John 5:1-18: True Healing and True Rest

1 Peter 2:24-25 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

Intro

Sin has broken everything. Its not hard to see it.

But most of all its broken us.

In our sin, we are blind, lame, and paralyzed…weary...crushed under the weight of our guilt and shame.

Helpless and without hope in this world.

That is, were it not for our Healer and Redeemer: Jesus Christ the One who alone can give rest to our weary souls.

Ramp to Passage

The story of Jesus healing a man by a pool on a Sabbath after being lame for 38 years is bizarre.

On the one hand the man was paralyzed for 38 years and all of a sudden he’s healed!

Incredible.

But then its confusing…because this man doesn’t then put his faith in Christ, but actually turns around and betrays Him.

And starts an argument between Jesus and the Jews over the Sabbath.

Bizarre. What in the world is going on here?

As with all of John’s signs, it is so much more than a man being healed.

The power and glory of the miracle is nothing compared to what the miracle shows us about the power and glory of Christ.

We see a man being healed. John wants us to see the Healer.

We see a man being restored, John wants us to see the Redeemer.

This miracle and the conflict that ensues is meant to show us the glory of Christ.

Who Christ is and what He came to do that we might believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and by believing have life in His name (John 20:31).

And that’s what I hope to do this morning.

This sign, and all the conflict that comes out of the sign over the issue of the Sabbath is given to us to draw us to faith in Jesus’ Name.

So as we work through this passage, John 5:1-18, here is the Big Question we are going to be asking...the one we are striving to see is this:

What does this sign tell us, theologically, about Jesus Christ and who He is?

And from this sign we are going to see three things:

Number 1: Jesus is the Savior of Sinners.

Number 2: He is the Lord of Sabbath Rest.

And Number 3: He is Redeemer God come to save sinners incarnate in human flesh.

Let’s start with point number 1...

I. Jesus is the Savior Who Heals Sinners

John 5:1-6 After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

So Jesus is back in Jerusalem after doing some ministry Galilee, and He's in Jerusalem to celebrate a feast of the Jews.

Now John doesn’t tell us what feast this is, whether Passover, Tabernacles, or Pentecost, but whichever one, one of the things this shows us is that Jesus fulfilled the Law on our behalf.

The Law required Israel to celebrate these feasts and worship the Lord.

And where we broke the Law, knowing the wages of sin is death, Jesus kept it on our behalf.

And He kept all of it.

He fulfilled every jot and tittle of the Law so that you and I, Lawbreakers before the Law...condemned under the Law, might be declared righteous before a holy and righteous God and saved from all of our sins.

And through faith in Him, we now stand before God justified, clothed in the perfect righteousness of Christ.

Verse 2...

Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. [Think covered porches providing shade for the people there. And…] In these [colonnades] lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?”

Now some of you might be wondering where is verse 4?

In your Bible it just goes from 3-5 why is that?

Textual Criticism

This is real nerd level stuff, but let me try to answer that as quickly as possible.

How we get the Bible is through a process called Textual Criticism.

Basically, we don’t have the original manuscripts of the Bible.

For example, as far as we know, we don’t have Paul’s original letter, penned by His own hand to the Galatians (Gal. 6:11).

What we do have are hundreds and hundreds and sometimes thousands of copies dating back to the early days of the church, extremely close to the original.

Now some people will try to use this to say, “See we can’t trust the Bible. We don’t have the originals. Its all been perverted.”

But in fact the opposite is true.

Thanks to those hundreds and hundreds and sometimes thousands of copies we have, we might not have the original manuscripts, but by comparing all the copies we have to one another, we essentially know exactly what the original manuscripts said with the exact words they actually said them.

In other words, thanks to the plethora of witnesses we have in the manuscripts all agreeing with one another, there is no doubt what the original manuscripts actually said.

That’s why archeological discoveries like the Dead Sea Scrolls were so important.

When that library of ancient texts was found, it included the Old Testament and its manuscripts were close to a 1000 years older than any other manuscript we had, and yet it was still the same Bible (https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/9-things-dead-sea-scrolls/) .

All the same words.

God has given us His Word and preserved it throughout history.

And in places where there is any question, it is clearly noted like here with verse 4, and there is no significant historical or doctrinal issue at stake from the question.

For example, there is no…let’s call it debated verse, that questions the doctrine of the Trinity or justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

In fact, most of the differences we do have are things like where a manuscript might use “He” instead of Jesus or vice versa...

Like if verse 1 had said He went up to Jerusalem instead of Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

Its saying the same thing.

That particular variant wouldn’t change the meaning of the passage, and that’s most of the variants we have.

So what likely happened with verse 4 which is a strange statement about an angel stirring up the waters of the pool where the first one in the water would be healed...

Is that somewhere along the way, a scribe added that in as a marginal note trying to explain what the man meant about the water being stirred up in verse 7.

And then that side note gets copied, and copied, and copied again because there were no chapter and verse numbers in our manuscripts to say it wasn’t part of the original text and from there it ends up in a few of our manuscripts.

But the oldest and best manuscripts we have do not have it which is why it is nothing more than a footnote in your Bible.

The Big Idea is that its footnotes like these that can give you the confidence that what we have in the Bible is what God actually wrote through holy men inspired by the Holy Spirit so that what we have today is and truly is, the very Word of God.

But going back to the story, Jesus finds this man who’s waiting by the pool and asks him Do you want to be healed?

Verse 7...

John 5:7-9 The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.

This man had been an invalid for 38 years.

38 years of pain and infirmity and loss.

38 years of brokenness.

And he was all alone. Friendless. Helpless. Hopeless.

And in an instant the man is well.

He takes up his bed and walks.

This man was lame, broken, destitute...and he walks away completely restored.

He doesn’t stagger and limp. He is healed with the bodily strength to walk and carry his mat.

He walks away a new man.

Now obviously, as a sign, one of the things this points to is Jesus being the one who makes all things new.

Paralysis, illness, and infirmities are all part of the curse. The brokenness of our world.

They weren’t part of God’s design.

They are the fruit of sin…the root of all the pain, brokenness, and sorrow in this world.

And yet, by His Word, Christ has the power to make all things new.

We are going to look at that in a little more detail a little bit later.

But for now, I want to focus on what this sign teaches us spiritually.

Because in our trespasses in sin, every single one of us is this invalid.

We languished day after day, year after year without the slightest hope of ever being made whole.

Think about it. The man was lame and he had no one to help him.

How would he ever be the first one in the water? How would he ever be healed?

He would be there day after day absolutely hopeless, and that’s assuming the water even had the power to heal which is doubtful.

It was probably just a popular superstition of that day.

Lame and Hopeless

Lame and hopeless. Just like every single one of us.

We look at the story and pity him, not realizing that outside of Christ, we were more pitiful in our misery and sin.

Sin has corrupted our whole nature. It runs from top to bottom.

Isaiah 1:6 From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but bruises and sores and raw wounds; they are not pressed out or bound up or softened with oil.

Or as Calvin says “We are by nature rotting in our sins” (Daniel, The History and Theology of Calvinism, 301).

Hearts

The Bible says we have evil, unbelieving hearts (Heb. 3:12).

Minds

That our minds are futile in our thinking and we are darkened in our understanding (Eph 4:17-18; Rom. 1:21).

In our sin, we cannot even understand spiritual things because they are spiritually discerned (1 Cor. 2:14).

In fact, the only thing we know how to do is evil.

Jeremiah 4:22 They are stupid children; they have no understanding. They are ‘wise’—in doing evil! But how to do good they know not.

Eyes

We are blind.

The Bible talks about living in sin as living in darkness.

Isaiah 59:10 We grope for the wall like the blind; we grope like those who have no eyes; we stumble at noon as in the twilight.

Ears

Sin has even affected our ears.

We are dull of hearing and deaf to the things of God (Is. 6:10).

Feet

Our feet run to evil (Proverbs 1:16), and are lame in regards to holiness.

Summary

John said there was a multitude of invalids - blind, lame, and paralyzed.

And When you put it all together, that was all of us.

All of us, in our sin, were blind, deaf, dumb, and lame…more pitiful than all the invalids from John chapter 5 put together.

This is the doctrine of Total Depravity.

The truth that there is no good in us (Rom. 7:18), but only sin.

Romans 1:29, we are filled, to the brim and overflowing, with all manner of unrighteousness.

There is no part of us that is not touched and affected by the death of sin.

Again Calvin, we are “rotten through and through,” “full of filth and infection,” “rotten to the core.” (Daniel, The History and Theology of Calvinism, 291).

And we are such slaves to our sin...that were it not for God’s merciful grace, every single one of us would die in it.

We are like the man with no one to help him get into the pool.

We hate God and refuse to come to him, totally unable in ourselves to make any move, any strides, or any steps toward faith and salvation.

We are spiritually dead and powerless.

But here’s the good news of the gospel.

Jesus comes to us in our miserable and pitiful state, He seeks us out, He takes the initiative...

He sees us lying there hopeless in our sin and asks, Do you want to be healed?

When we were sick, and helpless, and hopeless…blind, lame, and paralyzed…Jesus saved us.

He gave us grace when we had done nothing to deserve it.

He said, Get up, take up your bed, and walk, and we who were dead in our trespasses and sins were, in an instant of God’s sovereign and almighty powerful grace, were made alive together with Christ.

Because of sin we were sick and infirm…worst than that, we were dead.

But by His wounds we are healed (Isaiah 53:5).

Christ died on the cross and rose again three days later to save us from our sins.

To heal our infirmities.

So that through faith in Him Isaiah 35:5-6 becomes the testimony of everyone who believes in Him...

Isaiah 35:5-6 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.

That is the wonderful grace of Christ we see in this sign.

He is the Savior who heals all of our sin.

He saw us in our sin and our weakness…paralyzed, helpless and without hope…and He gave us grace.

He bore our sins that we might be made new.

Jesus is the Savior of Sinners.

Number 2...

II. Jesus is the Lord of Sabbath Rest

John 5:9-11 Now that day was the Sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.”

This is where we start to see Jesus’ conflict with the Jews, meaning the religious and political leaders of Israel in that day, start to really ramp up.

And it all starts with an issue over the Sabbath.

Sabbath Sign

Now the Sabbath goes all the way back to creation in Genesis 2.

God created the earth in 6 days, and on the seventh day he rested from all the work he had done (Genesis 2:2-3), not because God was tired and needed a rest but as a model for us that we might set aside one day every week to worship God as a reminder that He is Creator and Lord of all things.

That’s why you see it in the 10 Commandments.

Remember the Sabbath, to keep it holy (Ex. 20:8).

And under the Law the Sabbath itself actually became the sign of the Mosaic Covenant.

Exodus 31:12-13 And the Lord said to Moses, “You are to speak to the people of Israel and say, ‘Above all you shall keep my Sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you.”

So the sign of the Sabbath was given in the Law to say to Israel, You don’t make yourself holy, I do.

That you man know that I, the Lord, sanctify you.

Just as the Lord set apart and sanctified the seventh day, He set apart and sanctified Israel as His covenant people.

So theologically, keeping the Sabbath every week as a sign after God brought His people out of slavery in Egypt and gave them the Law, was to remind Israel that God was their Creator and their Redeemer.

Every week, the seventh day was set apart to worship God and say He is our Lord and our Savior.

Keeping the Sabbath was the way Israel said as a nation: God is our God and we are His people.

And so when Israel broke the Sabbath it was a sign of their idolatry.

It was the way they said: God is not our God. We do not worship Him.

Breaking the Sabbath became the ultimate manifestation of throwing off the covenant altogether which ultimately led to Israel’s judgment and Babylonian Exile.

That’s why the prophets consistently highlight Israel profaning God’s Sabbaths (Ezek 20:10-20).

If keeping the Sabbath was the sign that they were God’s people, breaking it was the sign that they weren’t.

And that’s the background that starts to explain why the Pharisees elevated the Sabbath to such a lofty position.

It is a continual point of contention between Jesus and the religious leaders of the Day.

In their mind, Jesus breaking the Sabbath made Him an idolator leading other people into idolatry.

The problem was Jesus never break the Sabbath.

All He broke was their “laws” surrounding the Sabbath.

To make sure no one even came close to breaking God’s Law, the Pharisees had added 39 laws to the Sabbath - one of them being you cannot carry anything from one place to another which is the issue here.

And the reason they did this was because they had turned the Law and the worship of God into a legalistic, works-based religion where you could earn salvation your salvation by keeping the Law of God.

Romans 10:3 Being ignorant of the righteousness of God, [they sought] to establish their own righteousness by obeying God’s commands.

They did not understand that you could not earn your way to salvation.

That all the Law was ever meant to do was to show people their own sin and point them to Christ and then from there show them how to honor God and live for His glory.

Of course, this reminds us that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone.

We are saved by grace and not by works.

There is nothing we can do to earn God’s salvation.

Total Depravity. There is no good in us remember?

Even our “righteous” works are filthy rags before God (Is. 64:6).

The ground of our salvation and our righteousness is not in our good works and our ability to keep the Law.

It is in Christ and His keeping of the Law on our behalf.

Verse 11...

But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’ ”

Fear God Not Men

So this is where we see all is not well with the man.

He might have been healed but He does not have saving faith.

He immediately places the blame on Jesus to try to get out of His own trouble with the authorities.

And in just a couple verses, when he does find out it was Jesus, He doesn’t put his faith in Him then, but goes back to the authorities to rat Him out.

What we see is that this man feared man more than he feared God.

He caved to the pressure of the world and buckled immediately.

And that is a temptation we all face.

Especially as the pressure to conform to the world ramps up and up and up…all of us have a choice to make.

Who will we fear?

Will we fear God or will we fear men?

Will we hold to our confession and faith in Christ no matter the cost?

Or will we compromise and give in?

How much pressure are we willing to take to remain faithful to Christ?

All of us must resolve as a church, as families, and as individuals that we are going to confess Christ no matter the cost.

As Jesus said Luke 12:8-9 Everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God, but the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God.

Don’t cave to the pressure of the World.

Hold fast to Christ no matter the cost.

Verse 12...

John 5:12-16 They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?” Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place. 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.”

Sickness and Sin

So afterward this man goes to the Temple, and when Jesus found him there He said See you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.

Now this could mean a couple things.

One was that this man’s infirmity could have been caused by some sin he had.

Now that’s not to say, every time someone is sick it is because of some sin in their life.

Even in the Gospel of John, there is a man born blind and when the disciples ask Who sinned this man or his parents?, Jesus said It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him (John 9:3).

But that’s not to say that sickness is never caused by sin.

David’s son dies because of his adultery with Bathsheba.

Ananias and Sapphira, in Acts 5, fall over dead for lying to the Holy Spirit.

And Paul tells the Corinthians their sin in how they took the Lord’s Supper was why so many of them were sick and dying (Acts 11:28-30).

But that’s the same Paul who told Timothy drink a little wine for your stomach without saying Timothy’s stomach problems were at all caused by any of his sin (1 Tim. 5:23).

Sometimes physical ailments and sickness is just suffering - part of God’s bitter providence in this broken and fallen world.

And sometimes its discipline from the Lord meant to drive us to repentance.

One is answered by faithfully enduring God’s bitter providence trusting God’s care and love for you all along the way.

And the other is answered by repentance with faith that the discipline of the Lord is for our good and holiness and there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus because He is faithful and just to forgive our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness (Heb. 12:10, Rom 8:1).

But what is undoubtedly clear is that sin, suffering, sickness and death is all a result of the Fall.

Its all the fruit of our sin and not a part of God’s good design.

And Jesus’ point is Sin no more! that nothing worse may happen to you.

That something worse is Hell.

Sin might be the cause of all of our sickness, suffering and death, but sins ultimate end is something much worse than that.

Something much worse than being an invalid for 38 years.

Sin’s ultimate end is eternal death.

An eternity suffering the wrath of God for all our sins.

The Bible describes it as eternal anguish. Torment. The weeping and gnashing of teeth.

A place where, Revelation 14:11, the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night.

And that is the fate that awaits everyone that does not put their faith in Christ.

But here is good news.

If you come to Jesus, He promises to give you True Sabbath Rest.

The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath.

Sabbath Rest

Here’s what the conflict between Jesus and the Jews ultimately boiled down to: Christ is the Lord of the Sabbath (Mark 2:27-28).

And the Sabbath, just like everything else in the Law, pointed to Him.

As Paul wrote in Col 2:16-17 Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

The Sabbath day was always just a type or a shadow. The ultimate fulfillment of which was in Christ.

What the Jews could not see was that He is the Lord of the Sabbath and He alone gives true Sabbath rest.

How does the Sabbath find its ultimate fulfillment in Christ?

Two ways:

Jesus Gives us Rest from Dead Works that Cannot Save.

And Number 2: Jesus Will Give us Eternal Rest in the Resurrection

1. Jesus Gives Us Rest from Dead Works that Cannot Save

What was the Sabbath all about? Resting from our works.

In Christ’s Sabbath rest, we rest from dead works that have no power to save.

All of our labor, all of our striving to clean ourselves up and make ourselves good enough are put away once and for wall when we put our faith in Him.

Why? Because we rest in His finished work on our behalf.

Like we said earlier, Christ fulfilled the Law…He fulfilled all the righteous requirements of the Law that said do this and you shall live.

And....He fulfilled the condemnation of the Law we deserved.

He bore our sins in His body on the cross and died in our place for our sins.

So that through faith in Him, His works are credited to us as righteousness and we are accepted by God in Him.

Not our striving or what we do.

Number 2...

2. Jesus Will Give Us Eternal Rest in the Resurrection

In Hebrews chapter 4, God compares Sabbath rest to Israel’s rest in the Promise Land and says:

Hebrews 4:8-9 For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.

When Christ returns, He will make all things new and all who believe in Him will be raised in glorified, resurrected body to enjoy God’s eternal Sabbath rest in God’s Heavenly Promise Land where ever trace and stain of sin...

All striving, brokenness, and pain will be no more.

Where the dwelling place of God will be with Man and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away (Rev 21:4).

Christ is the Lord of the Sabbath who gives true Sabbath rest.

What does that mean for you?

There is rest for the weary.

Matthew 11:28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

If you are outside of Christ this morning…Are you tired of all your works?

Of all your striving? All your trying to earn God’s love and forgiveness?

Then come to Christ.

He will save you…wash you clean and give you rest.

And for Christians we need to remember that Sabbath rest too.

All our striving....all our works we now do....are for God’s glory, not God’s favor.

God loves us irregardless of our works…He loves us because of the perfect work of Christ.

And one day all of our striving, all of our work, and all of our labor will be over.

We will stand before the Lord and hear Well done good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your master.

He will wipe away every tear from our eye and reward our labor with eternal rest.

Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath who gives rest to all who trust in Him.

Finally, Number 3...

III. Jesus is Redeemer God

John 5:17-18 But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

Jesus makes a startling claim.

One that will ultimately get Him killed.

He makes himself equal with God.

He says I am God in the flesh. I am my Father’s Son and share the same divine nature as my Father.

This is crucial because Jesus is truly and fully God and truly and fully man.

If He weren’t none of us would be saved from our sins.

As a man He was able to offer His life as a substitute for our sins.

Man was the one who sinned against God, and if man was going to truly be forgiven, truly reconciled to God and redeemed from His wrath, man himself would have to pay for His sin.

The blood of bulls and goats…animal sacrifices would never be enough.

And as God incarnate in human flesh, He was a pure sacrifice.

His infinite worth could make infinite payment for all our sins.

He had no sin of His own to die for so when He offered His life as a sacrifice it was that of a lamb without spot or blemish (1 Peter 1:19).

Infinitely holy to pay for our sins before an infinitely holy God.

He is our Mediator. Someone who bridges the gap between us and God setting His hand on us both to make peace through His blood of His cross.

But what I want to highlight for you is when Jesus says My Father is working until now, and I am working.

We need to read that in the context of the Sabbath.

Work is the opposite of Sabbath rest, and Christ said My Father is working until now.

Now obviously one of the things this means is that after God created the world and rested on the 7th Day, He didn’t stop working altogether.

He continued to uphold the world and govern the world by His Sovereign providence.

Christ is even involved in this work because all things were made through Him and in Him all things hold together (Col. 1:16-17).

But in the very next verse Jesus says that He can do nothing of His own accord but only what He sees the Father doing.

And I think that gives us greater insight into what Jesus means here.

The works Jesus was doing were the works He saw His Father doing.

Well in context, what was that work?

Healing a man who had been an invalid for 38 years.

A Man who was weak, hopeless, and helpless…broken and destitute because of sin and the curse.

And Christ restored Him.

The work Jesus saw the Father doing was the work of restoration.

The work, not of Creation but of New Creation.

Of restoring all things and making all things new.

That’s how the Gospel of John starts.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1).

Christ was the beginning of a New Creation.

The working out of God’s plan to reveal His glory by redeeming the world and making all things new.

In Ephesians He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world (Eph 1:4).

The Fall happens and God promises to send the Messiah who would crush the head of the serpent.

He called out Abraham and promised to bless all the families of the earth in Him.

He gave His people the Law and the Temple and the sacrifices, driving everything in the History of the World to the coming of Christ.

Until Gal 4:4-5 when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

God sent Christ to make all things new.

To Redeem man and everything broken by the Fall.

That is why by the way, Christ rose again on the 8th day… the day after the Sabbath. The first day of a brand new week.

His resurrection was the beginning of a…New Creation.

A redeemed world where every trace and stain of sin would be no more.

That’s why Jesus said My Father is working until now and I am working.

I am carrying out the work my Father gave me to do.

Yes I healed this man on the Sabbath, but I came to heal everything and bring true Sabbath.

Christ came to heal our sin. To save us sin and remove all of its affects.

That’s pictured by the healing of the man.

Just as he was made new physically, we are made new spiritually in Christ.

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come (2 Cor 5:17).

And He came to save us from the curse.

What was the curse for sin?

Death…pain…and weariness.

You are dust and to dust you shall return.

And Cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life, thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you…an by the sweat of your face you shall eat bread (Gen 3:17-19).

But as our true Sabbath Rest Christ gives us life and eternal rest.

He’s the Redeemer God who came to make all things new.

To heal us from all our sin, reverse the curse, and give us rest and everlasting life.

Conclusion

We started this sermon by asking:

What does this sign of Jesus healing a man who was an invalid for 38 years on the Sabbath tell us theologically, about Jesus Christ and who He is?

And we saw that He is the Savior of sinners.

The Lord of True Sabbath Rest.

And Redeemer God.

When you put all these together, you get the Big Idea from this passage.

The Big thing John wants us to see in this sign that we might believe in Christ and by believing have life in His Name.a

Jesus is the Messiah who heals our sin, gives us rest, and redeems us from the curse of the Fall.

He alone can heal us from our sin.

Outside of Christ we are all blind, lame, and paralyzed dead in our sin.

We are helpless and hopeless in this world.

And in the gospel, Christ comes to us and says Do you want to be healed?

And He saves everyone who believes in Him.

He is our True Sabbath Rest.

He saves us from futilely trying to earn God’s love and salvation through our own good works by faithfully fulfilling all the righteous requirements of the Law on our behalf.

And He is the Redeemer who makes all things new.

The man and the Pharisees missed it.

They didn’t see that Christ was the only way to be saved and the true meaning of the Sabbath.

But John gave us this sign that we might believe.

Let us not miss this sign, but trust in Christ, believe in His Name, and worship Him as Savior and Lord.