John 5 - Life Application Study Bible

5:1 Three festivals (or “holy days”) required all Jewish males to come to Jerusalem: (1) the Festival of Passover and Unleavened Bread, (2) the Festival of Harvest (also called Pentecost or the Festival of Weeks), and (3) the Festival of Shelters.

5:6 After 38 years, this man’s problem had become a way of life. No one had ever helped him. It looked like he had no hope of ever being healed. No matter how hopeless the situation seems or how trapped we feel in our limitations, God ministers to our deepest needs. Don’t let a problem or hardship cause you to lose hope. God may have special work for you to do in spite of your condition, or even because of it. Many have ministered effectively to hurting people because they have triumphed over their own hurts.

5:10 According to the Pharisees, carrying a mat on the Sabbath was work and was therefore unlawful. It did not break an Old Testament law, but it broke the Pharisees’ interpretation of God’s command to “remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy” (Exodus 20:8). This was just one of hundreds of rules the Pharisees had added to the Old Testament law, claiming their human-made rules were equal in authority to God’s Word.

5:10 A man who hadn’t walked for 38 years had been healed, but the Pharisees were more concerned about their petty rules than the life and health of a human being. The Jewish leaders witnessed both a mighty miracle of healing and a petty rule broken. They threw the man and the miracle aside as they focused their attention on the broken rule, because to them the rule was most important. It is easy to get so caught up in our rules and policies that we forget the needs of the people involved. Are your guidelines for living God-made or human-made? Are they helping people, or have they become needless stumbling blocks?

5:14 This man had been lame, or paralyzed, and suddenly he could walk. This was a great miracle. But he needed an even greater miracle—to have his sins forgiven. The man was delighted to be physically healed, but he had to turn from his sins and seek God’s forgiveness to be spiritually healed. God’s forgiveness is the greatest gift you will ever receive. Don’t neglect his gracious offer.

5:17 If God were to stop every kind of work on the Sabbath, nature would fall into chaos, and sin would overrun the world. Genesis 2:2 says that God rested on the seventh day, but this doesn’t mean he stopped doing good. Jesus was saying that when the opportunity to do good presents itself, we should not ignore it, even on the Sabbath.

5:17-47 Jesus was identifying himself with God, his Father. There could be no doubt that he claimed to be God. Jesus does not leave us the option to believe in God while ignoring God’s Son (5:23). The Pharisees also called God their Father, but they realized Jesus was claiming a unique relationship with him. In response to Jesus’ claim, the Pharisees had two choices: to believe him, which meant their whole way of life must change, or to accuse him of blasphemy. They chose the second.

5:19-23 Because of his unity with God, Jesus lived as God wanted him to live. Because of our identification with Jesus, we must honor him and live as he wants us to live. The question “What would Jesus do?” may help us make the right choices.

5:24 Eternal life—living forever with God—begins the moment you accept Jesus Christ as Savior. New life begins in you (2 Corinthians 5:17). God completes the transaction. The rest of your life on earth will go better for you, even though you may face many hardships, because you are living in fellowship with the almighty Creator, who loves you. And though you will still face physical death one day, when Jesus returns again, your body will be resurrected to live forever (1 Corinthians 15).

5:25 In saying that the dead will hear his voice, Jesus was talking about the spiritually dead who hear, understand, and accept him. Those who accept Jesus, the Word, will have eternal life. Jesus was also talking about the physically dead. He raised several dead people while he was on earth, and at his second coming, the believers who have died will rise to meet him (1 Thessalonians 4:16).

5:26 God is the source and creator of life, for there is no life apart from him, here or hereafter. The life in us is a gift from him (see Deuteronomy 30:20; Psalm 36:9). Because Jesus is eternally existent with God, the Creator, he, too, is “the life” (John 14:6) through whom we may live eternally (see 1 John 5:11).

5:27 The Old Testament mentions three signs of the coming Messiah. In this chapter, John shows that Jesus has fulfilled all three signs. Authority to judge is given to him as the Son of Man (compare John 5:27 with Daniel 7:13-14). Those who are lame and sick are healed (compare John 5:20-21 with Isaiah 35:6; Jeremiah 31:8-9). The dead are raised to life (compare John 5:21, 28 with Deuteronomy 32:39; 1 Samuel 2:6; and 2 Kings 5:7).

5:29 Those who have rebelled against Jesus Christ will be resurrected, too, but they will hear God’s judgment against them and will be sentenced to eternity apart from him. There are those who wish to live well on earth, ignore God, and then see death as a final rest. But Jesus does not allow unbelieving people the option of experiencing death as the restful end of everything. We must give our devotion to him now, or else we will stand before him on Judgment Day.

5:31-47 Jesus claimed to be equal with God (5:18), to give eternal life (5:24), to be the source of life (5:26), and to judge sin (5:27). These statements clearly show that Jesus was claiming to be divine—an almost unbelievable claim, but one that was supported by another witness, John the Baptist.

5:39-40 The religious leaders knew what the Bible said but failed to apply its words to their lives. They knew the teachings of the Scriptures but failed to see the Messiah to whom the Scriptures pointed. They knew the rules but missed the Savior. Entrenched in their own religious system, they refused to let the Son of God change their lives. Don’t become so involved in practicing religion that you miss the purpose of your faith—following Jesus Christ.

5:41 Whose praise do you seek? The religious leaders enjoyed great prestige in Israel, but their stamp of approval meant nothing to Jesus. He was concerned about God’s approval. This is an important principle. If even the highest officials in the world approve of our actions but God does not, we should be concerned. But if God approves, even if others don’t, we should be content.

5:45-47 The Pharisees prided themselves on being the true followers of their ancestor Moses. They were trying to follow every one of his laws to the letter, and they even added some of their own in an effort to clarify what they thought Moses meant. Jesus’ warning that Moses would accuse them stung them to fury. Moses wrote about Jesus (Genesis 3:15; Numbers 21:9; 24:17; Deuteronomy 18:15), yet the religious leaders refused to believe Jesus when he came. Even spiritual leaders can be spiritually blind.