John 5

Jesus Heals on the Sabbath

1-9 Jesus goes to Jerusalem for a festival, where on the Sabbath he sees a man, lame for 38 years, waiting for someone to put him into a healing pool called Bethsaida. Jesus tells him to stand, take up his mat, and walk, and immediately he is well. Jesus first asks the man if he wants to get well, which seems like a curious questions. Gill explains that Jesus asked him this to raise the man’s expectations of a cure. It would be like us asking a small child if he wants a piece of candy. Of course, he does! But still we ask first.

Here also is a question about the angel stirring the water, which doesn’t appear in all manuscripts (and is omitted in the NRSV). I prefer Coffman’s explanation. After he comments that all healing is from God – even though it may be explained scientifically – he comments on the omission in some translations:

The spurious nature of the words here cited, however, is not to be denied. They were probably added by some scribe at a very early date to explain what was meant by the cripple's having no one to help him get into the water at the propitious moment. If there had been any virtue in the waters of the pool, it seems highly incredible that they should have been efficacious only at indeterminate intervals, only for such a short while, and, even then, only for the person who got into them first. The cripple of this narrative had surely found them without any value to himself.

10-15 The Jews chastise the healed man for carrying his mat on the Sabbath. When he explains that the man who healed him told him to carry it, they want to know who healed him, but he doesn’t know, because Jesus has disappeared into the crowd. Later, Jesus sees him in the temple and tells him not to sin anymore, to prevent further trouble. He tells the Jews Jesus healed him. Two comments on verse 14, from Coffman’s commentary: 1) It’s likely the man’s condition was connected with a past sin; 2) Something “worse” might refer to a sin-stained soul, which is worse than a physical infirmity.

16-18 The Jews persecute and plot to kill Jesus because he not only healed on the Sabbath, but he calls God his Father, making himself equal to God.

The Authority of the Son

19-24 Jesus explains to the Jews his relationship with the Father:

1. He does nothing more than the Father does;
2. The Father loves the Son
3. The Father shows the Son what He, the Father, is doing, and will show even greater works [than healing];
4. The Father gives life; so does the Son;
5. The Father has given all judgment into the hands of the Son, so that all may honor the Son as they do the Father
6. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father.
7. He who hears Jesus and believes God has eternal life.

25-29 The time is coming when all who hear the voice of the Son of God will be resurrected to life; those who do not, to the resurrection of condemnation.

Witnesses to Jesus

30 Jesus judges according to the Father’s will; he does only what the Father wills.

31-38 You don’t have to believe me; I have other witnesses: 1) John [the Baptist], whom you believed; 2) The works I do; 3) The Father, whose voice you would recognize if His word abode in you.

39-47 The scriptures you search testify of me, but you refuse to hear me. Praise from humans means nothing to me, though it is what you seek, not having the love of God in you.Your real accuser is not me, but Moses. If you believed what he wrote about me, you would believe me.