What Jesus Really Said: The Meaning of Jesus' Teachings in John: "For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see ..." (John 9:39)

"For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind." (John 9:39)

What does 'for judgment' mean?

Jesus makes this statement as the man healed from his blindness bowed and worshiped him.

However, the translation* is questionable.

Here the Greek word κρίμαa (krima) can be translated to 'judgment,' but then the sentence does not make sense. The word κρίμαa (krima) can mean a 'decree, judgment or decision'.

The word before κρίμαa is εἰς (eis), which can be translated to 'into, unto, to, towards, for, among'. Therefore, the more appropriate translation of the phrase εἰς κρίμαa would be something along the lines of:

"it has been decided..."

Why did Jesus 'come into the world'?

Jesus has spoken about this elsewhere. He has clearly stated that God sent him, and his teachings are not his own, but come from God:

"I have not come on my own; but He sent me." (John 8:42)

"For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it." (John 12:49)

"The words I say to you are not just my own." (John 14:10)

So how can Jesus be anyone’s judge or make anyone blind or not blind outside of God’s authority? How could Jesus say that all his teachings are God’s and not his, yet be interpreted as saying that Jesus now can sit in judgment as God does?

In other words, Jesus has come into the world by God’s command. God made a decision to send him into "this world."

And what does Jesus mean by "this world?" "World" has been translated from the Greek word κόσμος (kosmos). According to Thayer's lexicon, κόσμος can also be used to describe "the ungodly multitude; the whole mass of men alienated from God." Now how does this sit in the context of Jesus' statement, where he is reflecting on the man being healed of blindness?

Here Jesus is referring to the physical world - that place where those who have rejected God dwell. In this physical world, we spiritual living individuals are operating temporary physical bodies in an attempt to gain fulfillment away from God. Just as a driver steps into a car to drive, we have stepped into these physical bodies in an attempt to enjoy independently of God. This is because we, at some point, became envious of God. We sought what God has. This is why the serpent told Adam:

"For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." (Genesis 3:5)

"You will be like God" is the crux. This indicates the symbolism regarding why Adam ate the "forbidden fruit." Adam represents each of us, and the fruit represents our desire to become like God.

Why do we want to be like God?

To desire what someone else has means we have become envious.

When a person becomes envious of someone, any relationship between them is over. This is what happened to us. We became envious of the Supreme Being. We wanted to enjoy like God. We wanted to have others worship us rather than worship Him.

So God sent us away from Him. In order to exercise our desire to be God, we had to be separated from Him:

The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. (Genesis 3:21)

So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. (Genesis 3:23)

What are "garments of skin"?

Are we talking animal skins or something? No. We are talking about our physical bodies - they are made of skin. In other words, the Supreme Being gave us physical bodies to dwell in, because our spiritual selves had become contaminated by our envy and self-centeredness.

Then it says Adam was "banished" from the Garden of Eden. This symbolizes that we were pushed out of the spiritual world and put into the physical world - where we 'wear' our new physical skins - these temporary physical bodies.

The physical world allows us to exercise our envy. We can try to make others worship us. We can pretend to be the owner as we accumulate money and material goodies. In other words, we can try to play God here.

But here we can never own anything, and others' worship of us is false. Others only want their own stuff and think that if they pretend to worship us, they will get something in return. And the money and goodies? We lose everything at the time of death, if not earlier. So we own nothing.

The reality is, this physical world is a place of rehabilitation. It is designed to teach us about ourselves, with options to change. This is why there are so many lessons within this world. We are here to learn.

How so? The physical world is a place of consequence. It is a place where everything we do has a consequence - good and bad. If we hurt someone, we'll be hurt. If we help someone, we'll be helped.

What does this teach us?

It teaches us to care about others. It teaches us the meaning of relationships, and possibly even the meaning of love. Why? Because this is our original identity. The spiritual world, where we are from, is a place of love. It is a place where we have a personal loving relationship with God and we serve God and His associates within that relationship. This place, however, requires us to be purified to re-enter it.

For those who learn the preliminary lessons of caring for others, they become ready for their final step in the rehabilitation process. This is the step provided by God as He dispatches His representative to come to our aid in finalizing our rehabilitation and taking us home. This is God's mercy.

God's representative reintroduces us to the Supreme Being. He shows us how we can re-develop our loving relationship with God. It is a difficult process because it requires us to leave behind our hopes to enjoy like God. It requires us to give up our envy.

And those who will not give up their envy - those who will go to any lengths, even using God's teachings to try to dominate and take advantage of others - they will be sent back for more rehabilitation.

This is what Jesus means by "the blind will see and those who see will become blind." Those who have progressed in their rehabilitation process and are ready to hear the truth and renew their loving service relationship with God are enlightened by the teachings of God's representative. By following those teachings, they advance gradually, eventually returning to the Supreme Being at the end of their physical lifetime.

For those who reject God's representative - such as the institutional temple Pharisees and high priests rejected Jesus - they will return for more rehabilitation within the hellish "garments of skin" of the physical world.

For those who have graduated in their rehabilitation process to a point of being able to innocently hear Jesus' teachings - without trying to take advantage of them as have many of the officials of the ecclesiastical sectarian churches of today - they can graduate as they hear and act on Jesus' most important teaching: