John Chapter 9 verse 31 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 31. - We know - the new-born disputant takes up the language of these proud casuists, and adopts the technical phrase which they had used (vers. 24, 29) - we know, you and I, that God heareth not sinners in any special sense of miraculous approval (Job 27:9; Job 35:13; Psalm 109:7; and especially Psalm 66:18, 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,' 3:8; 'Succah,' 14, a; 'Yoma,' 28, a). So that the man was here fighting with drawn sword.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(31) Now we know that God heareth not sinners.--What they should have known, but asserted that they did not, he proceeds to declare. The argument of this and the two following verses may be stated in syllogistic form, thus:--(1) God heareth not sinners, but only those who worship Him and do His will. (2) That God heareth this Man is certain, for such a miracle could be performed only by divine power. (3) This Man, therefore, is not a sinner, but is from God.He assumes as a general truth, which all accepted, that God heareth not sinners. This is based upon numerous passages in the Old Testament Scriptures--e.g., Isaiah 1:11-15; Psalm 66:18; Psalm 109:7; Proverbs 15:8; Proverbs 15:29; Job 27:9; Job 35:13. We are, of course, to understand the word "sinner" in the sense in which they had used it in John 9:16; John 9:24. They had said that they knew this Man to be a sinner, and they meant one who was a sinner in a darker sense than that in which the word may be applied to all men. He asserts, as a truth which agrees with the whole teaching of the Old Testament, and with all the religious instincts of men, that there would be no communion between such a man and heaven. Such a one could not be commissioned as a prophet, or so heard in heaven as to have power to work miracles on earth. (Comp. Notes on John 11:41-42, and Acts 3:12.) Men have sometimes taken the words altogether apart from their context, and read into them a dark meaning which they cannot be rightly made to bear. Neither these words, nor any words of God, assign any limit to the divine grace, which extendeth to every penitent sinner; nor is there any voice of any child of man lifted to heaven, which is not heard by the Father who is in heaven. . . .