John 9:39-41

Let us go to a place that amplifies this a bit, in the book John. This is the occasion when Jesus healed the man of blindness and after He did this, the Pharisees, recognizing who the man was, accused Him. Slowly but surely, this episode worked its way around where there was a confrontation between Jesus and the Pharisees, and in the process Jesus makes a very interesting statement that applies to this theme.

He is showing these people clearly that sin is far more devastating if it is done with knowledge than with ignorance. In other words, the very fact that Jesus was there and Jesus was teaching them, verbally, and also, Jesus was showing them an example, was putting them into judgment. They then had a choice.

It is obvious from all the confrontations that took place between Jesus and these people, that there was a measure of conviction coming upon the minds of these people that were bringing them a measure of guilt, and they felt it necessary to defend themselves and what they were thinking, what their attitudes were, and what they were doing.

So knowledge was coming to them, knowledge that would prepare the way for them to be cleaned if they would repent. But as we can see here, there was instead a deliberate rejection because they eventually put Him to death. And so Jesus said, "If you were blind—that is, if you were never cleaned; if you were never shown these things—you would have no sin, but now you say, we see and therefore your sin remains."