Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 96:382 (Apr 1939)
Article: Grace and Truth Studies in the Gospel According to St. John Part 2
Author: J. F. Strombeck

BSac 96:382 (Apr 39) p. 205

Grace and Truth
Studies in the Gospel According to St. John
Part 2

J. F. Strombeck

(Continued from the January-March, 1939, Number)

[Editor’s Note: For lack of space some sections of this second installment have been omitted. Mr. Strombeck is working on a larger work to be published in book form which will include omitted sections and much else.]

Grace Manifested through Suffering:
Chapter 9:1–38 In chapter nine is recorded the miracle of giving sight to a man who was blind from his birth and the anger of the Pharisees because the deed was done on the sabbath day.

When the disciples saw the blind man they said, “Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?” (v. 2). They looked upon the blindness as a punishment for sin: as a just retribution for the breaking of God’s law. Under law there is no other way to consider suffering, for temporal blessings were promised Israel if they kept the law, and curses if they failed to do so (Deut 28). This is still a widely accepted thought.

“Jesus answered, neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him” (v. 3). By these words Jesus completely dismissed the sin question and also any thought that the blindness was a punishment from God because of guilt. This man had been permitted to suffer blindness from his birth that the works of God should be made manifest in him. The works of God were not to be wrought by the man but in him by Jesus. This is always true of the life under grace. Therefore the suffering was permitted in order that the grace of God might be displayed. The sickness of Lazarous was ”...for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby” (Ch. 11:4). It was through Paul that the mysteries of grace were revealed in a very special way. Of him it was

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said: “For I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake” (Acts 9:16). There is suffering then entirely apart from sin, the purpose of which is to display the grace and therefore the glory of God. All saints have been chosen in Christ to be before God in love and have been predestinated unto the adoption of children, “To the praise of the glory of his grace” (Eph 1:4–6). That is God’s ultimate purpose in salvation. It is not strange then that suffering is permitted that the glory of grace might be seen ...