John 5 - CSB Disciple’s Study Bible

5:1-16 MIRACLE, Faith—Miracles do not always bring the healed to mature faith. The invalid believed in the healing power of the waters. How long he had waited is not specified, but he had been helpless for thirty-eight years. Jesus challenged his faith, asking if he wanted to be healed and telling him to get up, pick up his mat, and walk. Imagine—for thirty-eight years he had not walked; now Jesus commanded him to get up and walk. He did just that. Bodily healing came. Spiritual sickness remained (v. 14). Healing the body did not bring loyalty and trust. Fear of religious powers (v. 15) remained stronger than trust in the Healer’s power. We must ask for more than physical healing. We must ask for faith and the power to stop sinning. That is the greater miracle.

5:1-15 JESUS CHRIST, Miracles—See Mt 9:1-8; Mk 2:1-12; Lk 5:18-26. The impact of Jesus’s direct command of healing is that angelic cures and miraculous means are not necessary to the Messiah’s power to heal. This sign heralded the beginning of Jesus’s tensions with the Jerusalem religious establishment and began their determination to kill him (v. 18).

5:14 EVIL AND SUFFERING, Repentance—Physical suffering is not the worst thing humans endure. An invalid for thirty-eight years was healed. Then he faced the most difficult decision of his life. How would he act as a well person? Jesus called him to step out in faith, give God the credit, and stop fearing religious leaders and their power structures. Life in fear instead of faith would lead to greater problems than he had ever faced. Freedom from suffering should lead to repentance and faith. See note on 9:1-4.

5:14 SIN, Individual Choice—Sin is not a permanent, unchangeable characteristic of our lives. Jesus tells those who would follow him to quit sinning. That is his expectation. Those who seriously commit life to him do stop. Sin is no longer the identifying mark of believers. Those who do not choose in Christ to stop sinning face eternal condemnation. This does not mean a person becomes perfect and never sins. It does mean the person does not consciously live continuously in sin. We root out known sin and actively strive for perfection.

5:16-17 CREATION, Continuous—Though God rested after creation (Gn 2:2), he did not cease to be active. Jesus saw his role as continuing the creative work of God by helping people who had pressing needs.

5:17 JESUS CHRIST, Mission—Jesus’s mission was the same as God’s. Both work ceaselessly to accomplish it. Human legalistic traditions could not prevent Jesus from accomplishing the Father’s will.

5:17-19 REVELATION, Actions—Jesus is the One through whom God is revealed and works. Since God never rests from doing good, the Son never stops doing good. God revealed his own character through Jesus’s actions and words (v. 36).

5:17-18 GOD, One God—Jesus’s identification of himself with God appeared blasphemous to the Jews because by this time they clearly perceived that there is only one God. A major problem of the OT was the people’s tendency to worship other gods, compromising the uniqueness of the one true God. They learned their lesson well in captivity and now reacted sharply in defense of the one God. In the rest of this chapter, note the many ways Jesus shares the power and authority of his Father in the works that he does. This can only be understood properly in the light of our doctrine of the Trinity, one God known in three Persons. See notes on Mt 3:16-17; 16:16-17,27.

5:18-27 JESUS CHRIST, God—Jesus implied he was equal with God by his intimate reference to God as “My Father” (v. 17) and by claiming a joint mission. Jesus is completely dependent on the Father (3:34; 7:28; 8:26,42; 9:4; 12:49). Jesus can work because the Father in love entrusts work to him. A major task of the Son is to give eternal life through his resurrection. This makes the Son the standard of judgment and the Judge. Relation to him determines eternal life or condemnation. The Son deserves all the honor the Father does.

5:21-24 LAST THINGS, Judgment—Jesus claimed to be the unique Son of God the Father and insisted that he was given the same power over death that the Father has (v. 21). That power over physical death provides hope to believers to be faithful to their Lord even in the face of persecution by those who can kill the body. This power over death is of crucial importance to a Christian view of death. Among the greater works of Jesus is his power to give spiritual life in the present time, which continues into eternity (v. 24). This power is commensurate with Christ’s power to raise the dead. Spiritual life begins at the point of conversion and transcends death (v. 24). Another of Jesus’s greater works is that of judgment (Ac 10:42). The power over physical and spiritual life and the conducting of judgment attest to the divine sonship of Jesus. Resurrection and judgment are closely connected eschatological events. The first of these was foreshadowed in Jesus’s earthly ministry by the quickening to life in spiritual birth, as well as in his raising of three persons back to continued earthly life (Jn 11:38-44; Mk 5:35-43; Lk 7:11-17). The future judgment was foreshadowed in Jesus’s temporal judgment in the condemnation of the religiously unrighteous and hypocritical in his earthly life (Mt 23).

5:24 SALVATION, Eternal Life—Eternal life is crossing over from death to life, from mere existence to life with a capital L. It is available right now to all those who hear Christ’s word and believe God who sent him.

5:25-29 LAST THINGS, Unbelievers’ Resurrection—Hearing the voice of the Son of God brings spiritual life to the spiritually dead. The hour for this possibility arrived in Jesus’s first coming. A future time is coming when those who are physically dead will be brought to life again, some to a bodily resurrection “to live” others to a bodily resurrection “to be condemned.” This is one of the clearest teachings concerning the future resurrection of unbelievers to the full, bodily experience of eternal condemnation.

5:27-30 JESUS CHRIST, Judgment—See note on Mk 10:45. Jesus has authority to exercise eternal judgment. Since he pleases God, his judgment is just.

5:31-40 EVANGELISM, Power—Different lines of evidence point to Jesus as the promised Messiah and Savior. Each type of testimony has power to convince. For the believer, Christ’s testimony is of top importance, but the unbeliever needs other evidence. John the Baptist provided important human testimony. Human testimony needs God’s confirming power to lead people to salvation. Jesus’s powerful ministry and miracles showed God’s approval. The inspired Scriptures give God’s convicting testimony to Jesus; yet study of Scripture does not lead to eternal life unless it leads to Jesus.

5:36-47 JESUS CHRIST, Fulfilled—Rightly understood, the OT testifies to the mission and ministry of Jesus. His mission is precisely what God said he would do in Scripture and what God told him to do as he ministered. Interpretation of Scripture that does not lead to Jesus is incomplete interpretation.

5:37-40,45,47 HOLY SCRIPTURE, Redemption—Jesus is the greatest revelation of God, revealed in Scripture and manifested in the flesh (chap. 1). Some who claimed to seek and follow God refused to see and believe Jesus. Diligent study of Scripture is fruitless if it does not lead to faith in Christ. Faith, not facts, is the ultimate purpose of Scripture study. Jesus told the religious leaders that if they believed Moses, the one on whom they had set their hope, they would believe Jesus. He warned that at the judgment, Moses would be their accuser.