The Christological and Eschatological Significance of Jesus’ Miracle in John 5

By Stephen S. Kim

[Stephen S. Kim is Professor of Bible, Multnomah Biblical Seminary, Portland, Oregon.]

The Literary Structure Of John

The structure of the Fourth Gospel reveals that it is one of the most carefully crafted pieces of literature in the Bible. The Evangelist explicitly said in his “purpose statement” (20:30–31) that the aim of his Gospel was to present Jesus as the promised Messiah of the Old Testament and the unique Son of God. And his primary means of revealing Him as the divine Messiah was the seven sign miracles (σημεῖα) and their attendant contexts of teaching, all of which are recorded in the first twelve chapters of the Gospel, commonly referred to as the Book of Signs.[1]

Jesus’ first two sign miracles are strategically placed in the beginning chapters of the Gospel, often called the Cana Cycle (chaps. 2–4),[2] because they were performed in Cana of Galilee and form a literary bracket around these three chapters.[3] The remaining sign miracles of Jesus are also purposefully located throughout the following chapters of the section frequently designated as the Festival Cycle (chaps. 5–12).[4] These chapters are so designated because the sign miracles and their attendant narratives and discourses are set in the context of Jewish festivals.[5] This cycle begins with an “unnamed feast” (5:1–47; cf. v. 1) and then runs through a year of festivals from Passover (6:1–71; cf. v. 4) through Tabernacles (7:1–10:21; cf. 7:2), Dedication or Hanukkah (10:22–42; cf. v. 22), and then back to Passover (12:1).[6]

The literary structure of the Fourth Gospel is skillfully combined with its profound theology. Whereas the Cana Cycle reveals Jesus as the divine Messiah and emphasizes the importance of believing in Him to receive life, the Festival Cycle develops the theme of increasing opposition by the Jewish leaders toward Jesus.[7] As Songer explains, “Two related motifs are woven carefully together in John 5–12—the steady insistence that Jesus is God’s Son come to grant life and the steadily increasing hostility of the Jews toward Jesus.”[8] Tenney designates these chapters as periods of controversy (chaps. 5–6), conflict (chaps. 7–11), and crisis (chap. 12).[9] As Jesus performed His miracles and delivered His accompanying discourses in the context of the Jewish feasts, He was demonstrating that only He can fulfill the hopes and joys of the festivals. His messianic claims were vehemently opposed by the religious establishment in these chapters, thus fulfilling the words in the Prologue that “He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him” (1:11). “In the Cana Cycle the theme of believing seems to be center stage. In the Festival Cycle the themes of conflict and rejection seem to occupy that position.”[10]

This article analyzes the first of five sign miracles in the Festival Cycle—Jesus’ miracle of healing the lame man at the Pool of Bethesda (5:1–15)—and its attendant narrative and discourse. This miracle, it will be seen, demonstrates Jesus’ authority to forgive sin and to judge, and His work as the Messiah who will give Sabbath rest to the nation Israel.

Healing Of The Lame Man At The Pool

The opening words of John 5, “After these things” (μετὰ ταῦτα), indicate a shift in the setting of the Gospel narrative as well as an obvious temporal change. The Evangelist often used this phrase to inform readers that a change was occurring (see 2:12; 3:22; 4:43; 6:1). As Moloney points out, “The reader has been taken from the Galileen setting of a miracle in 4:46–54, where a Gentile displayed his belief in the word of Jesus, to another context: a Jewish feast in Jerusalem.”[11] Moloney explains this thematic shift. “The issue of belief has been the leitmotif of 2:1–4:54; now, as Jesus goes up to Jerusalem, the story turns to the feast of ‘the Jews.’ There has been a growing hostility between Jesus and ‘the Jews’ (cf. 1:19; 2:13–22). In 5:1 a negative tone is already struck as the narrator mentions a feast celebrated by ‘the Jews.’ ”[12] A change is taking place not only temporally and geographically but also thematically.

The Setting

This miracle occurred when Jesus went up to Jerusalem for “a feast of the Jews” (5:1). But which feast was it?[13] Since Jews were obligated to go to Jerusalem at the three major feasts of Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles, it may be safe to assume that the feast in 5:1 was one of those feasts.[14] Although each of the three has credible support, it is not possible, as Morris notes, to identify the feast with certainty.[15] Thus, as Edersheim correctly concludes, “We must be content to call it the unknown feast.”[16] Perhaps the Evangelist intentionally mentioned the feast without its name because the focus of the miracle and its attendant context was a Sabbath controversy and the unnamed feast was not thematically related to the miracle.[17] “If the other feasts are named, it is because the context in each case finds Jesus doing or saying something that picks up a theme related to it. By implication, if the feast in John 5 is not named, it is probably because the material in John 5 is not to be thematically related to it. The mention of a feast of the Jews in that case becomes little more than an historical marker to explain Jesus’ presence in Jerusalem.”[18] Clearly the focus of this pericope is that the miracle took place on the Sabbath (v. 9).

The Sabbath was designed by God as a time of physical and spiritual refreshment (cf. Exod. 20:8–11; 23:12; Deut. 5:12–15).[19] It was also a holy day and a time for Israel to remember their covenantal relationship to God (cf. Exod. 31:12–18). According to Leviticus 23:1–3 the holiness of the Sabbath placed the day among the other appointed feasts of God, such as Passover, Unleavened Bread, and Tabernacles (although unlike the yearly feasts the celebration of the Sabbath, of course, was weekly).[20] By the first century, however, the Sabbath had been perverted. Through the excessive and restrictive legislation of the rabbis on how to observe this holy day, the Sabbath became a burden.[21] For instance the rabbis listed thirty-nine classes of labor that were forbidden on the Sabbath (Shabbath 7.2). No wonder Jesus chose to free the crippled man on the Sabbath. He wanted to demonstrate that the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath (cf. Mark 2:27–28).[22]

The Sign

This miracle took place in Jerusalem at the pool near the “Sheep Gate,” which was located in the north wall of Jerusalem (Neh. 3:1, 32; 12:39).[23] In Aramaic the pool was named “Bethesda,” which means “house of mercy.”[24] Around the pool lay many disabled people—the blind, the lame, and the paralyzed,[25] including an invalid who had been in that condition for thirty-eight years. This length of time emphasizes that healing him of his condition was humanly impossible. Jesus chose such a man in order to display His mercy and perform His miracle. It is interesting, however, that in contrast to the royal official who found Jesus and begged Him to heal his son (John 4:47), the invalid man did not seek healing from Jesus. Instead Jesus asked him, “Do you wish to get well [ὑγιὴς]?” (5:6).[26] The man’s response stands in contrast with that of the royal official who approached Jesus. While the official placed his faith in Jesus (4:50, 53), the invalid man clung to some “magical” connection between the stirring water and health (5:7).[27] He apparently thought that a well-timed entry into the pool would guarantee healing. However, Jesus healed him without an involvement of the water at all. Jesus simply commanded the man to get up, pick up his mat, and walk (v. 8). Koester concludes, “At Bethzatha, Jesus’ life-giving word did not work through the water but was an alternative to it.”[28]

This occasion for joyous celebration met with frowns from the Jewish religious establishment. The Jews[29] reproved the invalid man who had just been healed by saying, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not permissible for you to carry your pallet” (v. 10).[30] Following the interrogation by the Jewish religious leaders (vv. 11–13), the man was found by Jesus, who once again took the initiative. Jesus said to the newly healed man, “Behold, you have become well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you” (v. 14). It is doubtful that Jesus was making a cause-and-effect statement about the man’s sickness. Such a direct correlation between personal sin and sickness was rejected by Jesus elsewhere (cf. 9:3; Luke 13:1–5).[31] It is more likely that in His warning Jesus was addressing the eschatological correlation between sin and judgment by mentioning “something worse.”[32] “To those held in the bondage of death and sin the Son offers life, and the only danger is that an individual will ignore that offer. To do so would be not to trust in the Son. And something worse, condemnation at the Last Judgment (5:29) would surely befall such a person.”[33] Jesus was in essence warning the man who had just been healed from his physical sickness that he faced a more urgent issue, namely, his spiritual destiny. Thus Jesus was demonstrating through this miracle that He has the divine authority to forgive sins.[34]

The Significance

This sign miracle clearly reveals that Jesus is the Son of God. It demonstrates that He has the divine power to heal a man who had been in his paralytic state for thirty-eight years! “Despite the long period of helplessness, during which his muscles would have become atrophied, he was so completely healed that he put his bedroll on his shoulders and walked away.”[35] Whereas Jesus demonstrated His divine authority to heal from a distance in healing the official’s son (4:43–54), in this miracle He demonstrated His divine authority to overturn years of physical paralysis.

This miracle, however, was intended to communicate far more than His ability to heal a physical illness. If Jesus’ ability to heal physically were His main focus, He could have healed all the disabled bodies lying by the pool.[36] As confirmed in His discourse immediately after the miracle (5:16–47), Jesus demonstrated His divine prerogative to forgive sin and grant eternal life to those who believe in Him. “Truly, truly, I say to you he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life” (v. 24). The present tense of the verb “has” (ἔχει) indicates that eternal life is not merely a future hope; it is also a present reality of the quality of life that Jesus grants to those who believe in Him.[37] “Eternal life is rightly viewed as ‘life of the age to come’ while being something to be experienced here and now (5:24). This eternal life is based upon a birth ‘from above’ which enables one to ‘see the kingdom of God’ already in this life (3:3).”[38] Also eternal life has future consequences in that it precludes condemnatory divine judgment.[39] “To have eternal life now is to be secure throughout eternity.”[40] Eternal life is a present experience of the reality that will be fully realized in the age to come.

The authority to grant life, along with the authority to forgive sin, reveals Jesus’ divine Sonship (vv. 17–18). In the Old Testament the raising of the dead was a divine prerogative, and it demonstrates God’s sovereignty over life: “Am I God, to kill and to make alive?” an Israelite king asked (2 Kings 5:7).[41] In Deuteronomy 32:39 God declared, “It is I who put to death and give life.” And Hannah confessed, “The Lord kills and makes alive; He brings down to Sheol and raises up” (1 Sam. 2:6). Old Testament passages are clear that only God can give life (Gen. 2:7; Job 33:4; Pss. 16:11; 36:9). Thus when Jesus claimed that prerogative, He was undoubtedly asserting that He is the divine Son of God. As the Father has “life in Himself,” indicating that His self-existent life is a source of life to others, Jesus also possesses that same life and exercises that divine prerogative Himself (John 5:26; cf. 1:3).

Another aspect of Jesus’ deeds that reveals His divine Sonship is judgment. God alone is called the Judge (Gen. 18:25; Judg. 11:27), and He alone will exercise final judgment (Pss. 94:2; 105:7; Isa. 2:4; 26:9; Mic. 4:3). Because of the relationship between the Father and the Son, the authority to judge has been delegated to the Son by the Father (John 5:22, 27). Jesus said that the divine authority to judge had been given to Him by the Father because He is the Son of Man (v. 27). This apocalyptic title “Son of Man” (Dan. 7:13) points to the eschatological judgment at the resurrection of the dead (John 5:28–29). At this eschatological judgment both the righteous and the wicked will be raised. “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt” (Dan. 12:2). Jesus also spoke of two kinds of resurrections: a resurrection to life (John 6:39–40) and a resurrection to condemnation (5:29). In the Fourth Gospel one’s deeds of good or evil correlate with belief or unbelief concerning the Son (cf. 3:18, 36). Carson explains this correlation in this way: “In the context of the Fourth Gospel, ‘those who have done good’ are those who have come to the light so that it may be plainly seen that what they have done they have done through God (cf. ). Conversely, ‘those who have done evil (things)’ ‘loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil’ (3:19). John is not juxtaposing salvation by works with salvation by faith: he will shortly insist, ‘The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent’ (6:29).”[42] In other words one’s deeds “validate or refute” the faith professed (cf. Matt 7:16–18).[43] “This does not mean that salvation is on the basis of good works, for this very Gospel makes it plain over and over that men enter eternal life when they believe on Jesus Christ.”[44]

Although the Son’s divine prerogative to judge is ultimately future, it also includes present consequences. Believing in Jesus results in eternal life now and in the future (John 5:24), and conversely, rejecting the Son has present implications as well as future consequences (3:18). “He who believes in the Son has eternal life, but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, for the wrath of God abides on him” (v. 36). In summary, then, as both the Life-giver and the Judge, the Son has the right to grant life to those who believe in Him and to dispense judgment to those who reject the offer of life available through Him.

Although Jesus’ divine Sonship is the primary focus of His miracle in John 5 and its attendant discourse, there are also significant messianic implications. For instance the miracle of Jesus healing the lame man provides yet another aspect of the Messiah’s work in His coming kingdom, namely, the healing of the blind, the dumb, the mute, and the lame (Isa. 35:5–6; 61:1). “This miracle serves as another illustration of Jesus’ rolling back the effects of sin and His foreshadowing in a small but significant way the characteristics of the future messianic kingdom.”[45] Because of their blindness and pride the Jewish religious leaders could not see their own spiritual deformity, and so they rebuked Jesus for having compassion on social outcasts. Jesus, by contrast, embraced those shunned by their society. The kingdom of God will include Jews only on the basis of faith in the Messiah, the One who will extend His mercies to the poor and the sick.

The fact that Jesus chose to heal the paralytic on the Sabbath also has significant messianic implications. Many of His miracles of healing occurred on the Sabbath (Mark 3:1–6; Luke 13:10–17; 14:1–6; John 5:1–18; 9:1–14). Given to the nation Israel, the Sabbath was a sign of the Mosaic Covenant (Exod. 31:12–18). The weekly Sabbath carried over into Israel’s observance of the Sabbath year (Deut. 15:2) and the year of Jubilee (Lev. 25:8–13). The Sabbath was operative only so long as the Law was in effect. Thus at the death of Christ the Sabbath was abolished. But the Sabbath will again be instituted in the Great Tribulation (Matt. 24:20) and in the millennial age (Isa. 66:23; Ezek. 46:1). The reinstitution of the Sabbath in the future will fulfill the typological role of rest in the messianic kingdom (Heb. 3:7–4:13).[46] “Jesus’ miracles prefigure the eternal rest and release sought for in the new sabbatical age.”[47]

By healing the paralytic on the Sabbath, then, Jesus was presenting Himself as the promised Messiah who will inaugurate His anticipated kingdom and provide rest for the nation. In healing the invalid man on the Sabbath Jesus was demonstrating the obsolescence of Judaism. Ironically the crippled man symbolized the Jewish nation with its spiritual deformity. Also the thirty-eight years of the man’s lameness may symbolically represent the time Israel spent in the wilderness for disobedience (Deut. 2:14).[48] Although some scholars dismiss this symbolism,[49] the Evangelist’s affinity for dual meanings throughout his Gospel makes this suggestion a possibility. Just as the Jews’ forefathers failed to enter the promised land because of their lack of belief, the only way to enter the promised rest is through faith in the Messiah.

Conclusion

The miracle of Jesus healing the paralytic at the Pool of Bethesda and the attendant discourse reveal Jesus as the divine Son of God.

As the Son of God, Jesus has the power to heal a man who had been physically lame for thirty-eight years. Jesus’ authority to heal physical paralysis demonstrates a far deeper significance, however. Jesus has the divine authority to forgive sin and grant eternal life to those who believe in Him. Also He has the authority to judge in the eschatological judgment. Thus as both the Lifegiver and Judge, the Son has the right to grant life to those who believe in Him and to dispense judgment to those who reject the offer of life available through Him. In addition, while this miracle primarily demonstrates Jesus’ divine Sonship, it also reveals Him as the promised Messiah. His healing the paralytic man illustrates another aspect of the Messiah’s work in His coming kingdom. And by healing the paralytic on the Sabbath Jesus was demonstrating to the nation Israel that He is the promised One who will inaugurate the kingdom and provide Sabbath rest for the nation.

Notes

1. The term “Book of Signs” as a reference to John 1–12 is now widely accepted by most Johannine scholars. It is most associated with C. H. Dodd (The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953], x), and Raymond E. Brown (The Gospel according to John (I–XII), Anchor Bible [Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966], cxxxviii).
2. Gerald L. Borchert, John 1–11, New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1996), 151–222.
3. These three chapters (chaps. 2–4) form a literary unit because they are not only bounded geographically by the Cana miracles, but they are also a unit, thematically presenting Jesus as the life-giving Messiah who grants eternal life to those who believe. See F. J. Moloney, “From Cana to Cana (John 2:1–4:54) and the Fourth Evangelist’s Concept of Correct Faith,” in Studia Biblica 1978 II: Papers on the Gospels: Sixth International Congress on Biblical Studies, Oxford, 3–7 April 1978, ed. E. A. Livingston (Sheffield: JSOT, 1980), 2:185–213.
4. See Francis J. Moloney, Signs and Shadows: Reading John 5–12 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996).
5. R. Alan Culpepper, The Gospel and the Letters of John, Interpreting Biblical Texts (Nashville: Abingdon, 1998), 148–49. Aileen Guilding interprets the whole Gospel on the basis of the feasts, proposing that the Fourth Gospel was developed as a set of festival lectionary readings in ancient Palestine synogogues (The Fourth Gospel and Jewish Worship: A Study of the Relation of St. John’s Gospel to the Ancient Jewish Lectionary System [Oxford: Oxford Clarendon, 1960]). Although her main thesis has found little general acceptance among Johannine scholars, her study points up the importance of the Jewish feasts to the background of the Gospel. As Francis J. Moloney concludes in his critique of Guilding’s work, “It is better to allow the context to determine the use of the feasts rather than vice-versa” (The Gospel of John, Sacra Pagina [Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1998], 165).
6. Gerald L. Borchert, “The Passover and the Narrative Cycles in John,” in Perspectives on John: Method and Interpretation in the Fourth Gospel, ed. Robert B. Sloan and Mikeal C. Parsons (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 1993), 308–9. Some scholars include chapters 5–12 in the Festival Cycle, whereas others include only chapters 5–10. They say that chapters 11–12 set the stage for Jesus’ sacrifice as the Passover Lamb. Brown says these chapters point to Jesus moving toward the hour of His death and glory (The Gospel according to John [I–XII], 419–98). Gary M. Burge similarly calls John 11–12 “foreshadowings of Jesus’ death and resurrection” (Interpreting the Gospel of John [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992], 76–77).
7. The Festival Cycle begins with Jesus’ healing the lame man at the Pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath. The opposition and increasing hostility of the Jewish religious leaders toward Jesus is introduced by the statement in 5:16, “For this reason the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because He was doing these things on the Sabbath.” Verse 18 adds, “For this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal to God.” These two verses introduce the role of the Jewish leaders in the rest of the Gospel. Following the raising of Lazarus from the dead by Jesus (chap. 11), this section closes with the Jewish authorities plotting to kill Jesus (chap. 12). Thus these chapters are distinctly marked with vehement opposition and hostility by the leaders to the One who rightly claimed to be the promised Messiah.
8. Harold S. Songer, “John 5–12: Opposition to the Giving of True Life,” Review and Expositor 85 (summer 1988): 459-71.
9. Merrill C. Tenney, John: The Gospel of Belief (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1948), 103. Tenney correctly notes that the Jewish religious leaders expressed increasing hostility toward Jesus, climaxing with their decision to kill Him.
10. Borchert, John 1–11, 227.
11. Moloney, Signs and Shadows, 4.
12. Moloney, The Gospel of John, 167.
13. A variant reading ἡ ἑορτῃ (“the feast”) would probably indicate that this feast was the Passover, but external support for the reading without the definite article is strong. Therefore the anarthrous ἑορτή (“a feast”) is preferred (Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament [London: United Bible Societies, 1971], 207).
14. Brown, The Gospel according to John (I–XII), 206. Harold W. Hoehner suggests that it probably refers to the Feast of Tabernacles, and he proposes a date of October 21-28, A.D. 31 (Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1977], 59).
15. Leon Morris, The Gospel according to John, New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 299.
16. Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (reprint, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971), 1:460.
17. Borchert, John 1–11, 228.
18. D. A. Carson, The Gospel according to John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 241 (italics his).
19. For a detailed discussion of the Sabbath see Richard James Griffith, “The Eschatological Significance of the Sabbath” (Th.D. diss., Dallas Theological Seminary, 1990). See also J. Clinton McCann Jr., “Sabbath,” in International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988): 4:247–52.
20. Gale A. Yee, Jewish Feasts and the Gospel of John, Zaccaeus Studies: New Testament (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1989), 33.
21. A major section of the Mishnah is devoted to rules for the Sabbath (The Mishnah, trans. Jacob Neusner [New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988]).
22. Borchert forcefully argues for a strategic literary and theological role of the Sabbath in this chapter. “The answer to the relationship of chap. 5 to the remaining six chapters of what is here called the Festival Cycle in John is not to be found in seeking to establish the unnamed feast of 5:1 as one of the other Jewish Festivals that would fall between the Passover of 2:13, 23 and the Passover of 6:4 as though John were trying to squeeze in another festival between two Passovers in a mere pedantic chronological report. This Gospel is far too organized and theologically sophisticated for such a haphazard approach. “The entire discussion of chap. 5 is built upon the implications arising from a Sabbath controversy. Yet for years, I, like many others, struggled to discover the Johannine rationale behind the so-called unnamed feast. . . . The answer I am now convinced is offered by the festival text of Leviticus 23. According to the text, festivals are holy convocations. The first day of Passover accordingly is a holy convocation in which no labor is to be done (Lev 23:7). It is in fact a Sabbath, according to the perspective of Leviticus. Thus, a Sabbath understanding of the festivals is absolutely crucial for sensing the Levitical and Johannine perspective on the festivals. Obviously this evangelist knew what he was doing. The festivals are thus to be perceived as holy convocations established by God in the Torah (Purim and Hanukkah being added later to the calendar), and they are in Leviticus by statement and implication linked to Sabbath and to the many restrictions on labor pertaining to Sabbath observations. “With this understanding of festival in mind, the reason for the continual undercurrent of Sabbath in the Johannine Festival Cycle becomes, I believe, much clearer and more relevant to the Johannine portrayal of Jesus as the Lord, even in the festivals. It also renders any Bultmannian discussion of displacement of chap. 5 as a complete misunderstanding of the Gospel” (John 1–11, 230).
23. Culpepper, The Gospel and Letters of John, 150.
24. J. Carl Laney, John, Moody Gospel Commentary (Chicago: Moody, 1992), 106.
25. Some manuscripts add verses 3b–4, “And they waited for the moving of the waters. From time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease he had.” The absence of these lines from the earliest and best witnesses, however, has led many scholars to omit them as not original (e.g., Metzger, A Textual Commentary of the Greek New Testament, 209; and Gordon D. Fee, “On the Authenticity of John 5:3b–4, ” Evangelical Quarterly 54 [October–December 1982]: 207-18). Others argue for their authenticity (e.g., Zane C. Hodges, “The Angel at Bethesda–John 5:4, ” Bibliotheca Sacra 136 [January–March 1979]: 39). Hodges proposes several arguments in favor of accepting these verses as part of the original. (1) All known Greek manuscripts of John’s Gospel, with the exception of less than a dozen, include the verses. (2) The antiquity of the passage is vouched for from Tertullian in the third century. (3) The reading was widely diffused in both the East and West, as evidenced in the versions and church Fathers. (4) In view of its unique content and probable connection with the traditions of Bethesda itself, the material is unobjectionable on stylistic grounds. (5) The omission can be explained as deliberate and motivated by a falsely perceived “pagan tinge.” (6) The statement about the assembled sick in verse 3 and the response of the invalid in verse 7 demands the presence of verses 3b–4 in order to make John’s text genuinely comprehensible. Although the external attestation for the reading that omits the verses is strong, internally the verses in question provide an explanation for the lame man’s statement in verse 7.
26. The Evangelist used the term ὑγιὴς often (5:6, 9, 11, 14, 15; 7:23). On a literal level the term describes physical healing, and figuratively it points to God’s healing power in the whole person, including one’s spiritual life (cf. Acts 4:10; Titus 2:8). See Ulrich Luck, “ὑγιὴς,” in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich, trans. and ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, vol. 8 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972), 312. Thus when Jesus asked the invalid man if he wanted to get well, perhaps He was referring to more than just physical healing.
27. Craig R. Koester, Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 172.
28. Ibid.
29. The term “the Jews” (οἱ ᾿Ιουδαῖοι) may have four different meanings in John: (a) the entire Jewish people (2:6, 13; 3:1, 25; 4:9, 22; 5:1; 6:4; 7:2; 8:31; 11:55; 18:12, 35; 19:21, 40, 42); (b) the residents of Jerusalem and surrounding territory (11:8, 19, 31, 33, 36, 45, 54; 12:9, 11; 19:20); (c) the people hostile to Jesus (6:41, 52; 8:48, 52, 57; 10:19, 24, 31, 33; 18:20, 38; 19:7, 12, 14); (d) the religious authorities in Jerusalem (1:19; 2:18, 20; 5:10, 15, 16, 18; 7:1, 11, 13, 15; 8:22; 9:18, 22; 13:33; 18:14, 31, 36; 19:31, 38; 20:19). See Robert G. Bratcher, “ ‘The Jews’ in the Gospel of John,” Bible Translator 26 (October 1975): 401-9. In John 5 “the Jews” were the religious leaders in Jerusalem.
30. Although no specific law prohibited carrying a mat on the Sabbath, the Jews may have had Nehemiah 13:15 and Jeremiah 17:21–27 in mind. These passages mention general restrictions against carrying a load. Furthermore the Mishnah (Shabbath 7.2; 10:5) prohibits transporting an object from one domain to another.
31. Brown, The Gospel according to John (I–XII), 208.
32. Borchert, John 1–11, 235.
33. W. H. Harris, “A Theology of John’s Writings,” in A Biblical Theology of the New Testament, ed. Roy B. Zuck (Chicago: Moody, 1994), 177.
34. Yee, Jewish Feasts and the Gospel of John, 40.
35. Merrill C. Tenney, “Topics from the Gospel of John: Part II: The Meaning of Signs,” Bibliotheca Sacra 132 (April–June 1975): 148.
36. Herbert Lockyer, All the Miracles of the Bible: The Supernatural in Scripture; Its Scope and Significance (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1961), 302.
37. Laney, John, 112.
38. W. Robert Cook, “Eschatology in John’s Gospel,” Criswell Theological Review 3 (fall 1988): 87.
39. Laney, John, 112.
40. Morris, The Gospel according to John, 316.
41. Carson, The Gospel according to John, 252–53.
42. Ibid., 258.
43. Laney, John, 114.
44. Morris, The Gospel according to John, 321–22.
45. Laney, John, 105–6.
46. Griffith, “The Eschatological Significance of the Sabbath,” 319.
47. Mark R. Saucy, “Miracles and Jesus’ Proclamations of the Kingdom of God,” Bibliotheca Sacra 153 (July–September 1996): 288.
48. Larry Paul Jones, The Symbol of Water in the Gospel of John, Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1997), 127–28.
49. Brown, The Gospel according to John (I–XII), 207.