Lord, I believe

No doubt we have all at some time told an unbeliever that in order to be saved they must believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. But what specifically does someone have to believe in order to be saved?

Throughout this chapter the key point of controversy surrounds the identity of the Lord Jesus. It is not so much a question of what He did but rather who He is. In the first half of the chapter the question is, ‘How did He do it?’ In the second half of the chapter the key question is ‘Who is He?’

In order to get to the bottom of this mystery the Pharisees call the man to appear before them and demand that he gives God the glory for what happened, rather than the Lord Jesus. The obvious inference is that they did not acknowledge His deity and therefore would not allow the man to attribute to Him a miracle that they felt only God could do.

This refusal to believe that He was the Son of God is the darkness or blindness that the Lord Jesus refers to at the end of the chapter. The Pharisees were men that claimed that they could see. They claimed to know the scriptures and to be God’s ordained teachers, and yet they were only ‘blind leaders of the blind’.

On the other hand the blind man was willing to receive without reservation who the Lord Jesus was. It is interesting to note the progressive nature of the illumination he had as to the identity of the Lord Jesus. The man knew that He was ‘a man . . . called Jesus’, v. 11, ‘a prophet’, v. 17, and a man ‘of God’, v. 33, but he still needed to learn that He is ‘the Son of God’, v. 35. The recognition of who the Lord Jesus really was produced a sense of worship, v. 38, and an acknowledgement of the necessity of following Him, v. 27.

We should be careful of any profession of faith that comes short of acknowledging the true deity of the Lord Jesus. An open confession of faith in Him as the Son of God will no doubt be matched in our lives by surrender to His will, obedience to His words, and a heart full of worship for Him.