John 5 - CSB Study Bible for Women

5:1–10:21 Chapters 5–10 represent another literary unit, describing the events that took place when Jesus was in Jerusalem for the religious festivals and supplementing the Synoptic record of Jesus’s Galilean ministry. John meticulously shows that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Jewish festivals: Passover, Shelters, and Hanukkah (Dedication). In John’s Gospel the feeding of the 5,000 and Jesus’s walking on water, which did not occur in Jerusalem, are recorded as taking place around the time of the Passover and followed by Jesus’s discourse on “the bread of life” (chap. 6), in which the symbolism is closely related to the bread of the Passover meal.

5:1-18 The healing of this paralytic on the Sabbath sparked a controversy with the Jewish leaders, who began to plot how they might kill Jesus (vv. 16-18).

The Sheep Gate was one of the entrances carved into Jerusalem’s city wall. The pools were actually deep stone reservoirs collecting rainwater to be used for drinking and other necessities. Water has always been a precious resource in the Middle East. The pool named Bethesda (Hb, “house of mercy, house of flowing water”) was especially prominent as a gathering place for the disabled and maimed because the people believed healing properties were in its waters (vv. 3-4). The tradition concerning “the moving of the water” (see textual note on v. 3) is not found in extant Greek manuscripts dated prior to AD 400. This brief section may have been based on popular tradition and thus have been added by a scribe as an effort to explain the bubbly flow of the water that occurred from time to time (v. 7). This insignificant textual problem does not undercut the miracle or clear meaning of the text in any way.

Near the modern church of St. Anne is a group of pools many archaeologists have identified as this popular ancient site. At this pool Jesus singled out a man and asked if he wanted to get well (v. 6). Jesus presupposed a relationship between the man’s illness and past sin (v. 14). What that sin might have been is not indicated. John made no mention of the man’s response to Jesus after their second encounter but reported that the Jews began to persecute Jesus as a result of His healing the man on the Sabbath. The man’s negative attitude was apparent and seemingly did not change. He was so indifferent and ungrateful that he did not even inquire about Jesus’s identity (v. 13).

5:16-47 Jesus’s disregard for Sabbath regulations was not the only thing upsetting the Jewish religious leaders. They actually sought His life because of His calling God [H]is own Father, thus making [H]imself equal to God (v. 18). John, of course, states his own purpose as showing that Jesus is indeed the Son of God (20:31).

The parallel between the Son and the Father is continually asserted by John. Never is the Son purported to be in charge of the Father, but He is sent by the Father, obedient to the Father, committed to glorifying the Father (vv. 23,27,30; 6:44; 8:28-29). The Son was given power by the Father to render judgment (5:27). Jesus describes His relationship with the Father as being one in which He is ontologically (of the same essence or being) equal with the Father yet functionally subordinate to Him.

Human action is a manifestation of human commitment (v. 29; see also Eph 2:10; Jms 2:14-17). But there is no hint of a salvation by works. These verses are among the few eschatological references in John. The idea is that human works simply bear testimony to decisions in the hearts of individuals—whether to follow righteousness or wickedness.

Jesus presented four witnesses that affirmed His claims (Jn 5:31-47): John the Baptist (vv. 33-35); His own works (v. 36); the Father (vv. 37-38); and the Scriptures (vv. 39-47). The Jews were tied to the legacy of the great lawgiver Moses (v. 45).

Jesus affirmed that Moses wrote Scripture (v. 46), and these verses are critically important to affirming Jesus’s view of Scripture. He believed that Moses wrote the Pentateuch. Either He was wrong or He accommodated Himself to the Jewish tradition or He was correct in affirming the Mosaic authorship of the Torah. The latter, of course, is the only option consistent with His deity.