A division occurred again among the Jews because of these words. And many of them were saying, “He has a demon and is insane. Why do you listen to Him?” Others were saying, “These are not the words of someone demon-possessed. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?”
John 10:19-21
Introduction
After Jesus delivered a teaching that highlighted both His role as the Messiah and His divinity, the unbelievers who were listening found themselves distraught. To believe Him would upend everything they thought they knew about their religion. God as man? A Messiah without the blessing of the Sanhedrin? These things were antithetical to their systematized doctrine of God as the Rabbis taught it.
But what other options could they possibly have? He was obviously in communion with a spirit. The question, then, became whether that was the Holy Spirit or an unclean one.
Liar, Lunatic, Lord
The Pharisees found themselves then at a crossroads that many who pick up the Bible for the first time also face. For them, they knew the miracles that Jesus performed and the claims He made firsthand. For us, we have only the accounts recorded in scripture. But taken objectively as historical documents, because that is what they are, they are found to be the most reliable ancient historical documents ever recorded. Written mere decades after the events in question (as opposed to other ancient histories that are often not written down until hundreds of years later), corroborated by eye witnesses, and without objection, the gospels represent the gold standard for ancient documentation.
In a book that somehow managed to draw widespread agreement across Christians from various traditions, C.S. Lewis made the now famous argument many call “liar, lunatic, or Lord.” In this argument, Lewis addresses the fallback many attempt when they say, “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.”
That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
The Pharisees recognized this dilemma. There are three options available to them: either He is out of His mind, possibly from the result of demonic meddling; or He is a fantastic deceiver, in communion with those devils; or He is the Lord of creation who demands worship. They have narrowed it down to these final two options, but how will they decide which is true?
Who opens the eyes of the blind?
In this short exchange of verses, there are two camps of listeners. The first has concluded that Jesus is both a lunatic and a liar. They believe Jesus has come to them with a demon, bringing teachings that contradict what their religious leaders had been emphasizing their whole lives. The second camp, however, has done more than just heard the teachings. They have also considered the additional variables.
Jesus did not merely bring them an extraordinary teaching about the Messiah. He brought them miracles. Miracles that no one had ever done before. Never has any prophet of God taken a man born blind and given him sight until this day they all witnessed. And so the argument proceeds, “Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?”
The answer is an emphatic, “no.” As Psalm 146:8 tells us, it is Yahweh who opens the eyes of the blind. To put things as plainly as possible with a simple syllogism: only God opens the eyes of the blind; Jesus opened the eyes of the blind; therefore Jesus is God. And as uncomfortable as this statement would have been for His Pharisaical listeners, it is the only conclusion He has left for them or for us.
May the Lord bless you and conform you into the image of His Son.
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