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The Gospel of John, The Period of Controversy, John 5:1-7 - Lesson 29
We move into another section of the Gospel of John.
Let's quickly review chapters 1-4 before we move into the Period of Controversy in Chapters 5 and 6.
In Chapters 1-4, Jesus worked among every level of society.
Chapter 1 sees him dealing with fisherman.
In Chapter 2 he talks with his mother and with the leaders of Israel.
He converses with Nicodemus in Chapter 3, and the Samaritan woman and the nobleman in Chapter 4.
He could reach into every level of society because the message of the Gospel of the Savior of men is for everyone.
No one is excluded because ye are saved by Grace not because of what or who you are.
In the following chapters he begins to deal with the multitudes.
This is part of the reason that the Pharisees feel threatened.
The Multitude. The people. Their power.
They had no power with God, they only had power by controlling the multitudes, the people.
Take the people away and they had no power.
So we see a division of John by groups that Jesus taught.
First he teaches individuals, then the multitudes, then the disciples. In all his teaching, in all these passages, he is at the center.
Let's read John 5:1-16
Verses 5:1-4, After this there was a feast of the Jews; and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.
In fulfillment of the law Jesus attends a feast or festival in Jerusalem.
We do not know which festival it was and it is probably not important that we know.
Jesus was supposed to be there.
His face was pointed as a flint to the cross and there was work to be done before he permitted himself to be taken.
Controversy was to be initiated by the Lord here at the pool called Bethesda.
He knew what he was about to do and he knew that he would touch a sore and sensitive spot by healing a poor impotent man on the sabbath.
He went to this pool with a purpose, because he was intent upon revealing the hearts of the religious leaders of Israel.
Do you think the Pharisees came to this pool often to minister to these poor souls?
No, it was not a place to be seen and to gain praise of ones peers.
It would trouble their mind with the fact that little if anything was being done for these wretched souls.
Anyway God was providing for them in their absence through the healing power of the moving waters.
But Jesus came to save a soul and to shed light on the darkness of the religious practices of the day.
He went to throw open the doors of the whited sepulchers they were clothed with to see the corruption and deceitfulness of their hearts.
As the great physician he wished to heal but he also wished to point his finger and touch the spots that revealed the sin sickness of the self-righteous religious leaders of Jerusalem.
He is the light and all evil that hides in the darkness is revealed in his presence.
We join Jesus at this pathetic scene.
You would not want to be there.
Your eyes would most likely be repulsed at the view they would take in.
The pool was crowded with sufferers, impotent, sick and helpless, crippled, blind, unlovely, unclean, people.
People that we would not feel comfortable around.
But Jesus is the great physician. He is there to heal.
But it is the Sabbath.
The Jews don't heal on the Sabbath nor do they like those that do, thank you.
They are more holy than God.
They added to God's Word and bound people by use of the Sabbath instead of God's intention for the Sabbath to loose people from continuous work.
The Sabbath was a sign of their national covenant with God.
The rabbis had tied up the Sabbath with dozens of rules and regulations.
They had turned the Sabbath into a chore to be endured.
The Sabbath was made for man.
But the Jews had used it to control people by making religious ritual.
This event takes place near the sheep gate where the sacrificial lambs were brought in.
It takes place at a pool called Bethesda, which means a "house of mercy".
The poor pitiful people waiting for the moving of the water were typical of the sinner who is helpless without the mercy of the Lamb of God.
Some were impotent, without strength; some were blind, unable to see; some were halt, crippled, lame, unable to walk; some were withered, all a drain on society, unable to work; and they were waiting, hoping for deliverance by the water; but the object of their faith was in vain.
This is the picture of Israel.
This is a picture of all dead religion.
Religion that does not save.
Religion that damns.
There is no hope in religion, only hope in the person of Jesus Christ.
Verse 5:5,6, And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years. When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case....
This scene is not one in which we have much in common.
We perhaps can get a sense or feel of that which Jesus saw and how this man lived when we visit old folks homes and see the halt and withered and crippled and sick.
But I'm sure our nursing homes are heavenly compared to the scene that Jesus found at the pool.
In this country we are isolated from scenes of suffering that this man lived through daily.
He had perhaps been brought to this pool every day for many years looking for relief from the waters.
He had high hopes in the beginning years of being healed but as time went on, despair settled in.
Jesus knew that this poor man was at the end of his rope.
His hope was built on nothing other than the moving of the waters.
Misplaced hope, but the real hope, Jesus Christ, comes to him and asks in:
Verse 5:6, ....Wilt thou be made whole?
Jesus chooses one man of the multitude.
Perhaps he picks out the most difficult case from man's perspective.
This man is representative of Israel.
A man who had been in his own wilderness for 38 years.
Jesus does not heal the multitude.
For a reason not given he chooses this man to heal.
There is nothing in the passage to indicate that this man was any different from the others.
We are not told that he cried out to Jesus, "Have mercy on me."
He did not even know that the one that stood before him was the Christ.
He appears to evidence no faith whatsoever.
The explanation may be in verse 21, where Christ says, "he will quicken whom he will."
So Christ heals one of the multitude and by this act he demonstrates his sovereign grace.
This one had been given him by the Father.
Jesus saw him lie helplessly and he knew the man's infirmity of many years.
See yourself here!
This is the condition of us all before Christ heals the sin sick soul.
Jesus comes to us and asks, "Wilt thou be made whole?
Do you want to get well?
The choice is ours.
Many choose to remain infirm, blind, or withered.
This shows how important our will is in the matter of salvation.
Verse 5:7, 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.
Jesus asked the man if he would be made whole.
The man replies, "I have no man to help."
Again we see in this Gospel, man's mind limited to the physical.
Time after time in this Gospel we see that the natural man thinks naturally.
The natural man is limited.
The natural man thinks only of man as his help.
But the spiritual man thinks of God as his help.
The spiritual man cries unto the Lord in his trouble.
Time after time we see examples of Jesus thinking spiritually.
He is always on the higher plain of faith.
If we are to think spiritually we must include the act of faith in God in our thinking.
The bounds that we operate in, are extended, are broadened when we are born again.
We, if conformed to the image of the Son of God, must not be bound by the physical world that we can see, and taste, touch, smell and feel.
Salvation opens up to us a new world, a spiritual world and we are to operate in that world as the Spirit conforms us to Jesus Christ.
One of the conforming things that the Holy Spirit does is to bring us to think spiritually.
I'm told that you don't really know a foreign language until you learn to think in that language.
Likewise your knowledge of God is not complete until you think spiritually.
Thinking spiritually is including Jesus Christ in all your thoughts and desires, your goals and your passions.
Todd Brainard, in his study of James, told us "To count it all joy when ye fall into divers testings."
Count testings as joy? What kind of thinking is this?
Likewise, the scripture says that the trial of your faith is precious; trials work patience; the scripture also says, the first shall be last and the last shall be first; also that if you humble yourself you shall be lifted up; it tells us to take no thought for the morrow,
David praises the Lord as he says, "thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me."
Can it really be that our afflictions are given as an act of faithfulness on the part of our maker?
Should I run to the world to find relief?
Or should I count it all joy?
This is not natural thinking.
These kind of thinking patterns and habits can only be gotten from walking and talking with God; knowing his Word!
Romans 12:2, tells us to: be not conformed to this world but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.
The spiritual man is transformed in his thinking. He thinks spiritually the way Jesus thinks.
We are not to think like the world and adopt the world's solutions to problems that may not even be problems but instead may be the conforming hand, the sculpting hand, of God in our lives.
God is working a work in you and he does not want you to think this work is some phobia or mental weakness or problem that needs the world's solutions.
But this man thinks naturally.
He is impotent in mind also.
This man has figured out his healing for himself.
His mind is fixed.
He understands that the only way he can be healed is for him to outwit and outrun the others and get to the pool before they do.
He was leaning to his own understanding.
He looked at the problem with all of the limitations and boundaries that the natural man has and he only had one solution to his problem.
He had no friends, no family, no help from the Pharisees, or the religious crowd.
His companions at the pool were in the same predicament as he was.
All were lame and crippled and blind and halt.
They were all looking out for themselves, hoping to get to the water first and find relief.
His mind was bound by the circumstances of 38 years of suffering and pain.
He was unable to trust in God for his help.
He could not trust in the Lord to provide the solution to his longstanding problem.
Again, see yourself here.
Do you provide the solution and expect God to endorse it?
Or do you fully cast all of your care upon him, including the cares that you exercise trying to come up with a solution.
God doesn't need your help!
Leave the solutions up to him!
But the man had not given up hope.
He continued to try to find relief.
It was not lack of will on his part but lack of opportunity, that kept him where he was.
Many have opportunity to be made whole, but lack the will.
Jesus found out this man had the will so he commands him to walk. |