Jesus says to him, Arise, take up thy couch and walk.
A man had been ill for thirty-eight years, lying by a pool whose moving water he could never reach in time. Then a stranger spoke a word of command, and in a moment the man had everything the pool had promised and never given.
The man expected help into the water. What came instead was a word, and the cure was total from the first moment.
He never imagined that the stranger, who had shown interest by His question, could be not a helper but the Healer. Jehovah who heals was standing before him. So now came the word — the word of power and of command, "Get up, take up your bed, and walk" (8). Who said that? A voice from heaven? No, a man upon earth, even the Son of Man. Power at once reinvigorated the limbs. He was made whole. It was no gradual recovery working up by degrees to full health. For he took up his bed, and walked.
The pool was real mercy, but it worked on a condition the sick man could not meet — you had to be strong enough to use it.
The pool did not only work now and then. Its help was also incomplete and conditional. Like the law, it required enough strength to use it. He that was quite powerless lay there in vain. Another stepped in before he could be put into the water when troubled by the angel. To will was present with him, but not to do. "O wretched man that I am!" was all he could feel. He needed the only One Who could speak the effective word: "Get up, take up your bed, and walk." Then he obeyed at once, Sabbath though it was. What was an angel's act next to that?
One writer sees in the man a picture of Israel, "under testing; incapable of ever meeting the divine claims of the covenant" (George Davison).
This is the difference between a demand and a gift. The order to get up would be cruelty if the strength to obey did not come with it.
"Get up, take up your bed, and walk" gave the bedridden man at the pool of Bethesda all the power he needed to obey the command. But the law of Moses did not do that. The law came to a man who had no strength to meet its righteous demand, and it cursed him for his disobedience. But grace gives the soul the power it must have, so that he can respond with thanks to the word spoken to him.
The bed is not a detail. The Lord tells the man to pick up the very object that had held him for years, and to need nothing else.
And here the Lord Himself speaks to the poor crippled man of nothing but His own healing power: "Get up, take up your bed, and walk." He was to carry the bed that once carried him, while he lay waiting by the pool. He needed nothing else. He knew the healing of the Son of God, and he was free.
The Lord could have healed him and left him lying there. Instead He sent him walking through the city on the one day when everyone would notice a man carrying his bed.
He picks out a completely helpless and hopeless man. At His command the man carries his bed through Jerusalem on that very Sabbath, and this proves the cure is real. But it was a witness to more than the power of Jesus. It also showed the authority He had as the Son of God to set aside the customs of the law.
Christ's word did the same thing at a grave, and it does the same in a soul that is dead.
"Lazarus, come forth" brought the dead man out of his grave, with the life blood running through his veins and the bloom of health on his face. And when the word of life comes in the power of the Spirit to a soul that is morally dead, that soul is made to live in the life of Christ.
Later in the chapter Jesus speaks of the Son giving life. Another writer points out that the verb there is the one He used at the pool.
Now the Son comes in to give life, "even so the Son gives life to whom He will". … The word "raises" in chapter 5 is the same as the one said to the man at the pool, "Get up, take up your bed, and walk" (see John 5:8 and 21).
- Helpless. The man's problem was not the pool but his own weakness — like the law, it demanded a strength he did not have.
- Word. No water touched him. A spoken command from the Son of God did what thirty-eight years of waiting could not.
- Power. Grace does not only tell a man to rise; it supplies the strength the command calls for.
- Witness. He carries what once carried him. His bed had been the proof of his weakness. Now it walks through Jerusalem as proof of the cure.
- Life. The word that lifted him is the word Christ uses of raising the dead. The same voice still makes a dead soul live.
And immediately the man became well, and took up his couch and walked and on that day was sabbath.
One word from Jesus, and a man who had not walked for thirty-eight years stands up and carries his mat away. John then adds a short note that turns the whole scene into a fight: the day was the Sabbath.
John's wording marks how fast the change came.
Power at once restored strength to his limbs. He was made whole. It was not a recovery that improved step by step until he was fully well. For he took up his bed, and walked. Before he was struck down he could have done all this. After thirty-eight years of forced disability he could do it again — and at once, in front of all the crowd of sick people. He rose up. He carried his bed. He walked.
The mat is the detail to watch. For years it had held a helpless man.
"Get up, take up your bed, and walk." What powerful words! The man is strengthened. Power runs through his long-weakened frame. This is a picture: he now stands on the ground of resurrection. He had known what the weakness of death meant. He is now in the vigour of life. He carries his bed; what was proof of his weakness becomes the witness of the power given to him by Christ.
For thirty-eight years nothing had made this man well. One writer explains why the law could never have done it.
Yet by his confession he admitted that he wanted to be made whole. The word of the Lord made him completely sound at once. The law could not do this for him, because it was weak through the powerlessness of his flesh. The Son of God, now present on earth, did it in an instant as His own work. The man was able not only to walk but also to carry the bed which had once been proof of his helplessness. The Lord told him to do this even though it was the Sabbath.
John's closing note is not a stray detail. Commentators see a clash here between man's idea of rest and God's.
Man does not know what the Sabbath truly means. So he insists on keeping it outwardly, to gain a religious reputation. But while he insists on that outward keeping, he does not care at all about the sin that broke into the rest. The blessing of Sabbath rest belongs to a people who keep the law, not to a people who break it. Man may be content to rest in the presence of sin and the misery it brings. God cannot rest where sin and misery exist. His holiness demands that He deal with sin; His love drives Him to work for the relief of the sinner.
The cure was complete without the mat. One writer asks why the Lord added the order.
A man lay helpless beside Bethesda, waiting for an angel to come down. He found that One greater than all angels was there, who did not need to stir the waters. A word was enough; for power went with it, and the man was healed. But Jesus told him to get up, take up his bed, and walk, Sabbath though it was. Could he not have left his bed there, or at least left it for that day? Yes. But when he acted at the word of the One who healed him, that was a plain testimony, and a very irritating one: God had no fellowship with their Sabbaths.
The reaction came at once, and it did not stop with the man.
The law of the Sabbath was very strict. All kinds of work were forbidden, even picking up sticks and lighting a fire. So the Jews were up in arms at once when they saw the man carrying his bed. He had a ready and sufficient answer. The Man who had healed him had told him to do it, and a little later he could name that Man — Jesus. Their zeal for the Sabbath was so great that from that moment He became the object of their hatred and persecution.
For the crowd this was a broken Sabbath. For the man himself, another writer suggests, it was the opposite.
It was the first true day of rest for him. All his useless efforts after life and health stopped. He rested entirely in the grace and power of Another.
- At once. The cure was total and instant, in front of a whole crowd of sick people.
- A word, not a pool. No angel needed to stir the water. The word of the Son of God healed him in an instant.
- The bed. What had been proof of his helplessness became the proof of the power given to him.
- The Sabbath. God cannot rest where sin and misery exist. His holiness makes Him deal with sin. His love makes Him work for the sufferer.
- True rest. His own rest began the day his useless efforts stopped and he rested in the grace and power of Another.
The Jews therefore said to the healed [man], It is sabbath, it is not permitted thee to take up thy couch.
A man who had not walked for thirty-eight years is on his feet, carrying the bed he had lain on. The first response he meets is not joy but a legal objection. It raises two questions: what was the sabbath for, and who may tell a healed man how to use his new strength?
The day they appeal to had a real place in God's dealings with Israel. But the men defending it had long since drained it of meaning.
The sabbath marks the end of something, not the beginning. God set the seventh day apart, after He had finished the work of creation... There and elsewhere it is called a sign between God and the children of Israel. But early in their history the Israelites had neglected and abandoned this holy command. They had borne the consequences of it... Tradition and a legal keeping of ceremonies, worked out in the smallest details, had taken the place of "the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith." Pride and hypocrisy marked the leaders of the people. They did not want to recognize Him who was Lord of the sabbath.
Notice who does not object. The sick around the pool say nothing. The objection comes from men who had never lain there.
Who among the crowd of sick people would have rebuked him for carrying his bed, though it was the Sabbath day? But the Jews now appeared and rebuked the man. They were strict defenders of traditional teaching, ready, if they could, to stop the Almighty from acting in healing power on that day... They had surely never known what physical weakness was. Had they been cured like this themselves, after feeling for themselves what that man had suffered for thirty-eight years, could they have spoken like that?
Their rule said nothing while the man lay on that bed for years. It spoke up only when he picked it up.
But it was man's sabbath. It was no longer the seal of Jehovah's covenant with the seed of Abraham — as it was once, and will be again — but the badge of man's self-righteousness... It was lawful enough, no doubt, for him to lie on that bed week after week, month after month, year after year. All that time they went on with their empty, worthless, hollow effort at keeping the sabbath. If they had had one ray of spiritual light, they would have seen how glaring the inconsistency was. They were holding on to their traditional ideas about the sabbath in the presence of human misery, disease and degradation.
The law of Moses had held the man for all thirty-eight years and left him where it found him. That settles who may now direct him.
He had now come under new authority. What had the law of Moses done for him? He had been under it for thirty-eight years, bedridden and helpless. It had not healed him. It had given him no ability to carry his bed. What did he owe that law? The power he now had did not come from the law, and the law had no right to control it... His bed that was once the witness of his weakness is now the witness of his power... The One who gave the power was the One to direct it. It is the same with the believer in Jesus: he is not under the law, but neither is he lawless, he is subject to Christ.
The objection assumes God could wait a day. The state of the people around that pool says otherwise.
Was not God showing by this that He must work, and work on the sabbath, if the sinner was to get the blessing he needed as he is? For man was waiting in sin and misery without His blessing. What folly to fuss over the fine points of the sabbath while standing in the ruins of sin! If sinners were to be saved, there was no time to lose. If the Blesser came, would He not give the blessing at once?
The Lord's own reply traces this back to the character of God Himself.
See the blessed and touching way in which Christ met the stupid accusation of breaking the sabbath. He had made the man carry his bed, proving that the life-giving God and Lord of the sabbath was there. They charged Him with it. What is His answer? "My Father is working until now, and I am working." ... Can the holy God of love rest where sin is? God might have destroyed in judgment; but in goodness He cannot rest in sin. He works where sin and misery are.
- Sign. The sabbath began as God's rest after creation, and a sign between Him and Israel. Tradition and detailed rule-keeping had crowded that out.
- Blindness. The men who objected had never known such weakness. The sick around the pool would never have rebuked him.
- Inconsistency. The bed was lawful enough while he lay on it for years; it became unlawful only when it proved that Christ had worked.
- Authority. The law gave him no power to carry that bed, so it had no right to control the power he now had. The One who gave the power decides when to use it.
- Work. God cannot rest where sin and misery are, so the Father and the Son were working. The bed that once showed his weakness now showed his strength.
He answered them, He that made me well, *he* said to me, Take up thy couch and walk.
A man ill for thirty-eight years has just been healed. At once the Jews stop him in the street for carrying his bed on the Sabbath. His whole defence is a person: the One who healed him is the One who told him to carry it.
The objection did not come from the sick people around him.
Who among the crowd of sick people would have blamed him for carrying his bed, even though it was the Sabbath? But the Jews were sticklers for traditional teaching. They were ready, if they could, to stop the Almighty from healing on that day. Now they came and blamed the man... No doubt they had never known what bodily weakness was. Had they suffered for thirty-eight years and then been cured themselves, could they have taken such ground? And how simply he met them! He did not argue against their view of the Sabbath. He did not accuse them of having no pity for those who suffered. He answered them, "The man who healed me, that man said to me, 'Take up your bed, and walk.'" For him that was quite enough. He was satisfied that he had authority to do what he had done.
The strength in his legs came from somewhere, and not from the rule being quoted at him.
This man gets strength to carry his bed, and he carries it... But he had now come under a new authority. What had the law of Moses done for him? He had been under it for thirty-eight years, bedridden and helpless. It had not healed him... His new power did not come from the law, and the law had no right to control it... His bed once showed his weakness. Now it shows his power. Surely the One who gave him this power was the only One with the right to say on what day he should use it. What right had the law to control a power it could not give?... The One who gave the power was the One to direct it.
The law asked for something this man's body could not give.
By his own words he showed that he wanted to be made whole, and the word of the Lord made him completely sound at once. The law could not do that for him, because it was weak through the helplessness of his flesh. The Son of God, now present on earth, did it in an instant. The man was able not only to walk but also to carry the bed which formerly had witnessed to his helplessness. The Lord told him to do this though it was the Sabbath. The Sabbath law was very strict. All kinds of work were forbidden, even picking up sticks and lighting a fire. So the Jews were up in arms at once when they saw the man carrying his bed. But he had a ready and sufficient answer. The Man who had healed him had told him to do it, and a little later he was able to name that Man — Jesus.
The law was not silent toward him. It had only one thing to say.
He had been long enough under Moses without receiving the slightest benefit. If he had been able to keep the law's commandment, he would have needed neither the pool of Bethesda nor the help of the Lord... But he could not do what he justly owed. So Moses can do nothing but accuse him.
At this moment he cannot name the man who healed him. He acts on the word that raised him, and that is enough.
The healed man was simple, and his answer bears the stamp of right and truth. Divine power had worked here beyond an angel's reach or commission, and without any angel at all. That power was his authority to act on the word... The Jews spoke with malice and contempt: "Who is the man?" It is hard to believe they did not know that more than a man was among them, and Who He was. They knew His works, even if they did not know Him; and His works and His ways proclaimed a mission more than human.
The commentators read the scene as a picture of the change from law to grace — not into freedom from all authority, but into obedience to Christ.
The Lord comes along and says to him, "Rise, take up your bed, and walk." He gave him power to walk and carry his bed. In that way He broke the letter of the Sabbath law. The Jews meet him carrying his bed and say, "It is not lawful for you to carry your bed." What is his answer? In effect he says, "I am not under law any more." Where are you? "Well, I am under grace." How is that? "I have come under a new authority."
- Power — the strength to rise came from Christ alone. The law left this man helpless for thirty-eight years and gave him nothing.
- Authority — Christ gave the power, so only Christ can say how and when to use it.
- Answer — he argued nothing and accused no one. Pointing to the One who healed him was defence enough.
- Obedience — he acted on the word before he could even name the Person who spoke it.
- Freedom — the result is not a life with no master. He is no longer under law; he is under grace, and under Christ's authority.
They asked him [therefore],Who is the man who said to thee, Take up thy couch and walk?
These men have just watched a man walk after thirty-eight years of illness. They do not ask who healed him; they ask who told him to carry his bed on the Sabbath.
The question skips the one fact everyone could see.
The Lord speaks only a word: "Get up, take up your bed, and walk." The result follows at once. It was the Sabbath day. These Jews could not help the man. They had no pity for him in his long illness and disappointment. Now the sight of him, safe and sound, carrying his bed on that day shocks them. But they learn that it was his divine Physician who had not only healed him, but had so directed him. At once their malice ignores the kind power of God shown here. They are angry about the imagined wrong done to the seventh day.
They meant it as an accusation. But it lands on the one issue the rest of the chapter answers.
At once these opponents ask, with apparent contempt, "Who is the man who said to you, 'Take up your bed and walk'?" Whatever their thoughts, everything turns on one question: "Who is this Man?" That is still the question. Who is this glorious Person, full of grace and truth, who has come to dwell among men? Every blessing for man depends on the glory of His Person, which the verses that follow set before us so richly.
The healed man had already given his defence. His logic was simple: the strength was not his own, so the law had no right to direct it.
He had now come under new authority. What had the law of Moses done for him? He had been under it for thirty-eight years, bedridden and helpless. It had not healed him. It had given him no ability to carry his bed. What did he owe that law? The power he now had was not derived from the law, and the law had no right to control it... His bed once showed his weakness. Now it shows his power. And surely the One who gave him this power was the only One with the right to say on what day he could use it. "The man who healed me, that man said to me, 'Take up your bed, and walk.'" This was unanswerable. It is the same with the believer in Jesus: he is not under the law, but neither is he lawless — he is subject to Christ.
The setting makes the question ugly. These men had walked past that man for years without protest.
But it was man's sabbath. Once it was the seal of Jehovah's covenant with the descendants of Abraham, and it will be that again. But now it was only the badge of man's self-righteousness. "So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, 'It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.'" It was, no doubt, lawful enough for him to lie on that bed, week after week, month after month, year after year. All that while they carried on with their empty, worthless, hollow efforts at sabbath keeping. One ray of spiritual light would have shown them the contradiction. They held on to their traditional ideas about the sabbath while human misery, disease and degradation stood in front of them.
They wanted a name. And there was a reason the Lord had given a command that would force the issue rather than healing quietly.
He could have healed the man without the smallest outward act to shock their zeal for the law. He told the man in plain words to take up his bed and walk, as well as to get up. There was purpose in it. This passed a sentence of death on their system, and they felt it.
Once the man named Jesus, their hostility had its target.
But he had a ready answer, and it was enough. The Man who had healed him had told him to do it; and a little later he was able to name that Man — Jesus. Their zeal for the Sabbath was so strong that from that moment they hated Him and persecuted Him.
- Question — They ask who gave the order, not who gave the strength. Enmity can look straight at the power of God and change the subject.
- Person — "Who is this Man?" is the real issue, asked in contempt but answered in glory through the rest of the chapter. All blessing for us hangs on the answer.
- Authority — The One who supplies the power is the One entitled to direct its use. The law never gave the man strength, so it had no right to govern it.
- Blindness — Their Sabbath had become a badge of self-righteousness. It let them ignore a sick man for years, then object the moment he stood up.
- Result — The command to carry the bed was deliberate. It passed sentence on their system, and from that day they turned against Jesus.
But he that had been healed knew not who it was, for Jesus had slidden away, there being a crowd in the place.
A man is walking through Jerusalem carrying his bed, healed after thirty-eight years of illness. The leaders stop him and demand the name of the man who did it, but he cannot say — his Healer has slipped away into the crowd.
Their question was not honest curiosity. They looked past the miracle and hunted for the man behind it.
The Jews spoke with malice and contempt, "Who is the man?" It is hard to think they did not know that someone more than a man was among them, and Who He was. They knew His works, if they did not know Him; and His works, like His ways, proclaimed a mission more than human. The very work in front of them was beyond an angel, and they could not deny it. Yet they asked the healed man, "Who is the Man that said to you, Take up your bed and walk?" The Lord had arranged things so that the healed man should know no more. He had passed away unnoticed, a crowd being there.
Even the way Jesus left the scene draws comment. One writer treats it as a wonder in itself and points to two other passages.
John 5:13. — For the apparently miraculous withdrawal here, compare John 10:39, as well as Luke 4:30. The word used in this place breaks the normal rules of grammar.
One writer ties the withdrawal to where the nation already stood towards Him.
Jesus, passing through the land as a Stranger, had taken Himself away, since a crowd was in that place. He was not here to bless the nation as such, for it had already rejected and opposed Him. He was seeking and saving His sheep, and calling them out of the nation.
The man had asked for nothing, and could not have gone looking even if he had wanted to. That makes the healing an act of pure initiative.
We must remember one thing about this man. His case was desperate and pitiable after thirty-eight years of suffering, but that did not entitle him to demand relief from God. He did not even have the physical strength to seek out the One who came from heaven to bring relief. But the Lord sought him where he was. In this He was exercising His right.
Commentators differ on how to read the man's ignorance. One writer takes his blank answer as a sign that the cure had not yet reached his heart.
He does not even know who He is. The Lord has disappeared from him in the crowd, so that the miracle itself seems to have had no right effect on him.
Others put the contrast sharply between the size of the gift and the coldness of everyone around it.
But sadly the man did not have enough interest in his benefactor even to ask who He was. How painfully this negative attitude of the crowd, of the Jews, and of the man himself contrasts with the positive, wonderful blessing the Lord had brought to him!
Hamilton Smith reads it differently. He notes the man went straight to the temple, his heart touched by the blessing he had received.
Verse 13 is not the end of the story. The Lord goes after the healed man and finds him in the temple. Another man in this Gospel, whose eyes Jesus opened, shows the difference between thanking a helper and knowing who He is.
He had received the benefit of this gracious work... but when the Lord made Himself known to him as the Son of God, he worshipped Him (John 9:38). He might have prayed earlier for the Lord to open his eyes, and then thanked Him for doing it. But it was the knowledge of who He was that drew out the homage of his heart. See a drowning youth call for help, and another plunge into the deep and save the grateful man! He thanks him from the heart for doing it. But who can describe his feelings when he learns that his rescuer was none less than a Prince!
- Unsought. The man had no strength to seek help and no claim on God. He never asked. The Lord came to where he was and healed him.
- Unnamed. He walked away healed, still not knowing his Healer. The gift came before any knowledge of the Giver.
- Unseen. Jesus slipped away through the crowd. He moved through the land as a Stranger, calling His own out of the nation.
- Unwanted. The leaders had His works in front of them and still asked, "Who is the man?" They spoke with malice, not wonder.
- Unfinished. Verse 13 is a pause, not the end. Jesus seeks the man out again. Knowing who He is turns thanks into worship.
After these things Jesus finds him in the temple, and said to him, Behold, thou art become well sin no more, that something worse do not happen to thee.
Jesus healed a man at Bethesda, then went looking for him and found him in the temple. His words there raise two questions: how is this man's sin linked to his long illness, and what is the "worse thing" a healed man still has reason to fear?
The Lord took the first step. One writer sees the man's presence in the temple as a sign that gratitude had already stirred.
So the Lord goes after the man He healed, and finds him in the temple. It would seem that his heart was touched by the blessing he had received, for he goes at once to the temple to praise God. The Lord warns him that behind the sickness of the body there had been the indulgence of sin, and that sin brings its governmental consequences.
The exact wording matters. Jesus does not credit the man's faith here. He points him to the plain fact of his cure, and then to his responsibility.
I note here that it was not faith in Jesus in this case, but the exercise of Jesus' power in His own will, flowing from Himself. So we read that the man did not know Jesus. He still did not know Him afterwards, until Jesus met him in the temple and spoke to him. Therefore Jesus treats him as still under the discipline of the Law. "See" — take notice of this — "you are well." He does not say, Your faith has saved you, or anything like it. Then: "sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you."
The same writer places the whole scene inside God's dealings with Israel as a nation, where health and blessing were signs of His favour:
So, dealing with His people in government, He says to the man, "Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you." This was Jehovah acting in grace and blessing among His people. But it came in earthly things — the signs of His favour and love — and it belonged to His government in Israel.
One writer is careful here. He says only that the man's illness may be traced to particular sins, and he points to cases in both Testaments.
It may be said that this man's illness came on him as punishment for particular sins he had committed. God sent such judgments in this life while He governed the people of Israel, as Scripture shows in many places... In New Testament times the same thing happened in the assembly at Corinth. Many there were sick and some had even died, because of their sin (1 Cor. 11:30; see also James 5:14-16). The Lord recognised this kind of affliction — a judgment — in the case of the helpless man of Bethesda.
A healed body is not a saved soul. The warning is kind and serious at once.
It was a gracious, yet solemn word. To live now, to enjoy this present life, is not the main thing. No cure could meet man's underlying need, however much it showed the power and goodness of God. Sin still remained. A cure was only provisional.
Christ saw further than the illness He had cured. One writer draws out what that says about our efforts to relieve suffering.
His care for people did not stop where man's care stops. He saw a worse thing, far beyond the human misery He had just cured. There were still death and judgment ahead of the man who had been so wonderfully delivered... This is the sad mistake of such kindness: the goal it aims at, even if reached, stops short of deliverance from "the worse thing." Grant it everything it aims at, and the root of the evil still remains untouched.
The man then told the Jews who his Healer was. Commentators differ over what that shows. One reads him gently:
So the healed man in his simplicity did not see through their aim, but seems rather to have assumed that they were anxious to know his wonderful benefactor... There is no ground, I think, to suppose that he shared the feelings of the Jews, or wished to betray Jesus to those who hated Him.
Another writer judges him far more severely:
With the single exception of Judas Iscariot, there is probably no more contemptible character in the Gospel narrative than this man. Jesus healed him by pure grace, and he tries to save his own worthless skin at his Healer's expense.
- Sought. The cure was not the end. Jesus sought the man out to deal with the sin behind the sickness.
- Told, not commended. Jesus points him to the fact — you are well — not to his faith. The power that healed him was Christ's own.
- Traced. Behind the long illness lay sin. Sin brings consequences under God's government, as Corinth later learned through sickness and death.
- Provisional. A cure meets the symptom, but sin remains. That is why every effort to relieve human misery stops short of the real need.
- Worse. The thing still ahead of a healed man is death and judgment — the one danger a restored body cannot outrun.
The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And for this the Jews persecuted Jesus [and sought to kill him], because he had done these things on sabbath.
Jesus healed a man who had been unable to walk for years, and it should have brought joy. Instead it began the hostility to Him that runs through the rest of John's Gospel — all because of the day He chose to heal.
Note: the writers quoted below use an older English Bible, so their wording differs a little from the ESV. Their text of this verse also adds the words "and sought to slay Him." The ESV places that clause at verse 18.
The offence was not a small break in routine. That day stood for something much bigger:
It was the Sabbath. That matters here, and it holds a prominent place in this scene. God gave the Sabbath as a token of the covenant between the Jews and the Lord. But by now it was clear that the law did not give God's rest to man. Man needed the power of a new life. He needed grace, so that he could be in relationship with God.
That is also why the reaction came so fast and so fierce:
The nation is at once sensitive of this. It touched the place of their pride; for the Sabbath was the sign of all their national distinction.
The verse says the Jews reacted to "these things" — the healing, and one act more:
Were the Jews mistaken, after all, in thinking that the seal of the first covenant was really broken by that deliberate word and authority of Jesus? He could have healed the man without the smallest outward act to shock their zeal for the law. He expressly told the man to take up his couch and walk, as well as to rise. There was purpose in it. There was a sentence of death pronounced on their system, and they felt it.
The same writer asks why the bed had to be carried at all:
Could he not have left his bed there, or at least then? Yes. But he did it at the word of the One who healed him. That was a plain testimony, and a very galling one, that God had no fellowship with their Sabbaths.
Their anger had a source, but it was not the law of God itself:
The man was healed on the Sabbath day, and this at once stirred up the prejudices of the Jews. Those prejudices got no support from the Word. They rested only on the teaching of the rabbis. So the Jews persecuted the Lord, because He had healed the disabled man on that day.
One writer stops simply to take in the sight:
What a spectacle! Religious people were seeking to kill the Lord of the Sabbath. These were the leaders and teachers of religion, the guides of the people who professed to belong to God. And why? Because He had made a man completely whole on the Sabbath day!
Another writer weighs their response against what they had just seen:
They saw the grace of God rising above all legal barriers for man's sake. It should have filled them with thanksgiving. Instead they seek to destroy Him, the faithful representative of that grace in this scene of suffering.
The man himself had gone and named his healer. One writer reads no ill will in that, and contrasts him with the leaders:
Probably the man acted in simplicity. He did not know their malice, and thought that they too wanted to know this wonderful Person... They are taken up with one thing only — the contempt shown to their Sabbath-keeping pride.
Verse 16 is where a pattern starts:
This part of Scripture shows how the devil opposes the Lord and His heavenly work on earth. He can use people who boast in religious ancestry and privileges... In John 7:1 "The Jews sought to kill Him." In John 8:48 they insult Him... And in John 19:15 their moral degradation reaches its depth in their united cry, "Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him." So they not only oppose the work of the blessed Lord; they refuse Him and put Him to death. Those born and raised in an earthly religion can be hostile to the last degree to what is of Christ.
- Sign — The Sabbath was the token of Israel's covenant and the sign of their national distinction. To act on that day touched their pride.
- Purpose — Jesus could have healed the man without telling him to carry his bed. He added that command on purpose. It was a sentence of death on their system.
- Pretext — The charge rested on rabbinical teaching rather than on Scripture itself.
- Reversal — Teachers of God's law tried to kill the One who had just made a man completely well. Grace showed up the heart that opposed it.
- Trajectory — The persecution that starts here runs on through the Gospel to the cry "crucify Him." Religious hostility to Christ travels that far.
But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto and I work.
Jesus had just healed a disabled man at a pool in Jerusalem, and He did it on the Sabbath. The Jews accused Him of breaking the day of rest. He did not defend the act. He pointed to what His Father had never stopped doing — and His accusers heard the claim He was making about Himself.
God did rest once, when creation was new. That rest ended.
A Sabbath in the strict and proper sense could only happen when there was nothing left to do. It belonged to an undefiled creation — a creation with no spot of sin on it. God can have no rest where there is sin. Look around, and you learn that God cannot enjoy a rest in creation now. The thorn and the thistle, and ten thousand other sad and humbling fruits of a groaning creation, rise before us and declare that God must be at work and not at rest. Could He rest amid the sighs and tears, the groans and sorrows, the sickness and death, the degradation and guilt of a ruined world?
The creating is over; something else has taken its place.
The seventh day was a day of rest for God. His work had involved both creating and making, but all was now complete. From that time until now He has plainly not set His hand to work of that order. The entrance of sin made it necessary for Him to take up work of another order. The Lord Jesus referred to this when He said, "My Father is working until now, and I am working."
Notice what Jesus does not appeal to.
In the other Gospels, when people challenge the Lord for doing His works on the Sabbath day, He answers from the case of David eating the holy bread from God's house, or the priests doing work in the temple, or the way His accusers themselves would lead out their donkey to water on the Sabbath day. But here, in John's Gospel, He does not plead what David, or the priests, or His accusers would do or had done. He pleads what the heavenly Father had always been doing in this needy, ruined world.
This work is grace, and the scene at the pool shows what that means.
Christ had come to work. What makes it so blessed is this truth: it was not man's work and man's strength; the Father and the Son are the workmen in our salvation. The law required man to work, just as the pool of Bethesda required a man to be quick enough to get himself into it. But in the gospel, it is God who works: "My Father is working."
The two words that inflamed His hearers were not about the Sabbath at all.
It was an overwhelming answer. They knew nothing of fellowship with the Father. He, not they, could call God "My Father," and loved to say that He "is working until now." For the Father could not rest in sin, He would not rest in misery. This is not yet God judging. So He was working as Father, and working until now — though only now was He declaring Himself Father, in and by the Son. Jesus, the Son, had fellowship with His Father, unbroken and perfect.
His hearers drew a conclusion about equality with God. That conclusion needs stating with care.
If the time for God's rest had not come, the full time for His work had, so that people might be made ready for a place in that rest. The Jews were right to take the Lord's words as involving His equality with the Father. But for that reason it could not be true that He made Himself God. The truth was this: being in the form of God, He did not treat equality with God as a grasping at something that was not His own. Instead He emptied Himself — that is the wonderful word — and took the form of a servant.
The Master's answer settles something for His followers too.
"Sabbath" means "rest," and the Lord said, "My Father is working until now, and I am working." The Lord Jesus could not rest in a world full of sin and suffering. He could not keep the Sabbath down here... No more can a true Christian keep the Sabbath in such a world. He has no more right to be resting here than his Master. If his Master must work, so must he. But in Hebrews 4:9 we read, "So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God." The Sabbath rest is ahead of us.
- Sin broke the rest. God rested over a spotless creation. Thorns, tears and death ended that rest, so He took up work of another kind.
- Work of grace. This work is not judgment but grace. The law asked a helpless man to move himself; at the pool, God moved instead.
- Father and Son together. In John, Jesus points to no example from David or the priests. He points to what His Father has always done — and does the same Himself.
- "My Father" is the offence. Those two words claimed a place no one else could take. His hearers heard equality with God in them.
- Rest still ahead. The work ends in the Sabbath rest that remains for God's people. Until then the servant works, like his Master.
For this therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he had not only violated the sabbath, but also said that God was his own Father, making himself equal with God.
Jesus healed a sick man on the sabbath, and the man reported Him to His enemies. When Jesus answered by pointing to His Father's work, their anger hardened into a plan to kill Him.
The Lord did not argue about sabbath rules. He pointed to His Father's work and set His own beside it.
It was the sabbath day. The Jews draw attention to the fact. The Lord takes up the blessed character He had as Son, and says: "My Father is working until now, and I am working." How can God rest where sin is? Where misery is? He cannot have His rest in a world like this. Christ had come to work. But what makes it so blessed, dear friends, is this truth: it was not man's work and man's strength. The Father and the Son are the workmen in our salvation.
The pool of Bethesda pictured the difference between law and gospel.
The law required man to work, just as the pool of Bethesda required a man to be quick enough to get himself into it. But in the gospel, it is God who works: "My Father is working."
Why did the Lord keep healing on that particular day? The sabbath was Israel's sign before the nations.
To be a sign, a thing must be outward, something men can observe. The sabbath was such an outward observance. Keeping it with care would at once have made Israel a distinct people among the nations. It would also have shown that they were in covenant relations with God. This makes the Lord's repeated acts of mercy on the sabbath day full of meaning. He was showing that the mercy of God is not restricted by the law God had given. He was also showing that the grace He brought was setting aside the law of Moses as the basis of acceptance before God. John 5:17-18 shows this most clearly.
The wording matters. He claimed God as His own Father, and He never softened it.
He did not deny, but confessed, that God was His own Father in a sense that was true of none but Himself. This is the truth of all truths most owed to God, and the turning point of all blessing to man. By it the believer knows God and has life everlasting. Without it a person is an enemy of God, as the Jews showed themselves that day and ever since. They were hardened men, blinded in a stubborn and fatal way. In supposed zeal for God's honour, they sought all the more to kill Jesus, His own Son, who had come in infinite love to make the Father known and to reconcile man to God. But God is wise and infinitely good in His work. He let them prove their malice to the very end, and when the time came they killed Jesus. In that act He proved His own love to the full in atonement.
The phrase "making Himself equal with God" is easy to read as the hostile spin of angry men. One writer points out that it is not their comment at all.
Note carefully: verse 18 is John's own explanation of why the Jews sought to kill Him. It is not his record of the explanation the Jews gave — though of course it may have been the explanation they gave too. So it is the comment of the Holy Spirit through John. It proves that in the Sonship of our Lord there is no thought of any inferiority to the Father. On the contrary, it is the assertion of equality.
Another writer points out who had really broken the sabbath, and what His enemies heard in His answer.
The Lord simply points out that someone else has broken the sabbath, not Himself. Man's sin has broken God's rest, and it has stayed broken ever since the fall — on the sabbath as on every other day the Father works, and the Son works with Him. Their own conscience should have bowed to this and owned the truth. Instead, they hate Him still more because of His announced Sonship to the Father. Unlike modern unbelievers, they saw that such a claim meant equality with God.
Rejecting the Son costs more than a missed blessing.
Man as he is needed life out of death, and this the Father is giving in the Son... Could they, then, reject the Son and miss only this infinite blessing of life in Him? No — the Father has given all judgment to the Son. He will have everyone honour the Son, just as they honour the Father.
- Rest broken. Man's sin broke God's rest, not Christ. God cannot rest in a world of misery, so the Father works and the Son works with Him.
- Work begun. The pool waited for a man quick enough to get in; in the gospel God works. Salvation is the joint work of Father and Son, not of man.
- Sign set aside. The sabbath was the visible badge of Israel's covenant. Touching it on purpose signalled that law was no longer the basis of acceptance with God.
- Claim made. "His own Father" is true of no one else. By that truth a person knows God and has eternal life; without it he stands as God's enemy.
- Charge confirmed. John, writing by the Spirit, agrees with what His enemies worked out: the Son is equal with God, in no way less. Their malice ran on to the cross, where God proved His love in atonement.