Judaism and the Messiah

It is probably worthwhile at this point in our study to clarify who the opponents of Jesus were.

The Pharisees are the spiritual fathers of modern Judaism. They believed that God had given Moses (at Mount Sinai) an Oral Law (later written down and called the Talmud), along with the Written Law (the Torah). They believed, however, that the written law was open to interpretation. The Pharisees then, could be compared to our modern-day Supreme Court, who take our constitutional laws and “interpret” them, as well. And, as happens also with our Supreme Court system today, sometimes the rulings or interpretations of the Pharisees bore little if any resemblance to the original law, and at the very least often missed out completely on the “spirit” of the original law.

The Pharisees believed in an afterlife. They believed in the judgment of God, rewarding the good, punishing the wicked, they believed in heaven and hell [Gehenna], and they believed that the Messiah would one day come and bring world peace. They believed in miracles.

The Pharisees were the “blue-collar” religious folk. They had no interest in politics, were not commonly known to be “activists”. They were happy when left alone to do their religious thing, which by the way, took place most often in the synagogues, where they “taught” their precepts. However, Jesus upset their apple cart by exposing as error the very precepts that they believed in and had built on through the years. After the destruction of the second temple in 70AD, the Pharisees were replaced by (or became the foundation of) Rabbinical Judaism.

The Saducees, on the other hand, rejected the Oral Law altogether, trusting only the Mosaic (written) Law. They were a bit too loose however, and allowed their beliefs to adapt to more Hellenistic or Greek influence (making the Pharisees distrust and oppose them all the more). The Saducees considered themselves to be elitists and aristocrats, associates of the priests of the temple, giving them, in their own eyes at least, a higher social standing than the Pharisees.

Because the Saducess took the written law so literally (“...an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth...” Lev. 24:20) they were more disposed to political involvement and activism (the Zealots came out of the Saducees and were the ones responsible for causing the Romans to lay siege around Jerusalem in 70 AD, the time of the second temple’s destruction.)

And because there is no mention of an afterlife in the Torah, the Saducees did not believe in life after death, or the resurrection. (That is why they were Sad-you-see. Sorry, I HAD to say it...even though it’s older than the hills, and wearied from over-use!) And it sounds to me as though the Saducees did not accept as law anything other than the Torah (the first five books of the bible), and were therefore perhaps limited in their knowledge or understanding; apparently giving no merit to these verses from the writings of the Prophets, that hint of a resurrection:

Job 19:25-26 “For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God...”

Isaiah 26:19 “Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.”

Daniel 12:2 “And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.”

The Saducees, whose focus was on the temple and all of its rituals, disappeared altogether after the destruction of the temple in 70 AD.

But at the time of Jesus, with the temple still intact, both the Pharisees and the Saducees comprised the Great Sanhedrin (Sanhedrin is Greek for “sitting together” or “assembly”), the Supreme Court of ancient Israel, having 71 members whose responsibility was to interpret both civil and religious laws. One of these members was a Pharisee “named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: the same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.” John 3:1-2

And with that background info as an introduction, we will take a look at another of the miracles of Jesus: that of healing the man who was blind from birth. Turn to John Chapter 9, verse 1:

“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?”

[A little digression here: the Jews taught that it was sin that caused one to be born blind, either it was the sin of the parents, or it was the sin of the blind one. But if he was born blind, then how was he able to sin before he was born, which then caused him to be blind??? It was possible for him to sin only because the Jews believed that even a fetus could sin. Thus the question from the disciples was not as strange, at least to them, as it seems.]

Continuing on at verse 6:

"When he [Jesus] 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...(v.13) they brought to the Pharisees him that aforetime was blind. And it was the Sabbath day when Jesus made the clay, and opened his eyes. Then again, the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. He said unto them, He put clay upon mine eyes, and I washed, and do see. Therefore said some of the Pharisees, This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the Sabbath day. Others said, How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles? And there was a division among them. They say unto the blind man again, What sayest thou of him, that he hath opened thine eyes? He said, He is a prophet...(v.24) then again called they the man that was blind, and said unto him, Give God the praise: we know that this man is a sinner. He answered and said, "Whether he be a sinner or not, I know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see..."(v. 30) "Why herein is a marvelous thing, that ye know not from whence he is, and yet he hath opened mine eyes! Now we know that God heareth not sinners, but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth. Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind.”

Let’s stop there for just a moment. The blind man is telling the Pharisees these words: “Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind.” There it is! A miracle that has been reserved for a special time and place...the introduction of the Messiah. And what does this blind man then say?

“If this man were not of God, he could do nothing.” To which the Pharisees say (v. 34): “Thou wast altogether born in sins [they are accusing him here of both his own sin as a fetus and that of his parents], and dost thou teach us? And they cast him out.”

The blind man knew Jesus was from God. The Pharisees, who were very studied in the scriptures should have known. After all they did have prophecies in those scriptures that pointed to the time of the Messiah’s birth (the 70 weeks of Daniel) and the place of his birth (Bethlehem). On top of that they had miracles that had NEVER taken place before!

So what was their problem? Perhaps it was pride. Jesus, by healing this blind man, both on the Sabbath and in the manner that He did, managed to break their traditions. And, because it was so specific, I can’t help but think He knew exactly what He was doing.

Tractate Shabbath, Folio 108b, verse 25:

“[To put] tasteless saliva, [to heal] even on the eye [on the Sabbath], is forbidden.”

That gives us something to think about...now we know why He used his own saliva, but why didn’t He heal the man right there, why did He have the blind man go to the pool of Siloam? There were apparently many people there that day, for the crowd is who took the healed blind man to the Pharisees. Maybe it was so that many would know of it. Maybe He knew they would take him to the Pharisees. And there may have been even more to it than we fully comprehend.

But the bottom line is, we can be sure that Jesus knew exactly what He was doing and why, and since the Word tells us all that He did, He did because the Father told Him to do so, we can be sure that the Father was the author of this plan, as well.