John 5.1-18 Chosen for Restoration
Intro:
5:6–9a. In 2:6 and 3:5, Jesus replaces the water of ceremonial purification; in 4:13–14, he replaces the “holy water” of a Samaritan holy site. Here he, not the supposedly healing waters, restores the man.
5:6). Many depended on their condition for financial support given by healthy individuals out of pity. Another possible reason for this question relates to the man’s spirit; many who have experienced prolonged pain or misfortune have surrendered even the will to attempt to overcome their situation in life. When the invalid shared with Jesus his difficulty of getting into the pool for healing, Jesus proclaimed: “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk” (5:8). The man was instantly healed.
5:2. Although scholars do not agree on the site of Bethesda (or its exact spelling), the site most scholars currently favor is under St. Anne’s Monastery in Jerusalem. This site had two twin pools, surrounded by four porches, or porticoes, and one porch down the middle separating the pools. Although John writes after Jerusalem was destroyed in 70, his recollection of the site is accurate.
5:5. The man had been sick there longer than many people in antiquity lived—for about as many years as Israel had wandered in the wilderness. Ancient reports of healings often specified how long the person had been sick to emphasize the greatness of the healer’s cure. Obviously nothing else, including this pool, had succeeded in restoring him.
Isaiah envisioned the age of the Messiah in terms of a new exodus. The blind will see, the deaf will hear, the lame will leap, and the desert sand will become a pool of refreshing water (Isa. 35:1–10). The healing of the invalid by the pool of Bethesda is another declaration that the eschatological era of the Messiah has dawned—the “last days” of God’s final, earthly revelation of his grace have begun (Heb. 1:2; Acts 2:17). In Jesus, the kingdom of God has come near (Matt. 3:2; 4:17; Mark 1:15).
The Jerusalem temple had become a house of commercial business (John 2:16), but God meant it to be a “house of mercy” (the meaning of “Bethesda”; 5:2). Only through Jesus can we find God’s mercy and grace, and enter into true Sabbath rest (Heb. 4:1–10)—ceasing from our futile efforts to save ourselves, as we trust in Jesus’ perfect work on our behalf.
5:17. Everyone recognized that God had continued to work since creation, sustaining the world even on the sabbath. Jesus reasons by analogy that what is right for God in sustaining his creation is also right for himself.
Jesus found the healed man, and as with the Samaritan woman at the well, addressed the deeper condition of the man’s relationship with God. Jesus’ words are interesting: “Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you” (5:14). This injunction could be easily misinterpreted, either into a perspective that equates health with spiritual obedience or an idea that God bestows calamity upon the disobedient. For Jesus the consequences of sin are far more serious than any form of physical illness. He did not say that one can actually stop sinning but, in accord with the entire biblical witness, that believers should not purposefully live a life of sin.
Though Jesus cares about our whole being, this man’s greatest need was not healed legs but a redeemed heart. When Jesus pursued him and spoke the words, “Sin no more,” he wasn’t calling him to sinless perfection but to live in response to the mercy of a perfect Savior. The entire Christian life is a life of growing in grace (2 Pet. 3:18). Though we are perfectly forgiven, we await the perfection of eternity with Christ. And yet as those swept up into and toward the latter-day kingdom of God, we are called to “sin no more”—to live out our new, radically transformed identity.