A Detour in John’s Gospel:
John 5:1-47.
A few years ago, simply for my own interest, I
put together all the selections from the Gospel according to John included in
the Revised Common Lectionary. Though
John, unlike the other Gospels, is not featured in any one year of the
Lectionary, it gets generous selections along the way.
Included are the “Logos” prologue, the wedding
in Cana, the cleansing of the temple, the night meeting with Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman at the well,
five weeks on the Bread of Life story and discourse (chapter 6), the healing of the man
born blind (chapter 9), and the raising of Lazarus.
Not included in the Lectionary
is anything from chapter 5 of John. This
is a healing story with sequels, probably omitted in favor of the similar healing
story in chapter 9 (reading for Year A, 4th Sunday in Lent.)
I have found the chapter 5 story and
discourses interesting in their own right and have done the following studies
of them, as if they were in the Lectionary.
These were written in 2018.
John 5:1-18.
This passage is remarkable for
three things: (1) the healing at the
Sheep Gate pool, Bethesda, (2) the
accusation of Sabbath violation, and (3) Jesus’ declaration about his and God’s
working.
(1) The healing story has several interesting details – interesting,
though not essential to the larger narrative.
The details of the place have
busied scholars over the ages. The
“Sheep Gate” is apparently at the northeastern corner of the old city, just
north of the Temple site (near the
present “Lions” or “St. Stephen’s Gate”).
The pool has different names in different manuscripts of the
Gospel: “Bethesda” in the great majority
of late manuscripts (after which many modern hospitals are named); “Beth-zatha,”
preferred by current scholars as probably the earliest reading; and other
spellings include “Bethsaida,” otherwise known as a town in northern
Galilee.
“Healing at the Pool of Bethesda,” painting in Vienna, by Pedro
de Orrente, about 1620.
Courtesy of Vanderbilt University Divinity Library.
This pool was the center of a
healing area. The original story assumed
hearers were familiar with the healing powers of the pool, but centuries later
scribes added verses 3b-4 (missing in most early manuscripts) to explain the
old custom to hearers in later times.
Periodically a heavenly messenger
(“angel”) came and stirred up the waters of the pool, and the first person to
get into the water after the stirring was healed of their malady. The disabled man in this story could never
get there soon enough, and so he had been waiting for 38 years for a chance to
get healed. Jesus sees this man, and
“knowing” [the Greek means he comprehended the whole situation], offered to
heal him.
The healing happens at Jesus’
command: “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk” (verse 8,
CEB). These are the exact words with
which Jesus commands the paralytic to rise and walk in Mark 2:1-12, and the two
stories probably have a common ancestry in early tradition. The unusual word for “mat,” krabatton, is used several times in
these two stories. The paralytic in the
Mark story has his sins forgiven, which is the equivalent to being healed – the
primary point in that story. There is an
echo of that point in the John story when Jesus later says to the healed man,
“See! You have been made well. Don’t sin anymore...” (verse 14).
(2) But it all happened on a Sabbath!
This is only mentioned as an after-thought (verse 9), but as John’s
story develops it becomes the main point.
“The Judeans” [“Jews” in later
European translations] accost the healed man for carrying his “mat” on a
Sabbath. “The man who healed me made me
do it,” explained the now able-bodied man.
They ask who that was, but the man doesn’t know. Later, Jesus warns the man about sinning, and
the healed one runs back to tell the authorities it was Jesus that gave him the
orders. (Commentators are divided about
whether this was an innocent mistake or a very ungrateful act.)
Finally we arrive at the crux
of this healing story: Jesus was
responsible for making people violate the Sabbath laws! The Judeans begin to “harass” (CEB) Jesus, even
plan to kill him (verse 18), because of his crimes against the Sabbath. This leads us to the real point of the
chapter – Jesus’ reply.
(3) Jesus’ declaration to the Judeans is bold and challenging. “My Father is still working and I am working
too” (verse 17, CEB).
The first thing to notice about
this reply is that Jesus chooses to talk about “working”!
Working has to do with the
Sabbath! Everybody knows from Genesis
2:1-3 that God “works” for six days, but ceases
work on the seventh day, and humans honor that model by observing the
Sabbath. Jesus says, God is still working, and (therefore) so am
I. One thing this means is that in God’s
view right now is NOT a Sabbath. Divine
work is going on because THE Sabbath has not yet come. In God’s economy, this is not yet the seventh
day, when God will cease
working. The real work of God is still
going on – and as long as it is, Jesus will be working!
(See the same viewpoint in 9:4, "We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work," NRSV.)
But the really challenging thing
about Jesus’ reply is the implication that God’s work and Jesus’ work are
coordinated – that they are on the same plane, equally divine!
The Judeans recognize correctly
what Jesus means, and indict him accordingly:
“...he was doing away with the
Sabbath ... [and was] making himself equal with God” (verse 18).
The charges are now fully
developed, and the stage is set for Jesus’ monologue in defense, which comes
next.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John 5:19-30. This monologue has three speeches
that begin “Amen, amen” (“Very truly”
in NRSV; “I assure you” in CEB), verses 19, 24, and 25. Each speech is relatively independent.
(1) 19Jesus said to them, “very
truly [amen, amen] I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the
Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. 20The Father loves the Son and
shows him all that he himself is doing; and he will show him greater works
than these, so that you will be astonished.
21Indeed, just as the Father raises the dead and gives them
life, so also the Son gives life to whomever he wishes. 22The Father judges no one but has
given all judgment to the Son, 23so that all may honor the Son just
as they honor the Father. Anyone who
does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. (John 5:19-23, NRSV.)
(2) 24Very truly [amen, amen], I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has
eternal life, and does not come under judgment, but has passed from death to life. (John 5:24, NRSV.)
(3) 25Very truly [amen, amen], I
tell you, the hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the
voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. 26For just as the Father has life
in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself; 27and
he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of
Man. 28Do not be astonished
at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his
voice 29and will come out – those who have done good, to the
resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of
condemnation. (John 5:25-29, NRSV.)
30”I can do nothing on
my own. As I hear, I judge; and my judgment
is just, because I seek to do not my own will but the will of him who sent
me. (John 5:30, NRSV.)
The first speech has Jesus speak
of the “Son” in the third person – “the Father loves the Son...” (verse
20). Then in the second speech, verse 24, Jesus speaks in
the first person, “anyone who hears my word...” Verse 25 then goes back to “Son” language,
“...the dead will hear the voice of the Son...”
The final verse of the passage (30) repeats the opening verse (19), but
now in first person speech instead of third:
“I can do nothing on my own...”
The third person speech in verses
19-23 and 25-29 may be a clue to the background of such Son-and-Father
language. The message of these verses is that the Son does exactly what the
Father does, including raising the dead.
God and Son of Man in Daniel.
This kind of God-and-Son situation
is presented in Daniel 7:9-10 +
13-14. There the “Ancient One” (God
Most High) sits in judgment on the evil empires that have been ruining the
earth. That Ancient One then receives in
the heavenly court “one like a human being” (literally “like a son of man” – a
human to replace the inhuman beasts of Daniel 7:1-8). That Human One is given “dominion and glory
and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him”
(Daniel 7:14, NRSV).
The assumption in the Daniel
vision is that God empowers the “Son of Man” to carry out God’s rule over the
earthly powers. The Son of Man is the
implement to establish God’s rule. He
thus does exactly what God is in fact doing (through him).
The Daniel passage does not have
any speech between the Ancient One and the Human One, but the Most High is
definitely giving authority and power to the newly arrived Human One. If the Human One were to speak to others
about his authority and mission, he could say the very things Jesus says about
the “Son” in John 5:19-30.
(Modern commentators on John do
not seem to have observed this Daniel background to this Son-Father speech, but
it seems to me it exactly fits the language used in John 5:19-30.)
The central verse in this
passage, where Jesus speaks in the first person (verse 24), is very
awesome: “Very truly [amen, amen] I tell you, anyone who hears
my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and does not come under
judgment, but has passed from death to life” (NRSV). This verse alone states the central message
of the entire Gospel.
Resurrection. The Son’s
power to raise the dead is elaborated in the second third-person speech (verses
25-29). “For the hour is coming when
all who are in their graves will hear his [the Son’s] voice and will come out –
those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done
evil, to the resurrection of condemnation” (verses 28-29, NRSV). (The resurrection of both the righteous and
the wicked is also promised in Daniel:
“Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to
everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt,” Daniel 12:2. This promise of the two-fold resurrection is
given nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible.)
In Jesus’ own voice, this promise
of a resurrected life is a truly spectacular claim for those who bet their
lives on the truth of Jesus’ gospel!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John
5:31-47.
First, this passage is about “testimonies” – who vouches for the
truth of Jesus’ identity and authority.
(The Greek word-group involved here is marturéō; to witness, testify; marturía,
a witnessing, a testimony; and mártus,
one who witnesses, testifies [in later times, “a martyr.”] These words occur eleven times in verses 31
to 39.)
Secondly, this passage is not about
“Son” and “Father”; it is about “me” and
“you (plural).” There is no
third-person speech here; everything is direct address by Jesus to the
unbelieving Judeans. This is accusation
and condemnation of the opponents, those who do not believe, who do not accept
the “testimony” to “me.”
The issue in this passage is, what
does it take to get the Judeans to believe in Jesus as the one sent by
God? What testimony can be offered? The passage will consider five possibilities.
First, Jesus’ own testimony can’t be used (verse 31). From other people’s viewpoint, he is the
question, not the answer. (A slightly
different rhetorical tack is taken on this topic at 8:13-18.)
Secondly, Jesus knows that John the Witness (“the Baptist,” though
never called that in this Gospel) gave true testimony to him. The Judeans even sent people to question John
about that, and for a while he was “a burning and shining lamp” in whose light
the Judeans were willing to rejoice (verses 32-35).
Third, there is a testimony
“greater than John’s,” namely, “the
works that the Father has given me to complete” (verse 36). These, of course, are such things as healing
the disabled man at the pool of the Sheep’s Gate. (See also Nicodemus’ testimony in John
3:2.)
And, apparently as a testimony
separate from the mighty works, “the
Father who sent me has himself testified on my behalf” (verse 37). This seems to refer to one of the divine
speeches in which God addresses Jesus as “son,” since Jesus goes on to say,
“You [Judeans] have never heard his voice or seen his form [as I have], and you
do not have his word abiding in you...” (verses 37-38). Unlike Jesus and those who believe in him,
the Judeans do not have the rapport with God the Father that would enable them
to “hear” the divine testimony to Jesus.
The fifth and final possible
testimony to Jesus is the scriptures. Here the Judeans have a great advantage. These are THEIR holy writings. “You search the scriptures because you think
that in them you have eternal life” (verse 39).
These should be convincing because “it is they that testify on my
behalf”! Yet, “you refuse to come to me
to have life” (verse 40). There clearly
were very different ways of reading the scriptures!
In a kind of peroration (verses
41-47), Jesus ticks off more reasons why the Judeans are not able to believe in
him. “How can you believe when you
accept glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the one
who alone is God?” (verse 44). And as a
final shot at their pride in the scriptures, “If you believed Moses, you would
believe me, for he wrote about me” (verse 46).
(Note: It should be obvious
that there is nothing “fair” – much less “true” – about these slams at the
“Judeans.” Like Matthew 23, these
statements are fierce propagandistic slurs fired at powerful enemies in the religious wars of
Jesus believers against synagogue teachers – possibly at an early time in Judea,
more likely well after 70 CE in Asia Minor [Ephesus].)
Jesus has recited many testimonies
why the Judeans should believe in him – rather than plan to kill him!