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| To Part 3 |
He
answered them, He who made me well.
He
didn’t know who healed him or made him whole; he was just following orders!
Said
to me, Take up your bed and walk.
He
simply relayed what He commanded him to do. It comes across like he is playing the
victim! This man who was healed by Jesus never asked His name. In fact, I do
not read of any gratitude on his part in all of this at the pool or the Temple?
(Jn 5:12) Then they asked him, Who is the Man who said to
you, Take up your bed and walk?
Like
any good inquisitor, they wanted the identity of the Man that would tell someone to purposely
violate the Sabbath? This was asked in a disdain manner. The identity of the Man (cf. Mk 2:27-28) was
more important to them than this man who had been healed after being afflicted
for the past 38 years. The inquisitors were not awed in the least that this man
was healed. They were appalled that he was healed on the Sabbath! What is wrong
with this picture? We get a peek into the iciness of the heart of an of SRP.
They are spiritually blind with the coldness of a demon. Healing is subservient
to keeping the Sabbath and considered work (cf. Mt 12:9-14; Mk 3:1-6; Lk
6:6-11). This is a picture of excruciating legalism that is tantamount to
religious tyranny.
(Jn 5:13) But the one who was healed did not know who it
was, for Jesus had withdrawn, a multitude being in that place.
But
the one who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn.
Okay,
the man didn’t catch Jesus’ name because He had slipped out (Jesus had withdrawn). You thought he would
have asked up front. Maybe he was too caught up in his physical condition and
his predicament of people beating him to the pool; who knows for sure? It is
important to note his ignorance of the identity of his healer because it is
building some impetus in this story; shortly, we will see what he does with
that information once he finds out who his healer was.
A
multitude being in that place.
This
may be the reason for not getting the name of his healer. The place was packed
out like sardines and chaotic with jibber jabber. Why did Jesus enter into this
circus and select this man with an infirmity for 38 years? Jesus obviously knew
this man would tell the Jews of His identity and set the fireworks in motion.
Remember, this is the first recorded miracle of healing on the Sabbath.
It is only found in John. This fact certainly doesn’t in the least preclude any
unrecorded healings on the Sabbath, but what we know for sure is that it is the
first recorded healing on the Sabbath that initiated the path to the cross (Mt
20:28).
The
Sanhedrin, the people who believed that man was made for the Sabbath and not
the other way around (cf. Mk 2:27), became obsessed with taking out Jesus
driven by a compulsive hatred for Him. What an outlook! Rather than the Sabbath
being a day of rest; it became a day for arrest.
As
long as Jesus healed on any day of the week but the Sabbath, what could the
authorities say or do? If they interfered, they would run the risk of a revolt
and draw the ire of the Romans for violating the Pax Romana. Shortly, they will
have their false witnesses to prosecute Jesus, but Jesus will get their goat
even the more when He “tweets” of equality with the Father!
(Jn 5:14) Afterward Jesus found him in the temple, and
said to him, See, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come
upon you.
Afterward.
This time is undefined; is this temple meeting the same day, the next day, or later
still?
Jesus
found him in the temple.
Found (present active
indicative)
Jesus
found the man that He had
healed at the pool of Bethesda. Perhaps there is a better way to explain
this action on Jesus’ part rather than the verb found, which suggests that Jesus was unaware of his
whereabouts and therefore was searching for him (Jn 1:45; 9:35). Jesus
supernaturally knew where he was (cf. Jn 1:48). So, going to the temple to find
him He found him. Jesus sought him out to speak to him. This man, healed by
Jesus, being at the temple doesn’t necessitate he was there for any religious
purposes. People would hang out in the Temple areas, like the Court of the
Gentiles. It was also a concourse of interaction.
See,
you have been made well.
See
or behold,
Jesus is calling attention to the man he healed at the pool of Bethesda and
referring to him being made whole. Nothing is stated about a change in his
spiritual condition at this point. Then there is a shift in His words,
Sin
no more, lest a worse thing come upon you.
Jesus
addresses this man’s spiritual condition. This man was consumed with physical
healing for 38 years at the expense of his spiritual condition. You get the
impression that he is not too keen on any spiritual healing at this time.
Sin
no more (present
active imperative).
In
other words, what Jesus is telling this man is to no longer continue to sin or
make a practice of sin. It seems rather abrupt, but Jesus was known not to
mince words. This command is similar to the woman caught in the act of adultery
(Jn 8:11). As in both cases, the origin of their problem was a personal sin. All
medical conditions are not the result of personal sin. The man born blind and healed by Jesus was
accused of being born in sin as the reason for his blindness(cf. Jn 9:1-3; cf.
Lk 13:1-5)! You got to “love” these SRP’s.
At
times, there is a connection between illness and sin (cf. 1 Cor 11:29-30; Jas
5:15). Note that Jesus did not say it was okay to sin occasionally or just keep
it to a minimum. Rather, the tense of the verb was to stop making a practice of
sin. Any allowance for sin would contradict His nature of holiness and our
command to be holy (1 Pet 1:15-16). These commands of Jesus are in no way
suggestive of sinless perfection this side of eternity. Only Jesus was sinless.
Lest
a worse thing come upon you.
You
get the impression that Jesus was dead serious about sin. For some odd reason,
many of us haven’t quite figured that out on how grave the nature of sin really is! It is evidenced by how we snicker,
poke fun at, and toy with sin as a believer. Propitiating the penalty of sin
for you and me would cost Jesus His very life in obedience to God the Father. Did we appreciate that great sacrifice? Not until we became a believer.
Sin
is nothing to mess around with given the consequences of rebellion. This man healed by
Jesus at Bethesda may have been thinking of catching up on some sinning that he
was unable to do for the past 38 years! Jesus knew this man’s heart. Sin of the
heart doesn’t need a healthy body! This man was once a sinner disabled; now, he
is a sinner who is healed from his disability; he is a healthy sinner in need
of salvation. Sadly, the actions of this healed man do not fare well of him in
the next verse. It reminds me of the ten lepers who were healed and only one
came back to thank Jesus (Lk 17:11-19).
(Jn 5:15) The man departed and told the Jews that it was
Jesus who had made him well.
Every time I
read this verse; it makes me ill. I don’t know what to make of it? It is
difficult to give this man the benefit of the doubt by how this verse reads.
Was he given an ultimatum by the Pharisees? “Find out this Man’s identity or die?”
Recall,
I mentioned earlier that this was a test for this man? He failed. He took the physical
healing then sold Jesus out to save his own hide. This is what people who are lost do.
Both verbs, departed
and told, are aorist active
indicative; this ingrate totally dismissed the warning of sin no more by Jesus and went and
told the Jewish authorities who the Man was who healed him. Like his
counterpart, Judas Iscariot, this man pointed Jesus out to the bad guys (Lk 22:48)!
This
man, who received healing from Jesus, was either a major ingrate, plain stupid, or pulling a CYB (covering your
butt). I think all three are applicable here. He got the Jewish authorities off
of his back for violating the Sabbath and redirected their ire on Jesus, the
One who healed him. The religious authority was more willing to overlook this
man’s transgression and go after a bigger fish to fry.
Who
knows? This unthankful person was a recipient of grace and healing. He made
have been angry and blamed Jesus for causing him to violate the Sabbath by commanding him to take up his bed and walk away and getting caught by the Pharisee patrol. The Pharisees and sabbath sympathizers hated Jesus and Sabbath-breakers.
No matter how you dice it, this man betrayed Jesus, and it makes you want to
open up a can of making things right on people like him. Maybe he didn’t like
Jesus telling him what to do – sin no more? How true of so many from unbelievers to believers we want
the benefits from Yahweh but not the instructions,
“I will take Your healing, but how dare You push Your values on me!”
I
know that this will not sound spiritual, but I have never pretended to be a
syrupy saint anyway. I can honestly say that I fit in more with King David’s
warrior mentality than his cerebral son, Solomon. I was with Peter drawing the
sword out of the sheath and whacking off the right ear of Malchus (Jn 18:10).
He was a lucky man; Peter and I were aiming for the middle of his skull!
In
reality, God’s will is not accomplished by a physical sword but by a spiritual
one, the
sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God (Eph 6:17). This type of warfare is
fought on the spiritual level, not on the physical plane. Sometimes,
flesh-flare-ups tempt me sorely to open up a can of …, my happy place! Don’t
you think it is high time to get animated with some righteous indignations for the
cause of Christ? I loathe those GD’s! Syrupy saints have a challenging time with the imprecatory
psalms found within the inspired text!
Wrapping
this up, I think it is possible that we, as believers, can get so focused on the physical realm, like this man at the pool
of Bethesda, that it “drowns” out the spiritual concerns. What was causing him
to drown in his own lostness was his disability; currently, could COVID-19 and/or something
in addition to a viral pandemic be allowed to drown our need for good spiritual health? For the lost, that’s a given; for they focus mainly on
the physical, but it should not be the case for genuine believers.
In
our mitigation efforts and compliance to COVID demands during this stressful
time of viral warfare, we as believers should not act as if the spiritual aspect of our lives can
be placed on the back burner since we cannot assemble; there still remains that
vital one on one relationship with Yahweh that is at the core of Christianity, that
must never be ignored or put on pause for any reason. Not only that, but regardless
of our physical situation, spiritual warfare never wanes. This conflict is
fully engaged and energized at all times. There is the existence of an attack behind the attack.
Who
doesn’t want to be made whole? Whole for the lost will always remain in the
physical realm due to spiritual challenges (1 Cor 2:14; 2 Cor 4:4) unless
there is divine intervention. For believers, though we may have a physical
condition, healing may not be in God’s will for our life. Notwithstanding, it
is God’s will for every believer to be spiritually whole, in a right
relationship with Him, being holy as He is holy, day in and day out, in the good times and the troubling times.
Indeed,
being made whole involves both the spiritual and physical aspects of man. This wholeness involves positional (salvation, positional
relationship) and practical (maturing in the faith, practical relationship); I
am referring to the latter for a believer here. This wholeness is about keeping sin from
wreaking havoc in our lives by making good choices, a life lived according to His
Word, regardless of the circumstances of life!
Why we ever lose sight of who He is, the I AM, is troubling and will
prove to be detrimental to our spiritual health. Our Jesus of Nazareth was and
is the true Messiah; his miracles validated that as a genuine fact (cf. Lk
7:22). We invite trouble into our lives when we think or treat Him less than
who He is.
When we are not whole in our personal relationship with Yahweh, it
only reveals that there is a love problem (Jn 14:15). Are you whole (Mk 12:30)?
If you are, go and point out Jesus to others for a good reason while practicing social distancing! <><
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| End of Series |
