Jesus' Authority

In a Sentence: Jesus offers you healing by grace.

Introduction

The Gospel of John has been tracking Jesus’ ministry up until now, and chapters 5-7 start to mark a shift in the public perception of Jesus. No longer are people confused about how they should think about Jesus. Now there is outright opposition, sometimes even from Jewish officials.

Passage

I. Only the grace of Jesus can heal(John 5:1-9a)

vv. 1-5: Context, Context, Context

Feast of the Jews (the exact feast is unknown and evidently unimportant; the feasts in 2:13 (Passover), 6:4 (Passover), 7:2 (Tabernacles), 10:22 (Dedication), and 11:55 (Passover) are all specifically identified).

Jesus is back in Jerusalem

At the Sheep Gate, a pool called Bethesda (Ar.) [or bethsaida in some mss.]

A 38-year invalid (a paralyzed man).

What did it mean in this time and place for a person to be an invalid? What kind of life would they have had? (vv. 2-5)

A pretty rough one! He was probably physically unable to move himself around, so had to have other people bring him there (which he didn’t have, see v. 7). He would have had to rely on the good graces of others to feed him, provide him shelter, and help him with everyday things. His life was defined by his disability.

There’s something weird about this section of the passage (vv. 1-5). What’s weird about it?

A Missing Verse!

English Standard Version

waiting for the moving of the water; 4for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool, and stirred the water: whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was healed of whatever disease he had

Why isn’t this here? Because the passage is present in some manuscripts, but not others. The KJV (1611) includes it because it is based off of a manuscript called Textus Receptus, which was based on a group of manuscripts, none of which were older than the 12th century A.D.

However, 500 years later, we have Bible manuscripts from far, far earlier, which do not have this verse, so later translations like the NIV (1978) and the ESV (2001) do not include this verse. They do, however, place it as a footnote at the bottom.

So why do you think this verse showed up in later manuscripts and not earlier ones? (vv. 3b-4)

The best explanation is this: It was a scholarly, marginal note that was mistakenly put in the text. In the 800 years between the manuscripts we have today (from the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd centuries) scribes were copying, copying, copying. They did so incredibly reliably, and we can see this today. Around the Middle Ages scribes started inserting marginal notes to “serve as teaching and learning aids or as commentary and explanation of the main text.” (https://www.hab.de/en/marginal-notes/) What probably happened is that an explanation inserted by a scribe ended up being placed in the text.

1. The earliest manuscripts don’t contain John 5:4

John 5:4 ESV

2. A few Greek manuscripts (P75) have a mark called a “Corrector” that denotes a variant or two in a text.

3. John 5:4 doesn’t appear the same way in ancient manuscripts; it has a lot of textual variation, whereas the verses around it do not.

Other manuscripts: P75, T (029)

The Bible is reliable!

vv. 6-9: The Miracle

Why did Jesus ask the man, “Do you want to be healed?” (v. 6)

Perhaps he was “establishing that the first step toward wholeness is always deep desire for it.” Perhaps he was asking less about his physical condition and more asking if the man wanted to be spiritually healed. Maybe the man missed the point of Jesus’ question entirely in his answer concerning the pool and the possibility of physical healing.

In any case, it is important to realize that Jesus is the one who sought out the sick man, not the other way around. A multitude were present, but Jesus went to this man. He knew that he had been there a long time (how did he know?). Jesus, as God, is the one who holds healing and life in His hands. The sick man could not heal himself. In the same way, you and I cannot heal ourselves from our greatest sickness: sin. Only Jesus can do this. He holds power and authority over the physical and spiritual world.

Why did Jesus specifically say, “Take up your bed, and walk”? (v. 8)

We’ll see why in just a moment!

II. Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath (John 5:9b-18)

The author, John, makes an important note. He writes, “Now that day was the Sabbath.” (John 5:9b)

Why did John note this? (John 5:9)

Because Jesus healed on the Sabbath! v. 10: “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.’”

What were Sabbath laws? What were they like?

They were incredibly restrictive. Jesus speaks of their laws in Matthew 23:4, saying, “4 They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger.”

Jewish Sabbath laws, formally written down in the Mishnah, give us a picture of what these could have been like. In the section called Mishnah Shabbat, we see 39 melachot, or “works,” that were prohibited on the Sabbath. (melachot: meh-la-choh, this is the word used in Genesis 2:2 when it says, “God finished his work.”)

Carrying

Burning

Extinguishing

Finishing

Writing

Erasing

Cooking

Washing

Sewing

Tearing

Knotting

Untying

Shaping

Plowing

Planting

Reaping

Harvesting

Threshing

Winnowing

Selecting

Sifting

Grinding

Kneading

Combing

Spinning

Dyeing

Chain-stitching

Warping

Weaving

Unraveling

Building

Demolishing

Trapping

Shearing

Slaughtering

Skinning

Tanning

Smoothing

Marking (From the Orthodox Union website)

As you can see, the list of categories of work is extensive.

Why was it so offensive to the Jews for the man to take up his bed?

The first melachot (the word means) prohibits carrying. This is also explicitly prohibited in the Bible in Jeremiah 17:21-22. The act of carrying something on the Sabbath would have been seen by the Jews as an incredibly evil act. When God is saying, “Do not bear any burdens,” and He is laying claim to everything as His, the act of carrying would denote saying to God, “I have this, this is mine, not yours.” It would have been a terrible breach of the law!

The man was sick for 38 years, and now he is up and carrying his bed. He is completely healed. (5:9a)

If it was against Jewish law for someone to carry, why did Jesus command the man to take up his mat?

The Jewish leadership who came up with these laws were misunderstanding what the idea of “work” was in the Old Testament law. The Old Testament’s meaning of “work” was related to one’s regular employment—what do you do? The Jewish Rabbi’s, however, took it way too far.

Jesus healed on the Sabbath on other occasions as well (Mark 2:23-3:6; Luke 13:10-17; 14:1-6; Matthew 12:1-14).

Put yourself in the shoes of the Jews for a moment. Who is more dangerous than someone breaking one of the 39 melachot? Someone telling other people to break one of the 39 melachot.

The Jewish people heal of a miraculous healing, and they should be celebrating! Rather, they are worried that somebody breached their formal code of conduct.

They try to figure out whodunit, but the man doesn’t know. Later, Jesus finds him in the Temple and speaks to him.

Why does Jesus tell the man to “Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you”? (v. 14)

The man, probably desperate to get the Jewish leaders off his back, rats Jesus out to them. The Jews confront him in some way, and we see Jesus’ answer in v. 17:

John 5:17 ESV

17 But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”

Why can Jesus work on the Sabbath?

Mark 2:27–28 ESV

27 And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. 28 So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”

III. Jesus is God (5:18-19)

The author, John, makes another important note. He explains to his readers something that is beginning to happen here in chapter 5: the Jews are trying to kill Jesus.

Why are the Jews trying to kill Jesus?

Because he is claiming to be equal with God. There are many who criticize Christianity, saying that Jesus “never claimed to be God.” This is factually incorrect, and no serious thinker could read the Bible and think that. They were trying to kill Jesus because he was claiming equal authority to God.

The Bible is abundantly clear in its differentiation between God and His Creation (Isaiah 40:18, 25). For a Jew to make himself equal with God was blasphemous.

The biblical truth is that Jesus is God. He is not another God, or a competing God. Jesus is the Son of God!

Conclusion

This world is desperately sick, both physically and spiritually. The Jewish people tried to solve their spiritual sickness by regulating behavior—that didn’t work. Today, we try to solve spiritual sickness by trying to be as free as possible. Our world says, “Maybe what we need isn’t more rules, but less rules.” This doesn’t work.

The only way that we can be free of our physical sicknesses (injuries, ailments, diseases, illnesses, etc.) is by being cured of our spiritual sickness, which is the root cause of our physical condition. Sin wrecks the body.

Jesus is the only one who holds the authority and power to heal physically and spiritually. He holds this authority because He is the Creator of all!

What doesn’t work as healings for our spiritual condition?

Moralism or legalism (more rules!)

Modern Judaism (as we have seen)

Catholicism, to a large extent, teaches that you cannot be justified by God’s grace alone: “If anyone says that the sinner is justified by faith alone, meaning that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to obtain the grace of justification, and that it is not in any way necessary that he be prepared and disposed by the action of his own will, let him be anathema.” (Council of Trent, Canon 9.)

Mormonism teaches that all will be saved in some way, but that only those who live morally, obey God’s commandments, and are sealed in a Mormon Temple can go to the highest tier of heaven (the Celestial Kingdom; Doctrine and Covenants 76:50-70; 137)

Licentiousness (less rules!)

In response to the legalism/moralism that people are raised with, many run instead toward licentiousness (license to sin). This is the opposite of legalism.

“Legalism forbids what God allows, while licentiousness allows what God forbids.” (https://www.theparkwaychurch.com/blog/legalism-is-more-dangerous-than-licentiousness)

Benediction

Only Jesus can offer you true grace, true rest from these heavy burdens we bear (Matthew 11:28-30).