Commentary - John 5:1-17

Bird's-eye view

In this potent narrative, Jesus travels to Jerusalem for a feast and encounters a scene of profound human misery at the pool of Bethesda. The setting is a microcosm of Israel's spiritual condition: a multitude of helpless people, waiting for a magical, superstitious fix that never quite delivers. Out of this crowd, Jesus sovereignly selects one man, an invalid for thirty-eight years, a period echoing Israel's long wandering in the wilderness. The healing is instantaneous and accomplished by Christ's word alone, demonstrating His absolute authority. This act of creative power immediately triggers a conflict with the Jewish authorities, not because a man was miraculously healed, but because the healing occurred on the Sabbath and involved the man carrying his mat. The ensuing confrontation reveals the core issue: the dead, external legalism of the Pharisees versus the life-giving, divine authority of Jesus. The chapter climaxes with Jesus' audacious claim to co-equality with God the Father, asserting that His work is the Father's work, thereby escalating the conflict that will ultimately lead to the cross.

This passage is a brilliant exposition of sovereign grace. The man does not ask to be healed, exhibit any prior faith, or even know who Jesus is. He is chosen, commanded, and restored entirely by the unilateral action of Christ. This miracle serves as a sign pointing to a greater reality: Jesus' authority not only to heal bodies but to give life, to define the true meaning of Sabbath rest, and to work with the same divine prerogative as His Father.

Outline

Context In John

This event in John 5 marks a significant turning point in Jesus' public ministry and a major escalation of His conflict with the Jewish authorities. In the preceding chapters, Jesus has demonstrated His authority in various ways: turning water to wine (Ch. 2), cleansing the temple (Ch. 2), and healing the nobleman's son from a distance (Ch. 4). Here, the conflict becomes direct, theological, and centered in Jerusalem, the heart of Jewish religious life. The controversy is over the Sabbath, but the real issue is Christ's identity. His claim in verse 17, "My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working," is an unambiguous claim to deity that the authorities correctly understand. This event sets the stage for the extended discourse that follows in the rest of John 5, where Jesus elaborates on His relationship to the Father and His authority as the Son of God. From this point forward, the opposition to Jesus becomes organized, official, and murderous.

Key Issues

A World of Difference

The world is divided into two kinds of people, and this story lays the distinction bare. There are those who believe that the way to God is through a system, a process, a set of rules, or a lucky break. And there are those who know that the only way to God is through a Person. The pool of Bethesda represents the first way. It is a world of superstition, competition, helplessness, and waiting. It is a religion of human effort, where the fastest and strongest might get the blessing, leaving the truly helpless with no hope. Jesus Christ represents the second way. He does not point to a system; He is the system. He does not offer a process; He speaks a word. He does not wait for our initiative; He takes the initiative. The contrast between the broken system of Bethesda and the sovereign word of Jesus is the contrast between every false religion and the true gospel of grace.

Verse by Verse Commentary

1-3 After these things there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew Bethesda, having five porticoes. In these lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered...

John sets the scene. Jesus, in faithfulness to the Mosaic law, goes up to Jerusalem for a feast. When John speaks of a "feast of the Jews," he is often subtly distinguishing it from a true feast of the Lord; it had become their thing, distorted by their traditions. By the sheep gate, a place where animals for sacrifice would enter, there is a gathering of broken humanity. The pool of Bethesda, meaning "house of mercy," is a place of profound misery. A great number of invalids are gathered there, a picture of the fallen world's desperation. They are not there for teaching or prayer; they are there waiting for a magical cure.

3b-4 [...waiting for the moving of the waters; for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool and stirred up the water; whoever then first, after the stirring up of the water, stepped in was made well from whatever sickness with which he was afflicted.]

These words are not found in the oldest and most reliable manuscripts, and for good reason. They were likely added by a later scribe to explain the superstition that drove the crowd to the pool. But the superstition itself was undoubtedly real. This is how fallen man operates. He creates religious systems based on luck, timing, and competition. Notice the cruelty of it: only the first one in gets healed. What about the lame, the blind, the withered, the very ones who could never be first? It is a system that offers a sliver of hope while guaranteeing despair for the vast majority. It is a perfect picture of a works-based religion.

5-6 And a man was there who had been sick for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been sick a long time, He said to him, “Do you wish to get well?”

Jesus singles out one man. His sickness has lasted thirty-eight years. This number is not accidental. It is the length of time Israel was sentenced to wander in the wilderness for their unbelief (Deut 2:14). This man is a living symbol of Israel's long, fruitless waiting under the curse of the law. Jesus acts with sovereign initiative. He saw him and knew his condition. His question, "Do you wish to get well?" is not for information. It is a penetrating question designed to cut through thirty-eight years of resignation and despair. It confronts the man with the possibility of a reality he had long since abandoned.

7 The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I am coming, another steps down before me.”

The man's answer is telling. He does not say, "Yes!" He does not ask Jesus for healing. He simply explains why the system has failed him. His mind is completely captive to the categories of the pool. His problem, as he sees it, is logistical. "I have no man." He is helpless, and the world is a competition he cannot win. This is the confession of every sinner prior to grace. We are spiritually paralyzed, and we have no one, least of all ourselves, who can get us to the place of healing.

8-9a Jesus said to him, “Get up, pick up your mat and walk.” And immediately the man became well, and picked up his mat and began to walk.

Jesus ignores the man's excuse and the entire superstitious framework of the pool. He does not offer to help him into the water. He speaks a word of command, a word of creative power. "Get up, pick up your mat and walk." This is the voice that said, "Let there be light." The command imparts the ability to obey it. The healing is immediately effective and complete. The man who had been defined by his inability to walk is now defined by his obedience to Christ's word. The picking up of the mat is crucial; it is the evidence of a total and finished cure. He is not just feeling better; he is whole.

9b-10 Now it was the Sabbath on that day. So the Jews were saying to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.”

And here the conflict begins. John notes the timing with precision: it was the Sabbath. For John, this is not an incidental detail; it is the whole point. The authorities, whom John here simply calls "the Jews," see the man walking with his mat and their first reaction is not wonder, but accusation. They see a man healed after thirty-eight years of misery, and their only thought is that a rule has been broken. This is the very definition of dead religion. They had built a hedge of traditions around the Sabbath law, and they cared more for their hedge than for a human being made in the image of God.

11 But he answered them, “He who made me well was the one who said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’”

The healed man's logic is simple and unassailable. He appeals from their petty rule to a higher authority. The man who has the power to remake my legs after thirty-eight years of atrophy certainly has the authority to tell me what to do with my mat. He intuitively understands that the power to create life carries with it the authority to command it. He does not know Jesus' name, but he knows His authority.

12-13 They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Pick up your mat and walk’?” But the man who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped away while there was a crowd in that place.

Notice their question. They do not ask, "Who is the man who made you well?" They are completely uninterested in the miracle. Their only concern is identifying the source of this breach of their tradition. They want to find the man who told him to carry his mat. Their spiritual blindness is staggering. Meanwhile, Jesus has withdrawn. The healing was not a performance for the crowd. Jesus is not there to build a fan club; He is there to do the work of His Father.

14 Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “Behold, you have become well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you.”

Jesus seeks the man out for a pastoral follow-up. The first encounter was for his body; this one is for his soul. Jesus connects the physical healing to a spiritual reality. He does not say that the man's specific sin caused his specific illness, but He clearly establishes a link between the general category of sin and the general category of misery and judgment in the world. The warning is stark. As bad as thirty-eight years of paralysis were, there is something worse that can happen. He is speaking of the final judgment. Jesus healed his body to get his attention, and now He warns him about the state of his soul.

15-16 The man went away, and disclosed to the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. And for this reason the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because He was doing these things on the Sabbath.

The man, now knowing Jesus' name, goes and reports it to the authorities. We should not assume his motive was malicious; he was likely just answering their question. But the result is persecution. The reason is stated plainly: Jesus "was doing these things on the Sabbath." It was a pattern of behavior. This was not the first time, and it would not be the last. Jesus was systematically and intentionally dismantling their false understanding of the Sabbath to reveal its true meaning as a day for works of mercy, healing, and life, which are the very works of God.

17 But He answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working.”

This is the theological heart of the passage and one of the most important statements in the Gospel of John. Jesus' defense is not to quibble about the details of their Sabbath regulations. His defense is a thunderous claim to deity. God the Father did not cease all work after the sixth day of creation; He continues to work, sustaining the universe, giving life, and executing His plan of redemption. Jesus claims the right to work on the same basis. "My Father is working... and I Myself am working." He is not merely a prophet who obeys God; He is a co-worker with God, possessing the same nature and prerogative. He is asserting that His work of healing on the Sabbath is not a violation of God's rest, but rather an expression of God's ongoing work of re-creation. The authorities understood this perfectly, which is why, as the next verse tells us, they sought all the more to kill Him.

Application

The spirit of the Pharisees is not dead. It is alive and well whenever Christians become more concerned with their man-made traditions than with the souls of men. It is present when we prioritize our particular list of acceptable behaviors over the weightier matters of justice, mercy, and faith. We can have our own version of the mat police, patrolling the church for minor infractions while ignoring the miraculous work of grace happening right in front of us.

This passage forces us to ask what system we are trusting in. Are we camped out by a pool of our own making, waiting for a magical intervention, a spiritual goosebump, or for someone else to do the work for us? Are we, like the invalid, so focused on our own helplessness and the failure of the system that we cannot hear the simple, powerful command of Christ? The gospel is not a self-help program. It is a rescue. Jesus comes to us in our thirty-eight years of futility and speaks a life-giving word. He commands us to do what we cannot do: "Get up." And in that command, He gives the power to obey.

Finally, we must understand the Sabbath as Jesus does. It is not a day for religious fussiness and nit-picking. It is a day for celebrating and participating in God's work of creation and re-creation. It is a day for works of mercy, for healing, for life. When we see a brother in need, the Sabbath is the perfect day to help him. When we see a soul in despair, the Sabbath is the perfect day to bring him the life-giving word of Christ. For the Father is always working, and we who are in Christ are called to His work.