Healing the Lame Man (John 5:1–16)

Series: John: Life in Christ’s NameText: John 5:1–9

By: Shaun Marksbury Date: March 5, 2023

Venue: Living Water Baptist ChurchOccasion: AM Service

Introduction

There are a lot of sayings out there that are almost biblical. For instance, we’ve heard the saying, “Spare the rod, spoil the child.” That’s a general truth that many parents have unfortunately discovered, but it’s not quite from Scripture. The closest we get is Proverbs 13:24, which says, “He who withholds his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him diligently.”

Another saying would be “When God closes a door, He opens a window.” God is certainly in control of our circumstances and provides for us in unexpected ways. However, in this case, these words are not from the Bible; they are from the 1965 musical, The Sound of Music.

One other example would be “God helps those who help themselves.” Like the other sayings, Christians will often bandy this one about, usually to encourage responsible behavior that is certainly godly in strength. However, this saying was popularized not with an English translation of Scripture, but by Benjamin Franklin’s 1757 Poor Richards Almanac. The saying predates that, but it is not biblical in origin.

In fact, here’s the truth: God often helps those who can’t and even don’t help themselves. In terms of salvation, we read in Ephesians 2:8–9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Even when talking about good works of saved believers, outside of Christ, Scripture says we can do nothing (John 15:5). And in this account, we see Jesus heal a man who exercises no faith in Him or even says “thank you” afterward.

Before we get into the text, though, there’s a bit of introduction that we need for where we are and where we’re heading. First, you might find it strange that we left chapter 4 with Jesus just getting to Galilee, and now He’s in Jerusalem once again. It’s important to remember three things: First, there was more than one feast which would call the faithful Jews back to Jerusalem and the temple. Second, the three words beginning v. 1 — “After these things” — indicate an indefinite time frame, meaning that Jesus could have been in Galilee for a while (and we’ll see in a minute that He was). Third, the Apostle John is writing this Gospel to fill in blanks left by the first three Gospels (sometimes called the synoptic Gospels).

With that in mind, John supplies information following the start of the public ministry of Jesus not found in the other three Gospels. The other three make passing comment about Jesus coming to Galilee in Matthew 4:17, Mark 1:14–15, and Luke 4:14–15, words which reconcile with the end of John 4. After that point, we would expect Jesus announced His ministry in Nazareth, starting in Luke 4:16. Following those first three Gospels, we then read about the call of the four, who spend time fishing in Galilee, then Jesus’s teaching in Capernaum, then the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law (and others), then the cleansing of the leper, then the healing of the paralytic, then the call of Matthew, and then the dispute about fasting. All of that must take place before John 5. However, here, the apostle supplies almost an entire chapter of information absent from the other three Gospels. Similarly, the next chapter will come after a gap of time which the other Gospels adequately cover. So, again, the Gospel of John supplies information to give us a more complete picture of the earthly ministry of Christ.

John’s Gospel does something else here. It begins to highlight the growing opposition and hostility to Christ. This trends through chapter 12, with all Israel rejecting Jesus, both in Galilee and in Judea. That is the context of this healing, which should be a joyful occasion, but ends up lacking any fanfare.

What we’re going to see today, then, is Jesus seeking out someone who can’t save himself. We’ll see Him taking compassion upon the sick, and then we’ll see Him heal someone who can’t help himself. Let’s look now to the first of these.

First, Jesus Takes Compassion on the Sick (vv. 1–6)

After these things there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew Bethesda, having five porticoes. In these lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered, [waiting for the moving of the waters; for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool and stirred up the water; whoever then first, after the stirring up of the water, stepped in was made well from whatever disease with which he was afflicted.] A man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had already been a long time in that condition, He *said to him, “Do you wish to get well?”

As we noted before, v. 1 is vague. We’re not entirely sure when this was because John only mentions “a feast of the Jews.” There are only three feasts which would require a pilgrimage, but this is most likely not the Passover (John names it in 2:13). That leaves only the Feast of Pentecost (which would come after Passover on the calendar) or the Feast of Tabernacles. Again, we can’t say for certain, and maybe it’s not important to John’s point; he’s only explaining why Jesus happens to be in Jerusalem again.

In v. 2, John sets a scene he probably knew well. There was a pool next to the sheep gate named Bethesda. It’s interesting that he doesn’t use the word “gate” here; only saying it was “pertaining to the sheep/at the sheep.” Nearly every translation understands this is a reference to the sheep gate on the north-eastern side of Jerusalem, mentioned in Nehemiah 3:1, although the KJV opted to supply the word “market.” One study notes that this “was a gate in the wall of Jerusalem near the temple, through which sheep were brought for sacrifice.” He must have known the entrance well and assumed others would, also.

As Edersheim notes here,

The narrative transports us at once to what, at the time, seems to have been a well-known locality in Jerusalem …. All we know is, that it was a pool enclosed within five porches, by the sheep-market, presumably close to the ‘Sheep-Gate.’ This, as seems most likely, opened from the busy northern suburb of markets, bazaars, and workshops, eastwards upon the road which led over the Mount of Olives and Bethany to Jericho.

It's interesting to consider how this was historically verifiable. First, a copper scroll discovered at Qumran, dating as early ad 35 (just after the death of Christ), mentions this as Beth Eshdatain, helping us to see that Bet’ esda (as some Greek manuscripts read) was a likely name for this pool. Second, this pool was still visible in the fourth century, according to accounts (verified again in the 1890s when archaeologists unearthed it, revealing it’s five porticos). This means that, despite the Romans sacking Jerusalem in ad 70, John could still point to this area years later and say exactly where it “is”!

This name of this pool means “house of mercy” or “house of outpouring.” The latter makes sense as the pool filled with sulphury water fed by an intermittent spring. Surrounding the pool were those five covered porches or porticoes which contained all manner of sick people. These people were “blind, lame, and withered,” and they all believed (as many do today) that spring-water can have medicinal properties on the body.

They may have believed something else, as well, and this is where you will notice something strange in many of your Bibles. Some of you may have brackets, asterisks, or footnotes. Some of you may have the verse end here with the listing of the sick and jump to verse five. Still others, particularly those with a King James translation, may see nothing at all amiss in the text.

As you know, the Bible did not come to us in English; the original language of the New Testament is called Koine Greek. God chose that language for His inspired Word, and beginning in the first century, the early churches made copies of the original documents and passed them along. People in this copying process sometimes made errors, accidentally skipping or adding words. When we look at the many thousands of copies which have survived from roughly 2,000 years of church history (more copies than any other work of history), we can use God-given common sense and track down where and when such a mistake made it into the text.

In the case of the ending of v. 3 and the whole of v. 4, it appears an early scribe added a marginal note to explain a belief or superstition which arose in regard to Bethesda and what the man may have meant in v. 7. The next copyist, apparently not clear what to do with this note, copied it as part of the text, just to be sure. The earlier copies we have didn’t contain it, but this entered into tradition in the copies prominent in the Byzantine Empire — part of what we call the Textus Receptus and the wider Majority Text — the Greek tradition underlying the King James and New King James versions. Older doesn’t always mean better, and unfortunately, many copies in the East and in Africa disappeared because of Muslim invasions; yet, the few older texts we have can help pinpoint when corruption enters the text.

The reason we’re considering that is because you need to have solid confidence in the copies of Scripture we have today. Some have likened the copying of Scripture to a game of telephone, where the original message becomes irretrievably garbled over time. However, like the game of telephone, we have everybody (almost all the texts) in the room with us and can determine where and why the message might change. We do our homework as Christians, in other words, and we can say that the text is reliable as a result. In fact, the vast, vast majority of time, the only “corruption” that exists in the text is spelling or word order — nothing that even comes close to changing doctrine — and we can figure out if someone inserted or removed something easily enough. It’s all out in the open, so no skeptic can ever credibly claim conspiracy or unreliability with the Bible.

What other considerations do we have here? First, it is certainly possible that God could send an angel to heal. However, the earliest teachers fail to mention it this text, not until Tertullian in the late second or early third centuries. It contains vocabulary which is foreign to John and the New Testament. Moreover, while it’s still possible that all the sick believed that the stirring of the water was angelic, that doesn’t make it so, and it’s also possible that they believed that the bubbling waters were special on their own. This would also be unlike any healing found elsewhere in Scripture; as Bob Deffinbaugh asks, “Does God really heal someone because he can push and shove and bully his way into the pool first?” Finally, an angel healing in this context seems to be in competition with the healing of Christ; Christ’s healing is clearly greater in the text than what the infirmed man was (or wasn’t) experiencing. Some can certainly disagree with this assessment, but it seems to be the most faithful to the text.

So, continuing now with the inspired text, we read, “A man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.” This was an illness that robbed the man of mobility, meaning that he couldn’t walk or move well. Presumably, he could move some, but not well enough to get to the water before anyone else, meaning that he was unable to help himself to the apparent miracle in the water.

Some have tried to draw parallels between the length of this man’s sickness and the years of exile Israel spent in the wilderness, while others have tries to see the pool symbolizing the Law of Moses. Neither of these fully satisfy. As D. A. Carson notes, if John intends any symbolism here, it may be that the purification pots in Cana “could neither produce nor be mistaken for the new wine of the kingdom (2:1–11),” and “the water from Jacob’s well could not satiate the ultimate thirst of religious people … (4:1–42)”; as such, “the promises of merely superstitious religion have no power to transform the truly needy.”

Clearly, though, even if these waters could have helped, this man was in no position to obtain it on his own. Yet, Jesus comes, as we read in v. 4. The reader might not expect a rabbi to be anywhere but the temple. However, as one commentary notes, “He concentrated on people in need, … he visited the pool below the temple where the helpless dregs of society lay in a pathetic state. Most ‘proper’ people probably avoided places where they had to pass among the sick and suffering both because it was an uncomfortable setting and because of the potential for violation of ritual purity rules. But Jesus went out of his way to visit such a place… .” This is the compassion of the sovereign Lord.

Somehow, He knew about this man, though we’re not told how. It’s possible that someone told Him, but the term is that He simply “knew,” not learned. This means that this may be yet another display of our Lord’s supernatural knowledge. Moreover, we see something else; as Matthew Henry notes, “Those that have been long in affliction may comfort themselves with this, that God keeps account how long, and knows our frame.”

So, our compassionate Lord asks a question that we recognize as the prelude to healing: “Do you wish to get well?” As one commentary notes, such a question would “focus the man’s attention on Him, to stimulate his will, and to raise his hopes.” It may be that this man’s sickness was caused by sin, and this man may be happy in his sin. So, such a question was an important prelude; we often ask in biblical counseling, “What do you want me to do about this?” or “What would you like to see change?”

This is a demonstration of the compassion of our Lord. However, it is not as well received as we might have expected. Even so, our Lord patiently continues with this man, as we see in our next point:

Second, Jesus Heals He Who Can’t Heal Himself (vv. 7–9a)

The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I am coming, another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, pick up your pallet and walk.” Immediately the man became well, and picked up his pallet and began to walk.

From this man’s perspective, Jesus asks a dumb question. Verse seven begins seemingly respectfully, “Sir.” This could also be translated, “Lord,” but there’s sufficient reason it is not. He doesn’t know Jesus or anything about Him, and there’s no indication that he will honor the Lord.

He continues, “I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I am coming, another steps down before me.” The man doesn’t simply answer “yes” or “no.” Instead, he complains about his predicament, which certainly must have been frustrating. He had a kind of faith that the first one to the pool when the water bubbled up would receive healing, but he had lost every race for thirty-eight years. Incidentally, this lack of charity among even the weakest of us is proof of the universal depravity of the human heart; no one was willing to step aside or help him.

This man’s reply indicated that he didn’t expect healing from Jesus. Perhaps he had a dim hope that Jesus would become sympathetic to this man’s plight and wait with him for the next stirring of the waters. Yet, he doesn’t ask, and this could have just as likely been an embittered response. Carson obviously thinks little of this man, who notes here that his words read like “the crotchety grumblings of an old and not very perceptive man who thinks he is answering a stupid question.”

He is completely unable. He can’t save himself physically, and he’s not making a good impression with the Savior of the world (he doesn’t even know who He is!). So, why does Jesus choose to heal this man? We’re not told, but the truth is that God saves the unsavable all the time!

Jesus says to this man, “Get up, pick up your pallet and walk.” Jesus is simply telling this man that he is healed. It’s incredible to see just how powerful Jesus’s word is — He doesn’t have to first examine the man, nor does the man experience only moderate improvement. Instead, we read, “Immediately the man became well, and picked up his pallet and began to walk.”

Many faith healers falsely claim healing abilities where a person must be healed in stages, like treatments. A person in a wheelchair may stand up for a moment and then need to sit back down. Most often, the symptoms are unseen, where a person with intense pain might report a lessening of pain. However, such instances can easily be explained by simple psychology, that there is only a psychosomatic improvement. In fact, it may be that those who reported healing at Bethesda had the same effect — those who went first into the water were obviously the most well (the sicker couldn’t move as fast), and perhaps their woes were the kind best treated by a nice mineral soak.

When our Lord miraculously heals, however, His work is instant and clear, defying any natural explanation. This is the same Lord who said “Let there be light” in Genesis 1:3 and “there was light.” Certainly, decades of illness would have atrophied this man’s muscles, and if this was a healing which could be accomplished through modern medical professionals, it would have required months of physical therapy. Yet, at the word of Christ, this man simply arises, bends over to pick up his mat, straightens back up, and then begins walking.

Conclusion

I had originally planned to preach through v. 16, but we will have to save the rest of this account for next time. We’ll see why this man received grief from the Jewish authorities for following the Word of Christ on a Sabbath day. We’ll also consider whether this man ever responds in faith.

For now, consider how encouraging this text is. We often feel like our faith is inadequate and our gratitude could be more forthcoming. Our faith often feels lame. We see how we could do more, and the truth is, we can. Yet, we see in Jesus a compassionate Savior who heals our spiritual infirmities just as completely as He heals this man’s body. He does so not because we deserve it, but because of who He is. So, we can trust that our shortcomings are not enough to cause Him to turn away from us; we who believe in Him are His for all eternity.