John 5:1–18
After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
2 Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. 3 In these lay a multitude of invalids - blind, lame, and paralysed. 5 One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 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?” 7 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.” 8 Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” 9 And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.
Now that day was the Sabbath. 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.” 11 But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’ ” 12 They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?” 13 Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place. 14 Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well!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.” 15 The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. 16 And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because He was doing these things on the Sabbath. 17 But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” 18 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 walked through a crowd of disabled people gathered around an open-air pool. The pool at Bethesda was supplied by an underground spring, which occasionally would cause bubbles to rise to the surface. The superstitious belief of the day was that an angel was stirring up the water, and they believed that the first person to get into the pool after this happened would be healed.
On this particular day, Jesus initiated a conversation with the crippled man, so here we see a complete role-reversal from the norm when Jesus healed people. They usually went to Him for healing, and they would begin the conversation. It is also striking that Jesus walked through the crowd of the people unrecognised. While most would have heard of Him by now, there was nothing out of the ordinary about His appearance. In His humanity He looked like anyone else.
The man had been bedridden for 38 years, and he was without hope of being cured. He had no idea who Jesus was. Even after his healing, when questioned by the religious leaders, the text says, “the man who had been healed did not know who it was.” This is an important detail, because here, faith was not a condition of this healing.
The Jewish leaders were scandalised that the man, after being healed, was carrying his bed. He was breaking their precious Sabbath laws, and they were even more furious when they learned that the miracle had not only been performed by Jesus, but also on the Sabbath.
John describes a “multitude” of disabled people. It must have been a really depressing scene. Nowadays we are far more aware and caring of the disabled, but in those times, the crippled and lame were regarded as a burden on society. They were a nuisance and they received little or no care and help, so their only hope was for a miracle. You can’t blame them for their strange superstition in thinking an angel stirred the water, and it must have been even more depressing and pitiful seeing these people desperately trying to drag themselves into the water, only to be disillusioned time and time again.
John then draws our attention to one man in the crowd: a man who had been an invalid for nearly four decades, as Jesus entered and walked through the crowd. He stopped before this particular man and asked him a question, and his answer tells us a lot about him. He had lost all hope, and couldn’t even bring himself to answer yes, as you’d probably expect.
After 38 years, he had lost not only the ability to move but also all hope. Without further comment, Jesus told the man to get up, pick up his bed, and walk. The man must have felt the strength flow back into his limbs, because we’re told that he got up immediately.
He was spotted by the religious teachers, who told him he was breaking the Sabbath law. When the man told them what had happened, they demanded to know who had instructed him to violate the Sabbath. The man replied that he didn’t know who he was, but you have to wonder if they already knew just who had healed him. Jesus was well-known to them by now, and they were determined to get rid of this man who they regarded as nothing more than a trouble-maker.
Sometime later the incident led to an open confrontation between Jesus and the religious leaders, which John records in the rest of chapter 5. John often does this – the miracle of Jesus is followed by a message. In this particular case, Jesus taught that His miracles demonstrated His intimate relationship with God the Father, and that He was to be honoured as God. If the religious leaders truly believed the Old Testament, they would acknowledge Jesus, because the Scriptures testified to Him. In verses 39 and 40 Jesus says to them, “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.”
This man had been an invalid for a long time, and he didn’t expect to recover. He didn’t recognise Jesus or even know who He was. He was a man without faith. Even after being healed, he didn’t know Jesus. But later, when Jesus found him the second time, his eyes were opened as to just who this was who healed him.
This gives us a glimpse into God’s grace shown to sinners throughout human history. Are His miracles reserved only for the believer who knows the Lord and exercises faith in Him? Clearly not, because Jesus showed and extended His grace here to a man who neither knew nor believed in Him. God is sovereign, and He is free in His sovereignty to show grace to anyone whom He chooses.
If you think about it, how often does He show grace to people who either don’t, or refuse to recognise Him? They may say it’s just sheer good luck, providence, the stars were aligned, or whatever, but the reality is that nothing happens without God’s provision.
“Do you want to be healed?” What a strange, yet penetrating question. But it is a question which goes far beyond this man’s physical situation. The question Jesus asks Him is really one of His many timeless questions which echoes throughout the ages. It is one He asks of us.
How many today don’t really want to be healed? The tragic answer is that there are people all over the world who don’t want to be healed, because they see no need for healing. The very first step in seeking salvation through Christ is recognising our greatest need: Forgiveness of sin.
The man in John 5 gave Jesus an interesting answer. What he did was to avoid the question. Instead of replying yes or no, he laid the blame for his condition on others. How typical is his answer of human nature? When we are confronted by the Truth of God, how easily do we make excuses, blaming others or our circumstances for the position we’re in?
Instead of acknowledging that our sin has offended God, we try to justify our sin.
Instead, Jesus asks us, “Do you want to be healed?”
He reminds us that we are to acknowledge our need for healing, and that by His grace He will and does heal.
And then we come to the reaction of the religious elite – the Pharisees. When the man was told he was breaking the Sabbath laws, they didn’t give a single thought to the joy he must have been experiencing after being so miraculously healed.
The healing of this man was an act of sovereign grace. There was no appeal to Jesus for healing. He didn’t even say “yes please” when asked directly. He exercised no faith – in fact he didn’t even know who Jesus was. And yet, in His sovereign grace and mercy, God reached into his life and healed him.
And that is not the end of the story. One would think that this man would have been frantically trying to find out just who this stranger was that healed him and disappeared into the crowd, but the text doesn’t say anything about that. Verse 14 actually tells us that Jesus found him.
Again, Jesus sought him out.
It is significant that Jesus found the man in the temple. Now, there are two possibilities here. It is quite possible (and one would hope) that he may have gone there to thank God for his healing. The other possibility is that the Pharisees may have dragged him off to the temple to interrogate him about who had broken their laws.
Either way, Jesus found him.
And then He warned him, “See, you are well. Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.”
When Jesus warned that something worse may happen, He was speaking of the spiritual consequences of sin. In other words, nearly forty years of being physically paralysed will pale into insignificance in comparison with what being spiritually crippled will bring about for all of eternity.
Every day in countless ways we receive God’s grace in ways we don’t recognise. Every lungful of air we breathe, every single beat of our hearts – all of these things are blessings from God, but the vast majority of people refuse to acknowledge Him. The Pharisees – those who should have known better – all they were concerned about was that the man and Jesus had broken their warped understanding of the Sabbath laws.
Verses 17 and 18 say, “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.”
They knew exactly what Jesus was claiming about Himself. They weren’t rejecting Jesus out of some misunderstanding of who He claimed to be. They understood His claims perfectly well. They rejected Him because of these claims.
This particular miracle displayed the power of God to act in sovereign grace on behalf of anyone whom He chooses. Contrary to some false teachings out there, miracles don’t depend on our faith. How many believers have had their faith in Jesus shipwrecked because they have prayed for some kind of healing which has not come about? And how many heretical “preachers” have laid the blame firmly at the feet of those who have not been healed because of their lack of faith?
This miracle confronts that kind of false teaching head-on.
God is free to work with or without our cooperation, and in His sovereignty, He will bring physical healing to whom He wishes.
The miracle also showed that God is willing to touch the lives of those who don’t even know Him.
And of course, the miracle Jesus performed on the Sabbath supported His claim to be One with the Father. He acted as sovereign Lord, choosing to show grace to whomever He wished. He acted on the Sabbath, demonstrating His Lordship over that holy day. And the nature of His miracle - restoring a hopeless and helpless cripple - suggests what God’s power can do if we heed the call of the Gospel to get up and walk with Him throughout this life and into eternity.
The big question remains. “Do we want to be healed?”
After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
2 Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. 3 In these lay a multitude of invalids - blind, lame, and paralysed. 5 One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 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?” 7 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.” 8 Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” 9 And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.
Now that day was the Sabbath. 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.” 11 But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’ ” 12 They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?” 13 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. 14 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.” 15 The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. 16 And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because He was doing these things on the Sabbath. 17 But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” 18 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 walked through a crowd of disabled people gathered around an open-air pool. The pool at Bethesda was supplied by an underground spring, which occasionally would cause bubbles to rise to the surface. The superstitious belief of the day was that an angel was stirring up the water, and they believed that the first person to get into the pool after this happened would be healed.
On this particular day, Jesus initiated a conversation with the crippled man, so here we see a complete role-reversal from the norm when Jesus healed people. They usually went to Him for healing, and they would begin the conversation. It is also striking that Jesus walked through the crowd of the people unrecognised. While most would have heard of Him by now, there was nothing out of the ordinary about His appearance. In His humanity He looked like anyone else.
The man had been bedridden for 38 years, and he was without hope of being cured. He had no idea who Jesus was. Even after his healing, when questioned by the religious leaders, the text says, “the man who had been healed did not know who it was.” This is an important detail, because here, faith was not a condition of this healing.
The Jewish leaders were scandalised that the man, after being healed, was carrying his bed. He was breaking their precious Sabbath laws, and they were even more furious when they learned that the miracle had not only been performed by Jesus, but also on the Sabbath.
John describes a “multitude” of disabled people. It must have been a really depressing scene. Nowadays we are far more aware and caring of the disabled, but in those times, the crippled and lame were regarded as a burden on society. They were a nuisance and they received little or no care and help, so their only hope was for a miracle. You can’t blame them for their strange superstition in thinking an angel stirred the water, and it must have been even more depressing and pitiful seeing these people desperately trying to drag themselves into the water, only to be disillusioned time and time again.
John then draws our attention to one man in the crowd: a man who had been an invalid for nearly four decades, as Jesus entered and walked through the crowd. He stopped before this particular man and asked him a question, and his answer tells us a lot about him. He had lost all hope, and couldn’t even bring himself to answer yes, as you’d probably expect.
After 38 years, he had lost not only the ability to move but also all hope. Without further comment, Jesus told the man to get up, pick up his bed, and walk. The man must have felt the strength flow back into his limbs, because we’re told that he got up immediately.
He was spotted by the religious teachers, who told him he was breaking the Sabbath law. When the man told them what had happened, they demanded to know who had instructed him to violate the Sabbath. The man replied that he didn’t know who he was, but you have to wonder if they already knew just who had healed him. Jesus was well-known to them by now, and they were determined to get rid of this man who they regarded as nothing more than a trouble-maker.
Sometime later the incident led to an open confrontation between Jesus and the religious leaders, which John records in the rest of chapter 5. John often does this – the miracle of Jesus is followed by a message. In this particular case, Jesus taught that His miracles demonstrated His intimate relationship with God the Father, and that He was to be honoured as God. If the religious leaders truly believed the Old Testament, they would acknowledge Jesus, because the Scriptures testified to Him. In verses 39 and 40 Jesus says to them, “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.”
This man had been an invalid for a long time, and he didn’t expect to recover. He didn’t recognise Jesus or even know who He was. He was a man without faith. Even after being healed, he didn’t know Jesus. But later, when Jesus found him the second time, his eyes were opened as to just who this was who healed him.
This gives us a glimpse into God’s grace shown to sinners throughout human history. Are His miracles reserved only for the believer who knows the Lord and exercises faith in Him? Clearly not, because Jesus showed and extended His grace here to a man who neither knew nor believed in Him. God is sovereign, and He is free in His sovereignty to show grace to anyone whom He chooses.
If you think about it, how often does He show grace to people who either don’t, or refuse to recognise Him? They may say it’s just sheer good luck, providence, the stars were aligned, or whatever, but the reality is that nothing happens without God’s provision.
“Do you want to be healed?” What a strange, yet penetrating question. But it is a question which goes far beyond this man’s physical situation. The question Jesus asks Him is really one of His many timeless questions which echoes throughout the ages. It is one He asks of us.
How many today don’t really want to be healed? The tragic answer is that there are people all over the world who don’t want to be healed, because they see no need for healing. The very first step in seeking salvation through Christ is recognising our greatest need: Forgiveness of sin.
The man in John 5 gave Jesus an interesting answer. What he did was to avoid the question. Instead of replying yes or no, he laid the blame for his condition on others. How typical is his answer of human nature? When we are confronted by the Truth of God, how easily do we make excuses, blaming others or our circumstances for the position we’re in?
Instead of acknowledging that our sin has offended God, we try to justify our sin.
Instead, Jesus asks us, “Do you want to be healed?”
He reminds us that we are to acknowledge our need for healing, and that by His grace He will and does heal.
And then we come to the reaction of the religious elite – the Pharisees. When the man was told he was breaking the Sabbath laws, they didn’t give a single thought to the joy he must have been experiencing after being so miraculously healed.
The healing of this man was an act of sovereign grace. There was no appeal to Jesus for healing. He didn’t even say “yes please” when asked directly. He exercised no faith – in fact he didn’t even know who Jesus was. And yet, in His sovereign grace and mercy, God reached into his life and healed him.
And that is not the end of the story. One would think that this man would have been frantically trying to find out just who this stranger was that healed him and disappeared into the crowd, but the text doesn’t say anything about that. Verse 14 actually tells us that Jesus found him.
Again, Jesus sought him out.
It is significant that Jesus found the man in the temple. Now, there are two possibilities here. It is quite possible (and one would hope) that he may have gone there to thank God for his healing. The other possibility is that the Pharisees may have dragged him off to the temple to interrogate him about who had broken their laws.
Either way, Jesus found him.
And then He warned him, “See, you are well. Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.”
When Jesus warned that something worse may happen, He was speaking of the spiritual consequences of sin. In other words, nearly forty years of being physically paralysed will pale into insignificance in comparison with what being spiritually crippled will bring about for all of eternity.
Every day in countless ways we receive God’s grace in ways we don’t recognise. Every lungful of air we breathe, every single beat of our hearts – all of these things are blessings from God, but the vast majority of people refuse to acknowledge Him. The Pharisees – those who should have known better – all they were concerned about was that the man and Jesus had broken their warped understanding of the Sabbath laws.
Verses 17 and 18 say, “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.”
They knew exactly what Jesus was claiming about Himself. They weren’t rejecting Jesus out of some misunderstanding of who He claimed to be. They understood His claims perfectly well. They rejected Him because of these claims.
This particular miracle displayed the power of God to act in sovereign grace on behalf of anyone whom He chooses. Contrary to some false teachings out there, miracles don’t depend on our faith. How many believers have had their faith in Jesus shipwrecked because they have prayed for some kind of healing which has not come about? And how many heretical “preachers” have laid the blame firmly at the feet of those who have not been healed because of their lack of faith?
This miracle confronts that kind of false teaching head-on.
God is free to work with or without our cooperation, and in His sovereignty, He will bring physical healing to whom He wishes.
The miracle also showed that God is willing to touch the lives of those who don’t even know Him.
And of course, the miracle Jesus performed on the Sabbath supported His claim to be One with the Father. He acted as sovereign Lord, choosing to show grace to whomever He wished. He acted on the Sabbath, demonstrating His Lordship over that holy day. And the nature of His miracle - restoring a hopeless and helpless cripple - suggests what God’s power can do if we heed the call of the Gospel to get up and walk with Him throughout this life and into eternity.
The big question remains. “Do we want to be healed?”