Resurrection power in Jesus's voice (5:1-30)

Jesus seems to have been on His own at this point: there's no mention of any of the disciples. It seems they returned to their homes and jobs, while Jesus was on His first Galilean crusade. We don't know for sure which Feast it was, that Jesus had gone to: but majority opinion favours the Feast of Trumpets, in mid-September. Jesus would have observed all the ceremonial finery and prescribed liturgy of the Temple ceremonies.

In the north-east corner of the city wall, near the Temple, there was a gate through which sheep from Bethlehem were brought to supply the sacrifices. By it was a pair of large pools, surrounded by sheltering porches: one on each side, and one in between the two pools. These were crowded with people suffering chronic illnesses, because occasionally the waters would bubble, and the first person to get in would be healed. Legend had it that an angel stirred up the waters from time to time, giving them healing powers; under the Greek empire, the site had been dedicated to their god of healing, Aesclepion. A kind of 'New Age' or alternative medicine thing, as far as the Jews were concerned..

Of course, because of their disabilities, none of these people could actually get into the pool under their own steam. So there would have been relatives, friends and well-wishers there too, to help them in the scramble to be first in. The chances of success, and being healed, were probably less than winning the National Lottery! Many were brought, but eventually were taken home disillusioned. One man was known to have been there thirty-eight years. His family had long since given up hope but he insisted on being left there, even though there was no chance of him getting into the pool unaided. His only virtue was his dogged persistence in hoping against hope: some might have called it, 'being in denial'.

We don't know which feast it was, that Jesus had come up to Jerusalem for. The most likely candidate is the 'Feast of Trumpets' in mid-September. Whichever it was, the city would have been crowded with unfamiliar faces. The paralysed man didn't know Him, and didn't ask for healing. As far as we know, Jesus had no entourage to mark him out as special. but in the melee He chose this man to showcase another aspect of His glory.

He said to the man, "Do you want to be healed?" A strange question, you might think: but being disabled, and near the Temple exit, he may have received lots of 'alms' from worshippers seeking brownie points with God. Recovery after all this time, would have meant taking up his responsibilities in life all over again: and he was getting on in years.

If the man felt annoyed by this question and its undertone, he didn't show it. He just pointed out the reality that his friends and family had long since given up waiting with him, and gone on with their everyday lives. He could apparently shuffle on his bottom, but never fast enough to be first.

Without any fuss, and without raising His voice, Jesus simply said, "Rise, pick up your sleeping mat, and walk". And the man did! But while his back was turned as he rolled up his airbed, Jesus disappeared into the crowd, and the healed man had no opportunity even to thank Him or find out who He was. After looking around for a while, he set off to go home, carrying his sleeping mat. But as he passed the Temple, some of the super-religious Jews pointed out that amongst their thirty-nine proscribed forms of activity on a shabbat, was carrying anything.

He explained that he'd just been healed from a lifetime of paralysis, but they weren't interested in that. He said that he was just following his healer's instructions: but couldn't tell them who it was had healed him. But he picked up that they weren't happy at all, and made a mental note that it might be wise to tell them, if he ever did find out who the mystery man was. Otherwise he might be excommunicated, or so he had heard (9:22).

For thirty-eight years he'd been excluded from the Temple precincts, as disabled people were classed as spiritually unclean and unfit to enter God's Presence. So after dropping off his mat, he came back, presumably to give thanks to God for the miracle he'd experienced. There, to his surprise, he found Jesus - looking for him. Jesus told him that the root cause of his paralysis, had been personal sin; and warned him never to risk causing it to recur.

Now we know that Jesus didn't believe that all sickness was down to personal sin: Jews believed that it could equally be the result of something one's parents had done, or that had happened in the womb - and occasionally, God would allow sickness purely for His own glory (9:1-3). But on this particular occasion, he warned the man never to sin in that way again, lest something worse befall him. Something worse than permanent paralysis? Scary thought.

There is no mention of the man realising that Jesus was the Messiah, or coming to faith in any way. Rather, he goes off straight away to cover his own back with the authorities, by telling them who it was had told him to 'break the sabbath'. So why on earth did Jesus choose him, out of all the multitudes by the pool, to be healed? It just landed Him in deep doodoo with the authorities: in fact, they began trying to work out how to get rid of him completely: how to murder him!

The answer lies in the next section: the larger purpose of this display of God's amazing grace, was to provide a physical example of how Jesus would one day raise everyone from the dead! In His heartfelt love for His people the Jews, Jesus was willing even to provoke them to thoughts of murdering Him, if by any means He could bring them to understand that accepting Him was vital to their salvation. [Later, the Apostle Paul would emulate Jesus's example in this respect (Rom 9:1-3)]

Keeping the sabbath had been a key battleground when Antiochus Epiphanies, the Greek emperor and prototype antichrist, was trying to eradicate Jewish culture. A few diehards had held to it, even when it could cost them their lives, and their movement had morphed later into the Pharisees as we know them. Heroic resistance had ossified into spiritual myopia, and keeping shabbat had become the be-all-and-end-all of their religious observance.

There are several other occasions when Jesus is challenged on this issue, and Jesus answers in a variety of ways. The fourth commandment just forbade work of the weekday variety, without going into detail. But the Jews had created layer upon layer of further legalism - thirty-nine different ways in which one could break this commandment according to them, with each of the thirty-nine having multiple sub-categories. It was actually lawful to heal on the sabbath, according to Jesus (Matt 12:9-12; Mk 2:23-28; Lk 13:10-17). He declared Himself Lord of the sabbath. Later in John, Jesus declares that if it is OK to circumcise on the sabbath, then its certainly OK to heal (Jn 7:21-24).

When they challenged Jesus about telling the man to carry his sleeping mat, His answer inflamed them ten times more. Although the sabbath commemorated God resting from His work on the seventh day of Creation, everybody knew that God couldn't have completely ceased. Without His power sustaining it, the Universe would have ceased to be. In saying, "My Father has been working until now, and I have been working", Jesus was claiming to have been working with the Father from eternity past, up till now. And they rightly took that to mean that Jesus was making Himself equal with God. The first commandment had taught them, 'You shall have no other gods besides Me', yet here was someone seemingly claiming to be their God's peer.

John just says, 'Jesus answered them ..' (v18), without telling us what was the question! But we can imagine the conversation went something like this:
"OK, so you think I'm setting myself up as some kind of rival to Yahweh, right? You've got totally the wrong end of the stick. I can't do anything on my own: I only do what I see Him doing, and I copy Him exactly. So what you see Me do, is what He is doing. Because He loves Me, He shows Me everything - and you'll see even more extraordinary things. Because He's given Me authority to judge all mankind, which means I will be raising the dead, just as He does."

In this paragraph we have perhaps the clearest explanation of what John 1:14 means, that Jesus is the only-begotten Son of the Father. You'll remember from that study, that being begotten does not refer to Jesus being made man, but to 'eternal filiation' - eternal fathering and eternal sonship. Here we see that no matter how long eternity is (!), there is never a point at which Jesus no longer needs His Father, and never a point when the Father stops showing His Son everything He is doing.

His Sonship did not mean He was anything less than fully God, fully equal with the Father. Far from blasphemously exalting Himself, He 'did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant and coming in the likeness of men' (Phil 2:6-7). And He goes on to try to explain that not only has He been working as long as God has, but He has always done only what He sees the Father doing. He always operates in perfect harmony and complete unity with His Father. And the Father always involves Him in everything He is doing: He shows Him everything, and will involve Jesus in even more jaw-dropping miracles.

The Pharisees believed in the resurrection of the dead: they knew that Abraham had trusted that God could raise Isaac from the dead, if he offered him as a human sacrifice. Jesus says that in the same way, He too can give life to whom He will. In doing so, He is in effect judging them as worthy of resurrection. And the Father has given Him this authority to judge, specifically so that all should honour and worship Him, just as they do the Father. Failure to honour the Son, dishonours the Father who sent Him (v23).

The chief priests and rulers considered themselves qualified to judge whether Jesus was Messiah. The Sanhedrin was the highest court in the land. But Jesus was telling them that rather than them judging Him, He would judge them. And the judgement would be based on whether they had honoured and worshipped Him as God! Whether they had accepted His word and believed that He was speaking for God (v24).

He goes on to say that very soon, the dead would hear His voice, and those who heard would live (v24). Once again, the phrase 'the hour is coming' refers specifically to the hour of His death: and we know that when He died, many saints emerged from their tombs outside Jerusalem and appeared to the Jerusalemites (Matt 27:51-53). But it may also refer to Christ's second coming, when 'the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. And then we shall always be with the Lord." (iThess 4:16-17).

Looking even further into the future, He says that eventually a day will arrive when every single soul that has ever lived on earth, will hear His voice and come forth to be judged by Him. There will be many surprises, as people who thought themselves worthy are turned away into outer darkness, and others who felt themselves utterly unworthy were welcomed into the warmth of the Father's House (Matt 25:31-46). Jesus's judgement will be absolutely righteous and completely free of self-interest, because His only criterion will be not His own glory, but that of the Father (v28-30).

In effect, Jesus says, this judgement has already taken place, for those who have accepted Him (v24). Those who have accepted their own sinfulness and need for the Lamb of God to take their place under God's judgement, and who work out their obedience to His words day by day, have already passed from death to life. They already have this resurrection life, this Zoe life which only Jesus can give.

How do you react, when you feel judged by others? (I know my pride rises up and says, 'Who do you think you are, criticising me?') How ready are you to criticise or condemn others? All judgement belongs only to God, and to Him alone. By His standards, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And 'the wages of sin is death'. Will you shout and wave your fist at Him when He judges you, telling Him that He doesn't understand what a hard life you had, and that it was all really His fault? It will all be to no avail. Far better to accept His judgement today, and accept the astonishing piea deal He is offering: that if you will only confess and believe, He will accept His Son's death on the Cross as having paid your penalty in full.

Jesus says, "Judge not, lest ye be judged. For with what judgement you judge, you will be judged: and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. Why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me remove the speck from your eye, when there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite!" (Matt 7:1-5)

Paul tells us that he doesn't even trust his own opinion of himself, but asks the Lord to be his judge (1Cor 4:1-5). David prays, 'Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting' (Ps 139:23,24)

Jesus's justification of these incredible claims

Jesus acknowledges that if He was testifying about Himself, His testimony would be discounted (v31) unless there were external corroboration. And yet, whilst He has come in His Father’s Name and is being rejected, others who come in their own name will be believed (v43). Apparently in the fifty years after Jesus's death, the Sanhedrin accepted sixty-five false messiahs, such as Bar Kochba.

V32-35: John the Baptist was like a powerful searchlight, picking out Jesus. For a time some of the Jewish leaders had accepted his authority as a prophet: but this meant accepting his testimony about Jesus. So eventually they had to deny John's authority, if they were to deny Jesus's. This was difficult, as the population by and large revered him long after his death (Matt 21:23-27).

V36: the miracles bear even weightier witness that God sent Him. Only God could do some of the things that Jesus did, such as raising Lazarus from the dead. So either Jesus was God, or was collaborating with God in the heavenlies as He had collaborated with His father Joseph in their earthly carpentry workshop.

V37: the Father Himself, the Invisible God, has testified of Me. At Jesus's baptism, the Father had said, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased". At the Transfiguration, God had repeated this and added, 'Listen to Him!'. Though they had never heard or seen God, they had memorised the Torah and the prophets from beginning to end, and yet Jesus says, "You do not have His word abiding in you, because you do not believe the One whom He has sent." The whole purpose of the Torah and the Prophets, was to testify of Jesus: but they were not willing to come to Him to receive Zoe life. If we are unwilling to receive Christ, the scriptures cannot make sense, no matter how much we study them. Instead they had a religion based on human merit in keeping the commandments (v39), which is why they are so focussed on the finer points of the Oral Law. They were focussed on receiving honour from one another, not from God.

Rather than Jesus's words being the standard by which they are judged, as will be for the rest of humanity, their accuser will be Moses. They trust in him, but don’t believe his writings! He had prophesied of a future Prophet like him, who would speak everything that God commanded Him to say: and God would condemn anyone who refused to hear His words, which He would be speaking in God’s Name. (Deut 18:15-19)