John 9:24
Then again called they the man that was blind, and said unto him, Give God the praise: we know that this man is a sinner. Then again called they the man that was blind, and said unto him, Give God the praise: we know that this man is a sinner.
The religious leaders called the man who had been blind back a second time and ordered him to give God the praise while declaring that Jesus was a sinner. Their order to give God the glory meant giving God alone the credit for the miracle and denying that Jesus had performed it. They insisted that Jesus could not have done it and treated the healing as a deception.
They used that demand to press the man to stop saying that Jesus had given him sight. They pressed him to deny Christ, to distrust what he knew from his own experience, and so to smother his testimony. In this they tried to close his eyes and keep him from seeing the truth about Jesus.
Their charge that Jesus was a sinner disputed the truth of His words. It served their effort to avoid acknowledging Him as the Christ. The accusation sprang from envy and jealousy over His popularity. It sprang also from hatred because He would not receive their ideas, and from fear that He would be honored above them.
Despite the wonderful evidence of His mission in giving sight to a man born blind, they were hardened by prejudice and unbelief. They were spiritually blind, choosing to remain in darkness rather than receive enlightenment. By that choice they made themselves even more blind. Against their accusation stood the man's testimony that he could not judge whether Jesus was a sinner, but he knew this one thing, that he had been blind and now could see.
Their contemptuous rejection of his testimony and their expulsion of him showed them acting as false shepherds who scatter the sheep. Against their self-righteous scorn stood Christ the compassionate Shepherd, who sought to save him. In Him was revealed God's compassion for the sinner. The episode belongs to a wider pattern in which Jesus in compassion draws near to people who do not yet know Him. The blind man did not know who had done this gracious work for him until Jesus revealed Himself to him as the Son of God, and then the man worshiped Him.