The expression, " your sin remaineth," is very worthy of notice. It teaches the solemn truth that the sins of impenitent and unconverted people are upon them, uuforgiven, and not taken away. It condemns the modern idea that all sins are already forgiven and pardoned on account of Christ's death, and all men justilied, and that the only thing required is to believe it and know it. On the contrary our sins are upou us, and remain upon us until we believe. Ferus calls it " a terriole saying."
Tholuck remarks on the whole chapter : " The narrative of this miracle has a special value in apologetics. How often do we hear the wish expressed, that Christ's miracles had been put on documentary record, and had been subjected to a thorough judicial investigation. Here we have the very thing that is desired ; judicial personages, and these, too, the avowed enemies of Christ, investigate a miracle in repeated hearings, and yet it holds its ground. A man blind from his birth was ! made to see ! " — No wonder that German sceptics, like Strauss and Bauer, are driven to assert that the whole narrative is a fabrication.
In leaving this chapter, it is worth remembering that this is that one of our Lord's miracles about which nearly all commen- tators have agreed that it has a spiritual signification, and is emblematic of spiritual truth. Lampe remarks, that even those writers who are ordinarily most averse to spiritualizing | And accommodating, admit that the healing of this blind man is a picture of the illumination of a sinner's soul. His healing is a lively figure of conversion.
It is curious that we hear no more of this man who was healed. It is pleasant; however, to bear in mii^the thought that there were many who believed in Christ and were true disciples, whose names and lives have never come down to us. We must not suppose that there were none saved but those whose histories are recorded in the New Testament. The last day, we may well believe, will show that this man was only a type of a large class, whose names were written in the , Book of life, though not recorded for our learning by the in- Bpired writers.