| John 5 | |
|---|---|
 The beginning verses of the Gospel of John chapter 5, from a facsimile edition of William Tyndale's 1525 English translation of the New Testament | |
| Book | Gospel of John |
| Category | Gospel |
| Christian Bible part | New Testament |
| Order in the Christian part | 4 |
John 5 is the fifth chapter of theGospel of John of theNew Testament of theChristianBible. It relates Jesus' healing and teaching inJerusalem, and begins to evidence the hostility shown him by the Jewish authorities.[1]
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The original text was written inKoine Greek.This chapter is divided into 47 verses.
Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter are:
Some writers place this chapter afterJohn 6.[4]
As the chapter opens,Jesus goes again to Jerusalem for "afeast". Because the gospel records Jesus' visit to Jerusalem for thePassover inJohn 2:13, and another Passover was mentioned inJohn 6:4, some commentators have speculated whetherJohn 5:1 also referred to a Passover (implying that the events of John 2–6 took place over at least three years), or whether a different feast is indicated. According toDeuteronomy 16:16, "Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Lord your God in the place which He chooses (i.e. Jerusalem): at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, at theFeast of Weeks (Shavuot, or Pentecost), and at theFeast of Tabernacles".[6]Bengel's Gnomen lists a number of authorities for the proposition that the feast referred to wasPentecost.[7] ThePulpit Commentary notes that "the indefiniteGreek:ἑορτη has been identified by commentators with every feast in the calendar, so there can be no final settlement of the problem".[8] In verse 9 it is considered asabbath.[4]
At thePool of Bethesda or Bethzatha,[9] Jesusheals a man who is both paralyzed and isolated. Jesus tells him to "Pick up your mat and walk!" This takes place on theSabbath, and Jewish religious leaders see the man carrying his mat and tell him this is against the law. He tells them the man who healed him told him to do so, and they ask who that was. He tries to point out Jesus, but he has slipped away into the crowd. Jesus comes to him later and tells him "Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you". The man then tells the Jewish religious leaders that it was Jesus who healed him (John 5:15).
The ruins of the Pool of Bethesda are still standing in Jerusalem.
Verses 3b–4 are not found in the most reliable manuscripts of John,[10] although they appear in theKing James Version of the Bible (which is based on theTextus Receptus). Most moderntextual critics believe that John 5:3b–4 is aninterpolation, and not an original part of the text of John.[11]
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. And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years.[12]
TheNew English Translation and theEnglish Revised Version omit this text completely, but others such as theNew International Version refer to it in a note.
Before Jesus is accused ofworking on the Sabbath, the man he has healed is accused. His bed would probably be only a mat or rug, but biblical commentator Alfred Plummer notes that his Jewish accusers "had the letter of the law very strongly on their side",[1] citing several passages in theMosaic law (Exodus 23:12,Exodus 31:14,Exodus 35:2–3 andNumbers 15:32), but especiallyJeremiah 17:21:
Plummer notes that the man carries his bed in obedience "to a higher authority",[1] not merely as a practical consequence of his having been cured.
The Jews begin to persecute Jesus (and in some texts, verse 16 adds that they "sought to kill him").[17] H. W. Watkins argues that "the words 'and sought to slay Him' should be omitted: in his view they have been inserted in some manuscripts to explain the first clause ofJohn 5:18 (the Jews soughtthe more to kill him)",[18] the first of several Jewish threats against him (John 7:1,7:19–25,8:37,8:40 and10:39).[4]
Two reasons emerge:
From Jesus' words, "My Father",Methodist founderJohn Wesley observed that "It is evident [that] all the hearers so understood him [to mean] making himself equal with God".[19]St. Augustine sees the words "... equal to God" as an extension of the words inJohn 1:1:In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.[20]
Jesus continues to speak of himself ("the Son") in relation to God ("the Father"): the Son can do nothing independently of (or in rivalry with) the Father; "the Son can have no separate interest or action from the Father".[21] the Son "acts with no individualself-assertion independent of God, because He is the Son.[1] The Son imitates the Father; the Father loves the Son and shows Him his ways; and the Son gives life in the way that the Father raises the dead. But the Father has delegated the exercise ofjudgment to the Son: all should honour the Son as they would honour the Father, and anyone who does not honour the Son does not honour the Father who sent Him. (John 5:19–23) The words in verse 19:the Son can do nothing on his own become, in verse 30,I can do nothing on my own; Jesus "identifies himself with the Son".[1]
Two sayings then follow each commencing with a double "amen" (Greek:αμην αμην, translated "Verily, verily" in theKing James Version, "Truly, truly" in theEnglish Standard Version, or "Very truly I tell you" in theNew International Version):
Reformed Evangelical theologianD. A. Carson seesJohn 5:24 as giving the "strongest affirmation ofinaugurated eschatology in the Fourth Gospel" ... it is not necessary for the believer to "wait until thelast day to experience something of resurrection life".[22] Lutheran theologianHeinrich Meyer refers to "the hour when the dead hear the voice of the Son of God" as the "resurrection summons". Meyer argues that this "hour" extends from its beginning at "Christ's entrance upon His life-giving ministry" until "the second advent – already had it begun to be present, but, viewed in its completeness, it still belonged to the future".[23]
The final verses of this chapter, verses 31 to 47 refer to what theNew King James Version calls the "fourfold witness". Jesus states that he does not bear witness (Greek:η μαρτυρια) to himself, for such witness would not be true or valid. Instead he calls on the testimony of four other witnesses:
Jesus says that the Jews who seek to kill him study the scriptures hoping for eternal life, but that the scriptures speak of him, and people still refuse to come to him for life. People accept people who preach in their own name but not in one who comes in the name of the Father. "How can you believe if you accept praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God?" He then speaks ofMoses as their accuser:
But, says Jesus, since you do not believe what Moses wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?" (John 5:47)
TheologianAlbert Barnes notes that "the ancientfathers of the Church and the generality of modern commentators have regarded our Lord as the prophet promised in these verses [of Deuteronomy]".[24] Commentators have also explored whether the contrast to be emphasized is a contrast between the person of Moses and the person of Jesus, or between Moses understood as the author of scriptural writings and Jesus, who did not write but whose testimony was his 'sayings'. Bengel's Gnomen argues that in John 5:47, Moses' writings (Greek:Γράμμασιν) are placed in antithesis to Jesus' words (Greek:ῥήμασι): "Often more readily is belief attached to a letter previously received, than to a discourse heard for the first time".[7] However, the Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges is critical of this approach:
These teachings of Jesus are almost only found in John. In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus only speaks of himself as theMessiah in such a straightforward way at the very end, shortly before his death. All this occurs in Jerusalem, while the Synoptic Gospels have very little of Jesus's teachings occurring in Jerusalem and then only shortly before his death.
| Preceded by John 4 | Chapters of the Bible Gospel of John | Succeeded by John 6 |