Chapter & Verse in John – “Not Seeing the Forest Because of the Trees”

I know I’m not the only one who is old enough to remember the controversy surrounding the 2000 Presidential Election that was contested with Al Gore and George W. Bush Jr. as the two candidates from the major parties. On election night Florida was initially called as going to the eventual President, Bush. Then it was too close to call. Then we were treated to weeks and weeks of recounts and entertained with highly amusing tales about voter intent because of hanging chads and dimpled chads and three corner chads and one corner chads and ballot design. Then the courts got involved and, of course, everyone had an opinion about the matter. After all, it was one of the most significant political controversies in our nation since the Lewinski Scandal under President Clinton, or the Iran-Contra Scandal under President Reagan, or the October Surprise of President Carter, or the Watergate Hotel Scandal with President Nixon.

My, but we do seem to love our political dramas and controversies, don’t we?

Today, as we enter our twenty-fourth week studying the Gospel of John, six full months and we’re still only in the fifth chapter, we’re going to be directly addressing the controversy that arose when Jesus healed the paralytic man at the pool of Bethesda, a healing that we discussed last week. This week, I’ll invite everyone to turn with me in their Bibles to John 5:9-18 as we address the aftermath of that healing, beginning in verse 9:

⁹ And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked.

And that day was the Sabbath. ¹⁰ The Jews therefore said to him who was cured, “It is the Sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your bed.”

¹¹ He answered them, “He who made me well said to me, ‘Take up your bed and walk.’”

¹² Then they asked him, “Who is the Man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?” ¹³ But the one who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, a multitude being in that place. ¹⁴ Afterward Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, “See, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you.”

¹⁵ The man departed and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.

¹⁶ For this reason the Jews persecuted Jesus, and sought to kill Him, because He had done these things on the Sabbath. ¹⁷ But Jesus answered them, “My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.”

¹⁸ Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God. ¹⁹ Then Jesus answered and said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner.

Now, as I’ve already said, today we’re going to be dealing heavily with the controversies that surround Jesus’ healing of the paralytic man at the pool of Bethesda, a healing we discussed last week. In order to see what lessons there are that we can learn from the controversy we must first understand the root cause, or causes, of the disputes and controversies.

As we begin to dig into the controversy and see exactly why it was that the Jewish leaders took issue with Jesus performing this miracle we need to understand that, within the framework of John’s Gospel, this is one of the major events that starts the rulers in their persecutions of Jesus and the statement in verse 16 that they sought to kill Jesus makes it quite clear that they were serious¹. As for the controversy itself, there are really two major factors that we need to look at.

The first part of the performing of this miracle that the Jewish religious leadership, because we see that the leaders are identified as the instigators and not the general populace, had a problem with was that Jesus did it on the Sabbath². We know it was the Sabbath because the leaders that question the invalid specifically tell him that bearing a burden on the Sabbath is sinful. Sabbath breaking itself was a significant offense that was punishable by death³, the Mishnah specifically forbade thirty-nine different types of work on the Sabbath⁴, and the Old Testament references for why carrying a burden was forbidden on the Sabbath are found in Exodus 20:10, Nehemiah 13:19-20, and Jeremiah 17:21-22 and those verses each say, beginning with Exodus 20:10:

¹⁰ but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates.

When we turn to Nehemiah 13:19-20 we read:

¹⁹ So it was, at the gates of Jerusalem, as it began to be dark before the Sabbath, that I commanded the gates to be shut, and charged that they must not be opened till after the Sabbath. Then I posted some of my servants at the gates, so that no burdens would be brought in on the Sabbath day. ²⁰ Now the merchants and sellers of all kinds of wares lodged outside Jerusalem once or twice.

Finally, in Jeremiah 17:21-22 we find this passage:

²¹ Thus says the Lord: “Take heed to yourselves, and bear no burden on the Sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem; ²² nor carry a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath day, nor do any work, but hallow the Sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers.

Now, the first of these passages is from the Ten Commandments, given to Moses from the hand of God while the other two come from prophets that were sent to Israel. However, when we consider each of these passages, and the two from the prophets in particular, we find that it is not the bearing of burdens on the Sabbath that is unlawful, but rather bearing burdens for the purposes of engaging in commerce⁵ which the invalid is clearly not doing. Still, by this point in time Jewish history and tradition has taken the bearing of burdens and expanded it⁶, as we have already seen, to include some fairly obtuse things like accidentally carrying a needle in one’s garments as being sinful, something that seems very clearly to have never been intended.

It’s also interesting that the paralytic immediately rats out Jesus as his healer, verse 15 makes it very clear that this is what happens though the motives of the paralytic in doing so are less clear⁷. The most likely reason for this is that the paralytic would have been, potentially, facing the death penalty if he were convicted of breaking the Sabbath, as we have seen, and he also likely felt compelled to obey those he viewed as religious teachers⁸. Therefore, it seems most likely that the paralytic reports Jesus as his healer not to get Jesus into trouble, per se, but to explain who it was that had told him to break the Sabbath laws of Jewish tradition⁹.

We also see that, as soon as the invalid points out who healed him, the leaders are basically done with him. Any case they might have considered against the paralytic is disregarded as they instead choose to focus on Jesus. The paralytic’s reply indicates that he is of the belief that the one who told him to take up his bed has the authority to contradict tradition concerning the Sabbath¹⁰ and the rulers do not question the validity of the paralytic’s excuse, seemingly indicating that they too view Jesus as having the authority to contradict tradition, instead hastening off to confront Jesus¹¹.

When they confront Jesus we find the second, and much more significant, part of the controversy that surrounds this healing of the paralytic at Bethesda. When the leaders confront Jesus He tells them, in verse 17, that just as God works on the Sabbath so too does Jesus work. The Jews, rightly, understand this comment to be Jesus saying that His work and God’s work are one and the same¹². Jesus takes it farther than that, though, because He also claims God as His Father which transforms the conflict from one of Sabbath breaking to one of theological significance because His comments are considered to be blasphemous¹³. With this statement, Jesus confirms to us the truth of His dual nature as being fully human and fully divine as the Son of God and the Son of Man¹⁴. To the Jewish leaders, these claims were a denial of the essential monotheism of the Jewish religion which made them blasphemous, and blasphemy was regarded as a much more serious sin than Sabbath breaking even though both carried the death penalty¹⁵.

While Christians claim that God is our Father in a general sense, that is not the same as the claim that is being made here by Jesus as Jesus is stating that He is literally the Son of God and, therefore, on an equal footing with God¹⁶. In fact, it was concerning this passage and others like it that the early Church father Augustine wrote: “Behold, the Jews understood what the Arians would not understand.¹⁷” Of course, the Arians were well known for their beliefs that the Father and Son were separate with the Son being subordinate to the Father, and the Unitarians and Jehovah’s Witnesses share some of the same beliefs as the Arians though that is a topic for a different discussion.

So, the Jewish leaders at this point begin to actively count Jesus as an enemy, a blasphemer, and a rabble rouser and they start to really begin to look for some way to have Him arrested and dealt with.

Coming to an understanding of the controversies surrounding the healing of the paralytic at Bethesda we are now ready to examine the lessons we can learn from this passage of Scripture and the clearest of the two lessons we find is the need to avoid legalism. This is rather graphically illustrated for us in the fact that the paralytic had been healed from a disease that, in human terms, was incurable¹⁸. Yet, for all that, the Jewish leaders were more concerned with the fact that it had taken place on the Sabbath than they were amazed by the miracle that had taken place.

I think many of us have been guilty of being legalistic some times. We get so wrapped up in trying to do things just so and in trying to make sure other people do things just so that we lose sight of the Lord. As the old saying goes, you can’t see the forest because of the trees. We focus on one single tree and ignore the rest of the forest around us altogether. Similarly, just like the paralytic, we are all offered healing from a disease that we cannot cure on our own, sin.

Through addressing this legalism we also see that Christ provides us with what the true meaning and purpose of the Sabbath day really is. Even the Jews, by the 4^th Century at least, acknowledged that Jesus’ teaching concerning the Sabbath was correct. In fact, Rabbi Phineas writes in the early 4^th century that, “…though God ceased from His work on the world [i.e. creation in the narrower sense] He did not cease from His work on the unrighteous and the righteous [i.e. from His moral government] of the universe.¹⁸” We have already seen that the passages concerning the bearing of burdens deal with the bearing of burdens on the Sabbath for the purposes of engaging in commerce, which the paralytic was not doing.

Jesus, drawing on Genesis 2:2, teaches us that even on the Sabbath that God continues to work and this is something that was held by the Jews as even though the Lord rested from creative work on the Sabbath God still continued to sustain creation¹⁹. Since God did not rest from the work of sustaining creation on the Sabbath, neither does Jesus because the true Sabbath is not a rest from all activity but leisure for work of a higher character, such as the worship of God and acts of mercy which the healing at Bethesda clearly is²⁰.

Jesus equates this work of mercy on the Sabbath to the work of God in sustaining creation, even on the Sabbath²¹. In so doing Jesus references the end goal of salvation since, even on the Sabbath, God is still working for the salvation of humanity²². Just because it’s Sunday that doesn’t mean that salvation and grace and mercy stop working. Even on the Sabbath those things, which are for the betterment of humanity, are still in operation and, as such, God is still working even on the Sabbath. Since, even on the Sabbath, God is still providing works of mercy then the action of Christ in healing the paralytic on the Sabbath certainly still falls within the spirit of the law and are in accord with the highest sense of the law²³.

In providing this lesson and interpretation Jesus teaches us that: God is always working for salvation, that spiritual work and acts of mercy are lawful at all times, and that the hostility of seemingly well-meaning but misguided people can cause them to become bitter against true Christianity²⁴. Jesus teaches us, also, here that human need must always be helped as we are able and that it is our calling, as Christians to do our best to display a Christ-like compassion²⁵.

The other lesson we find in this passage is found in Jesus’ words to the paralytic that he should “sin no more.” In saying this we see that Jesus is not only concerned with the physical well-being of the person that has been healed, but also with their spiritual health²⁶. In declaring the invalid well Jesus is speaking of a wholeness, physical and spiritual, not previously possessed by the paralytic and reminding him of how precious that is²⁷.

At the same time, Jesus is letting the invalid and us know that if we, as human beings, do not change our ways for the better then a greater calamity than physical infirmity will befall us²⁸. The infirmity that Jesus is, specifically, speaking of is sin and the wages thereof. Like the invalid, who certainly must have had some fixed habits in his life, we too have fixed habits in our lives and some of those habits are damaging and sinful which harm us physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually and the effects of which are extremely long lasting since they can be eternal. We know that sin is damaging to us because when we sin we feel guilt and remorse. When we sin we damage our relationships with God, with ourselves, and with other people. If we do not accept the grace, mercy, and forgiveness offered to us on the Cross then an even greater calamity, eternal separation from the Lord, will befall us.

So, like the invalid, all of humanity must change its ways lest a greater harm should befall us. All of sinned. All are imperfect. All are in need of the grace, mercy, and forgiveness offered to us by Jesus on the Cross. For those who fail to accept the offered grace the fate of eternal separation from the Lord, far worse than physical infirmity, will befall them.

Today, we have explored John 5:9-18 and in these verses we have found some of the significant controversies that attached themselves to Jesus after he performed the miracle of healing the paralytic at the pool of Bethesda. We have explored the controversies directly and, in gaining a deeper understanding of them, we have discovered two lessons about the importance of avoiding legalism in our own lives and we have found that Jesus was every bit as concerned with the spiritual well-being of the invalid as He is concerned, and as we should be concerned, with our spiritual well-being.

Works Cited

1. Richard Henshaw, ed. Rensberger, “John,” in The HarperCollins Study Bible, Revised Edition, ed. Harold W. Attridge, et. al. (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2006), 1824; Rice, Edwin D. Commentary on the Gospel According to John. (Philadelphia: The Union Press, 1900), 97.
2. Rice, 96.
3. Marsh, John. The Pelican New Testament Series: The Gospel of St. John. (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1968), 258; Rensberger & Attridge, 1824.
4. Ibid, 257
5. Dummelow, J.R., ed. The One Volume Bible Commentary. (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1954), 783.
6. Rensberger & Attridge, 1824.
7. Rice, 97.
8. Ibid.
9. Barclay, William. The Daily Bible Study Series: The Gospel of John, Volume 1. (London: Westminster Press, 1975), 182.
10. Marsh, 254
11. Rice, 96.
12. Barclay, 183.
13. Rensberger & Attridge, 1824.
14. Dummelow, 783.
15. Marsh, 258.
16. Rice, 98.
17. Ibid.
18. Marsh, 256.
19. Rensberger & Attridge, 1824.
20. Barclay, 183; Dummelow, 783.
21. Dummelow, 783
22. Rice, 98.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid, 99.
25. Barclay, 183.
26. Marsh, 255.
27. Ibid.
28. Rice, 97.