As questioning continues, the healed man asks sarcastically whether his interrogators also want to become Jesus' disciples. They revile him and answer, 'Thou art his disciple; but we are Moses' disciples.'
The exchange moves from investigating a healing to competing claims about legitimate teachers and religious authority.
Moses stood at the foundation of Israel's covenant and Torah, so claiming to be Moses' disciples invokes the highest scriptural authority. The healed man counters from the sign itself: opening the eyes of one born blind is unprecedented, and he argues from familiar biblical convictions that God hears those who worship him and do his will.
His statement 'God heareth not sinners' is part of the man's argument and should not be converted into an absolute rule denying that God can hear any prayer uttered by a sinner.
The social dynamics reveal a striking reversal. The recognized authorities increasingly rely on insult and status, while the formerly blind man develops a progressively clearer argument about Jesus.
When they finally dismiss him as 'born entirely in sins,' they return to the assumption about disability and sin that Jesus rejected at the beginning of the chapter.