We know—the new-born disputant takes up the language of these proud casuists, and adopts the technical phrase which they had used (John 9:24, John 9:29)—we know, you and I, that God heareth not sinners in any special sense of miraculous approval (Job 27:9; Job 35:13; Psalms 109:7; and especially Psalms 66:18, Psalms 66:19; Proverbs 15:29; Isaiah 1:15). One aspect of Old Testament teaching shows that a man must delight himself in the Lord in order to receive the desires of his heart. If we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us; but the prayer of the sinner, the desire of the wicked, is contrary to the will of' God. When the sinner turns from his sins to the Lord, the cry for mercy is in harmony with the will of God. In one sense every prayer is the prayer of sinful men; but it is the Divine life working within them that offers acceptable prayer. The prayer of the sinner as such is not heard. We know God does not listen to the cry of sinners, when, as sinners, they ask from the ground of their sin, to secure their own sinful purpose; but if any man be a worshipper of God (the word θεοσεβής is an ἅπαξ λεγόμενον, and occurs nowhere else in the New Testament), and doeth his (God's) will, this man he heareth. The blind beggar has learned the deepest truth of the Divine revelation about the conditions of acceptable prayer. The immediate application was the miraculous unwonted event as answer to the effectual fervent prayer of the righteous man (see James 5:16-18). So much for the general relation of this Healer to God. The rabbis were never tired of urging that the "answers to prayer depended on a man being devout and doing the will of God" (Edersheim, who quotes 'Ber.,' 6, b; 'Taanith,' John 3:8; 'Succah,' 14, a; 'Yoma,' 28, a). So that the man was here fighting with drawn sword.
The man, having once begun, will not be stopped in his argument. Since the world began ( ἐκ τοῦ αἰῶνος does not elsewhere occur in the New Testament; we have ἀπ αἰῶνος three times, and ἀπὸ τῶν αἰῶνων) it was never heard that any one opened the eyes of one born blind. There is no record of any cure of blindness in the Old Testament. The miracle stands forth with grand distinctness on the page of history. If such stories had been told, neither he nor the author of this narrative knew of them. The Pharisees and Jews have no reply to this burst of grateful but indignant testimony to the uniqueness of his Deliverer, and then, with a home-thrust which cut through their weak objections and repudiated their cruel inferences, he added, Unless this Man were from God, he could do nothing; he could neither have wrought this marvel, nor any of the deep impressions wrought upon you. "From God;" that is the man's final answer to the query, "What sayest thou of him, seeing that he hath opened thine eyes?" God has the glory, while I repudiate what you give as a judgment against him. Verily God has heard him as One who in this thing has simply done his will. Thus the Jews are compelled for a few moments to hear, from one known as a street-beggar, words of teaching along the finest lines of a deep experience.