John 5 - ESV Gospel Transformation Study Bible

5:1–9 The further we move into John’s Gospel, the wider he draws open the curtains on Jesus’ identity and mission. His miracles grow bigger and his words grow bolder—all revealing Jesus to be the Messiah, the Son of God—even God the Son.

Isaiah envisioned the age of the Messiah in terms of a new exodus. The blind will see, the deaf will hear, the lame will leap, and the desert sand will become a pool of refreshing water (Isa. 35:1–10). The healing of the invalid by the pool of Bethesda is another declaration that the eschatological era of the Messiah has dawned—the “last days” of God’s final, earthly revelation of his grace have begun (Heb. 1:2; Acts 2:17). In Jesus, the kingdom of God has come near (Matt. 3:2; 4:17; Mark 1:15).

5:10–17 The fact that Jesus healed the lame man on the Sabbath is both intentional and significant. Jesus has authority over Israel’s Sabbath, for he is the Lord of the Sabbath (Luke 6:1–11; Mark 2:23–28). The Jerusalem temple had become a house of commercial business (John 2:16), but God meant it to be a “house of mercy” (the meaning of “Bethesda”; 5:2). Only through Jesus can we find God’s mercy and grace, and enter into true Sabbath rest (Heb. 4:1–10)—ceasing from our futile efforts to save ourselves, as we trust in Jesus’ perfect work on our behalf.

Though Jesus cares about our whole being, this man’s greatest need was not healed legs but a redeemed heart. When Jesus pursued him and spoke the words, “Sin no more,” he wasn’t calling him to sinless perfection but to live in response to the mercy of a perfect Savior. The entire Christian life is a life of growing in grace (2 Pet. 3:18). Though we are perfectly forgiven, we await the perfection of eternity with Christ. And yet as those swept up into and toward the latter-day kingdom of God, we are called to “sin no more”—to live out our new, radically transformed identity.

5:18–47 The conflict intensifies between Jesus and the Jewish leaders—an antagonism that would eventually lead to his crucifixion. Why the enmity? It was not just because of Jesus’ Sabbath breaking, but because he made claims that gave him equal status with God—an affirmation we encountered in the first verse of John’s Gospel: “the Word was God” (1:1). Only God can save us, and Jesus, God incarnate, is the second member of the Trinity.

Jesus claimed a unique filial relationship with God as Father, an assertion which in that culture gave him divine status and amounted to blasphemy in the eyes of the Jews (5:18). But Jesus did not back down. He claimed the Father’s works as his own, including raising the dead—a boast he would prove by raising Lazarus from the dead (Ch. 11), an act that not only created greater opposition from his religious antagonists but was also a preview of his own resurrection.

To honor Jesus is to honor the Father (5:23). In fact, we too can know God as our Father if we honor Jesus—that is, if we believe on him (1:12; 14:9). We pass from judgment to life because Jesus took our judgment on the cross (5:22–24; cf. 2 Cor. 5:21). Our adoption is secured by Jesus’ propitiating (turning away, satisfying) God’s wrath.

According to Jesus, the only way we can derive life from the Scriptures is to see Jesus in the Scriptures, for all the Scriptures bear witness to him (John 5:30–47; cf. Luke 24:27, 44–47). The entire Bible, Genesis to Revelation, is ultimately about Jesus. Throughout Scripture God is unfolding the grace that culminates in Christ (John 5:39–40). The Bible is therefore not fundamentally about what we do for God but what God does for us.

The Jews, tragically, preferred receiving glory from one another rather than seeking the glory of God (v. 44). No sin or idolatry is more insidious and destructive than living for the approval of people (Prov. 29:25). In the gospel of grace, we are liberated from the need to be approved by people because in Jesus we have been approved by the only One whose approval matters and the only One whose approval satisfies.