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Joh_9:39. An Oxymoron, to which Jesus (comp. 1Co_1:18 ff.), seeing at His feet the man born blind, and now endued not only with bodily, but also with spiritual sight, gives utterance with profound emotion, addressing Himself, moreover, not to any one particular person (hence εἶπεν without the addition of a person, comp. Joh_1:29; Joh_1:36), but to those around Him in general. From among these the Pharisees then (Joh_9:40) come forward to reply. The compact, pregnant sentence is uttered irrespectively of the man who had been blind, who also in a higher sense appears in Joh_9:36 as still μὴ βλέπων , and in ver 38 as βλέπων .
εἰς κρῖμα ] telically, i.e. to this end, as is clear from the more exact explanation ἵνα , etc., that follows. This κρῖμα [53] is an end, though not the ultimate end, of the appearance of Jesus. He came to bring about, as a matter of fact, a judicial decision; He came, namely, in order that, by means of His activity, those who see not might see, i.e. in order that those who are conscious of the lack of divine truth (comp. the poor in spirit in Mat_5:3) might be illumined thereby, and they who see might become blind (not merely: appareant caeci, as Grotius and several others explain), i.e. those who fancy themselves to be in possession of divine truth (comp. Luk_11:52; Mat_11:25; Rom_2:19; 1Co_1:21; 1Co_3:18), might not become participators therein; but (comp. Isa_6:9 f.) be closed, blinded, and hardened against it (like the self-conceited Pharisees). The point of the saying lies in this: that οἱ μὴ βλέποντες is subjective, and βλέπωσι objective; whereas οἱ βλέποντες is subjective, and τυφλοὶ γένωνται objective.[54]
κρῖμα is neither merely separation (Castalio, Corn. a Lapide, Kuinoel, De Wette, and several others), nor equivalent to κατάκρισις (Ammonius, Euth. Zigabenus, Olshausen); but what Christ here says regarding Himself is a matter of fact, a retributive judicial arrangement, affecting both sides according to the position they take up relatively to Him. Hence there is no contradiction with Joh_3:17, Joh_8:15, Joh_12:47. Comp. also Weiss, Lehrbegr. p. 186 f. If, with Godet, we understand οἱ μὴ βλέποντες and ΟἹ ΒΛΈΠΟΝΤΕς of those who have not and those who have the knowledge of the Jewish law, we must refer ΒΛΈΠΩΣΙ and ΤΥΦΛΟΊ to the divine truth which Christ reveals. A twofold relation is thus introduced, to which the words λέγετε ὅτι βλέπομεν , Joh_9:41, are also opposed.
[53] On this accentuation of κρῖμα , see Lobeck, Paral, p. 418; comp., however, Lipsius, grammat. Unters. I. p. 40.—The word itself is used by John only in this place. It denotes, not the trial which is held, the judicial procedure ( κρίσις ), but its result, the judicial sentence which is pronounced, the decision of the court, what is judicially measured out, etc. Hence κρῖμα λαμβάνειν , βαστάζειν , etc.
[54] It is true, indeed, that the μὴ βλέποντες are susceptible, and the βλέποντες unsusceptible; but this was not determined by the consideration that the former believed without seeing, whilst the latter refused to believe, notwithstanding all they had seen of Jesus (see Baur, p. 179); on the contrary, the susceptibility of the one and the unsusceptibility of the other were rooted in their inner relation to Christ, which is necessarily moral, and the result of free self-determination. Indeed, against the view now controverted, ver. 41 alone is decisive, apart even from the mysterious designation of the matter by a circumstance occurring in connection with it. Comp. Delitzsch, Psych. p. 162.—On μὴ βλέπειν , to be blind, comp. Soph. O. C. 73; O. R. 302; see also Xen. Mem. i. 3. 4. On τυφλός in the figurative sense, see Soph. O. R. 371.