What is the significance of Jesus telling the lame man to, "Take up your bed and walk" (John 5:8)?

“Rise, take up thy bed and walk.” What powerful words! The man is strengthened. Power thrills through his long enfeebled frame. In figure he is placed on the footing of resurrection. He had known what the weakness of death meant. He is now in the vigour of life. He carries his bed; that which was an evidence of his weakness, becomes the witness of the power given to him by Christ.

A great testimony for God was hereby rendered in the city of Zion. The Son acting in His Father's name avoids the temple which He had already pronounced to be no longer His Father's house, and visits the crowd of impotent folk waiting for one of their number to be benefited by the troubling of the pool. He selects an absolutely helpless and hopeless man who, in obedience to His command, carries his bed through Jerusalem on that very sabbath as a witness to the genuineness of the cure. But this was a witness to more than the power of Jesus; it testified also to the authority He possessed as the Son of God to abrogate the conventionalities of the law.

But on the very next sabbath after the Lord Himself acts; it is not merely that He defends His disciples. He goes into the synagogue, and in full congregation singles out a man with a withered hand. And there He not only heals the man in the presence of them all, convicting the hypocrites that would have condemned Him once more, hating Him for the grace that ever flowed out to the miserable; but, further, He told the man to do an act which, had there not been a divine object in view, could have been dispensed with readily. He particularly marked it therefore in such a fashion as to show that it is no question of God's having complacency in their sabbath-keeping, but of His acting for His own glory in a ruined world. This work of love is what God deigns to be about. Now this was exactly what they resented. So the Gospel of John gives just the same truth, and with yet fuller evidence. A man that lay impotent in the presence of Bethesda, waiting for an angel to come down, found that a greater than all angels was there, who needed not to trouble the waters. A word was enough; for power accompanied it, and the man was healed. But Jesus directed him to arise, take up his bed, and walk, sabbath though it was. Could he not have left his bed there, or at least then? Yes; but so to act at His word who healed him was a plain and much galling testimony that God had no communion with their Sabbaths.

Accosted by the stranger asking, "Wilt thou be made whole?" he replied, "Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steps down before me" (7). Did he think the stranger might prove the friend in need, and, supplying what had been lacking, put him into the pool at the opportune moment? At any rate his thoughts did not rise above the pool, and of immersion in it. Of any other way of healing he had no conception. He little dreamt that the stranger, who had manifested interest in him by the question He asked, 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, "Rise, take up thy 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 convalescence progressing by degrees to full recovery. For he took up his bed, and walked. What he might have done before he had been stricken, he was able after thirty-eight years of enforced disability to do, and that at once, and publicly before all the multitude of sick folk. He rose up. He carried his bed. He walked.

Objectors. — Who among the crowd of sick ones would have reproved him for carrying his bed, though it was the Sabbath day? But the Jews, those sticklers for traditional teaching, who were ready, if possible, to hinder the Almighty from acting in healing power on that day, now appeared, and reproved the man. "It is the Sabbath day, and it is not lawful for thee to carry thy bed" (10). They doubtless had never known what bodily infirmity was. Had they themselves experienced such a cure, having personally proved what that man for thirty and eight years had suffered, could they have taken such ground? And now how simply did he meet them! He did not argue against their view of the Sabbath. He did not accuse them of want of sympathy with those who suffered. "He answered them, He that made me whole, the same said to me, Take up thy bed, and walk" (11). For him that was quite enough. He was satisfied that he had authority to do what he had done.

The Son. But who was that man? and where was he? The man knew not: "for Jesus had conveyed Himself away, a multitude being in that place. Afterwards Jesus finds him in the Temple, and said to him, "Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come to thee." He learnt who had healed him. It was Jesus. And the man went and told the Jews (13-15). Of the cure there could be no doubt. Who would have lain a long time in those porches, and have made ineffectual efforts to get into the pool, had he not been afflicted, and helplessly so? Who so afflicted, could suddenly have risen up, carried his bed, and walked, had he not been healed? The cure was patent. None denied it. No one even questioned it. The man carrying his bed was unanswerable proof of his full restoration. Unable then to ignore it, the bitterness of heart on the part of the Jews flowed forth against the Lord by persecuting Him, because He did these things on the Sabbath day (16). From rebuking the man they turned to persecute the Lord. Had the Lord broken the law by healing on that day? Certainly not. And no word from the law was quoted by them here, or on any like occasion, to support their traditional teaching (Mark 2:23-24, 3:2; Luke 13:14; John 9:16). It may be easy to raise such objections, but of what worth are they, unless based on the written Word of God? Would that traditional teaching of this kind had died out! But it has not, as many an one has had to experience. And its advocates would seek to condemn their fellows, and to terrorise their followers, by appealing to it. What says the Word is, however, the question? And what is not read therein, nor can be proved thereby, is not to be pressed as binding on the children of God.

Throughout this Gospel, and especially these early chapters the Lord is shown eclipsing and superseding all the old objects of honour and trust. The Pool of Bethesda bore witness even then to Jehovah as healing Israel (Ex. 15). Not merely was it occasional only, but incomplete and conditional; like the law, it required strength enough to avail oneself of 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 effectual word, "Arise, take up thy couch, and walk"; then he did so immediately, sabbath as it was. What was an angel's act in comparison?

The poverty of the Pool is exposed. It is seen to be but as a "beggarly element." It has no glory by reason of the glory that excelleth. And after this same manner, the Spirit exposes "the worldly sanctuary," and all its provisions and services, in the Epistle to the Hebrews. There the Apostle, under the Holy Ghost, sets Jesus again beside Bethesda, beside the system of ordinances that had gone before, and exposes them all in their poverty and impotency. There had been a reflection of Christ in these ceremonies of the Temple, as there had been in this water by the sheep-market; but the reflection had no substance — it was a shadow — and it was gone when the true light filled the place. Jesus alone is glorified. When the Spirit brings Him in, in that Epistle, He keeps Him in, saying of Him, "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and for ever." And here, the Lord Himself speaks to the poor cripple of nothing but of His own healing power — "Rise, take up thy bed, and walk." He was to carry that which once, while he was hanging over the Pool, bore him. He needed nothing else. He knew the healing of the Son of God, and he was free.

The Lord Jesus Christ said to the impotent man, who had an infirmity for thirty-and-eight years, "Rise, take up thy bed and walk." It was God's power, not man's, and in the using of this power man gets the blessing. The grace of God puts the strength in him, "and immediately the man was made whole." On Christ hangs all. He both provides the blessing and gives power to use it. He gives life. "The Son quickeneth whom he will." From His own word we learn the wondrous truth, that He is become our life; for as we have partaken of the nature and fall of the first Adam, and got the sentence of death through him, so do we get life by Jesus Christ. Life is come down from heaven, and if I am resting in faith on this, it is mine. There may be self-judging, but my conscience will be at rest. I have seen this power of Christ on earth. "Take up thy bed and walk; and immediately the man was made whole." There was no need of the pool, there was the life-giving presence of Christ. He had power to heal without the water. In Him was grace, strength, love sympathy, and all the poor man could require. The helplessness of the man made him the very object for Christ to strengthen; his need was that which called forth the Lord's help. This is the place in which He met us. "When we were yet without strength, Christ died for us." He has made full atonement for sin. He "when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." We are "quickened together with him." When I see Christ before God, I know that my sin is all put away, and that I have life in Him. I have life in the Son, and not in the creature. My sin is all gone, for Christ is up there at God's right hand, and He has not got the sin with Him. If I am searching for life in myself, I must break off with Christ.

We have seen the 4th of John bring the Lord into Galilee a second time in the way of life-giving power to one ready to perish. This is pursued in chapter 5 in this way, that all means or ordinances are unavailable for healing, because they suppose the power which the disease of sin has taken away. Christ then heals by life-giving power. He gives the power needed; and the impotent man carries the bed he was couched on. At the same time the miracle is wrought on the Sabbath, setting aside the seal of Jewish covenant, on the ground of the Father and the Son working in grace, as observed heretofore; and then the full development of life-giving power is gone into, life out of death; not merely healing; but the full bearing of this comes out, truth as wrought in Christ so as to deliver from judgment; for life-giving and judgment were both confided to Him; the latter exclusively, to secure His honour from all. This is more than intercepting death, though that be the power of life; it is life in Himself, and that according to the glory of His Person. It characterises what He introduces in place of Judaism, but is eternal in its nature, and connected with the glory of His Person, though His official place, too; for, though Son of God, it is as Man He is manifested such here, and in that character judgment confided to Him. The end of the chapter contains testimonies which left the unbelievers without excuse. Assurance here is connected with not coming into judgment. The life-giving power of the Son of God being exercised, it is not in order to bring into judgment.

Let us now pass on to the New Testament, and we shall have no difficulty in discerning whether the Lord Jesus regarded the Sabbath as a part of the moral law, eternal and universal; or merely as a shadow of Himself. In Matthew 11:28, Jesus presents Himself as the true Sabbath or rest: “Come to me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest;” and at that time we find Jesus leading His disciples, on the Sabbath day, through the corn. Surely this is plain, as that when the sun is risen, the shadow must flee away. Again in John 5:8-18. Here was one whose case could only be met by the Son of God. And what was true of His body, is also true of all men as to the state of their souls before God. Now the Lord Jesus in this case not only says “Rise,” but also “take up thy bed and walk.” The man had lain exactly the same number of years as Israel had withered away in the wilderness — Deut 2:14-16; and as God in grace gave them possession of the land, when all the men of war were consumed, so grace meets the poor man’s full need, when his strength was gone and he had none to help. Jesus meets him in the dignity of divine power, and the Sabbath as a shadow is shown to be gone. That very same Lord who, in Jer.17:21, had said, “Bear no burden on the sabbath day,” now says, “Take up thy bed and walk.” The same thing is seen in the case of the man born blind, John 9:6; one word, and his sight would have been restored, but the Lord must again set aside the shadowy Sabbath, by making clay, etc. Observe that nothing so often filled the Jew with madness as this treating of the Sabbath as a shadow. True, they “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.” To my own soul the teaching in all this is most solemn. Man spiritually is in an utterly lost and helpless state; Christ alone, in the fulness of His work and risen power, can save him; and in doing this, the law, of which the Sabbath was a part, engraven on those stones which were the ministration of death, must be utterly abolished as a means of obtaining life. That this is fully proved in the epistle none can deny. (2 Cor. 3:7-11; Gal. 2:21.)

The law of Moses commanded men to observe the sabbath day, but it had brought no help to this poor impotent man who had been for thirty-eight years under it. It did not give him the power that enabled him to carry his bed, and it could not control the power exercised by Another. And yet man in his blindness and hardness of heart would seek to subject the power of the Father’s world to the principles of this one, and with that same power at work among them for their eternal deliverance and blessing. Such is man! “It is the sabbath day. It is not lawful for thee to carry thy bed.” But the One who gave the power had a perfect right to say how and when it was to be exercised. The subject of the work of God is delivered from the law of Moses and is under law to Christ. “He that made me whole the same said to me take up thy bed and walk.” This was enough for him. What debt did he owe the law? What had it done for him? Why should be pay any attention to it when a power was there to direct him which had made him every whit whole on the sabbath?