The Blind See
“And as Jesus passed by, He saw a man which was blind from his birth. And His disciples asked Him, saying, ‘Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ Jesus answered, ‘Neither hath this man sinner, nor his parents: but that the works of GOD should be made manifest in him. I must work the works of Him that sent Me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. When He had thus spoken, He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, and said unto him, ‘Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.” John 9:1-7 KJV
Recently, I was reading and I came across the story of Jesus healing the blind man. This is a story I’ve both read and heard many times. I always thought it was interesting that the same Jesus that could simply speak a word and send forth a healing to others would need to use physical material to heal this man of blindness. I considered that maybe since He created Adam from the dust of the earth that perhaps Jesus needed to use that same dust to create eyes for this man. The Bible is not clear as to whether this man had physical eyes or not, only that he could not see. I also wondered why Jesus would use His own spit to make the clay. Just think about that…. He rubbed His spit all over the blind man’s eye sockets. Imagine what that would look like today. Imagine the reaction!
As I was reading about this account of healing and searching through articles about Jewish culture, I came across a teaching from the Talmud (Bava Basra 126b) that states that there was a belief in those times that the first born son of the father had healing power in his saliva. This did not apply to the first born son of the mother, only the father. According to tradition, this indicated who would receive the right of inheritance as the first born son.
I was blown away when I read that. Suddenly, it made sense to me. I don’t believe Jesus needed to make clay to heal the man’s eyes. He could have spoken to his eyes to open and they would have. I believe here that He was making a point. By using His own spittle to create clay and anoint the blind man eyes, and by that blind man being healed, Jesus was declaring, “I AM the First Born Son of the Father.” Up to that time, nothing like that had ever been seen. Truly, the only begotten Son of GOD had come to work the works that His Father sent Him to do.
About The Talmud:
“The Talmud is the record of centuries of discussion expounding the Oral Law of Judaism as it took place in the great Torah academies of the Land of Israel and Babylonia long ago. The Talmud Yerushalmi (The Talmud of the Land of Israel) was completed circa 350 CE.” – The Jerusalem Post
It has long been a source of argument that within the Talmud are anti-Christian themed writings, in reference to the New Testament and the life of Jesus. Some scholars agree that the writings concerning “Yeshu” are in regard to Jesus, while others state they are not. Despite their ongoing disagreements, their text in this matter did manage to provide a plausible answer for my question.