"8 The neighbours and those who had seen him before as a beggar were saying, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” 9 Some said, “It is he.” Others said, “No, but he is like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” 10 So they said to him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” 11 He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed and received my sight.” 12 They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”"
John 9:8-12
It seems rather odd, at first glance, that the neighbours should have had doubts about the man's identity. After all, they had known him all his days; yet he had to assure them, 'I am he'. Why is this? John is clearly suggesting that there was not only a physical change evident in the man, but also a spiritual change so radical that it made him look different. This, indeed, is the main point in the story; it was not merely physical sight that was restored to him, he was given spiritual vision too. The man was converted, and this is the explanation of the change that had taken place in him. John indirectly develops this theme throughout the chapter, as we may see by considering the progressive dawning of inner sight in the man's understanding. First of all, in 11, it is 'a man that is called Jesus'; a little later in 17, 'he is a prophet'; still later, in the controversy with the Pharisees in 33, he is 'of God', and finally, in the second encounter with Jesus, he sees Him as 'the Son of God'. This was surely the greater miracle, and it is a measure of the distortion of our own thinking today that we tend to think of miracles in the physical realm of greater import, and an evidence of greater and more authentic faith, than those in the moral and spiritual realm. In 11 we have a marvellously full and succinct presentation of what we might call the theology of obedience: ‘I went, I washed, I received sight'. If there was more of such simple, child-like obedience in the life of the Church perhaps we would see more of Christ's miracle-working power today.