Healing a Paralytic at the Pool of Bethesda, 1-15

5:1 After this there was a Jewish feast, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 5:2 Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool called Bethzatha in Aramaic, which has five covered walkways. 5:3 A great number of sick, blind, lame, and paralyzed people were lying in these walkways.

Chapters 5-7 record increasing opposition to Jesus. His miracles are tolerated, even welcomed. But his teaching (in ch 5 about the Sabbath and about his relationship with his Father) arouses fierce antagonism. People might well have said to him, ‘Carry on doing good: but don’t complicate things with your objectionable theology.’ And they might well say the same to us today.

Verses 1-18 recount the third sign. Note:

1. a selected man
2. a selected time
3. a selected truth

A feast – Some manuscripts have ‘the feast’, which would mean the Feast of Tabernacles. More important, however, is the fact that this healing took place on the Sabbath, v9.

of the Jews – An indication that John was writing for Gentiles (as well as for Jews).

‘Certain scholars think this passage is an allegory. The man stands for the people of Israel. The five porches stand for the five books of the law. In the porches the people lay ill. The law could show a man his sin, but could never mend it; the law could uncover a man’s weakness, but could never cure it. The law, like the porches, sheltered the sick soul but could never heal it. The thirty-eight years stand for the thirty-eight years in which the Jews wandered in the desert before they entered the promised land; or for the number of the centuries men had been waiting for the Messiah. The stirring of the waters stands for baptism. In point of fact in early Christian art a man is often depicted as rising from the baptismal waters carrying a bed upon his back. It may well be that it is now possible to read all these meanings into this story; but it is highly unlikely that John wrote it as an allegory. It has the vivid stamp of factual truth. But we do well to remember that any Bible story has in it far more than fact. There are always deeper truths below the surface and even the simple stories are meant to leave us face to face with eternal things.’ (DSB)

The Sheep Gate – This is mentioned in Neh 3:1,32; 12:39 in connection with the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem.

John’s use of the present tense (‘there is a pool’) has been taken to show that he wrote his Gospel before the destruction of Jerusalem (AD 66-70). However, John’s frequent use of the ‘historical present’ puts this in doubt.

Five covered colonnades – cloisters that the sick used for shelter.

The site has been excavated:

‘In 1888 excavations near St Anne’s Church…revealed the remains of an ancient church building. Beneath this lay a crypt, with its north wall divided into five compartments in imitation of arches; on this wall there could also be distinguished traces of an old fresco representing the angel troubling the waters. Clearly those who built this structure believed that it marked the site of the pool of Bethesda. And subsequent excavations below the crypt showed that they were right; a flight of steps was uncovered leading down to a pool with five shallow porticoes on its north side, directly underneath the five imitation arches on the north wall of the crypt.’ (F.F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents, 94)

On ancient beliefs about water:

‘Ancient peoples were specially impressed with the holiness of water and especially of rivers and springs. Water was so precious and rivers in spate could be so powerful that it is not surprising that they were so impressed. In the west we may know water only as something which comes out of a tap; but in the ancient world, as in many places still today, water was the most valuable and potentially the most dangerous of all things.’ (DSB)

Some manuscripts add to this verse, ‘and they waited for the moving of the waters’.

John 5:4

Some manuscripts include here, ‘From time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease he had’. These words (and those added to v3) are absent from the best Gk manuscripts, although such a belief is presupposed by v7.

‘While it is true that some manuscripts omit the end of John 5:3 and all of verse 4, it is also true that the event (and the man’s words in John 5:7) would make little sense if these words are eliminated. Why would anybody, especially a man sick for so many years, remain in one place if nothing special were occurring? You would think that after thirty-eight years of nothing happening to anybody, the man would go elsewhere and stop hoping! It seems wisest for us to accept the fact that something extraordinary kept all these handicapped people at this pool, hoping for a cure.’ (Wiersbe)

5:5 Now a man was there who had been disabled for thirty-eight years. 5:6 When Jesus saw him lying there and when he realized that the man had been disabled a long time already, he said to him, “Do you want to become well?” 5:7 The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up. While I am trying to get into the water, someone else goes down there before me.”

A man was there who had been disabled for thirty-eight years – The man’s disability is not identified. However, from v7 we may assume him to have been paralysed, lame or very weak (Carson).

The text does not tell us that he was brought to the pool-side every day. It may be that he was brought when the stirring of the water was expected.

Duration of time, either of sickness or of sinning, is no barrier to immediate restoration.

Christ helps those who are most helpless:

‘Christ deliberately chose one of the most dramatically helpless sufferers in the waiting throng in order to display the limitless power and grace of God. And he deliberately healed him on the Sabbath (Jn 5:9) in order to expose the heartless hypocrisy of the Jewish leaders (Jn 5:10-12, 16, 18). The miraculously cured invalid played an almost passive role in the entire episode, serving mostly as a catalyst for the Jewish leaders’ violent reaction to the love of Christ.’ (NCB)

This statement draws attention to the extraordinary nature of the miracle about to be performed. However, it also raises the question of why Jesus chose to perform the miracle on this particular day – the Sabbath – rather than taking the non-controversial option of performing it the day before or the day after.

Is there any symbolism in John’s statement that the man had been disabled for thirty-eight years?  Michaels, Carson, Brown and others think not.

Carson writes:

‘If John intends any symbolism, it may be along the following lines: just as the water from the purification pots of the orthodox could neither produce nor be mistaken for the new wine of the kingdom, 2:1-11, and just as the water from Jacob’s well could not satiate the ultimate thirst of religious people who may have looked to genuine revelation but whose views were widely viewed as aberrant, 4:1-42, so the promises of merely superstitious religion have no power to transform the truly needy.’

But, suggests Mitch Chase, given John’s apparent interest in the symbolism of numbers (7 ‘I am’ statements, 7 signs, 12 baskets of bread fragments, 153 fish, for example) it seems possible that he takes the trouble to record the 38 years of this man’s disability because he saw a connection with Deut 2:14 –

2:14 ‘Now the length of time it took for us to go from Kadesh Barnea to the crossing of Wadi Zered was thirty-eight years, time for all the military men of that generation to die, just as the LORD had vowed to them.’

So:

‘After thirty-eight years of wilderness punishment, the Israelites were going to enter the promised land. When we read in John 5:5 about a man who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years, perhaps we are meant to recall the thirty-eight years of Israel’s wilderness journey.’

Like Israel, this man had been ‘in the wilderness’ for 38 years:

‘The old exodus was through the waters. The man in John 5:5 is not delivered through the waters of the pool at Bethesda. Jesus is leading a new exodus, and the deliverance comes through him. He tells the invalid, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk” (John 5:8).’

The man needed, and received, forgiveness as well as physical healing:

‘…Jesus later found the healed man in the temple and said, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you” (John 5:14). This language may suggest that the man’s physical condition was the result of divine punishment. While not all sickness is necessarily the result of a person’s sin, someone’s sin can lead to discipline or judgment in the form of illness.’

When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time – Carson says the construction does not help us to decide whether Jesus found out about the duration of the man’s condition by diligent enquiry or by supernatural knowledge. Rather than ‘learned that’ we should read ‘became aware that’.

“Do you want to get well?” – Kruse says,

‘there is no point in psychologising at this point, suggesting Jesus was referring to some reluctance on the man’s part to see his situation changed, or that the was trying to elicit desire on the man’s part to be healed.’

Kruse prefers to see this as more a literary device, heightening the expectation ‘that something miraculous is about the occur.’ However, this does look like another of Jesus’ unexpected, thought-provoking questions. Of course he wanted to be healed! And yet it is true of some disabled or sick persons, that they do not want to get better. Fear of losing the sympathy of others, fear of resumed responsibility, or sheer depression and despair, are all reasons why, deep down, some people may resist. In this culture, a beggar stood to lose a decent living if cured.

Perhaps what Jesus meant was, “Don’t you want to get well?” It is evident (from the large number of handicapped people gathered there, and from v7) that the pool was believed to have healing properties. So possibly Jesus is saying, in effect, “If you have been coming to this pool for so long, how is it that you have never received your healing?”

Not a foolish question:

‘The man had waited for thirty-eight years and it might well have been that hope had died, and left behind it a passive and dull despair. It might well be that in his heart of hearts the man might be well content to remain as an invalid, for, if he was cured, he would have to shoulder all the responsibilities again. There are invalids for whom invalidism is not an unpleasant thing, because someone else does all the working and all the worrying…The first essential towards receiving the power of Jesus is to have intense desire for it. Jesus says: “Do you really want to be changed?” If in our inmost hearts we are well content to stay as we are, there can be no change for us.’ (William Barclay)

The man cannot bring himself to give a direct answer:

‘The question “Do you want to get well?” may have been intended to jolt the man out of his apathy, but the answer does not reveal any faith on the man’s part. Clearly he thought in rather magical terms, as v 7 shows, for he believed the commonly held view that only the first to get into the water had any chance of healing. He seems to have thought Jesus’ question not worth the answering.’ (NBC)

“I have no one to help me” – Perhaps the man hoped that Jesus would help him into the water. He appears not to have heard of the miracles Jesus has performed in Jerusalem, Jn 2:23; 3:1f, nor to have any faith that Jesus was capable of healing him.

‘One would think that some of those who had been themselves healed should have lent him a hand.’ (Matthew Henry)

John does not paint a very complimentary picture of this man. He tries to avoid difficulties with the authorities by shifting the blame to the one who has healed him, v11, whose name he has not even bothered to find out, v13, and once he does find out he reports to the authorities, v15 –

‘In terms of initiative, quick-wittedness, eager faith and a questing mind, this invalid is the painful opposite of everything that characterises the wonderful character in Jn 9.’ (Carson)

Now is the time:

“Having been so often disappointed, he begins to despair, and now is Christ’s time to come to his relief; he delights to help in desperate cases.” (Matthew Henry)

5:8 Jesus said to him, “Stand up! Pick up your mat and walk.” 5:9 Immediately the man was healed, and he picked up his mat and started walking. (Now that day was a Sabbath.)

Mat – or mattress, used by the poor for sleeping on, as in Mark 2:4, 9, 11-12; 6:55; John 5:8-11; Acts 5:15; 9:33. It would have been made of straw and easily carried by a well person.

‘He commanded the man to do the very thing he was unable to do, but in His command was the power of fulfillment (see Mark 3:5; Heb. 4:12).’ (Wiersbe)

Significantly, Jesus does not send the man into the pool. Although it is evident that the pool was believed to have healing properties, Jesus gives no credence to what was presumably a superstitious belief. But he does not challenge it either.

This is one of the miracles that Jesus performed without any faith on the part of the person healed, cf Mk 2:1-5; Lk 22:49-51.

At once the man was cured – But no mention is made of Jesus healing any others at this particular place or time. Cf. v3.

He picked up his mat and walked – This was no half-miracle, ‘I think I’m feeling a little stronger’. The man was thoroughly cured. ‘Just as the thirty-eight years prove the gravity of the disease, so the carrying of the bed and the walking prove the completeness of the cure’ (Barrett).

And this might have been the end of the story. But…

The day on which this took place was a Sabbath – Jesus knowingly worked this miracle on the Sabbath, even though the man’s condition was hardly urgent, and he might easily have healed him the day before or the day after.

‘Strictly, there was no contravention of the written commandment (cf Ex 20:8-11), which was generally interpreted as a prohibition of performing one’s daily occupation on the Sabbath…The oral traditions, however, which the Pharisees cherished, amplified the written law into an elaborate jurisprudence which significantly extended its range. With respect to the Sabbath, thirty-nine categories of work were identified which breached the Sabbath law..In practice the letter of the law had come to dominate its spirit. Outward conformity replaced heart commitment. They lost sight of the ultimate purpose of the law, its modelling a life which pleased God and witnessed to his gracious choice of Israel. The law became an end in itself.’ (Milne)

5:10 So the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and you are not permitted to carry your mat.” 5:11 But he answered them, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ” 5:12 They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Pick up your mat and walk’?” 5:13 But the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped out, since there was a crowd in that place.

‘The Jews hear of the wonderful healing and of the formal breach of their code, and are interested only in the latter. They think they see what is important, but in religious matters there are none so blind as those who are always certain that they see (cf. Jn 9:39-41).’ (Carson)

‘They reminded the man who had been cured that it was the sabbath…, and that therefore it was not lawful for him to lift up his pallet, let alone carry it. They probably had in mind such passages as Jer 17:21ff, and Neh 13:15. These were in origin protests against the tendency to secularise the sabbath. It is not just another day of business. It is God’s day. It must be kept free from worldly pursuits. So the regulations began in the laudable attempt to safeguard the holiness of the day. But in time they became so many, and drew so many absurd distinctions that the true character of the day was lost in the manner of its observance. Jesus’ attitude recalled men to the real meaning of the sabbath.’ (Leon Morris)

‘The OT had forbidden work on the Sabbath. But what is “work”? The assumption in the Scripture seems to be that “work” refers to one’s customary employment; but judging by Mishnah, dominant rabbinic opinion had analysed the prohibitions into thirty-nine classes of work…By OT standards, it is not clear the healed man was contravening the law…but according to the “tradition of the elders” the man was breaking the law, since he was contravening one of the prohibited thirty-nine categories of work to which the law was understood to refer.’ (Carson)

‘The miracle would have caused no problem except that it occurred on the Sabbath Day. Our Lord certainly could have come a day earlier, or even waited a day; but He wanted to get the attention of the religious leaders. Later, He would deliberately heal a blind man on the Sabbath (John 9:1-14). The scribes had listed thirty-nine tasks that were prohibited on the Sabbath, and carrying a burden was one of them. Instead of rejoicing at the wonderful deliverance of the man, the religious leaders condemned him for carrying his bed and thereby breaking the law.’ (Wiersbe)

It is to be noted that the zeal of the Jewish authorities was a religious zeal. There is no wickedness so terrible as that which is prompted by religious motives.

The man has not troubled to find out the name of the person who has healed him. Now he is ducking any responsibility for what has happened.

‘There is an implied contrast here between the compassion of Jesus for the poor man and the lack of interest in the man on the part of the Jews.’ (NBC)

The man who was healed had no idea who it was – ‘In his ignorance he represents the great mass of our race who do not acknowledge or worship God and yet daily receive his benefits of health and strength, the providential ordering of the universe, the protection afforded by the “order” of human society, as well as the daily restraining of the full potential of evil in the world and the full effect of the fall in personal life, to say nothing of the patience with which God delays the day of his just judgement, 2 Pet 3:1f.’ (Milne)

‘Christianity founds hospital, and atheists are cured in them, never knowing that they owe their cure to Christ. Prisons are reformed under the influence which flows from the Gospel; and the prisoners never know – sometimes the reformers themselves do not know – that Christ is the Author of the reform.’ (William Temple)

‘Note, Christ does many a good turn for those that know him not, Isa. 45:4, 5. He enlightens, strengthens, quickens, comforts us, and we wist not who he is; nor are aware how much we receive daily by his mediation. This man, being unacquainted with Christ, could not actually believe in him for a cure; but Christ knew the dispositions of his soul, and suited his favours to them, as to the blind man in a like case, Jn 9:36. Our covenant and communion with God take rise, not so much from our knowledge of him, as from his knowledge of us. We know God, or, rather, are known of him, Gal. 4:9.’ (MHC)

Here is another point at which the story might have ended. But…

5:14 After this Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “Look, you have become well. Don’t sin any more, lest anything worse happen to you.” 5:15 The man went away and informed the Jewish leaders that Jesus was the one who had made him well.

Later Jesus found him at the temple – This would have taken quite an effort, for there would have been thousands of people in and around the temple for the festival.

“Stop sinning” – ‘There is the implication that the man has sinned, and continues in his sin. Jesus enjoins him to break with it and be reconciled to God. In 9:1ff Jesus repudiates the idea that disasters like blindness are inevitably caused by sin. But he does not say that they are never caused by sin. In this present verse he seems to imply that the man’s sin had brought about his infirmity. Sinning again may bring a worse fate. Jesus may mean a worse physical fate. But it is more likely that he is referring to the eternal consequences of sin. They are indeed a worse thing than any physical handicap.’ (Leon Morris)

‘The Lord’s words (John 5:14) suggest that the man’s physical plight had been the result of sin; but Jesus did not say that the man’s sins had been forgiven as He did in dealing with the sick man lowered through the roof (see Mark 2:1-12). It is possible to experience an exciting miracle and still not be saved and go to heaven!’ (Wiersbe)

Kruse says that the grammatical structure of Jesus’ command does not require it to be translated, ‘Stop sinning’ (implying that he was continuing to commit some particular sin). He thinks that the translation, ‘Do not sin’ is to be preferred. In either case, the apostle Paul confirms that sin is sometimes associated with physical illness and even death, 1 Cor 11:29f. Another approach (also suggested by Kruse) is to understand Jesus as saying that although the man has been healed physically, he is to take care not to succumb to sin, or else he might forfeit eternal life (Jn 3:18-21) and his final condition would be worse than his former condition.

The purpose of this miracle was not only to make a teaching point. Jesus was interested in the man as a person, and sought him out in order to warn about something that was even more important than physical healing.

“Something worse” – worse than thirty-eight years of helplessness. The reference must be to final judgement, cf Lk 12:4f; 13:1-5.

We do not know why the man did this. Did he feel intimidated by the Jews? Or did he think he was bearing witness to Jesus? He is not reported as saying that it was Jesus who made him do ‘work’ on the Sabbath, but rather that it was Jesus who had made him well.

‘It is not easy to understand the relationship between this man and Jesus. There is no evidence that he believed on Christ and was converted, yet we cannot say that he was opposed to the Saviour. In fact, he did not even know who it was that healed him until Jesus met him in the temple. No doubt the man went there to give thanks to God and to offer the appropriate sacrifices. It seems strange that the man did not actively seek a closer relationship with the One who healed him, but more than one person has gratefully accepted the gift and ignored the Giver.’ (Wiersbe)

Responding to Jewish Leaders, 16-30

5:16 Now because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began persecuting him. 5:17 So he told them, “My Father is working until now, and I too am working.”

Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath – Healing the man, or telling him to pick up his mat and walk, or both of these.

The Jews persecuted him – Unlike Nicodemus, 3:2, these Jews could not focus on Jesus’ compassionate power, but only on his apparent law-breaking.

‘In their view, it was unlawful to make a man whole on the Sabbath, but perfectly lawful to concoct mischief against another, and persecute him, and seek to slay him, on the Sabbath. Alas! alas! how prone men are, ourselves included, to “strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel.’ (Taylor, The Miracles of our Saviour, 144)

Other Sabbath-day healings are: the man with a withered hand, Mt 12:9-14; Mk 3:1-6; Lk 6:6-11; the man born blind, Jn 9:1-41; the woman who had been bent in two for 18 years, Lk 13:10-17; the man suffering from dropsy, Lk 14:1-6.

Jesus might well have responded by disputing the meaning and application of the Mosaic law. This would have led to vigorous debate, but not to a charge of blasphemy.

‘Ferus remarks on the great variety of arguments used by our Lord on various occasions, in reply to the superstitious views of the Jews about the Sabbath. One time he adduces the example of David eating the shew bread, another time the example of the priests working in the temple on the Sabbath, another time the readiness of the Jews to help an ox out of a pit on the Sabbath. All these arguments were used in defence of works of necessity and mercy. Here he takes higher ground still, – the example of his Father.’ (Ryle)

Sabbath-breaking ‘was a charge repeatedly brought against our Lord by his enemies; and his ordinary mode of meeting it was by pleading the character of the work which he performed. They were acts of mercy: and it was admitted, even by themselves, that the law of the Sabbath was not violated by such acts, however laborious and troublesome (cf. Mt 12:11f; Lk 13:11-17). In the case before us, however, for the purpose of unfolding the truth with regard to his own personal dignity and official character, he chose to follow a different course. He takes at once far higher ground, and distinctly intimates that he, as well as his Father, is the Lord of the Sabbath.’ (Brown, Discourses and Sayings of our Lord Vol I, 72)

“My Father” – Jews would not normally refer to God in this way. They might speak of ‘our Father’, or ‘my Father in heaven’, in order to remove any suggestion of familiarity. Jesus’ hearers recognised the intimacy with which he spoke of his Father, and reacted angrily. There is not only intimacy, but also similarity, in this expression: ‘Because the overwhelming majority of sons ended up doing what their fathers did, “like father, like son” was the cultural assumption…When Jesus claims that his “Father” is “always at his work to this very day,” he is implicitly claiming to be God’s Son, with the right to follow the pattern of work that God himself sets in this regard.’ (Carson, The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God, 36f)

“Is always at work” – Cf. Gen 2:2, which says that God ceased his work of creation. Jesus is referring here to his Father’s ongoing work of providence. ‘The great machine of the universe does not stand still on the Sabbath-day: the mighty and the minute processes of nature experience no interruption: the sun rises and sets, the grass grows, the river rolls on, the blood circulates, on the Sabbath, as well as on the other days of the week.’ (Brown)

‘That is, in preserving and empowering what he hath made with strength to be and act, and therefore he is said to hold our souls in life. Works of art, which man makes, when finished, may stand some time without the workman’s help, as the house, when the carpenter that made it is dead; but God’s works of nature and grace are never off his hand; and therefore, as the Father is said to work hitherto for the preservation of the works of nature, so the Son, to whom is committed the work of redemption, he tells us he worketh also. Neither ended he his work, when he rose again, any other way than his Father did in the work of creation. God made an end of making, so Christ made an end of purchasing mercy, grace, and glory for believers, by once dying; and as God rested at the end of the creation, so he, when he had wrought eternal redemption, and ‘by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high,’ Heb. 1:3. But he ceaseth not to work by his intercession with God for us, and by his Spirit in us for God, whereby he upholds his saints, their graces, and comforts in life, without which they would run to ruin.’ (Gurnall)

“I, too, am working” – Cf. Col 1:17. ‘It is a considerable part of Christ’s glory to have a whole world of creatures owing their being and hourly conservation to him. The parts of the world are not coupled and fastened together as the parts of the house, whose beams are pinned and nailed to each other; but rather as several rings of iron, which hang together by the virtue of a loadstone. This goodly fabric was razed to the foundation when sin entered, and had tumbled into everlasting confusion, had not Christ stept in to shore up the reeling world. For the sake of his redeemed that inhabits it, he does and will prop it by his omnipotent power. And when he has gathered all his elect out of it into the kingdom above, then will he set fire to the four quarters of it, and it shall lie in ashes. Meanwhile, he is “given for a covenant to the people, to establish the earth,” Isa. 49:8.’ (Flavel)

‘When God made the world, it is said indeed he ended his work, that is, of creation: he made no new species and kinds of creatures more; but to this day he hath not ended his work of providence: ‘My Father worketh hitherto,’ saith Christ, John 5:17, that is, in preserving and empowering what he hath made with strength to be and act, that therefore he is said to hold our souls in life. Works of art, which man makes, when finished, may stand some time without the workman’s help, as the house, when the carpenter that made it is dead; but God’s works, both of nature and grace, are never off his hand, and therefore as the Father is said to work hitherto for the preservation of the works of nature, so the Son, to whom is committed the work of redemption, he tells us, worketh also. Neither ended he his work when he rose again, any otherwise than his Father did in the work of creation. God made an end of making, so Christ made an end of purchasing mercy, grace, and glory for believers, by once dying; and as God rested at the end of creation, so he, when he had wrought eternal redemption, and ‘by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high,’ Heb. 1:3. But he ceaseth not to work by his intercession with God for us, and by his Spirit in us for God, whereby he upholds his saints, their graces, and comforts his life, without which they would run to ruin.’ (Gurnall)

‘British writer George MacDonald pointed out that John 5:17 gives us a profound insight into our Lord’s miracles. Jesus did instantly what the Father is always doing slowly. For example, in nature, as mentioned earlier, the Father is slowly turning water into wine; but Jesus did it instantly. Through the powers in nature, the Father is healing broken bodies; but Jesus healed them immediately. Nature is repeatedly multiplying bread, from sowing to harvest; but Jesus multiplied it instantly in His own hands.’ (Wiersbe)

‘In the climactic statement, ‘my Father is working until now, and I am working’ (5:17), Jesus claims that the exemption from Sabbath law which applies to God applies to him also; it is the Father’s work which the Son does. The discourse which follows reveals that God will realize his goal for humanity in the person and work of his Son. It is the Son who will give life to the dead, judge all people, and bring honour to himself and to the Father. He will realize the Sabbath by bringing an end to human rebellion and the reign of death. He participates with the Father in a second great work of creation, begun after the fall, from which there will be no resting until it is completed.’ (NDBT)

5:18 For this reason the Jewish leaders were trying even harder to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was also calling God his own Father, thus making himself equal with God.

The Jews tried all the harder to kill him – ‘Clear declaration of truth will not satisfy wicked and malicious men, but the more Christ and the light is held out to such, it is hated the more.’ (Hutcheson)

He was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God – ‘A good premise, but a bad conclusion. He did make himself equal with God, but he was not therefore guilty of blasphemy, for he was God.’ (Taylor, The Miracles of our Saviour, 145)

‘It was the lure of just such a rivalling equality which was the occasion of the fall, Gen 3:5…But Jesus is not claiming “equality with God” in the sense of being a second rival deity. Rather it is an equality expressed as a unity in which the Son is so utterly submitted to the Father that the two are one in the works that they do…v19…”The Father is God sending and commanding, the Son is God sent and obedient.”‘ (Milne, quoting Barrett)

‘Sabbath-breaking, though important, was a comparatively trivial offence…Jesus had called God his own father…, a form of speech which did not arise out of liturgical custom or the notion of Israel as God’s child; and the assumption of a uniform activity common to Jesus and to God could only mean that Jesus was equal to God.’ (C.K. Barrett)

‘Jesus is asserting that his “work” of healing, which led to a breach of their oral tradition, was a work of mercy which imitated the gracious Sabbath work of God. Implicit in the claim is a self-consciousness of the most audacious and revolutionary kind. Jesus is claiming a unique identify with the Father, a fact not lost on his hearers, which provokes their hardening commitment to eliminate him.’ (Milne)

‘When the Jewish authorities heard Jesus call God “my (own) Father,” they did not do what many moderns have done. They did not try to tone down the character of Christ’s sonship. They immediately understood that Jesus claimed for himself deity in the highest possible sense of that term. That claim was either the most wicked blasphemy, to be punished with death; or else, it was the most glorious truth, to be accepted by faith. The very character of the sign which Jesus had just now performed should have caused these religious leaders to adopt the latter alternative. Instead, they chose the former.’ (Hendriksen)

‘In the discourse which follows Jesus enlarges on his claim to be working in collaboration with his Father, v17. The divine work on which he was engaged was twofold – giving life to the dead, v21 and judging, v22. Everyone who hears and believes, he declared, then and there receives eternal life and will escape judgement; he has already passed out of death into life, v24…Already the dead were hearing his voice, and those who were hearing were receiving life and emerging from their spiritual graves, v25. That is, a sifting process was going on, because the Father had given to the Son both to have life in himself and authority to execute judgement, v26f. Further, on the last day, all in the tombs (“all” is emphatic) would hear his voice and come forth. Then the sifting of judgement would be brought to completion, for soe would rise “to the resurrection of life,” others “to the resurrection of judgement,” v28f.’ (Stott, Christ the Controversialist, 91f.

5:19 So Jesus answered them, “I tell you the solemn truth, the Son can do nothing on his own initiative, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise.

Cowan cites Barrett on the insistence in this passage on the unity of the Son with the Father and the dependence of the Son on the Father:

‘In vv. 19–30 the main theme is solemnly, constantly, almost wearisomely, repeated. . . . There is complete unity of action between the Father and the Son, and complete dependence of the Son on the Father.’

‘If [the Son] executes judgment and gives life to the dead, this is because these privileges have been granted him by the Father.’

The NIV fails to translate the oun (‘therefore’). The correct translation is, ‘Jesus therefore gave them this answer’.

Ryle remarks:

‘There are few chapters in the Bible, perhaps, where we feel our own shallowness of understanding so thoroughly, and discover so completely the insufficiency of all human language to express “the deep things of God.” Men are often saying they want explanations of the mysteries of the Christian faith, the Trinity, the Incarnation, the person of Christ, and the like. Let them just observe, when we do find a passage full of explanatory statements on a deep subject, how much there is that we have no line to fathom and no mind to take in. “I want more light,” says proud man. God gives him his desire in this chapter, and lifts up the veil a little. But behold! we are dazzled by the very light we wanted, and find we have not eyes to take it in.’

Carson notes that v19-20a reflect the experience of Jesus (and sons generally) growing up in the trade or profession of their fathers.

“The Son can do nothing by himself” – i.e., ‘on his own initiative’ (Carson).

‘Christ is the Son because He does nothing of Himself. He is God because whatsoever things the Father doeth, He doeth the same. They are One because They are equal in honour. He is not the Father because He is sent.’ (Hilary, quoted by Ryle)

‘When it is said ‘the Son can do nothing of Himself’, this does not mean want of power, but the highest power. Just as it is a mark of omnipotence not to be able to die, or to be worn out, or to be annihilated, because there is nothing that can injure omnipotence, so, likewise, ‘to be unable to do anything of Himself’ is no mark of impotence, but of the highest power. It means nothing less than having one and the same power with the Father, so that nothing can be done by the One which is not equally done by the Other.’ (Toletus, quoted by Ryle)

“He can do only what he sees his Father doing” – ‘The phrase, “what He seeth the Father do,” is a figurative term, showing the inseparable communion of will, wisdom, and power, between the Son and the Father in the internal order of the most holy Trinity.’ (Diodati, quoted by Ryle)

Although the Son is God, he is always submissive to the Father.  Carson comments:

‘Though he is the unique Son of God (1:49), and may truly be called God (1:1, 18; 20:28) and take to himself divine titles (e.g. 8:58) and, as in this context, divine rights (5:17), yet is he always submissive to the Father. Not only does the Son always do what pleases the Father (8:29), but he can do only what he sees his Father doing. In this sense the relationship between the Father and the Son is not reciprocal. It is inconceivable that John could say that the Father does only what he sees the Son doing. That would be preposterous not only in the cultural understanding of father-son relationships, but also in John’s understanding of the relationship between Jesus and his heavenly Father (against Gruenler, who tries to make the Father/Son relationship perfectly reciprocal by saying that each ‘defers’ to the other—but this is a ‘fudge’ category that blurs the obvious distinctions). The Father initiates, sends, commands, commissions, grants; the Son responds, obeys, performs his Father’s will, receives authority. In this sense, the Son is the Father’s agent though, as John goes on to insist, much more than an agent.’

5:20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything he does, and will show him greater deeds than these, so that you will be amazed.

“The Father loves the Son” – See Jn 3:35n.

“And shows him all he does” – ‘Here the preindustrial model of the agrarian village or the craftsman’s shop is presupposed, with a father carefully showing his son all that he does so that the family tradition is preserved. Stradivarius Senior shows Stradivarius Junior all there is to know about making violins—selecting the wood, the exact proportions, the cuts, the glue, how to add precisely the right amount of arsenic to the varnish, and so forth. Stradivarius Senior does this because he loves Stradivarius Junior. So also here: Jesus is so uniquely and unqualifiedly the Son of God that the Father shows him all he does, out of sheer love for him, and the Son, however dependent on his Father, does everything the Father does.’ (Carson, The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God)

“He will show him even greater things than these” – ‘Augustine and Bernard both remark, that it is far “greater work” to repair ruined human nature, than to make it at first, and to re-create it, than to create it.’ (Ryle)

5:21 For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whomever he wishes.

‘The ‘just as … even so’ (hōsper … houtōs) formula highlights the exact correspondence between what the Father and Son do.’ (Kruse)

“The Father raises the dead” – ‘What Jesus is now saying is that with his coming and public ministry this work of raising the dead has already begun. This is central to the work that he’s watching the father do, and that he is doing alongside him. It will come to an astonishing peak, within this story, when he raises Lazarus from the dead (chapter 11); then it will reach its full flowering when Jesus himself goes through death and out the other side into the full splendour of resurrection life (chapters 20 and 21). The present passage is preparing us for all that.’ (Wright)

“The Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it” – ‘Burkitt remarks, that it is never said of any prophet or apostle, that he did mighty works “at his will.”‘ (Ryle)

5:22 Furthermore, the Father does not judge anyone, but has assigned all judgment to the Son, 5:23 so that all people will honor the Son just as they honor the Father. The one who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.

“The Father…has entrusted all judgement to the Son” – Cf. Jn 3:17 – ‘For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him’ (cf. Jn 12:47).  The earlier passage speaks of the purpose of Christ’s coming, which is ‘primarily salvific, even though all must face him as their judge, and even though the inevitable result of his coming is that some will be condemned.’ (Carson)

‘All power and authority over the world is committed to Christ’s hands. He is the King and the Judge of mankind. Before Him every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess that he is Lord. He that was once despised and rejected of man, condemned and crucified as a malefactor, shall one day hold a great assize, and judge all the world. “God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ.” (Rom 2:16)’ (Ryle)

‘I think it highly probable that the “all judgment committed to the Son,” includes not merely the final judgment of the last day, but the whole work of ordering, governing, and deciding the affairs of Gods kingdom. “To judge” is an expression constantly used in the Old Testament in the sense of “to rule.” The meaning then would be, that the Father has given to the Son the office of King and Judge. The whole administration of the Divine government of the world is put into the hands of the Son, Christ Jesus. Everything connected with the rule of the church and world, as well as the last judgment, is placed in the Son’s hands.’ (Ryle)

What is taught here about the relationship between God the Father and God the Son is consistent with resolute monotheism inherited from Jewish faith and Scripture:

‘The complex language of these verses shows the struggle to guard the truth of monotheism while claiming that Jesus is God. The concerns of monotheists such as Jews and Muslims are legitimate, and this Gospel reveals that God is indeed One, though not in the way these other religions understand. This Gospel encourages monotheists to understand their truth in light of what has now been revealed by the Son of God about himself and the Holy Spirit.’ (Whitacre)

5:24 “I tell you the solemn truth, the one who hears my message and believes the one who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned, but has crossed over from death to life. 5:25 I tell you the solemn truth, a time is coming—and is now here—when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.

The one who hears and believes “has eternal life” – Ryle comments:

‘The “presentness” of the expression should be carefully noticed. Everlasting life is the present possession of every true believer, from the moment he believes. It is not a thing he shall have at last. He has it at once, even in this world. “All that believe are justified.”—“Being justified by faith we have peace with God.” (Acts 13:39; Rom. 5:1.)’

“Will not be condemned” – ‘The idea is virtually indistinguishable from the negative component of Paul’s doctrine of justification: the believer does not come to the final judgment, but leaves the court already acquitted.’ (Carson)

Such a person has “has crossed over from death to life” – ‘They have been transferred from the realm of sin and death into the realm of eternal life.’ (Kruse)

Although we await the final resurrection (v28f), something of the resurrection life is already present.  Carson: ‘This is perhaps the strongest affirmation of inaugurated eschatology in the Fourth Gospel.’

Wright:

‘Those who are born from above…are not just receiving a new spiritual experience, the life of God’s spirit welling up within them like ‘living water’ (4:14). They are passing from death to life. The miracle of resurrection is taking place inside them, so that, when they finally die physically, that event will be irrelevant to the new life they already have. What God does in the present he will complete in the future, when the present ‘resurrection’, the new birth during the present life, finally produces the future bodily resurrection that will correspond to Jesus’ own.’

Richard Phillips brings out the certainly and security implicit in our Lord’s words:

‘Note the present tense when Jesus says that the believer “has eternal life.” He does not say that with faith you have made a good start that might end up well, or that your faith must be improved by good works or pilgrimages or the giving of money if you wish to live forever—he says that whoever believes enters immediately into eternal life.’

“A time is coming – and is now here – when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live” – ‘The resurrection life for the physically dead in the end time is already being manifest as life for the spiritually dead.’ (Carson)

5:26 For just as the Father has life in himself, thus he has granted the Son to have life in himself, 5:27 and he has granted the Son authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man.

“For just as the Father has life in himself” – Carson stresses the importance of the logical ‘for’: ‘this verse explains how it is that the Son can exercise divine judgment and generate resurrection life by his powerful word. It is because, like God, he has life-in-himself. God is self-existent; he is always ‘the living God’.’

“He has granted the Son to have life in himself” – Cf. Jn 1:4 – ‘In him was life’.  Also 1 Jn 1:2 – ‘the eternal life, which was with God and has appeared to us.’

‘Only God has life ‘in himself’, and saying that God has granted the Son to have life in himself is another way of saying he shared in divinity.’ (Kruse)

Carson regards as ‘unobjectionable’ the connection which many systematic theologians have been between this verse and the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son.

“Because he is the Son of Man” – Here is an additional ground for the gift of authority from Father to Son.

Although suggestive of our Lord’s humanity, Jews, and all others acquainted with the Old Testament, would have heard in this title distinct echoes of Daniel 7, where the same title is associated with the sitting of the heavenly court and the opening up of books (Dan 7:10).

5:28 “Do not be amazed at this, because a time is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice 5:29 and will come out—the ones who have done what is good to the resurrection resulting in life, and the ones who have done what is evil to the resurrection resulting in condemnation.

“A time is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and will come out” – See Jn 5:28f.  This general resurrection will be foreshadowed by the raising of Lazarus, Jn 11:38-44.

“The resurrection resulting in life” involves being with Jesus, and seeing his glory, Jn 17:24.  See also Jn 3:16; 6:40, 54; 12:25.

“The resurrection resulting in condemnation” is mentioned several times (Jn 3:17–18; 5:24, 29; 12:48), but not elaborated.

Jesus distinguishes between the ones who have done what is good and the ones who have done what is evil.  Kruse comments that

‘care must be taken not to import ideas about doing good and evil from elsewhere in the NT. In this Gospel doing good means believing in the one God sent into the world, while the ultimate evil is to reject this one, and refuse to believe in him.’

Whiteacre, similarly:

‘This seems to suggest that judgment will be made on the basis of works. But the context has already made it clear that the issue is whether one hears the Son and believes the Father (v. 24, to be emphasized in the next chapter; 6:29, 40, 54). Thus we see again (cf. 3:19–21) that evil deeds are those which prevent us from coming to the light or, as here, from hearing the Son and believing the one who sent him. If we wish to share in the resurrection of life we should make sure we do those deeds that enable us to have faith in Jesus.’

As Jn 6:29 will confirm, “This is the deed God requires—to believe in the one whom he sent.”

5:30 I can do nothing on my own initiative. Just as I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I do not seek my own will, but the will of the one who sent me.

“By myself I can do nothing” – Cf. Jesus’ own teaching on being ‘poor in spirit’, Mt 5:3.

“Just as I hear, I judge” – ‘Though he claimed to exercise divine prerogatives, Jesus rejected any suggestion that he acted independently of God, or that he saw himself as a rival to God, especially in the matter of exercising judgment. He will pronounce judgment in accordance with the judgment of God; and when he judges, therefore, it will be just because he seeks only to please God.’ (Kruse)

“I do not seek my own will, but the will of the one who sent me” – Although cast in the present tense, the context indicates that will will also be true of final judgement.  This being so, the submission of the Son to the Father extends beyond the days of his flesh.

More Testimony About Jesus, 31-47

5:31 “If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true. 5:32 There is another who testifies about me, and I know the testimony he testifies about me is true. 5:33 You have sent to John, and he has testified to the truth. 5:34 (I do not accept human testimony, but I say this so that you may be saved.) 5:35 He was a lamp that was burning and shining, and you wanted to rejoice greatly for a short time in his light.

“If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true” – The rabbis taught that people could not testify to themselves in a court of law; they required witnesses.  Jesus did not accept this with regard to his own testimony (Jn 8:14), but makes the concession here for the sake of argument.

‘Here Jesus cites the Old Testament principle, central to later Jewish law (both that of the rabbis and that of the Dead Sea Scrolls), that two witnesses are necessary to prove a (capital) case (Deut 17:6; 19:15).’ (NT Background Commentary)

As this section unfolds, it becomes clear that Jesus’ primary witness is the Father (cf. v37f).  Corroborating witnesses are John the Baptist, his own works, and the Scriptures.

Another – Jesus is referring to his Father.  The word is allos, which in classical Greek often means ‘another, but similar’, as opposed to heteros, ‘another, but different’.  If the distinction is valid here, then Jesus is virtually claiming equality with God.  However, Carson says that the distinction is rare in the NT, and that we should therefore not attempt to make Christological capital out of the use of allos here.

“John…has testified” – Cf. Jn 1:6-8.

“Not that I accept human testimony” – Carson understands this to mean that Jesus did not rely on the testimony of others to confirm who he was in his own mind.

“I mention it that you may be saved” – John’s testimony was for their benefit, not his own.

‘The word in the original properly means a lamp, and is not the same which in Jn 1:4,5 is translated light. That is a word commonly applied to the sun, the fountain of light; this means a lamp, or a light that is lit up or kindled artificially from oil or tallow. A teacher is often called a light, because he guides or illuminates the minds of others. Rom 2:19. “Thou art confident that thou art a guide of the blind, a light of them that sit in darkness.’ (Barnes)

5:36 “But I have a testimony greater than that from John. For the deeds that the Father has assigned me to complete—the deeds I am now doing—testify about me that the Father has sent me. 5:37 And the Father who sent me has himself testified about me. You people have never heard his voice nor seen his form at any time, 5:38 nor do you have his word residing in you, because you do not believe the one whom he sent.

“The deeds” – ‘Jesus referred frequently to these works (Jn 9:3, 4; 10:37; 17:4) and their evidential value (10:25, 37), and he encouraged those who doubted his words to believe him when they contemplated his works (10:38; 14:11). Nicodemus believed Jesus’ works were evidence that God was ‘with him’ (3:2). Jesus said they were evidence that the Father had ‘sent him’.’ (Kruse)

“The Father has assigned me to complete” these works.  See Jn 4:34; 5:36; 17:4.  We may link this with Jesus’ repeated reference to his ‘hour’, which had not yet ‘come’ until he had completed his works.

5:39 You study the scriptures thoroughly because you think in them you possess eternal life, and it is these same scriptures that testify about me, 5:40 but you are not willing to come to me so that you may have life.

“You study the scriptures thoroughly” – Carson says that the form of the verb could be taken either as an imperative (‘Search the Scriptures’ AV) or as an indicative.  He agrees with most translations and commentators in preferring the latter.  The Jews of Jesus’ day did not need to be urged to study the Scriptures.  Their problem was that they saw this in itself as bestowing life, whereas they needed to look at whom the Scriptures pointed to – Jesus himself.

‘The teachers of the law, for example, whose job was to copy and teach the sacred text, subjected it to the closest scrutiny. They weighed its every syllable. They went so far as to count up the number of words, even letters, of each book. And they did all this, not just for the sake of accurate copying but because they foolishly imagined that eternal life consisted in such accurate knowledge. Like some modern Bible commentators and Bible readers, they became so absorbed in the words that they lost sight of the truth which the words expressed. They were not concerned about the message of Scripture (they did not understand this, let alone embrace and obey it), but only about meanings. If they could study and know and memorize and quote the Word of God, they thought that they had eternal life.’ (Stott, Christ the Controversialist)

“You think in them you possess eternal life” – Kruse quotes the Mishnah: ‘the more study of the Law, the more life … If a man has gained a good name he has gained [somewhat] for himself; if he has gained for himself words of the Law he has gained for himself life in the world to come.’

‘To suppose that salvation lies in a book is as foolish as supposing that health lies in a prescription. When we are ill and our doctor prescribes some medicine, is the intention that we should go home with the prescription, read it, study it and learn it by heart? Or that we should frame it and hang it on our bedroom wall? Or that we tear it into fragments and eat the pieces three times a day after meals? The absurdity of these possibilities is obvious. The prescription itself will not cure us. No, the whole purpose of a prescription is to get us to go to the chemist, obtain the medicine prescribed for us and take it. Now the Bible contains the divine prescription for sin-sick souls. It specifies the only medicine which can save us from perishing. In brief, it tells us of Jesus Christ who died for us and rose again. But we do not worship the Bible as if it could save us; we go to Christ. For the overriding purpose of the Bible is to send us to Christ and persuade us to take the water of life which he offers.’ (Stott, Christ the Controversialist)

“The Scriptures that testify about me” – ‘These verses stand as a warning to all who make the study of the Scriptures an end in itself and fail to relate to the one about whom the Scriptures testify.’ (Kruse)

‘As we go to the cradle only in order to find the baby, so we go to the Scriptures only to find Christ.’ (Luther) ‘When you are reading a book in a dark room, and find it difficult, you take it to a window to get more light. So take your Bible to Christ.’ (McCheyne)

‘Our Christian conviction is that the Bible has both authority and relevance – to a degree quite extraordinary in so ancient a book – and that the secret of both is in Jesus Christ. Indeed, we should never think of Christ and the Bible apart. ‘The Scriptures . . . bear witness to me,’ he said (Jn. 5:39), and in so saying also bore his witness to them. This reciprocal testimony between the living Word and the written Word is the clue to our Christian understanding of the Bible. For his testimony to it assures us of its authority, and its testimony to him of its relevance. The authority and the relevance are his.’ (Stott, Authentic Christianity, p 104.)

“You are not willing to come to me”

‘1. Men do not come. 2. They cannot come. 3. They will not come to Christ. The first is their carelessness and negligence, the second is their weakness and impotency, the third is their willfulness and great wickedness; and the last is the result of all, men do not come to Christ, because they will not come: and they cannot come, because they will not: their wills must be subdued, and the rebellion thereof must be removed, else they neither can nor will come to Christ.’ (Thomas Valentine, Westminster divine)

5:41 “I do not accept praise from people, 5:42 but I know you, that you do not have the love of God within you. 5:43 I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me. If someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him. 5:44 How can you believe, if you accept praise from one another and don’t seek the praise that comes from the only God?

5:45 “Do not suppose that I will accuse you before the Father. The one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have placed your hope. 5:46 If you believed Moses, you would believe me, because he wrote about me. 5:47 But if you do not believe what Moses wrote, how will you believe my words?”

“Do not suppose that I will accuse you before the Father. The one who accuses you is Moses” – Cf. Jn 3:17f.

No particular passage in the Pentateuch is cited by Jesus.  He is probably referring to the general tenor of its teaching.

To (truly) believe Moses is to believe Christ.  And vice versa.

Many evangelical scholars take the view that v46f is decisive regarding the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch.  Peter Enns does not think so: “Rather, Jesus here reflects the tradition that he himself inherited as a first-century Jew and that his hearers assumed to be the case”. (The Evolution of Adam)

Some scholars think that Jn 7:15-24 has been displaced, and should follow directly from this verse.