John 5 - New Spirit-Filled Life Bible

5:1 John did not identify this particular feast, and it is impossible to determine which one it was. If it was the Passover, it introduces an important chronological device helping provide a clearer calendaring of Jesus’ three and one-half years of ministry.

5:2 Sheep Gate: Literally, the gate “pertaining to sheep.” Based on a later Christian tradition, the KJV incorrectly rendered it “sheep market.” Bethesda: The Hebrew beth ’eshda literally means “Place of Outpouring,” or “House of Grace.” Today the pool is identified with practical certainty as the double pool at the Church of St. Anne.

5:3–15 Except for the duration of the man’s illness, John’s emphasis is not as much on the medical details of the case, as on the supernatural cure, its consequences, and its testimony to Christ’s life-giving power.

5:4 The last phrase of v. 3 and all of v. 4 are omitted in some ancient Greek manuscripts of John (see footnote). The statements may reflect a popular tradition associated with the pool that the bubbling of the waters (v. 7), which some scholars feel was caused by an intermittent spring, was supernaturally caused by an angel. Irrespective of the source of the waters being stirred, the testimony of God’s healing grace was nonetheless present.

5:16–23 See section 3 of Truth-In-Action at the end of John.

5:16–18 If Jesus’ healing on the Sabbath evoked the wrath of the Jewish religious leaders, His claim to equality with God earned Him their charge of blasphemy and its necessary death sentence. From this point on, Jesus was on a collision course with the authorities.

5:19–23 Jesus did not act independently of the Father. On the contrary, He understood that, because He and the Father were one, He did only what His Father showed Him. Jesus’ authority, then, was not usurped, but derived from the Father’s authority. Conversely, one cannot honor the Father apart from honoring the Son.

5:24–47 Jesus addresses the entire discourse of His relationship to the Father to those who accused Him of blasphemy. In the discourse Jesus’ love even for His enemies is made clear, a love which He balances with His role as eschatological Judge (see Rev. 20:11–15). While His desire is for them to be saved (v. 34), their problem is not that they cannot believe but that they are unwilling to accept His offer of life (v. 40).