John 5:31-47
“Notice what you notice.” Continuing with Jesus back in Jerusalem in John’s Gospel and the healing at the pool of Bethesda… So Jesus has four witnesses as to His divinity – John the Baptist, His works (miracles), His Father, and Scripture. Jesus responds directly to three of these. As to John the Baptist, Jesus says that if the Jews had believed what John was teaching, then they would have believed in Him and been saved, but they did not. As to His Father, Jesus pointed out that they had neither seen the Father nor heard Him; however, the Father had spoken at Jesus’ baptism, and they did not hear. The Father had also spoken of Jesus in the Old Testament, but the Jews could not see it. As to Scripture as a testimony, Jesus tells the Jews that Moses, himself, is their accuser, for Moses spoke of Him. Jesus does not comment further on His works / miracles. But He takes care of that in John’s very next chapter, the feeding of the 5,000.
Jesus spends a lot of words in this section rejecting the glory of men: v. 34, Not that the testimony that I receive is from man…; v. 41, I do not receive glory from people…; v. 43, If another comes in his own name, you will receive him…; and v. 44, How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? Jesus did not seek the praise of men, only the praise of His Father. And He sought those who would seek Him on the basis of His words, not on the miracles that they saw Him perform.
So we close this healing at the pool, and we ask, to what end did Jesus perform this miracle? Was it for the man’s earthly comfort? That doesn’t seem likely, although compassion is certainly a part of Jesus’ personality. It seems more reasonable that Jesus uses this miracle as a “platform” to speak His words personally to Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. They had heard what He had been doing in Galilee, and they used Jesus’ healing on the Sabbath to challenge Him and to test Him further. But their testing Him turned out to be their own condemnation of themselves. Simply put, a moral of this story – don’t put Jesus to a test!
Slava Bohu!
Good point. But I think it may have been necessary for them to “put Jesus to the test” to determine whether he was the real Messiah—that was their job!
The problem is that they had put him to the test again and again and he had passed all of their tests (like the three “Messianic miracles,” as we discussed yesterday in our RTB meeting), and they still couldn’t see it or admit it.
As for breaking the Sabbath, Jesus was only breaking the added, extra rules that had been imposed later by Temple rulers to protect people from breaking the Sabbath. Ironically, they missed the point, as we all know. Jesus’ healings on the Sabbath were a wake-up call.
Slava Bohu!
See also Carol’s 2021 comment regarding the “Messianic miracles”.