JOHN 5.1-30
The Impotent Man
The healing of the impotent man at Bethesda is recorded in the opening nine verses of John 5 and this miracle, with its subsequent events in vv.10-18, sets the background of the next three mentions of the Lord Jesus saying, "Verily, verily". This month’s article, therefore, considers the events at Bethesda with a view to the three utterances of "Verily, verily" being discussed next month, God willing.
In keeping with our previous studies, there is a dispensational as well as an historical significance in this event that constitutes the third of the eight particular signs that John records in his Gospel. The time references in the passage are important to note. The occasion was "a feast of the Jews" (v.1), "and on the same day was the sabbath" (v.9). As to the particular feast, John is silent. The emphasis here, as in 6.4, is on the fact that divinely instituted convocations had been reduced to "feasts of the Jews". Once-precious seasons of fellowship with their God had become dead and empty rituals devoid of all pleasure for the One who had appointed them. Such is ever the outcome when redeemed people lose sight of the holiness, mercy, and saving power of their God. We who by grace know a nearness to God that Israel never did are certainly not immune to the same hardness of heart as afflicted the nation. It can rob our gatherings of vitality, joy, and a reverential fear of the living God, thus depriving Him of the worship that is rightfully His, and leaving us, His blood-bought saints, listless, cold, unmoved and unblessed.
The Five Porches
In the description of Bethesda, the house of mercy, attention is drawn to the fact that it had five porches. Within these porches lay a multitude of impotent folk as well as those who were halt, blind, and withered. From among them all the Lord Jesus singled out an impotent man "which had an infirmity thirty and eight years" (v.5). The word translated in this verse "infirmity" is also used in Romans 6.19 of the infirmity of the flesh and again, in Romans 8.3, of the infirmity of the Law because of the flesh. At Bethesda, surrounded by five porches, there was a pool that could give refreshment, blessing, and health. The impotent man, shadowed by those five porches which are illustrative of all the events and claims of the books of Moses, the Pentateuch, the Law, could not enter into the blessings of the pool because of the infirmity of the flesh. The pool could meet his need, but he could not fulfil the demands of the pool! If the five porches would depict the Law given by Moses, is not the pool a picture of sabbath rest? For thirty-eight years the man had lain in that state waiting for health. The Law could not bring him there because of the weakness of the flesh, but what the Law could not do for him, the Saviour could (see Rom 8.3-4).
Sabbath Rest
Thirty-eight long years! The same time exactly as the wanderings of the children of Israel in the wilderness (Deut 2.14). That journey should have taken eleven days (Deut 1.2), resulting in the children of Israel entering into their promised rest in Canaan. The writer to the Hebrews shows, however, that the sabbath rest intended for those who came out of Egypt was never enjoyed, and "they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief" (Heb 4.6). "Creation rest" was never enjoyed by man because of sin; "Canaan rest" was never enjoyed by the bondslaves in Egypt because of unbelief; but "There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God" (Heb 4.9), and that precious rest is "Calvary rest". The blessings of true sabbath rest can only be known by those who are in Christ and who, by grace, have been brought into all the fullness of His sacrificial death at Calvary. We rest where God rests, in the finished work of His beloved Son, and that which could never have been known through the efforts of the flesh has been brought to us by the saving power of our Lord Jesus Christ.
From the divine standpoint the sabbath involved delight and the enjoyment of rest in a finished work, and for creation the sabbath meant rest, recuperation and the enjoyment of God’s good purpose. There was a sabbath year which the land was to enjoy, and Israel’s denial of that rest for a period of 490 years resulted in God removing them from the land so that every one of the neglected sabbath years, 70 in total, could be restored. For that reason the Babylonian captivity of Judah lasted 70 years exactly (2 Chr 36.21). The sabbath day was enjoined upon Israel as part of the law. "Keep the sabbath day to sanctify it…Six days thou shalt labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou. And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day" (Deut 5.12-15). The weekly sabbath day thus enshrined principles of creation and redemption and, whilst we do not observe a sabbath day in the same way as Israel did, the principles still apply. The abandonment in Western society of the creatorial Sabbath principle, whereby one day a week should be set apart for rest, has resulted in greatly increased problems of stress and burnout. The sabbath principle is beneficial for the health of man and it is of note that the Greek word hugies, meaning health, is used seven times in the record of this third sign to the nation. "Wilt thou be made whole?", the Saviour asked, an expression found six times in John 5 and on a seventh occasion in a reference to this healing in John 7.23. "Made whole", the health and strength of the nation restored! As He asked the man if he would be made whole, the Lord knew that his positive answer would demand him taking up his bed and walking on the sabbath day. The restoration of the man and the restoration of the sabbath principle would be inseparably linked. The man’s acceptance of saving blessing would set him in immediate conflict with the world of empty religious formality. Was he prepared for that? To be linked with Christ and His saving power is to be forever outside the camp of man’s self-righteous religion. As surely as Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathaea would burn all bridges behind them when they stepped out to the cross, so this man would finish forever with the hopelessness of religion by taking up his bed and walking in fellowship with his Saviour on the sabbath day. "And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to slay him, because he had done these things on the sabbath day" (v.16).
The Lord’s Response to Persecution
The Lord responded by stating, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work", perhaps better understood by the paraphrase, "My Father worketh even at this moment of time, and I work". The character of the sabbath day did not exclude beneficial works of grace and kindness, for God did not withhold his "daily benefits" on that one day in the week. If "My Father" works today, said the Lord Jesus, then "I work". This statement immediately outraged the Jews more than ever; "Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God" (v.18). The Lord Jesus answers this double charge in vv.19-30, and it is in this section that we have the next threefold mention of "Verily, verily". Everything hinges on the equality of the Lord Jesus with the Father; it all depends on His essential deity. If He is equal with the Father, then truly "the Son of Man is Lord even of the sabbath day" (Mt 12.8). If that be true then not only has He done nothing worthy of death, but the One they accuse must be their Messiah. Hence the Lord makes three categorical statements asserting His equality with the Father, and these we will study together in the next article.
To be continued.
