The Gospel of John. Majoring in the Minors ~ Part 1 John 5:1-18

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1 The Gospel of John Majoring in the Minors ~ Part 1 John 5:1-18 O NE THING WE FREQUENTLY FIND IN THE CHURCH is people majoring in the minors. I remember in the church in San Francisco when we, the board of trusties, were discussing the remodeling of the kitchen. (The church was old, the oldest protestant church west of the Mississippi.) Disagreement broke out over the usage. We don t want kids in there. It will be nice and new and we want to keep it clean and pristine. A pristine kitchen? If that isn t an oxymoron I don t know what is. Apparently the concern was form over function. People fight over music, biblical translations, hard or soft cessationism, that is have sign gifts completed ended or do they still exist, but are not normative? Even choosing the color of the nursery carpet can spark arguments! The problem is, often these disagreements are not about the issue, but a deeper issue. i.e. With debates over translations, the argument on one side frequently devolve into ad hominem attacks on the motives and personal characteristics of the enemy. Clearly this isn t what God wants of us. VII The Christ Revealed to Israel Chapter 2:1-12:50 H. Healing and Hostility 1. The Healing by Christ Verses 1-9a 2. The Hostilities to Christ Verses 9b The Homily by Christ Verses Introduction: And we re going to see a perfect example of the problem in Chapter 5. Jesus is attacked because He heals on the Sabbath. But is that really the issue? We ll see the healing and attack this week and Jesus response next week. Dr. McGee says of this section Chapter 5 brings us to this very wonderful incident of the healing of the impotent man at the pool of Bethesda. Actually, in a sense, this miracle is the turning point in the ministry of Christ. You see, this miracle set the bloodhounds of hate on His track, and they never let up until they put Him to death on the cross The Healing by Christ: Let s start by noting, we don t know what feast John is referencing here. And we don t need to in order to understand the passage. Next John provides a location for the event he is about to present. It is unclear what is meant by the Sheep Gate. What is being presented is the Bethesda pool. Accordingly, here s an extended description of the pool. 1 McGee, J. Vernon, John I: The Gospels, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, TN, 1991.

2 The pool at Bethesda was a familiar locale among the Jews of Jerusalem. It was mentioned, for example, in Qumran s Copper Scroll as the place of poured out water. It was located near what are now the ruins of the basilica of Saint Anne to the north of the temple mount. The pool was actually two pools surrounded by four porticoes, with a fifth portico situated between them. Coupled with the elegant porticoes, the pools must have been an impressive sight. While the lavish complex of John s day likely dated to the reign of Herod the Great, the pools were probably in use before that and may have been the site of an intermittent spring. The connection between the pool and the healing process is attested not only by the fourth Gospel but also by archaeological remains indicating that the Romans also sought healing there after taking over Jerusalem in approximately A.D Many people came to the pool to be healed. The belief was that when the waters bubbled, they had healing qualities and consequently there were huge number of individuals waiting there. These are the same kind of people who go to healing services. They are desperate, hurting people who only want an end to their suffering. I do have to point out that in most contemporary translations you will find that there is missing verses 3b- 4 found in the KJV. It reads: waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had (John 5:3 4 KJV). I m not going into technical issues regarding grammar, etc. But, these words are not found in the earliest manuscripts. The consensus is that a scribe added this as a marginal note to explain the superstitious belief that led people to believe they would be healed. At some point this marginal note became, inappropriately, part of the text. If you read the text carefully you will notice that John says nothing to lead to the conclusion that anyone was actually healed at the pool. But belief is a powerful thing, i.e. the placebo effect. Or as Dr. McGee explains I personally feel that a great many cures took place there that were psychological cures. There are a number of people today, just as there were then, who are sick in their minds, ignorant, and superstitious. There are quite a few who go to faith healers today who believe they get healed. There is always a question whether or not they were ever really sick. Another question is whether they stay permanently healed. My point is that the Lord Jesus Christ heals today just as He did at the pool of Bethesda, and that one is not healed by some moving of the water. 3 What we do find is an individual who for some reason, probably the Holy Spirit, drew Jesus attention. Once again we see Jesus demonstrate supernatural discernment. This is why we have to presume the involvement of the Holy Spirit. And what Jesus discerns is an individual who had been an invalid for almost four decades. Then Jesus does what He does. He asks what seems to be an almost insulting question. Do you want to be healed? Can you imagine what this individual thought. Are you kidding? Why else would I be here? It certainly isn t for my health! Oh wait a minute, yes it is. What the man does answer explains a lot about how people functioned around the pool. If he was to be healed, he needed someone to lower him into it. And since he didn t have anyone to help him, when the waters 2 Archaeological Study Bible, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, MI, McGee. ) 120 (

3 began to move he was forced to crawl down to the pool. Not surprisingly someone else always beat him in. This miracle is another quiet one. It s nothing spectacular, just Jesus telling the man to get up and walk. And the man was immediately healed and got up and walked. There are two points to notice here. First, it was Jesus power that healed the man. He was healed before he did anything. He got up and walked because he was healed. Second, it does seem that in this individual s case there was some kind of sin involved in his illness. This isn t always the case. We ll be seeing an example of this when we get further along in John. As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him (John 9:1 4 ESV). There is reason to believe that here the man s lameness was a product of sin because of the language of Verse 14. Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you. (John 5:14 ESV) This is a warning for all because this connection between sin and illness is found through out scripture. Paul points this out when he said That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died (1 Corinthians 11:30 ESV). First, Jesus went looking for the man. Keep in mind one of the feasts of Israel was going on at this time. This meant there would have been thousands of men within the Temple area. There was no way Jesus could have found the man except under the supernatural leading of the Holy Spirit. When He found him, Jesus addressed his spiritual condition. He physically healed him at the pool. And He dealt with his spiritual condition at the temple. Remember the physical healing was done through the power of the Spirit. But God doesn t force someone to accept spiritual healing. Accordingly, Jesus warned him that unless he turned his life around his future condition would be potentially worse than his previous one. This could refer to the natural consequences of some sins. But ultimately the final consequence of a sinful, unrepentant, life is an eternity in Hell. This warning about the dangers of rejecting spiritual healing sounds familiar. When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none. Then it says, I will return to my house from which I came. And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So also will it be with this evil generation (Matthew 12:43 45 ESV). ) 121 (

4 If someone has the opportunity to turn to Christ and instead of doing so becomes more spiritual believing the love God and have some kind of connection to Him, they are worse off than if they had never heard the gospel. As for the man 2. The Hostilities to Christ: Now that we have finished up with the interaction between Jesus at the man, let s see the consequences. John points out that Jesus healed the man on the Sabbath. And in fact it was the Jews, that is the religious leaders at the Temple, who caught the man carrying his mat on the Sabbath. This would have been breaking the Law, as they interpreted it. Thus says the LORD: Take care for the sake of your lives, and do not bear a burden on the Sabbath day or bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem. And do not carry a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath or do any work, but keep the Sabbath day holy, as I commanded your fathers (Jeremiah 17:21 22 ESV). Keep in mind the religious leaders were more concerned with their control over people that they were about the implications of their behavior on people. The Jewish Annotated New Testament points out The healing story becomes an account of conflict over Sabbath observance, in which carrying any object outside the domain of one s household was prohibited (Jer ). According to later rabbinic law, the healing of an acute, life-threatening illness or condition was permitted, even mandated, on the Sabbath, but the healing of a chronic illness was not, on the grounds that treatment could just as easily take place before or after the Sabbath (see b. Yoma 84b). The Johannine passage suggests that this law was in place, at least in the eyes of some, in the first century. 4 To interpret Jeremiah this way, keeping in mind none of this was from the Mosaic law, was simply legalistic nitpicking. All this was simply rabbinic tradition. But to the religious leaders, it became a convenient way to go after Jesus for enticing men to violate the Sabbath. Having caught the man carrying a burden on the Sabbath, the Jews asked the logical question. Why are you working on the Sabbath? To which he replied, The person who healed me told me to get up, take my bed, and walk. And thus ends the first interaction between the man and the men What is intriguing here is the man doesn t even know who healed him. It wasn t his faith in Jesus that did so, because he had no idea who the man was. It appears that Jesus simply came up to the man, told him to take his bed and get up and walk. Then Jesus simply disappeared into the crowd. It would be interesting to get in the man s head to see what he was thinking about all this. Why did he get up? How did he know he was healed? As usual, we have questions that can t be answered. Now the man, being found by Jesus, in some way is able to identify Him. And so he goes back to the powers that be and tells them who healed him. There are a couple of ways of interpreting his actions here and no way to know which is correct. He may have gone back to 4 Levine, Amy-Jill and Marc Zvi Brettler, eds., The Jewish Annotated New Testament, Oxford University Press, New York, NY, ) 122 (

5 them to let them know about Jesus in order to give credit where credit is due. So his actions were those of an appreciative recipient of God s blessing. The other possibility is the man was intimidated by the powers that be. Keep in mind they essentially charged him with violating the Sabbath. And so to get off the hook, he gave them the name of the one who was behind his violation. But who knows. Carson is probably closest when he remarks that the man was guilty of dullness rather than treachery. 5 Regardless of the intent of the man, the Jews are furious. How dare the upstart violate the most sacred day, the Sabbath1 And so they persecuted Him. Here the tense is active, so probably the contemporary equivalent would be to say they were harassing Him. But Jesus response to this harassment really sends them round the bend. What Jesus is saying here is that while God rested on the Sabbath day of creation He has continued to work with mankind. God is not held to the Sabbatic command. And therefore Jesus has the right to carry out His work with humanity. The implication of this comment is that Jesus equates Himself to the Father, that is He calls Himself the Son of God and therefore equal to God. Also note here Jesus says My Father which further substantiates the implication of His own deity. If Jesus previous comment sent them round the bend, this one sends them over the cliff. And by the way for those who are sincerely wanting to understand who Jesus was, John makes it clear that the reason the powers that be wanted to kill Jesus wasn t just for violating the Sabbath. Which, if He actually did, according to Mosaic code was deserving of death. They also wanted Jesus dead because he was making himself equal with God which means He claimed to be God. And again if this was what He was claiming, He was deserving of death unless the claim was true of course. What we see in the Jews isn t just anger at the perceived breaking of the Law and grief over the sin of the man Jesus. What we see is outright hatred and a desire to carry out, not the justice of the law, but the violence that flowed from their hatred. They wanted to kill not execute Jesus. They weren t interested in truth or as Conclusion: Card points out: One of the ironies of John s Gospel is the presence of people who demand miracles but are unable to accept them when they occur. This reveals the fundamental necessity of faith, that we must believe before we see, that we must believe in order to see. Jesus had healed a man who was lame for thirty-eight years, and all the Jews saw was an infraction of one of their rules. This is the context for Jesus first long discourse in John s Gospel. 6 This is the problem with majoring in the minors. Keeping the Sabbath certainly wasn t a minor issue for Jews. But the nitpicking of Rabbinic tradition certainly should have been. The 5 Mounce, Robert H., The Expositor s Bible Commentary, Vol. 10, John, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, MI, Card, Michael, John: The Gospel of Wisdom, InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL, 2014 ) 123 (

6 underlying problem was their absolute hatred of Jesus, stirred up by Satan s influence. So, they were looking for ways to bring Jesus down, any way they could. We often deal with the same problem today. As believers we aren t allowed to disagree with sinful behavior. Live and let live should be adequate in a pluralistic society. Christians are the only people who can be truly tolerant. But when we stand for God s word we are defined as hateful. Remember, people often accuse others of what they actually demonstrate. If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father also (John 15:18 23 ESV). The real point for us isn t that we are hated, or that we are called hateful. The real issue for us is, are we being loving? You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:43 48 ESV). I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you (Luke 6:27 ESV). These are vital truths we must not only know but we must live out if we are to be light in the midst of darkness. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God (John 3:19 21 ESV). ) 124 (

7 The Gospel of John Majoring in the Minors ~ Part 1 John 5:1-18 VII The Christ Revealed to Israel Chapter 2:1-12:50 H. Healing and Hostility 1. The Healing by Christ Verses 1-9a 2. The Hostilities to Christ Verses 9b The Homily by Christ Verses Introduction: 1. The Healing by Christ: (John 5:3 4; 9:1 4, 5:14; 1 Corinthians 11:30; Matthew 12:43 45) 2. The Hostilities to Christ: (Jeremiah 17:21 22)

8 Conclusion: (John 15:18 23; Matthew 5:43 48; Luke 6:27; John 3:19 21) Personal Application: The Jewish leaders serve as a negative example of how believers sometimes behave. Consider how God wants us to behave towards our enemies. What are the practical implications? Prayer for the Week: Lord, may I react towards others in a way that brings You glory and advances Your kingdom. Amen.