Continuing a Bible study of the Gospels:
(John 5:1) After this there was a feast of the Jews and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
At the end of the last chapter, Jesus had been in Cana where He had healed a nobleman's son. He now went to Jerusalem because there was a religious feast there. There were at least three main feasts that the Jews were expected to attend: Passover, Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles. It is not likely that it was Passover that Jesus now went to attend, as John had spoken of Jesus being at that feast already (John 4:45). I think it was likely Pentecost as that occurred fifty days after Passover. The Feast of Tabernacles occurred in the fall at the end of the harvest.
(2) Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep a pool which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches.
In Jerusalem, by the sheep gate which is where the sheep were brought into the city, there was a pool for swimming or bathing. It was called Bethesda meaning "house of mercy." It was a place where the sick gathered in hopes of being healed. It had five porches where the people lay and waited for an angel to stir the water. They believed that the first person into the pool after an angel stirred the water would be healed.
(3) In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, lame, withered, waiting for the moving of the water.
On those porches lay a great many sick and weak people, some blind and lame and some with withered limbs they were unable to use. They lay on the porches waiting for the water to move.
(4) For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred the water; then whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was made whole of whatever disease he had.
At least this is what the people believed, that an angel would come down and stir the pool and whoever stepped in first after that stirring would be healed. It is possible that this pool was fed by a hot spring that would occasionally gush up through a crack or fault line in the pool. It might seem like it was the first person in who was healed as he may have been hit with the most minerals from the gush before the mineral water was mixed evenly in the pool. However it worked, even John wrote as if it were true that people were healed at the pool that was stirred by what they presumed to be an angel.
(5) And a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. (6) When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been that way a long time, He said to him, "Do you want to be made whole?"
There was one man at the pool who had had an infirmity for thirty-eight years. Jesus saw him lying there and He knew he had had his condition for a very long time. He asked the man if he wanted to be made whole. It seems like an odd question to someone who had been waiting to be healed for thirty-eight years. However, some people become comfortable in their state and perhaps do not truly want to come out of it. That certainly is true of sin. Does one really want to be healed from their sin enough to repent and be saved?
(7) The impotent man answered Him, "Sir, I have no one, when the water is stirred, to put me into the pool, but while I am coming, another steps down before me."
The feeble man explained to Jesus that he had no one to help him into the pool as soon as the water was stirred. By the time he slowly got himself to it, someone else had stepped into it before him. Yes, he wanted to be healed in the only way he thought possible and had tried over and over again, but with no one to help him, he never succeeded in doing what he thought necessary to be healed. As I write this, I can't help but think of how we often try to "fix" ourselves. "If only" such and such would be, we would be made whatever it was that we were seeking. However, "if only" we would let go of our struggling and look to God and let Him direct our paths, we would be truly healed:
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and depart from evil. It will be health to your flesh and strength to your bones. - Proverbs 3:5-8
(8) Jesus said to him, "Rise, take up your bed and walk."
Jesus just told the man to rise up, take up his mat, and walk. That would seem an odd command to someone who had been feeble for thirty-eight years and was too weak and feeble to get himself into the water he thought would cure him. However, if God is the one telling you to do something, He will give you the strength to do it.
(9) And immediately the man was made whole and took up his bed and walked; and that same day was the Sabbath.
Immediately upon Jesus's word, the man was made whole, and he indeed rose up, picked up his mat and walked. There is a lesson in this for all us sinners. Had the man answered Jesus that he couldn't walk and he knew it was no use to try for he knew he couldn't do it, he wouldn't have experienced the miracle. All the many years a sinner may have tried to reform himself but failed, when he looks to God and gives himself over to Him, he may find the same things he thought never worked, then working because God gave him the strength to do it. But just as the man needed to rise up though he may have thought he couldn't, a sinner needs to repent and get up and seek to reform himself and he'll find that as a new creation in Christ, he will be able to do it. As Philippians 4:13 states, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."
John made it a point to direct his readers' attention to the fact that this miracle had occurred on the Sabbath.
(10) The Jews therefore said to him who was cured, "It is the Sabbath Day; it is not lawful for you to carry your bed."
The religious Jews there told the man that as it was the Sabbath, it was unlawful for him to carry his bed. They were so legalistic and strict in their interpretation of the law that just merely carrying one's mat out of the place of the pool of Bethesda was considered work. I like the way the 1599 Geneva Bible Translation Notes puts it, "True religion is assaulted most cruelly by the pretense of religion itself."
(11) He answered them, "He who made me whole, the same said to me, 'Take up your bed and walk.'"
The formerly feeble man told the Jews that the one who had healed him was the one who told him to take up his mat and walk.
(12) Then they asked him, "What man is He who said to you, 'Take up your bed and walk'?"
These "religious" men, instead of being in awe of and more interested in what the man had said about being healed, just wanted to know who had said he could take up his mat and walk.
(13) And he who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped away as there was a multitude.
However, the man did not who it was who had healed him and could not point Him out because Jesus had slipped away into the crowd of people.
(14) Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, "Behold, you are made whole; sin no more lest a worse thing come to you."
Jesus later found the man in the temple and told him that he had indeed been made whole, but that he was to sin no more lest a worse thing happen to him. In this, Jesus was conveying to the man that he knew what had made him infirm in the first place; perhaps in sin he had hurt himself. He told him that He knew he was completely healed but that he must repent from his sin lest an even worse thing might happen to him. It would seem to the man that Jesus knew his past, present, and his future.
(15) The man departed and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him whole.
The man departed from Jesus's presence and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him, being convinced of this truth because of what Jesus had said to him.
(16) And therefore the Jews persecuted Jesus and sought to kill Him because He had done these things on the Sabbath.
This was one of the first reasons the Jews started persecuting Jesus and seeking to kill Him because He had the "impudence" to heal and tell a man to do "work" on the Sabbath.
(17) But Jesus answered them, "My Father is working now, and I work."
However, Jesus's answer to those accusations was that His Father did His mighty works even on the Sabbath days and so would He.
(18) Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill Him because He not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God.
When the Jews heard those words of Jesus, it made them even more determined to kill Him, not only because He broke the Sabbath law, but because He had said God was His Father, making Himself equal to God, which they considered blasphemy.
(19) Then answered Jesus and said to them, "Verily, verily, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, that the Son does likewise."
Jesus answered that it was true and certain that He could do nothing apart from His Father God because He was God. He and His Father were one, so in effect, He was telling the Jews that He was indeed equal to and was God.
(20) "For the Father loves the Son and shows Him all things that He Himself does, and He will shew Him greater works than these, that you may marvel."
Jesus went on to explain that the Father God loved His Son and showed Him all things that He did so that He might do them also. That was Jesus's way of explaining that this human form that God had taken to be born as a Son on earth knew all the things of God. He added that He would do even greater works than the ones they had witnessed thus far. Greater things would be shown to them which would cause them to marvel, and it would prove His deity to them.
(21) "For as the Father raises up the dead and gives life, even so the Son gives life to whom He will."
The Jews were well aware that God could raise the dead as He had done at least a couple of times in the scriptures. Just as His Father gave life, Jesus was giving eternal life to all who accepted Him as Lord and Savior. He could also give physical life as He did when He raised Lazarus from the dead.
(22) "For the Father judges no man but has committed all judgment to the Son, (23) That all should honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him."
In these and the following verses in John, Jesus gives the Jews the best and easiest to understand explanation of just who He was. God the Father gave the power to judge His people to His Son Jesus. All people had already been condemned by God the Father, as "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). It was only through Jesus Christ that anyone could be saved, so the authority to judge who would be saved and who wouldn't, was all His. As Jesus Christ and the Father were one, everyone must honor Jesus just as they honored God. If they did not honor Jesus, then they were dishonoring God who sent Him as a way to provide a way to Him, Father God, even though they had been previously condemned. It would only be through Jesus's perfect sacrifice that atoned for sins that anyone would be free from their condemnation.
(24) "Verily, verily, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes in Him who sent Me, has everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death to life."
Jesus concluded by saying that whoever heard Him and believed what He was saying and believed in Father God who had sent Him, would have everlasting life and would not suffer the condemnation that their sins required, but would pass from death into life.
(25) "Verily, verily, I say to you, the hour is coming and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they who hear shall live."
Jesus explained that the hour was coming when those dead in sin would hear the preaching of the Gospel and would be saved and have everlasting life. The hour had actually already come with Jesus's beginning ministry.
(26) "For as the Father has life in Himself, so has He given to the Son to have life in Himself."
God the Father is the source of all life; He is life. Jesus as God the Word is life as well and was given that life in Himself as Jesus the man on earth. Jesus had the authority on earth to give eternal life to all who would accept His gift.
(27) "And has given Him authority to execute judgment also because He is the Son of man."
As Jesus had said in verse 22, God the Father had given all authority to Him to judge man. Jesus had that authority because He was the Son of man, the Son of God who had come down to the world as a son to a human man. However, the term "Son of man" as Jesus often called Himself, might refer here to the fact that even though He was God, He was fully human and understood our temptations and infirmities and might be better qualified to judge men. After all, Jesus is meant to be our advocate, our intercessor, our mediator between God and us. I don't believe for a second that God in heaven couldn't judge us righteously, but the fact Jesus was man in the midst of them might have been seen by people as one who was closer, not distant in heaven, and could better understand their shortcomings and could better plead their cases.
(28) "Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves shall hear His voice."
I believe because of the way it was punctuated that Jesus meant for them not to be astonished at what He was about to say rather than what he had already said, that the hour was coming when even the physically dead in their graves would hear Jesus's voice.
(29) "And shall come forth; they who have done good, to the resurrection of life; and they who have done evil to the resurrection of damnation."
The dead would come forth out of their graves to be judged. Those in the graves before Jesus's time could not have received the gift of Jesus's sacrifice for their sins, but if they had done good, in this case meaning they loved God and did their best to follow His commands and to love their fellow man, they would be resurrected to everlasting life. This is where Jesus the Great Mediator will judge the hearts of men as no man is good, not one (Romans 3:10, Ecclesiastes 7:20), and cannot see the kingdom of God without Jesus. Those who had done evil, did not honor God, used and abused people, and would have never accepted Jesus if given the opportunity, would be resurrected to damnation.
(30) "I can of My own self do nothing; as I hear, I judge, and My judgment is just because I do not seek My own will, but the will of the Father who has sent Me."
I don't believe Jesus's point was that He was unable to do anything of His own will, but that He wouldn't do anything apart from God because He was one with God. As God directs, God the Son does and judges. His will is not separate from the will of His Father.
(31) "If I bear witness of Myself, My witness is not true."
I believe Jesus meant that if He testified of Himself as merely man and with no connection to God, His testimony could not be true. He was God; He and His Father were one. Knowing He came to do the work of His Father and could only do the work His Father willed was sufficient as His testimony. Even though Jesus was true of Himself and He could never give a false witness, the point was He couldn't be anything else but one with God.
(32) "There is another who bears witness of Me, and I know that the witness which he witnesses of Me is true."
Some commentators think Jesus referred to John the Baptist as witnessing of Him, because He mentions John in the next verse, and then mentions God the Father in verse 37. However, in total context, I tend to agree with others that it seems more likely He referred to God as His witness. He then spoke of the witness the people had received before Him from John.
(33) "You sent to John and he bore witness to the truth."
When the Jews had sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem (John 1:19) to him, John the Baptist had borne true testimony about Jesus.
(34) "But I do not receive testimony from man, but I say these things that you might be saved."
Jesus didn't need to depend on the testimony of any man, John the Baptist included, but He told them that John had testified truly about Him so that by the testimony of someone they so revered as a Godly prophet, they might be saved. God used John even though it was not necessary to have John testify about Jesus as Jesus's very life, words, and actions themselves testified beautifully about Him.
(35) "He was a burning and shining light, and you were willing for a season to rejoice in his light."
John was as a lamp shining in darkness. There is a very interesting significance and difference in the use of the original word used here that was translated as "light," that is, "luchnos," which meant "lamp or candle," and the word that was translated as "light" when describing Jesus in John 1:4-5. That word was "phos" and meant more of a radiating light of itself, a fountain of light like the sun. John was not "the light;" he was a lamp lighting the path for the light that was Jesus Christ. People rejoiced in his message for the short while he preached before he was imprisoned. They saw him as a great prophet prophesying the coming Messiah, but they were looking for a King Messiah who would deliver them out of the hands of the Romans.
(36) "But I have greater witness than of John, for the works which the Father has given Me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of Me, that the Father has sent Me."
Jesus said that His witness was greater than that of John's because He came to finish the work of His Father God in heaven. In fact, He was God who came in this form of Jesus in order to finish His work of spiritual salvation of the world. Jesus did the very works of God so those works bore testimony to the fact He was sent from God. John the Baptist had performed no miracles. He was a prophet sent by God and he testified truly about the Messiah who came after him, but only God could perform such miracles as Jesus did. Jesus's very life on earth was the greatest witness to who He truly was.
(37) "And the Father Himself who has sent Me has borne witness of Me. You have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His shape."
God Himself had borne witness of Jesus in multiple ways, in His word and many prophecies of Jesus in scripture, in the very miracles Jesus did that only God could do, and in His audible testimony at Jesus's baptism. However, the people had neither listened to all those testimonies nor recognized God's manifestation in them.
(38) "And you do not have His word abiding in you, for whom He has sent, Him you do not believe."
The people also obviously did not have God's word abiding in them or else they would have realized that He had sent Jesus to them, but they did not believe Jesus. They may have thought they believed the scriptures to be of God, but they couldn't have totally accepted His word into their hearts for they did not believe the One God sent.
(39) "Search the scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life, and they are those which testify of Me. (40) And you will not come to Me that you may have life."
The people searched and poured over the scriptures because in them they believed they had eternal life. However, those very scriptures were the ones that testified of Jesus Christ, their Messiah, the very source of that eternal life, and yet they would not come to Him to receive that life.
(41) "I do not receive honor from men."
Jesus had no need for the honor of men. He did not do what He did for vanity and glory. He spoke and did the things He did in love and for the salvation of their souls.
(42) "But I know you, that you do not have the love of God in you."
Being the omniscient God, Jesus knew the hearts of men and He knew they did not have the love of God in them. They pretended to love God with their strict adherence to the law and yet they missed the true spirit of the law as God intended. They did not truly love God because they did not know Him, as evidenced by their lack of understanding of the scriptures and their unwillingness to listen to Jesus.
(43) "I am come in My Father's name and you do not receive Me; if another shall come in his own name, him you will receive."
Jesus came in His Father's name and they would not receive Him. And because they did not have the love and truth of God within them, they would readily receive false Christs who came in no other authority than their own.
(44) "How can you believe who receive honor one of another, and do not seek the honor that comes from God only?"
How could one possibly believe in Jesus, as was the case with the scribes and Pharisees, when he was more interested in getting praise from the people? When he openly performed religious acts to be praised by the people? When he did not deny himself, follow, and seek honor from the one true God?
(45) "Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father; there is one who accuses you, Moses, in whom you trust."
Jesus had not come to accuse and condemn people. The people were already condemned by the law of Moses that they were unable to wholly keep. Jesus had come to save them from their condemnation.
(46) "For had you believed Moses, you would have believed Me for he wrote of Me."
Additionally, the people were condemned because they did not believe all the writings of Moses who had written about Jesus. If they had truly believed and held Moses's writings in their hearts, they would have believed Jesus.
(47) "But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?"
If the people did not truly believe the writings of Moses, then how could they possibly believe Jesus who was the fulfillment of those writings? Jesus demonstrated how it would be a natural conclusion that they would not believe Him if they had not believed Moses in the first place, and thus they stood accused by the writings of Moses proving they had never really taken those writings and the word of God to heart.
More than any other Gospel author, John wrote about the deity of Jesus Christ. His account was not just history; it contained much spiritual and theological reflection on Jesus's words and deeds. He didn't write about many of the same events as the other Gospel authors did, but wrote about events that the others did not include that gave a more in-depth insight into Jesus. This chapter includes one of the clearest declarations in all of scripture of the deity of Jesus that was in His own words. Of course, the first chapter of John was powerful, but these were Jesus's own words. How could anyone listen to them and not be struck by His profound wisdom and obvious knowledge that no one but the Son of God could possess?
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