A certain man was there who had been sick for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had been sick for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to be made well?”
The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I’m coming, another steps down before me.”
Jesus said to him, “Arise, take up your mat, and walk.”
Immediately, the man was made well, and took up his mat and walked. Now it was the Sabbath on that day.
So the Jews said to him who was cured, “It is the Sabbath. It is not lawful for you to carry the mat.”
He answered them, “He who made me well said to me, ‘Take up your mat and walk.’”
Then they asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your mat and walk’?”
But he who was healed didn’t know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, a crowd being in the place.
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.”
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 13, 14 5. And there was a man there. The Evangelist…
5. And there was a man there. The Evangelist collects various circumstances, which prove that the miracle may be relied on as certain. The long duration of the disease had taken away all hope of its being cured. This man complains that he is deprived of the remedy of the water. He had frequently attempted to throw himself into the water, but without success; there was no man to assist him, and this causes the power of Christ to be more strikingly displayed. Such, too, was the import of the command to carry his bed, that all might plainly see that he was cured in no other way than by the agency of Christ; for when he suddenly rises up healthy and strong in all the members in which he was formerly impotent, so sudden a change is the more fitted to arouse and strike the minds of all who beheld it.
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 v10 True religion is no more cruelly assaulted by any…
True religion is no more cruelly assaulted by any means, than by the pretence of religion itself.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv5–14 5 And a certain man was there, which had…
5 And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years.
Ver. 5. Thirty and eight years] A long while to be in misery: but what is this to eternity of extremity! We need have something to mind us of God, to bring us to Christ. King Alured prayed God always to send him some sickness, whereby his body might be tamed, and he the better disposed and affectioned to Godward.
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 vv5–14 What this man’s name was, or what his circumstances…
What this man’s name was, or what his circumstances in the world, or what his particular disease, we are not told; nor is it said that he had lain there thirty-eight years, but that he had so long laboured under his weakness: which, whether it was the palsy or no, is uncertain: probably it was a disease hardly curable by human art and ordinary means; for it cannot be thought but in that time he had used all rational means, which he finding of no value as to his case, he came and lay at this fountain, waiting for a cure in this way of miraculous operation.
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 vv5, 14 It was very commendable that the rich men did…
It was very commendable that the rich men did not engross this pool, and the benefit of it, to themselves, but suffered poor people to come to it. In this college of cripples, a poor man, that had been lame thirty-eight years, was found, who wanted strength to help himself, wanting money to hire others, and others wanting mercy to help him. Christ takes pity on him, and because he could not go to health, health is graciously brought to him, and that by the hand of the great physician Christ Jesus.
Observe here, 1. That not only are men’s bodies subject to innumerable infirmities and diseases, but it pleases God, for wise ends, to continue some of his servants labouring under bodily weakness for many years together, yea, even all the days of their life. Here is a poor man, for eight and thirty years together, under the discipline of God’s rod by bodily weakness.
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Observe, 2. That it is the duty of the afflicted, to wait upon God in a diligent use of all means which God has appointed for their help and healing: as to trust to means, is to neglect God; so to neglect the means, is to tempt God. This poor man, no doubt, had made use of the means before, yet waits at the pool now.
Observe, 3. Though Christ well knew the ease of this afflicted person, and wanted no information, yet he asks him, if he were willing to be made whole: to make him sensible of his misery, to quicken his desires after healing, and to raise his expectations of help from him. Though Christ knows our wants, yet he takes no notice of them, till we make them known to him by prayer.
Observe, 4. The time when Christ wrought this miracle of healing upon the impotent man, it was upon the sabbath-day; and, as evidence of the certainty of the cure, Christ bids him, Take up your bed and walk.
Our Saviour’s miracles were real and beneficial, they were obvious to sense, and would bear the examination of all persons. The miracles which the church of Rome boast of will net bear the examination of our senses: their great miracle, transubstantiation, is so far from being obvious to sense, that it contradicts the sense and reason of mankind, and is the greatest affront to human nature that ever the world was acquainted with. And our Saviour’s working this and many other miracles on the sabbath-day, was for the testification of the miracles to all persons that would take notice of them.
Observe, 5. How unjustly the Jews tax the cripple that was healed with the breach of the sabbath, for taking up his bed, and walking on the sabbath-day? whereas the law only forbade carrying burthens on the sabbath-day for profit, in way of trade: but this man’s carrying his bed, was a testimony of God’s goodness and mercy towards him, and of his gratitude and thankfulness towards God.
Hypocritical and superstitious persons often-times pretend much zeal for observing the letter of the law, little respecting the moral sense and signification of it. Besides, our Saviour has a mind to let the Jews know that he was Lord of the sabbath, and that he hath power over it, and could dispense with it as he thought good.
Observe, lastly, The great modesty and humility of our blessed Saviour, how hateful all ostentation and vain-glory was unto him; for having wrought this famous miracle before the people at a public time, the feast of the passover, to shun all applause from the multitude, he conveys himself privately away from them: Jesus conveyed himself away, a multitude being in that place. Our Saviour’s business was to do much good, and make but little noise; he sought not his own glory.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv5–14 And a certain man was there,.... At Bethesda's pool,…
And a certain man was there,.... At Bethesda's pool, in one of the five porches, or cloisters, that belonged to it:
which had an infirmity thirty and eight years; what his infirmity was, is not said; he was one of the weak, or impotent folk, for so he is called, Joh 5:7. Some think his distemper was the palsy, and though he had had this infirmity so many years, it is not certain that he had waited so long in this place for a cure; though it may be, for that he had attended some time, is clear from Joh 5:7. Nor indeed can it be known how long there had been such a preternatural motion in this pool, and such a miraculous virtue in the water; some have thought, that it began at the repairing of the sheep gate by Eliashib, in Nehemiah's time; so Tremellius and Junius, on Neh 3:1; and others have thought, that it had been some few years before the birth of Christ, and about the time that this man was first taken with his disorder. Tertullian says (u), that there was in Judea a medicinal lake, before Christ's time; and that the pool of Bethsaida (it should be Bethesda) was useful in curing the diseases of the Israelites; but ceased from yielding any benefit, when the name of the Lord was blasphemed by them, through their rage and fury, and continuance in it (w); but in what year it began, and the precise time it ceased, he says not. The Persic version here adds, "and was reduced to such a state that he could not move".
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(u) De Anima, c. 50. (w) Adv. Judaeos, c. 13.
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 vv7, 14 The sick man answered - Giving the reason why…
The sick man answered - Giving the reason why he was not made whole, notwithstanding his desire.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13, 14 Verse 5. Had an infirmity thirty and eight years.]…
Verse 5. Had an infirmity thirty and eight years.] St. Chrysostom conjectured that blindness was the infirmity of this person: what it was, the inspired writer does not say - probably it was a palsy: his case was deplorable - he was not able to go into the pool himself, and he had no one to help him; so that poverty and disease were here connected. The length of the time he had been afflicted makes the miracle of his cure the greater. There could have been no collusion in this case: as his affliction had lasted thirty-eight years, it must have been known to multitudes; therefore he could not be a person prepared for the occasion. All Christ's miracles have been wrought in such a way, and on such persons and occasions, as absolutely to preclude all possibility of the suspicion of imposture.
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 vv5, 7, 8, 9, 12, 14 Joh 5:5-6. A certain man was there — Among…
Joh 5:5-6. A certain man was there — Among the crowds which now lay in the porticoes of Bethesda, was one who had an infirmity — A weakness, as the word ασθενεια means; thirty and eight years — He had probably lost the use of his limbs, at least, on one side, by a paralytic stroke. It is a great affliction to have the body so disabled, that instead of being the soul’s instrument, it is become, even in the affairs of this life, its burden. What reason many of us have to thank God for bodily health and strength, to use them for him, and to sympathize with those who are deprived of them, and especially with those, who, like this afflicted man, have been deprived of them for many years! This poor man had been in a state of great weakness, attended, doubtless, frequently with much pain, longer than most persons live. Shall we complain of one or two, or a few wearisome nights, or some short fits of affliction or pain, who, perhaps, for many years, have scarce known what it has been to be a day ill, when many others, holier than we, have scarce known what it has been to be a day well? When Jesus saw him lie — Singling him out from the rest, and fixing his eyes upon him; he saith unto him — With great compassion; Wilt thou be made whole? — The length and greatness of this man’s affliction, well known to Jesus, as is here observed, together with his poverty, (Joh 5:7,) were sufficient reasons for his making choice of him to experience the mercy of his healing power, a power infinitely superior to the virtue of the waters, while he let the rest remain in their affliction. Our Lord seems to have asked this afflicted man the above-mentioned question, to give him an opportunity of declaring his case in the hearing of the multitude: because such a declaration would tend to make the miracle more conspicuous, and to awaken the attention of the inhabitants of the Jewish capital to the evidence he was daily giving of his divine mission.
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 vv5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 An infirmity - A weakness. We know not what…
An infirmity - A weakness. We know not what his disease was. We know only that it disabled him from walking, and that it was of very long standing. It was doubtless regarded as incurable.
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 vv5, 6, 8, 14 Infirmity. The Greek, astheneia, signifies in its radical interpretation,…
Infirmity. The Greek, astheneia, signifies in its radical interpretation, a loss of strength: in this place it seems to denote a confirmed palsy.
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 vv5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 14 thirty and eight years--but not all that time at…
thirty and eight years--but not all that time at the pool. This was probably the most pitiable of all the cases, and therefore selected.
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 vv5–14 5. An infirmity—Probably a paralysis. From Joh_5:14 it seems…
5. An infirmity—Probably a paralysis. From Joh_5:14 it seems probable that it was the consequence of his own vices.
Thirty and eight years—Strange, say some, that in thirty-eight years this man should have found no friend to help him into the pool. But it is said, not that he had lain there thirty-eight years, but that his disease had been of that duration. He may not have been there a week.
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 vv5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 5. which had an infirmity, &c.] Literally, who had…
5. which had an infirmity, &c.] Literally, who had passed thirty-eight years in his infirmity. Not that he was 38 years old; evidently he was more; but he had had this malady 38 years.
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 vv5–14 (5) Thirty and eight years.—The period expresses, not his…
(5) Thirty and eight years.—The period expresses, not his age on the one hand, nor the time of his being at Bethesda on the other, but the time during which he had suffered from the infirmity. Helpless and friendless, having spent half the lot of human life in that condition, he appeals without an uttered word to the Mercy which is present in the House of Mercy; and to him alone of those He healed does Christ of His own accord address the first question. The infirmity was in some way connected with youthful sin (Joh_5:14), and the sufferer and his history would be well known to those at Jerusalem. The exact knowledge of the writer tells us that for thirty-eight years he had paid sin’s. penalty.
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 vv5–14 And a certain man was there, who had been…
And a certain man was there, who had been thirty and eight years in his infirmity. He had not lost all his powers he crawled probably from some near home to the healing well; but for thirty-eight years be had been dragging out his impotent existence. The length implies the inveteracy of the disease. Hengstenberg, Wordsworth, Westcott (in part), imply a marked correspondence between these thirty-eight years and the similar period of time during which Israel was compelled to wander in the wilderness. It is not said how long the man had lain in the five porches waiting listlessly for healing, but that the malady was of old standing, and to all human appearance incurable. Thoma finds allegorical meaning in "Bethesda a synonym of the metropolls, and keeps up a series of comparisons with Ac 3.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14 5. And a certain man was there. With many…
5. And a certain man was there. With many others who thought the water had a healing power. His infirmity was probably paralysis.
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 v8
John
THE THIRD MIRACLE IN JOHN’S GOSPEL
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Joh 5:8.
This third of the miracles recorded in John’s Gospel finds a place there, as it would appear, for two reasons: first, because it marks the beginning of the angry unbelief on the part of the Jewish rulers, the development of which it is one part of the purpose of this Gospel to trace; second, because it is the occasion for that great utterance of our Lord about His Sonship and His divine working as the Father also works, which occupies the whole of the rest of the chapter, and is the foundation of much which follows in the Gospel. It is for these reasons, and not for the mere sake of adding another story of a miraculous cure to the many which the other Evangelists have given us, that John narrates for us this history.
If, then, we consider the reason for the introduction of the miracle into the Gospel, we may be saved from the necessity of dwelling, except very lightly, upon some of the preliminary details which preceded the actual cure. It does not matter much to us for our present purpose which Feast it was on which Jesus went up to Jerusalem, nor whether the pool was by the sheep-market or by the sheep-gate, nor whereabouts in Jerusalem Bethesda might happen to be. It may be of importance for us to notice that the mention of the angel who appears in the fourth verse is not a part of the original narrative. The true text only tells us of an intermittent pool which possessed, or was supposed to possess, curative energy; and round which the kindness of some forgotten benefactor had built five rude porches. There lay a crowd of wasted forms, and pale, sorrowful faces, with all varieties of pain and emaciation and impotence marked upon them, who yet were gathered in Bethesda, which being interpreted means ‘a house of mercy.’ It is the type of a world full of men suffering various sicknesses, but all sick; the type of a world that gathers with an eagerness, not far removed from despair, round anything that seems to promise, however vaguely, to help and to heal; the type of a world, blessed be God, which, amidst all its sad variety of woe and weariness, yet sits in the porches of ‘a house of mercy,’ and has in the midst a ‘fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness,’ whose energy is as mighty for the last comer of all the generations as for the first that stepped into its cleansing flood.
This poor man, sick and impotent for eight and thirty years-many of which he had spent, as it would appear, day by day, wearily dragging his paralysed limbs to the fountain with daily diminishing hope-this poor man attracts the regard of Christ when He enters, and He puts to him the strange question, ‘Wilt thou be made whole?’ Surely there was no need to ask that; but no doubt the many disappointments and the long years of waiting and of suffering had stamped apathy upon the sufferer’s face, and Christ saw that the first thing that was needed, in order that His healing power might have a point of contact in the man’s nature, was to kindle some little flicker of hope in him once more.
And so, no doubt, with a smile on His face, which converted the question into an offer, He says: ‘Wilt thou be made whole?’ meaning thereby to say, ‘I will heal thee if thou wilt.’ And there comes the weary answer, as if the man had said: ‘Will I be made whole? What have I been lying here all these years for? I have nobody to put me into the pool.’
Yes, it is a hopeful prospect to hold out to a man whose disease is inability to walk, that if he will walk to the water he will get cured, and be able to walk afterwards. Why, he could not even roll himself into the pond, and so there he had lain, a type of the hopeless efforts at self-healing which we sick men put forth, a type of the tantalising gospels which the world preaches to its subjects when it says to a paralysed man: ‘Walk that you may be healed; keep the commandments that you may enter into life.’
And so we have come at last to the main point of the narrative before us, and I fix upon these words, the actual words in which the cure was conveyed, as communicating to us some very important lessons and thoughts about Christ and our relation to Him.
I. First, I see in them Christ manifesting Himself as the Giver of power to the powerless who trust Him.
His words may seem at first hearing to partake of the very same almost cruel irony as the condition of cure which had already proved hopelessly impracticable. He, too, says, ‘Walk that you may be cured’; and He says it to a paralysed and impotent man. But the two things are very different, for before this cripple could attempt to drag his impotent limbs into an upright position, and take up the little light couch and sling it over his shoulders, he must have had some kind of trust in the person that told him to do so. A very ignorant trust, no doubt, it was; but all that was set before him about Jesus Christ he grasped and rested upon. He only knew Him as a Healer, and he trusted Him as such. The contents of a man’s faith have nothing to do with the reality of his faith; and he that, having only had the healing power of Christ revealed to him, lays hold of that Healer, cleaves to Him with as genuine a faith as the man who has the whole fulness and sublimity of Christ’s divine and human character and redeeming work laid out before him, and who cleaves to these. The hand that grasps is one, whatsoever be the thing that it grasps.
So it is no spiritualising of this story, or reading into it a deeper and more religious meaning than belongs to it, to say that what passed in that man’s heart and mind before he caught up his little bed and walked away with it, was essentially the same action of mind and heart by which a sinful man, who knows that Christ is his Redeemer, grasps His Cross and trusts his soul to Him. In the one case, as in the other, there is confidence in the person; only in the one case the person was only known as a Healer, and in the other the person is known as a Saviour. But the faith is the same whatever it apprehends.
Christ comes and says to him, ‘Rise, take up thy bed and walk.’ There is a movement of confidence in the man’s heart; he tries to obey, and in the act of obedience the power comes to him.
Ah, brother! it is always so. All Christ’s commandments are gifts. When He says to you, ‘Do this!’ He pledges Himself to give you power to do it. Whatsoever He enjoins He strengthens for. He binds Himself, by His commandments, and every word of His lips which says to us ‘Thou shalt!’ contains as its kernel a word of His which says ‘I will.’ So when He commands, He bestows; and we get the power to keep His commandments when in humble faith we make the effort to do His will. It is only when we try to obey for the love’s sake of Him that has healed us that we are able to obey. And be sure of this, whensoever we attempt to do what we know to be the Master’s will, because He has given Himself for us, our power will be equal to our desire, and enough for our duty. As St. Augustine says: ‘Give what Thou commandest, and command what Thou wilt.’
‘Rise, take up thy bed and walk,’ or as in another case, ‘Stretch forth thy hand.’ ‘And he stretched it forth, and his hand was restored whole as the other.’ Christ gives power to keep His commandments to the impotent who try to obey, because they have been healed by Him.
II. In the next place, we have in this miracle our Lord set forth as the absolute Master, because He is the Healer.
The Pharisees and their friends had no eyes for the miracle; but if they found a man carrying his light couch on the Sabbath day, that was a thing that excited their interest, and must be seen to immediately.
And so, paying no attention to the fact that it was a paralysed man who was doing this, with the true narrow instinct of the formalist, they lay hold only of the fact of the broken Rabbinical restrictions, and try to stop him with these. ‘It is the Sabbath day! It is not lawful for thee to carry thy bed.’
And they get an answer which goes a great deal deeper than the speaker knew, and puts the whole subject of Christian obedience on its right footing. ‘He answered them, He that made me whole, the same said unto me, Take up thy bed and walk.’ As if he had said: ‘He gave me the power, had He not a right to tell me what to do with it? It was His gift that I could lift my bed; was I not bound to walk when and where He that had made me able to walk at all chose to bid me?’
And if you generalise that it just comes to this: the only person that has a right to command you is the Christ who saves you. He has the absolute authority to do as He will with your restored spiritual powers, because He has bestowed them all upon you. His dominion is built upon His benefits. He is the King because He is the Saviour. He rules because He has redeemed. He begins with giving, and it is only afterwards that He commands; and He turns to each of us with that smile upon His lips, and with tenderness in His voice which will bind any man, who is not an ingrate, to Him for ever. ‘If ye love Me, keep My commandments.’
There is always something hard and distasteful to the individual will in the tone of authority assumed by any man whatsoever. We always more or less rebel and shrink from that; and there is only one thing that makes commandment sweet, and that is when it drops like honey from the honeycomb, from lips that we love. So does it in the case of Christ’s commands to us. It is joy to know and to do the will of One to whom the whole heart turns with gratitude and affection. And Christ blesses and privileges us by the communication to us of His pleasure concerning us, that we may have the gladness of yielding to His desires, and so meeting the love which commands with the happy love which obeys. ‘He that made me whole, the same said unto me . . . ‘ and what He says it must be joy to do.
So, ‘My yoke is easy and My burden is light,’ not because Christ diminishes the requirements of law; not because the standard of Christian obedience is lowered beneath any other standard of conduct and character. It is far higher. The things which make Christian duty are often very painful in themselves. There is always self-sacrifice in Christian virtue, and self-sacrifice has always a sting in it; but the ‘yoke is easy and the burden is light,’ because, if I may so say, the yoke is padded with the softest velvet of love, and lies upon our necks lightly because He has laid it there. All the rigid harshness of precept is done away when the precept comes from Christ’s lips, and His commandment ‘makes the crooked things straight and the rough places plain’; and turns duty, distasteful duty, into joyful service. The blessed basis of Christian obedience, and of Christ’s authority, is Christ’s redemption.
III. And then, still further, we have here our Lord setting Himself forth as the divine Son, whose working needs and knows no rest.
We find, in the subsequent part of the chapter, that ‘the Jews,’ as they are called, by which is meant the antagonistic portion of the nation, sought to slay Christ ‘because He had done these things on the Sabbath day.’ But Jesus answered them, ‘My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.’ Unquestionably the form which the healing took was intended by our Lord to bring into prominence the very point which these pedantic casuists laid hold of. He meant to draw attention to His sweeping aside of the Rabbinical casuistries of the law of the Sabbath. And He meant to do it in order that He might have the occasion of making this mighty claim, which is lodged in these solemn and profound words, to possess a Sonship, which, like the divine working, wrought, needing and knowing no repose.
‘My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.’ The rest, which the old story in Genesis attributed to the Creator after the Creation, was not to be construed as if it meant the rest of inactivity; but it was the rest of continuous action. God’s rest and God’s work are one. Throughout all the ages preservation is a continuous creation. The divine energy is streaming out for evermore, as the bush that burns unconsumed, as the sun that flames undiminished for ever, pouring out from the depth of that divine nature, and for ever sustaining a universe. So that there is no Sabbath, in the sense of a cessation from action, proper to the divine nature; because all His action is repose, and ‘e’en in His very motion there is rest.’ And this divine coincidence of activity and of repose belongs to the divine Son in His divine-human nature. With that arrogance which is the very audacity of blasphemy, if it be not the simplicity of a divine consciousness, He puts His own work side by side with the Father’s work, as the same in principle, the same in method, the same in purpose, the same in its majestic coincidence of repose and of energy.
‘My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. Therefore for Me, as for Him, there is no need of a Sabbath of repose.’ Human activity is dissipated by toil, human energy is exhausted by expenditure. Man works and is weary; man works and is distracted. For the recovery of the serenity of his spirit, and for the renewal of his physical strength, repose of body and gathering in of mind, such as the Sabbath brought, were needed; but neither is needed for Him who toils unwearied in the heavens; and neither is needed for the divine nature of Him who labours in labours parallel with the Father’s here upon the earth.
Now remember that this is no abolition of the Sabbatic rest for Christ’s followers. Rather the ground on which He here asserts His superiority over, and His non-dependence upon, such a repose shows, or at all events implies, that all mere human workers need such rest, and should thankfully accept it. But it is a claim on His part to a divine equality. It is a claim on His part to do works which are other than human works. It is a claim on His part to be the Lord of a divine institution, living above the need of it, and able to mould it at His will.
And so it opens up depths, into which we cannot go now, of the relations of that divine Father and that divine Son; and makes us feel that the little incident in which He turned to a paralysed man and said: ‘Rise, take up thy bed and walk,’ on the Sabbath day, like some small floating leaf of sea-weed upon the surface, has great deep tendrils that go down and down into the very abyss of things, and lays hold upon that central truth of Christianity, the divinity of the Son of God, who is One with the ever-working Father.
IV. Lastly, we have in this incident yet another lesson. We have the Healer who is also the Judge, warning the healed of the possibilities of a relapse.
‘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.’ The man’s eight-and-thirty years of illness had apparently been brought on by dissipation. It was a sin of flesh, avenged in the flesh, that had given him that miserable life. One would have thought he had got warning enough, but we all know the old proverb about what happened when the devil was ill, and what befell his resolutions when he got better. And so Christ comes to him again with this solemn warning: ‘There is a worse thing than eight-and-thirty years of paralysis. You fell once, and sore was your punishment. If you fall twice, your punishment will be sorer.’ Why? Because the first one had done him no good. So here are lessons for us. There is always danger that we shall fall back into old sins, even if we think we have overcome them. The mystic influence of habit, enfeebled will, the familiar temptation, the imagination rebelling, the memory tempting, sometimes even, as in the case of a man that has been a drunkard, the physical effect of the odour of his temptation upon his nostrils-all these things make it extremely unlikely that a man who has once been under the condemnation of any evil shall never be tempted to fall under its sway again.
And such a fall is not only more criminal than the former, it is more deadly than the former. ‘It were better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than after they have known it to turn aside.’ ‘The last state of that man is worse than the first.’
My brother, there is no blacker condemnation; and if I may use a strong word, there is no hotter hell, than that which belongs to an apostate Christian. ‘It has happened unto them according to the true proverb. The dog is turned to his vomit again.’ Very unpolite, a very coarse metaphor? Yes; to express a far worse reality.
Christian men and women! you have been made whole. ‘Sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto you.’ And turn to that Lord and say, ‘Hold Thou me up and I shall be saved.’ Then the enemies will not be able to recapture you, and the chains which have dropped from your wrists will never enclose them any more.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword 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 vv5, 10 The healing:
The healing:
v. 5. And a certain man was here which had an infirmity thirty and eight years.
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v. 6. When Jesus saw him lie and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, He saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole?
v. 7. The impotent man answered Him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool; but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me.
v. 8. Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.
v. 9. And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked. And on the same day was the Sabbath.
Among all the sick people that were lying in the porticoes at the pool’s brink there was no case more pitiful than that of a man who had spent thirty-eight years there in the misery of his sickness, thirty-eight years of alternating hope and despair, of eager longing and painful disappointment. Note: Many a person that is inclined to become impatient at a cross lasting but a few weeks or months might well consider this case and learn patience from the example of the man of Bethesda. Jesus, in accordance with His desire to help all men in whatever trouble they might be, visited also this hospital. He saw the man lying there in his misery; He knew that the poor fellow had spent a long time in that place. It was not merely that Jesus drew conclusions, or that He learned from the man himself or from his friends of his long sickness; His knowledge was that of omniscience. With a view to awaken the man to the nearness of divine power, the Lord addressed him with the question whether he wanted to become well. Through this question the Lord aroused and incited the desire and the longing of the man for the long-lost gift of health. The desire for help and salvation is awakened by the Savior Himself through His Word. The sick man gave a sad answer. He addressed Jesus as the Lord, indicating the beginning of faith in his heart; but he complained in a hopeless tone that he had neither relative nor friend, not a person in the wide world to help him into the water at the appointed time; and when at last he had dragged his helpless limbs over to the pool, some other person had preceded him, and therefore all his efforts were futile. For at each bubbling up of the water apparently only one could be healed. Note: The mere statement of trouble and misfortune is in itself a prayer and well acceptable to the Lord. And Jesus heard the prayer of faith. He gave the sick man the command to arise, a command to be obeyed on the moment by faith in Him who gave it. And not only that, but he should also take up his couch, or pallet, and walk, having been restored to full health and strength. This was a miracle in the true sense of the word, a deed against the course of nature. A sickness of thirty-eight years’ standing was completely routed and replaced by the full vigor of complete health, with a perfect use of all organs and members. The man followed the words of Jesus to the letter; for faith accepts, and clings to, the help of Christ. He went away, carrying his pallet, though the day, not without design on the part of Jesus, was the Sabbath.
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 vv5, 7, 9, 10, 12, 14 General Information:
General Information:
Verse 5 introduces the man lying beside the pool to the story. (See: Introduction of New and Old Participants)
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was there
"was at the Bethesda pool" (John 5:1)
thirty-eight years
"38 years" (See: Numbers)
he realized
"he understood" or "he found out"
he said to him
"Jesus said to the paralyzed man"
translationWords
Jesus
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 vv5, 8, 12, 14 5:5 No social program helped this man, who had…
5:5 No social program helped this man, who had been ill for thirty-eight years. Hygiene and mobility were impossible, and he likely begged for a living from people who came to use the pool (see 5:7). His situation seemed hopeless.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.