John 9:31 - Exposition

We know —the new-born disputant takes up the language of these proud casuists, and adopts the technical phrase which they had used ( John 9:24 , John 9:29 )—we know , you and I, t hat God heareth not sinners in any special sense of miraculous approval ( Job 27:9 ; Job 35:13 ; Psalms 109:7 ; and especially Psalms 66:18 , Psalms 66:19 ; Proverbs 15:29 ; Isaiah 1:15 ). One aspect of Old Testament teaching shows that a man must delight himself in the Lord in order to receive the desires of his heart. If we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us; but the prayer of the sinner, the desire of the wicked, is contrary to the will of' God. When the sinner turns from his sins to the Lord, the cry for mercy is in harmony with the will of God. In one sense every prayer is the prayer of sinful men; but it is the Divine life working within them that offers acceptable prayer. The prayer of the sinner as such is not heard. We know God does not listen to the cry of sinners, when, as sinners, they ask from the ground of their sin, to secure their own sinful purpose; but if any man be a worshipper of God (the word θεοσεβής is an ἅπαξ λεγόμενον , and occurs nowhere else in the New Testament), and doeth his (God's) will, this man he heareth . The blind beggar has learned the deepest truth of the Divine revelation about the conditions of acceptable prayer. The immediate application was the miraculous unwonted event as answer to the effectual fervent prayer of the righteous man (see James 5:16-18 ). So much for the general relation of this Healer to God. The rabbis were never tired of urging that the "answers to prayer depended on a man being devout and doing the will of God" (Edersheim, who quotes 'Ber.,' 6, b; 'Taanith,' John 3:8 ; 'Succah,' 14, a; 'Yoma,' 28, a). So that the man was here fighting with drawn sword.