"Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth." (John 9:41) (KJV)
One Maxim, Many Forms: Incompetence Removes Culpability
The sayings
“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” and
“If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains”
are not two different ideas. They are two expressions of the same legal rule.
In law, culpability presupposes competence.
Where there is no competence, there is no meaningful assignment of guilt.
Not knowing what one is doing and not seeing are juridically equivalent states. Both describe incapacity to make a responsible decision. A blind person cannot be judged for choosing the wrong path. A person acting in ignorance cannot be held fully accountable for the outcome. This is why Jesus’ prayer from the cross is not sentimental mercy but a legal reclassification: he is declaring incompetence, and therefore removing culpability.
This principle resounds throughout the Gospels. The one who is faithful in little is entrusted with much—not as a reward, but because proven competence expands jurisdiction. Conversely, the one entrusted with much is judged more severely for failure, not because God is harsher with them, but because knowledge creates responsibility. This is also why Jesus insists that prophets must come and warn people. Without warning, destruction would be meaningless as judgment. It would be mere tragedy. Warning creates competence; competence creates responsibility; responsibility makes judgment intelligible.
Outcomes vs. Decision-Makers
This is where the analogy to the sword-bearer and the vulture becomes crucial.
A person who kills a sword-bearer is not the true decision-maker; the sword-bearer is.
A vulture feeding on a carcass is not the cause of death; it is the outcome of death.
In both cases, responsibility shifts upstream, away from the visible actor and toward the one who created the condition in which the act became inevitable and non-prosecutable.
Now apply this same logic to ignorance and sin.
A blind person is not a decision-maker in the full sense.
A sinner acting without understanding is not the final locus of responsibility.
They are outcomes.
The true decision-makers are those who see, know, and claim understanding—and yet fail to order reality accordingly.
The Pharisees as the True Responsible Agents
This is why Jesus’ conflict with the Pharisees is not about moral superiority or hypocrisy in the shallow sense. It is juridical.
The Pharisees say, “We see.”
That declaration fixes liability.
From that moment on, they cannot appeal to ignorance, confusion, or blindness. They have claimed competence. And competence carries with it the duty to shape the world so that blindness and chaos do not proliferate.
This leads to the uncomfortable but inescapable conclusion I am drawing:
The existence and persistence of “sinners” is not an embarrassment to Jesus—it is an indictment of the knowledgeable.
Just as a carcass cannot complain about vultures, and a sword-bearer cannot complain about violence, the Pharisees cannot complain about sinners. Their complaint itself is illegitimate. It is evidence that they misunderstand their role.
If they truly saw, the world around them would look different.
Why Jesus Eats with Sinners
This also explains why Jesus’ association with sinners is so offensive to the Pharisees—and why their offense has no standing.
They feel disrespected by the presence of sinners, just as a corpse might feel disrespected by vultures if it still imagined itself worthy of honor. But respect is not claimed; it is preserved by remaining alive. In legal terms, status must be maintained by fulfilling responsibility, not by demanding distance from outcomes.
Jesus lives as the Pharisees should have lived.
He sees, and therefore he acts.
He knows, and therefore he bears responsibility.
He does not complain that sinners exist. He treats them as evidence that responsibility has been abdicated elsewhere.
The Final Parallel
So the analogy holds across all the cases:
- The sword-bearer cannot complain about death by the sword.
- The carcass cannot complain about vultures.
- The blind cannot be judged as decision-makers.
- The sinners cannot be the primary defendants.
- The knowledgeable cannot complain about the consequences of their failure.
In every case, complaint is disallowed where responsibility has been forfeited or abdicated.
This is why Jesus’ harshest words are reserved not for sinners, but for those who claim sight. And this is why his mercy flows first toward those who “do not know what they are doing.” Mercy follows law; it does not abolish it.