At this point the narrator’s interest in Jesus’ itinerary begins to wane. The events of chapters 5, 6, and 7 are introduced by the vague connective phrase, meta tauta (some time later, 5:1; “some time after this,” 6:1; “after this,” 7:1). The transition from chapter 4 to chapter 5 is a natural one in that a person appropriately goes to Jerusalem from Galilee for a feast of the Jews (v. 1), but the transition between chapters 5 and 6 is more awkward. Jesus is assumed to be still in Jerusalem at the end of chapter 5, but the beginning of chapter 6 finds him in Galilee about to cross from one side of Lake Galilee to the other (6:1). For this reason, some scholars have proposed that the order of chapters 5 and 6 be reversed: Jesus is in Galilee at the end of chapter 4, continues there in chapter 6, and finally returns to Jerusalem in chapter 5! But this proposal leaves unexplained the beginning of chapter 7, which does not say that Jesus returned to Galilee but implies that he was already there, traveling from town to town (7:1). The rearrangement of chapters creates as many problems as it solves. Its fallacy lies in the attempt to make the Gospel more chronological than it actually intends to be. The same phrase at the beginning of each of these chapters appears to mean no more than “the next thing I would like to tell is …” Having brought Jesus from Cana to Jerusalem and back to Cana again, the author now turns to other, more overtly theological concerns.
In view of this Gospel’s interest in the Jewish religious festivals (e.g., “Passover” in 2:13; 6:4; 11:55; 12:1; 13:1; “Tabernacles,” or Sukkoth, in 7:2; “Dedication,” or Hanukkah, in 10:22), it is surprising that the festival mentioned in verse 1 is not named. On the assumption that Passover is meant, some have assumed that Jesus was in Jerusalem for three Passovers (chaps. 2, 5, and 12–19) and spent one other in Galilee (chap. 6). Others have suggested the Feast of Tabernacles, or the Feast of Weeks (i.e., Pentecost). But the author has left the festival anonymous, either deliberately or because the story was handed down to him without an exact temporal setting. If it was left anonymous deliberately, it may have been to conceal a departure from chronological order. Possibly the story of the healing at the pool was originally preserved as a sample of the (otherwise unspecified) miracles performed at Jesus’ first Passover in Jerusalem (2:23; 3:2). Once the story of the temple cleansing had been transferred to that early Passover visit (2:13–22), the tendency would have been for it to overshadow the miracles associated with that visit. The account found in 5:1–18 is perhaps one of those miracle stories “rescued” from its original setting, given a new literary setting of its own, and made the basis both of Jesus’ ongoing controversy with the Jewish authorities and of his self-revelation as the giver of life.
In any case, this was the miracle that Jesus later singled out as a focus of opposition to him (7:21–23), even though he was known to have performed others as well (7:31; cf. 6:2). It is presented as a sample of the kind of action that from an early point in his ministry produced conflict over Sabbath observance and over Jesus’ personal claims (vv. 16, 18).
The scene is described carefully (vv. 2–5). The healing occurs at a place where healings were expected. Bethesda was apparently a healing shrine consisting of a pool with an intermittent spring popularly believed to have healing properties. Jesus surveys a scene in which a large number of the sick and the disabled have gathered for healings. Attention is focused on one man in particular who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years (v. 5). Though it is often assumed that he was a paralytic (cf. Mark 2:1–12), the text does not say so. Like the government official’s son at Capernaum, he is diagnosed only as being an invalid (cf. 4:46). The narrator’s interest is not in the medical particulars of the case (except for the duration of the man’s condition) but in the cure—and, even more, its consequences.
The irony of the cure is that Jesus bypasses the healing sanctuary that has just been so carefully described and heals the sick man (just as he did the government official’s son) with a spoken word: Get up! Pick up your mat and walk (v. 8; cf. Mark 2:9, 11). The form of this command is what determines the consequences. The sick man is immediately healed and does exactly what Jesus tells him. At this point the narrator pauses to supply a necessary bit of information: It was the Sabbath (v. 9b; cf. 9:14). The man had broken the Sabbath law, not by being healed, but by carrying his mat (v. 10). Instead of accepting responsibility for his actions, he blames the man who made me well (v. 11), but Jesus’ identity is still unknown to him, and Jesus has slipped away in the crowd (v. 13). Neither the man nor the Jewish authorities “find” Jesus. It is Jesus who “finds” the man nearby in the temple area and speaks to him (v. 14a). The initiative throughout belongs to Jesus. His identity, his goings and comings, are known only to those to whom he discloses himself (cf. 9:35–37). Yet he knows the character and circumstances of the man he has just healed. Echoing the synoptic story of the paralytic, in which healing and the forgiveness of sins are virtually equated (Mark 2:5–11), Jesus warns the man to stop sinning or something worse may happen to you (v. 14b; cf. Jesus’ warning to the adulterous woman in 8:11, at the end of a passage inserted into John’s Gospel by later copyists: “Go now and leave your life of sin”). The question of whether the man’s sickness was a punishment for his sins is not addressed directly in this story, as it is in the subsequent account of the healing of the man born blind (cf. 9:1–3), nor are the two situations identical. The sick man of Bethesda ignores Jesus’ warning as if he had not heard. His encounter with Jesus at the temple means only that he can now identify Jesus to the Jewish authorities as the one responsible for his violation of the Sabbath (v. 15). At this point he disappears from the narrative, and the reader never learns if something worse happened to him or not. His main function has been to precipitate a conflict between Jesus and the Jewish authorities that will continue to the end of this Gospel.
The conflict develops in two stages. The first stage centers on the issue at hand, the law of the Sabbath (v. 16). Jesus speaks to this issue concisely and dramatically (v. 17), but his reply forces the conflict into a second stage, centering on Jesus’ claim to be God’s son and thus equal with God (v. 18). Jesus’ response to this charge is dramatic but hardly concise, for it extends all the way to the end of the chapter (vv. 19–47). Verses 16 and 18 have in common an introductory form that highlights these two stages:
And this was why the Jews persecuted Jesus … (v. 16, RSV)
This was why the Jews sought all the more to kill him … (v. 18, RSV)
The alternating verses, accordingly, also begin with a common form,
Jesus said to them/gave them this answer (Gr: apekrinato, vv. 17, 19).
In the Gospels Jesus is represented as replying in several ways to the charge that he or his disciples are guilty of breaking the Sabbath. Most of his answers are based on logic or on practical considerations (e.g., John 7:22–23; Mark 2:25–27; 3:4; Matt. 12:3–7, 11–12; Luke 13:15–16; 14:5), but at least one focuses on the person of Jesus himself: “So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath” (Mark 2:28 and parallels). His answer in John 5:17 belongs in the latter category: My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working. The background of this pronouncement lies in certain debates among Jewish rabbis and philosophers over the meaning of the biblical statements that God rested on the seventh day (Gen. 2:2–3; cf. Exod. 20:11). Their conclusion was that God did not actually stop working after six days, for if he had, the world would have ceased to exist. Instead, he simply ended his work of creation and began his work of sustaining and watching over the world (see, e.g., Philo, Allegory of the Laws I, 5f.). In this sense, God himself breaks the Sabbath. Building on this conclusion, Jesus argues that if God (whom he calls his Father) is still at work, it is appropriate and necessary that he also should work, even on the Sabbath. Jesus’ assumption is that his works are the works of God (cf. 4:34).
The Jewish authorities take offense, not at Jesus’ reference to the traditional discussion of God and the Sabbath, but at the phrase, my Father, with its implied claim that Jesus was God’s son in a unique sense (v. 18). To them it sounded as if he was making himself equal with God (something Jesus is said in Phil. 2:6 to have deliberately chosen not to do). The charge will be repeated in 10:33: “You, a mere man, claim to be God.” To any Jew familiar with the Old Testament, such a claim was equivalent to blasphemy (10:33; cf. Exod. 20:3; Deut. 6:4, 13–14). Only once before in the Gospel has Jesus spoken so openly of God as my Father (2:16), and the full extent of the hostility provoked by such language is only now becoming clear.
Additional Notes
5:1 A feast of the Jews: The words of the Jews serve as a reminder to Gentile readers of the historical situation. Some manuscripts have the definite article (“the feast of the Jews”), which could mean either Tabernacles (Sukkoth) or Passover. Although this reading is incorrect, it may preserve a memory that the events about to be recorded did in fact take place at one of Jesus’ Passover visits to Jerusalem.
5:2 Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool … which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. The description is probably intended for readers unfamiliar with the city. The text has supplied the word Gate, because the Greek word probatikē is simply an adjective meaning “of sheep.” When the Gospel writer wants to designate a location as being called something, he normally uses either the actual word “place” (as in 19:13, 17) or a more specific word, such as “town” (4:5, 11:54). In this case he is describing a pool, and it is on the pool that he wants to focus attention (cf. v. 7). If the Sheep Gate were a well-known location in Jerusalem (cf. Neh. 3:1; 12:39), it is natural that the pool in question would be located in relation to it.
Bethesda (“house of mercy”): Some ancient manuscripts read “Bethzatha.” The Copper Scroll found at Qumran (3Q15 11.12) alludes to twin pools (“Bethesdatain”: a type of Hebrew plural indicating duality). “Bethzatha” may represent an effort (whether by the Gospel writer or a later copyist) to transcribe in Greek the corresponding Aramaic plural, “Bethesdatha.” Archaeology, as well as later testimony of geographers and pilgrims, confirms the notion that the pool was double. See J. Finegan, Archeology of the New Testament (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), pp. 142–47; J. Wilkinson, Jerusalem as Jesus Knew It (London: Thames & Hudson, 1978), pp. 95–104.
5:3 At the end of this verse, a number of manuscripts add the words “and they waited for the moving of the waters.” Of these, there are some that continue with the words “From time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease he had” (NIV margin). These additions were made by scribes attempting to explain the sick man’s statement in v. 7. Probably the shorter addition was made first, as a point of reference for the clause “when the water is stirred” in v. 7. The longer addition was then attached as an explanation (based on popular legend) of why the waters became agitated from time to time. The truth in the legend is perhaps that the pool contained an intermittent spring that was thought to have healing properties. There is archaeological evidence that after A.D. 135 the pool was used by the Roman official cults as a pagan healing sanctuary sacred to the god Asclepius, and it is likely that already in Jesus’ time the place and its traditions were frowned on by orthodox Jews even while it was being frequented by Jews and pagans alike. See R. M. Mackowski, Jerusalem, City of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), pp. 79–83.
5:6 And learned: There is no reason to think (with GNB, “and he knew”) that Jesus’ knowledge at this point was supernatural (as, e.g., in 2:24–25). The aorist tense implies that Jesus found out how long the man had been sick, presumably by being told.
5:10 The law forbids you to carry your mat. Ironically, it would not have been against the Sabbath law for someone to carry the man on his mat or couch (cf. Mark 2:3). See Mishnah Shabbath 10:5. It was the carrying of the couch purposefully as an end in itself that was forbidden.
5:16 Because Jesus was doing these things. The imperfect tense, used consistently in this verse and in v. 18, suggests that the healing (and the authorities’ response to it) was typical of many incidents that could have been cited from the early days of Jesus’ ministry. The idea is that the authorities began persecuting him because this was the kind of thing he used to do even on the Sabbath. In the same way, the claim that God was “his own Father” (v. 18) is understood to have been made repeatedly.
5:17 Jesus said to them. The aorist middle form of the verb (apekrinato), instead of the passive used as a middle (apekrithē), occurs only here and in v. 19 out of more than seventy occurrences of the verb in John’s Gospel. Though it is the usual form in the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus, it is found only seven times in the New Testament and seems to be reserved for “solemn … or legal … utterance” (W. Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, 2d ed., rev. W. F. Arndt, F. W. Gingrich, and F. W. Danker [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979], p. 93). A good analogy to John 5:17, 19 is Luke 3:16, where John the Baptist makes a solemn declaration in response to no particular question he has been asked but simply to the hopes and thoughts of the people. So here, Jesus is not “answering” a specific question raised on a specific occasion but making a formal (and typical) defense of his behavior. His responses in v. 17 and in vv. 19–47 are therefore to be regarded as only loosely tied to their narrative context.
The Father and the Son
Jesus responds to the second charge brought against him by the authorities with a long discourse (vv. 19–47) introduced by the solemn formula, I tell you the truth (v. 19; cf. also vv. 24, 25). He begins by appearing to set limits to his authority as God’s unique son: The Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing (v. 19). But Jesus is not backing down, for his words reiterate the claim of verse 17 that the works he performs are the very works of God (v. 19). His language is like that of a parable; he is like a son apprenticed to a human father, learning by example and imitation (v. 20). His authority is absolute, not in spite of the fact that he does nothing by himself, but because of it. His authority is a derived authority. In all that he does he is subject to his Father and totally dependent on his Father’s power and love.
In his response, Jesus begins speaking mysteriously of himself in the third person as the Son, in much the same way that he speaks of himself in all the Gospels as the Son of Man. Son and Son of Man are used almost interchangeably in verses 26–27. Some have argued that terms such as the Son and the Father represent the confessional language of the Gospel writer (as perhaps they do in 3:16–18, 35–36). But the kinship of Son with Son of Man and the firm testimony of John’s Gospel that Jesus was actually accused of claiming divine sonship (5:18; 10:33–36) make it more likely that language of this kind goes back to Jesus (cf. Matt. 11:27/Luke 10:22; also, the voice at Jesus’ baptism in the Synoptics and Jesus’ address to God in prayer as “Abba,” or “Father”).
Jesus’ authority as the Son comes to expression in his deeds or “works” (v. 20, RSV). The works of the Father carried out by the Son are two: the giving of life and the executing of judgment. Jesus refers to this twofold work in verses 21–23 and again in verses 26–27, each time introducing the pronouncement with the same words:
Just as the Father … even so the Son (v. 21).
As the Father … so … the Son (v. 26).
If a distinction can be made between these two cycles, it is that the emphasis of the first is on the Son’s actual performance of the works (e.g., the healing of the sick man at the pool), while the second cycle looks rather at the underlying authority by which the Son gives life and carries out the judgment of God.
Interlocked with the two cycles are three pronouncements clarifying the time frame of the works of the Son (vv. 24, 25, 28–29). A distinction between present and future works was already hinted at in verse 20: “For the Father loves the Son, and shows him all that he himself is doing; and greater works than these will he show him, that you may marvel” (RSV). The tenses of the verbs suggest that the “greater works” are future. These are clearly set forth in verses 28–29: At the end of the age there will be a resurrection of all who have ever died, either to life with God, or to judgment (i.e., condemnation).
Even though this twofold resurrection was a common Jewish hope (at least among the Pharisees, Acts 23:6; 24:15), Jesus suggests that it will be a cause for amazement (vv. 20, 28) because God will accomplish these “greater works” through his Son, who is also Son of Man (v. 27). But if the God of creation is still at work in Jesus (v. 17), his power to bring consummation is already at work in Jesus (vv. 24, 25). In such miracles as the healing at Bethesda the long-expected resurrection to life comes to realization in advance. The “greater works” are yet future, but Jesus’ emphasis (indicated by the twice-repeated I tell you the truth in vv. 24–25) is on what is already happening in his ministry. Eternal life is available now. Those who hear Jesus’ message and believe in the Father who sent him will never face judgment or condemnation. They have already crossed over from death to life (v. 24; cf. 3:18). The next verse makes the same point in language more closely conformed to that of verses 28–29. A comparison can be made as follows:
Verse 25
Verses 28–29
a time is coming and has now come
a time is coming
when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live
when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out
The differences in wording show that verses 28–29 refer to a literal, general resurrection at the end of the age, while verse 25 (like v. 24) refers to something that Jesus considered a present experience. In his ministry the sick were being healed, and those who were spiritually dead were coming alive at the message he was bringing from the Father.
If verses 28–29 represent conventional eschatology (i.e., theological teaching about the future and the end of this age), verses 24–25 represent what C. H. Dodd and others have called realized eschatology. What is supposed to happen at the end is already happening now—in a sense. It is not the Gospel writer’s purpose (any more than it was Jesus’ purpose) to deny the traditional future hope. The future events, after all, are the greater things that will amaze the hearers. The purpose is rather to use this future hope to help explain what Jesus has been doing and what he will be doing in the chapters that follow. He is giving life, both physically and spiritually, even now; he is also executing judgment, for as people accept or reject the message he proclaims, they are even now condemned or vindicated (see, e.g., 3:18–19; 5:30–47; 9:39–41).
The goal of Jesus’ twofold work is that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father (v. 23). Because Jesus’ work and the work of the Father are the same (cf. vv. 19–20), a person’s response to Jesus is by definition that person’s response to God as well. Jesus is God’s agent or representative, with power to act on the Father’s behalf. Later he will extend this principle to his disciples acting on his behalf (13:20; cf. Matt. 10:40; Luke 10:16). His intent that all may honor the Son is universal in scope, like John the Baptist’s intent “that all might believe through him” (1:7, RSV). But the appended warning, He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him (v. 23b), strikes a more negative note, anticipating both the outcome of Jesus’ public ministry in general (e.g., 8:42, 49; 12:37, 43, 48) and of this confrontation in particular (5:37–44).
Additional Notes
5:22 The Father judges no one. It should be noticed that the parallel between life-giving and judgment in vv. 21–22 is not perfect. The Father raises the dead and so does the Son, but the Father does not judge, having delegated all judgment to the Son. This distinction, however, is perhaps more apparent than real. Elsewhere Jesus denies that he came to judge the world (3:17) or that he judges those who reject his message (12:47; cf. 8:15), but he makes these disclaimers simply to emphasize that his intent is a saving intent. They do not exclude the fact that judgment does proceed from his ministry (cf. 3:18–19; 8:16; 12:48). In a similar way the disclaimer here about the Father does not exclude the fact that the Father does judge (with and through the Son).
5:26 To have life in himself. The same Greek construction is translated in 6:53 as “have life in you.” The idea that the Son “has life in himself” is understood within the framework of his dependence on the Father for his life. To “have life in oneself” apparently means to have God’s life as a secure possession that cannot be taken away. In itself, the phrase does not include the notion that one has the power to confer that life on others, but such translations as “source of life” (both GNB and Jerusalem Bible) can be defended on the basis of the context, especially the parallelism with v, 21.
5:27 The Son of Man: Although the expression Son of Man in Greek lacks the definite article (the only place in the Gospels where this is so), it is still to be taken as a title. The absence of the article is normal in Greek when a predicate noun precedes the verb “to be” (as here) even if the noun is understood as definite. It is also true that “Son of Man” lacks the definite article in the LXX Greek translation of Dan. 7:13 (cf. Rev. 1:13; 14:14), but this is not a good parallel because the phrase there is a simile, not a title: i.e., “one like a son of man” or “what looked like a human being” (GNB).
5:28 Do not amazed at this, i.e., do not be surprised at the present authority of the Son to give life and to judge, for he will carry out even greater resurrection and judgment at the last day (cf. v. 20).
5:29 Those who have done good … those who have done evil: A final judgment on the basis of works (with the appropriate rewards and punishment) was an integral part of the Jewish expectation of the end. Jesus is represented here as endorsing that expectation, but in the context of John’s Gospel v. 28 should be understood in relation to 3:20–21: those who have done good are those who “come into the light,” while those who have done evil are those who refuse to come. In the immediate context, v. 24 makes this unmistakably clear.