From 2nd Passover until 3rd, Section 37

P A R T F I F T H. FROM SECOND PASSOVER UNTIL THIRD

TIME: ONE YEAR

Section 37
JESUS HEALS ON THE SABBATH DAY AND DEFENDS HIS ACT
(At Feast-time at Jerusalem, probably the Passover.) 

 JOHN 5:1-47

Jesus approaches a sick man at the Pool of Bethesda, a place where the lame and sick would gather.  He knows the man has been sick for a long time--38 years--and asks him if he would like to be well.  The man replies that he can't because he doesn't have someone to help him into the waters when they stir, thus others always beat him out.  Jesus addresses him in the imperative---"Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!"

The details of the story  (v 1-18)---even before Jesus's deep commentary (v 19-47)--are a lot to think through.  Why did he choose this man?  It's notable also that he just continues on his way after talking with and healing this man.  The Pharisees overlook the individual application of mercy and healing to focus on the legalities of Sabbath regulation.  The man didn't know the name of his healer, but Jesus found him later in the temple and told him to stop sinning before something worse happened. Here again is another connection between sin and disease (the prior connection was in the
healing of the paralytic lowered by his friend).

On this, the BKC notes "(Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you) does not mean that his paralysis was caused by any specific sin (cf. Joh_9:3), though all disease and death come ultimately from sin." Also--why did he then tell the Pharisees it was Jesus? He either didn't perceive the opposition or was careless---not sure which.

Context of this miracle from Drive Thru History: "So, in context, this wasn’t just another miraculous healing. Jesus had walked into another pagan territory and confronted a longstanding cultural myth. He wanted his Hellenized Jewish audience to gain a new understanding. As in his meeting with the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus was making the claim that he was the true source of healing – He was the source of “living water.”"

Love this reply---John 5:17  But Jesus replied, "My Father is always working, and so am I."   I'm grateful that the Lord is continually working through all seasons and things--every pocket of time and in every person's life.

Or, I also work. The two clauses are coordinated. The relation, as Meyer observes, is not that of imitation, or example, but of equality of will and procedure. Jesus does not violate the divine ideal of the Sabbath by His holy activity on that day. “Man's true rest is not a rest from human, earthly labor, but a rest for divine, heavenly labor. Thus the merely negative, traditional observance of the Sabbath is placed in sharp contrast with the positive, final fulfillment of spiritual service, for which it was a preparation” (Westcott). -VWS

Under such circumstances Jewish tradition said that he must either spend the rest of the day watching his bed, or else he must go off and leave it to be stolen. But He who rightfully interpreted the law of [196] his own devising, and who knew that "the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath," ordered the healed one to carry his bed along home with him.-FG

from Drive Thru History

We have shown that Jesus chose to assert his divine attitude, for in no other matter did these Jews have clearer distinction as to the difference between divine and human right than in this matter of sabbath observance. If Jesus was a mere man, their ideas of law clearly condemned him; but if Jesus were indeed God, their knowledge of divine conduct in the whole realm of nature [198] clearly justified him, and the miracle asserted his divine control in nature's realm. While God rested from creation on the sabbath, nothing can be clearer than that in works of sustenance, reproduction, healing and providence, God has never rested, and never made distinctions between the days of our week. -FG

 Many human ills are directly traceable to sin, and this one appears to have been so; for death is the wages of sin, and sickness is partial payment. -FG

Jesus therefore answered and said unto them. [His answer is a connected address, the theme being his own character, mission, authority, and credentials as the Son of God. It is the Christology of Jesus, and instead of being a retraction of the claim to divinity which the Jews accused him of making, it is a complete and amplified reassertion of it, so that Luther fitly called it "a sublime apology, which makes the matter worse.-FG

 Jesus first declares his relations to the Father (verses 19-23), which are set forth in four divisions, each of which is introduced by the word "for;" viz.:

1. Unity of action. "The son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the father do." (vThe participle brings out more sharply the coincidence of action between the Father and the Son: “the inner and immediate intuition which the Son perpetually has of the Father's work” (Meyer).
2. Unity of love, counsel, and plan."For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing." John 5:20
3. Unity in life-impartation. "For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will." John 5:21
4.  Unity in judgment, resulting in unity of honor--For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son." John 4:22

These he made the basis of the argument of Joh_5:23, "that all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father."-FG

Since Jesus has the unity and divine prerogatives mentioned in Joh_5:19-23, to trust His message and His Father is to have in the present time eternal life (cf. Joh_3:36). No judgment will come in the future (he will not be condemned [cf. Joh_3:18; Rom_6:13; Rom_8:1] because he has already passed from one realm - death - into another - life [cf. Eph_2:1, Eph_2:5]). Only once elsewhere (in 1Jn_3:14) is the phrase “passed from death to life” used.-BKC

He saw into people, into their struggles and longings.  His healings served a broader purpose, drawing out objections from the leadership and providing opportunity for him to clarify the heart of God and His will for man.

The Piscina Probatica or Pool of Bethesda,
James Tissot

 How eager were these folk to be cured! Would that there were the same earnestness for the healing of the soul. BI

II. THE PEOPLE WERE A GREAT MULTITUDE.
1. Sorrow has always been in a majority.

2. Seemingly just. The action violated Rabbinical prescription and the letter of Scripture. But an action may contravene the literal sense and yet be in accordance with the Spirit (Mat_12:4-5), and vice versa Mat_15:3-6).

V. It is a glorious thing to remember that WHAT CHRIST COMMANDS IS RIGHT, whether we understand His reasons or not. We must grow into the knowledge of them little by little.
VI. WHATEVER CHRIST COMMANDS HE GIVES US POWER TO DO. He never separates duty from power. “My grace is sufficient.” (E. Mellor, D. D.) BI

Both Jesus and the leaders asked the sick man questions---Jesus's question healed; the Jewish leaders' questions were to accuse and harm.  Questions are not just questions--they are not merely curious, but reflect our hearts and agendas.

"The malignity of the questioners reveals itself in the very shape which their question assumes." -BI, Trench

There are multiple episodes of Jesus choosing to heal on the Sabbath:

Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath. In addition to the case of the invalid’s healing (Joh_5:1-15), John later recorded the cure of a blind man on the Sabbath (Joh_9:1-41). The grain-picking (Mar_2:23-28), the healing of a shriveled hand (Mar_3:1-5), curing a woman who had been crippled for 18 years (Luk_13:10-17), and healing a man with dropsy (Luk_14:1-6) - all these took place on the Sabbath.-BKC

Regarding the interconnectedness of the Father and Son in action:

 The Father would show these works to the Son by causing him to do them; there would be no separate act of the Father so that the works would be twice performed. These works would produce faith in those of right spirit.-FG

On Moses foreshadowing Christ:

Moses wrote symbolically of Jesus through his entire work, as Bengel tersely puts it, "Everywhere!" The Epistle to the Hebrews is a partial elaboration of the Christology of Moses. But there is doubtless a depth of meaning in the Pentateuch which has never yet been fully fathomed, for there is a fullness in Scripture greatly exceeding the popular conception. Moreover, the Old and New Testaments are so linked together that to reject one is eventually to reject the other, or to read it with veiled eyes--II. Cor. 3:15. -FG