Pulpit Commentary - John 5:1

Pulpit Commentary - John 5:1 - 5:47

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Pulpit Commentary - John 5:1 - 5:47

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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

5:1 - 5:47

EXPOSITION

Here commences the second division of the Gospel (Joh_5:1)

II. THE CONFLICT WITH THE CHOSEN PEOPLE IN JERUSALEM, GALILEE, AND JERUSALEM, TO THE DEATH SENTENCE RECORDED BY THE SANHEDRIN.

Joh_5:1-47

1. Christ proved, by signs and wonders and testimonies, to be Source of life.

Joh_5:1-9

(1) A sign on a paralyzed body and an unsusceptible soul.

Joh_5:1

The journey to Jerusalem is said to have taken place at the time of "a feast," or "the feast of the Jews."^£ After these things ( μετα ταῦτα ). Suggesting a number of events, not necessarily connected with each other. (For the latter idea of a period expressed by μετα τοῦτο see Joh_2:12 and Joh_11:7, Joh_11:11; for μετα ταῦτα , see Joh_6:1 and Joh_21:1. etc.) There was the feast of the Jews. Now, "the feast" of the Jews could hardly be any other than the second Passover, while Joh_6:4 would indicate a third. "The feast" referred to in Joh_4:45 undoubtedly means the first Passover. "A feast" would leave the question open, though by no means excluding positively the second Passover, as the anarthrousness of the word might be chosen with a view to call special attention to it. However, the indefinite ἑορτη has been identified by commentators with every feast in the calendar, so there can be no final settlement of the problem. If the feast be the Passover, then our Lord's ministry lasted a little more than three years. If not, it must be one or other of the feasts that elapsed between the Passovers of Joh_2:1-25 and Joh_6:1-71 Edersheim, with many others, refuses to accept any chronological hint in Joh_4:35, and therefore throws the journey from Jerusalem to Galilee a few weeks after the first Passover, in the early summer, and supposes that Jesus returned to the unnamed feast in the autumn. Several critics say of Joh_4:35, one part of the sentence must be parabolical and the other literal, and that the disciples might be anticipating a spiritual harvest after four months, and Jesus drew from the physically ripening corn fields his comparison. This seems to me entirely contrary to our Lord's ordinary method; and that the disciples were in too carnal a mood to be credited with an anticipation of spiritual results in Samaria at all. Those who think that Joh_4:35 does give a hint of four months preceding harvest, place the journey between the middle of December and the middle of January. To my mind there is consequently no difficulty in imagining that when those four months should have been spent, and before the regular calling and appointment of the twelve apostles, our Lord should have gone up to the feast—one of the feasts which did summon the adult men to the metropolis. This is the view of Irenaeus, Luther, Cretins, Lampe, Neander, Hengstenberg, Conder, and many others. Wieseler, Hug, Meyer Lance, Godet, Weiss, Farrar, Watkins, think that the Feast of Purim, celebrated on the 15th of Adar (2 Macc. 15:36), in commemoration of the deliverance of the people from the evil intention of Haman (Est_9:21, etc.), was that national fast and feast which Jesus thus honoured. Purim was not one of the divinely appointed festivals, but it is also stated that the Lord undoubtedly attended one of the national and recently appointed festivals, that of Dedication (Joh_10:22). The more serious objection is that it could, if desired, have been celebrated quite as well in Galilee as in Jerusalem, and that the method of celebration seemed contrary to the whole spirit of the Master, and the whole tone of the discourse which followed. It is said that part of the ritual of the feast was the free and frequent gifts made spontaneously by one to another. Westcott prefers the autumn Feast of Trumpets as more suitable on several grounds than the Passover,

(1) because of the absence of the article,—this, however, is very problematical (see Tischendorf, 8th edit.);

(2) because when at the Feast of Tabernacles (Joh_7:2) the incident described in Joh_5:1-47 is still in lively recollection;

(3) because the great events of the Feast of Trumpets, the commemoration of the Creation and the Law giving, correspond with the theme of the Lord's great discourse. The fact that this particular miracle on the sabbath should be referred to a few mouths later in Jerusalem, on Christ's third appearance there, is not improbable, if we bear in mind that Judaean emissaries in Galilee had been bitterly assailing Jesus, on the ground of his persistent determination to heal sickness and hopeless maladies on the sabbath day. This Jerusalem "sign," and the claim he made on the ground of it, had roused the cry, and was still the matter of contention. The claims of the Purim feast turn principally on the fact that, since it occurred, about a month before the Passover, on the 14th or 15th of Adar, this visit might have taken place in the course of the four months referred to in Joh_4:35, and therefore between the sojourn in Samaria and the Passover of Joh_6:4, which Jesus diet not attend. Dr. Moulton (assuming the anarthrous form of the ἑορτη ) thinks that the feast is left undetermined because there was nothing in it typical of our Lord's work, and fulfilled in his Person. Such a position renders the visit itself strange and apparently unealled for. These long gaps, silences, during which there is no record of event or discourse, constitute a leading feature of the gospel history, and indeed of most of the history of both Old and New Testaments. To my mind there is advantage rather than otherwise in supposing more time than a few months to have been consumed in the Galilaean ministry described in Mar_2:1-28 and Mar_3:1-35 Tregelles and the Revisers, with Westcott and Hort, have relegated the δευτεροπρωτω of Luk_6:1 to the margin, but; Tischendorf (8th edit.) and Canon Cooke, etc., retain the remarkable expression, on the overwhelming evidence of a host of authorities. If it stand, which we believe it must, then during the Galilaean ministry, and in the interval which preceded the Passover mentioned in Luk_6:4, there is a reference to the proximity of a previous Passover and a previous harvest; the Galilaean opposition to Christ on this question of ritual being at its very height. If so, the feast must have been the Passover. The question cannot be finally settled, and commentators are in hopeless conflict with one another. It must be admitted that the majority of modern critics assume the Feast of Purim to be that intended, and thereby reduce the length of our Lord's ministry from Cana to Calvary to two short years. And Jesus went up to Jerusalem. This was before the formal call of the twelve apostles, and there is no proof that he was accompanied by his disciples. Many of the commentators (and see Weiss, 'Life of Christ,' vol. 2:321) urge that not even John himself was present on the occasion, from the absence of lifelike touches and particularity of incident. There is, however, much detail in the first fifteen verses. The great discourse that follows is not broken into dramatic dialogue, and does certainly present more of the biographer's subjective treatment than other portions of the narrative. It is more conceivable, however, that John did, on grounds mentioned by Caspari (see Introduction), accompany his Lord, and learned, by what he heard of these great words, and by subsequent converse with Jesus, the burden of the mighty revelation. Thoma sets to work in the most dogmatic way, and Weiss with a perfectly different spirit, to demonstrate the identity of the narrative which follows, with the famous story of the cure of the paralytic "borne of four" which occurs in the synoptic narrative. Thoma goes further, and imagines that the supposed healing of the paralytics by both Peter and Paul are also here idealized.

Joh_5:2

Now there is in Jerusalem. A phrase denoting intimate acquaintance with the topography of the city, and the present tense suggests either a hint of a ruin yet existing after the fall of Jerusalem, or it may betray the fact that the evangelist wrote down at the very time some details of the incident which formed the occasion of the following discourse, and never, in his later editing of the document, omitted or altered the form of his sentence. At the sheep (market) or (gate) a pool, surnamed in Hebrew Bethesda, having five porticoes or porches. The adjective προβατικῇ requires some substantive to be introduced, and since there is no reference to any sheep market in the Old Testament, little justification can be found for the gloss contained in the Authorized version. There was a "sheep gate" mentioned in Neh_3:1, Neh_3:32 and Neh_12:39. There is no reason against this method of supplying the sense, except this, that there is no other instance of the word πύλη , or "gate," being omitted after this fashion. The "sheep gate" stood next. in Nehemiah's recital, to the "fish gate," and it was built by the priests. The old "sheep gate" is now known by the name of St. Stephen's Gate, to the north of the Haram es-Sherif, or temple area from which the path leads down into the valley of the Kedron, and if "gate" be the proper term to add to προβατικη and we have its site fixed by the modern St. Stephen's Gate, then we must look for the pool surnamed Bethesda in that vicinity. Eusebius and Jerome speak of a piscina probatica as visible in their day, but do not determine its site. Robinson did not accept the identification of the sheep gate with St. Stephen's Gate, and places the former more to the south, and nearer to what is now called the Fountain of the virgin. This fountain, on Robinson's visit, displayed some curious phenomena of periodical and intermittent ebullition, receiving a supply of water from another source. It was found by Robinson to be connected by a tunnel with the fountain of Siloam, and the relations of these wells have been quite recently submitted to fresh examination. Robinson identified this pool with "Solomon's Pool" of Josephus and "King's Pool" of Nehemiah, and thought it might be the original pool of Bethesda. Neander and Tholuck incline to agree with him. The observations of Robinson have been confirmed by Tobler, and at least show that what certainly happens now in some of these fountains may have been phenomena constantly expected at some other fountain bearing the name now before us, on the northeastern side of the Haram area. Within the (sheep gate) St. Stephen's Gate the traditional site of Bethesda is pointed out. The modern name is Birket lsrael, and this tank, from the accumulation of rubbish, does not now show its original extent; neither does it now hold water, but receives the drainage of neighbouring houses. A church, near that of St. Anne, was built by the Crusaders over a well, in this immediate vicinity—a spot which was supposed to be the site of the angelic disturbance. Colonel Wilson prefers this traditional site to that fixed upon by Robinson. So also Sir G. Grove, in Smith's 'Bible Dict.' The five porches, or porticoes, may have been a columnar structure of pentagonal form, which sheltered the sick and the impotent folk. At present no indubitable relic of this building has been discovered. Alford (7th edit.) quotes a letter which makes it probable that Siloam was Bethesda, and the remains of four columns in the east wall of that pool, with four others in the centre, show that a structure with five openings or porches might easily have been erected there. Bethesda, which is said to be the Hebrew (that is, Aramaic) surname of the pool, is very doubtful. Probably this is the correct form of the text, though there are many variants, such as Bethzatha, in à , 33, Tischendorf (8th edit.); Bethsaida, in some versions and Tertullian. It seems generally allowed that its significance ( àãÌÈñÀçÆ úéáÌÅ ) is "house of grace or mercy," and that it derived its reference from the dispensation there of God's providential gifts. The healing virtue of waters charged with iron and carbonic acid and other gas is too well known to need reference, and the remarkable cures derived from their use may account forevery part of the statement which was here written by John. Eusebius speaks of these waters as "reddened," so he thought, with the blood of sacrifices, but tar more probably by chatybeate earth.

Joh_5:3, Joh_5:4

In these (porches) lay a multitude of sick folk, blind, lame, withered, [waiting for the moving of the water; for an angel went down season by season into the pool, and troubled the waters: he then that first stepped in after the troubling of the water became whole of whatsoever disease he had].^{£ The interesting gloss discussed below conveys the idea of magical cure, without moral significance, and attributes such cure to angelic ministry. This is the natural and popular explanation of the Bethesda healings, and would easily occur to a copyist who has not taken pains to use New Testament diction. Wunsche quotes from 'Chullin,' fol. 105, b, a testimony that "deadly qualities of water were attributed to demons, and healing ones to the angels." The crowds which gather in all countries round medicinal and intermittent springs are still unable to explain their curative quality by scientific analogies; and there is nothing more likely to have suggested itself to the mind of a copyist than the intervention of an angel. The absence from Scripture elsewhere of non-moral miracles is powerful internal reason for the lack of authenticity for the poetic gloss. The text. when deprived of this dubious gloss, loses all character that is inconsistent with the authenticity of the narrative. The close of Joh_5:3, "waiting for the moving of the waters," is far better attested than Joh_5:4, and, moreover, is consistent with John's manner, and with well ascertained matters of fact; and the clause would give authentic ground for the gloss that fellows. Hoffmann and Hengstenberg defend the passage, and believe that the angel at "the waters" in the Apocalypse betrays the same hand. But there can be no fair comparison between an historical fact and a symbolical figure.

Joh_5:5

And a certain man was there, who had been thirty and eight years in his infirmity. He had not lost all his powers—he crawled probably from some near home to the healing well; but for thirty-eight years be had been dragging out his impotent existence. The length implies the inveteracy of the disease. Hengstenberg, Wordsworth, Westcott (in part), imply a marked correspondence between these thirty-eight years and the similar period of time during which Israel was compelled to wander in the wilderness. It is not said how long the man had lain in the five porches waiting listlessly for healing, but that the malady was of old standing, and to all human appearance incurable. Thoma finds allegorical meaning in "Bethesda"—a synonym of the metropolls, and keeps up a series of comparisons with Act_3:1-26.

Joh_5:6

When Jesus saw him lying there, and perceived (came to know by his searching glance and intuitive knowledge of the history of others) that he had during a long time already been (in that condition, or in sickness,) said unto him—spontaneously, in the royalty of his benefactions, not demanding from the man even the faith to be healed, and dealing with him almost as he did with the dead—Wilt thou be made whole? The leper came beseeching him, "Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean." The leper was quite sure of his own intense desire for cleansing, and all he questioned was the will, not the power, of Jesus. The admission of the power was a tacit cry for healing. The questioning of Jesus on this occasion involved an offer of mercy. "Dost thou veritably wish for health and strength?" The question implies a doubt. The man may have got so accustomed to his life of indolence and mendicancy as to regard deliverance from his apparent wretchedness, with all consequent responsibilities of work and energy and self-dependence, as a doubtful blessing. He whined out, with professional drawl, his oft-told story, reflecting very much upon his lovelessness and quarrelsomeness, and ugly temper. There are many who are not anxious for salvation, with all the demands it makes upon the life, with its summons to self-sacrifice and the repression of self-indulgence. There are many religious impostors who prefer tearing open their spiritual wounds to the first passerby, and hugging their grievance, to being made into robust men upon whom the burden of responsibility will immediately fall. In this case the sign of his palsied nature was written upon his face, and was probably known to every passerby.

Joh_5:7

The sick (impotent) man answered him: Sir,^£ I have no man, when the water has been troubled, to put me ^£ into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me. This implies that some special advantage accompanied the troubling of the water. The sudden escape of the medicinal gas may have soon subsided, and, with it, the special virtue of the well. The difficulty which the sick man found in reaching the point of disturbance may be accounted for in many ways. The steps which led into the water; the weakness of the sufferer, which made it an impossible task without help; the eagerness at many other impotent folk to take advantage of the supposed cure, jostling one another with selfish haste; or the absence of any personal friend to fight his battle for him, and cast him (
βάλῃ
) with the required plunge into water. The last point may be explained on the supposition that he was a comparative stranger in Jerusalem, and had made no friends; or by another, which several other allusions justify, viz. that he was a man who, from some reason or other, could neither make nor retain friendship. The melancholy recital of his frequent disappointment is given with an air of mendicant resignation—a kind of morbid satisfaction with his lot. The phrase, "while I am coming, another," etc., implies that he could move, if slowly, without help. The moroseness of self-dependence characterizes some sufferers, who rather glory in isolation than lament it. Still, the words express the hopelessness of thousands who, for lack of human help, are jostled out of life, peace, and salvation.

Joh_5:8

Jesus smith to him, Rise, take up thy bed (
κράββατόν σου
)—thy mattress or pallet; the word is said to be of Macedonian origin, it is Latinized in the vulgate into grabbatus, and is not unfrequently found in the New Testament; the ordinary Greek word
σκίμπους σκιμπόδον
—and walk. These are in part the identical words which Jesus addressed to the paralytic (Mar_2:9). He did not touch him or use any other means than his own life-giving word to confer the cure. He put forth, in royal might and spontaneous unsolicited exertion, the miraculous force.

The energy of the Lord's will mastered the palsied will of the sick man, and infused into him the lacking energy. Archdeacon Watkins supposes that the man did possess incipient and recipient faith, moved by the generous tenderness and sympathetic interest of the Stranger in his ease. The very striking fact mentioned in the synoptic cure of the paralytic, viz. that he was borne into the presence of Jesus by four friends, ought to have prevented Thoma's caricature of criticism, which makes this narrative a mere idealization of that.

Joh_5:9

And immediately ^£ the man became whole (well, sound in health), and took up his bed, and walked. This act of obedience was an act of faith, as in every other miracle upon paralyzed nerves and frames. The imagery of the sign explains the rationale of faith. The impotent man, the paralytic, and the man with withered hand, were severally called by Christ to do that which without Divine aid seemed and was impossible. The spiritual quickening of the mind was communicated to the ordinary physical volition, and the bare act was a method by which the palsied sufferer took hold of God's strength. Faith always lays hold thus of power to do the impossible. The words and the result are similar to those adopted on the cure of the paralytic. This is another instance of the identity of the Christ of John and of the synoptists. The various efforts of Strauss, Baur, and Weiss to identify this miracle with that wrought on the paralytic is, however, in defiance of every condition of time, place, character, and consequences. The energy of faith and love which led the Galilaean sufferer to secure the services of four stalwart friends, not only to carry him, but to make strenuous efforts to bring him into the presence of Jesus, contrasts powerfully with the loneliness and friendlessness of the impotent man; and the method adopted by the Lord to convey his grace, and the discussion that followed on that occasion touching the power of the Son of man to forgive sins, all suggest profoundly different circumstances. Nothing but the claim of the critic to be entirely superior to the document he is interpreting can account for so wild a conjecture.

Joh_5:9-16

(2) The outbreak of hostility due to the breach of the sabbatic law.

Joh_5:9

Now it was the sabbath on that day. The form of the expression implies that it was one of the festival sabbaths rather than the weekly sabbath. These days, however, received the same reverence, and were observed with nearly the same rites and restrictions, as the ordinary sabbaths. This statement is the keynote of the great discourse which fellows, and it is made to prepare the way for the subsequent incidents. The Jews; i.e. the authorities, either the rabbis or Sanhedrists who were present in the crowd which gathered round the pool of Bethesda, or filled the neighbouring courts, are to be distinguished from "the multitude," or from the people generally. The designation evidently means the leading folk, the social censors, the hierarchy, who very soon displayed in marked fashion their jealousy and hatred of Jesus. The Jews therefore said to the man who had been healed, It is sabbath, and ^£ it is not lawful for thee to carry thy bed. Judging by the letter of the Law (Exo_20:10 and Exo_35:3), and by the precedents of Scripture (Num_15:32-35), and by the special injunctions of the prophets (Jer_17:21-23; Neh_13:15, etc.), the man was infringing a positive command. Rabbinism had indeed declared that, in cases affecting life and health, the law of the sabbath was legitimately held in abeyance; but this relaxation was so hedged about with restrictions that the poor man and the layman were unable to apply the rules. The rabbinic interpretations of the sabbatic law concerning burden bearing were so intricate and sophistical that the entire majesty of the law, and the merciful intent of the prohibition, were concealed and vitiated. Apart from these complications, the man was prima facie disobeying the letter of the law. 'Shabbath,' fol. 6, a, declares that if unwittingly a burden was carried on the sabbath, the transgressor was bound to bring a sin offering; if with knowledge, he must be stoned.

Joh_5:11

And he answered them, He ^{£ that made me whole, that very same man (
ἐκεῖνος
,, "even he;" cf. for this use of the pronoun, Joh_1:18, Joh_1:33; Joh_14:21, Joh_14:26, etc.) said unto me, Take up thy bed, and walk. This was justification for him. The Prophet-like Healer must know what was right, and upon his shoulders the responsibility must rest. There was a rabbinic saying, which the cured man may or may not have heard, that conferred a dispensing power upon a prophet; but the marl could not have known with any certainty that such was Christ's official character. It is, moreover, clear that he did not know at this moment either the face, the voice, or the name. Meyer hears a ring of defiance in these words. The other hints we obtain touching the man's character do not sustain such an idea.

Joh_5:12

[Then] ^£ they asked him, Who is the man (contemptuous use of
ἄνθρωπος
, as distinct from God's great messengers, or the legislators and prophets of the olden time, who have laid down the eternal Law of God) that said unto thee, Take up [thy bed], ^£ and walk? "The Jews" here ignore the work of healing and mercy, and seek to fasten a charge of overt criminality against some person unknown. A technical offence has been clone against the honour of their sacred place. The work of healing is an insignificant compensation for such a disgrace. They would be even with the heretical healer. Saving men by questionable methods is not to be endured. "Who is the man?" "Men and women lying in moral helplessness, not helped by God's priests and rulers, are now standing and moving in the strength their new Teacher has given. They cannot deny it; but can they prevent it? The rabbinic precept which he has crossed shall be applied to stamp out his work and kill him" (Watkins).

Joh_5:13

Now he that was healed—in this place
ὁ ἰαθεὶς
takes the place of
τεθεραπευμένος
of Joh_5:10. ^£ The fundamental idea in the verb
θεραπεύω
to render kindly and useful, even noble, service to another—to do the work and act the part of a
θεράπων
. The ministry rendered may be that of a
δοῦλος
or
ὑπηρέτης
, a
θάλπων
or
ἰατρὸς
. The "service" successfully rendered by a physician is more often expressed by
ἰάομαι
, which has no other meaning than restoration to health, and its use here may imply this positive fact (see the use of both words in Mat_8:7, Mat_8:8)—knew not who it was (was at that time and for a while ignorant of the person of his Healer): for Jesus withdrew—after the healing.
Ἐκνεύω
is "to nod or bend the head and avoid a blow," but comes to mean "withdraw" or "retire." Some have supposed that, like
ἐκνέω
,, to "escape by swimming from a danger,"
ἐξένευσε
means here "stealthily escaped"—a sense that it has in Eur., 'Hipp.,' 470, and elsewhere; but (as Grimm says) Jesus did not withdraw to avoid a danger which had not yet proclaimed itself, but to evade the acclamation of the multitude (see also Lange)—a crowd being in the place where the miracle had been wrought.

Joh_5:14

After these things (see Joh_5:1). Westcott thinks that a looser connection between the foregoing and subsequent events is denoted by
μετὰ ταῦτα
than by the expression
μετὰ τοῦτο
.. Consequently, the persecution referred to in the remainder of the chapter may have occurred several days after the foregoing conversation. Jesus found him ^£ in the temple. Some have inferred from this, the recognition by the healed man of the hand of God in his cure, and his desire to express his gratitude in the house of God by some appropriate conduct or service; and, granting this explanation, much charm is observable in the tact that Jesus found him. and found him there. The Lord's habit of visiting the temple, and the penetrating glance which he casts over all the frequenters of his Father's house might then fairly be deduced from the passage; but the motive of the man is quite conjectural. From the words of Jesus one might as reasonably suppose that the man was treading at the time on dangerous moral ground, making some kind of gain from his notoriety. The healing was, at least, imperfect until the man had learned its spiritual significance. Every gift of God is doubled in value when its source is recognized. God's signature on his own mercies gives them their true meaning. Christ found the healed man in the precincts of the temple, whether his motive was pure or mixed in going thither. And he said unto him, Beheld, thou art made whole (hast become sound and healthy throughout thy physical system; cf. for the form of this description of his case, the query, Joh_5:6): no longer continue to sin. The form of the sentence points to something special and persistent in this man's habits, rather than to the general corruption of human nature. Christ's penetrating glance discovered all the hidden misery and bleeding wound and putrefying sore of the man's soul. Apart from the obliteration of the consequences of his bad life, and without a clean and free condition of things, the future would have proved hopeless, and deliverance from the yoke of fear and concupiscence impossible; but now this new chance is given. He was made whole, born again physically. As Naaman's flesh became like that of a little child, so this man—once bent, crippled, distorted by his self-indulgence, and now made whole—is to "sin no longer." It would not be reasonable to conclude from this that Christ's doctrine, like that of Job's friends, involved the indissoluble connection of sin with sickness, or made the amount of pain in any case the criterion of individual sin. Our Lord repudiates this position in Joh_9:3 and in Luk_13:1-5; but special calamities have unquestionably followed wrong doing, and can, in many instances, be referred to obvious transgressions, to specific acts, or inveterate habits. The man's own conscience would respond to the charge. Jesus added: Lest a worse thing befall thee. There is, then, something worse than thirty-eight years of apparently hopeless wretchedness! Jesus said, even as reported by the apostle of love, the most terrible things that ever fell from human lips. The "sin no longer" makes it seem as though man's will could accomplish much (cf. Isa_1:16, "Cease," etc.), and as though all the future of our life were, so far as human responsibility goes, dependent upon ourselves. We are to act as if it were. Let it be noticed that he who said, "Sin no more," said, "Rise up, take thy bed, and walk." Three things, which appeared utterly beyond the power of the impotent man, were, nevertheless, done by him through the grace of Christ, which he then and there appropriated.

Joh_5:15, Joh_5:16

The man departed, and told ^£ the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him whole. Therefore the Jews persecuted Jesus, (and sought to slay him ^£), because he was doing these things on the sabbath. The motive of the man may have been one of gratitude, or may have arisen from a sense of duty, seeing that he had not answered the question of the Jews, and had been himself charged with doing the unlawful thing (Weiss). He may have sought to win from his interlocutors some reverence for his Healer; but everything points the other way. He was a loveless being; he seems to have been nettled by the charge and warning he had just received, and went with the name of his Benefactor on his lips to those who in his hearing had already condemned the Saviour's conduct. The connection is close between the two facts, viz. the man's eager implication of his Healer in the responsibility of his own act, which was said by "the Jews" to be unlawful; and the course of cruel persecution and deadly hate which was there and then inaugurated against the Saviour of the world. The sixteenth verse represents a course of conduct on the part of the Jews which led to open conflict with the dominant party. Christ's view of the sabbath lay, indeed, in the heart of the old Law, and was even recognized by some of the wisest and noblest spirits of Judaism; but it ran counter to the current traditionary interpretation, and cut as with a sharp sabre through the knots and entanglement of the schools. It was the unpardonable sin that ideas and rules which sustained and fed the authority of the hierarchical party should be swept away as valueless and perilous accumulations, and as fungoid encrustations upon the Law of Moses. Weiss justly remarks that there is no colour for the charge that the fourth evangelist antedated the sabbath controversy, for Mark (Mar_3:6) shows that it had already commenced in Galilee. In Joh_4:1-3 we see that the Pharisaic party distrusted Jesus; here we see that the authorities are in arms against him.

Joh_5:17-47

(3) The reply of Jesus to the hostile Jews. The discourse of the Lord Jesus, in reply to the persecuting spirit and deadly purpose of the Jewish authorities, is now given at length. There is a fulness and order and progress observable throughout of immense importance as establishing the sacred origin of the words. The simplicity of the style, quite Hebraic in its freedom from conjunctive forms, discriminates it from the Philonic presentation of certain analogous but different ideas. If, as Godet has remarked, we venture on the hazardous speculation that the prologue to the Gospel merely places before us the Philonic conception of
ΘΕΟΣ
and
ΛΟΓΟΣ
, making God to be the inconceivable, unapproachable, impersonal Essence, coming into activity in the
ΛΟΓΟ
who is self-dependent, but who exhausts all the vitality and activity of the supreme
Θεος
, we may, with Reuss, find hero what is contrary to both the prologue and to the views of the Divine Being, which repudiate the correlative subordination of the Son of God. But the prologue is based on the identity of nature between
ΘΕΟΣ
and
ΛΟΓΟΣ
, and the subordinate and yet eternal relation of the latter to the former. There is an infinite fulness of being and activity in the Father, who yet is and loves and energizes in all things through the
ΛΟΓΟΣ
, the
ΜΟΝΟΓΕΝΗΣ
. It appears to us that precisely the same truth is taught here, but it is taught in terms derived from the consciousness of the Logos incarnate, and with reference to a part only of the operations of the Logos, viz. in the providential, redeeming, and quickening work of the Son. This narrative shows how actual revelations of the Logos were made through the human consciousness of him who was lifted up into the being of the Son of God, and who became the Interpreter of the Son to men. The prologue is built upon the discourse—is an inspired and transcendental generalization of the truths here and elsewhere announced. The discourse is the basis of the prologue in the thought of the evangelist. The originality of the discourse is conspicuous. Its theme shows it to be closely allied with the discussions which shortly after this created such fierce animosities in the synagogues of Galilee, whither his Jerusalem enemies pursued him. We shall find that there Jesus declared that "the Son of man was Lord of the sabbath," and was competent in that capacity to assert what was contained and involved in the sabbath. On another occasion he vindicated for his disciples the right to food on the sabbath (Mar_2:23-28),

(1) on the historic ground that the royal hero of the Old Testament was at liberty, in dire emergency, to eat the priest's shewbread, which narrow ritualism would have refused to starving laymen;

(2) that his Person was a temple, and his service a temple service, which would be a further justification of the conduct of the disciples, as priests in the temple, in their submission to the higher law of duties, "profane the sabbath and are blameless." The cures he persistently wrought on the sabbath were justified by the principle that it is lawful to do acts of kindness, to save life, to release the sin- and Satan-bound daughter of Abraham on the sabbath; and that such sabbath keeping was part of the original significance of the day. Here the Lord takes the higher ground that he and the Father, in works of providence, healing, and life giving, are one.

Joh_5:17, Joh_5:18

(a) The claim of special relation with the Father.

Joh_5:17

But Jesus answered them "that God never ceases to create, nor takes a holiday from his works;" and the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews

(4) had grasped, as an echo of Christ's own teaching, the perpetuity of Divine rest through all the ages of work; but the naked thought here soars far above them both. The dawning of every clay, the opening of the flowers, the flowing of the rivers, the sustenance of vegetable, animal, and human life, reveal through every moment of the agelong sabbath rest, and on every sabbath day, his intense and constant activity.

Joh_5:18

On this account (the
διὰ τοῦτο
is still further defined by the
ὅτι
) therefore the Jews were seeking the more (
μᾶλλον
, i.e. more than they had sought before he made use of this sublime expression) to slay him, because not only in their opinion, though very falsely, he was violating (i.e. dissolving the authority of) the sabbath. Jesus was actually placing the sabbatic law where it has remained ever since, giving it sanctions, beauty, and hold on conscience it had never known before. He was abrogating the petty restrictions and abolishing the unspiritual somnolence by which it had been characterized and misunderstood. But there was another and more staggering charge which they were not at that moment able to condone. They sought the more to slay him because he was calling God his own (
ἴδον
) Father, making himself equal to, on a level with, God. He did use the phrase, "my Father," with a marked emphasis. He did not say, "our Father, or your Father;" he assumed a unique relation to the Father. The inmost centre of the Divine consciousness in him thrilled through the human. Though he did not wear now the "form of God," but the "form of the Servant," yet the Servant knew that he was Son and Lord of all. The Divine Personality which had always wrought out the eternal counsels of the Father's will was working now on identical and parallel lines in the human sphere. There were senses in which the Lord Jesus was the own and only begotten Son of God. This was a hard saying. This placing of himself on a level with God was the blasphemy which the Jews resented. Jesus knew what he said, and saw the impression his words produced, and took no steps to correct it. Two classes of result naturally followed. Some said, "He blasphemeth," "He hath a devil," and the high priest subsequently, in reply to a similar utterance of the Lord, rent his clothes; but other some felt concerning him that the relation between him and the Father was, so far as they knew, absolutely unique. The author of this Gospel exclaimed, "He who 'was with God and was God' has been manifested in the flesh, and we saw his glory, the glory of the Only Begotten of the Father."

Joh_5:19-29

(b) Christ vindicated his equality with the Father.

Joh_5:19, Joh_5:20

(a) He declares himself to be "the Sore"

Joh_5:19

Jesus therefore answered and said to them; i.e. replied to their secret thoughts, and to the sentiments of animosity and hostility which they did not conceal. He spake in language of extraordinary solemnity and august claim. The verily, verily, with which he prefaced the opening sentence, and which he repeated (cf. Joh_5:24, Joh_5:25, as in Joh_3:3 and elsewhere) on subsequent occasions, denoted the high ground of authoritative revelation on which he took his stand. He proceeded, without a break or interruption, to assert, on the authority of his own consciousness, the true relation subsisting between the Son and the Father—the deep, eternal, sacred link between them; in essence and in affection, in work and function; and gave several illustrations of these matters, the verification of which was not beyond the capacity of his hearers. These he made the basis of the argument of Joh_5:23, "that all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father." What did he wish "the Jews" to understand by "the Son"? Did he identify himself with the Son of whom he here speaks? Surely this is unquestionably the case, for the "answer" here given is one addressed to those who were seeking to slay him because he claimed for himself that God was "his own Father." He had said," My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." He justified the true reverence he felt for the Father when using this language, by describing in various ways the functions, privileges, and work of "the Son." Is "the Son," however, here the Eternal Son, the Logos, before and independently of his incarnation? and are the doctrines here announced an appeal to a pre-existing belief in such a sonship on the part of his enemies, so that he is dealing, at least from Joh_5:19-23, with the internal relations of the Godhead? The references to the recent
ἔργον
, and the moral effects which are to be produced upon his hearers by further activity, make this view doubtful. Does he here speak simply of "the Son of man" in his purely dependent, servile capacity, and earthly manifestation? (Watkins). We think not; for the deeds and functions of "the Son" are here so lofty and far reaching that this interpretation is inadmissible. Therefore we conclude, with Meyer and others, that by "the Son" he did mean "the whole subject, the God-Man, the incarnate Logos, in whom the self-determination of action independently of the Father cannot find place." This view of "the Son" involves the continuity of the Logos-consciousness, and not its obliteration; nor is this (as Reuss urges, and even Godet appears in part to concede) incompatible with the Logos-doctrine of the prologue. The Son is not able to do anything from himself, in the great work of healing, life giving, and redemption, except that which he seeth the Father doing. The Logos made flesh, the Son who has taken humanity up into his own eternal being, is ever in full contemplation of the Father's activity. He is in intimate and continuous and affectionate relations with the Father, who in this capacity has sent his Son to be the world's Saviour. He sees the Father's healing grace and omnipresent energy and ceaseless activity in regions where "the Jews" fail to discern them. The incarnate Son does not set up a rival throne or authority. He moves, lives, has his being, from the Father and not from himself.

Joh_5:20

For—the Lord introduces a reason, states a fact, which is calculated to make this vision of the Father's activity apprehensible to his hearers—the Father loveth (
φιλεῖ
expresses strong personal, natural affection, amat rather than the
ἀγαπα
or diligit of many other passages.

See notes, Joh_21:15 and Joh_3:35) ^£ the Son, and he loveth him to such an extent that he showeth him, making it therefore possible for him "to see"—all things that himself doeth. The Son has been from eternity and is now, notwithstanding his incarnate lowliness, the continuous Spectator of all the Father's doing in all hearts and lives, in all places of his dominion. "O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee." So stupendous a claim was never exceeded or transcended. "All things that himself doeth," shown and visible to One walking this world. The mind either rebels against or succumbs before such sublime and all-embracing knowledge. No neutrality is possible. If these were his words, then there is justification for the generalizations of the prologue.

Joh_5:20-29

(b) The greater works.

Joh_5:20

And greater works than these works of healing will he show him. Here the term
ἔργα
is used for the first time in this Gospel. It becomes the recognized phrase by which Christ describes what the world regards as "signs and wonders," "miracles" of power or grace; but it actually connotes the simple activity of God, the normal operation of his hand. Greater manifestations than physical quickening or revival namely, the mighty changes of thought and life, the gifts of grace and peace, eternal life itself, are evermore proceeding. The Father will so show them that the Son will see and do them, and so bring them by revelation to your consciousness that ye may marvel. Christ will not say here that ye may believe, but that ye may look on confounded and astonished. This was the first effect of Christ's work—Christ's revelation of the Father's heart, Christ's demonstration of the Father's nearness and character. Westcott quotes the apocryphal saying of our Lord preserved by Clement of Alexandria, 'Str.,' Joh_2:9. 45, "He that wonders shall reign, and he that reigns shall rest." The wonders of grace will never be exhausted. New combinations, new transformations, new discoveries, new insight into the eternal love, will be effected by him whom God hath sent, whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world (but see verse 28).

Joh_5:21-26

Greater works: (1) the resurrection of the dead.

Joh_5:21

For as the Father raiseth the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will. This is the most exhaustive expression of the Father's love and revelation to the Son. This thing the Son sees, and this same thing he will do, whether these Jews attempt to put any arrest upon his will or not. The majority of commentators regard Joh_5:21-27 as descriptive of the moral and spiritual resurrection of dead souls, and hold that a transition is made in Joh_5:28, Joh_5:29 to the resurrection of dead bodies and the final consummation. There are some, however, who regard the whole passage—even Joh_5:28, Joh_5:29—as referring, with the previous verses, to moral resurrection, although the words, "in their tombs" (
μνημείοις
) are there added to give distinctness and explicitness to that future resurrection; and though "now is" of Joh_5:25 is not there predicated or repeated. Others (with many of the older expositors) refer the entire passage to the final resurrection, which, however, is incompatible with Joh_5:20 and with the "now is" of Joh_5:25. Others, again, see in Joh_5:21, in
ἐγείρει
and
ζωοποιεῖ
,, the whole process of resurrection and renewal, both physical and moral, bodily and spiritual. They suppose that in Joh_5:25 Christ refers first to the spiritual renovation, to be affirmed and consummated in the universal resurrection and judgment of the last day. The generality of the terms
ἐγείρει
and
ζωοποιει
, attributed to the Father, makes it possible that the Lord was referring to the numerous events of uplifting from the pit, from the lowest sheol, which formed the staple religious nutrition of the Jewish race. The history of Divine revelation is one lengthened series of interpositions and deliverances, of resurrections of the people of Israel, and of the theocracy from bondage, exile, and spiritual and civil death, and of references to the wonderful transformations of saints and prophets and kings from the depths of despair to the light of life and Divine favour. Ezekiel (37) had likened the most memorable of these resurrections to the uprising of a huge army from a valley of vision, strown with the dry bones of both houses of Israel. "So also," says Jesus, "the Son quiekeneth." including under this term, it may be, the physical healing which is often the precursor and condition of spiritual awakening and moral health and vigour. The Son, the incarnate Logos, revealing himself on earth, both as Logos and Son of man, is now quickening after the same fashion whom he will. The will of Christ is in such entire harmony with the Father's will that there is no rivalry here. The will of the Son is in spontaneous accord with the Divine purpose of resurrection and quickening. He is already doing thus here on earth, as the great organ of the Father, that which makes his will the revelation of the Father. There is no arbitrary decree, such as Calvin found here, nor such as Roues insists upon. The emphasis is simply upon the subject of the verb
θέλει
; and we have in the expression a vindication of the nineteenth verse, "The Son doeth that which he sees the Father doing." His own
θέλημα
being the origin and revealed centre on earth of Divine manifestations.

Joh_5:22

That
οὕς θέλει
is the point of connection with what follows, and that the Son quickeneth whom he willeth, is more clear, seeing that (
γὰρ
) the Father even judges no man; judges no man apart from the Son. "Pater non judicat solus nec sine filio, judicat tamen (Joh_5:45; Act_17:31; Rom_3:6)" (Bengel). The word
κρίνει
does not mean exclusively either "condemn" or "acquit," but the exercise of judicial functions which will either acquit or condemn. As in Joh_3:17, the "condemnation" is rather inferred than asserted. Moreover, we are there told that the Son was not sent into the world for the purpose of judgment, but for the larger purposes of salvation, and "to give eternal life." Nevertheless, "life" to some is judgment to others, and judgment even unto death is the obverse of the gift of life when the conditions of life are not found, in Joh_1:39 Christ declares that one solemn consequence of his coming was
εἰς κρίμα
, "unto judgment"—to reveal the final decisions of the Judge. How, then, shall we reconcile these apparently incongruous statements? Judgment unquestionably results from the rejection of the proffer of mercy. The judgment rests on those who say, "We see." Their sin remaineth. Those who are not willing to be made whole remain unhealed. Those who love darkness rather than light abide in the darkness. This is the judgment, but this judicial process was (not the end, but) the consequence of his mission. The Father's ordinary providence, which is always passing judgment upon the lives of men, is now placed in the hands of "the Son." Howbeit he hath given the whole judgment—i.e. the judgment in all its parts—to the Son. He has made the entire juridical process which brings to light the essential tendencies of human hearts, issue from the reception given by man to the Son. The whole question of right against wrong, of life versus death, acquittal against condemnation, is determined by the attitude of men towards the Son. In many passages this plenipotentiary endowment of "the Son" with functions, powers, authorities, is expressed by this same word (
δέδωκε
), "he hath given" (Joh_1:36; Joh_3:35; Joh_6:37, Joh_6:39; Joh_10:29; Joh_17:2, Joh_17:4). Meyer limits the meaning of
κρίνει
to "condemnation," and Slier includes in it the separation of sin from the life of believers; but surely the judgment of the world is effected by the light that shines upon it, and the essence of the judgment (
κρίσις
) is the discrimination which infailibly follows the revelation of the Father through the Son.

Joh_5:23

The purpose of the entire commission of judgment to the Son, a bestowment which illustrates the quickening results that he (who does the will of the Father) wills to effect, is now gathered to a lofty climax, abundantly vindicating the right he had claimed to call God his own Father. It is as follows, in order that all may honour the Son.
Τιμῶσιν
, not
προσκυνῶσιν
("honour," not "worship"), is the word used; but seeing that the identical sentiment of reverence due to the Supreme Being, to the Father, is that which is here said to be due to the Son, and is here declared to be the reason why all judgment is entrusted to the issues of his will,—we are at a loss to know how loftier attributes could be ascribed to the Son. It is surprising that Weiss should declare it "impossible to find any statements here as to the metaphysical unity and equality of the Son and the Father, although current apologetics believe it has succeeded in doing so" ('Life of Christ,' vol. 2:326, note). Luthardt asks, "What other form of
τιμη
than that which calls him 'Lord and God' shall belief now assume, than that which the Christian Church cherishes toward Jesus?" Thoma points to Eph_2:1-5; Col_2:11-13, and other great parallels in the New Testament. We gladly accept them, not as proof that the Johannist framed Christ's discourse from them, but as proof that the ideas of St. Paul were not originated by him. but came from the direct assertions of Christ, of which we have the historic trace.

Joh_5:24

In this verse the discourse turns from the relations between the Father and the Son, to deal with the relations of the living Christ (the "I," who is speaking throughout) with men. In Joh_5:21-23, indeed Joh_5:19-23, the Lord had been speaking prominently of the ideal sonship, of "the Son" on the Divine side of his consciousness. The use of the first person, which is here resumed, calls more express attention to the consciousness of his human manifestation, which again reaches its climax in Joh_5:27. Verily, verily, I say unto you—I, whose voice you now hear, whom you are misunderstanding, rejecting, and seeking to slay. I say with most solemn emphasis—He that heareth my word—this term,
ἀκούειν
, suggests moral as well as physical hearing, and means whosoever allows my thought to penetrate his nature, hears and understands, hears and acts accordingly (cf. Mat_11:1
πιστεύειν
5; Mat_13:9, Mat_13:18; Rev_2:7, Rev_2:17; Rev_3:22)—and further believeth him that sent me; believeth i.e. that he has borne and is continually bearing true witness concerning me. There is a different meaning conveyed by
πιστεύειν
, with the simple dative, and
πιστεύειν εἰς τινα
, or
ἐπὶ

τινι
, or
ἐπὶ τινα
, and again
ἐν τινι
; these prepositions convey a gradually deepening sense of intercommnnion and dependence; the simple accusative is found in 1Co_9:17; Ellicott on 1Ti_1:16). To believe on a person, or in one, conveys a different idea from believing that person with regard to any special assertion he may make. Here the belief of God has emphatic reference to the testimony the Father is bearing to the claims of Jesus. Such a hearer, such a believer, hath eternal life; even here he has entered into the "eternal now;" on earth he is in possession of the blessed consummation. Such belief in words authenticated by the Father's commission is eternal life (cf. Joh_17:3). It lifts a man out of the reach of corruption and condemnation, it ushers him into eternity, it is an eternal blessedness in itself; and he cometh not to judgment, but has passed from the death, into the life. He is already translated from the death state to the renewed, quickened state. The decision and discrimination between him and the world have taken place. The judgment is over, the books are closed, the condemnation is no longer possible. He will not perish, he has eternal life. "The believer is tree f}}