John 9:3

Public

Topic or Scripture

Scripture

Tags

glory

Claim

John 9:3 does not teach that God causes sickness, nor does it teach that God is glorified by sickness.

Refuting Calvinism

In John 9:3 we read the following, regarding a man born blind:

Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.

We must recall that punctuation was not in the original. I put a period in the verse, as in the quote below. I take the verse to mean this:

Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents. Then Jesus said that the works of God should be made manifest in him.

In Did Jesus Say That God Causes Blindness? 1 , Boyd says the original Greek does not require the interpretation that God's glory was the reason for the blindness.

Also Boyd says

... Jesus elsewhere rebukes people for suggesting that God was behind people’s suffering (Lk 13:1-5).

There is more in this article by Boyd, providing more reason to discard the erroneous interpretation of this scripture as proving that God causes sickness, or that He is glorified by sickness.

Supporting Calvinism

TBA (to be added)