2BeLikeChrist Bible Commentary John Chapter 5
Commentary - John Chapter 5
John 5:1
Joh 5:1 After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
Between chapters 4 and 5 there is probably a significant amount of time.
At the end of chapter 4, Jesus had just made a trip from the South up to Galilee.
At the opening of chapter 5, we find Him heading back down south to Jerusalem.
John 5:2-5
Joh 5:2 Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades.
Joh 5:3 In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed.
Joh 5:5 One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.
Now let me read these verses from the KJV.
Joh 5:3 In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water.
Joh 5:4 For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.
Joh 5:5 And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years.
Why is part of verse 3 and all of verse 4 not found in the ESV.
This isn’t a class on textual criticism so I’ll give you the short answer.
Since the time the KJV was published (1611) older manuscripts (copies) of the scriptures have been found that don’t include this section.
This finding led the translators of many newer translations to leave the section out.
The Sheep Gate was on the east side of Jerusalem.
It would be a natural entry point when arriving from the Mount of Olives or Bethany.
There were 5 “colonnades” around this pool.
A colonnade is a row of columns supporting a roof.
In these colonnades there were a large number of sick and handicapped people.
One of the men there had been handicapped 38 years.
John 5:6-8
Joh 5:6 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?”
Joh 5:7 The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.”
Joh 5:8 Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.”
Jesus walked up to the handicapped man and asked him if he would like to be healed.
The obvious answer was, “yes.”
But… The man then told Jesus why he couldn’t be healed.
He didn’t have anyone to help him get into the water when it was troubled by the angel.
Someone always got there first.
Jesus tells the man, “Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.”
Verse 9 tells us that is exactly what he did.
APPLICATION:
In some ways, this parallels Christian salvation.
Here was a man who was sick, wanted to be healed, but didn’t have the ability.
Human beings are sick (with sin), some want to be healed, but don’t have the ability.
What needed/needs to happen in the man’s case and in the sinner’s case?
They needed/need Jesus to do for them what they couldn’t.
John 5:9-10
Joh 5:9 And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked: and on the same day was the sabbath.
Joh 5:10 The Jews therefore said unto him that was cured, It is the sabbath day: it is not lawful for thee to carry thy bed.
Jesus’ word rebuilt the man’s muscles, bones, and calibrated his balance all in a matter of seconds.
As Jesus commanded, the man got up, picked up the bed on which he was laying, and walked away.
But as with all good deeds, someone took issue.
It was a Sabbath and on Sabbath the Jews were not supposed to do any kind of work.
The command to observe Sabbath (Shabbat) as a rest day is written in Exodus 31:12-17.
Exo 31:12-17 And the LORD said to Moses, “You are to speak to the people of Israel and say, ‘Above all you shall keep my Sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the LORD, sanctify you. You shall keep the Sabbath, because it is holy for you. Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death. Whoever does any work on it, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day shall be put to death. Therefore the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout their generations, as a covenant forever. It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.’”
The Jewish Talmud, a document which records the Jew’s oral traditions about the Law of Moses, mentions 39 things the rabbis forbid on Sabbath.
*keep in mind, these 39 things came out of the traditions of the Jews. Their traditions may or may not have accurately reflected God’s law.
These can be found in the first tractate of Seder Moed (“Order of Appointment”) in the Talmud.
1. Carrying
2. Burning
3. Extinguishing
4. Finishing
5. Writing
6. Erasing
7. Cooking
8. Washing
9. Sewing
10. Tearing
11. Knotting
12. Untying
13. Shaping
14. Plowing
15. Planting
16. Reaping
17. Harvesting
18. Threshing
19. Winnowing
20. Selecting
21. Sifting
22. Grinding
23. Kneading
24. Combing
25. Spinning
26. Dyeing
27. Chain-stitching
28. Warping
29. Weaving
30. Unraveling
31. Building
32. Demolishing
33. Trapping
34. Shearing
35. Slaughtering
36. Skinning
37. Tanning
38. Smoothing
39. Marking
One verse they probably referenced for the prohibition of carrying was Jeremiah 17:21-22.
Jer 17:21 Thus says the LORD: Take care for the sake of your lives, and do not bear a burden on the Sabbath day or bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem. ◦
Jer 17:22 And do not carry a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath or do any work, but keep the Sabbath day holy, as I commanded your fathers.
The Jews in our text were angry because they perceived the man to be violating the Sabbath law by carrying his bed.
Even today, there is still a lot of discussion as to whether Jesus told the man to do something the Law prohibited.
Some say this command was in fact contrary to the Law of Moses.
Some say it wasn’t and the intention behind a verse like Jeremiah 17:21-22 and the way “burden” is used is not applicable in this context.
I’ve heard some interesting arguments on both sides. For the sake of completing this chapter in 1 video, we won’t have time to dig into all of them.
I want to provide you with, what I believe, is the most important things to remember:
Moses, nor the written law God used Him to communicate, were the ultimate Jewish authority.
God, who had given the Law was the ultimate Jewish authority.
And if God, who created the Old Testament Law, told you it was ok to carry your bed on the Sabbath day, it was ok to carry your bed on the Sabbath day.
In our gospel of Matthew study we talked about Jesus’ statement about Himself, “For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath,” and how He had authority to speak to what was/wasn’t permitted on Sabbath.
Jesus, as God, established the Sabbath and if He wished to grant a Sabbath exception for this man to carry his bed, it was fully within His authority to do so.
John 5:11-13
Joh 5:11 But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’”
Joh 5:12 They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?”
Joh 5:13 Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place.
The Jews wanted to know why the man was carrying his bed.
He responded in verse 11, telling them the man who had healed him was the one who told him to take up his bed.
The answer of the Jews in verse 12 is curious and telling.
They didn’t ask, “Who healed you?”
They asked, “Who is the man who told you to break the Sabbath law (*paraphrase*).
They cared more about policing the law than they cared about knowing a man who possessed the power of the Law Giver.
They couldn’t recognize the God they claimed to serve even when He was walking in their neighborhood.
And there are many times in the gospels when Jesus showed the Jewish religious leaders their ignorance of their God prevented them from interpreting His law correctly.
APPLICATION:
Does that ever happen to people today?
Yes!
There are religious people who love to police “doctrinal” issues.
They pride themselves on dealing with the tiny technicalities of commands
They fancy themselves experts of the minute details.
But they are doctrinally wrong!
Their interpretations of micro details are wrong because they have no macro understanding of the rest of the scriptures and the character of God.
The Jews got so buried down in the minutia of the Old Testament Law they missed the forest for the trees.
They were supposed to be looking for a Messiah, but when He showed up with the signs to prove His identity they wanted to kill Him.
They had made their interpretation of the Law their god.
They had nothing to learn, not even from a miracle worker.
Anything that contradicted their interpretation was immediately ruled out as heretical and wasn’t worth considering (dangerous attitude).
The man who had been healed couldn’t answer the Jew’s questions.
He didn’t know Jesus.
And Jesus didn’t stick around. The text says He “had withdrawn.”
John 5:14
Joh 5:14 Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.”
How should we interpret this verse?
Should we conclude all sickness and disability are the result of some sin in our past?
No, that conclusion isn’t consistent with what we see in John chapter 9.
In John 9, Jesus encounters a blind man.
His disciples ask, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
Jesus told them neither was the case.
In light of John 9 and other passages, I believe we must understand this statement as specific to the man to whom it was directed.
His handicap may have come as a result of him indulging in sin 38 years ago.
Sin comes with terrible consequences sometimes and it is possible his resulted in the inability to use his legs.
We aren’t given any additional details about what happened to him.
An alternative interpretation:
This statement could be a general instruction from Jesus to avoid living in sin.
Perhaps we could paraphrase Jesus as saying, “If you thought 38 years of being invalid was bad, the consequences of living in sin are worse. Don’t waste the new health you’ve been given and end up in a worse position in the end.
John 5:15-16
Joh 5:15 The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him.
Joh 5:16 And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath.
The healed man then returned to the Jews and told them it was Jesus who had healed him.
This made them angry and they persecuted Jesus because he wouldn’t submit to their interpretation of the Sabbath laws.
He blatantly rejected their definition of “working on the Sabbath day.”
And there was a sense in which the Sabbath law, which was designed for men, didn’t apply to Christ (see the next verse).
John 5:17-18
Joh 5:17 But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”
Joh 5:18 This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
Jesus turns to the Jews and says, “My Father is working and I work.”
God doesn’t rest on the Sabbath day.
He gave an example of rest on the seventh day of creation for the benefit of men, not because He needed a day off.
The world didn’t fall apart every Saturday because God stopped sustaining it.
Prayers didn’t have to wait in the queue until God went back to work on Sunday.
The Sabbath law was given by God to the Jews.
They were to do no work on Sabbath.
No Jew had an exception to that rule.
Jesus tells the Jews He was an exception.
He was at work with His Father on Sabbath.
Who do you have to be to be exempt from the Sabbath law?
What was Jesus claiming?
The Jews understood exactly what Jesus was claiming.
He was claiming to be equal with God.
That is the only way He could work on Sabbath.
If you had just observed the miraculous healing of this handicapped man, Jesus’ statement should have been a pretty compelling line of evidence.
Why?
Because if Jesus was blaspheming here, God never would have given Him the supernatural power to heal this sick man.
And this was no slight of hand miracle.
This man had been an invalid for 38 years.
Imagine how many people in Jerusalem had seen him and could confirmed his prior state.
In 38 years, probably EVERYBODY in Jerusalem!
The fact that Jesus had the power to perform this miracle on the Sabbath day and then to claim His equality with God, should have been a heads-up to the Jews that God agreed with Him and maybe they should as well!
The way the Jews responded is the way people respond when logic and good reason get pushed out by personal motives.
SIDE NOTE:
Christians often cite John 5:18 to show Jesus’ equality with God.
Sometimes time only permits us to discuss this one verse.
But if you can find time to show someone the entire context of John 5, it makes an even stronger argument.
John 5:19-20
Joh 5:19 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.
Joh 5:20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel.
Jesus had just claimed to be God.
The Jews wanted to kill Him for it.
How did He respond?
He certainly didn’t walk-back His comment in verse 17.
He doubled down.
We see no withdraw from Jesus.
The anger of the Jews wasn’t enough to get Jesus to temper His language.
He tells the Jews His work and God’s work are united.
They are one-in-the-same.
The Son (Jesus) doesn’t do anything “of his own accord.”
Doesn’t do anything independently from God.
They are always in harmony.
Jesus’ work is not and cannot be separated from God.
“For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.”
The Jews had just accused Jesus of violating God’s will.
Jesus tells them that is impossible!
Verse 20 says the Son is privy to “all” the work of God.
God revealed all His work and motives to Jesus.
No human being, no prophet, no priest, no holy man, had every received insight into “all” God was doing in the world.
Some were given tiny slivers of insight.
Jesus knew it all.
Jesus then tells them, through Him, the Father would show “greater works than these.”
Greater work than healing a man who had been lame 38 years.
The greater work is described in the next few verses.
John 5:21-23
Joh 5:21 For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will.
Joh 5:22 For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son,
Joh 5:23 that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.
In these verses, Jesus claims as His own two attributes which the Jews would have attributed to God.
1. He claims power as a life giver (verse 21).
The Jews believed Genesis 1.
God created life, could take life, and could give life to the dead.
2. He claims authority as a judge (verse 22).
The Jews believed God would judge the nations.
They believed He would judge the hearts of individual men.
Even today, these positions are positions reserved for God.
No human being has the ability to create life or raise the dead.
No human being can be the ultimate and fair judge, because perfect judgment requires perfect knowledge, and God alone has perfect knowledge.
There is no mistaking what Jesus is claiming.
He goes on to say, God desires Jesus’ possession of this authority to be made known in the world.
Why?
So the Son (Jesus) will receive the same honor as God.
“that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father.”
Now, if you were a Jew, or if you are modern reader who knows the Old Testament, you’ll know the Old Testament scriptures are very adamant that there is ONLY ONE GOD and He did not share His honor with anyone!
So if you are an Old Testament law abiding Jew and you just witnessed a man miraculously heal another man and then claim to deserve the honor belonging to God, you’ve got some explaining to do.
Clearly God is the power behind this man’s work.
God would never empower a person who was going to turn around and blaspheme.
The healer then turns to you and tells you He deserves God’s honor.
In my view, you have two choices:
1. Discredit the miracle (which, as we mentioned, would have been a pretty hard thing to do).
2. Conclude that this man was God.
Conclude Jesus shared in the divine nature as God.
At the end of verse 23, Jesus tells the Jews they must honor both the Son and the Father.
They could not claim to love the Father without loving the Son (which is exactly what many of the Jews were claiming).
The work of the Father and the work of the Son are inseparable.
To hate part is to hate the whole.
John 5:24
Joh 5:24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
God had sent Jesus into the world as the Word of life.
Those who accepted God’s message as it came through Jesus would have eternal life.
This was in contrast to those who were spiritually dead in sin (Eph 2:1).
Those who accepted the Son, received His message, were born again, received eternal life, they would avoid the judgment (condemnation) of those spiritually dead.
John 5:25
Joh 5:25 “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.
Jesus uses the word “dead” in at least two ways.
1. Physically dead people.
2. Spiritually dead people.
A sinner who is separated from God.
A person who hasn’t been born again to new life in Christ.
In which sense is Jesus using the word here?
In my understanding, verse 25 is talking about those who are spiritually dead.
Those who are spiritually dead in sin have the opportunity to hear the instruction of Jesus (He calls Himself the “Son of God” here) and “live.”
In Genesis 1 the voice of God gave life to all things.
Jesus arrived on earth so His voice could give life again.
John 5:26
Joh 5:26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.
We as humans are alive but we don’t harness the power of life.
Only God, His Spirit, and His Son have that power.
John 5:27
Joh 5:27 And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man.
Jesus has been appointed judge because He is the Son of Man.
Act 17:31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
In verse 25, Jesus is the life giver because He is the Son of God.
In verse 27, Jesus is the judge because He is the Son of Man.
Jesus is uniquely qualified to fill the roles He fills because He lived as God and as man.
If Jesus had never come to the earth, no doubt, on Judgment Day someone would have said, “You can’t judge me. You don’t know what it was like to live in a world full of temptation!”
Jesus took that off the table.
John 5:28-29
Joh 5:28 Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice
Joh 5:29 and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.
Was it believable that Jesus’ voice could give spiritual life?
Jesus tells them not to marvel at that claim because there was coming a day when His voice would bring up all the dead of all history (billions of people) to the resurrection of life and the resurrection of judgment.
This in itself was a claim to deity.
As Christians, we don’t bat an eye when someone says Jesus will raise the dead on the Day of Judgment.
But put yourself in the position of a 1st Century Jew who had been following the Law.
The Jews believed in the resurrection of the dead (unless you were a Sadducee).
They believed God would raise the dead.
But imagine hearing Jesus say it was going to be His voice that called for that resurrection.
That would have been an unmistakable claim to equality with God.
The idea Jesus was just another prophet is completely inconsistent with these words.
Calling up the dead on Judgment Day was God’s work.
John 5:30
Joh 5:30 “I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.
Again, Jesus emphasizes the unity between His work and the Father’s work.
Nothing they did was done apart from the other.
The judgments made by Christ, about the Law, religion, doctrine, prophecy, were all true and stemmed directly from God in Heaven (“…him who sent me).
This would include the judgment He had just passed on the Sabbath day restrictions.
John 5:31-32
Joh 5:31 If I alone bear witness about myself, my testimony is not true.
Joh 5:32 There is another who bears witness about me, and I know that the testimony that he bears about me is true.
Jesus has made some big claims in this conversation:
Equality with God.
Power to give life.
Authority to Judge.
Responsibility to call up the dead at the end of time.
Now He is going to provide the evidence for His claims.
Then as today, personal testimony wasn’t sufficient to conclude a case.
Let’s say I shot my neighbor’s cat and my neighbor took me court.
My neighbor said I did it and I say I didn’t do it.
The court won’t announce me innocent just because I said I didn’t do it.
Why?
Because people may have incentives to lie.
I can tell people I was born on the planet Neptune.
My personal testimony doesn’t make it true.
People need evidence and witnesses to prove their claims.
Jesus didn’t expect the people to believe He was the Messiah just because He said so… He had witnesses.
The witness in verse 32 is likely a reference to God.
God had witnessed to Jesus’ identity at His baptism.
God also witnessed to Jesus through the prophets and Old Testament scriptures.
John 5:33-35
Joh 5:33 You sent to John, and he has borne witness to the truth.
Joh 5:34 Not that the testimony that I receive is from man, but I say these things so that you may be saved.
Joh 5:35 He was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light.
John the Baptist was also a witness to Jesus’ identity as the Messiah, the Lamb of God.
Some of the Jewish elite had sent messengers to John and He had confirmed them Messiah was on His way.
Evidently, some of the Jews Jesus was addressing, had at one point, accepted John as a legitimate messenger of God and rejoiced in His message.
Jesus mentioned John, not because He needed men to testify to His identity, but for the benefit of His hearers.
John 5:36
Joh 5:36 But the testimony that I have is greater than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me.
Jesus had a much greater witness than John the Baptist.
God witnessed to the truth of Jesus’ claims.
As we discussed when talking about the lame man at the beginning of the chapter, the miraculous power of Jesus was evidence that God was in alignment with His claims.
If God was opposed to Jesus, He would have withheld power to perform miracles.
Jesus’ work also included the fulfillment of many long standing promises of God.
His life on the whole was consistent with promises God made in the past.
John 5:37-38
Joh 5:37 And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen,
Joh 5:38 and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent.
In the next few verses we see Jesus shift from general discussion of His identity to specific condemnation directed towards His Jewish accusers.
These two verses are a bit tricky to interpret.
Perhaps a paraphrase might go like this:
“God has born witness about me but because you know nothing about Him and do not heed His words, you reject the One He sent.”
They were ignorant of God because they had rejected all of God’s messengers in the past and were set to do the same thing to Jesus.
John 5:39-40
Joh 5:39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me,
Joh 5:40 yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.
The Jewish religious leaders believed they had found all they needed in the Old Testament scriptures.
They thought they had eternal life in the bag.
They thought they loved the scriptures.
But Jesus tells them they couldn’t even read them (ouch)!
If they could read, they would realize their scriptures were yet another witness to His words.
So, here we see Jesus gathering all of His witnesses:
John the Baptist
God
The Old Testament
John 5:41-44
Joh 5:41 I do not receive glory from people.
Joh 5:42 But I know that you do not have the love of God within you.
Joh 5:43 I have come in my Father's name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him.
Joh 5:44 How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?
Jesus wasn’t going through this list of witnesses to win men’s admiration, but because He knew His listeners didn’t love God.
What did they love?
They loved to “receive glory from one another.”
Jesus asks them, “How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?”
In order to receive the gospel, you’ve got to be able to admit your aren’t the greatest thing in the universe.
The gospel tells us we are all sinners and need a savior and that savior is Jesus
The gospel is a message of “glory to God!”
If our goal in life is to “receive glory from one another,” how can we believe.
Jesus tells them in verse 43, they would be quicker to honor a man who had come seeking his own glory (because it would be a man like them) than to accept someone who was trying to honor God.
Bringing glory to self came much more naturally to them than bringing glory to God.
John 5:45-47
Joh 5:45 Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope.
Joh 5:46 For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me.
Joh 5:47 But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”
The Jews saw Christ as their enemy, as their accuser, He was always telling them they were doing something wrong.
They saw Moses’ Law (the Old Testament) as their friend.
They accused Jesus of breaking Moses’ Law, specifically Sabbath (John 5:10).
Jesus is bringing His argument full circle.
Moses is on His side.
And Jesus Himself does not need to condemn the Jews.
In rejecting Jesus, they reject the testimony of the Law of Moses, the witness of the Law of Moses, and are condemned by the Law.
They are the Law breakers!
CONCLUSION:
The Jews had majored in the minors.
While they were busy picking apart the details of the word “work” in regards to the Sabbath, they had missed the entire point of the Old Testament.
There is a lesson here for us!
Sometimes we need to take a step back and view the big picture to make sure all the details we’ve been so focused on even fit within the overall framework.
