STEEPED IN SIN

A quiz over a quote: "You were steeped in sin at birth." 

Who said it? (Besides every Calvinist preacher you ever cared to listen to ... ad nauseum.)

An Old Testament prophet?

Jesus? 

The Apostle Paul? 

No, No, and No.

But it does come straight out of the Bible.

Correct answer? 

A group of Pharisees - the bad guys of John's Gospel in particular and the New Testament in general. 

In the 9th chapter of John, Jesus heals a man born blind and the man ends up in hot water with the local Pharisees. In the course of having the Pharisees grill him over his healing, he gets a little sassy, questioning their logic in rejecting Jesus out of hand as God's Messiah.

He tells them, "If this man - Jesus - were not from God, he could do nothing." (v.33)

This ticks off the Pharisees royally: "You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!" And they threw him out. (v.34)

You can hear the self-righteous condescension spilling out along with the words.

But surely we are not to see this "steeped in sin at birth" as being a faulty theology arising from the Pharisees' own hubris, right?

Couldn't this be sound biblical theology, but merely in the wrong mouths? A broken clock being right twice a day, and all that?

I suppose one could make that argument ... if Jesus had not already weighed in on the topic himself when he and his disciples first encounter this blind man at the side of the road:

John 9:2 His disciples asked Jesus, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"

3 "Neither this man nor his parents sinned,' said Jesus, "but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him."

True, Jesus is not saying the guy had never sinned in his lifetime, just that his blindness was not the result of some sin he or his parents committed. 

Still, Jesus' focus was not on condemning the man and playing up this guy's experience of existing in some profound state of unrighteousness.

Jesus' focus was on restoring his sight. 

Simple.