SOME TIME LATER, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. 2Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. 3Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. 5One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”
7“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”
8Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” 9At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.
The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, 10and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”
11But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ”
12So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?”
13The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.
14Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” 15The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.
16So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him. 17Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working.” 18For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
19Jesus gave them this answer: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. 20For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, to your amazement he will show him even greater things than these. 21For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. 22Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, 23that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.
24“I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. 25I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. 26For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself. 27And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.
28“Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice 29and come out—those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned. 30By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.
31“If I testify about myself, my testimony is not valid. 32There is another who testifies in my favor, and I know that his testimony about me is valid.
33“You have sent to John and he has testified to the truth. 34Not that I accept human testimony; but I mention it that you may be saved. 35John was a lamp that burned and gave light, and you chose for a time to enjoy his light.
36“I have testimony weightier than that of John. For the very work that the Father has given me to finish, and which I am doing, testifies that the Father has sent me. 37And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, 38nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one he sent. 39You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, 40yet you refuse to come to me to have life.
41“I do not accept praise from men, 42but I know you. I know that you do not have the love of God in your hearts. 43I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him. 44How can you believe if you accept praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God?
45“But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. 46If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. 47But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?”
Original Meaning
COMMENTATORS CANNOT AGREE on how John 5–11 should be organized, but there is a general consensus that chapter 5 opens a new section separate from chapters 1–4. John is no longer comparing Jesus with institutions of Jewish piety and history (chs. 2–4) but with some of the major festivals of Judaism. These chapters refer specifically to festivals such as Passover and Tabernacles. Jesus makes an appearance in the Jewish festivities and exploits some imagery, which lends deeper understanding of who he is. Our goal as exegetes must be uncovering the religious and cultural patterns understood by John and his original audience in order to gain a clearer picture of Jesus’ activities.
Some refer to these chapters as John’s “festival cycle.” Once this pattern is recognized, new insight is possible on otherwise difficult paragraphs. In my outline (see Introduction) I have suggested that one effective way to organize the section is to group the four major festivals together, leaving the Lazarus story to one side (as foreshadowing of death and resurrection).1 An outline of the festivals makes John’s structure clear.
• The Sabbath Festival in Jerusalem (ch. 5)
• The Passover Festival in Galilee (ch. 6)
• The Tabernacles Festival in Jerusalem (chs. 7–8)
• Case Study: A Blind Man and “Light” (ch. 9)
• The Hanukkah Festival in Jerusalem (ch. 10)2
One cannot overestimate the importance of such festivals in first-century Judaism. Leviticus 23 offers a list of these festivals and stresses their importance. The cycle of festivals was old (Purim and Hanukkah were the newest, but centuries-old in Jesus’ day) and the liturgies of the temple and the responsibilities of Jewish families well established. Three times each year Jewish families were expected to travel to Jerusalem for worship (Passover in spring, Pentecost seven weeks later, Tabernacles in autumn), thanking God for the harvest of crop and herd and remembering great episodes from Israel’s history.3
The Sabbath was the only weekly festival, observed in homes and synagogues in Israel’s villages. But in some respects, the Sabbath set the tone for what it meant to have a period of time set aside for reverence and devotion for any festival. The first day of Passover (according to Lev. 23:7) was to be “a sacred assembly” in which no work could be done. The onset of festivals mimicked the observance of Sabbath. This means that Sabbath set the pace, outlining the pattern of Jewish devotion for what was to follow.4
Some scholars have argued strenuously that John 5 is a troubling chapter in that it does not refer to its festival directly and is out of place sequentially. Note how Jesus is in Galilee at the end of chapter 4, then he moves to Jerusalem in chapter 5, and unexpectedly in 6:1 he goes “to the other side of the Sea of Galilee.” If chapters 5 and 6 are reversed, so the argument runs, John’s stories about Galilee are gathered together (4:46–54; 6:1–71) and his Jerusalem stories come together as well (5:1–47, followed by 7:1ff.). The new chapter order would be John 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 5, 7, 8, etc.
While this solves some problems, it fails to see the intrinsic value of the Sabbath of chapter 5 as heading an all-important festival list. John’s literary efforts are not haphazard. If anything, a careful study of this Gospel shows that sequence and image are never accidental, but quite sophisticated. The festival here is the Sabbath (see 5:9), and the argument that flows from it is based on rabbinic expectations for behavior and piety on the Sabbath. But above all, John (and Jesus) has a “Sabbath understanding” of the festivals that we will see surface repeatedly in the festival cycle. Festivals were made by God to bring good gifts to his people, not to legislate and control behavior. This outlook will unfold particularly in chapter 5, and like so many Synoptic conflict stories, Jesus’ understanding of the Sabbath gets him into considerable trouble.
Chapter 5 not only opens the festival cycle, but it also introduces a theme that will weave its way throughout the Gospel. John’s Gospel places Jesus on trial not simply at the end of his life (as in the Synoptics), but rather continually.5 Jesus’ arrival in the world forces men and women to take stock of his coming, to examine and decide the truth of his mission and word. In this sense, Jesus is “in the dock” or on trial in every episode. In fact, one of the ways John introduces the miracles of Jesus is to offer them as “evidence,” as if Jesus were on trial.
But there is an ironic twist here because in the end, it is not Jesus who is on trial; the world is on trial. Even though Jesus is clear that he is not judging the world (8:15; 12:47), still, the entry of the light into the world exposes the darkness and judges it for what it is. “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil” (3:19).
Judicial settings appear in John with surprising frequency. Jesus is examined by Nicodemus, the woman, and the Jewish leaders (chs. 6, 8, and 9). Jesus must produce witnesses for his case (John the Baptist, God, followers, healed men in chs. 5 and 9), and he produces evidence that may substantiate his claims (particularly his works, cf. 5:36; “The very work that the Father has given me to finish, and which I am doing, testifies that the Father has sent me”; cf. also 10:25, 37–38; 14:11; 15:24). Above all, in the final scenes of the Gospel, Jesus appears before Pilate and the high priest in a climactic judicial sequence in which he is found innocent (18:38) but nevertheless is killed.
This judicial background is important because it sets the stage for the meaning of John 5. This chapter is not simply about a Sabbath day when Jesus heals a man and then is accused of breaking the law. Mark 3:1–6 provides that sort of story. This chapter is a template of accusation and response, of prosecution and defense. A simple outline of the chapter makes this clear:
The Crime (5:1–15)
• A man at Bethesda is healed on the Sabbath
• The man is interrogated
• The criminal [Jesus] is identified
The Decision to Prosecute (5:16–18)
• First basis: Jesus violates the Sabbath
• Second basis: Jesus is making divine claims
Jesus Goes to Trial (5:19–47)
• Jesus describes his “criminal” work
• Jesus brings witnesses in his defense
• Jesus prosecutes his opponents
• Jesus identifies their crimes
• Jesus challenges their ability to appeal
John 5 therefore is a trial—perhaps it is “the trial” of Jesus played out for us. This episode serves a literary role for John that exceeds its particular setting in Jesus’ historic life, showing us the kind of accusation and rejection Jesus experienced, his defense, and above all, the genuine spiritual jeopardy his opponents are in.6
The Crime (5:1–15)
THE STORY OPENS with Jesus coming to Jerusalem during a feast (which is Sabbath, 5:9) and arriving at a gate in the city’s northeast wall called the Sheep Gate.7 It is interesting that this northeast section of the walled city has continued to sponsor a sheep market one day per week just outside St. Stephen’s Gate. The NIV refers to the name of a pool there called in Aramaic “Bethesda,” but this has posed innumerable problems for the translator. Greek texts offer many alternatives for the site: Bethzatha, Bethsaida, Belzetha, and Bethesda; some suggest a new word, “Bethseta,” which means “house of sheep.”
The manuscript tradition is so divided it is clear that later scribes, who did not know the place, easily made errors and postulated corrections. Bethsaida, for instance, is likely a confusion with the city in Galilee. However in Qumran we have located a reference to “Beth ‘esda” [in its dual form, beth ‘esdatayin], which means “house of flowing.” Bethesda is the Greek transliteration of it. John refers to the word (lit.) as Hebrew, but throughout his Gospel he regularly means “Aramaic,” the familiar language of Jesus (19:13, 17, 20; 20:16). In Jewish literature, the words are interchangeable. Today this pool, complete with five porches, is located adjacent to the Church of St. Anne inside Jerusalem’s Old City.
We learn in the story that many people viewed the pool as a healing sanctuary (5:3). Such places were not uncommon in antiquity, and once a site was identified as a sanctuary of healing, the tradition was impossible to stop. Excavations at the site show that after the New Testament era, the pools continued to be used as an Asclepion (a healing sanctuary8), which confirms the tradition. One explanation for the crowd at the pool has slipped into the text (5:3b–4), which most of the manuscripts of John leave out (cf. the NIV); it was likely inserted to explain the “stirring of the waters” in 5:7. The people understood that occasionally an angel would descend and stir the water of the pool, and the first one to touch the water would be healed. The man Jesus meets had been ill for thirty-eight years (in 5:8–9 John indicates he was paraplegic, having lost the ability to use his legs). This area was likely a regular place for him to spend the day. Here he could beg from people coming to the pool and take his chances at being healed.
Jesus takes the initiative with the man (as he generally does in the Gospel) with words whose meaning likely goes beyond the mere miracle at hand: “Do you want to get well?” (5:6). These same words could have been used metaphorically for Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman. The man, of course, does not recognize Jesus and cannot understand his healing powers. The man then appeals to his dilemma: As a paraplegic, he cannot outrace the others getting into the pool for healing (5:7). But Jesus ignores both the superstition surrounding the pool and the man’s complaint. The Greek tenses of his commands in 5:8 unveil his interest: Pick up your bed (an aorist imperative, a single event), get yourself up and start walking (present imperatives, continuous events). The healing is immediate. The man makes no testimony of who Jesus is and provides no orthodox confession; he simply obeys and is healed.
The importance of the story comes to us in 5:9b. It is the Sabbath when Jesus heals the man, and immediately the story takes an abrupt and unsettling turn. Jerusalem had always been a place of religious zeal (as it is today), and now a self-appointed enforcer of Sabbath law upbraids the man (5:10). The Jews protected the Sabbath and held it aloft as a vital symbol of Jewish culture and religion.9 The oral laws of Judaism at this time (reflected in the Mishnah) outlined thirty-nine categories of things that were forbidden on Sabbath, and carrying something such as a bed from one place to another was prohibited (Shabbath 7:2).
The man does not know Jesus. He simply points to his own healing, and no doubt with joy that matched his inquisitors’ zeal, he says that a man with the authority to heal told him to do this. Any reader of the story can sympathize with him. The man’s life has been transformed! The joy of new life obliterates the legalism he now must debate. It is only later when Jesus meets him in the temple (5:14–15) that the man identifies Jesus to the authorities.
The story has taken an ominous turn. For the first time in the Gospel, Jesus’ opponents show themselves in all their hostility. Their question shifts rapidly from the error of the healed man to the identity of the healer who has incited this breach of law: “Who is this fellow?” (5:12). Jesus has slipped away (5:13b), as was his pattern following miracles (cf. 6:15). In 5:16–18 these opponents will summarize their complaint against Jesus.
When Jesus meets the former paraplegic in the temple, there is an important exchange that requires explanation (5:14). We can surmise that the man has gone to the temple to offer praise to God for his healing (cf. Luke 17:14) or perhaps to confirm his healing with priests. When Jesus sees him, he says two things. “See, you are [lit., have become] well” is no doubt a recognition that his cure was not short-lived, as many supposed cures were. But then Jesus remarks, “Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.”
Is Jesus making some link between sin and physical ills? Interpreters have struggled with the meaning of this verse. No doubt Jesus’ exhortation must be connected to his warning here. The man’s sin and his condition are linked. Scripture indicates that some tragedies may be the result of specific sins (1 Cor. 11:30), and this may be why Jesus has chosen the man for healing. There were two levels at which God needed to work in him (cf. Mark 2:1–12). But those with an infirmity have not necessarily sinned, and those who sin do not necessarily endure suffering as a consequence. Luke 13:1–5 and John 9:3 provide Jesus’ correction of that sort of thinking. Suffering is not an index of a person’s sin. But having said that, specific suffering may still come from specific sins. The most natural reading of the verse suggests that Jesus is pointing the man to repentance because in his case there is such a link.
The Decision to Prosecute (5:16–18)
WE DARE NOT miss the pivotal importance of these three verses. These are John’s own comments explaining the nature of Jesus’ persecution. John tells us about Jesus’ opponents and assesses the reason for their fury. In 5:18 he anticipates the conclusion of the story with a shocking disclosure: His opponents want to kill Jesus (cf. 7:1). The Jewish leadership has located two crimes that are major offenses deserving the death penalty. If we keep John’s fascinating “trial motif” in mind, these verses contain the “legal complaint” that the Jewish authorities held against Jesus.
(1) The Greek of 5:16 says that the persecution is tied not simply to this offense (healing the paraplegic), but to Jesus’ habit of doing such things on the Sabbath. This parallels the Synoptic picture of Sabbath violations that brought significant conflict. Jesus was viewed as indifferent to divine Sabbath law as mediated through Jewish tradition, and observers to such violations were obligated to punish the offender (Num. 15:32–36). It is interesting that John uses a technical term for “persecute” in 5:16 (Gk. dioko, a word used in Greek literature for a legal prosecution). Thus John is telling us that Jesus is not simply being persecuted, but that his prosecution, his trial, is already underway. His prosecutors have now leveled their charge against him.
(2) The second charge against Jesus has to do with blasphemy. Jesus’ defense of his Sabbath activity is given in 5:17 (lit.): “My Father is still working, and I also am working.” The offense is not anchored in Jesus’ claim to have a unique relationship with God, such as calling God “my Father” (cf. 10:33). This is secondary. The offense is anchored to the nature of Jesus’ self-defense in light of Sabbath charges. The rabbis enforced the prohibition against work on the Sabbath but agreed that in some fashion, God himself continues working. For instance, God sustains the universe every day. Moreover, God continues to exert his prerogative over life and death since people die and children are born on the Sabbath.10 Jesus’ claim fits precisely here: He is God’s Son, and as such, if God (who made the Sabbath) can continue to work positively while commanding rest, and if Jesus’ works are the works of God, then Jesus’ works on the Sabbath are defensible. Jesus is assuming divine prerogatives (5:19).
This is a dangerous defense to make. Can it be proven? If the defense is true, a breathtaking claim is being set before Judaism. If it is false, a serious crime has been committed. Jesus is claiming equality with God (5:18), a claim that will reappear throughout the course of the Gospel. But we must be clear about Jesus’ claim. Borchert writes, “What Jesus, as the One and Only Son of God (1:14, 18), claimed was to be sent by God, on a mission for God, doing the works of God, obedient to God, and bringing glory to God. That is not the role of one who displaces God but one who is a representative or emissary of God.”11 As God’s divine agent, Jesus has the right and the ability to do what God does.
Therefore John interprets the persecution and eventual death of Jesus as leading from Jesus’ divine claims about himself. In the present instance, the cultural and religious interests of the Sabbath have provided a platform for these claims to be set out boldly.
Jesus Goes to Trial (5:19–40)
THE DISCOURSE THAT follows is the third in the Gospel and presents us with claims unlike anything we have thus far heard. Jesus makes explicit claims to his divinity inasmuch as he associates himself directly with God. His defense here has three distinct elements: (1) Jesus describes his work as sheltered under the same divine prerogatives as when God “works” on the Sabbath. In saying this Jesus is virtually making a divine claim for himself. (2) Since Jesus is on trial, he brings forward witnesses who can verify this divine authority in him. (3) Jesus turns the tables on his opponents and moves from defense to prosecution, describing the root problem of his opponents.
(1) Jesus and God (5:19–30). Scholars frequently explain that the form of Jesus’ response in this discourse is thoroughly rabbinic. Not only does it assume an understanding of the Sabbath and its laws, but its form of reasoning is somewhat foreign to our Western styles today. Jesus begins formally “giving them an answer.” His speech begins with (lit.) “truly, truly I say to you” (see comment on 1:51). It reminds us of the antiquity and authenticity of these Johannine discourses and how we need to unpack them carefully.
The central motif in the discourse is the relation of a father and a son as it would be viewed in this culture through the trade or skill the son was learning. We can think of Jesus growing up with Joseph in the carpentry shop, obediently learning skills and later imitating them. In a similar manner, Jesus is connected to the Father. His activity is never independent or self-initiated but always dependent, deriving its purpose from his Father’s will. In this model we have to remember that there is no reciprocal relationship. “The Father initiates, sends, commands, commissions, grants; the Son responds, obeys, performs his Father’s will, receives authority.”12 Moreover, the Son does not simply draw inspiration from the Father, but imitates him tirelessly and successfully. What makes this possible? John 5:20–23 provides three answers (anchored to three Gk. gar [for] clauses).
The most important affirmation is that the Father loves the Son.13 The Greek present tense suggests an ongoing, continuous affection here, which leads to complete disclosure of the deeper mysteries of the Father (5:20). It is the same thought we find in 1:18, which describes the intimacy enjoyed between the Father and the Son’s revelation of the Father to the world. Thus Jesus is unique inasmuch as he has seen and heard things no one else has.
This love spills into two tasks entrusted to the Son that belong exclusively to the Father. Jesus is sovereign over life (5:21) and judgment (5:22). That God alone has power over life and can raise people from death is no surprise (Deut. 32:39; 1 Sam. 2:6). That Jesus can do it too sets him apart in Judaism (cf. Elijah and Elisha). But this giving of life has also to do with judgment (5:22). In the theology of this Gospel, judgment is not an event left for the end of time. Judgment and the gift of life happen now, in this world. And since Jesus is in this world, since he is the One through whom light and life are mediated, he becomes the catalyst of divine judgment. Those who love darkness find themselves under judgment already (3:19). Whoever believes in the Son has life already (3:36).
This makes Jesus God’s premier agent in the world (5:24b). In antiquity, being an “agent” referred to a role in which authority and power were delegated to do a task. If a king wanted to negotiate peace or the price of cereal crops from a distance, he would assign an agent to represent himself fully. The agent’s words were binding both on his audience and on the king who sent him. Therefore the agent had to be completely trustworthy. This is the imagery Jesus has in mind. As 5:23 makes explicit, whoever wishes to honor the Father must likewise honor the Son who represents him. And whoever dishonors the Son offends the Father whose presence stands behind him.14
The repetition in 5:24 of (lit.) “truly, truly I say to you” signals a natural break in Jesus’ answer. Now that the groundwork has been laid (God loves Jesus and has delegated to him ultimate divine authority), Jesus expands and interprets what life and judgment really mean (5:24–30). To hear the words of Jesus (i.e., to accept his entire presence and message) is to believe God (who sent him). God’s word and Jesus’ word are one and the same, and so to embrace one is to embrace the other (5:24).
This decision has present consequences: Eternal life begins immediately and condemnation and death disappear. But Jesus’ work as life-giver and judge (in both cases, again, implementing God’s work, 5:30) also go into the future (5:25, 28–29). Jesus will be God’s instrument on the great Day of Judgment. To reinforce this theme, Jesus calls himself “God’s Son” (5:25), one of only three times he does so in this gospel (10:36; 11:4; cf. 19:7).
The key in these verses is to see that Jesus is expanding his divine claim. His authority over the Sabbath leads now to authority over eternal life. His rabbinic logic argues “from the lesser to the greater.” If it is true that his identity as God’s Son permits him to assume authority on the Sabbath, then he can assume divine authority elsewhere. All of the tasks listed in 5:24–30 are tasks firmly established in the Old Testament as works of God. Life is a gift from God (Gen. 2:7; Ps. 16:11); judgment is a work of God (Gen. 18:25; Judg. 11:27). Because of who he is, Jesus can do what God does. Note how in 5:31 Jesus no longer speaks of this abstractly but rather speaks in the first person, using the personal “I” numerous times. This is emphatic speech. Jesus does not want his claim obscured.
(2) Witnesses for Jesus’ case (5:31–40). John 5:31 is crucial in Jesus’ trial. In Old Testament law, more than one witness was needed in order to condemn someone (Deut. 17:6). This idea was expanded in judicial settings to say that more than one person was needed to confirm someone’s testimony (Mishnah, Ketuboth 2:9). In 5:31 Jesus is not saying that any self-testimony he gives is false, but rather that its validity is inadmissible unless it is confirmed by other witnesses. Jesus’ claims are extraordinary. But if he is the only one making them, they will carry little weight with his audience. But if the claims are corroborated, they stand.
Jesus therefore identifies five witnesses whose words and deeds buttress his claims. (a) The first witness is God, even though 5:32 does not say so explicitly (though cf. 5:37). The thought is not necessarily that God provides an audible voice of testimony, unless John has in mind the baptism of Jesus (1:32–34; cf. 12:28). Rather, here Jesus may be pointing to the inward presence of God that gives him confidence about his mission (17:1–6). God’s word and power are within Jesus, he has been sent by the Father, and these data point to the truth of who he is.
(b) The next witness is John the Baptist (5:33–35). John preceded Jesus, identified him, worked with him, and directed his followers to become Jesus’ disciples. Although his ministry was enjoyed (or indulged) for a time, in the end, it was rejected.
(c) Jesus points to his own works (5:36), which demand some explanation. These are not simply powerful miracles, but signs, culminating in the great works of the cross and resurrection. These point not merely to Jesus’ identity but to the Father, who alone can enable such things.
(d) Jesus adds the Scriptures to his list of witnesses (5:39–40). First-century Judaism was zealous in its study of the Scriptures. Yet, Jesus says, his contemporaries do not see the central message about Jesus and how he fulfills the Scripture. Luke shows a fascinating story about such use of the Scriptures in Luke 24 when Jesus comes to Emmaus. There he opens “Moses and all the Prophets” to these two disciples (Luke 24:27), who understand for the first time.
(e) The final witness is contained in the next element of Jesus’ defense. It is Moses (5:46–47), who is represented in Scripture, but his words about the Messiah are unequivocal (Deut. 18:15). Moses is the “patron saint” of Judaism, the defender of its people, an advocate on their behalf before God (see Moses’ farewell, Deut. 33). But, Jesus remarks, even Moses’ words have gone ignored.
(3) Jesus prosecutes his opponents (5:41–47). A remarkable and unexpected feature of the discourse is the way in which Jesus finishes by attacking his opponents. In fact, he prosecutes them during his own trial! This was not unusual in Jewish courts. Unlike today, defendants did not simply prove their innocence and thus end the trial. Jewish trials worked to uncover the truth, and accusers who made false claims in court could find themselves placed in the defense and subject to serious jeopardy. Punishments they had hoped to inflict on their opponent now could turn back on them.
Jesus understands this. Thus as his “trial” is played out in this chapter, he turns the tables and moves from defense to prosecution. The final impact of his defense in 5:31–40 leaves the impression that Jesus’ hearers bear some responsibility for what God has done. If they cannot see the Father’s work in their midst, if they cannot understand a sign when they see it, if they repudiated John the Baptist and read the Bible with closed hearts, something must be profoundly wrong. The irony runs deeper still since these people do indeed measure the validity of human witnesses (5:43) and seek eagerly the affirmation and recognition that come from human quarters. If the problem were intellectual, an explanation would do. But it lies deeper. Jesus’ opponents are spiritually ill. Their disbelief is deliberate and the diagnosis severe: They do not have the love of God in their hearts (5:42). They love the religious life, but they have forgotten how to love God.
Jesus’ final reference to Moses in 5:45–47 points not only to Moses’ role as a witness (cf. above), but also to his role as judge. Judaism took great pride in Moses and his work in setting the Jewish faith on its present course. Identity with him was important (cf. esp. chs. 8–10). It was a religious badge of security. But if Moses is possessed and not obeyed, if Judaism is exploited as a mark of identity instead of a path to God, the very tenets of the Bible, the very words of Moses, will come back to haunt and to judge. To possess the Bible and to know the Scriptures but to not know God is to be in the most precarious place of all.
Bridging Contexts
THIS IS A LONG and complex chapter, and one can get bogged down in the details of its debate and the intricacies of Jesus’ argument. Interpreters have often been tempted to allegorize the story in order to find some relevance for present generations. For instance, Augustine and many others have looked at the pool with five porches at Bethesda as a symbol of the Torah, the five books of Moses.15 The man, as it were, is trying to be cured in Judaism, but Jesus must redirect him another way. Patristic interpreters such as Tertullian and Chrysostom thought that the water of the pool represented baptism, which, when stirred by heavenly beings, could heal. Similarly, the thirty-eight years of illness reminds some of Israel’s thirty-eight years of desert wandering in the Old Testament. Jesus has come to bring the man to the Promised Land.
But such allegorizing is unnecessary and likely inappropriate. There once was an era when archaeology could not find any such pool in Jerusalem, and the Fourth Gospel was severely criticized as not representing historic Judaism. Then in the twentieth century a pair of twin pools was discovered in the northeast section of Jerusalem (inside St. Stephen’s Gate, at St. Anne’s Church).16 The “five porches” resulted from an expansion of a pool that had been under heavy demand. Bethesda was fed by aqueducts, and each side had steps leading to the water and porches and platforms for people coming for water. When the pool was expanded, instead of making the original pool larger, an adjacent pool was dug, separated from the first by a wall and steps. This “double pool” then had “five” porches, with one porch separating the two main pools.
A time of trial and conflict. John 5 is a story about trial and conflict. The paraplegic in the story plays a role smaller than that of the woman in chapter 4. Once he identifies Jesus, he exits the stage, only to make way for the opponents of Jesus to accuse him and for Jesus to provide his defense. Thus, the story becomes a model for us to explain something about Jesus—why he died and how he should be defended.
But more than this, this story also should tell us something about our lives before the world. John’s Gospel is clear that no disciple will be exempt from persecution if he or she is following the Lord. In the Upper Room Jesus warns, “Remember the words I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also” (15:20). This verse tells any would-be disciple that the account recorded in chapter 5 may well be the story of their own lives.
Why is this trial motif displayed in chapter 5 so interesting to John? Why does he take the time to weave it so carefully into the fabric of his Gospel, suggesting, as it were, that Jesus spent his whole life on trial? The answer is simple: John himself and his congregations are experiencing this sort of examination and trial as well. A gospel that speaks of Jesus’ life in this way will greatly encourage people living under serious threats.
Paul does the same thing in 1 Thessalonians 2. He understands that these Greek Christians have suffered greatly for their faith. Thus he encourages them, saying that they are not only now walking in the steps of the earliest church of Judea (2:14), but in the very steps of Jesus when they suffer (1 Thess. 2:15). John has the same pastoral interest, but he is bringing this encouragement by putting in high relief this one dimension of Jesus’ life.
The church in John’s day is being questioned about the validity of Jesus. They are being forced to produce evidence of their convictions and offer the names of witnesses to validate their beliefs. We get a glimpse of this in a number of ways. John’s view of the “world” is consistently negative, as if it were a place of hostility and conflict. The opponents of these Johannine Christians are likely Jewish leaders in a rival “synagogue,” since the Johannine church is likely viewed as a “Christian synagogue.” This explains the many uses of “Jews” in a derisive way. The language of conflict known so well in the Johannine church is appearing in the Gospel itself. John 9 later will become a test case of a man whom Jesus heals and who then experiences interrogation and excommunication. Any Johannine Christian who reads this story will be relieved to learn that he or she is not alone, that people healed by Jesus have experienced the same thing.
Or consider the theology of 15:18–25. Jesus begins by saying, “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.” These are potent words to Jesus’ apostles. But they are also precious words to John’s followers, who are being hated as well. Imagine a sermon in the first century based on this passage, directed to the same people reading 1 John! This is a community under siege, a community that knows suffering and conflict. This is a community that needs to be reminded that Jesus walked the same path. Therefore one theme that deserves exploration centers on the nature of persecution and the Christological center that must be protected.
There is another level of meaning in this “trial motif.” John is aware that he is not simply recording a story for the sake of an archive; rather, he is writing for us. He is conscious that his reader is being exposed to Jesus on every page and therefore we too are caught up in this trial. We are seeing the evidence for and against Jesus. As we read, we too must come to a verdict. Will we believe or will we condemn? Just as the Fourth Gospel shows people coming into contact with Jesus and either believing or denying him, so too we must make the same decision.
The character of Jesus’ opponents. This brings us to the most serious level of reflection for this chapter. At some point we must reflect on the description of the character of Jesus’ opponents at the end of chapter 5. It is far too simplistic to say that these paragraphs outline what is wrong with “Judaism.” A simplistic reading of John 5 has led too many Christians to be critical of Judaism and Jews. Being Jewish is not the problem. Jesus was Jewish as were his early followers. Jesus’ opponents consist of Jews who have turned their otherwise excellent faith into something deadening, soul-destroying. John invites us to reflect on the spiritual malady that brings darkness and death to those interrogating Jesus throughout this Gospel.
But today I cannot help but wonder if we have not recreated this same context in our own religious settings. Is Jesus not still on trial today? A quick answer points an evangelistic finger to the world and its unbelief. But I ask: Are there no religious contexts in the church where Jesus is on trial? No religious systems that are so well-defined, so comfortable, so safe that Jesus himself would have difficulty being accepted? Is there no one in our churches who has “lost the love for God” in his or her heart, but nevertheless remains consistently and vigorously religious?
Contemporary Significance
MINISTRY TO THE SUFFERING. A couple of years ago, Dr. Dwight Peterson spoke at a meeting of professional biblical scholars about the episodes where Jesus heals paraplegics.17 I say “paraplegics” because in the contemporary idiom, we have to see the healed man as among us. No one uses “paralytic” today for people in a wheelchair. The lecturer had many good ideas, but one feature of his presentation stood out: He himself was in a wheelchair, he too was a paraplegic. Even though I recognize that the thrust of John 5 is aimed at disclosing to us the Christological identity of Jesus, this scholar reminded us that we have to recognize the person whom Jesus touches in these stories.
Peterson spoke at length about things we rarely consider. The challenges of a paraplegic in the twenty-first century (which are considerable) pale by comparison with a person in the first century. Problems of mobility and livelihood and social isolation just begin the list. Consider the problem of personal hygiene (which Peterson described graphically). Paraplegics frequently do not have bowel and bladder control. Taking these issues together, we can build a portrait of this man’s life: People moved him from place to place unless he crawled; most of his income came from begging or from the charity of friends and family; and if he did not have bladder or bowel control, his hygiene problem would have been enormous. People stayed away from him. His hands (used for mobility) were rough and torn from the streets. I have seen these people in rural Egypt, where they live a step below the poorest of the poor. Their life is agony.
Among the many at Bethesda looking for healing that day, Jesus selects a man who is a particularly difficult “case.” He does not reach out to those who are spiritually on the margin but socially “safe.” Instead, he reaches out to someone whose suffering and isolation are beyond measure. I cannot help but think about the ministry of Mother Teresa and her Sisters of Charity in this regard. She is now deceased, but since her death in September 1997, story upon story have swept over us telling us how she touched, embraced, loved, and inspired the poorest in Calcutta’s streets. She told her sisters, “Let the poor eat you up.” Their neediness looks so overwhelming, but this is exactly the place Jesus likes to go.
What implications does this have for where the church “goes” today? What social risks does John 5 insist that we take? The same theme could be sounded from John 4 and, together with this chapter, a convicting message of vision for ministry could be articulated.
Spiritual heroism. A second theme centers on the identity of Jesus as it springs from the debate of the passage. Jesus is claiming a remarkable authority here. There is an ethical dimension to his claim. He claims he can break the law. Of course, we rightly say that first-century society had distorted the intent of God’s law and Jesus correctly refocuses it. But there is something else that is interesting here. Does this mean that societal laws that distort or twist God’s law deserve to be broken? John 5 may be an indirect argument for civil disobedience that makes many of us uncomfortable. Rabbinic law was the law of the land; it was the glue that held society together. Yet Jesus challenges it.
Of course we cannot claim to have the authority of Jesus, but here Jesus models something that we, bearing the name and Spirit of Jesus, ought to consider. Are there areas of modern life that need to be violated in the name of God so that God’s person and justice can be seen by everyone? When I think of past examples of this, such as the Abolitionist Movement to end slavery, I am comfortable and show open support for their heroism. But rarely do I have the courage to recreate the spiritual heroism demanded today. What would it take for evangelicals to break the law in the name of God in the present century?
The identity of Jesus. Jesus’ remarkable claims in this chapter lead us to a line of thinking that has to do not with ethics but with theology proper. Too often Jesus is described in the church or in the world as simply a nice man. Some may call him a charismatic teacher, and some may elevate him to a dispenser of religious wisdom or a prophet. One scholar sees him as a “peasant rebel” offering a “brokerless kingdom of God” to the world. Some prefer to see in him a model of the spiritual life. The trouble with these descriptions is that they omit a key ingredient to the New Testament’s message about Jesus.
Jesus Christ makes ultimate claims for himself in the Gospels. Nowhere is this more obvious than in John 5. It is not simply that Jesus is doing the Father’s business that makes him unique; it is that Jesus has a relationship with the Father that goes beyond anything humanity has seen before. John reaches for language to express this (sonship, agency), but in the end he is uncompromising. In one of the climaxes of Jesus’ farewell, Jesus remarks to Philip, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (14:9). This unflinching affirmation reminds me of C. S. Lewis’s words penned so long ago:
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish things that people often say about Him: “I am ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher.18
But to make an absolute claim about Jesus is to invite precisely the thing that John 5 describes: persecution. A strong witness to Jesus as Lewis describes it necessarily offends. This is as true today as it has ever been. We live in a world of pluralism and tolerance that exerts enormous pressure on us to refine away the distinctives of our faith that might offend. We will hear: It is fine to make Jesus one way to God, but do not make him The Way. It is fine to affirm Jesus as one version of the truth, but make no claim that he is The Truth against which all other truths must be weighed.
In my academic community, the Jewish/Christian dialogue is predicated on the notion that together we will find religious commonalities that do not offend the other party. To speak otherwise is to “blaspheme” the process of interfaith discourse (cf. John 5:18). In the university marketplace of ideas, Christian religious belief is generally held suspect because most assume that lurking beneath the surface is an absolute argument for truth that wants to upend secular systems of thought and faith. They are right.
In a pluralistic society it is a truism that absolute claims to religious truth will lead to certain conflict. More precisely, the “higher” my claims for Christ—that is, the more I affirm his divinity, his exclusive relationship with God—the more separation and alienation I will feel. It is foolish to think I can have it otherwise. Jesus was judged as a blasphemer, the incriminating designation of someone who trampled on pure religious truth. Jesus was crucified for the strength of his disclosure about himself. But the same is true of Jesus’ followers as well as the church of John that cherished (and lived out) this chapter.
John 5 poses a terrible question for me: Am I willing to be labeled as a blasphemer to the religious canons of my day when my hour comes? Is my church equipped to do this? Are we ready to be judged and expelled, to experience social shame and public damning in the name of religion because we are holding on to an absolute faith in Jesus, the Son of God? As Hoskyns says, we will be charged with religious “egotism.”19
Spiritual sickness. The final matter that must attend us concerns the spiritual sickness of Jesus’ opponents. It is an uncomfortable theme to preach, but it is as necessary for a pastor to discuss it as it is for a physician to mention the prospects for cancer in a patient. It will not go away if we simply deny its existence. Every believer is susceptible to it. I suggest that men and women in religious leadership (like the opponents in John 5)—pastors, priests, teachers, Sunday School leaders, professors, elders, deacons—are uniquely vulnerable.
As noted above, it is incorrect simply to use 5:39–47 as a criticism of Judaism. First-century Judaism had countless people whose hearts were truly open to God. The same is true today. Jesus is describing the perversion of religion that can no longer hear God’s voice. Jesus’ inquisitors represent the “religious establishment” for whom the vigorous preservation of religious tradition counts more highly than the spontaneity and openness of faith. These people know their Scriptures and use them to defend all of the wrong things.
Karl Barth provides a harrowing description of this sickness in his famous 1919 commentary on Romans (see his remarks on Rom. 2). Barth thinks about people who live in a wilderness alongside a canal. The canal was there to bring them water and life, and it was with great effort and cost that the project was built for their place in time. Great sacrifices were made, and many died as the canal was cut through mountain and desert. But the great irony is that the canal has become dry, and while its walls still convey evidence of the coursing of water, there is nothing there that can give life to anyone. Nevertheless, the people continue to service it, to defend it, to name their children after its architects and engineers; but it is only an historic thing. A canal meant to convey something—water and life—now has become static, an end instead of a means. Something for the museum. People tell stories about it instead of drink from it. The older ones treasure the stories most; the younger ones have to be initiated deliberately; but each generation seems to lose a fraction of the true vision of the canal as time goes on. And no one has a memory of what water in the canal really looks like.
Barth’s warning to the Swiss and German church following World War I is a word we should heed today. The possibility always exists that my life, my church, my tradition, my denomination, even my Bible will become relics of religious curiosity instead of living instruments of God. Men and women will be ordained, earn Ph.D.s, and launch magazines, publishing houses, colleges, and seminaries with solid evangelical commitments, and it will all be for nothing. Empty canals. There are specialists who can cite Scripture and verse, who can measure orthodoxy with exacting precision, who can identify the religious speck in someone’s eye from a great distance, but in whom love for God does not exist (5:42).
On a national level I have seen evangelicals unsheathe their religious swords over arcane doctrinal matters (“But this is a slippery slope!” “But this is where liberalism begins!” “This is an agenda that must be exorcised!”). On a local level I have seen older church members viciously lash out because “the contemporary service” isn’t to their liking or they perceive that their power and influence are diminishing. All of it, John 5 suggests, is empty religion, religion that seeks its own glory. In the end, it is religion that would condemn and crucify Jesus as a religious duty.