When the Lord Jesus saw this blind man, He said, “While I am in the world, I am the light of the world” (9:5). The Lord is the light of life (8:12). Blindness comes from the shortage of the light of life. Every dead person is a blind man. Undoubtedly, the dead cannot see anything. Therefore, blindness indicates the lack of life. If you have life, then you have sight, for light opens your eyes. So, first of all, the Lord pointed out that the blind man needed the light of life.
Verse 6 is very interesting. “When He had said this, He spat on the ground and made clay of the spittle and anointed his eyes with the clay.” When I was a young Christian, not understanding the meaning of this verse, I laughed at what the Lord did. What He did was very strange. No one likes to touch a person’s spittle. But the Lord Jesus mixed His spittle with the ground and made clay. Then He used the clay to anoint the man’s eyes. The Gospel of John is a book of pictures, and this incident is a picture. We should not understand it merely according to the black and white letters. We must pray and look to the Lord that we may receive the true meaning.
I cannot tell you how much time I have spent in studying this point. I consulted various books in my attempt to find an interpretation, but I did not find one. One day, not more than twenty-five years ago, I saw the matter of the mingling of the divine life with humanity. This word “mingling” has been in use by us for not more than twenty-five years. If you go to the Christian bookstores, you will not find even one book that speaks about mingling. The most that the books speak of is union with Christ or identification with Him. Not one book discusses this matter of mingling. In 1958, when I first visited this country, I delivered a message on the mingling of the divine life with humanity. A preacher, a graduate of Oxford, immediately corrected my English, saying that mingling was not the right word and that I should use the word “co-mingling.” I replied, “Whether this word is the right English word or not I am not sure because English is not my mother tongue, but I do know that there is such a fact between the divine life and humanity.” Later, I received a confirmation from the book of Leviticus that the word mingling was the right word.
The word mingling is used in Leviticus 2:5. “And if thy oblation be a meat offering baked in a pan, it shall be of fine flour unleavened, mingled with oil.” This is a type. The fine flour typifies the humanity of the Lord Jesus, and the oil typifies the Holy Spirit, the divinity of the Lord Jesus. Therefore, in the Person of the Lord Jesus there is the mingling of divinity with humanity. Thus, when I visited this country the second time, I began to speak boldly about the mingling of the divine life with our humanity. Some cautioned me not to speak much about this, but rather to stay within the limits of identification and union. I said, “Brothers, I don’t care for the human concept. I only care for the pure Word. How about Leviticus 2:5—the fine flour mingled with the oil? Do not come to me. You should go to Moses. He was the first one to use this word.” Since 1963 the Lord has burdened us to publish the magazine entitled The Stream. Again and again in that magazine we have spoken about the mingling. Now many people are picking up this thought.
Now we may return to John 9 and apply to it this concept of the mingling of divinity with humanity. The clay in 9:6, as in Romans 9:21, signifies humanity. Man is clay. We all are clay. What is the spittle? Spittle here, as something “that proceeds out of the mouth” (Matt. 4:4) of the Lord, signifies His “words which...are spirit and life” (John 6:63). Figuratively speaking, the spittle is the Word, which is spirit and life, that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. The Word that proceeds out of the mouth of Christ is spirit. Thus, to mingle spittle with the clay signifies the mingling of humanity with the Lord’s living Word. The word “anointed” proves this, because the Lord’s Spirit is the anointing Spirit (Luke 4:18; 2 Cor. 1:21-22; 1 John 2:27). The spittle, then, signifies the Word, the outflow of the very element or essence of the Lord Himself. The clay was mingled with the spittle. This signifies that the Lord mingles His essence with us by and even with His Word. We are clay by nature, and the very essence of the Lord in the Word is the spittle. Formerly, when we were sinners, we were dead. When we heard the Word of the Lord, His Word came into us as those made of clay. When we heard and received the gospel, it was actually the spittle of the Lord that came into us, men of clay. In other words, the clay received something that proceeded out of the mouth of the Lord and was mingled with it.
The mingling of divinity with humanity is the most prevailing ointment on the whole earth. No other ointment can surpass it. The Lord anointed the man’s blind eyes with the clay that was mingled with spittle. This signifies the anointing of the Spirit of life. The anointing of the Spirit of life follows the mingling of the Lord in His Word with the clay. Immediately after you receive the Lord through His Word, there is the anointing of the Spirit of life. The Lord’s anointing the blind eyes with the clay made of His spittle signifies that by the anointing of the mingling of the Lord’s Word, which is His Spirit, with our humanity, our eyes, which were blinded by Satan, may have sight.