The three chapters (5-7) document the shift from slight reservation and hesitation about Jesus to outright opposition.
The disagreement about the Sabbath gets shifted when the more seismic concern about Christology is introduced. This then leads on to an extended discourse concerning Jesus' relationship with the Father.
Bethesda means: house of outpouring
'a great number of disabled people' used to lie in the shelter of these colonnades.
Isaiah 35:6
The stories of two paralytics being healed by Jesus are in the gospels. This one and the one of the man being lowered through the roof. In the latter, the man found Jesus, in this one, Jesus spots him in the crowd.
'do you want to get well' is often given a psychologizing tone (ie you have to deeply desire to be well) but John doesn't seem to imply that or develop the narrative in that direction.
v7 - the invalid apparently believed popular belief that the first person to the water would be healed.
The depth of his desire to be healed may be seen in his persistent presence at the pool despite not having any friends to carry him down to the water for healing when it was stirred.
The man:
v11 - he avoids difficulties with the authorities by blaming Jesus for his breaking of the Sabbath
v13 - he doesn't even notice to recognise the man who did this for him
v15 - he finds out and then reports Jesus to the authorities
In light of these things, v7 (the man's response to Jesus' question) reads more like the 'crotchety grumblings of an old and not very perceptive man who thinks he is answering a stupid question.'
v8 - Jesus' 'Get up' anticipates the powerful voice of the Son of God on the last day.
He wasn't staggering in ambiguous health when he walked away from Jesus but strong enough that he was able to carry his own mat.
v 9 - 'work' in the OT referred to one's customary employment. Other writers had analysed the prohibition into 39 classes of work. Since the man didn't usually carry mats for a living, he was not working.
The Jews hear of the miraculous and wonderful healing of a man 38 years a paralytic and are only interested in the breaking of one of their rules: 'they think they see what is important but in religious matters there are none so blind as those who are always certain that they see.'
v14 - although the NT makes it clear that suffering and sickness is not always the result of sin (9:2 in this gospel alone) it does show us that some sickness is the result of sin. Given what Jesus says to the man it seems that his sickness was the result of some specific sin. D. A. Carson points out that it is possible that the reason Jesus chose this man out of all the people at the pool that day was precisely because his sickness was the result of some sin.
Jesus' reaction to the opposition
v17 - has legal overtones. Jesus responds to their charge he offers his defence.
At one level God rested from creation on the seventh day but on another level God has never and cannot rest. He never ceases to uphold and maintain the universe. Four eminent rabbis in the first century met to discuss whether or not God is a Sabbath breaker and concluded that he never ceases from work but neither is he a sabbath breaker.
v18 - by making himself equal with God Jesus was challenging the fundamental distinctions between the holy, infinite God and finite fallen human beings.
Various first-C pagan religions were quite happy to obliterate distinctions between God and humankind. If the exile had convinced the Jews of anything, it was that idolatry was always wrong and that God was wholly Other: 'to whom will you compare me?' Is. 40. Four people who 'made themselves like God' were stand under terrible judgment in the OT.
Jesus goes on to explain exactly what his relationship with the Father is like. He is not trying to say that he is another God or a competing God. This isn't di-theism or tri-theism.
Jesus as 'son' grew up in the trade of Joseph his Father learning the skill of carpentry. It is this image that may be in his mind during this discourse. Most sons grew up learning a trade from their Fathers.
Jesus' relationship with the Son follows the pattern of: The Father does, the Son copies. It is not reciprocal in the sense that the Father does whatever he sees the Son doing. No, the Son obeys his Father and does all that the Father commands him to do. In this sense the Son is the Father's agent, though as John makes clear, he is much more than an agent:
It is impossible for the Son to take independent self-determined action that would set him over against the Father as another God, for all the Son does is both coincident with and co-extensive with all that the Father does. 'Perfect Sonship involves perfect identity of will and action with the Father'Clues for the Sons divinity...
Since the Son says 'whatever the Father does, he does' is a claim to equal divinity as the Father. It would have to be.
v20 - The love of the Father is displayed here in the continuous disclosure of all he does to the Son; the love of the Son for the Father is displayed in his perfect obedience that issues in the cross.
Two important truths follow on from this:
1) The Son by his obedience to his Father is acting in such a way that he is revealing the Father, doing the Father's deeds, performing the Father's will. The Son is 'exegeting' or 'narrating' the Father.
2) Given that he is doing what the Father desires and that this is in fact his desire, and the Father desires for all to honour the Son it follows that 'this marvellous' disclosure of the nature and character of God utterly depends in the first instance not on God's love of us, but on the love the Father for the Son and on the love of the Son for the Father. God's self-disclosure happens because of the reciprocal love of the Father and Son.
'that you will marvel' - the Son does progressively revelatory 'works', signs, teaching and judging in order that his opponents marvel and that that marvel may be their first step toward faith.
Leon Morris
v6 - Jesus takes the initiative. He does not wait for the man to approach him.
v8-9 - we must note that although faith is commonly the prerequisite of healing it was not absolutely necessary. Jesus is not limited by human frailty as he works the works of God.
This is the first open hostility to Jesus recorded in the gospels.
Jesus persistently maintained that it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. He ignored the mass of scribal regulations and thus inevitably came into conflict with the authorities.
v11-13 - the man was not of the stuff of which heroes are made. He put the whole blame on the shoulders of him who had healed him.
v14 - stop sinning... Morris agrees with Carson that though not always the case the context suggests that this man's condition was linked to his sin.
v17 - references the four Rabbis who met 'in Rome' to answer why it is that God works on the Sabbath. Their answer 'it is lawful to carry things within ones own courtyard and the whole universe is God's courtyard.' That the Father works on the Sabbath is accepted.
- 'God's work' is seen as significant since it makes the point that God is not idle. If he were idle for any moment the created universe would cease. 'Unless he works continuously no one could survive.' God's rest is not the same as idleness. He is still God actively upholding everything and is always being himself compassionate, kind and overflowing with love.
Chapter 16
v25 comment on the figures of speech statement being about 'dark speech' that is things that haven't had the light shed on them. Jesus seems to be speaking plainly to them in v25-33 but in actual fact the plainness of speech he's looking forward doesn't seem to occur until after the resurrection.
Morris comments that the apostles in acts are markedly different in their conviction and certainty than the ones here. This has in a large part to do with the reality that the disciples aren't 'in the dark' about things any more, but surely also to do with the baptism of the Spirit who helps us to feel and know deeply the love of the Father (my comment)
v26 asking in the name of Jesus is not a way of enlisting his support (like a signature on a petition that trumps all the others). It is rather a pleading of his person and of his work for sinners. It is praying on the basis of all that he is and has done for our salvation.
Calvin: '...this is a remarkable passage by which we are taught that we have the heart of God as soon as we place before him the name of his Son.'
The Son does not persuade the Father to be gracious. The whole of the work of the Son rests on the loving care of the Father who sent him.v27 the love with which I love him does itself come from God.
Augustine: 'he would not have wrought in us something he could love, were it not that he loved ourselves before he wrought it.'
It is true that from one point of view the Father loves all people, but it is also true that he has a a special regard for those who believe, and it is this that he has in mind here.
v30 this 'ah ha!' moment when the disciples say 'we now know that you know all things...' strikes me as strange but Morris points out that it is linked to the fact that Jesus wasn't privy to their private discussion but instead spoke into it, and so demonstrated that he was and is aware of the conversations they were having even in private.
Don Carson
v23 - 'then you will know' is helpful from John's point of view writing a gospel with evangelistic intent. It is an invitation to 'close with Christ' since it is in knowing him that we gain rest for the soul.
26-27 - 'in my name' does not mean that they are themselves distanced from God. Far from it: the Father himself loves you, and needs no prompting from the Son. After all, it was the love of the Father for the world that initiated the mission of the Son.
Tom Wright
on the invitation to go directly to God ourselves rather than through the saints or an official:
It's really a form of pride that stops us accepting an offer as gracious as this.
