02/06/2021 – John – Chapter 5 commentary: “A Sabbath Miracle at Jerusalem”
The man healed in the pool of Bethesda – My footnote on 5:14 is really sublime:
“We once lay as feeble, fragile and frail folk, helpless and hopeless, pathetically paralyzed by the devil – ‘taken captive by him to do his will (2 Timothy 2:26) – until Jesus spoke a word to us. We were on a deathbed of sin with no one able to help us, but we heard the voice of the Word of God saying, ‘Arise from the dead and Christ will give you light” (Ephesians 5:14)
Now a thankful heart for the unspeakable gift makes us want to be always in the presense of God. Unlike the healed man, however, we need not go to the temple to thank the Father, for He now abides in the heart of the believer. The work of Calvary has made the believer the temple of the Living God. (see Corinthians 6:16)
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John 5: 1-9
Check this out from my Barclay’s commentary:
“There are always deeper truths below the surface and even the simple stories are meant to leave us face to face with eternal things…
THE INNER MEANING
The man stands for the people of Israel. The five porches stand for the five books of the law. In the porches the peole lay ill. The law could show a man his sin, but could nver mend it; the law could uncover a man’s weakness, but never cure it. The law, like the porches, shattered the sick soul but never could heal it. The thirty-eight years stand for the thirty-eight years in which the Jews wandered in the desert before they entered the promised land; or for the number of centuries man had been waiting for the Messiah. The stirring of the waters stands for baptism. In point of fact in early Christian art a man is depicted as rising from the baptismal waters carrying a bed upon his back.
It may be well be that it is now possible to read all these meanings into the story; but it is highly unlikely that John wrote it as an allegory. It has the vivid stamp of factual truth. But we do well to remember that the Bible story has in it far more than fact.”
And Barclay here again:
“This is the truth I tell you — he who listens to my word and believes on him who sent me has eternal life , and is not on the way to judgment, but he has crossed from death to life.”
Jesus says quite simply that to accept him is life; and to reject him is death. What does it mean to listen to Jesus’ word and to believe in the Father that sent him? To put it at its briefest it means three things:
- It means to believe that God is as Jesus says he is, that he is love; and so to enter into a new relationship with him in which fear is banished.
- It means to acccept the way of life that Jesus offers us, however difficult it may be and whatever sacrifices it may involve, certain that to accept it is the ultimate way to peace and to happiness, and to refuse it the ultimate way to death and judgment . (Jimmy insert: Mark 8:35 !)
- It means to accept the help that the Risen Christ gives and the guidance that the Holy Spirit offers , and so to find strength for all that the way of Christ involves.
When we do that we enter into three new relationships.
- We enter into a new relationship with God. The judge becomes the father; the distant becomes the near; strangeness becomes intimacy and fear becomes love.
- We enter into a new relationship with our fellow men Hatred becomes love; selfishmness becomes service; and bitterness becomes forgiveness.
- We enter in a new relationship with ourselves. Weakness becomes strength; frustration becomes achievement ; and tension becomes peace.”
Soli Deo Gloria indeed!