The Gospel According to John:
An Encounter with Grace & Truth

Lesson 12 A Man Blind from His Birth
the Gospel According to John 9:1–41

Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE)*
New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE)*
Catechism of the Catholic Church
ex libris (in our library)
glossary for the Gospel According to John
cross references in the Gospel According to John
next lesson: I Am the Good Shepherd

This material coordinates with Lesson 12 on pages 64–68 in The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth.

“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.”—the Gospel According to John 20:30–31

welcome to our in-depth study of the Gospel According to John
We invite interested groups and individuals to check out the sample first lesson from this 25-lesson Turning to God’s Word Catholic Bible study. These online study pages link to our free lesson videos, as well as to a glossary and cross references in the biblical text. Other study aids include maps, additional commentary, and prayers based on the primary Scripture in each lesson. The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth has been granted an imprimatur and can be purchased from our website shop. If you have a Bible-related question or comment, click on one of the “ask us your question” or “what do you think” buttons on any online study page.

open with prayer
It’s always wise to begin any Bible study with prayer, whether reading the Scriptures alone or meeting with others in a discussion study group. You can pray using your own words or use one of the opening prayers on our website. We especially like the following:

Lord Jesus, you promised to send your Holy Spirit
to teach us all things.
As we read and study your word today,
allow it to touch our hearts and change our lives. Amen.

let’s review—the Gospel According to John 8:12–59
In Lesson 11 I Am the Light of the World, the Jewish religious authorities in Jerusalem continue their attempt to squelch Jesus’ potential power and undermine his popularity with the people. Their arguments focus on Jesus’ parentage, where he comes from, and where he’s going. Instead of examining Jesus’ relationship with Moses, they go farther back in time to look at Jesus’ relationship with Abraham. Not only does Jesus accuse these religious leaders of being sons of the devil, he makes the preposterous (though true) claim that God is his own Father. Jesus does this using another of the “I AM” statements, emphasized by the Evangelist John, with which Jesus equates himself with God.

map notes—continuing on a theme
In the ninth chapter in the Gospel According to John, the Evangelist continues to focus on Jesus as the light of the world, a theme introduced in the prologue to the Fourth Gospel (1:1–18). Jesus still is in Jerusalem, where he gives sight to a man born blind. That Jesus performs this sign on the sabbath underscores God’s continuing work of Creation, and the sign itself points to the state of spiritual blindness shared by all of humanity since the Fall of Adam and Eve. (Read more about the Fall in the third chapter in the book of Genesis.) The man’s blindness is symbolic of original sin. Consider whether it’s an accident that Jesus performs this sign in Jerusalem. Click on the image (right) to enlarge the map, which appears on page 67 in The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth. You can learn more about the two biblical accounts of Creation in Lesson 1 And God Said, Let There Be Light and Lesson 2 It Is Not Good That the Man Should Be Alone, both in the Turning to God’s Word Catholic Bible study In the Beginning: The Book of Genesis.

two different kinds of sight (01:01:53)
In the video for this lesson, Turning to God’s Word author Matthew Phelps points out that the powerful verbal witness to Jesus made by the man born blind occurs before the man actually has seen Jesus. Although the man never has set eyes on Jesus, he knows far more about Jesus than the Pharisees, even though the Pharisees all possess physical sight and have had a number of encounters in which they’ve physically seen Jesus. They remain blind in their sin and unable to see that Jesus is from God, something that Jesus emphasizes when the Pharisees overhear him speaking to the man born blind. Learn more by reading the words of Pope St. John Paul II in “Blinded by Sin” on page 66 in The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth.


The Scripture ranges for the videos that accompany this Catholic Bible study match the Scripture ranges for the sets of questions in The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth. You can follow along with the video overview as Turning to God’s Word author Matthew Phelps discusses Lesson 12, “A Man Blind from His Birth,” on pages 64–68 in the study book.

Jesus starts at the beginning
An often-overlooked detail about the Fourth Gospel is that the Evangelist doesn’t begin Jesus’ signs with a demonstration of Jesus’ power over sin. That’s what occurs when the synoptic Gospels According to Matthew, Mark, and Luke begin by describing the victory over Satan in the account of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. The Evangelist John, on the other hand, begins with the sign at the wedding in Cana, in which Jesus provides an overabundance of free wine. The Fourth Gospel moves on to describe Jesus discussing his ability to provide an overabundance of water, and then the sign of the multiplication of loaves and fishes, in which Jesus is described producing an overabundance of free food.

Instead of focusing on overcoming sin, Jesus demonstrates that he’s able to provide for humanity’s most obvious basic needs related to hunger and thirst. From there, the Evangelist begins developing the connection between faith and sight. The willingness to have faith amounts to a sense of some deep and unfulfilled longing—not “show us a sign.” Faith is trust that God can fulfill that need, and it’s the step that moves us toward the light. Men and women must allow our faith to change our perception.

significant witnesses
Many of the people who encounter Jesus in the Gospel According to John end up testifying that he’s the Messiah. The man born blind joins the Samaritan woman, who met Jesus in the fourth chapter of the Gospel According to John, as two of the most significant witnesses to Jesus Christ in all of the Scriptures. (A third is Lazarus, and in Lesson 14 I Am the Resurrection & the Life in The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth, we’ll look at the unusual nature of his witness.)

the power of speech
The most striking feature about the man born blind is his willingness to speak out in defense of Jesus. The man has been given the gift of sight, and that alone is enough to cause people around him to begin talking about the signs that Jesus has been performing. Even though the man’s parents refuse to get involved in discussions about Jesus with the Pharisees, the man doesn’t hesitate to speak up when he’s questioned. Throughout the Gospel According to John, the Evangelist records Jesus’ conversations with the Pharisees and other detractors. Only in the ninth chapter of the Gospel According to John does someone else do such a good job of responding to questions about Jesus that Jesus finds it unnecessary to speak on his own behalf. (Tami Palladino’s illustration of Jesus and the man born blind appears on the map, “Key Events in the Gospel According to John,” on page 146 of the study book.)

God communicates
The ability of the man born blind to speak so eloquently is of special interest because he’s doing so in defense of Jesus. In the prologue in the Gospel According to John (1:1–18) the Evangelist described Jesus himself as the Word of God. Jesus is the way in which God has chosen to communicate the truth about divinity. In the ninth chapter in the Gospel According to John, the man born blind communicates truth about God’s Word. If we look at the words of the man born blind, we can see in them the same kind of practical reasoning that Jesus uses when speaking to the Pharisees. The man echoes Jesus, even though there’s no evidence the man previously heard any of Jesus’ teaching. The text shows that the man born blind doesn’t even ask to be given his sight. Jesus takes it upon himself to do that.

why is this sign different?
In most of the signs in the Fourth Gospel, Jesus merely speaks in order to bring about change. Water becomes wine. A Samaritan woman believes. A crippled man walks. In the case of the woman caught in adultery, Jesus writes with his finger on the ground, a suggestion that the law of Moses originally was written by God on stone tablets. In giving the man born blind the gift of sight, Jesus spits on the ground to make clay, recalling God’s Creation of the first man out of clay, described in the book of Genesis 2:4–7. Learn more about the second Creation account in Lesson 2 It Is Not Good That the Man Should Be Alone in the Turning to God’s Word Catholic Bible study In the Beginning: The Book of Genesis.

the man’s sight isn’t restored
It’s important to note that the man born blind doesn’t have his sight restored, a phrase used in many commentaries. The man never had sight to begin with. He was born without the ability to see, so it’s inaccurate to consider what Jesus does as a restoration of sight. The man is re-created, not restored. Jesus’ use of clay in performing this sign points to re-creation. Jesus is God, and the man is undergoing a type of Baptism. He both is and isn’t the same person as he was before—an apt description of what happens to men and women during the ontological change that occurs in the sacrament.

read the Catechism—healing body & soul
The Gospel According to John 9:6 and 9:11 both specify that Jesus anointed the man’s eyes, which points toward the anointing with chrism that’s part of the sacrament of Confirmation. Jesus’ healing action also suggests a connection to the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick, about which paragraph 1520 in the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: “This assistance from the Lord by the power of his Spirit is meant to lead the sick person to healing of the soul, but also of the body if such is God’s will. Furthermore, ‘if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.’” Paragraph 1285 in the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains more about Confirmation.

1285     Baptism, the Eucharist, and the sacrament of Confirmation together constitute the “sacraments of Christian initiation,” whose unity must be safeguarded. It must be explained to the faithful that the reception of the sacrament of Confirmation is necessary for the completion of baptismal grace. “For by the sacrament of Confirmation, [the baptized] are more perfectly bound to the Church and are enriched with a special strength of the Holy Spirit. Hence they are, as true witnesses of Christ, more strictly obliged to spread and defend the faith by word and deed.”

the man born blind is nameless
It’s also significant that the man is nameless, another detail the Evangelist uses to point toward Creation. The first man was named Adam, whose name means “the man.” The man born blind self-identifies with Adam in the Gospel According to John 9:9 when he tells his neighbors and others who had seen him as a beggar: “I am the man.” That these people are confused about whether he is or is not the same person points to the change that occurs in Baptism. The man born blind has been re-created. You can learn more about the two biblical accounts of Creation in Lesson 1 And God Said, Let There Be Light and Lesson 2 It Is Not Good That the Man Should Be Alone, both in the Turning to God’s Word Catholic Bible study In the Beginning: The Book of Genesis.

WHAT DO YOU THINK about Jesus as the new Adam?
The statement made by the man born blind in the Gospel According to John 9:9 isn’t the same as Jesus’ “I AM” statements, but it appears to be related. Jesus’ “I AM” statements are powerful because they lead people to conclude that Jesus is identifying with God. The man born blind claims only to be “the man,” though in using such language the Evangelist suggests a connection between the man born blind and a new man, Jesus, the new Adam.

?  Since new Adam is one of the images for Jesus, how might the man born blind resemble Jesus?
?  What is there about Jesus that leads the Church to view him as a new Adam?
?  What do present-day men and women have in common with Adam?
?  What do present-day men and women have in common with the man born blind?
?  What do present-day men and women have in common with Jesus?
?  In what ways are all three—Adam, the man born blind, and Jesus—alike?

healing—you could look it up in our archives
In the Gospel According to John, Jesus performs signs for spiritual purposes. In the synoptic Gospels, Jesus performs miracles as a medical healer. To learn more about Jesus’ healing signs, read Lost in Translation, an online column in which Turning to God’s Word author Matthew Phelps helps readers connect with ideas expressed in the original languages of the Scriptures. New Lost in Translation entries are posted on Mondays, and past entries are archived on our website. Contact us if you’d like to receive Lost in Translation by email every week.

on the spiritual fast track
The ninth chapter in the Gospel According to John traces the spiritual development of the man born blind from the time before he received his sight to his belief in Jesus as the Son of man. You can learn more about the man’s transformation into a primary witness to Jesus in “Someone Else Speaks for Jesus” on page 68 in The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth. Take some time to consider what events in your life have pressed you to take your faith more seriously.

for additional reflection
Throughout the ninth chapter in the Gospel According to John, the Pharisees attempt to focus on how it is that Jesus is able to give sight to the man born blind. The following questions are designed to help readers begin to form their own thoughts and ideas related to the Gospel According to John 9:1–41. For more reflection questions, refer to the introduction to Lesson 12 on page 64 in The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth.

?  What does the man born blind tell the Pharisees about how Jesus gave him sight?
?  How is it that Jesus is able to give the man sight?
?  When the Pharisees insist on repeating their question, what does the man born blind tell them? If necessary, refer to the Gospel According to John 9:27.
?  What might explain why the man born blind seems to have so little interest in the logistics of how it is that Jesus gave him sight?
?  Consider whether focusing on the how of salvation only gets in the way of faith. For more information, read “How & Why” on page 68 in The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth.

the best Catholic commentary about Scripture
To find out more about how Church teaching is supported by Scripture passages in The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth, check out the Index of Citations in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Links to the primary Scripture passages in the lesson (Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition [RSVCE*]) and relevant paragraphs in the Catechism are provided here. Not every passage in the biblical text for this study is referenced in a Catechism paragraph, however.

the Gospel According to John 9:6—paragraphs 1151, 1504
the Gospel According to John 9:7—paragraph 1504
the Gospel According to John 9:16—paragraphs 596, 2173
the Gospel According to John 9:22—paragraphs 575, 596
the Gospel According to John 9:31—paragraph 2827
the Gospel According to John 9:34—paragraph 588
the Gospel According to John 9:40–41—paragraph 588

ways our glossary might prove helpful
In addition to providing extra information about geographical locations, our glossary also points out persons and places mentioned in the biblical text under multiple names or spellings. If you can remember a name but aren’t sure in which lesson it shows up, you can find it in the glossary, which lists every proper noun that appears in the primary biblical text for The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth.

to learn more, read more Scripture
If you’re having difficulty with a passage of Scripture, it can be helpful to read the relevant cross references—but looking these up can take time. To make that easier, we’ve compiled the cross references from the Revised Standard Version Second Catholic Edition (RSV2CE)—the translation that we reprint in our study books. That list can be found at the top of every online study page accompanying this study, and it includes links to each of the cross references in the primary biblical text for The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth.

don’t forget about our indexes & extra online material
If you’re trying to locate information about a specific Scripture passage, you can look it up in the index at the back of the study book or sample lesson. If you want to find a particular commentary, you can look up its title in the topics index. To learn more about another book of the Bible for which there’s a Turning to God’s Word study, visit the online study directories to read the commentaries and watch any accompanying videos. Finally, if you have a question or would like to make a comment about any of our studies, you can use one of the “ask us your question” or “what do you think” buttons to email our authors.

ex libris—Church documents & books about religious topics
You can find links to magisterial documents referred to in Turning to God’s Word Catholic Bible studies at ex libris—magisterial documents. This page includes a listing of significant recent encyclicals as well as a number of historical Church documents. Recommended books related to Scripture study can be found at ex libris—main bookshelf.

wondering how to pronounce some of these words?
The following link is to a reading from the New International Version (NIV) Bible. To listen, click on the audio icon above the printed text. Although not taken from the translations used in our study materials, the NIV reading provides an audio guide to pronunciation of words in this lesson’s primary biblical text. A close online version of the translation of the Bible used in Catholic liturgy in the United States as well as an audio guide for daily Mass readings for the current month can be found on the website of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).

the Gospel According to John 9:1–41 (NIV)

round black doveclose with Bible-based prayer related to this lesson
Many of our Catholic study groups like to conclude their discussions with a prayer based on the scriptural focus of their lesson, and some participants include Scripture-specific prayer in their individual study. If you’re uncomfortable composing your own Bible-based prayers, you can follow our four easy steps, or you can use the following prayer based on this lesson’s text from the Gospel According to John.

God our Father, you sent your Son
to show men and women your healing love.
Help us to escape the darkness of sin
so that we may point others to the light of your truth.
We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Lesson 13 I Am the Good Shepherd—the Gospel According to John 10:1–42
Lesson 11 I Am the Light of the World—the Gospel According to John 8:12–59

you also may like our study of the book of Genesis
The first seven lessons of In the Beginning: The Book of Genesis, a 28-lesson Catholic Bible study with an imprimatur, provide an in-depth look at the very earliest biblical history—including the two accounts of Creation, events surrounding the Fall of Adam and Eve, the relationship between Cain and Abel, and the baptismal foreshadowing present in the account of Noah and the Flood. Remaining lessons look at lives of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. Click on the book’s cover to view a sample lesson.

start a Turning to God’s Word Bible study
Thank you for your interest in The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth. Information about beginning a Turning to God’s Word Bible study can be found at start a Bible study. Tami, Matthew, and I are available to answer questions and offer support. Contact us if you’d like to start one of our studies or have your schedule listed with other TtGW study groups on our website. —Jennifer

*There are seven deuterocanonical books in the Old Testament—the Books of Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, and First and Second Maccabees, as well as some passages in the Books of Esther and Daniel. Protestants usually refer to these works as “apocryphal,” a word that means “outside the (Protestant) canon” because they’re excluded from most Protestant Bibles. The word “deuterocanonical” means “second canon”; Catholics use that word to refer to any section of the Catholic Old Testament for which there are no extant, or existing, Hebrew manuscripts. All of the deuterocanonical books appear in the Septuagint, the earliest remaining versions of which date to the 1st century B.C. This Greek translation of the Old Testament was in common use by Jews at the time of Jesus. Learn more by reading How Do Catholic & Protestant Bibles Differ?

Turning to God’s Word printed Bible studies use the 2006 Revised Standard Version Second Catholic Edition (RSV2CE) translation for all Scripture references except those to the Psalms, which are taken from The Abbey Psalms and Canticles, prepared by the Benedictine monks of Conception Abbey and published in 2020 by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). All Scripture links for the online study pages for The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth are to the 1966 Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE) translation. The New International Version (NIV) audio recordings follow the same chapter and verse numbering as the RSV Catholic translations, but the NIV translation doesn’t include the deuterocanonical books and passages.

The 1966 RSVCE uses archaic pronouns and verb forms such as “thee,” “thou,” “didst” in the Psalms and in direct quotations attributed to God. The 2006 RSV2CE replaces these with more accessible English. The few significant translation changes in the RSV2CE include rendering almah as “virgin” in the Book of Isaiah 7:14 and restoring the term “begotten” in the Gospel According to John 3:16.

Numbering varies for some passages in this Bible study. Turning to God’s Word studies (print and digital) follow the numbering in the Revised Standard Version Catholic translations (RSV2CE and RSVCE). Discrepancies in the New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE) are noted in the Index of Scripture Citations in the study book and the online sample.

You can learn more about the Psalms by viewing a sample lesson from the Turning to God’s Word Catholic Bible study Sing a New Psalm: Communicating with God Through the Prayers of the Church—Volume I: Lauds & Vespers. The second part of that study, Sing a New Psalm: Communicating with God Through the Prayers of the Church—Volume II: Vigils, Day Prayer & Compline, is scheduled for publication in 2025. Some verse numbers may vary in different translations of the Psalms.