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Afterward Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, “Behold, you are made well. Sin no more, so that nothing worse happens to you.”
The man went away, and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. For this cause the Jews persecuted Jesus, and sought to kill him, because he did these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, “My Father is still working, so I am working, too.”
John 5:14-17 sits inside this longer paragraph.
Afterward Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, “Behold, you are made well. Sin no more, so that nothing worse happens to you.”
The man went away, and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. For this cause the Jews persecuted Jesus, and sought to kill him, because he did these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, “My Father is still working, so I am working, too.” For this cause therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the Sabbath, but also called God his own Father, making himself equal with God. Jesus therefore answered them, “Most certainly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father doing. For whatever things he does, these the Son also does likewise. For the Father has affection for the Son, and shows him all things that he himself does. He will show him greater works than these, that you may marvel. For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom he desires. For the Father judges no one, but he has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He who doesn’t honor the Son doesn’t honor the Father who sent him.
Afterward Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, “Behold, you are made well. Sin no more, so that nothing worse happens to you.”
The man went away, and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.
For this cause the Jews persecuted Jesus, and sought to kill him, because he did these things on the Sabbath.
But Jesus answered them, “My Father is still working, so I am working, too.”
And after that Iesus founde him in the temple and sayd vnto him: beholde thou arte made whole synne no moore lest a worsse thinge happen vnto the.
The man departed and tolde the Iewes that that was Iesus whiche had made him whole.
And therfore the Iewes dyd persecute Iesus and sought the meanes to slee him because he had done these thinges on the Saboth daye.
And Iesus answered them: my father worketh hidder to and I worke.
And after that, Iesus founde him in the Temple, and said vnto him, Beholde, thou art made whole: sinne no more, lest a worse thing come vnto thee.
The man departed and tolde the Iewes that it was Iesus, which had made him whole.
And therefore the Iewes did persecute Iesus, and sought to slay him, because he had done these things on the Sabbath day.
But Iesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I worke.
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv14, 15, 17 14. After these things Jesus found him. These words…
14. After these things Jesus found him. These words show still more clearly that, when Christ concealed himself for a time, it was not in order that the remembrance of the kindness which he had conferred might perish, for he now appears in public of his own accord; only he intended that the work should first be known, and that he should afterwards be declared to be the Author of it. This passage contains a highly useful doctrine; for when Christ says, lo, thou art made whole, his meaning is, that we make an improper use of the gifts of God, if we are not excited to gratitude. Christ does not reproach the man with what he had given him, but only reminds him that he had been cured in order that, remembering the favor which he had received, he might all his life serve God his Deliverer. Thus, as God by stripes instructs and spurs us on to repentance, so he invites us to it by his goodness and forbearance; and, indeed, it is the universal design both of our redemption and of all the gifts of God, to keep us entirely devoted to Him. Now this cannot be done, unless the remembrance of the past punishment remain impressed on the mind, and unless he who has obtained pardon be employed in this meditation throughout his whole life.
This admonition teaches us also, that all the evils which we endure ought to be imputed to our sins; for the afflictions of men are not accidental, but are so many stripes for our chastisement. First, then, we ought to acknowledge the hand of God which strikes us, and not to imagine that our distresses arise from a blind impetuosity of fortune; and next we ascribe this honor to God, that, since He is a Father full of goodness, He does not take pleasure in our sufferings, and therefore does not treat us more harshly than he has been offended by our sins. When he charges him, sin no more, he does not enjoin him to be free from all sin, but speaks comparatively as to his former life; for Christ exhorts him henceforth to repent, and not to do as he had done before.
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Lest something worse befall thee. If God does not succeed in doing us good by the stripes with which he gently chastises us, as the kindest father would chastise his tender and delicate children, He is constrained to assume a new character, and a character which, so to speak, is not natural to Him. He therefore seizes the whip to subdue our obstinacy, as He threatens in the Law, (Leviticus 26:14; Deuteronomy 28:15; Psalm 32:9;) and indeed throughout the Scriptures passages of the same kind are to be found. Thus, when we are incessantly pressed down by new afflictions, we ought to trace this to our obstinacy; for not only do we resemble restive horses and mules, but we are like wild beasts that cannot be tamed. There is no reason to wonder, therefore, if God make use of severer punishment to bruise us, as it were, by mallets, when moderate punishment is of no avail; for it is proper that they who will not endure to be corrected should be bruised by strokes. In short, the use of punishments is, to render us more cautious for the future. If, after the first and second strokes, we maintain obstinate hardness of heart, he will strike us seven times more severely. If, after having showed signs of repentance for a time, we immediately return to our natural disposition, he chastises more sharply this levity which proves us to be forgetful, and which is full of sloth.
Again, in the person of this man it is of importance for us to observe with what gentleness and condescension the Lord bears with us. Let us suppose that the man was approaching old age, in which case he must have been visited by disease in the very prime of life, and perhaps had been attacked by it from his earliest infancy; and now let us consider how grievous to him must have been this punishment continued through so many years. It is certain that we cannot reproach God with excessive severity in causing this man to languish, and to be half-dead, for so long a period; and, therefore, when we are punished more lightly, let us learn that it is because the Lord, in his infinite goodness, moderates the extreme rigour of the punishments which we would have well deserved. Let us also learn that no punishments are so rigorous and severe, that the Lord cannot make additions to them whenever he pleases. Nor can it be doubted that wretched men by their wicked complaints, often draw down upon themselves dreadful and shocking tortures, when they assert that it is not possible to endure heavier distresses, and that God cannot send them any thing more. Are not these things hidden among my treasures? saith the Lord, (Deuteronomy 32:34.) We ought also to observe how slow we are in deriving benefit from God’s chastisements; for if Christ’s exhortation was not superfluous, we may learn from it that the soul of this man was not yet fully purified from every vice. Indeed, the roots of vices are too deep in us to be capable of being torn out in a single day, or in a few days; and the cure of the diseases of the soul is too difficult to be effected by remedies applied for a short time.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On v17 The work of God was never the breach of…
The work of God was never the breach of the Sabbath: but the works of Christ are the works of the Father, both because they are one God, and also because the Father doth not work but in the Son.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv14–17 14 Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple, and…
14 Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.
Ver. 14. Findeth him in the temple] Praising God, likely, for his unexpected recovery. So Hezekiah, the first work he did when off his sick bed, Isa 38:22.
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Behold, thou art made whole, &c.] Here Isa 1:1-31. Commemoratio beneficii. Remember kndnesses. 2. Commonitio officii. Admonish duties. 3. Comminatio supplicii. Ingentia beneficia, ingentia flagitia, ingentia supplicia. {a} Threaten punishment. Unnatural kindnesses, unnatural shame, unnatural punishment.
{a} Magdeburgens praef, ad cent. 5.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv14–17 Jesus findeth him in the temple; walking in the…
Jesus findeth him in the temple; walking in the outward court of the temple, or some part of it, where people ordinarily walked. He charges him to
sin no more, lest a worse thing betided him; hereby letting him and us know that sin is the usual cause of diseases, and a holy walking the best preservative of health; and that God hath further revelations of his wrath against sin and sinners, than what do or can befall them in this life.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv14, 15, 17 These words are our Saviour’s seasonable advice and counsel…
These words are our Saviour’s seasonable advice and counsel to the poor impotent cripple, whom he had miraculously restored to health and soundness.
Whence observe, 1. The person admonishing, Jesus; he that had been his physician before, is his monitor and teacher now: Behold, thou art made whole, sin no more. Oh, how much is it the duty, but seldom the practice, of those whom God makes instruments for recovering bodily health, to put their patients in mind of their obligations to thankfulness and new obedience! Thus did our Saviour. The recovered man’s physician gave him instruction: his healer became his monitor. Sin no more.
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Observe, 2. The person admonished, the recovered cripple: Thou art made whole. But what was he? Not a disciple, not a believer; For he that was healed wist not who Jesus was, ver 13. he knew not Christ, therefore believed not on him, and yet was healed by him.
Thence learn, That there are many outward mercies and common blessings, which Christ bestows upon those that have no spiritual knowledge of him, or saving acquiantance with him. The man that was healed, wist not who he was that had healed him.
Observe, 3. The place where Christ meets this his recovered patient; not at the tavern, but in the temple, returning thanks to God for his recovered health: when God sends forth his word and healeth us, it is our duty to make our first visit to God’s house, and to pay our vows in the great congregation and sound forth the praises of our great and gracious deliverer.
Observe, 4. The circumstance of time when Christ found him in the temple soon after his recovery. Afterwards Jesus findeth him in the temple. We must not be clamorous and importunate to receive mercies, and dumb and tongue-tied in returning thanks: but make haste, and not delay the time to pay our acknowledgments to him that healeth.
Observe, 5. The admonition itself; Behold, thou art made whole; sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee; where it is farther implied, that Almighty God has sorer plagues and severer judgments in store for those sinners who go on obstinately in a course of sin and rebellion against God, notwithstanding all the signal rebukes of his avenging anger.
From the whole note, That when the Lord doth greaciously heal a person or a people, it is a mercy to be much observed, and thankfully acknowledged.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v17 We have here Christ's discourse upon occasion of his…
We have here Christ's discourse upon occasion of his being accused as a sabbath-breaker, and it seems to be his vindication of himself before the sanhedrim, when he was arraigned before them: whether on the same day, or two or three days after, does not appear; probably the same day. Observe,
I. The doctrine laid down, by which he justified what he did on the sabbath day (Joh 5:17): He answered them. This supposes that he had something laid to his charge: or what they suggested one to another, when they sought to slay him (Joh 5:16), he knew, and gave this reply to, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. At other times, in answer to the like charge, he had pleaded the example of David's eating the show-bread, of the priests' slaying the sacrifices, and of the people's watering their cattle on the sabbath day; but here he goes higher and alleges the example of his Father and his divine authority; waiving all other pleas, he insists upon that which was instar omnium - equivalent to the whole, and abides by it, which he had mentioned, Mat 12:8. The Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day; but he here enlarges on it. 1. He pleads that he was the Son of God, plainly intimated in his calling God his Father; and, if so, his holiness was unquestionable and his sovereignty incontestable; and he might make what alterations he pleased of the divine law. Surely they will reverence the Son, the heir of all things. 2. That he was a worker together with God. (1.) My Father worketh hitherto. The example of God's resting on the seventh day from all his work is, in the fourth commandment, made the ground of our observing it as a sabbath or day of rest. Now God rested only from such work as he had done the six days before; otherwise he worketh hitherto, he is every day working, sabbath days and week-days, upholding and governing all the creatures, and concurring by his common providence to all the motions and operations of nature, to his own glory; therefore, when we are appointed to rest on the sabbath day, yet we are not restrained from doing that which has a direct tendency to the glory of God, as the man's carrying his bed had. (2.) I work; not only therefore I may work, like him, in doing good on sabbath days as well as other days, but I also work with him. As God created all things by Christ, so he supports and governs all by him, Heb 1:3. This sets what he does above all exception; he that is so great a worker must needs be an uncontrollable governor; he that does all is Lord of all, and therefore Lord of the sabbath, which particular branch of his authority he would now assert, because he was shortly to show it further, in the change of the day from the seventh to the first.
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II. The offence that was taken at his doctrine (Joh 5:18): The Jews sought the more to kill him. His defence was made his offence, as if by justifying himself he had made bad worse. Note, Those that will not be enlightened by the word of Christ will be enraged and exasperated by it, and nothing more vexes the enemies of Christ than his asserting his authority; see Psa 2:3-5. They sought to kill him,
1. Because he had broken the sabbath; for, let him say what he would in his own justification, they are resolved, right or wrong, to find him guilty of sabbath breaking. When malice and envy sit upon the bench, reason and justice may even be silent at the bar, for whatever they can say will undoubtedly be over-ruled.
2. Not only so, but he had said also that God was his Father. Now they pretend a jealousy for God's honour, as before for the sabbath day, and charge Christ with it as a heinous crime that he made himself equal with God; and a heinous crime it had been if he had not really been so. It was the sin of Lucifer, I will be like the Most High. Now, (1.) This was justly inferred from what he said, that he was the Son of God, and that God was his Father, patera idion - his own Father; his, so as he was no one's else. He had said that he worked with his Father, by the same authority and power, and hereby he made himself equal with God. Ecee intelligunt Judaei, quod non intelligunt Ariani - Behold, the Jews understand what the Arians do not. (2.) Yet it was unjustly imputed to him as an offence that he equalled himself with God, for he was and is God, equal with the Father (Phi 2:6); and therefore Christ, in answer to this charge, does not except against the innuendo as strained or forced, makes out his claim and proves that he is equal with God in power and glory.
III. Christ's discourse upon this occasion, which continues without interruption to the end of the chapter. In these verses he explains, and afterwards confirms, his commission, as Mediator and plenipotentiary in the treaty between God and man. And, as the honours he is hereby entitled to are such as it is not fit for any creature to receive, so the work he is hereby entrusted with is such as it is not possible for any creature to go through with, and therefore he is God, equal with the Father.
1. In general. He is one with the Father in all he does as Mediator, and there was a perfectly good understanding between them in the whole matter. It is ushered in with a solemn preface (Joh 5:19): Verily, verily, I say unto you; I the Amen, the Amen, say it. This intimates that the things declared are, (1.) Very awful and great, and such as should command the most serious attention. (2.) Very sure, and such as should command an unfeigned assent. (3.) That they are matters purely of divine revelation; things which Christ has told us, and which we could not otherwise have come to the knowledge of. Two things he saith in general concerning the Son's oneness with the Father in working: -
[1.] That the Son conforms to the Father (Joh 5:19): The Son can do nothing of himself but what he sees the Father do; for these things does the Son. The Lord Jesus, as Mediator, is First, Obedient to his Father's will; so entirely obedient that he can do nothing of himself, in the same sense as it is said, God cannot lie, cannot deny himself, which expresses the perfection of his truth, not any imperfection in his strength; so here, Christ was so entirely devoted to his Father's will that it was impossible for him in any thing to act separately. Secondly, He is observant of his Father's counsel; he can, he will, do nothing but what he sees the Father do. No man can find out the work of God, but the only-begotten Son, who lay in his bosom, sees what he does, is intimately acquainted with his purposes, and has the plan of them ever before him. What he did as Mediator, throughout his whole undertaking, was the exact transcript or counterpart of what the Father did; that is, what he designed, when he formed the plan of our redemption in his eternal counsels, and settled those measures in every thing which never could be broken, nor ever needed to be altered. It was the copy of that great original; it was Christ's faithfulness, as it was Moses's, that he did all according to the pattern shown him in the mount. This is expressed in the present tense, what he sees the Father do, for the same reason that, when he was here upon earth, it was said, He is in heaven (Joh 3:13), and is in the bosom of the Father (Joh 1:18); as he was even then by his divine nature present in heaven, so the things done in heaven were present to his knowledge. What the Father did in his counsels, the Son had ever in his view, and still he had his eye upon it, as David in spirit spoke of him, I have set the Lord always before me, Psa 16:8. Thirdly, Yet he is equal with the Father in working; for what things soever the Father does these also does the Son likewise; he did the same things, not such things, but tauta, the same things; and he did them in the same manner, homoiōs, likewise, with the same authority, and liberty, and wisdom, the same energy and efficacy. Does the Father enact, repeal, and alter, positive laws? Does he over-rule the course of nature, know men's hearts? So does the Son. The power of the Mediator is a divine power.
[2.] That the Father communicates to the Son, Joh 5:20. Observe,
First, The inducement to it: The Father loveth the Son; he declared, This is my beloved Son. He had not only a good will to the undertaking, but an infinite complacency in the undertaker. Christ was now hated of men, one whom the nation abhorred (Isa 49:7); but he comforted himself with this, that his Father loved him.
Secondly, The instances of it. He shows it, 1. In what he does communicate to him: He shows him all things that himself doth. The Father's measures in making and ruling the world are shown to the Son, that he may take the same measures in framing and governing the church, which work was to be a duplicate of the work of creation and providence, and it is therefore called the world to come. He shows him all things ha autos poiei - which he does, that is, which the Son does, so it might be construed; all that the Son does is by direction from the Father; he shows him. 2. In what he will communicate; he will show him, that is, will appoint and direct him to do greater works than these. (1.) Works of greater power than the curing of the impotent man; for he should raise the dead, and should himself rise from the dead. By the power of nature, with the use of means, a disease may possibly in time be cured; but nature can never, by the use of any means, in any time raise the dead. (2.) Works of greater authority than warranting the man to carry his bed on the sabbath day. They thought this a daring attempt; but what was this to his abrogating the whole ceremonial law, and instituting new ordinances, which he would shortly do, "that you may marvel!" Now they looked upon his works with contempt and indignation, but he will shortly do that which they will look upon with amazement, Luk 7:16. Many are brought to marvel at Christ's works, whereby he has the honour of them, who are not brought to believe, by which they would have the benefit of them.
2. In particular. He proves his equality with the Father, by specifying some of those works which he does that are the peculiar works of God. This is enlarged upon, Joh 5:21-30. He does, and shall do, that which is the peculiar work of God's sovereign dominion and jurisdiction - judging and executing judgment, Joh 5:22-24, Joh 5:27. These two are interwoven, as being nearly connected; and what is said once is repeated and inculcated; put both together, and they will prove that Christ said not amiss when he made himself equal with God.
(1.) Observe what is here said concerning the Mediator's power to raise the dead and give life. See [1.] His authority to do it (Joh 5:21): As the Father raiseth up the dead, so the Son quickeneth whom he will. First, It is God's prerogative to raise the dead, and give life, even his who first breathed into man the breath of life, and so made him a living soul; see Deu 32:30; Sa1 2:6; Psa 68:20; Rom 4:17. This God had done by the prophets Elijah and Elisha, and it was a confirmation of their mission. A resurrection from the dead never lay in the common road of nature, nor ever fell within the thought of those that studied only the compass of nature's power, one of whose received axioms was point blank against it: A privatione ad habitum non datur regressus - Existence, when once extinguished, cannot be rekindled. It was therefore ridiculed at Athens as an absurd thing, Act 17:32. It is purely the work of a divine power, and the knowledge of it purely by divine revelation. This the Jews would own. Secondly, The Mediator is invested with this prerogative: He quickens whom he will; raises to life whom he pleases, and when he pleases. He does not enliven things by natural necessity, as the sun does, whose beams revive of course; but he acts as a free agent, has the dispensing of his power in his own hand, and is never either constrained, or restrained, in the use of it. As he has the power, so he has the wisdom and sovereignty, of a God; has the key of the grave and of death (Rev 1:18), not as a servant, to open and shut as he is bidden, for he has it as the key of David, which he is master of, Rev 3:7. An absolute prince is described by this (Dan 5:19): Whom he would he slew or kept alive; it is true of Christ without hyperbole.
[2.] His ability to do it. Therefore he has power to quicken whom he will as the Father does, because he has life in himself, as the Father has, Joh 5:26. First, It is certain that the Father has life in himself. Not only he is a self-existent Being, who does not derive fRom. or depend upon, any other (Exo 3:14), but he is a sovereign giver of life; he has the disposal of life in himself; and of all good (for so life sometimes signifies); it is all derived from him, and dependent on him. He is to his creatures the fountain of life, and all good; author of their being and well-being; the living God, and the God of all living. Secondly, It is as certain that he has given to the Son to have life in himself. As the Father is the original of all natural life and good, being the great Creator, so the Son, as Redeemer, is the original of all spiritual life and good; is that to the church which the Father is to the world; see Co1 8:6; Col 1:19. The kingdom of grace, and all the life in that kingdom, are as fully and absolutely in the hand of the Redeemer as the kingdom of providence is in the hand of the Creator; and as God, who gives being to all things, has his being of himself, so Christ, who gives life, raised himself to life by his own power, Joh 10:18.
[3.] His acting according to this authority and ability. Having life in himself, and being authorized to quicken whom he will, by virtue hereof there are, accordingly, two resurrections performed by his powerful word, both which are here spoken of: -
First, A resurrection that now is (Joh 5:29), a resurrection from the death of sin to the life of righteousness, by the power of Christ's grace. The hour is coming, and now is. It is a resurrection begun already, and further to be carried on, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God. This is plainly distinguished from that in Joh 5:28, which speaks of the resurrection at the end of time. This says nothing, as that does, of the dead in their graces, and of all of them, and their coming forth. Now, 1. Some think this was fulfilled in those whom he miraculously raised to life, Jairus's daughter, the widow's son, and Lazarus; and it is observable that all whom Christ raised were spoken to, as, Damsel, arise; Young man, arise; Lazarus, come forth; whereas those raised under the Old Testament were raised, not by a word, but other applications, Kg1 17:21; Kg2 4:34; Kg2 13:21. Some understand it of those saints that rose with Christ; but we do not read of the voice of the Son of God calling them. But, 2. I rather understand it of the power of the doctrine of Christ, for the recovering and quickening of those that were dead in trespasses and sins, Eph 2:1. The hour was coming when dead souls should be made alive by the preaching of the gospel, and a spirit of life from God accompanying it: nay, it then was, while Christ was upon earth. It may refer especially to the calling of the Gentiles, which is said to be as life from the dead, and, some think, was prefigured by Ezekiel's vision (Eze 37:1), and foretold, Isa 26:19. Thy dead men shall live. But it is to be applied to all the wonderful success of the gospel, among both Jews and Gentiles; an hour which still is, and is still coming, till all the elect be effectually called. Note, (1.) Sinners are spiritually dead, destitute of spiritual life, sense, strength, and motion, dead to God, miserable, but neither sensible of their misery nor able to help themselves out of it. (2.) The conversion of a soul to God is its resurrection from death to life; then it begins to live when it begins to live to God, to breathe after him, and move towards him. (3.) It is by the voice of the Son of God that souls are raised to spiritual life; it is wrought by his power, and that power conveyed and communicated by his word: The dead shall hear, shall be made to hear, to understand, receive, and believe, the voice of the Son of God, to hear it as his voice; then the Spirit by it gives life, otherwise the letter kills. (4.) The voice of Christ must be heard by us, that we may live by it. They that hear, and attend to what they hear, shall live. Hear and your soul shall live, Isa 55:3.
Secondly, A resurrection yet to come; this is spoken of, Joh 5:28, Joh 5:29, introduced with, "Marvel not at this, which I have said of the first resurrection, do not reject it as incredible and absurd, for at the end of time you shall all see a more sensible and amazing proof of the power and authority of the Son of man." As his own resurrection was reserved to be the final and concluding proof of his personal commission, so the resurrection of all men is reserved to be a like proof of his commission to be executed by his spirit. Now observe here,
a. When this resurrection shall be: The hour is coming; it is fixed to an hour, so very punctual is this great appointment. The judgment is not adjourned sine die - to some time not yet pitched upon; no, he hath appointed a day. The hour is coming. (a.) It is not yet come, it is not the hour spoken of at Joh 5:25, that is coming, and now is. Those erred dangerously who said that the resurrection was past already, Ti2 2:18, But, (b.) It will certainly come, it is coming on, nearer every day than other; it is at the door. How far off it is we know not; but we know that it is infallibly designed and unalterably determined.
b. Who shall be raised: All that are in the graves, all that have died from the beginning of time, and all that shall die to the end of time. It was said (Dan 12:2), Many shall arise; Christ here tells us that those many shall be all; all must appear before the Judge, and therefore all must be raised; every person, and the whole of every person; every soul shall return to its body, and every bone to its bone. The grave is the prison of dead bodies, where they are detained; their furnace, where they are consumed (Job 24:19); yet, in prospect of their resurrection, we may call it their bed, where they sleep to be awaked again; their treasury, where they are laid up to be used again. Even those that are not put into graves shall arise; but, because most are put into graves, Christ uses this expression, all that are in the graves. The Jews used the word sheol for the grave, which signifies the state of the dead; all that are in that state shall hear.
c. How they shall be raised. Two things are here told us: - (a.) The efficient of this resurrection: They shall hear his voice; that is, he shall cause them to hear it, as Lazarus was made to hear that word, Come forth; a divine power shall go along with the voice, to put life into them, and enable them to obey it. When Christ rose, there was no voice heard, not a word spoken, because he rose by his own power; but at the resurrection of the children of men we find three voices spoken of, Th1 4:16. The Lord shall descend with a shout, the shout of a king, with the voice of the archangel; either Christ himself, the prince of the angels, or the commander-in-chief, under him, of the heavenly hosts; and with the trumpet of God: the soldier's trumpet sounding the alarm of war, the judge's trumpet publishing the summons to the court. (b.) The effect of it: They shall come forth out of their graves, as prisoners out of their prison-house; they shall arise out of the dust, and shake themselves from it; see Isa 52:1, Isa 52:2, Isa 52:11. But this is not all; they shall appear before Christ's tribunal, shall come forth as those that are to be tried, come forth to the bar, publicly to receive their doom.
d. To what they shall be raised; to a different state of happiness or misery, according to their different character; to a state of retribution, according to what they did in the state of probation.
(a.) They that have done good shall come forth to the resurrection of life; they shall live again, to live for ever. Note, [a.] Whatever name men are called by, or whatever plausible profession they make, it will be well in the great day with those only that have done good, have done that which is pleasing to God and profitable to others. [b.] The resurrection of the body will be a resurrection of life to all those, and those only, that have been sincere and constant in doing good. They shall not only be publicly acquitted, as a pardoned criminal, we say, has his life, but they shall be admitted into the presence of God, and that is life, it is better than life; they shall be attended with comforts in perfection. To live is to be happy, and they shall be advanced above the fear of death; that is life indeed in which mortality is for ever swallowed up.
(b.) They that have done evil to the resurrection of damnation; they shall live again, to be for ever dying. The Pharisees thought that the resurrection pertained only to the just, but Christ here rectifies that mistake. Note, [a.] Evil doers, whatever they pretend, will be treated in the day of judgment as evil men. [b.] The resurrection will be to evil doers, who did not by repentance undo what they had done amiss, a resurrection of damnation. They shall come forth to be publicly convicted of rebellion against God, and publicly condemned to everlasting punishment; to be sentenced to it, and immediately sent to it without reprieve. Such will the resurrection be.
(2.) Observe what is here said concerning the Mediator's authority to execute judgment, Joh 5:22-24, Joh 5:27. As he has an almighty power, so he has a sovereign jurisdiction; and who so fit to preside in the great affairs of the other life as he who is the Father and fountain of life? Here is,
[1.] Christ's commission or delegation to the office of a judge, which is twice spoken of here (Joh 5:22): He hath committed all judgment to the Son; and again (Joh 5:27): he hath given him authority.
First, The Father judges no man; not that the Father hath resigned the government, but he is pleased to govern by Jesus Christ; so that man is not under the terror of dealing with God immediately, but has the comfort of access to him by a Mediator. Having made us, he may do what he pleases with us, as the potter with the clay; yet he does not take advantage of this, but draws us with the cords of a man. 2. He does not determine our everlasting condition by the covenant of innocency, nor take the advantage he has against us for the violation of that covenant. The Mediator having undertaken to make a vicarious satisfaction, the matter is referred to him, and God is willing to enter upon a new treaty; not under the law of the Creator, but the grace of the Redeemer.
Secondly, He has committed all judgment to the Son, has constituted him Lord of all (Act 10:36; Rom 14:9), as Joseph in Egypt, Gen 41:40. This was prophesied of, Psa 72:1; Isa 11:3, Isa 11:4; Jer 23:5; Mic 5:1-4; Psa 67:4; Psa 96:13; Psa 98:9. All judgment is committed to our Lord Jesus; for 1. He is entrusted with the administration of the providential kingdom, is head over all things (Eph 1:11), head of every man, Co1 11:3. All things consist by him, Col 1:17. 2. He is empowered to make laws immediately to bind conscience. I say unto you is now the form in which the statues of the kingdom of heaven run. Be it enacted by the Lord Jesus, and by his authority. All the acts now in force are touched with his sceptre. 3. He is authorized to appoint and settle the terms of the new covenant, and to draw up the articles of peace between God and man; it is God in Christ that reconciles the world, and to him he has given power to confer eternal life. The book of life is the Lamb's book; by his award we must stand or fall. 4. He is commissioned to carry on and complete the war with the powers of darkness; to cast out and give judgment against the prince of this world, Joh 12:31. He is commissioned not only to judge, but to make war, Rev 19:11. All that will fight for God against Satan must enlist themselves under his banner. 5. He is constituted sole manager of the judgment of the great day. The ancients generally understood these words of that crowning act of his judicial power. The final and universal judgment is committed to the Son of man; the tribunal is his, it is the judgment-seat of Christ; the retinue is his, his mighty angels; he will try the causes, and pass the sentence. Act 17:31.
Thirdly, He has given him authority to execute judgment also, Joh 5:27. Observe, 1. What the authority is which our Redeemer is invested with: An authority to execute judgment; he has not only a legislative and judicial power, but an executive power too. The phrase here is used particularly for the judgment of condemnation, Jde 1:15. poiēsai krisin - to execute judgment upon all; the same with his taking vengeance, Th2 1:8. The ruin of impenitent sinners comes from the hand of Christ; he that executes judgment upon them is the same that would have wrought salvation for them, which makes the sentence unexceptionable; and there is no relief against the sentence of the Redeemer; salvation itself cannot save those whom the Saviour condemns, which makes the ruin remediless. 2. Whence he has that authority: the Father gave it to him. Christ's authority as Mediator is delegated and derived; he acts as the Father's Viceregent, as the Lord's Anointed, the Lord's Christ. Now all this redounds very much to the honour of Christ, acquitting him from the guilt of blasphemy, in making himself equal with God; and very much to the comfort of all believers, who may with the greatest assurance venture their all in such hands.
[2.] Here are the reasons (reasons of state) for which this commission was given him. He has all judgment committed to him for two reasons: -
First, Because he is the Son of man; which denotes these three things: - 1. His humiliation and gracious condescension. Man is a worm, the son of man a worm; yet this was the nature, this the character, which the Redeemer assumed, in pursuance of the counsels of love; to this low estate he stooped, and submitted to all the mortifications attending it, because it was his Father's will; in recompence therefore of this wonderful obedience, God did thus dignify him. Because he condescended to be the Son of man, his Father made him Lord of all, Phi 2:8, Phi 2:9. 2. His affinity and alliance to us. The Father has committed the government of the children of men to him, because, being the Son of man, he is of the same nature with those whom he is set over, and therefore the more unexceptionable, and the more acceptable, as a Judge. Their governor shall proceed from the midst of them, Jer 30:21. Of this that law was typical; One of thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee, Deu 17:15. 3. His being the Messiah promised. In that famous vision of his kingdom and glory, Dan 7:13, Dan 7:14, he is called the Son of man; and Psa 8:4-6. Thou has made the Son of man have dominion over the works of thy hands. He is the Messiah, and therefore is invested with all this power. The Jews usually called the Christ the Son of David; but Christ usually called himself the Son of man, which was the more humble title, and bespeaks him a prince and Saviour, not the Jewish nation only, but to the whole race of mankind.
Secondly, That all men should honour the Son, Joh 5:23. The honouring of Jesus Christ is here spoken of as God's great design (the Son intended to glorify the Father, and therefore the Father intended to glorify the Son, Joh 12:32); and as man's great duty, in compliance with that design. If God will have the Son honoured, it is the duty of all to whom he is made known to honour him. Observe here, 1. The respect that is to be paid to our Lord Jesus: We must honour the Son, must look upon him as one that is to be honoured, both on account of his transcendent excellences and perfections in himself, and of the relations he stands in to us, and must study to give him honour accordingly; must confess that he is Lord, and worship him; must honour him who was dishonoured for us. 2. The degree of it: Even as they honour the Father. This supposes it to be our duty to honour the Father; for revealed religion is founded on natural religion, and directs us to honour the Son, to honour him with divine honour; we must honour the Redeemer with the same honour with which we honour the Creator. So far was it from blasphemy for him to make himself equal with God that it is the highest injury that can be for us to make him otherwise. The truths and laws of the Christian religion, so far as they are revealed, are as sacred and honourable as those of natural religion, and to be equally had in estimation; for we lie under the same obligations to Christ, the Author of our being; and have as necessary a dependence upon the Redeemer's grace as upon the Creator's providence, which is a sufficient ground for this law - to honour the Son as we honour the Father. To enforce this law, it is added, He that honours not the Son honours not the Father who has sent him. Some pretend a reverence for the Creator, and speak honourably of him, who make light of the Redeemer, and speak contemptibly of him; but let such know that the honours and interests of the Father and Son are so inseparably twisted and interwoven that the Father never reckons himself honoured by any that dishonour the Son. Note, (1.) Indignities done to the Lord Jesus reflect upon God himself, and will so be construed and reckoned for in the court of heaven. The Son having so far espoused the Father's honour as to take to himself the reproaches cast on him (Rom 15:3), the Father does no less espouse the Son's honour, and counts himself struck at through him. (2.) The reason of this is because the Son is sent and commissioned by the Father; it is the Father who hath sent him. Affronts to an ambassador are justly resented by the prince that sends him. And by this rule those who truly honour the Son honour the Father also; see Phi 2:11.
[3.] Here is the rule by which the Son goes in executing this commission, so those words seem to come in (Joh 5:24): He that heareth and believeth hath everlasting life. Here we have the substance of the whole gospel; the preface commands attention to a thing most weighty, and assent to a thing most certain: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, I, to whom you hear all judgment is committed, I, in whose lips is a divine sentence; take from me the Christian's character and charter."
First, The character of a Christian: He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me. To be a Christian indeed is, 1. To hear the word of Christ. It is not enough to be within hearing of it, but we must attend on it, as scholars on the instructions of their teachers; and attend to it, as servants to the commands of their masters; we must hear and obey it, must abide by the gospel of Christ as the fixed rule of our faith and practice. 2. To believe on him that sent him; for Christ's design is to bring us to God; and, as he is the first original of all grace, so is he the last object of all faith. Christ is our way; God is our rest. We must believe on God as having sent Jesus Christ, and recommended himself to our faith and love, by manifesting his glory in the face of Jesus Christ (Co2 4:6), as his Father and our Father.
Secondly, The charter of a Christian, in which all that are Christians indeed are interested. See what we get by Christ. 1. A charter of pardon: He shall not come into condemnation. The grace of the gospel is a full discharge from the curse of the law. A believer shall not only not lie under condemnation eternally, but shall not come into condemnation now, not come into the danger of it (Rom 8:1), not come into judgment, not be so much as arraigned. 2. A charter of privileges: He is passed out of death to life, is invested in a present happiness in spiritual life and entitled to a future happiness in eternal life. The tenour of the first covenant was, Do this and live; the man that doeth them shall live in them. Now this proves Christ equal with the Father that he has power to propose the same benefit to the hearers of his word that had been proposed to the keepers of the old law, that is, life: Hear and live, believe and live, is what we may venture our souls upon, when we are disabled to do and live; see Joh 17:2.
[4.] Here is the righteousness of his proceedings pursuant to this commission, Joh 5:30. All judgment being committed to him, we cannot but ask how he manages it. And here he answers, My judgment is just. All Christ
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv14–17 Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple,.... Perhaps on…
Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple,.... Perhaps on the same day; for as soon as he had been at home, and laid down his bed, it is very likely he went directly to the temple, there to show himself, attend the worship of the place, and return thanks to God for the great mercy bestowed on him:
and said unto him, behold thou art made whole; cured of the disease that had attended him so many years; and a wonderful cure it was; well may a "behold" be prefixed; though this is here not only a note of admiration, but of attention, to what he was about to say to him: sin is a disease, which is original, natural, and hereditary to men; it is an epidemical one, all are affected with it, and all the powers and faculties of the soul; and it is a nauseous and loathsome one; and what is mortal and incurable in itself, and only to be cured by the great physician, Jesus Christ: God's elect are attended with it as others, and being made sensible thereof, they come to Christ for a cure, and receive one, as this man did, to whom he said,
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sin no more; intimating, that as all diseases of the body spring from sin, so had his; and that the time past of his life should suffice, for a course of sinning; and that the mercy he had received, laid him under an obligation to guard against it, to which there would still be a proneness in him; nor did our Lord imagine, that he could hereafter live without sin, but that he should not indulge himself in it, and give up himself unto it, and live in it: so all the diseases of the soul arise from sin; and when a person is converted, he ought not to walk as others do, or he himself has done; and though there is a propensity to sin and backslide from God after conversion, yet the grace of God teaches men to deny sin, and to live righteously; and though it cannot be thought that they should be, and act without sin, yet it becomes them not to live in sin, or go on in a course of it, as heretofore:
lest a worse thing come unto thee; for God could send a worse disease, or a sorer affliction, than he had yet done; an heavier punishment, either in this world, or that to come: and apply this to a good man, a converted man, one called by grace and cured by Christ, and a worse thing through sin may come unto him than a bodily disorder, namely, the hidings of God's face; for as his presence is life, his absence is death, to such persons; and as for such who only make a profession of religion, and are externally reformed only, such, if they sin and fall away, their latter end is worse than the beginning.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv14, 15, 17 Sin no more - It seems his former illness…
Sin no more - It seems his former illness was the effect or punishment of sin.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv14–17 Verse 14. Jesus findeth him in the temple] The…
Verse 14. Jesus findeth him in the temple] The man being conscious that it was through the mercy of God that he was restored, (though he did not as yet know distinctly who Christ was,) went to the temple to return thanks to God for his cure. Whether this was on the same day, or some other, does not distinctly appear: it was probably the same day, after he had carried home his couch. How many, when they are made well, forget the hand that has healed them, and, instead of gratitude and obedience to God, use their renewed health and strength in the service of sin! Those who make this use of God's mercies may consider their restoration as a respite only from perdition.
Sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.] Our Lord, intending to discover to this man who he was, gave him two proofs of the perfection of his knowledge.
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1. He showed him that he knew the secret of the past-sin no more: thereby intimating that his former sins were the cause of his long affliction.
2. He showed him that he knew the future-lest a worse thing come unto thee: if thy iniquity be repeated, thy punishment will be increased.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv14, 17 Joh 5:14-16. Afterward, Jesus findeth him in the temple…
Joh 5:14-16. Afterward, Jesus findeth him in the temple — The same day, probably, in which he was healed, whither, it is likely, he had repaired to return thanks to God for his signal recovery. Thus, when God has, at any time, restored us to our health, we ought to attend him with solemn praises; and the sooner the better; while the sense of the mercy is fresh in our minds. Jesus, happening to be now in the temple, and meeting with the man, that he might render the mercy he had conferred on him complete, takes this opportunity to put him in mind of his having brought the distemper upon himself by his wicked courses; and said, Behold, thou art made whole — By the singular mercy of God, thou art now restored to health and vigour; sin no more — Guard against all known sin; lest a worse thing come unto thee — Lest some heavier judgment should be inflicted on thee: for the deliverance thou hast now received would be a dreadful aggravation of any future guilt thou mightest contract. The man — Having received information from those that stood by who it was that spoke to him, and knowing him to be the person to whom he was indebted for his cure; departed — From the temple; and told the Jews — Who had before examined him, that it was Jesus who had made him whole, expecting, no doubt, by this discovery, to have procured him that honour and respect which were due to so much power and goodness. And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus — One would have expected, that as soon as the man who had been thus miraculously healed had published the name of his benefactor, crowds would have immediately thronged about Jesus to have heard the words of his mouth, and to have received the blessings of his gospel. But, instead of this, behold the malignity of our fallen nature, and force of stubborn prejudice! They surround him with a hostile intent; they even conspire against his life; and, for an imagined transgression in point of ceremony, would have put out this Light of Israel. Let us not wonder, then, if our good be evil spoken of; if even candour, benevolence, and usefulness, do not disarm the enmity of those who have been taught to prefer sacrifice to mercy; and who, dis-relishing the genuine gospel, naturally seek to slander and persecute the professors, and especially the defenders of it.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv14, 16, 17 Findeth him - Fell in with him, or saw…
Findeth him - Fell in with him, or saw him.
In the temple - The man seems to have gone at once to the temple - perhaps a privilege of which he had been long deprived. They who are healed from sickness should seek the sanctuary of God and give him thanks for his mercy. Compare the notes at Isa 38:20. There is nothing more improper, when we are raised up from a bed of pain, than to forget God our benefactor, and neglect to praise him for his mercies.
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Thou art made whole - Jesus calls to his remembrance the fact that he was healed, in order that he might admonish him not to sin again.
Sin no more - By this expression it was implied that the infirmity of this man was caused by sin - perhaps by vice in his youth. His crime or dissipation had brought on him this long and distressing affliction. Jesus shows him that he knew the cause of his sickness, and takes occasion to warn him not to repeat it. No man who indulges in vice can tell what may be its consequences. It must always end in evil, and not unfrequently it results in loss of health, and in long and painful disease. This is always the case with intemperance and all gross pleasures. Sooner or later, sin will always result in misery.
Sin no more - Do not repeat the vice. You have had dear-bought experience, and if repeated it will be worse. When a man has been restored from the effects of sin, he should learn to avoid the very appearance of evil. He should shun the place of temptation; he should not mingle again with his old companions; he should touch not, taste not, handle not. God visits with heavier judgment those who have been once restored from the ways of sin and who return again to it. The drunkard that has been reformed, and that returns to his habits of drinking, becomes more beastly; the man that professes to have experienced a change of heart, and who then indulges in sin, sinks deeper into pollution, and is seldom restored. The only way of safety in all such cases is to “sin no more;” not to be in the way of temptation; not to expose ourselves; not to touch or approach that which came near to working our ruin. The man who has been intemperate and is reformed, if he tastes the poison at all, may expect to sink deeper than ever into drunkenness and pollution.
A worse thing - A more grievous disease, or the pains of hell. “The doom of apostates is a worse thing than thirty-eight years’ lameness” (Henry).
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv14, 17 Sin no more, &c. By these words our Saviour…
Sin no more, &c. By these words our Saviour shews, that his infirmity was sent in punishment of his sins. When our souls are covered with the leprosy of sin, we are frequently insensible of our misfortune; whereas, as soon as the body is attacked with sickness, though ever so inconsiderable, we are not to be pacified till the physician has been consulted, and some remedy applied to remove, if possible, the complaint. (St. John Chrysostom, hom. xxxvii. in Joan.) --- Men are astonished that God, for so short a pleasure as is found in the perpetration of sin, should have decreed an everlasting punishment in the fire of hell; for they say, Shall I be punished for ever, for having indulged a sinful thought for a single moment? But their astonishment will cease, when they consider that punishments are not inflicted on sins in proportion to the length of time that was spent in their perpetration, but that they are proportioned to their malice. Now the malice of sin being infinite, aimed against the infinite majesty and infinity sanctity of God, the punishment, to be any ways commensurate, must be infinite. If, therefore, the sinner dies charged with the infinite debt of mortal sin unrepented of, as the time of mercy and repentance finishes with the present life, the sin must necessarily remain, God’s hatred for sin must necessarily remain, and the punishment justly inflicted must necessarily continue. (Haydock) --- These words are applicable to every penitent sinner, when he returns from the tribunal of confession, and shew how careful he ought to be not to relapse into his former sins. "For he who after pardon sins again, is unworthy of mercy; who being cured, makes himself sick again, and who being cleansed, defiles himself again." (Tom. ii. St. John Chrysostom, de lapsu prim. hom.)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv14–17 findeth him in the temple--saying, perhaps, "I will go…
findeth him in the temple--saying, perhaps, "I will go into Thy house with burnt offerings, I will pay my vows which my lips have uttered and my mouth hath spoken when I was in trouble" (Psa 66:13-14). Jesus, there Himself for His own ends, "findeth him there"--not all accidentally, be assured.
sin no more, &c.--a glimpse this of the reckless life he had probably led before his thirty-eight years' infirmity had come upon him, and which not improbably had brought on, in the just judgment of God, his chronic complaint. Fearful illustration this of "the severity of God," but glorious manifestation of our Lord's insight into "what was in man."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv14, 15, 17 14. Afterward—A day or so.
14. Afterward—A day or so.
In the temple—A fit place to offer thanks to Jehovah for his cure. He knew not that Jehovah incarnate was present in that temple.
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And said—A recognition of Jesus by the man took place and converse ensued, from which the man was enabled to identify Jesus as the celebrated prophet of the day.
Sin no more—Blessed and Christ-like advice! How should the forgiven soul dread the sin by which it has once been exposed to eternal death!
A worse thing—A paralysis from which no pool can restore, and no Saviour will deliver; the most terrible catastrophe of the soul’s eternal history.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv14–17 14. Afterward] Literally, after these things, as in Joh_5:1.…
14. Afterward] Literally, after these things, as in Joh_5:1. Probably the same day; we may suppose that one of his first acts after his cure would be to offer his thanks in the Temple. On Joh_5:13-14 Augustine writes, ‘It is difficult in a crowd to see Christ; a certain solitude is necessary for our mind; it is by a certain solitude of contemplation that God is seen … He did not see Jesus in the crowd, he saw Him in the Temple. The Lord Jesus indeed saw him both in the crowd and in the Temple. The impotent man, however, does not know Jesus in the crowd; but he knows Him in the Temple.’
sin no more] Or perhaps, continue no longer in sin. Comp. [Joh_8:11,] Joh_20:17. The man’s conscience would tell him what sin. Comp. [Joh_8:7]. What follows shews plainly not merely that physical suffering in the aggregate is the result of sin in the aggregate, but that this man’s 38 years of sickness were the result of his own sin. This was known to Christ’s heart-searching eye (Joh_2:24-25), but it is a conclusion which we may not draw without the clearest evidence in any given case. Suffering serves other ends than being a punishment for sin: ‘whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth;’ and comp. Joh_9:3.
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a worse thing] Not necessarily hell: even in this life there might be a worse thing than the sickness which had consumed more than half man’s threescore and ten. So terrible are God’s judgments; so awful is our responsibity. Comp. Mat_12:45; 2Pe_2:20.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv14–17 (14) Afterward.—There is no mark of time. Probably it…
(14) Afterward.—There is no mark of time. Probably it was on the same day. Perhaps the first use of his restored power was to go to the Temple and pay his thank-offering to God.
Sin no more.—These words connect his past sufferings with individual sin. He has been freed from the effects, but if they have been truly remedial he has been freed from the cause too. He is in God’s house. Let him accept restored powers as God’s gift, and let their devotion be the true thank-offering. The imperative is present, and points to a permanent condition of life—“Be not any more a sinner.”
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A worse thing.—There is, then, something worse than a life of unmoving helplessness. There is a sadness of tone even as He says, “Behold, thou art made whole;” just as there is a sigh when He says, “Ephphatha: Be opened!” (Mar_7:34). There are men for whom it had been good never to have been born (Mat_26:24). There are limbs that had better never have moved. There are lives that had better have sunk in the negative inaction of death, than have cursed themselves and others in positive deed and speech and thought of life. The power of existence is of infinite grandeur, but it is also of infinite responsibility. It has within its reach the highest good for self and for mankind; but if the God-given power is sacrificed to sin there is within its reach an unutterable depth of woe.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv14, 15, 17 After these things (see ver. 1). Westcott thinks that…
After these things (see ver. 1). Westcott thinks that a looser connection between the foregoing and subsequent events is denoted by meta tauta than by the expression meta touto . Consequently, the persecution referred to in the remainder of the chapter may have occurred several days after the foregoing conversation. Jesus found himin 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, ver. 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, (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.
Suffering alleviated by the removal of sin.
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Notice
I THAT IT WAS THE GREAT AIM OF JESUS TO ALLEVIATE THE SUFFERINGS OF THE HUMAN FAMILY, AND MAKE THEM WHOLE. We see:
1. That the human family are subject to great sufferings. This is too patent to require proof. It is the universal experience of all. These are various and great.
(1) Physical sufferings those arising from the infirmities, diseases, and ultimate mortality of physical life.
(2) Mental sufferings those arising from personal and social afflictions, bereavements, disappointments, slander, failures of every description, and the mysterious problems of being.
(3) Moral sufferings arising from a sense of guilt; the unreconciliation of the soul with God, and its consequent unsettled and painful spiritual state.
2. It was the great object of Christ to alleviate and remove these. To this he devoted his life and energy. He did this by sympathizing and guiding words, by merciful deeds, and by his vicarious death. In all his life and death, "surely he bore our griefs, and carried our sorrows.
II TO ATTAIN THIS AIM IT IS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY THAT SIN SHOULD BE DONE AWAY WITH. "Sin no more.
1. Sin is the direct or indirect cause of all sufferings. All the sufferings of the human family, whether physical, mental, or moral, are traceable to sin. "The wages of sin is death" in all the departments of human being. The sufferings of this poor cripple were the direct consequence of his sin. Physical and spiritual nature invariably punishes the violation of its laws with suffering.
2. The cause must be removed in order to remove the effects. You must dry the fountain before you can dry the stream. As long as there is a fountain there must be a stream. As long as there is sin there must be suffering. Effects must follow causes.
3. The removal of the cause must be followed with the removal of the effect. Dry the fountain, there will be no stream. "Sin no more," there will be no suffering. We have a practical illustration of this in this world. In the degree sin is lessened suffering is lessened, and even with regard to the extent of suffering for which we are not directly responsible the pain is not unnatural. We have a revealed illustration of this from the other world. In heaven there is no sin, and there is no suffering. In hell there is unmixed sin, and there is unmixed suffering. Suffering must end with sin, not before; but then it will.
III TO DO AWAY WITH SIN REQUIRES DIVINE AND HUMAN COOPERATION. "Sin no more." This is the Divine voice appealing to man for his consent and cooperation against sin.
1. This appeal presupposes two things at least.
(1) That to resist sin effectually is a possibility. In connection with what Christ has done and is doing, and what man can do, this is possible. We are
not asked to perform impossibilities. A similar help which accompanied the effort to rise and walk, wilt accompany the effort to resist sin.
(2) That to resist sin is a most binding duty. It is each man"s duty to God, to himself, and to others.
2. This Divine appeal is made to mans moral nature.
(1) To his individual consciousness. "Sin no more." Men are to be restored, not in the abstract, but in the concrete. Not as multitudes, but as individuals. Each man is directly appealed to.
(2) To his individual sinful consciousness. "Sin no more." Thou hast sinned, thou art a sinner. The Divine voice appeals to man as a sinner; thus his sin is brought home to him. This is an essential step to its removal, and unless an assenting echo comes from within, the Divine power has nothing to work upon.
(3) To the powers in man which can distinguish and resist sin. His conscience and will. The one can distinguish between good and evil, and the other can say yes or no to its dictates, as well as to the dictates of Heaven. Conscience is ever on the side of good, and against evil and such. The will is not; hence to educate the conscience, and stir up and gain the human will to the right side, is the chief aim of Christ and his gospel.
3. This Divine appeal is made through the most powerful motives.
(1) Those arising from considerations of sin itself.
(a) Experience of its evil consequences in the past. "Lest a worse thing come unto thee implying that its consequences in the past were bad. The sin of this man had cost him thirty-eight years of untold suffering and misery; only a taint shadow of its spiritual consequences. Every hell is against sin, and sin really is against itself. Man should learn from his failures, and grow wiser by experience.
(b) Its certain worse consequences in the future. "Lest a worse thing," etc.
(i) However bad has been the experience of sin, its worst has notbeen yet felt; there is something worse in store.
(ii) A repetition of sin tends to its final issue.
Every repetition fixes it deeper in the character, and makes it more difficult of cure. It is in the very nature of sin to go from bad to worse, and the next step in it may lead to the worst of all to utter inability to resist, and the consequent impossibility of relief. This should be a strong motive against sin, and a mighty influence to incline the will against it.
(2) Those motives arising from considerations of the Divine goodness.
"Behold, thou art made whole.
(a) Deliverance from the painful consequences of sin is not a sufficient guarantee against falling into it again. The danger may be greater. It will be a point at which the man will be specially attacked; and if it becomes strong, it must become so by special watchfulness and prayer.
(b) Deliverance from the painful consequences of sin should be a strong motive not to commit it again. "Behold, thou," etc. This should awake
(i) a sense of special duty not to sin.
(ii) A sense of special obligations to the Deliverer.
(iii) A sense of special gratitude to him for the deliverance. And thiscan never be manifested while sin is wilfully committed, for it is as detestable to God as it is ruinous to man.
(iv) All the special and general goodness of God in providence and grace is in order to keep us from sin. With Divine eloquence it tells each man, "Sin no more." This is the case especially with regard to our personal deliverances. And if these will not keep us from sin, what will?
LESSONS.
1. Christ cured bodies in order to cure souls. His physical cures were introductory to the spiritual. He performed the miracle of Bethesda in order to teach the lesson of the temple: "Sin no more.
2. No cure is complete unless the soul is cured of the disease of sin. Jesus sought the man in order to finish his work. At Bethesda it was incomplete. How many are satisfied with the introduction! But Divine goodness is wasted unless it is carried out to its natural issues, the restoration of the soul.
3. To keep away from sin is better than to be delivered from it. Prevention is easier and safer than cure. Prevention is ever possible, cure is not. It is possible to be in the palsy of sin where there is no Divine Physician.
4. Jesus helps man in order that man should help himself. He helped this man and did for him what he himself could not do. He made him whole. He was then in a position and under an obligation to do something for himself. "Sin no more.
5. In order to keep away from sin, we should ever remember its terrible consequences and our gracious deliverances. We should be reminded of these, for we are very forgetful. There was a danger that this man should forget this between Bethesda and the temple; therefore the first thing Christ did was to remind him, "Thou hast been made," etc. B.T.
The Healer"s warning.
I HE WHO WARNS HAS THE RIGHT TO SPEAK. It is not a mere stranger who comes up. He who speaks has rendered the greatest services to the man he addresses, and his warning for the future is based on his service in the past. So to speak, the healing would have been incomplete but for the giving of the warning. There are diseases the origin of which is not traceable; there are other diseases distinctly traceable to the evil doing of those who suffer from them. This man might surely have said, even as did the Samaritan woman, "Here is One who told me all that ever I did." Many would speak to the healed man, and their utterances would only move him to say that they knew not what they were talking about. "Sin no more," says Jesus. That seemed to point back to. some act or course of evil doing far away in the past, forgotten by most who had ever known it, and to many not known at all. But he who had the power to heal had also the power to know. If in after years this man neglected the warning and fell into suffering, all the bitterer would that suffering be in recollecting that he was so clearly forewarned against it.
II JESUS WOULD HAVE HEALTH RESTORED, WHATEVER THE CAUSE OF ITS LOSS MIGHT BE. Jesus did not come first of all to the impotent man, reminding him that all these long years of infirmity were the consequence of his own evil doing. The man knew that well enough, and in all likelihood lamented bitterly over his folly. All sufferers demand sympathy; sufferers through their sin most of all. Jesus did not bean lecturing the impotent man as he lay by the pool. He healed him first, and then spoke plainly, even severely, to him after.
III WHAT JESUS GIVES MAN MUST GUARD. While this poor man lay helpless, many temptations passed him by. Now that he was well again, temptations would crowd in upon him. The tempter says, "You are getting old; the years are few: make up for what you lost all the time you were so helpless." Jesus could easily make fresh physical energy pour into every organ and member of this disabled man. But when it; was a question of making him spiritually strong, then he had to be appealed to in a very warning way. What a dreadful possibility Jesus presents to the man! "A worse thing may happen to thee." What can be worse than a life of physical suffering? And yet there are degrees even in that. More sin might mean even worse bodily suffering, though it is almost certain Jesus meant the ruin of the whole nature.
IV THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF HEALTH. Those in full vigour of body and mind must not be astonished when they are spoken to plainly. If they are not careful, their very strength and capability work out all the more evil. When we mourn over promising lives made useless by bodily infirmity, we must remember another aspect of bodily infirmity, namely, that people who might have done great mischief have thereby been made harmless. Y.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v15 Chapter 13
Chapter 13
JESUS LIFE-GIVER AND JUDGE.
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The man went away, and told the Jews that it was Jesus which had made him whole. And for this cause did the Jews persecute Jesus, because He did these things on the sabbath. But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh even until now, and I work. For this cause therefore the Jews sought the more to kill Him, because He not only brake the sabbath, but also called God His own Father, making Himself equal with God. Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father doing: for what things soever He doeth, these the Son also doeth in like manner. For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth Him all things that Himself doeth: and greater works than these will He shew Him, that ye may marvel. For as the Father raiseth the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son also quickeneth whom He will. For neither doth the Father judge any man, but He hath given all judgement unto the Son; that all may honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which sent Him. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth My word, and believeth Him that sent Me, hath eternal life, and cometh not into judgement, but hath passed out of death into life. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour cometh, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in Himself, even so gave He to the Son also to have life in Himself: and He gave Him authority to execute judgement, because He is the Son of man. Marvel not at this: for the hour cometh, in which all that are in the tombs shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done ill, unto the resurrection of judgement. I can of Myself do nothing; as I hear, I judge: and My judgement is righteous; because I seek not Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me. If I bear witness of Myself, My witness is not true. It is another that beareth witness of Me; and I know that the witness which He witnesseth of Me is true. Ye have sent unto John, and he hath borne witness unto the truth. But the witness which I receive is not from man: howbeit I say these things, that ye may be saved. He was the lamp that burneth and shineth: and ye were willing to rejoice for a season in his light. But the witness which I have is greater than that of John: for the works which the Father hath given Me to accomplish, the very works that I do, bear witness of Me, that the Father hath sent Me. And the Father which sent Me, He hath borne witness of Me. Ye have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His form. And ye have not His word abiding in you: for whom He sent, Him ye believe not. Ye search the scriptures, because ye think that in them ye have eternal life; and these are they which bear witness of Me; and ye will not come to Me, that ye may have life. I receive not glory from men. But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in yourselves. I am come in My Fathers name, and ye receive Me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive. How can ye believe, which receive glory one of another, and the glory that cometh from the only God ye seek not? Think not that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, on whom ye have set your hope. For if ye believed Moses, ye would believe Me; for he wrote of Me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe My words?- Joh_5:15-47.
As soon as the impotent man discovered who it was that had given him strength, he informed the authorities, either from sheer thoughtlessness, or because he considered that they had a right to know, or because he judged that, like himself, they would rather admire the miracle than take exception to the Sabbath-breaking. If this last was his idea, he had not gauged the obtuseness and self-righteous spite of honest and pious literalism. For this cause did the Jews persecute Jesus, because He did these things on the Sabbath.[15] In what particular form the charge of Sabbath-breaking was brought against our Lord, whether formal or conversational and tentative, John does not say. He is more concerned to give us in full the substance of His apology. For the first time our Lord now gave in public an explanation of His claims; and this five minutes talk with the Jews contains probably the most important truth ever uttered upon earth.
The passage embodies the four following assertions: that the healing of the incurable on the Sabbath resulted from and exhibited His perfect unison with the Father; that this giving of life to an impotent man was an illustration or sign of His power to quicken whom He would, to communicate life Divine and eternal to all in whatsoever stage of spiritual or physical deadness they were; that His claim to possess this supreme power was not mere idle assertion, but was both guaranteed by this miracle, and otherwise was amply attested; and that the real root of their rejection of Him and His claims was to be found, not in their superior knowledge of God and regard for His will, but in their worldly craving for the applause of men.[16]
1. Our Lords reply to the charge of Sabbath-breaking is, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. He did not make any comment on the Sabbath law. He did not defend Himself by showing that works of mercy such as He had done Were admissible. On other occasions He adopted this line of defence, but now He took higher ground. The rest of God is not inactivity. God does not on the Sabbath cease to communicate life to all things. He does not refrain from blessing men till the sun of the Sabbath is set. The tides rise and fall; the plants grow; the sun completes his circuit on the Sabbath as on other days. Why does not God keep the Sabbath? a caviller asked of a Jew. Is it not lawful, was the answer, for a man to move about in his own house on the Sabbath? The house of God is the whole realm above and the whole realm below. For God the Sabbath has no existence; it is a boon He has given to His creatures because they need it. His untiring beneficence is needful for the upholding and for the happiness of all. And it is the same superiority to the Sabbath which Jesus claims for Himself. He claims that His unceasing work is as necessary to the world as the Fathers-or rather, that He and the Father are together carrying out one work, and that in this miracle the Jews find fault with He has merely acted as the Fathers agent.
From this statement the Jews concluded that He made Himself equal with God. And they were justified in so concluding. It is only on this understanding of His words that the defence of Jesus was relevant. If He meant only to say that He imitated God, and that because God did not rest on the Sabbath, therefore He, a holy Jew, might work on the Sabbath, His defence was absurd. Our Lord did not mean that He was imitating the Father, but that His work was as indispensable as the Fathers, was the Fathers. My Father from the beginning up till now worketh, giving life to all; and I work in the same sphere, giving life as His agent and almoner to men. The work of quickening the impotent man was the Fathers work. In charging Him with breaking the Sabbath they were charging the Father with breaking it.
But this gives Jesus an opportunity of more clearly describing His relation to God. He declares He is in such perfect harmony with God that it is impossible for Him to do either that miracle or any other work at His own instigation. The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father doing. I can of myself do nothing. He had power to do it, but no will. He had life in Himself, and could give it to whom He pleased; but so perfect was His sympathy with God, that it was impossible for Him to act where God would not have Him act. So trained was He to perceive the Divine purpose, so habituated to submit Himself to it, that He could neither mistake His Fathers will nor oppose it. As a conscientious man when pressed to do a wrong thing says, No, really I cannot do it; as a son who might happen to be challenged for injuring His fathers business would indignantly repudiate the possibility of such a thing. What do I live for, he would say, but to further my fathers views? My fathers interests and mine are identical, our views and purposes are identical. I cannot do anything antagonistic to him. So Jesus had from the first recognised God as His Father, and had so true and deep a filial feeling that really it was the joy of His life to do His will.
This, then, was the idea the Lord sought to impress on the people on the first occasion on which He had a good opportunity of speaking in public. He cannot do anything save what is suggested to Him by consideration of Gods will. Even as a boy He had begun to have this filial feeling. Wist ye not that I must be about My Fathers business? That in Him which is most conspicuous and which He wishes to be most conspicuous is perfect sonship; filial trust and duty carried to its perfect height. It is this perfect filial unanimity with the Father which makes His life valuable, significant, different from all other lives. It is this which makes Him the perfect representative of the Father; which enables Him to be Gods perfect messenger to men, doing always and only the will of God in mens sight. He is in the world not for the sake of fulfilling any private schemes of His own, but having it as His sole motive and aim to do the Fathers will.
This perfect filial feeling had no doubt its root in the eternal relation of the Son to the Father. It was the continuance, upon earth and under new conditions, of the life He already had enjoyed with the Father. Having assumed human nature, He could reveal Himself only so far as that nature allowed Him. His revelation, for example, was not universal, but local, confined to one place; His human nature being necessarily confined to one place. He did not assert superiority to all human law; He paid taxes; He recognised lawful authority; He did not convince men of His Divinity by superiority to all human infirmities; He ate, slept, died as ordinary men. But through all this He maintained a perfect harmony with the Divine will. It was this which differentiated Him from ordinary men, that He maintained throughout His life an attitude of undoubting trust in the Father and devotion to Him. It was through the human will of the Lord that the Divine will of the Eternal Son uniformly worked and used the whole of His human nature.
It is in this perfect Sonship of Christ we first learn what a son should be. It is by His perfect loyalty to the Fathers will, by His uniform adoption of it as the best, the only, thing He can do, that we begin to understand our connection with God, and to recognise that in His will alone is our blessedness. Naturally we resent the rule of any will but our own; we have not by nature such love for God as would put His will first. To our reason it becomes manifest that there is nothing higher or happier for us than to sink ourselves in God; we see that there is nothing more elevating, nothing more essential to a hopeful life than that we make Gods purposes in the world our own, and do that very thing which He sees to be worth doing and which He desires to do. Yet we find that the actual adoption of this filial attitude, natural, rational, and inviting as it seems, is just the most difficult of all difficulties, is indeed the battle of life. Who among us can say that we do nothing of ourselves, nothing at our own instance, that our life is entirely at Gods disposal?
To this filial disposition on the part of the Son the Father responds: The Father loveth the Son, and showeth Him all things that Himself doeth (Joh_5:20). If we ask how Jesus saw the Fathers works, or how, for example, He saw that the Father wished Him to heal the impotent man, the answer must be that it is by inward sympathy the Son apprehends what the Father wills. We in our measure can see what God is doing in the world, and can forward Gods work. But not by mere observation of what God had done and was doing through others did Jesus see what the Father did, but rather by His own inward perception of the Fathers will. By His own purity, love, and goodness He knew what the Fathers goodness willed. But the Father was not passive in the matter, merely allowing the Son to discover what He could of His will. Godet illustrates this active revelation on the Fathers part by the simile of the father in the carpenters shop at Nazareth showing the son the things he made and the method of making them. This simile, however, being external, is apt to misdirect the mind. It was by a wholly inward and spiritual process the Father made known to the Son His purposes and mind.
2. This quickening of the impotent man was meant to be an object lesson, a sign of the power of Jesus to communicate life, Divine and eternal, to whom He would. Greater works than this of curing the paralytic will the Father show to the Son, that ye may marvel (Joh_5:20). As through His word vigour had been imparted to the impotent man, so all who listen to His word will receive everlasting life (Joh_5:24). As the impotent man, after thirty-eight years of deadness, found life on the moment by believing Christs word, so every one who listens to that same voice as the word of God receives life eternal. Through that word he connects himself with the source of life. He becomes obedient to the life-giving will of God.
The question, How can the spiritually dead hear and believe? is the question. How could the impotent man rise in response to Christs word? Psychologically inexplicable it may be, but happily it is practically possible. And here, as elsewhere, theory must wait upon fact. One thing is plain: that faith is the link between the Divine life and human weakness. Had the impotent man not believed, he would not have risen. Christ quickens whom He will; that is to say, there is no limit to His life-giving power; but He cannot quicken those who will not have life or who do not believe He can give it. Hence necessarily the Father hath committed all judgement unto the Son. To the impotent man Jesus put the question, Wilt thou be made whole? and by that question the man was judged. By the answer he gave to it he determined whether he would remain dead or receive life. Had he not on the moment believed, he would have doomed himself to permanent and hopeless imbecility. Christs question judged him.
Precisely so, says Jesus, are all men judged by My presence among them, and My offer of life to them. For the Father has not only given to the Son to have life in Himself, that He may thus communicate it (Joh_5:26), but He hath given Him authority to execute judgement also, because He is a Son of man. For these words do not mean that Jesus will be Judge because men should be judged by one who shares their nature, [17] or because they must be judged by the holiest and most loving of men[18]-as if God Himself were not sufficiently loving-but, as the object-lesson shows us, Jesus is necessarily Judge by appearing as Gods messenger, and by offering to men life everlasting. By becoming a son of man, by living in human form as the embodied love and life of God, and by making intelligible Gods good-will and His invitation to life, Christ necessarily sifts men and separates them into two classes. Every one who hears the word of Jesus is judged. He either accepts quickening and passes into life, or he rejects it and abides in death. This human appearance, Jesus seems to say, which stumbles you, and makes you think that My pretensions of judging all men are absurd, is the very qualification which makes judgment one of My necessary functions.
And this explains why we find Christ uttering apparent contradictions: at one time saying, For judgment came I into this world, and at another time saying, I came not to judge the world. The object of His coming into the world was to give life, not to condemn men, not to cut them off finally from life and from God, but to open a way to the Father, and to be their life. But this very coming of Christ and the offers He makes to men constitute the critical test of every soul that is brought into contact with them. Judgment is the necessary accompaniment of salvation. Mans will being free, it must be so. And this judgment, determined in this life, will one day appear in final, irreversible, manifested result. The hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.
3. But naturally the Jews would say: These are extraordinary and apparently extravagant claims to make. It is not easily credible that this voice which now so quietly speaks to us is one day to wake the dead. It is not easily credible that one whom we can carry before our courts is to judge all men. To which thoughts Jesus replies: I do not expect you to take My word for these things, but there are three guarantees of My truth to which I point you. There is first of all (1) the testimony of John[19]-a man in whose prophetic gift you for a while prided yourselves, rejoicing that God had sent you so powerful and enlightening a messenger. His whole function was to testify of Me. This lamp, in the light of which you rejoiced, was lit solely for the purpose of making quite visible to you that which you now say you cannot see. But this is not the best witness I have, although those of you who cannot see for themselves might be saved if only you would believe Johns testimony. But (2) I have greater witness than that of John. John said that I should come as the Fathers agent. Well, if you cannot believe Johns words, can you not believe the things you see? This impotent man raised to health, is this not a little hint of the Divine power that is in your midst? And are not all the works I do the Fathers works, done by His power and for His purposes? Is not My whole career its own best evidence? But besides, (3) the Father Himself has borne witness to Me. He has not appeared to you. You have not heard His voice nor seen His shape, but His word, His own sufficient account of His nature and connection with you, you have. You search the Scriptures, and rightly, for they are they which testify of Me. They are the Fathers word which, had you listened to, you would have known Me as sent by Him. Had you not mumbled only the husk of Scripture, counting its letters and wearing it on your foreheads, but had you, through Gods law, entered into sympathy with His purpose on earth, had you, through all that Scripture tells you of Him, learned His nature, and learned to love Him, you would at once have recognised Me as His messenger. Ye have not His word abiding in you; ye have not let it lie in your minds and colour them; ye have not chewed, and digested, and assimilated the very quintessence of it, for had you done so you would have learned to know God and seen Him in Me.[20] But whom He sent, Him ye believe not.
The very Scriptures which had been given to guide them to Christ they used as a veil to blind themselves to His presence. Jesus points out where their mistake lay. You search the Scriptures, because you suppose that in them, a mere book, you have eternal life; the truth being that life is in Me. The Scriptures do not give life, they lead to the Life-giver. The Scriptures, by your superstitiously reverent and shallow use of them, actually prevent you from finding the life they were meant to point you to. You think you have life in them, and therefore will not come to Me. So may a book, lifted out of its subordinate place, be entirely perverted from its use, and actually hinder the purpose it was given to promote. To worship the Bible as if it were Christ is to mistake a finger-post for a house of shelter. It is possible to have a great zeal for the Bible and yet quite to misapprehend its object; and to misapprehend its object is to make it both useless and dangerous. To set it on a level with Christ is to do both it, Him, and ourselves the gravest injustice. Many who seem to exalt the Scriptures degrade them; and those who give them a subordinate place truly exalt them. God speaks in Scripture, as this passage shows, but He speaks for a definite purpose, to reveal Christ; and this fact is the key to all difficulties about the Bible and inspiration.
4. The unbelief of the Jews is traced by Jesus to a moral root. They seemed very zealous for Gods law, but beneath this superficial and ostentatious championing of God there was detected a deep-seated alienation from God which unfitted them for knowing either Him or His messenger. Glory from men I do not receive (Joh_5:41). But the reason of this is that ye have not the love of God in you, and cannot appreciate Divine glory or recognise it when you see it. How can you believe, when your hearts crave the glory you can give to one another, your ambition rising no higher than to be spoken of by ignorant people as the upholders of religion? You have taught yourselves to measure men by a wholly spurious standard, and cannot believe in one who is a transparency through which the glory of God shines upon you. Had some one come in his own name, seeking a glory the Jews could give him, adapting himself to their poor conceptions, him they would have received. But Jesus being sent by God had that glory which consisted in being a perfect medium of the Fathers will, doing the Fathers work and never seeking His own glory.
This, then, was the reason why the Jews could not believe in Jesus. Their idea of glory was earthly, and they were unfitted to see and appreciate such glory as He showed in deeds of kindness. And those sayings of Jesus penetrate deeply into the permanent roots of unbelief.
It was certainly a great demand on their faith which Jesus made. He asked them to believe that the most Divine of prerogatives, life-giving and judging, belonged to Him. But He gave them evidence. He only asks them to believe what they have seen exemplified. He does not as yet even ask them to draw inferences. He does not blame them for not seeing what is implied regarding His eternal relation to the Father. He adduces evidence that they may be saved; that they may be induced to partake of the life He dispenses; and He laments that they will not believe that He is commissioned by God to speak words of life to men, although He has given them demonstration of His commission and power to give life.
To us also He speaks-for plainly such powers as He here claims are not such as can be capriciously given and withdrawn, rendered accessible to one age but not to another, exhibited on earth once but never more to be exercised. They are not powers that could be given to more than one messenger of God. To suppose more than one source of spiritual life or more than one seat of judgment is against reason.
[15] Similarly in the Synoptical Gospels the hostility of the Jews is traced to His apparent breach of the Sabbath law.
[16] The following division of the former part of this Apology may help the reader to follow the sequence of thought. In Joh_5:19-20, Jesus enounces the general features of His relation to the Father. In Joh_5:21-23 the works dictated by this relation and resulting from it are spoken of generally as quickening and judging. These works are in Joh_5:24-27 exhibited in the spiritual sphere, and in Joh_5:28-29, in the physical sphere. The first part of the defence is closed in Joh_5:30 with a re-affirmation of His absolute unison with the Father.
[17] Westcott.
[18] Stier.
[19] It is very doubtful whether Joh_5:32 refers to John. I think it refers to the Father. Still Jesus, in Joh_5:33-35, refers the Jews to the testimony of John, although for His own part He depends on higher testimony.
[20] The same idea is resumed in Joh_5:45-47. If you have not understood the writings of Moses which you have heard from Sabbath to Sabbath, and have not received the knowledge of God they were meant to give you, how shall ye believe the once heard words of Him whose coming was meant to be prepared for, and His identification made easy by all that Moses wrote and by the institutions he established.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv14–17 14. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come…
14. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee. His own sins, thirty-eight years before, had brought on this infirmity. What was their nature we are not informed, but we know that often our fleshly ills can thus be accounted for.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v17 Joh 5:17 - Joh 5:27.
John
THE LIFE-GIVER AND JUDGE
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Joh 5:17 - Joh 5:27.
‘The Jews’ were up in arms because Jesus had delivered a man from thirty-eight years of misery. They had no human sympathies for the sufferer, whom hope deferred had made sick and hopeless, but they shuddered at the breach of the Sabbath. ‘Sacrifice’ was more important in their view than ‘mercy.’ They did not acknowledge that the miracle proved Christ’s Messiahship, but they were quite sure that doing it on the Sabbath proved His wickedness. How formalism twists men’s judgments of the relative magnitude of form and spirit!
Jesus’ vindication of His action roused them still farther, for He put it on a ground which seemed to them nothing short of blasphemy: ‘My Father worketh even until now, and I work.’ They fastened on one point in that great saying, namely, that it claimed Sonship in a special sense, and vindicated His right to disregard the Sabbath law on that ground. God’s rest is not inaction. ‘Preservation is a continual creation.’ All being subsists because God is ever working. The Son co-operates with the Father, and for Him, as for the Father, the Sabbath law does not apply. The charge of breaking the Sabbath fades into insignificance before the sin, in the objectors’ eyes, of making such claims. Therefore our Lord proceeds to expand and justify them.
He makes, first, a general statement in Joh 5:19 - Joh 5:20, in which He sets forth the relation involved in the very idea of Fatherhood and Sonship. He, as perfect Son of God, is perfectly one with the Father in will and act, and so knit to Him in sympathy that a self-originated action is impossible, not by reason of defect of power, but by reason of unity of being. That perfect unity is expressed negatively {‘can do nothing’} and then positively {‘doeth likewise’}. But it is not manifest in actions alone, but has its deep roots in the perfect love which flows ever from each to each, and in the Father’s perfect communication to the Son, and the Son’s perfect reception from the Father. Jesus claimed to stand in such a relation to the Father that He was able to do whatsoever the Father did, and ‘in like manner’ as the Father did it; that He was the unique object of the Father’s love, and capable of receiving complete communications as to ‘all things that Himself doeth’; that He lived in such complete unity with the Father that His every act was the result of it, and that no trace of self-will had ever tinged His perfect spirit. What man has ever made such claims and not been treated as insane? He makes them, and likewise says that He is ‘lowly of heart’; and the world listens, if not believing, at any rate reverent, as in the presence of the best man that ever lived. Strange goodness, to claim such divine prerogatives, unless the claim is valid!
It is expanded in Joh 5:21 - Joh 5:23 into two great classes of works, which Jesus says that He does. Both are distinctively divine works. To give life and to judge the world are equally beyond human power; they are equally His actions. These are the ‘greater works’ which He foretells in Joh 5:20, and they are greater than the miracle of healing which had originated the whole conversation. To give life at first, and to give it again to the dead, and not only to revivify, but to raise them, are plainly competent to no power short of the divine; and here Jesus calmly claims them.
That tremendous claim is here made in the widest sense, including both the corporeally and the spiritually dead, who are afterwards treated of separately. The Son is the fountain of life in all the aspects of that wide-reaching word; and He ‘quickeneth whom He will,’ as He had spontaneously healed the impotent man. Does that assertion contradict the other, just before it, that He does nothing of Himself? No; for His will, while His, is ever harmonious with the Father’s, just as His love, which is ever coincident with the Father’s. Does that assertion imply His arbitrary pleasure, or make man’s will a cipher? No; for His will is guided by righteous love, and wills to quicken those who comply with His conditions. But the assertion does declare that His will to quicken is omnipotent, and that His voice can pierce ‘the dull, cold ear of death,’ and bring back the soul to the empty house of this tabernacle, or rouse the spirit ‘dead in trespasses.’
The other divine prerogative of judging is inseparable from that of revivifying, and in regard to it Christ’s claim is still higher, for He says that it is wholly vested in Him as Son. The idea of judgment here, like that of quickening, with which it is associated, is to be taken in its more general sense {‘all judgment’} , and therefore as including both the present judgment, for which Jesus said that He was come into the world, and which men pass on themselves by the very fact of their attitude to Him and His Gospel, and also the future final judgment, which manifests character and determines destiny. Both these has the Father given into the hands of the Son.
The purpose, so far as men are concerned, of the Son’s investiture, with these solemn prerogatives, is that He may receive universal divine honour. A narrower purpose was stated in Joh 5:20, where the persons seeing His works are only His then audience, and the effect sought to be produced is merely ‘marvel.’ But wonder is meant to lead on to recognition of the meaning of His power, and of the mystery of His person, and that, again, to rendering to Him precisely the same honour as is due to the Father. No more unmistakable demand for worship, no more emphatic assertion of divinity, can be made than lie in these words. To worship Christ does not intercept the honour due to God; to worship the Son is to worship the Father; and no man honours the Father who sent Him who does not honour the Son whom He has sent.
In Joh 5:24 - Joh 5:27 the two related prerogatives are presented in their spiritual aspect, while in the later verses of the chapter the resurrection and quickening of the literally dead are dealt with. Mark the significant new term introduced in Joh 5:24, ‘He that believeth.’ That spiritual resurrection from the death of sin and self is wrought on ‘whom He will,’ but He wills that it shall be wrought on them who believe. Similarly, in Joh 5:25, it is ‘they that hear’ who ‘shall live.’ It must be so, for there is no other way by which life from Him, who is the Life, can pass into and quicken us than by our opening our hearts by faith for its inflow. The mysteries of the Son’s divinity and of His imparted life are deep, but the condition of receiving that life is plain. If we will trust Jesus, we shall live; if not, we are dead. Trusting Him is trusting the Father that sent Him, and that Father becomes accessible to our trust when we ‘hear’ Christ’s ‘word.’
The effects of faith are immediate, and the poor present may be enriched and clothed in celestial light for each of us, if we will. For Jesus does not point first to the mysteries of the resurrection of the dead, and the tremendous solemnities of the final judgment, but to what we may each enter upon at any moment. The believing man ‘hath eternal life,’ and ‘cometh not into judgment.’ That life is not reserved to be entered on in the blessed future, but is a present possession. True, it will blossom into unexampled nobleness when it is transported into its native country, like some exotic in our colder climates if it were carried back to the tropics. But it is a present possession, and heaven is not different in kind from the Christian life on earth, but differs mainly in degree and in circumstances. And he that has the life here and now is, by its moulding of his outward life, preserved from the sins which would bring him into judgment, and the merciful judgment to which he is still subject is that for which his truest self longs. And that blessed condition carries in it the pledge that, at the last great day, which is to others a ‘day of wrath, a dreadful day,’ he whom Christ has quickened by His own indwelling life shall have ‘boldness before Him.’
Obviously, in these verses the present effects of faith are in view, since Jesus emphatically declares that the ‘hour now is’ when they can be realised. Once more He states in the strongest terms, and as the reason for the assurance that faith secures to us life, His possession of the two divine prerogatives of quickening and judging. What a paradox it is to say that it is ‘given’ to Him to have ‘life in Himself’! And when was that gift given? In the depths of eternity.
He ‘sits on no precarious throne, nor borrows leave to be,’ and hence He can impart life and lose none. Inseparably connected with that given, and yet self-inherent, life, is the capacity for executing judgment which belongs to Him as ‘a Son of man.’ It has been as ‘the Son’ of the Father that it has been considered, in the previous verses, as belonging to Him; but now it is as a true man that He is fitted to bear, and actually is clothed with, that judicial power. No doubt He is Judge of all, because by His incarnation and earthly life He presents to all the offer of eternal life, by their attitude to which offer men are judged. But the connection of thought seems rather to be that Christ’s Manhood, inextricably intertwined with His divinity, is equally needed with the latter to constitute Him our Judge. He ‘knoweth our frame,’ from the inside, as it were, and the participation in our nature which fits Him to ‘be a merciful and faithful High Priest’ also fits Him to be the Judge of mankind.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain On v15 J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [LXIII. C. Jesus…
J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [LXIII. C. Jesus Walks upon the Water].
LXIII. FIRST WITHDRAWAL FROM HEROD'S TERRITORY AND RETURN. (Spring, A. D. 29.) Subdivision C. THE TWELVE TRY TO ROW BACK. JESUS WALKS UPON THE WATER. aMATT. XIV. 22-36; bMARK VI. 45-56; dJOHN VI. 15-21.
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d15 Jesus therefore perceiving that they were about to come and take him by force, to make him king, withdrew again into the mountain himself alone. [Jesus had descended to the plain to feed the multitude, but, perceiving this mistaken desire of the people, he frustrated it by dismissing his disciples and retiring by himself into the mountain.] a22 And straightway he constrained the bhis adisciples to enter into the boat, and to go before him unto the other side, bto Bethsaida [the suburb of Capernaum] atill he should send the multitudes bwhile he himself sendeth the multitude away. [The obedience of the disciples in leaving him helped to persuade the multitude to do likewise.] 46 And when he had taken leave of them, a23 And after he had sent the multitudes away, he went up bdeparted ainto the mountain apart to pray: and when even was come, he was there alone. [The news of John's assassination was calculated to exasperate him in the highest degree, and also to deeply distress him. He needed the benefits of prayer to keep down resentment, and to prevent despondency. For this he started away as soon as he heard the news, but the people prevented him till night.] d16 And when evening came, his disciples went down unto the sea; 17 and they entered into a boat, and were over the sea unto Capernaum. b47 And when even was come, the boat was in the midst of the sea, and he alone on the land. dand it was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. [They evidently expected that he would follow. Possibly they skirted the shore, hoping that he would hail them and come on board.] 18 And the sea was rising by reason of a great wind that blew. a24 But the boat [379] was now in the midst of the sea, distressed by the waves; for the wind was contrary. [That is, it blew from the west, the direction toward which the disciples were rowing.] b48 And seeing them distressed in rowing, for the wind was contrary unto them, about ain bthe fourth watch of the night [from 3 to 6 A. M.] he cometh { acame bunto them, awalking upon the sea. [The disciples of Jesus can rest assured that the eyes of the Lord will behold their distresses, and that sooner or later the Lord himself will arise and draw near for their deliverance.] d19 When therefore they had rowed about five and twenty or thirty furlongs [that is, about three and a half miles, or about half way across the sea], they behold Jesus walking on the sea, and drawing nigh unto the boat: band would have passed by them: a26 And b49 but awhen the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, dand they were afraid. bthey supposed that it was a ghost, and cried out; asaying, It is a ghost; and they cried out for fear. b50 For they all saw him, and were troubled. [Their fears would probably have been greater if Jesus had approached the boat, for they were severe enough to make them cry out, even when he was seen to be passing by them.] a27 But straightway Jesus spake unto bwith them, and saith unto them, asaying, Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid. [There was no mistaking that voice. If Isaac knew the voice of Jacob ( Gen_27:22), Saul the voice of David ( 1Sa_26:17), and Rhoda the voice of Peter ( Act_12:13), much more did the apostles know the voice of the great Master.] d21 They were willing therefore to receive him into the boat. [Superstitious fears are not always so soon allayed. His voice brought great assurance.] a28 And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee upon the waters. 29 And he said, Come. And Peter went down from the boat, and walked upon the waters to come to Jesus. [This scene comports with the character of Peter, who had always a rash willingness [380] to go into danger, and a lack of steadfastness to hold out through it.] 30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried out, saying, Lord, save me. [So long as the attention of Peter was fixed upon the Lord's command he succeeded in his venture; but so soon as he let the power of the tempest distract his thoughts, his faith failed and he began to sink.] 31 And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and took hold of him, and saith unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? [Fear is a source of doubt and an enemy of faith. Those who would achieve the victories of faith must overcome their fears.] b51 And he went up unto them into the boat; a32 And when they were gone up into the boat, the wind ceased. band they were sore amazed in themselves; 52 for they understood not concerning the loaves, but their heart was hardened. dand straightway the boat was at the land whither they were going. a33 And they that were in the boat worshipped him, saying, Of a truth thou art the Son of God. [The disciples showed the hardness of their hearts in that the working of one miracle did not prepare them either to expect or to comprehend any other miracle which followed. They ought to have worshipped Jesus as the Son of God when they saw the five thousand fed, but they did not. But when he had done that, and had walked upon the water, and quieted the wind, and transported the boat to the land, they were overcome by the iteration of his miraculous power, and confessed his divinity.] 34 And when they had crossed over, they came to the land, unto Gennesaret. band moored to the shore. [The land of Gennesaret was a plain at the western end of the lake of Galilee. Josephus describes it as about thirty furlongs in length by twenty in average width, and bounded on the west by a semicircular line of hills.] 54 And when they were come out of the boat, straightway i the people knew him, a35 And when the men of that place knew him, they sent into band ran round about that whole region, and began to carry about on [381] their beds those that were sick, where they heard he was. aand brought unto him all that were sick; b56 And wheresoever he entered, into villages, or into cities, or into the country, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, a36 and they besought him that they might only touch bif it were but the border of his garment: and as many as touched him were made whole. [Though the apostles had started their boat toward Capernaum, the storm appears to have deflected their course, and the language of the text suggests that they probably came to land at the south end of the plain, somewhere near Magdala, and made a circuit of the cities in the plain of Gennesaret on their way to Capernaum. As he did not stop in these cities, the sick were laid in the street that they might touch him in passing through. Moreover, as they knew the course that he was taking, by running ahead they could anticipate his arrivals and have the sick gathered to take advantage of his presence. The story of the woman who touched the hem of his garment had evidently spread far and wide, and deeply impressed the popular mind.]
[FFG 379-382]
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v14 Sin. (See Scofield "Rom 3:23").
sin
Sin. (See Scofield "Rom 3:23").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v17 The Relation between the Father and the Son.
The Relation between the Father and the Son.
Jesus gives the Jews an answer:
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v. 17. But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.
v. 18. 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. 19. Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do; for what things soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.
v. 20. For the Father loveth the Son, and showeth Him all things that Himself doeth; and He will show Him greater works than these, that ye may marvel.
The hostile attitude of the Jews and their murderous thoughts were not unknown to Jesus, and He takes occasion to justify Himself, and incidentally to try to convince them of His authority and power. He tells them that His Father is at work, performing the work which He knows is necessary; God never stops working. And even so He, Christ Himself, is working. Jesus here plainly affirms that He is the Son of God, He places Himself on the same level with God. The Son is just as great, just as divine as the Father. And the entire work of the Father is, at the same time, and in the same way, the work of the Son. In this work there is no Sabbath rest. Without ceasing, without rest, the Son preserves and rules the world. Even in the state of humiliation, He is tending to this work. The miracle of healing the sick man was an exhibition of this creative power, it was evidence of the fact that He, with the Father, has the entire world and all its laws in His power and can do and create whatever He desires. "How long would the sun, the moon, and the entire heaven have its course, which had its progress so definitely so many thousand years, also, that the sun at a certain time and in certain places annually rises and sets, if God who created them, would not daily preserve them? God the Father, through His Word, has begun and perfected the creation of all beings, and preserves them to this day through the same, and continues so long in the work which He creates until He no longer wants it to be. Therefore Christ says, Joh 5:17: My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. For just as we, without our assistance and ability, are created by Him, even so we by ourselves cannot be preserved. Therefore, just as heaven, earth, sun, moon, stars, human beings, and everything that lives was created in the beginning through the Word, even so they all are ruled and preserved through it in a miraculous manner. " The Jews caught the import of Christ’s statement at once: If He was the Son of God, He certainly must be equal to God. Here, in the opinion of the Jews, were two crimes that merited death: breaking the Sabbath and blasphemy. They refused to accept His testimony, though this had been substantiated by the miracle; they hated Him for this plain statement; they were all the more determined to kill Him. Note: The enemies of Christ at all times argue in the same way. The testimony concerning Jesus, the Son of God, the Savior of the world, strikes their conscience and makes them furious. They cannot gainsay the truth, and that is unbearable to them. Their own conscience condemns them. And to drown out these unpleasant influences, they become all the more rabid in their persecution of the Gospel, both in word and deed
But Jesus, upon this occasion, continued His statement, His testimony concerning Himself. Solemnly He declares to the Jews that the Son can do nothing of Himself, except what He sees the Father doing. That is the result of the relation between Father and Son. The essence of the Son is out of the Father; His is not an independent essence. The persons of the God-head are not separate from each other, each doing His own individual work. In that which He does and performs, the Son is joined with the Father. And again: Whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise, at the same time, in the same manner. There is not only perfect sympathy, there is complete oneness between the two. And this relation is made still closer by the fact that the Father loves the Son and shows Him all that He Himself does. The power of either is absolute, and yet their work and will is one. This creative power finds its expression in the work of Jesus on earth. The Father, through the Son, will do greater works than those which have been done up to the present time, to the great surprise and wonder of the Jews. The mere healing of a sick man would seem insignificant in comparison with the miracles which are yet to be revealed.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv14, 16 Jesus found him
Jesus found him
"Jesus found the man he had healed"
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See
The word "See" is used here to draw attention to the words that follow.
translationWords
Jesus
temple
sin
Jewish authorities
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv14, 17 5:14 stop sinning: Though the man had been healed…
5:14 stop sinning: Though the man had been healed physically, he still needed to learn obedience to the Lord. The man’s next action (5:15) might indicate that he didn’t listen.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.