John 4:46-5:47
Notes
Transcript
Jesus Heals an Officials Son
Jesus Heals an Officials Son
This part of the story we won’t spend much time on but it is quite significant. Jesus only performs seven miracles throughout the course of John’s Gospel. John is going to give us four all in a row back to back throughout the next three four chapters. Each one gives us a rounded out understanding of who Jesus was and what He came to earth to do. We also get seven I Am statements from Jesus. The way that John introduces the seven miracles and seven I Am statements is interesting. The miracles are primarily found in the first half of the Gospel while the I Am statements are in the second half. John’s narrative layout reflects our relationship with Jesus. We are drawn in to Jesus by what He can do but as we grow deeper we become satisfied in who He is.
We see that the things Jesus does are amazing but maturity happens when we trust in Jesus no just for what He can do for us, but for who He is. This is intimacy. This is relationship. We fall in love with Jesus and seek to live a life that honors Him because He is a good shepherd, He is the Light of the World, He is the Resurrection and the Life. Not just because He fed 5,000 people.
The miracles of Jesus stir the question, “Who is this guy and what do I do about it?” The work of Jesus asks more of us than just information about who He is. It calls us to action. Calls us to obedience.
Lets look quickly at this second miracle of Jesus.
If you remember, the first miracle was in Cana. Jesus turned water into wine. We saw that Jesus is the giver of good gifts, that He alone can satisfy. With this miracle we see Jesus’ power over sickness and that His power goes beyond who He is present to.
The official comes to Jesus and it says his son was ill. Having nowhere to go he comes to Jesus in hopes that Jesus would follow him to his house and heal his boy. Jesus, speaking to the man but also addressing the crowd says, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe”. Jesus proposes a concern/observation. The people wouldn’t believe unless Jesus did a sign to prove it. Jesus’ question is about faith. Will you believe without a sign? The thing about Jesus is that He is God and worthy of our worship whether He does good things for us or not. Thankfully God is a kind, loving and gracious God. But Jesus’ question is important. Do we love God for His stuff or do we love Him because He deserves it. The man is persistent about his need, but Jesus doesn’t follow him. Instead he sends him back to his son with a promise. Jesus says, “Go; your son will live”. And it says the man believed. He didn’t need to see what God could do to trust that He could do it. He trusted Jesus’ words and returned home to find his son was healed the second Jesus said it would be so.
This story shows us that Jesus isn’t a charlatan. These aren’t clever tricks or deceptions. It isn’t slight of hand or paid actors. Jesus heals a boy miles away. He doesn’t do this for a big reaction. Many who heard him say this might never even know that boy was healed. He didn’t do it for clout He did it so that God might be glorified. There is a significant difference between those two things. We will talk more about that later.
The Healing at the Pool on the Sabbath
The Healing at the Pool on the Sabbath
Next we see the third miracle that John records here in his Gospel account. Jesus goes back to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. There He sees a man laying at the Sheep Gate. This was a place where it says many people who suffered from blindness, not being able to walk, people who were paralyzed, they would all lay here in hopes that they would be able to make their way into the water to find relief for their conditions.
Take a quick look at your copy of Scripture. Somebody read verse 4 for me.
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.
This verse isn’t included in the ESV because it isn’t included in the earliest manuscripts we have of John’s Gospel. We will talk more about this in future weeks but a quick explanation. The Bible isn’t one book that we found in a cave. It is collections of thousands of fragments some containing large portions of Scripture some containing small pieces. It isn’t like a puzzle where there are only one of each piece. We have multiple copies of everything that help us understand with accuracy the entire collection of Scriptures. Some of the pieces are older than others. These were all hand written and passed down through the church. In some instances like with verse four we see something that was added later that wasn’t included in earlier copies. Despite their being variances, the Bible remains the most accurate historical document ever written. Within that small window of variance, there isn’t anything that contradicts the overall narrative of Scripture or who Jesus was. Most are spelling mistakes or duplicate words. In this example it was likely a Jewish tradition that was added in later to provide context for what the invalid man says. Most of the time with these variances they will include it with brackets. ESV didn’t do that with this verse but do later in chapter 8 and with other sections.
The tradition was that an angel stirred the water and whoever was first in the water after the angel did that would be healed. That is why there were so many people with disabilities waiting around the water. Jesus walks up and sees a man who had been sitting there for a long time.
Jesus asks the man a question. “Do you want to be healed?”. The man answers saying that he tries but every time he goes to get in the water someone gets there first. Jesus says, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” and the man is healed, he takes up his mat and walks.
This question “Do you want to be healed?” is an incredible question. It is one that Jesus asks us.
The healing Jesus offers is a guaranteed thing. No chance of missing out on it because you were too slow. No trusting in superstition. Jesus offered real change.
The healing Jesus offers is more than a physical healing. Jesus offers us Spiritual rebirth. The question is an important one though. For this man, he would be free from the pain he lived in, but as a healed man he could no longer sit by the pool. He would have to pick up his mat and walk as a healed man and be responsible for all the things healthy men did. Obviously its a no brainer. Who would want to sit by this pool day after day without hope. You would think the same would be for us. Jesus offers Spiritual healing but it requires that we take up our bed and walk as new creations. We can’t be healed and stay by the poolside of our old lives of sin. The healing Jesus offers leads to life change. It’s a no brainer. Do you want to stay dead in this life of sin with no hope day after day or be transformed by the healing work of Christ and live in freedom. Jesus warns about the cost of following Him.
Now large crowds were going along with Him; and He turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.
Jesus isn’t telling us to hate people. What He is saying is that following Him can be costly. Being a friend of God makes us an enemy to the world. Following Jesus would cost people their jobs, their families, even their own lives. But Jesus is worth more than all of those things. Jesus has lost His value in the church today. People in the church try to change the cost of following Jesus so that they can have salvation and everything else to. They cheapen grace and water down Jesus until the call to follow Jesus is something casual that you can do as a hobby on the weekends. The result is that we worship a version of Jesus that is not true to who He is. We worship a version of Jesus that affirms all of our feelings and agrees with us in every debate. That isn’t following Jesus its idolatry. You’ve just made Jesus into an image of the god you really want to worship. Following Jesus is a call to die to ourselves. It is a call to surrender, sacrifice, even suffering. We cannot be resurrected with Jesus in new life until we have also died with Him. For every empty tomb there is a cross. The good news of the Gospel is that Jesus offers healing, freedom and hope in this life and in eternity. The good news of the Gospel is that this old way of living dies with Jesus on the cross. It is painful to let go. It is painful to turn away from our sin. But it is better to have healing through pain than to die comfortable.
Jesus heals the man by the pool in Bethesda. He picks up his bed and goes on his way. We see later that he is confronted by the religious leaders for carrying his bed. They don’t care that he has just been healed. They could care less. They just know that this guy is doing a work on the day that should be for rest. The religious leaders were hyper legalistic about the sabbath law. The Old Testament says it should be a day of rest but the Jewish tradition that existed outside of what God said in the Old Testament says that they shouldn’t do any kind of work whatsoever, including carrying a mat. Jesus was not bound by Jewish tradition because He was being obedient to what God required not man made rules. Jesus doesn’t break any laws or encourage others to break the law.
These men stop the man and demand to know who healed him on the Sabath. The man didn’t know Jesus’ name but afterwards Jesus found him and said, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.” Jesus doesn’t heal for clout, He heals that God my be glorified and honored through the lives of His people. This healing was a chance at new life, to testify to the work of God in his life.
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.
The work Jesus does is a continuation of the work being done by God in the Old Testament. Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament. All those Old Testament promises point toward this moment. Jesus makes Himself equal to God because He is God. The work we see Jesus do is the work of God. Jesus explains how it is that He is doing the work of God.
The Authority of the Son
The Authority of the Son
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
This is essential to understand about Jesus. Everything He does in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Everything He does was in obedience to the Father. Jesus doesn’t chase clout or try to make Himself famous. He just does what the Father does and what the Father says. Everything the Father does the Son does likewise. We also see that the Father loves the Son, the Father demonstrates His power through the Son, and the Father honors the Son by giving Him authority to judge. So Jesus worships the Father by being obedient to everything He sees the Father do and say while the Father worships Jesus by showing honor to Him. How is it that God can worship Jesus? Because Jesus is God. If Jesus is God, how is it that He can worship the Father? Because the Father is God. God exists in three persons, the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. All three act uniquely of each other. Yet they are so deeply unified in everything they do because they are one in being. God isn’t three people. He is one.
Jesus says, to worship me is to worship the Father and to have a relationship with the Father is to believe in the Son. You cannot have the Father without the Son. Jesus not only explains His deity. He also shows us He is the only way to the Father.
“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.
Jesus is the Son of God and the Son of man. Judgement is through Jesus because salvation is through Jesus. Jesus is the way for redemption because He was born in human flesh, He carried our sins, He died on the cross, He rose from the grave. Mankind’s hope is in Jesus because Jesus became man. He is the Son of God equal with the Father fully God in every way, but He also is fully man. Born of Mary. He existed before the world began. Through Him all things were created, yet He was laid in a manger. Through Jesus the life of the Father is given to the dead and they are raised to new life in Christ. On the last day all people will have to answer for what they did with Jesus. Did they trust in Jesus and find eternal life through Him or did they reject Jesus and receive judgement for their evil?
Witnesses to Jesus
Witnesses to Jesus
“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.
Jesus doesn’t make this claim on His own authority. Jesus didn’t say this about Himself, other people testified to who Jesus is. If someone made this claim by themselves it would be empty, but Jesus has proof. Who testifies on behalf of Jesus?
John the Baptist
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.
John was the voice in the wilderness crying out to prepare the way of the Lord. John proclaimed, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!”. John is evidence that Jesus’ claim to be God is legitimate. But Jesus continues. This isn’t his only evidence because His claim isn’t built on human wisdom.
Jesus’ Miracles
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.
The second witness to Christ’s deity is the work He does. Nobody else heals and performs the miracles that Jesus did. It was evident to all who witnessed, Jesus did things that only God could do. He healed the sick, gave the blind their sight, He walked on water, cast out demons, even raised people from the dead. Over and over through the Gospels we see people’s response to Jesus’ miracles saying this can only be from God. Who’s word will you take? Is Jesus God because John the Baptist said so? Is He God because He did things only God could do?
God the Father
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.
God Himself testifies to who Jesus is the problem was that the people were too deaf to hear it. They were too stubborn, too hard of heart to hear the truth.
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.
The problem was that the people put their faith in obeying the Scriptures rather than hearing who it was the Scriptures bore witness to. Jesus is the Word of God. To read the Scriptures and miss Jesus is to miss the Scriptures entirely. Every word of the Old Testament proclaims Jesus as the Messiah. Every sin committed, every family broken, every promise made points to Jesus and our need for salvation through Him. Jesus is God because God, who cannot tell a lie, says it to be true of Himself in Scripture.
Why are people unwilling to see the truth and give glory to Jesus?
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?
They do not glorify Jesus because they are too busy glorifying themselves. They ignore the testimony of John, they ignore the miracles performed, they ignore even the words of God themselves because they seek the glory of other men rather than the glory that comes from the only God.
Who do you worship?
Are you too busy worshipping yourself to recognize your need for a savior? To give God the glory that He is worthy of? Do you live a life that is centered on you? What you want? Your passions? What makes you happy? Are you so focused on yourself that you can’t hear the voice of God in your life?
Jesus brings us back to where we started with the issue over the Sabbath by introducing one last witness.
Moses
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?”
Jesus closes this encounter with a powerful call for self reflection. The very thing that these people had put their hope in was telling them they were wrong. They lived their lives for the Law of Moses but Moses himself wrote about Jesus.
What are you putting your trust in?
Jesus doesn’t decide who goes to heaven or hell. Who a person puts their trust in determines that fate. Jesus warns the people that their trust was in the wrong things. Moses and the Law served only as a mirror to show the brokenness of the people. Moses pointed to the people’s need for salvation while Jesus fulfilled it. The condemnation of the people was that they thought of themselves as having no need for a savior. They could do it themselves.
Do you need a savior? Will you trust in Jesus?
