, “I am the Light of the world.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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