If we read the entire chapter leading up to this verse, it is a report of Jesus seeing a man born blind.His disciples asked whose sin caused the blindness. The original greek text did not have punctuation. I think the KJV punctuates Jesus' reply incorrectly. Jesus says IMO, "
John 9:3-5 Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents. But that the works of God should be made manifest in him, I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day. The night cometh, when no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.
Jesus makes some mud and puts it in the man's eyes and tells Him to go wash in the pool pf Siloam. After doing so the man could see. His neighbours saw that he could see, and saw that he was the man born blind. Some doubted it was the same man, but the man insisted he was that born blind man. When asked how he received his sight, he confesses that Ja man called Jesus had healed him. They brought the healed man to the pharisees. We aren't told why. The pharisees questioned him to ascertain if he had truly been born blind and healed. Some pharisees insisted Jesus had sinned by healing on the sabbath, others said that a sinner couldn't do such a miracle. They asked the healed man what he thought of Jesus. He said he saw Hm as a prophet. The pharisees doubted he had really been blind , so asked His parents whether he had been blind, and how it was that he could now see. They had not seen the miracle happen, so tell the pharisees to ask the son, knowing that the Jews had threatened to cast out of he synagogue anyone who confesses Jesus as Messiah. The pharisees claim to know Jesus us a sinner and therefore not a prophet, The man says all he knows is that he was blind but now because of Jesus he can see. They ask again how Jesus did it, believing that making mud and applying it to the man's eyes was working on the sabbath. The man upsets them by asking if they are considering becoming Jesus disciples, and they deny it, saying they are Moses disciples, because they know who Moses father was, but they don't know who Jesus' Father is. The man points out the marvel of the fact that this man is, like Melchisedek, without an identified father. And Jesus has healed blindness. He proposes that God does not listen to sinners, but has listened to Jesus, so Jesus cannot be a sinner as they accuse Him of being. The pharisees then assert that his blindness was a result of his being born in sin, something Jesus had denied was the case, and they banish the man.
Jesus find him and asks him if he believes in the Son of God. The man says, tell me who he is, I can't believe in him, unless I know who he is. Jesu says, "You've seen Him. It's Me." And the man, recognising the voice as Jesus, believes in and worships Him.
Jesus then says, "I came into the world so that those who are not seeing might keep on seeing (present subjunctive); and those who are seeing might start to become (aorist subjunctive) blind."
Some pharisees say, "Are we blind too?"
Jesus replies, "If you were blind you would have no sin, but because you say, 'We see,' your sin remains. "
Notes -
The blind man, though blind, having heard of someone called Jesus, believed that Jesus was able to heal him and obeyed Him, going to wash in the pool of Siloam, and was healed. When he saw that he could see, He confessed Jesus a prophet. When He saw the man who had healed him, He realised that this man before him was the one who had healed him, and when this man claimed to be the Messiah, he believed Him and worshipped him.
The pharisees, though sighted, saw all the evidence the man born blind was able to see, and that he had been healed by Jesus. They refused to acknowledge the reality they were observing with their own eyes, which pointed to Jesus being God-sent, and they insisted on defaming Jesus, and persecuting and ostracising those who were accepting Him as God-sent. They were claiming to see reality, but they were misrepresenting to people the reality they could clearly see, and mistreating those who confessed the very reality the pharisees could clearly see. And these were the people charged with explaining the law and prophets to the tribes, so that they could identify the true Messiah when He came.
What was their sin? Bearing false witness against Christ. If they could not see Jesus was the Messiah, they would not be bearing false witness. But they could see Jesus was the Messiah, and yet broadcast the opposite, so false-witness remained their sin.
