John 5 - ESV Study Bible

5:1–10:42 Mounting Jewish Opposition, Additional Signs. The “festival cycle” in John’s Gospel, which spans Chs. 5–10, is characterized by escalating conflict between Jesus and the Jewish authorities. In the course of Jesus’ defense of his ministry, he cites several major witnesses on his behalf (see note on 5:31–47).

5:1 After this marks the passing of an indefinite period of time (cf. 6:1; 21:1). There is no way to be certain which feast is indicated by the unnamed feast of the Jews.

5:2 pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda. “Bethesda” means “house of mercy,” a fitting term given the desperate state of the people lying there in hope of a miracle cure. See also note on 1:38. Various spellings of the name of this pool are found in the Greek manuscripts (see esv footnote). Nonetheless, there remains strong reason to identify this pool with a single large two-pool complex near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem and adjacent to the modern Church of St. Anne. The two pools are separated from each other by a partition. The remains of columns found around this site help confirm that the partition between the pools, along with each of the four sides surrounding the pool complex, likely contained the five roofed colonnades (i.e., five stoas, which are covered walkways; a “colonnade” is a row of columns). A fifth-century Byzantine basilica was built over this site.

5:3 The statement in the esv footnote about an angel of the Lord stirring the water and the first person who stepped in being healed is found in some early manuscripts, but not the earliest. Therefore the omitted verse 4 should not be considered part of Scripture, although v. 7 (which is in all manuscripts) shows that people believed something like what this statement reports.

5:5 Invalid (Gk. astheneia), in light of v. 7, probably means “paralyzed,” “lame,” or “extremely weak” (the Greek term is the general expression for a “disabled” condition). He had been an invalid for thirty-eight years, longer than many people in antiquity lived. For a similar healing see Matt. 9:1–8.

5:6 Knew probably indicates Jesus’ divine knowledge of the man’s situation, similar to Jesus’ knowledge of Nathanael (1:48) and the Samaritan woman (4:18).

5:7 When the water is stirred up indicates that people thought at least the first person entering the troubled water would be healed.

5:10 It is the Sabbath. Nothing in the OT specifically prohibited such an innocent activity as carrying one’s bedroll on the Sabbath day (cf. Ex. 20:8–11), but the man was violating later Jewish traditions that had developed hundreds of minutely detailed and burdensome rules about what kind of “work” was prohibited, including a code that forbade carrying an object “from one domain into another” (Mishnah, Shabbat 7.2). Nonetheless, Jesus does not defend himself by getting into a rabbinic discussion on the nature of work. Rather, he claims he is working, just like God (John 5:17), and hence is, as the Synoptics teach, the lord of the Sabbath (cf. Matt. 12:8; Mark 2:28; Luke 6:5).

5:14 Jesus meets the man again in the temple, that is, the larger temple complex rather than the actual building (see note on 2:14), a short distance from where the original healing had taken place (the pool of Bethesda is located just north of the Temple Mount). Sin no more may imply that the man’s suffering was due to sin, without suggesting that all suffering is due to personal sin (see note on 9:2).

5:16 Jesus’ Jewish opponents were putting their merely human religious tradition above genuine love and compassion for others, which the OT commanded (e.g., Lev. 19:18) and Jesus exemplified. It was Jesus, not these Jews, who was truly obeying the Scriptures.

5:17 My Father suggests a far closer relationship with God than other people had (see 20:17). When Jesus says, “My Father is working until now, and I am working,” he implies that he, like the Father, is lord over the Sabbath. Therefore this is a claim to deity. These Jews recognize what he is claiming (see 5:18). While Gen. 2:2–3 teaches that God rested (Hb. shabat) on the seventh day of creation, Jewish rabbis agreed that God continually upholds the universe, yet without breaking the Sabbath. (In John 7:22–23 Jesus makes a different argument about healing on the Sabbath; see also note on 9:14.)

5:18 making himself equal with God. Jesus was claiming to be the Son of God, not in the way that ordinary human believers are sons of God but in the sense of one who was equal to God in his nature and in every way, yet who related to God in a Father-Son relationship (see note on 1:14). If Jesus had been merely a man (as his Jewish opponents thought), then this claim would have been blasphemy on Jesus’ part.

5:19 Jesus’ claim that the Son can do nothing of his own accord, taken with vv. 17–18, affirms two themes: (1) Jesus is equal to God, i.e., he is fully divine (vv. 17–18); (2) the Father and the Son have different functions and roles (v. 19), and the Son is subject to the Father in everything he does, yet this does not deny their fundamental equality. See notes on vv. 21,22,23; 20:28. Only what he sees the Father doing may imply that Jesus had a unique ability to see the Father’s providential activities in the events of everyday life, activities that are ordinarily invisible to human beings.

5:20 The Father shows to Jesus all that he himself is doing—i.e., Jesus perceives God’s hand and purpose in every event in this world. The greater works are initially the raising of the dead (11:1–45). Even more, they include Jesus’ own death and resurrection (Chs. 18–20), then the voice of this same Jesus summoning all mankind to final resurrection and judgment (5:27–30).

5:21 Jesus’ statement that the Son also gives life to whom he will is another claim to deity, showing that Jesus does what only God can do, for the OT makes clear that raising the dead and giving life are the sole prerogatives of God (cf. Deut. 32:39; 1 Sam. 2:6; 2 Kings 5:7). This “life” is both the new “life” now given to believers (John 5:24; 11:25–26; 2 Cor. 5:17) and the resurrection of the body at Christ’s second coming (1 Cor. 15:42–57; 1 Thess. 4:13–18; see Dan. 12:2).

5:22 Jesus’ assertion that the Father … has given all judgment to the Son is yet another claim to deity, since judgment is the exclusive prerogative of God (e.g., Gen. 18:25; Judg. 11:27). The Father has delegated the work of final judgment to the Son.

5:23 The statement that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father in effect establishes Jesus’ right to be worshiped and also amounts to a claim to deity. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him shows that religions such as Judaism and Islam that consider Jesus merely a great prophet do not represent the truth about God, because they fail to worship and honor Jesus.

5:24 Has eternal life is one of the most striking statements in John regarding the present possession of eternal life. Eternal life begins immediately, in a partially realized but significant way, when one believes in Jesus. Those who believe can face the last judgment with confidence (cf. 1 John 5:11–13).

5:25 Here Jesus is not emphasizing the final resurrection but the present reality and experience of eternal life, for he says the hour is now here. The phrase the dead refers to the spiritually dead who hear Jesus’ message and believe.

5:26 For. This verse explains why the voice of Jesus is able to speak to dead people and grant them life. Just as the Father was never created and was never given his life by someone else, but has life in himself so that he can impart that life to others, so the Son has life in himself and is able to call the dead to life. He has granted the Son does not mean that the Father created the Son (see 1:3 and note) but that the Father authorized the Son to be able to give life to other people (thus this verse explains 5:25). This statement about “life in himself” echoes the affirmation in the prologue that “in him [Jesus] was life” (1:4; see also 3:15–16; 11:25; and note on 14:6).

5:27 Because he is the Son of Man echoes Dan. 7:13; see note on John 1:51. Because Jesus is not only the divine Son of God but also the truly human “Son of Man” who is the eternal world ruler prophesied in Dan. 7:13–14, the Father has given him authority to carry out the final judgment of every human being.

5:28–29 Jesus reaffirms the resurrection on the last day. Cf. Dan. 12:2. Those who have done good … those who have done evil does not imply that people’s deeds in this life are the basis on which judgment is pronounced (for that would contradict John’s strong emphasis on belief in Jesus as the way to gain eternal life: see John 3:16; 5:24–25; etc.). Instead, good works function as evidence of true faith, and if good works are lacking they show an absence of true faith. All those who truly believe will be brought “from death to life” (v. 24) and as a consequence will do good and will therefore enjoy the resurrection of life.

5:30 nothing on my own. See notes on vv. 19,22.

5:31 Jesus’ statement is in keeping with OT teaching regarding the need for multiple witnesses (Deut. 17:6; 19:15; cf. Num. 35:30). I alone represents the inclusion of the pronoun egō in Greek, which makes bear witness emphatic; such witness is not considered true in court.

5:31–47 In this section, Jesus speaks of several witnesses who bear testimony concerning him (see chart). The Johannine “witness” theme, in turn, is part of the larger “trial motif,” according to which it was not Jesus who was put on trial and condemned by the world but rather the world that was put on trial by Jesus. In order to demonstrate Jesus’ innocence and the world’s guilt, John parades before the reader a multitude of witnesses who bear testimony to Jesus’ true messianic identity and hence establish the world’s guilt in rejecting Jesus.

5:32 The Jews may think another refers to the Baptist (cf. vv. 33–35), but Jesus is talking about God the Father (v. 37).

5:33 the truth. See note on 14:6.

5:35 Jesus’ characterization of the Baptist as a burning and shining lamp echoes Ps. 132:17, where it is said that God has “prepared a lamp” for his anointed. John the Baptist was a “lamp,” but not the light (John 1:7–9); his witness was small (though important) and of a temporary nature. The past tense may imply that John is now dead or at least in prison. See also notes on 3:28–30. On “lamp,” see note on Matt. 25:3–4.

5:37 The Father … has himself borne witness refers to the whole of the Father’s witness, including all of Jesus’ miracles and teaching as directed by the Father (3:2; 5:19–20) and all of God’s witness in Scripture (cf. vv. 45–47; Luke 24:27,44; Acts 13:27; 1 John 5:9).

5:39 The study of Scripture does not by itself impart life. The Scriptures rather bear witness to the One who gives life, namely, Jesus (cf. vv. 46–47). Consequently, the study of the Bible ought to result in genuine faith in Jesus, followed by obedient action and transformed lives, not merely acquisition of Bible knowledge. it is they that bear witness about me. People who (like Jesus’ Jewish opponents) read the OT without seeing that it all points to Jesus fail to understand its message. See also Overview of the Bible.

5:43 I have come in my Father’s name means that Jesus came in the authority of the Father and, in a deeper sense, represented the entire character of the Father (his “name” in an OT sense represented all that was true about him). If another comes. Jesus predicted the proliferation of false christs (Matt. 24:24 par.) as a sign of the end times (Matt. 24:5 par.), and the first-century Jewish historian Josephus reports a whole string of messianic pretenders before A.D. 70.

5:44 One reason people fail to believe is that they long for the approval and favor of others instead of seeking the approval and favor of God.

5:46 If you believed Moses, you would believe me assumes that genuine believers have a heart that is receptive to the true words of God, and therefore those who believe the words of God as written by Moses (that is, Genesis–Deuteronomy) will also recognize and eagerly receive the words of God as spoken by Jesus. Those who disbelieve Moses’ writings will also disbelieve Jesus. For he wrote of me applies not only to specific predictions like Deut. 18:15 but also to all the ways in which the history of salvation in these writings pointed to Christ (e.g., Luke 24:27,44; John 1:45; 3:14; 8:56; Acts 26:22; 28:23; 1 Cor. 10:4; Heb. 11:23–26; 1 Pet. 1:10–12; Jude 5; and Overview of the Bible).