Jesus Heals and Is Betrayed; Jesus Explains His Authority and Witness

A Disabled Man Healed (2-9a)

The real question Jesus put to the man was, “Do you really want to be healed, or would you rather just lounge around here and use the excuse that you can't get in the pool first?” Jesus confronted the crippled man with his true heart: “Do you really want to be healed or do you want to keep hanging on to an absurd superstition?” (6-7)

No doubt this poor man had become comfortable being sick. Without realizing it, the disabled man had lost his desire to be cured. The pool culture had become his normative, acceptable life. Jesus was seeking first to fix his lost hope.

Jesus then spoke the words, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” Within Christ's words was the enablement necessary to do the impossible thing He was commanding (8).

At once, the man gathered his belongings, the word of God turned his atrophied muscles into strength to rise, and the man took up his belongings and walked out of the pool area without touching a drop of Asclepius' water (9a). Isaiah the prophet predicted Messiah would do just what He did (Isaiah 35:3).

The Sabbath Problem (9b-18)

This was why the Jewish leaders set their hearts on persecuting Jesus: He did not honor their perversion of Yahweh's Sabbath command. Jesus was challenging their authority (16).

Jesus answered the Sabbath question with amazing wisdom. The Father rested on the Sabbath day, and yet, in His rest, He was still working. The Father was doing Sabbath work, the work of saving. The last day of creation recorded in Genesis was the seventh day, the day God rested. The creation week ended with the seventh day. Jesus picked up on that day and stated that the Father, from that day, had been working. Jesus, being the Father's Son, was doing salvation work also. In a sense, Jesus was implying that the world was still living in that “today” day of rest, the seventh day of creation. God was at work with His Son, saving and preparing for a new week or age to dawn (17).

The Jews picked up on Jesus' answer and realized that He was not only breaking the Sabbath but also calling Himself God by saying God was His Father. Those with human fathers were human; the One who had Yahweh as Father would be God. The Jews sought to kill Jesus based on two mental indictments: Sabbath-breaking and making Himself God (18).

Jesus' Authority (19-30)

Jesus then began to explain His relationship with the Father and His authority as His Father's Son and thus Israel's true King.

Jesus made it clear:

• He could do nothing apart from the Father.

• His authority worked in a certain way: the Son would see the Father doing something in Heaven, and He would fulfill in the exact manner whatever the Father was starting (19).

• The Father continuously loved the Son and showed Him everything He was doing, so the Son was an accurate fulfillment of the Father's love for the world.

• The Father was just getting started; greater works were yet to come that would be even more astonishing and confirming of who Jesus was (20).