Bible Study series: John 5:1-18. Jesus healed one man at the pool where other sick people gathered. Then there was a Sabbath dispute. Jesus also made himself equal to God. Many truths embedded in this one section.

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John 5

At that link, I provide a lot more commentary.

In this post, links are provided for further study.

Let’s begin.

Scripture: John 5:1-18

¹ Afterwards, it was a Jewish feast, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ² There is in Jerusalem at the Sheep Gate a pool which is called Bethesda, having five colonnades. ³ Between them used to lie a number of the sick, blind, lame and paralyzed. ⁴ [For an angel of the Lord at certain times came into the pool and stirred the water; then the first one getting in with the stirring of the water became healthy from whatever sickness was oppressing him.]

⁵ Now a certain man was there having his weakened conditioned for thirty-eight years. ⁶ When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he was there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healthy?” ⁷ The sick man replied to him, “Mister, I have no person so that when the water is stirred, he can put me into the pool! But as I go in, someone else goes down ahead of me!” ⁸ Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk!” ⁹ And immediately the man became healthy and picked up his mat and began to walk.

And it was the Sabbath on that day. ¹⁰ Therefore the Jews were saying to the healed man, “It is the Sabbath! It is not lawful for you to carry your mat!” ¹¹ He replied to them, “The one who made me healthy—that one said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk!’ ¹² They inquired of him, “Who is the man who told you, ‘Pick up your mat and walk’?” ¹³ The healed man did not know who he was, for Jesus had withdrawn from the crowd which was in that place.

¹⁴ Afterwards, Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See! You have become healthy. Do not sin any longer, so that something worse may not happen to you.”

¹⁵ The man left and announced to the Jews that he is the one who made him healthy. ¹⁶ So for this reason the Jews began to persecute Jesus because he did these things on the Sabbath. ¹⁷ But Jesus replied to them, “My Father is working until now, and I also am working.” ¹⁸ For this reason, therefore, the Jews sought him all the more to kill him, not only because he loosened up the Sabbath, but also because he was saying that God was his own Father, thus making himself equal to God. (John 5:1-18)

Comments:

1-4:

Bethesda literally means “outpouring” (Carson, comment on v. 2).

Archaeologists have found the pool and evidence of the colonnades. Please visit this article

3. Archaeology and John’s Gospel

Or you may certainly google it.

It may refer to the Sheep Gate in Neh. 3:1, 32; 12:39.

At the pool a large number of people was laying there waiting to get well. Their lying in that place was a custom and habit. But what were they waiting for?  Mounce: “The probable explanation for a disturbance in the twin pools is that in addition to the water that came from large reservoirs, there were probably intermittent springs that augmented the flow from time to time” (comment on v. 3).

In any case, these four verses set the scene for the next confrontation between Jesus and an individual: Nicodemus (John 3:1-15), the woman at the well (John 4:1-30), and here with the lame man. We may say that Jesus had to push back on his mother at the wedding of Cana (2:1-12), but the scene was a mild one. We could also add that other people are allowed into the scenes: the Samaritans (4:39-45), and then the Jews are about to be drawn into the man’s healing because he was carrying his mat on the Sabbath (5:16-47), and the attenders of the wedding at Cana benefited from the miraculous transformation of the wine. So the (non-absolute) pattern: Jesus and an individual and then Jesus and many people.

In these four verses, at any rate, we now know where we are: In Jerusalem and the feast. John ties the festivals to his narrative: Passover (2:13), Passover (6:4), Tabernacles (7:2), Dedication (10:22). Which feast is this one? Scholars are not sure, based on a definite article (“the feast”) or (“feast”). If it is “the feast,” then it is the Passover. In that case, Jesus ministered for three-and-a-half years. If it “a feast” (and the manuscripts support this reading), then it is unclear which one. There were three commanded feasts: Passover and the associated unleavened bread (March / April), Pentecost or weeks (May / June), and tabernacles or booths or Sukkoth (September / October). NET Bible speculates that it is the feast of Pentecost. The editors say it was probably not Passover, because the temperature would be too cool for the lame to get into the water, and likewise for Sukkoth. So this leaves Pentecost, when the season was warm so that the sick could enter into the pool of water, but the NET editors are not certain.

5-9a:

Jesus asked. It is okay to interview the sick and the lame or their friends and family, to find out how long the disease has afflicted him. Whatever it was, it must not have afflicted his vital organs, like liver or kidney or heart disease or cancer, for he would have died long ago. It must have been lameness of some kind, like paralysis (see. v. 3), which is literally a “withered” condition. It may have been palsy of some kind.

Here Jesus asks a father about his demonized son:

²¹ Jesus asked the boy’s father, “About how long has this has happened to him?” And he said, “From childhood. ²² And often he throws him in the fire and water in order to destroy him. But if you are able, help us, having pity on us. ²³ But Jesus replied, “‘If you are able!’ All things are possible to the one who believes!” (Mark 9:21-23)

Let’s learn to follow Jesus in our healing and deliverance ministry. It’s okay to ask sick people questions.

“Mister”: it could definitely be translated as “sir,” and I had it as that term, but the man seems a little dull, so I can’t be sure he was courteous. He may have been surly. (I certainly would be miffed if a stranger asked me whether I want to get well when I had the illness or lameness for thirty-eight years and hung out by the pool.) But if you want to go with “sir,” then you may be right.

“weakened condition”: The NIV translates it throughout the NT: weakness (most often), weaknesses, weak, crippled, diseases, illness, illnesses, infirmities, infirmity, invalid, sick, sickness, sicknesses. Here in v. 5 it could be lameness or illness or sickness. I chose “weakened condition,” but lameness works too because Jesus told him to walk, implying that he was not able to walk before. The Greek says he had his  weakness for thirty-eight years. The wording is almost saying that he owned it. Please don’t “own” your illness or sickness, as if it belongs to you and is part and parcel of your existence. Instead, see it as an invasive force that does not express wholeness. One day, either now by divine healing, or by your passing into heaven by God’s grace, you will be whole, without your lameness or sickness. These crippling conditions don’t belong to you. No, I’m not talking about denying reality, as if you are not in a wheelchair or do not have a missing limb, but ultimately and ideally, the condition is not yours. “Up There,” you will be restored. And God may do this now. Legitimate miracles are happening. Research them online.

“healthy”: This adjective is used throughout this passage (vv. 6, 9, 11, 14, 15). It could also be translated “sound” “physically well” or “free” from your affliction (Mark 5:34). John says “becomes healthy.” The man “became healthy” in the past tense after Jesus commanded him to get up, pick up his mat, and walk. His whole condition changed from illness to health.

We are taught by popular Bible teachers that the man may have been deliberately holding on to his malady, whatever it was, because he identified with it. It became who he was. This interpretation seems right because Jesus asked whether the man wanted to become healthy. Jesus must have perceived a reluctance, but the man did say that he is about to go into the pool when someone gets in ahead of him. Popular pastors say that he should have sat by the pool 24/7 and just roll in. Maybe, but human life is not as tidy as we imagine it, particularly 2000 years ago. He needed to get up and eat, visit family and friends, or his family or friends had to fetch him and take him home, maybe for many hours.

Whatever the case, Jesus listened to him and then issued a series of commands. “Get up!” The man must have stared at Jesus for a split second. “Who are you to say this to me?” He had never heard of Jesus before (v. 13). Yet Jesus spoke with authority. The man obeyed the command. After a split second he stood up. Amazing, he must have said to himself. “Pick up your mat!” He did so, bending back down to get it. “And walk!” This shows the man was lame somehow. Immediately he became healthy. Mounce reminds us that the man seemed to have no faith (comment on vv. 8-9). I add: the faith of the Lord must have carried him. It just shows that people with no faith or weak faith are still candidates for a healing. Let the Lord carry you.

Sometimes you have to walk or do things that you could not do before. But wait for the command of Jesus. On the other hand, don’t be foolish. If you are diabetic, don’t swig a tall glass of sugared up liquid, like a soda drink. But if you are in a wheelchair, go for it. See if you can stand up. If you have to sit back down again, then don’t feel discouraged. Keep praying for your healing.

“The Word spoke to the man with the same powerful word that made all creation. The abruptness of Jesus’s command echoes the proclamation that the lame will ‘leap like a deer’ (Isa 35:6). They leap because the Word has spoken” (Klink, comment on v. 8).

One final point: not everyone at the pool was healed that day, and there is no record that anyone else was healed by Jesus during his visits to Jerusalem. Therefore we Renewalists need to be careful about claiming that Jesus healed everyone, every time. Yes, in summary statements he is said to heal everyone, but those are summary statements, generalizations, but do not over-generalize.

“While waiting for the power of a pool, the lame man was confronted in Jesus by the personal power of God” (Klink, comment on v. 9, emphasis original).

9b-13:

This next scene reminds me of several passages in the Synoptics, in which Jesus healed on the Sabbath. Here is one:

⁶ And so it happened on another Sabbath that he went into the synagogue and taught. And a man was there, and his right hand was withered. ⁷ The teachers of the law and Pharisees were watching him maliciously, whether he would heal on the Sabbath, in order to discover some way to accuse him. ⁸ But he knew their reasonings. He said to the man having a withered hand, “Get up and stand here in the middle!” ⁹ Then Jesus said to them, “I ask you: is it lawful to do good or to do bad, to save a life or destroy it, on the Sabbath?” ¹⁰ He looked around at them and said to him, “Stretch out your hand!” He did so, and his hand was restored. ¹¹ They were filled with fury and began to speak among themselves what they might do to Jesus. (Luke 6:6-11)

Jewish law allowed for healing on the Sabbath, if a life was at stake or a birth was happening. But the man’s weakened condition or lameness did not fit this category.

Now let’s talk more broadly about the Sabbath laws and what constituted working. Here are the Mishnah’s thirty-nine categories of work that were not allowed (the Mishnah is a collection of legal and practical opinions, written down in about 200 AD). This comes from the second century, but it does reflect the times of Jesus:

1. Sowing, plowing, reaping, binding sheaves, threshing, winnowing, selecting, grinding, sifting, kneading, and baking.
2. Shearing wool, bleaching, hackling, dyeing, spinning, stretching the threads, the making of two meshes, weaving two threads, dividing two threads, tying [knotting] and untying, sewing two stitches, and tearing in order to sew two stitches.
3. Capturing a deer, slaughtering, or flaying, or salting it, curing its hide, scraping it [of its hair], cutting it up, writing two letters, and erasing in order to write two letters [over the erasure].
4. Building, pulling down, extinguishing, kindling, striking with a hammer, and carrying out from one domain to another.

These are the forty primary labors less one.

(Source)

The rest of the tractate at another source goes on to define the parameters more precisely.

Religious teachers debated these issues endlessly. In effect, these strict teachers of the law said it was better that people should virtually do nothing on the Sabbath. It is better to be safe than sorry, better to be severe and austere than risk too much questionable behavior before a holy God. This is called building a wall or fence around the Torah, so that people would not really break the Torah, but the traditions. Problem: the extra-rules became so strict that people felt oppressed.

The goal in these rules is to build a wall around the Torah, which does not specify what keeping or breaking the Sabbath was (one man was stoned to death for collecting wood in Num. 15:32-36). So if a man did any of those activities, he would not be stoned to death. The goal may have been noble, but the rules and strictures kept building and accumulating, become oppressive. The Pharisees and teachers of the law “are only interested in saddling him with the charge of Sabbath breaker, an offense worthy of death (Exod. 31:14). In their zeal to protect the law, they do not use it to set captives free but to bind them ever tighter.

Jesus slipped away into the crowd. Borchert writes: “The hiddenness of Jesus, or so-called ‘Messianic Secret,’ is not a significant theme in John, but the theme of “not knowing” Jesus would function in a similar manner in that it calls the reader’s attention to what should be known” (comments on vv. 9b-15). People think they know who Jesus is, but their knowledge is incomplete.

14:

No one knows what his sin was, which prompted his weakened condition or lameness, but yes, sometimes sin does hit the body hard, like taking drugs can tweak the brain and smoking cannabis can harm the lungs. Excessive speeding (e.g. street racing) can result in crashes and injuries and even deaths. Promiscuity can lead to Sexually Transmitted Infections or Diseases (STIs or STDs). If everyone on the planet were virgins before marriage and remained faithful within marriage, what would happen to the STDs around the globe? They would virtually disappear in a half-generation.

No, I’m not saying this man’s sin were any of those things. Was it bitterness and unforgiveness? Experienced ministers of the gospel tell us that those two roots can lead to all sorts of bad conditions, like arthritis or a weak heart. We don’t know what his particular sin was. Jesus must have sensed, by the Spirit, that sin was at the root. The way forward—always important—was to stop sinning. The verb is in the imperative and present tense, so “stop sinning” is right. My translation “do not sin any longer” is closer to the literal wording, but weak in English. You can go with “stop sinning,” if you wish.

Finally, let’s not over-generalize and believe that every affliction has its root in your personal sin. Sometimes afflictions can be organic. Ask God to show you if the affliction has a root cause and then stake steps forward to get it fixed. If he does not show you anything, keep praying and keep following the doctor’s orders, getting a second opinion, if necessary.

John 9:1-4 reminds us that we should not assume that every disease comes from specific sins.

In light of that warning, Klink cautions us against seeing this section of Scripture as connecting a specific sin with the man’s specific lameness. Instead, Jesus is telling him, generally, to stop sinning because spiritual lameness may befall him. The spiritual and eternal consequence of sinning is in view here, and Jesus is now evangelizing the man and going beyond the physical ailment and instead aiming at the heart (comment on v. 14). Borchert agrees: “Such a direct identification between personal sin and illness, which was proposed by the disciples in the story of the blind man (9:2), was firmly rejected by Jesus (9:3). The statement of cause and effect in this story, therefore, must be taken as referring to the eschatological correlation between sin and judgment that undoubtedly is the meaning of “something worse” in Jesus’ warning to the paralytic” (comment on 9b-15).

Fair enough. However, I prefer Carson’s (and others’) interpretation that says a specific sin lay at the root of the man’s weakened condition or lameness (Carson’s comments on v. 14). Maybe both views are right. His lameness was connected to a specific sin, so he needed to stop sinning, or else something worse (final judgment) may befall him.

15-18:

After the man found out who healed him, he went back to the Jewish authorities and told them who the healer was—Jesus. He was not committing treachery, but he was spiritually dull, not recognizing that his being healed and carrying his mat on the Sabbath would arouse opposition to Jesus (Carson, comment on v. 15). They must have heard of him because Jesus had already cleared out part of the temple (2:13-22). Now he is defiantly breaking their rules for Sabbath keeping. But did Jesus actually break the Sabbath, as God originally intended it? As we have seen, God did not reveal what work was. We merely saw one example of it—gathering wood (Num. 15:32-36). People had to determine what it was, over the generations. Maybe it is best to conclude that the original intent was not to go to work, on the job, on that day, like standing behind a plow or harvesting—really harvesting, not plucking heads of grain on a stroll (Luke 6:1-5).

Then John uses a very interesting verb, which normally means to loosen up or liberate, like untying a farm animal. Scholars debate what it means in this context. It does not mean abolish right now, nor destroy. So what does it mean? I say it means loosen up the Sabbath rules, all (or nearly all) thirty-nine of them. He knocked down the fence around the Sabbath, the fence which the Jewish authorities zealously guarded. He took out a fence post or two, but to break the essence of the Sabbath—no regular work—he did not do in this specific context. He simply healed and told the man to carry his mat, a practical thing to do when one can walk and not leave behind bedding material which may be useful later that night.

However, in other passages Jesus does say, in essence, we are not commanded to keep the Sabbath. He liberates it to a voluntary practice. Please see this post:

What Does the New Covenant Retain from the Old?

Then the Jewish authorities don’t like Jesus’s connection to God whom he calls Father. The Mishnah, a collection of oral traditions written down in about A.D. 200, says the blasphemer is not guilty until he pronounces the Name itself (m. Sanh. 7:5) (HT: Mounce, comment on v. 18). Jesus did call God “my Father,” in a special sense, as if he had a unique connection to him, to the point of Jesus’s Father is working, and so does he. The Jews could legitimately call this blasphemy. Also, Jesus overrode their strict Sabbath rules. However, Jesus seems to say that if the Father intends to heal a non-life-threatening illness or lameness on the Sabbath which he invented in the first place (Gen. 1; Exod. 20:8-11), then that is what he will do. Jesus follows his Father. He does not operate independently. In effect, Jesus is saying that if the authorities intend to blame anyone, they should blame his Father, with whom he is in constant contact. He is the one who led his Son to heal. This accusation by the authorities and Jesus telling them to look to the Father first will launch his long teaching on his close connection to the Father. The authorities did not have this close connection, but he did. They were so far away from the heart of God and inside the hundreds of additional rules that they lost sight of God. Jesus will rise above them so far in the next long teaching that they will become dizzy with his claims. The imperfect tense of the verb can be inceptive (“began to persecute”), but Klink sees it as continuous (“were persecuting”), and concluding, tentatively, that it became a fixed policy at this stage to oppose and harass Jesus. Remember: he cleared out part of the temple (2:13-22), so that was enough to turn persecution into a fixed policy. Whatever the case, they will put him to death in about eighteen months.

Let’s look into some more systematic theology (as I do throughout this commentary). Jesus was the Son of the Father eternally, before creation. The Son has no beginning. He and the Father always were, together. The relationship is portrayed in this Father-Son way so we can understand who God is more clearly. Now he relates to us as his sons and daughters, though, surprisingly, in John’s Gospel we are not called “sons,” but “children.” Only Jesus is the Son. In any case, on our repentance and salvation and union with Christ, we are brought into his eternal family.

6. Titles of Jesus: The Son of God

When Did Jesus “Become” the Son of God?

The signs are for us to believe that he is the Messiah (or Christ), the Son of God. They are signposts, which point to Jesus and his glory. Evidently, Messiahship and Sonship are interchangeable here.

“sign” is used as a synonym for miracles and works, that is another term for miracles. They confirm the message and Jesus himself:

What Are Signs and Wonders and Miracles?

GrowApp for John 5:1-18

1. Do you know someone who has become comfortable in their sin and sickness? What about yourself?

2. Jesus worked in cooperation with his Father. Do you? How do you learn to do this?

RELATED

14. Similarities among John’s Gospel and the Synoptic Gospels

12. Eyewitness Testimony in John’s Gospel

4. Church Fathers and John’s Gospel

3. Archaeology and John’s Gospel

SOURCES

For the bibliography, click on this link and scroll down to the very bottom:

John 5