My Father is Working, so I Am Working

Healing on the Sabbath

John 5 (ESV)

After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these 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?” 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. 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.” But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’ ” 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 Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place.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.” 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. 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. So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel. For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment. “I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me. If I alone bear witness about myself, my testimony is not true. There is another who bears witness about me, and I know that the testimony that he bears about me is true. You sent to John, and he has borne witness to the truth. Not that the testimony that I receive is from man, but I say these things so that you may be saved. He was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light. But the testimony that I have is greater than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me. And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent. You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. I do not receive glory from people. But I know that you do not have the love of God within you. I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him. How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”

Genesis 2:1–3 ESV

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

Genesis 3:4–6 ESV

But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

Genesis 3:23–24 (ESV)

therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

Matthew 12:8 ESV

For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”

Overview of John 5:1–47

If God can work on the Sabbath, so can he (v. 17). Jesus asserts that he does what the Father does, that he will raise the dead, and that those who believe him will have eternal life (vv. 19–30). Knowing he has made claims difficult for his opponents to embrace, Jesus points to the testimony about him from the Baptist, the Scriptures, and the Father, asserting that those who know God will believe the one God has sent (vv. 31–47).

The Gospel according to John (1. The Healing at the Pool of Bethesda (5:1–15))

5:9b–10. John briefly mentions that the healing took place on a Sabbath (v. 9b), thereby setting the stage for the confrontation and discourse that follow. There is ample evidence that numerous events in Jesus’ ministry triggered controversy over the Sabbath (see below); this healing is among them. Indeed, in the larger scheme of the Fourth Gospel, this particular story has been included in John’s Gospel partly because it illustrates the powerful voice of the Son of God (cf. notes on vv. 8, 25, 28–29), and partly because of its connection with a Sabbath dispute, and the Christological dialogue it precipitates… Many people have the impression that the other gospels present the history of Jesus, while John offers additional theological commentary.

As Creator, Christ was the original Lord of the Sabbath (John 1:3; Hebrews 1:10). He had the authority to overrule the Pharisees’ traditions and regulations because He had created the Sabbath—and the Creator is always greater than the creation. Furthermore, Jesus claimed the authority to correctly interpret the meaning of the Sabbath and all the laws pertaining to it. Because Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath, He is free to do on it and with it whatever He pleases.

As Lord of the Sabbath, Jesus had the right, power and authority to dispense it in any way He pleased, even to the abolishing of it and reinstituting it as the Lord’s Day, a day of worship. Since the Lord of the Sabbath had come, He who is the only true “Sabbath rest” made the old Law of the Sabbath no longer needed or binding. When He said “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27), Jesus was attesting to the fact that just as the Sabbath day was originally instituted to give man rest from his labors, so did He come to provide us rest from laboring to achieve our own salvation by our works. Because of His sacrifice on the cross, we can now forever cease laboring to attain God’s favor and rest in His mercy and grace.

The Gospel according to John (1. The Healing at the Pool of Bethesda (5:1–15))

The reasons reported by the Synoptics for justifying Jesus’ apparently lenient approach to the Sabbath include the argument that because Jesus and his followers constitute a messianic and Davidic community, the promised new age has dawned in which the Sabbath and other laws and institutions have been reinterpreted and fulfilled; that Jesus’ presence means that something more than the temple has arrived;

The Gospel according to John 1. The Healing at the Pool of Bethesda (5:1–15)

Only here does the issue quickly develop into the relation between Jesus and his Father, in particular Jesus’ right to work on the Sabbath if his Father does (5:17ff.). The Old Testament had forbidden work on the Sabbath.

God the Father is speaker, God the Son is the speech, and God the Spirit is the breath carrying the speech to its destination. The Spirit is also the power who brings about its effects. - Vern Poythress

Witnesses of Jesus

Jesus

John the Baptist

The works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing

The Father

The Scriptures

Moses

Testify: martyreo

Testimony: martyria

Witness: martus > martyr