In preparing to preach yesterday on John 9:26-38 I continued
my reading of John Calvin’s commentary on the Fourth Gospel. Calvin notes the
audacity of the man born blind in tweaking the Pharisees. In v. 26 he asks
them, “will ye also be his disciples?”
Calvin observes:
It is an astonishing display
of freedom, when a man of mean and low condition, and especially liable to be
reproached on account of his poverty, fearlessly provokes the rage of all the priests
against himself.
When the Pharisees later indignantly revile the man saying, “Thou
wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us?” (v. 34), Calvin
reflects:
Now, since we ought
always to hear God, by whomsoever he may talk to us, let us learn not to
despise any man, that God may find us always mild and submissive, even though
he employ a person altogether mean and despicable to instruct us. For there is
not a more dangerous plague than when pride stops our ears, so that we do not
deign to hear those who warn us for our profit; and it frequently happens that
God purposely selects vile and worthless persons to instruct and warn us, in
order to subdue our pride.
No doubt, Calvin sees in the man born blind’s confrontation
with the Pharisees a paradigm for the stand of humble Reformed preachers in
critique of reviling Roman authorities.
JTR
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