Joh 5:1-18 | KingComments | STEP | The next three chapters, John 5-7, belong together. They all start with a history. Each history illustrates a truth about which the Lord Jesus teaches further in that chapter. In John 5 it concerns a lame man who illustrates the powerlessness of Israel under the law. About this man and the wonder of his healing we only read in this Gospel. In the teaching that the Lord connects to it we see that He is the Son of God who not only gives strength, but life as well. In John 6, He speaks of Himself as the bread that has descended from heaven after satisfying a crowd with bread. That bread is the flesh of the Son of Man that is eaten to get eternal life. In John 7 we see Him at the Feast of Booths, to which He attaches teaching about the Holy Spirit. In everything we see the glory of His Person. Again the Lord goes up to Jerusalem. In this Gospel we often see Him in Jerusalem, while the other evangelists follow Him especially in His service in Galilee. He goes to Jerusalem on the occasion of “a feast of the Jews” which in all probability is the Passover. If so, there are four Passover feasts in this Gospel ( ). The first Passover, in John 2:23, was before the Lord began His public service. The three following Passover feasts make it clear that the Lord performed His public service in Israel for three years. John points to a special location in Jerusalem: a pool near one of the porticoes of the wall around Jerusalem, the sheep gate. He also gives it its Hebrew nickname, which reads “Bethesda”. When Nehemiah starts repairing the wall around Jerusalem, he begins with the Sheep Gate ( ). This repair work is done by the priests. Through this gate the sheep were brought into the city to be sacrificed in the temple. Because of this we are immediately reminded of the most important thing of city and temple which is to worship God. Restoration of the wall is first of all necessary for the progress of the priestly service. Only of this gate is said in Nehemiah 3 that they consecrated it, i.e. separated it especially for God and dedicated it to Him. However, John does not draw attention to the sheep entering through the gate, but to a pool nicknamed Bethesda, which means ‘house of mercy’ or ‘house of grace’. John also mentions that there are five porticoes. The number five indicates responsibility. Israel has failed in its responsibility to obey the law, and as a result, the five porticoes are full of a crowd of sick people suffering from all kinds of ailments. The sheep for the sacrificial service brought into Jerusalem by a celebrating crowd have given way to distress and misery. This is the result of the unfaithfulness of the people. Yet there remains a glimmer of hope for the crowd of the sick. No matter how much the people have deviated from God and with that have taken on the plagues of all kinds, as God has said, God has shown His mercy again at certain times. From time to time God sends an angel to stir up the water. He who first descends into it then becomes healthy, no matter what sickness he had. However, it is only mercy to someone and not general healing for everyone.

‏ John 5:1-18

Bethesda

The next three chapters, John 5-7, belong together. They all start with a history. Each history illustrates a truth about which the Lord Jesus teaches further in that chapter. In John 5 it concerns a lame man who illustrates the powerlessness of Israel under the law. About this man and the wonder of his healing we only read in this Gospel. In the teaching that the Lord connects to it we see that He is the Son of God who not only gives strength, but life as well. In John 6, He speaks of Himself as the bread that has descended from heaven after satisfying a crowd with bread. That bread is the flesh of the Son of Man that is eaten to get eternal life. In John 7 we see Him at the Feast of Booths, to which He attaches teaching about the Holy Spirit. In everything we see the glory of His Person.

Again the Lord goes up to Jerusalem. In this Gospel we often see Him in Jerusalem, while the other evangelists follow Him especially in His service in Galilee. He goes to Jerusalem on the occasion of “a feast of the Jews” which in all probability is the Passover. If so, there are four Passover feasts in this Gospel (Jn 2:23 ; Jn 5:1 ; Jn 6:4 ; Jn 11:55). The first Passover, in John 2:23, was before the Lord began His public service. The three following Passover feasts make it clear that the Lord performed His public service in Israel for three years.

John points to a special location in Jerusalem: a pool near one of the porticoes of the wall around Jerusalem, the sheep gate. He also gives it its Hebrew nickname, which reads “Bethesda”. When Nehemiah starts repairing the wall around Jerusalem, he begins with the Sheep Gate (Neh 3:1). This repair work is done by the priests. Through this gate the sheep were brought into the city to be sacrificed in the temple.

Because of this we are immediately reminded of the most important thing of city and temple which is to worship God. Restoration of the wall is first of all necessary for the progress of the priestly service. Only of this gate is said in Nehemiah 3 that they consecrated it, i.e. separated it especially for God and dedicated it to Him.

However, John does not draw attention to the sheep entering through the gate, but to a pool nicknamed Bethesda, which means ‘house of mercy’ or ‘house of grace’. John also mentions that there are five porticoes. The number five indicates responsibility. Israel has failed in its responsibility to obey the law, and as a result, the five porticoes are full of a crowd of sick people suffering from all kinds of ailments. The sheep for the sacrificial service brought into Jerusalem by a celebrating crowd have given way to distress and misery. This is the result of the unfaithfulness of the people.

Yet there remains a glimmer of hope for the crowd of the sick. No matter how much the people have deviated from God and with that have taken on the plagues of all kinds, as God has said, God has shown His mercy again at certain times. From time to time God sends an angel to stir up the water. He who first descends into it then becomes healthy, no matter what sickness he had. However, it is only mercy to someone and not general healing for everyone.

The Lord Heals a Sick Man.

Among the many sick is a man who has been ill for thirty-eight years. This man is a picture of the Jews under the law. After all, Israel was given the law two years after their exodus from Egypt, and after that, for thirty-eight years, they wandered through the wilderness as a people under the law. It has become clear that they didn’t keep the law, because many fell in the wilderness, although God also showed His grace. By their disobedience to the law, the people have forfeited all rights to blessing. In his own strength, man can never come into possession of the forfeited blessings. What applies to Israel as a people applies to every person as a sinner (Rom 5:6-10).

Then the Lord Jesus appears. Without the man having asked for it, He comes to him. He knows the man’s past and knows that he has been ill for a long time. The Lord asks him if he wishes to get well. Of course He knows that, but He wants to hear it from the man’s mouth. After His meetings with Nicodemus in John 3 and the Samaritan woman in John 4 we see here another example of how the Lord approaches the individual and how close He therefore comes to him or her.

The man tells how utterly hopeless his situation is. There is no man who cares about him. Everyone has enough to do with himself and his own misery. Nor does he himself have the strength to be the first to reach the water when it is stirred up. He is a paragon of misery and despair, without any hope. The nature of his illness makes it absolutely impossible for him to benefit from the occasionally offered means of healing, because for that he needs strength. In the man’s condition we see the characteristics both of sin and of the law.

The man wants to, but is not able to, because he does not have the strength for it. He is the illustration of a truth which is extensively dealt with in the letter to the Romans, namely the misery caused by the law to people who do want to live to God's honor, but discover that there is no power within them to do so (Rom 7:24). The solution to that misery is to renounce oneself and look to the Lord Jesus (Rom 7:25) and to what God has done in Him (Rom 8:3). “The Law was given through Moses”, but “grace and truth was realized through Jesus Christ” (Jn 1:17). The man is going to experience this when he is healed by the Lord.

Then the Lord speaks the liberating word with in it the power to obey it and experience its blessing. As with the son of the royal official in the previous chapter, the word of the Lord is a word of Spirit and life. The word of the Lord is full of life and power. When He speaks a word, always something happens. One single word of Him puts aside thirty-eight years of illness forever and undoes its consequences. The man becomes healthy.

The Lord not only heals, but also gives the man the strength to take up what he has been lying on, and he actually does that. The pallet that has carried him all this time, he now takes under his arm and he walks away. On the word of the Lord there is an immediate result. As already indicated, this is a wonderful illustration of the power of the Son of God Who does what is impossible for the law because of the powerlessness of the flesh (Rom 8:3).

In this third sign we see that healing cannot be found on the basis of the law, but only in Him Who is full of grace and truth. The teaching that the Lord connects to this event in the course of this chapter goes much deeper. He makes Himself known as the Son of God Who brings the dead to life. Reason for this is the comment that the Jews have on this healing.

The Jews and the Cured Man

It is the Sabbath when the Lord heals the man. The first time there is mention of the Sabbath in the Word of God, without mentioning that name, is at creation (Gen 2:2). There we see the basic meaning. It is the rest of God after He created the first creation. The sin of man put an end to that rest (Jn 5:17). The Jews do not realize this. They can only think in the line of the law and the tradition. They want to rest in their God-given ordinances, which they do not keep, but which they still hold on to.

They do not see how hopelessly they are condemned by God’s ordinances, but instead boast of them. They have no sense of grace, as people who use the law as the norm for their own life and the life of others always lack the sense of grace. It is the harshness of people who have no idea of their own inability to keep the law. Otherwise they would rejoice that a human being has become healthy and have seen the Sabbath as a day of God’s grace. But they have made the Sabbath a yoke. This can only lead to a conflict with the Lord Jesus.

Every time the Sabbath is mentioned in connection with Christ, He deprives the Sabbath of the meaning the Jews gave it (Mt 12:1-13; Mk 1:21-31 ; Mk 2:23-28 ; Mk 3:2-6; Lk 4:31-37 ; Lk 6:1-11 ; Lk 13:10-16 ; Lk 14:1-6; Jn 5:1-18 ; Jn 7:22-23 ; Jn 9:14-16). It seems that He deliberately performs so many healings on the Sabbath to make it clear that the condition to keep it is lacking. By acting on the Sabbath, He shows that the whole system of which the Sabbath is the main characteristic, the system of the law, has been set aside by Him.

The man does not allow to be bound by these Jews for a walk under the law. He keeps the word of the Lord and appeals to it. Because He has said it, it is good. For us as well, this is the only right reaction to legislative thinking of ourselves or others. The answer of the man is at the same time a rejection of the self-satisfied observance of the Sabbath by the Jews which reveals that they are turning against their Messiah.

The reaction of the Jews to the answer of the man shows their contempt for the Lord. They speak with contempt of “the man”, even though they probably knew Who that “man” was, for the Lord had already done many signs in Jerusalem. Because of his powerlessness the cured man has not yet been able to meet Him, bound as he was to his place at the pool. The Lord had not revealed Himself to him either, as He had done with the Samaritan woman (Jn 4:26). He deals with every human being differently because He takes a different path with every human being whom He connects to Himself.

The Lord Himself has left because He does not want publicity for Himself. He has not called the man as one of His disciples who follow Him on His way.

No Rest for the Father and His Son

With the making well of the man the work of the Lord is not yet finished. He still wants to point out something important to the man for the rest of his life. He does not do that immediately, but some time later. For that He seeks the man again. Again the initiative comes from Him.

He finds him in the temple. There the man undoubtedly wanted to thank God for his healing. It is also the appropriate place for further education. Because no matter how great it is to be healed by the Lord Jesus, the underlying problem was still there. That problem is a certain sin that was committed by the man which gave him this disease. He must judge that sin and never allow it into his life again. For that the Lord will also give him the strength if he remains dependent on Him.

By what the Lord says to the man, it becomes clear to him Who made him well. That is what he is going to tell the Jews, because they wanted to know Who made him well. The man seems to act unsuspectingly, out of love for the Lord Jesus, for others to get to know Him as well. He has no suspicion of their enmity. This innocence is beautiful and worthy of imitation.

Through the testimony of the man the Jews get the certainty of what they already suspect. Now they have the evidence in their hands as a weapon to persecute the Lord. We do not read that the Jews said anything to Him, but that they are persecuting Him for what He did on the Sabbath. Yet we read that He answers them. That is because He knows perfectly what is in man. He knows their murderousness because of His mercifulness granted on the Sabbath.

His answer is overwhelming and profound. For faith there is great glory in it, but to unbelief it provides an extra argument to hate Him. He speaks about His fellowship with the Father in the work He and the Father have done so far. What do the Jews know about fellowship with the Father? What do they know about the desires of the Father? He knows the Father and knows that the Father cannot rest in sin, nor can He. It is a wonder of grace that He did not come to judge, but to work.

The works He does are not works of judgment. His works of judgment will surely come on those who stubbornly refuse to acknowledge their sins and who will complete the measure of their sin by rejecting Him. It is not that far yet. He is still busy making His Father known in love and grace. As the Son He has perfect, uninterrupted fellowship with the Father and works together with the Father.

The Jews draw the right conclusion from what He says as far as His being equal to God is concerned. Only the Lord Jesus does not make Himself equal with God, He is equal with God, for He is God (Jn 1:1). Instead of acknowledging that truth, it only increases their murderousness.

Although Christ has taken a subordinate place by coming to earth as a dependent and obedient Man, it is important to hold on to the fact that He never ceases to be the eternal Son of God. As the eternal Son, He never has a subordinate place in relation to the Father, but is one with the Father (Jn 10:30).

What the Lord says here is considered worse by the Jews than what He has done. Like the breaking of the Sabbath, also this statement leads to an outburst of the depraved mind of the Jews.