From the opening chapters of his Gospel, Lazarus depicts Yeshua as the "New Moses" promised in Deuteronomy 18:15-20. The Jews of the first century AD, suffering under Roman rule, were looking for "the Prophet." They believed the expected Messiah would be another Moses who would repeat the Exodus liberation, but on a grander scale. As Yeshua continues to work wonders, which testify His authority is from God, Lazarus emphasizes that these miraculous events are not just miracles, but "signs" pointing to the fulfillment of prophecy and identifying Yeshua as the long awaited Messiah. In chapter 9 we have another sign, a blind man given sight, which shows us that Yeshua is the promised Messiah.
Thematically, this chapter is tied to the Feast of Tabernacles (ch. 7 & 8) through the explicit reference to Yeshua as the Lght of the World (9:5; cf. 8:12). The miracle of a blind man receiving sight wonderfully illustrates the saying. It provides a physical symbol of the darkness to which Yeshua has referred in John 3:19 and 8:12 . This darkness, this spiritual blindness, is ours from birth. We cannot see the Kingdom of God [3:3] without a birth from above. We need a miraculous divine intervention to reverse this blindness and release us from it. We need the Light of the world.
Sovereign grace dominates this miracle. For no other reason than His own sovereign choice, Yeshua decides to heal this man. The blind man doesn't ask to be healed. Yeshua takes the initiative in this healing. This blind man is a picture of the condition of everyone since the fall; everyone is born spiritually blind. This man lacked the ability to see Yeshua physically, just as unbelievers lack the ability to see Yeshua spiritually. This is the core truth concerning salvation: it is an act of God's sovereign will.
The entire 9th chapter is built around Yeshua's healing of the blind man. And the chapter is devoted to the miracle and the ensuing discussion over Yeshua's authority, identity, and origin.
We ended our study last time with:
Therefore they picked up stones to throw at Him, but Yeshua hid Himself and went out of the temple. John 8:59 NASB
Chapter 9 begins with:
As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. John 9:1 NASB
"As He passed by"—doesn't give us a chronology; the best we can do is say that these events transpired sometime between the Feast of Tabernacles (7:2 ) and the Feast of Dedication (10:22) in A.D. 32.
There are two connections of the content of this story with the Feast of Tabernacles. The first is verse 5 with the repetition of Yeshua's statement from John 8:12, "I am the Light of the world." This has obvious connections to the Ceremony of the Illumination of the Temple that took place the first night of the Feast of the Tabernacles.
The second connection appears in verse 7 where the blind man is sent to wash in the pool of Siloam. This was the pool from which the priests drew the water for the procession of the water ceremony done each morning of the Feast of Tabernacles. These two connections create a literary and theological link between chapter 9 and the material in chapters 7 and 8.
"He saw a man blind from birth"—Yeshua sees the man and knows that he has been blind from birth. We know from verse 8 that this man is a beggar. Speaking about the blind man in Luke 18:35-43 that Yeshua healed, Kenneth Bailey says: "The difficulty with this profession [begging] is that some visible handicap is necessary. A man with one leg or one arm might manage to support himself by begging on a street corner, but a blind man is virtually guaranteed success. At the same time, a blind man, such as the beggar in this story, has no education, training, employment record, or marketable skills. If healed, self-support will be extremely difficult. Indeed, is it not in his interests to remain blind?"(Kenneth Bailey, Yeshua Through Middle Eastern Eyes).
This blind man would most likely station himself outside the Temple. Beggars regularly sat at the gates of temples and shrines hoping to benefit from donors when they would be feeling at their most pious. We see this in:
And a man who had been lame from his mother's womb was being carried along, whom they used to set down every day at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, in order to beg alms of those who were entering the temple. Acts 3:2 NASB
They would beg at the Temple gates because giving of alms was a required duty of Israel:
"For the poor will never cease to be in the land; therefore I command you, saying, 'You shall freely open your hand to your brother, to your needy and poor in your land.' Deuteronomy 15:11 NASB
So it was a custom for all who entered the Temple to carry money with them to give to the treasury, or to the poor, or to both. The Jews regarded blind people as especially worthy of charity.
Blindness is something that we see in all the Gospels. It's a very common experience in New Testament times. Do you know what the greatest ancient contributor to blindness was? It was gonorrhea. And since there was no treatment for that, when a mother had gonorrhea, a baby passing through the birth canal could be caused to go blind. This is why today they put silver nitrate in babies eyes as soon as they are born.
"Blind from birth"—this particular phrase "ek genete" does not occur anywhere else in the New Testament, but it is good Greek for "from the hour of birth."
The fact that he was blind from birth is mentioned 5 times (verses 1,2,19,20,32); the amazing power of the miracle is stated or inferred 5 times (verses 3,8-10,16,18-19,32). This healing is so amazing, so impossible, that the people and the Pharisees found it incredibl;: some of his neighbours didn't believe it was the same man (8-9). The healed blind man says:
"Since the beginning of time it has never been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. John 9:32 NASB
I think it is stressed that this man was blind from birth because this man is representative of all humanity. All mankind is spiritually blind from birth. The Scriptures make that very plain. They say, "The natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them." We are all born blind. It also shows us that Yahweh must do something for us to be able to see.
This man shows us that lost people don't need just a little more information so that they can make an informed decision to get saved. Rather, they need the miracle of spiritual sight that only God can give. When Paul preached and Lydia was in the audience, the Scriptures say, "And the Lord opened her heart," so that she was able to understand the things that Paul spoke. The disciples on the Emmaus Road could only understand when he opened their eyes to understand the things found in the Scripture. We cannot understand spiritual things, we are unable to understand apart from divine enablement. So the man born blind is a living, visible illustration of that truth:
And His disciples asked Him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?" John 9:2 NASB
This is the first direct mention of the disciples since chapter 6. Since blind people usually have an acute sense of hearing, it is likely that this blind man heard the disciples discussing his condition.
What do you see as wrong with their question? Here is a man in need, and the disciples want to have a theological discussion on the cause of his illness. Why didn't they say, "Yeshua, you calmed the storm, you teleported us and the boat to shore, surly you can heal this poor man. Will you heal this blind man, Lord?" None of that compassionate caring stuff, they just want to know why he is blind. They don't seem to be acting much like their Lord who responded with compassion to blind men:
And two blind men sitting by the road, hearing that Yeshua was passing by, cried out, "Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!" The crowd sternly told them to be quiet, but they cried out all the more, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!" And Yeshua stopped and called them, and said, "What do you want Me to do for you?" They said to Him, "Lord, we want our eyes to be opened." Moved with compassion, Yeshua touched their eyes; and immediately they regained their sight and followed Him. Matthew 20:30-34 NASB
Eleven times in the Gospels it says that Yeshua, "felt compassion" for different people in need:
And moved with compassion, He stretched out His hand, and touched him, and said to him, "I am willing; be cleansed." Mark 1:41 NASB
The Greek word here for "compassion" is splagchnizomai , which means: "the bowels." The verb means to "move the bowels." And it came to mean "to move with compassion." This word for compassion is a very strong word. It means to be so moved on the inside that it compelled Him to take action on the outside. Sometimes we see situations, and we would say: "You know, I feel sorry for them." But that is not this word. This word goes well beyond that. It is to be so moved that we actually do something about it to help resolve the situation.
In the compassion of Christ we see that Yahweh is a compassionate God— When Moses stood before the Lord on Mount Sinai, Yahweh revealed Himself to Israel's leader. The first adjective the Lord used to describe Himself to Moses is "compassionate":
Then the LORD passed by in front of him and proclaimed, "The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; Exodus 34:6 NASB
Compassion belongs to Yahweh; it is a vital aspect of His divine nature. So when we look at Christ, we should not be surprised by the compassion that He demonstrated as the Messiah. The Lord Yeshua is a compassionate God.
As Christians, as children of the heavenly Father, we have a duty to imitate Christ, if He is compassionate, we as His image bearers, are to be compassionate:
And so, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; Colossians 3:12 NASB
This phrase could be translated: "put on heartfelt compassion," or "have a deep, gut-level feeling of compassion." Believers must not be indifferent to suffering, but should be concerned to meet people's needs. God wants us to be full of compassion, full of pity toward others. Are you hardhearted toward people who hurt? The world is heartless today. It has become indifferent to suffering and hurt. But as God's children, we are to have a heartfelt compassion toward those who hurt. We are not natural people. We have the Spirit of Yeshua in our hearts, and we should be like Him.
How do we get this heartfelt compassion? By spending time with God. The more you walk with Him, the more you will look like Him. Bible study, prayer, and fellowship aid us in walking in fellowship with our God.
The disciples don't seem to be too compassionate towards this man, they just want to know who sinned; him or his parents? Their premise is: All sickness is the result of sin. The implication is that the righteous are somehow protected from these afflictions and that sinners suffer from the penalty of their sins or their parent's sins. So a person who suffered an illness or a handicap in their life was assumed to have brought that tragedy on by their own sin.
Despite the story of Job and his faithfulness to God during undeserved great suffering, most Jews at Yeshua's time believed that most, if not all, suffering was caused by sin. They believed that there was a direct relationship between sin, sickness, and affliction. One of the rabbis, for example, said, "No death without sin, no suffering without iniquity." These Jews were in effect pioneers of the modern health/wealth Gospel.
The proponents of the health/wealth Gospel teach that God rewards increasing levels of faith with greater amounts of health and wealth. They teach that God not only gives you eternal life, He also wants you to be rich and healthy and pain free and problem free.
Listen to what one of its teachers says: "I am fully convinced——I would die saying it is so—that it is the plan of Our Father God, in His great love and in His great mercy, that no believer should ever be sick; that every believer should live his full life span down here on this earth; and that every believer should finally just fall asleep in Jesus"([Kenneth E. Hagin, Seven Things You Should Know about Divine Healing, p. 21).
The cardinal fault with the health/wealth Gospel is one central tenet: "God wills the physical health and financial prosperity of every Christian, therefore, for a believer to be sick or to live in poverty is living outside God's intended will."
Did the disciples of our Lord live in total victor—-were they healthy, wealthy, pain free? No! None of the apostles were rich. All underwent incredible testing, suffering, and, in at least Paul's case, dire health problems and extreme testing in the area of material privation.
Can sickness come as a result of sin? Yes, that a specific illness or experience of suffering can be the direct consequence of a specific sin is seen in Scripture (Miriam's revolt, Numbers 12) or how about:
For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep. 1 Corinthians 11:30 NASB
So sickness can come as a result of sin, but all sickness is not the effect of individual sins:
Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself! 2 Corinthians 12:7 NASB
As we see in Job's case, a godly person can be afflicted due to no fault of his own.
How can they ask if the man himself had sinned when he was blind from birth? How could he sin before he was born? Some rabbis taught that a baby could sin in a mother's womb. So some of the Jews believed in pre-natal sin. Midrash Rabbah on Song of Songs 1:41 (a rabbinic work) states that when a pregnant woman worships in a heathen temple, the fetus also commits idolatry. According to Pink, "Some of the Jews believed in reincarnation, so that may have been in the back of the disciples' minds." (Arthur W. Pink, Exposition of the Gospel of John,[ 2:64-65].)
Notice how Yeshua answered their question:
Yeshua answered, "It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him. John 9:3 NASB
Yeshua rejected both conclusions that could be drawn from the Jewish assumption. Neither this man nor his parents sinned. So Yeshua is now saying: somebody can have a severe, congenital, life-long illness that has nothing to do with his own sin, or the sins of his parents.
The point Yeshua is making is not that suffering didn't come into the world because of sin. It did. Yeshua said the explanation is found in the sovereign determination of God who has this man at this very place for this very specific purpose.
Yeshua answers His disciples' question in terms of the purpose of the man's blindness and not its cause.
This man's condition has been sovereignly ordained, so that the works of God might be revealed through him.
"But it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him"—in other words, He's blind for the glory of God. He's blind so that we could come to this moment, and this healing, and the power of God be put on display, and the works of God be manifest, and God be glorified.
God intends to display His glory through this blindness. In this case, it happens to be by healing — the glory of God's power to heal. But there is nothing that says it has to be healing. When Paul cried out three times for his thorn in the flesh to be healed, Yeshua said,
And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 NASB
So in Paul's case, God put His power on display, not by healing him, but by sustaining him. The blindness is for the glory of God. The thorn in the flesh is for the glory of God. The healing is for His glory, and the non-healing is for His glory.
What a difference that makes if we realize the experiences that we have are the things that God has brought to us in order that His grace might be manifested.
Notice what Paul writes about suffering:
For to you it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake, Philippians 1:29 NASB
Paul realizes that the threat of persecution and hostility can cause these believers to question the goodness of God. Have you ever asked the question, "If God loves me, why am I suffering? In order to enable these Christians to bear up under persecution, they needed to be reminded that suffering is as much a part of God's eternal purpose for their lives as believing in Christ.
The verse says, "It has been granted"— that is the Greek verb charizomai, which comes from charis, which means: "grace." So charizomai is grace. The noun form is used for spiritual gifts. Vines Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words says, "Charizomai primarily denotes to show favor or kindness as in Galatians 3:18; to give freely, bestow graciously." So Paul is saying that, are you ready for this? Suffering is a grace gift from God.
"For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe"—he compares suffering with salvation. Both are grace gifts. Salvation is a gift, according to Ephesians 2:8-9, and so is suffering. He doesn't say that suffering is punishment or that it is something that has happened to you by chance. God gives suffering as graciously and lovingly as He gives you the faith to believe in His Son.
Does this make sense to you? Suffering, affliction, and oppression are a gracious gift from God? How can Paul say that suffering is a gift of God? This should show us how far we have come from the thinking of Christians in the first century. God giving suffering as a gracious gift doesn't make any sense to us. That we should be grateful for it, that it should make us happy, that it should make us feel honored and blessed, that we should see it as a manifestation of God's love—that doesn't make sense to us. But it did to the first century believers, because they were familiar with suffering.
Should we tear this verse out of the Bible and throw it out? Maybe this is just one isolated instance of a raving man who has a martyr complex. No! This is God's inspired Word. I don't know how the health/wealth teachers deal with this verse. It sure doesn't fit their theology.
John Piper in his 1986 book, Desiring God, summarizes the Christian life as "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him." I think he is right. When we are thankful, grateful people, no matter what our circumstances are, we bring glory to God:
"We must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day; night is coming when no one can work. John 9:4 NASB
"The earliest manuscripts have: "It is necessary for us to do the deeds of the one who sent us," but some early manuscripts and related later witnesses have "I must do the deeds of the one who sent me." In most witnesses, early and late, the pronouns agree, with us/us or/me. The difference is whether a pronoun is plural or singular. (Brannan, R., & Loken, I. [2014]. The Lexham Textual Notes on the Bible [Jn 9:4]. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.)
Here, He pulls the disciples in with the "we." They are all together called to "work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day."
The word "must" is a word of divine necessity. We saw it back in 4:4, where it says, "And He had to pass through Samaria." "Had" is the same word in Greek, it is dei. It is often translated "must" in the Fourth Gospel. It seems that whenever Lazarus uses the impersonal verb dei the necessity involves God's will or plan. Although the Pharisees were threatening to kill Yeshua and His death was just months ahead, He must work the works of the Father who sent Him.
This is another example of "light" verses "dark" imagery. The days of opportunity are indeed short for the nation Israel. There is but a very small window of opportunity for Israel to repent and be saved. Jerusalem and the Temple will be destroyed, and the nation will be judged for its sin, and especially for its rejection of Messiah:
"While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world." John 9:5 NASB
In 8:12, in connection with the Jewish ceremony of lighting bright torches at the Feast of Tabernacles, Yeshua boldly proclaimed, "I am the Light of the world". Here He repeats that, and then demonstrates it by healing the blind man.
Yeshua is the True Light because without Him all creation is in darkness: creation and mankind cannot understand itself, know itself, or know where it is going without His "Light." Lazarus told us in 1:9: "The Word was the real light that gives light to everyone."
When He had said this, He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and applied the clay to his eyes, John 9:6 NASB
"When He had said this"—these words tie verse 6 to verses 4-5. Yeshua has just declared that He is the Light of the World (v. 5); He now proceeds to illustrate the point by giving light to the man born blind:
"He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and applied the clay to his eyes"—please notice here that Yeshua takes the initiative. The blind man, becomes the object of divine mercy. This is a Calvinistic healing.
Why does Yeshua use spit and mud to heal this man? Why not just speak the word as He did in Matthew 20:30-34? Or apply just His saliva as He did to heal the deaf man with the speech impediment in the Decapolis (Mark 7:33) and the blind man near Bethsaida (Mark 8:23). Why use spit? Scholars often cite rabbinic opinion to the effect that the saliva of the firstborn of a father has healing properties, but not the saliva of the firstborn of a mother (B. Baba Bathra 126b). Spit was recognized in ancient times as having medicinal (and even magical) value.
Some say that Yeshua used saliva and mud to associate this act of healing with
divine creation (Gen. 2:7). He was creating eyes. There are many guesses as to why Yeshua used spit and mud. And they are just that; guesses. I think the answer may lie in verse 14:
Now it was a Sabbath on the day when Yeshua made the clay and opened his eyes. John 9:14 NASB
By doing this, Yeshua deliberately violated several of the manmade additions to the Law of Moses that the Jews had invented. Making clay was a breach of a prohibition of kneading on the Sabbath. Mishnah, m. Shabbat 7:2, said kneading dough or other substances on the Sabbath was prohibited. I think he did this to cause a controversy with the religious leaders. He is giving sight to a blind man, but he is doing it in such a way that it is a violation of their Sabbath Laws. How can this be? Remember:
"Since the beginning of time it has never been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. John 9:32 NASB
No one had ever done this before, and this, as we'll see, is a prophesied work of Messiah.
and said to him, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam" (which is translated, Sent). So he went away and washed, and came back seeing. John 9:7 NASB
"Go, wash in the pool of Siloam"—Siloam likely had some mythological reputation surrounding it, suggesting that someone could be healed by entering the pool at particular times under certain conditions, we saw this in chapter 5.
King Hezekiah, descendant of the great King David, built this pool in the 7th century BC. He built this reservoir to supply Jerusalem with water in the event the city was besieged by a foreign army, which was exactly what happened (see 2 Kings 20:20, 2 Chronicles 32:30).
It was one of several Jerusalem pools but the water that fed it flowed through a subterranean conduit from the Gihon stream; a spring which bore the same name as one of the 4 rivers that flowed out from the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:13). The prophets of the Old Covenant spoke of the waters of Siloam as a sign of God's divine favor and protection as in Isaiah 8:6-7.
In the fall of 2004 workers repairing a sewage pipe in the old city of Jerusalem discovered a series of ancient steps leading to large area covered in water-proof plaster. The Israeli Antiquities Authority officials believe this is the biblical "Pool of Siloam," a site lost since the destruction of Jerusalem when it was leveled by the Roman Army .The excavations of the site have revealed a much more elaborate pool and water system than previously believed. Located where Lazarus identified the site in his Gospel account, the excavation substantiates that the site of the Siloam Pool of Yeshua's time was a large freshwater reservoir that served as a gathering place and a focus of religious pilgrimages for the faithful, just as Lazarus describes in his Gospel. [For more information on this discovery, visit the website "www.bibleplaces.com/poolofsiloam.htm"]
As I said earlier, this pool of Siloam connects this text with the last two chapters during the Feast of Tabernacles. It was from this reservoir that the High Priest collected water in a golden pitcher to be poured out as a libation on God's holy altar of sacrifice in the courtyard of the Temple.
The water of Siloam symbolized the blessings of the promised Messianic Age looked for during this Feast, therefore, in Yeshua's case, the source of these blessings is Yeshua Himself who has come to heal and restore the sight of faith to Israel.
"(which is translated, Sent)"—Lazarus makes a point of telling us that Siloam is a word which means "sent" (verse 7). Surely the meaning of Siloam is important, or Lazarus would not have included this detail. The man was "sent" to the pool named "sent" by a man who was "sent" from heaven to the earth by the Father.
Westcott believed that the interpretation of the name of the pool ("sent") connects the pool with Christ, not with the man. It was when the man went to Him who had been "sent" from the Father, which the name of the pool reflected, that he was healed.
Christ is the true Siloam. He even said back in chapter 7 verse 37. "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink."
"So he went away and washed"—no questions he just goes and washes. Remember Christ never promised him healing. What a difference between the response that Naaman made when Elisha said to him, "Go wash in the Jordan River seven times." Naaman, thought, me an important man in Syria go dip myself in that dirty little stream seven times. It's ridiculous.
"And came back seeing"—this man, who was blind from birth, now sees. There are more miracles of the giving of sight to the blind recorded of Yeshua than healings in any other category.
What does this miracle tell us? One of the signs of the coming of the Messiah would be that He would open the eyes of blind:
On that day the deaf will hear words of a book, And out of their gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind will see. Isaiah 29:18 NASB
And then in one of the great Messianic passages of the Tanakh, the passage in which we find the words, "The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom like a rose," there are these words:
Then the eyes of the blind will be opened And the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. Isaiah 35:5 NASB
Isaiah chapter 42 says that as the servant of Yahweh, part of His ministry will be to open the eyes of the blind:
To open blind eyes, To bring out prisoners from the dungeon And those who dwell in darkness from the prison. Isaiah 42:7 NASB
It is in fulfillment of these prophecies that Yeshua gives sight to the blind. As the Light of the World He has defeated the darkness (cf. 1:5). Thus the miracle recorded here has significance for John as one of the seven "sign-miracles" which he employs to point to Yeshua's identity and messiahship.
But something else that is significant about it is that in the Tanakh the opening of men's eyes is connected with the ministry of Yahweh:
The LORD said to him, "Who has made man's mouth? Or who makes him mute or deaf, or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Exodus 4:11 NASB
The LORD opens the eyes of the blind; The LORD raises up those who are bowed down; The LORD loves the righteous; Psalms 146:8 NASB
So we find two things then in this sign, an evidence of the fact that He is the Messiah. And secondly, confirmation of the fact that the Messiah is Himself Yahweh. So this is a very important miracle identifying Him as the one for whom Israel was waiting. If you don't see the deity of Christ, if you don't see that Yeshua is Yahweh, in this Gospel something is wrong with your eyes.
In the Gospels our Lord gave sight to a number of people who were blind, but this healing in our text is the only healing of its kind. Every instance of someone blind receiving their sight at the hand of our Lord is different. In Matthew chapter 9 and 20 we read that Yeshua touched the eyes of two blind men. In Mark 8 we have the account of Yeshua spitting in the eyes of a blind man and laying His hands on him, and his sight was restored. In Mark 10 Yeshua said to the blind man, "Go; your faith has made you well." Immediately he regained his sight." In Luke 18 Yeshua simply said, "Receive thy sight," and the blind man was made whole. Why so many different ways of healing the blind? I think so we would understand that the healing comes from Yeshua, not the method.
Imagine if Yeshua healed all the sick people by spitting on the ground, making mud and then applying it to the needy areas. You can guess what some of the tele-evangelists would be doing today! They'd be selling spit and mud instead of anointed handkerchiefs. The healing didn't come from the spit and mud, it came from the will of our sovereign compassionate God, Yeshua.