"25 He answered, “Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” 26 They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” 27 He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” 28 And they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. 29 We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” 30 The man answered, “Why, this is an amazing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. 31 We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshipper of God and does his will, God listens to him. 32 Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” 34 They answered him, “You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?” And they cast him out."
John 9:25-34
There is something of very profound and far-reaching importance in what the man said in 25: it is that an ounce of real experience is worth a ton of mere theorising and theologising. A clever man could doubtless easily tie us in knots about our faith, and there are increasing numbers of such clever men in the Church in modern days who seem to conceive it as their task in life to make the humble faith of simple men look silly. But if we are able to say what this man said to the Pharisees, then we can stand in their midst with our heads high and know that we have the better of them, clever and brilliant though they be. If we have had an experience of the risen Saviour, the living Lord of the Church, and if He has touched our blinded eyes and opened them so that we are seeing the world with new eyes, then it will not seriously matter though the cleverest men on earth should come and say persuasively and seemingly conclusively that the resurrection of Christ is not to be taken literally. We may not be able to answer all their arguments, but we have the better of them, for we can always say, 'One thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I can see'. And the greatest contribution we can make to the testimony of the gospel today is to say this, and say it fearlessly, to the confounding of the clever men who have become so bemused with their theological wanderings that they have lost and made shipwreck of their faith, though they still regard themselves as the vanguard of the new Church of the seventies. They are deluding themselves, just as surely as the Pharisees were deluded in our Lord's Day.