"Thou shalt."

   "Thou shalt not."

   "Thou shalt."

   "Thou shalt not."

   "Shalt."

   "Shalt not."

   "SHALT!" "SHALT NOT!"

   Sounds like angry children arguing on the playground, doesn't it? But what you're hearing is the insistent bickering of adult Christians entrenched in legalism.

   The Pharisees were the grandfathers of legalism, and in our lesson today, Jesus meets them head-to-head, toe-to-toe in a confrontation that turns the tide of official opinion against Him!

* LEGALISM: LET’S UNDERSTAND IT.

   When we lift the veil on legalism, we find hypocrisy instead of holiness.

   What is it? Legalism is conforming to a code of behavior for the purpose of exalting self. Legalists make lists of "dos" and "don't" based not on Scripture but on tradition or personal preference. Then they judge themselves and others on their performance. In a nutshell, it's a "checklist Christianity."

   How does it appear? It slips into a congregation unnoticed and usually preys especially on young, naive believers. Paul describes legalists in Galatians 2:4: "<This matter arose> because some false brothers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves."

   Why is it wrong? First and foremost, legalism is unbiblical. Grace and freedom are the hallmarks of the Christian life, not law and bondage. Second, it promotes the flesh, which cannot please God (Rom. 8:8). Third, it is based on pride, a prime example of which is the parable of the Pharisee and the tax gatherer in Luke 18:9-14.

   When did it start? Legalism is an ancient art, begun by the Pharisees and implemented by subsequent generations of apprentices who have been narrow, rigid, and often intolerably religious.

   Legalists have refused to accept the doctrine of grace. Instead, they have sought to supplement grace with their own works or ideas.

LEGALISM: Let’s examine it

   The pivotal issue on which the controversy in John 5 turns is the question of observing the Sabbath. Before we get into the passage, let's do a little homework concerning this:

- Origin of the Sabbath.

   At the end of Genesis 1, we read that God completed His work of creation in six days. In Genesis 2:2, Moses states: "By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work."  Essentially, sabbath means "rest."

- Law of the Sabbath.

   In Exodus 20, the Law God gave to Moses required observance of the Sabbath, and He based His injunction on the pattern of the creation.  Exodus 20:8-11: "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. {9} Six days you shall labor and do all your work, {10} but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. {11} For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy."

- Tradition of the Sabbath

   Slipping in between the Old and New Testaments, the Pharisees amplified the Sabbath law by adding 39 categories of unpermitted work, along with a number of tedious restrictions. These became part of the traditional teachings of the rabbis, who then enforced them among the people. Yet these requirements stretched considerably beyond God's original intent.

   Notice one example: "If a man removed his fingernails by means of his nails or his teeth, and so, too, if [he pulled out] the hair of his head, or his moustache or his beard; and so, too, if a woman dressed her hair or painted her eyelids or reddened [her face]..such a one declares liable...and has worked on the Sabbath."

* Context of our Text for Today.

   The first period in the life of Jesus recorded in this gospel contained His claims. He Himself presented some of them through an explicit avowal of Messiahship, some were implicit in the titles ascribed to Him by His friends, and still others were latent in the miracles that He performed.

   He claimed nothing less for Himself than Deity. He demanded nothing less from His followers than obedient faith.

Between chapters 4 and 5:1, the following incidents occurred in Jesus’ life:

   1. Returned to Nazareth, taught in the synagogue, and was rejected (Luke 4).

   2. Called four fishermen the second time, and healed many (Matt. 4; Mark 1; Luke 5).

   3. Made the Galilean tour among crowds (Matt. 9).

   4. Healed a leper (Matt. 8).

   5. Healed a paralytic (Matt. 9).

   6. Called Matthew (Matt. 9).

   7. Ran into controversies about eating and fasting (Matt. 9; Mark 2; Luke 5).

   Because of His claims, He met opposition. Chapters 6 and 7 show the development of this opposition in debate and controversy before it broke into deadly conflict.

   The subject matter in this Period of Controversy was centered around two events: the healing of the impotent man at the pool of Bethesda and the feeding of 5,000 men in Galilee.

   These two differ in character, in scope, in locality, and in response:

   - One was negative, for it removed the handicap of a long standing disease. The other was positive, for it provided nourishment for the healthy crowd.

   - One pertained to one individual, the other to 5,000 men.

   - One took place in Galilee, the other in Jerusalem.

   - One evoked the enmity of the Jews; the other brought acclamation of the multitude.

BOTH PRODUCED CONTROVERSY!

* THE NEED (5:1-5)

     "Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. {2} Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. {3} Here a great number of disabled people used to lie--the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. {4}  {5} One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years

   There were three Jewish feasts which were feasts of obligation-- Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles. Every adult male Jew who lived within 15 miles of Jerusalem was legally bound to attend them.

   It's most likely that this feast was Pentecost, since the events of John 6 occur when the Passover was near.  The Passover was in mid- April, and Pentecost was seven weeks later.

   John makes a special point of mentioning the 38 years this man had been physically sick.  Bethesda means "house of mercy" or "compassion."

   Five porches had been built by this pool for the sick and diseased, etc., and they were probably covered so they could be protected from the sun and rain.

   Make this special note: Verses 3b and 4 are not found in the latest translations of the original Greek...they aren't even found in the most translations except as a footnote. They were added in the later centuries to explain why the sick were gathered, and listed the superstitious feelings of the people.

   Beneath the pool was a subterranean stream which every now and again bubbled up and disturbed the waters. The belief  was that the disturbance was caused by an angel, and that the first person to get into the pool after the troubling of the water would be healed from any illness from which he was suffering.

   For 38 years, this pathetic man has lain here in the poverty, the repulsion, and the despair. It may be that as Jesus walked around, the man of this story was pointed out to him as a most pitiable case, because his disability made it very unlikely, even impossible, that he would ever be the first to get into the pool after it had been troubled.

   He had no one to help him in, and Jesus was always the friend of the friendless, and the helper of the man who has no earthly help. He did not trouble to read the man a lecture on the useless superstition of waiting for the water to be moved...His one desire was to help.

When Jesus arrived in Jerusalem he was apparently alone; there is no mention of his disciples.  He found his way to a famous pool.  Its name was either Bethesda, which means House of Mercy, or more likely, Bethzatha which means House of the Olive.  The better manuscripts all have the second name, and we know from Josephus that there was a quarter of Jerusalem actually known as Bethzatha.  The word for pool is kolumbethron, which comes from the verb kolumban, to dive.  The pool was deep enough to swim in.  The passage we have put in brackets is not in any of the greatest and best manuscripts and was probably added later as an explanation of what people were doing at the pool.  Beneath the pool was a subterranean stream which every now and again bubbled up and disturbed the waters.  The belief was that the disturbance was caused by an angel, and that the first person to get into the pool after the troubling of the water would be healed from any illness from which he was suffering.

To us this is mere superstition.  But it was the kind of belief which was spread all over the world in ancient days and which still exists in certain places.  People believed in all kinds of spirits and demons.  The air was thick with them; they had their abodes in certain places; every three, every river, every stream, every hill, every pool had its resident spirit.

Further, ancient peoples were specially impressed with the holiness of water and especially of rivers and springs.  Water was so precious and rivers in spate could be so powerful that it is not surprising that they were so impressed.  In the west we may know water only as something which comes out of a tap; but in the ancient world, as in many places still to-day, water was the most valuable and potentially the most dangerous of all things.

Sir J. G. Frazer in Folk-lore in the Old Testament (ii, 412-423) quotes many instances of this reverence for water.  Hesiod, the Greek poet, said that when a man was about to ford a river, he should pray and wash his hands, for he who wades through a stream with unwashed hands incurs the wrath of the gods.  When the Persian king Xerxes came to the Strymon in Thrace his magicians offered white horses and went through other ceremonies before the army ventured to cross.  Lucullus, the Roman general, offered a bull to the River Euphrates before he crossed it.  To this day in south-east Africa some of the Bantu tribes believe that rivers are inhabited by malignant spirits which must be propitiated by flinging a handful of corn or some other offering into the river before it is crossed.  When anyone is drowned in a river he is said to be "called by the spirits."  The Baganda in Central Africa would not try to rescue a man carried away by a river because they thought that the spirits had taken him.  The people who waited for the pool in Jerusalem to be disturbed were children of their age believing the things of their age.

It may be that as Jesus walked around, the man of this story was pointed out to him as a most pitiable case, because his disability made it very unlikely, even impossible, that he would ever be the first to get into the pool after it had been troubled.  He had no one to help him in, and Jesus was always the friend of the friendless, and the helper of the man who has no earthly help.  He did not trouble to read the man a lecture on the useless superstition of waiting for the water to be moved.  His one desire was to help and so he healed the man who had waited so long.

In this story we see very clearly the conditions under which the power of Jesus operated.  He gave his orders to men and, in proportion as they tried to obey, power came to them.

(i)  Jesus began by asking the man if he wanted to be cured.  It was not so foolish a question as it may sound.  The man had waited for thirty-eight years and it might well have been that hope had died and left behind a passive and dull despair.  In his heart of heart the man might be well content to remain an invalid for, if he was cured, he would have to shoulder all the burden of making a living.  There are invalids for whom invalidism is not unpleasant, because someone else does all the working and all the worrying.  But this man's response was immediate.  He wanted to be healed, though he did not see how he ever could be since he had no one to help him.

The first essential towards receiving the power of Jesus is to have intense desire for it.  Jesus says:  "Do you really want to be changed?"  If in our inmost hearts we are well content to stay as we are, there can be no change for us.

(ii)  Jesus went on to tell the man to get up.  It is as if he said to him:  "Man, bend your will to it and you and I will do this thing together!"  The power of God never dispenses with the effort of man.  Nothing is truer than that we must realize our own helplessness; but in a very real sense it is true that miracles happen when our will and God's power co-operate to make them possible.

(iii)  In effect Jesus was commanding the man to attempt the impossible.  "Get up!"  he said.  His bed would simply be a light stretcher-like frame-the Greek is krabbatos, a colloquial word which really means a pallet-and Jesus told him to pick it up and carry it away.  The man might well have said with a kind of injured resentment that for thirty-eight years his bed had been carrying him and there was not much sense in telling him to carry it.  But he made the effort along with Christ-and the thing was done.

(iv)  Here is the road to achievement.  There are so many things in this world which defeat us.  When we have intensity of desire and determination to make the effort, hopeless though it may seem, the power of Christ gets its opportunity, and with him we can conquer what for long has conquered us.

Certain scholars think this passage is an allegory.

The man stands for the people of Israel.  The five porches stand for the five books of the law.  In the porches the people lay ill.  The law could show a man his sin, but could never mend it; the law could uncover a man's weakness, but could never cure it.  The law, like the porches, sheltered the sick soul but could never 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 the centuries men 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 often depicted as rising from the baptismal waters carrying a bed upon his back.

It may well be that it is now possible to read all these meanings into this 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 any Bible story has in it far more than fact.  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 MIRACLE (5:6-9a)

    “When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to get well?" {7} "Sir," the invalid replied, "I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me." {8} Then Jesus said to him, "Get up! Pick up your mat and walk." {9} At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.”

   Not only would this man's plight be seemingly hopeless, but the man himself seemed resigned to his fate and had accepted the inevitable. Verse 7 is a further explanation of their superstition: the people believed the angels stirred the water, and the first one in would be healed.

   Jesus' question, set to modern language: "Do you want to get well?" While it may seem like an obvious thing, Jesus was probing his inner heart.

   The reply revealed that the man was placing blame for his condition on what everybody  else had not done for him. He was bound by his circumstances and could rise no higher than a futile complaint.

   But Jesus presented him with immediate personal action (vs. 8) as a new alternative to dull acceptance of the inevitable.

   Just as distance was no barrier to healing the royal official's son, so time was no obstacle for Jesus to overcome in healing the lame man. Just think: 38 years of misery, shame, embarrassment and despair; in a split second, it was all history!

   No matter how long we have been struggling with some particular sin or situation from our past, Jesus can change it! The real question is: do you wish to get well?

* THE CONFRONTATION (5:9b-17)

   “The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, {10} and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, "It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat."

   Undoubtedly, the witnesses around the pool were bustling with excitement. But the miracle leaves the legalists bristling with anger. When they should have been on their knees in praise, the only thing these Pharisees can do is pull out their principle-book and quote condemnation, chapter and verse.

   The law said simply that the Sabbath Day must be different from other days and that on it neither a man nor his servants nor his animals must work; the Jews set out 39 different classifications of work, one of which was that it consisted in carrying a burden.

   They found their belief particularly on two passages:

   Jeremiah 17:19-27: "This is what the LORD said to me: "Go and stand at the gate of the people, through which the kings of Judah go in and out; stand also at all the other gates of Jerusalem. {20} Say to them, 'Hear the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah and all people of Judah and everyone living in Jerusalem who come through these gates. {21} This is what the LORD says: Be careful not to carry a load on the Sabbath day or bring it through the gates of Jerusalem. {22} Do not bring a load out of your houses or do any work on the Sabbath, but keep the Sabbath day holy, as I commanded your forefathers. {23} Yet they did not listen or pay attention; they were stiff-necked and would not listen or respond to discipline. {24} But if you are careful to obey me, declares the LORD, and bring no load through the gates of this city on the Sabbath, but keep the Sabbath day holy by not doing any work on it, {25} then kings who sit on David's throne will come through the gates of this city with their officials. They and their officials will come riding in chariots and on horses, accompanied by the men of Judah and those living in Jerusalem, and this city will be inhabited forever. {26} People will come from the towns of Judah and the villages around Jerusalem, from the territory of Benjamin and the western foothills, from the hill country and the Negev, bringing burnt offerings and sacrifices, grain offerings, incense and thank offerings to the house of the LORD. {27} But if you do not obey me to keep the Sabbath day holy by not carrying any load as you come through the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, then I will kindle an unquenchable fire in the gates of Jerusalem that will consume her fortresses.'"

   Nehemiah 13:15-19: "In those days I saw men in Judah treading winepresses on the Sabbath and bringing in grain and loading it on donkeys, together with wine, grapes, figs and all other kinds of loads. And they were bringing all this into Jerusalem on the Sabbath. Therefore I warned them against selling food on that day. {16} Men from Tyre who lived in Jerusalem were bringing in fish and all kinds of merchandise and selling them in Jerusalem on the Sabbath to the people of Judah.  {17} I rebuked the nobles of Judah and said to them, "What is this wicked thing you are doing--desecrating the Sabbath day? {18} Didn't your forefathers do the same things, so that our God brought all this calamity upon us and upon this city? Now you are stirring up more wrath against Israel by desecrating the Sabbath." {19} When evening shadows fell on the gates of Jerusalem before the Sabbath, I ordered the doors to be shut and not opened until the Sabbath was over. I stationed some of my own men at the gates so that no load could be brought in on the Sabbath day."

   Both passages make it clear that what was in question was trading and working on the Sabbath as if it had been an ordinary day! But the Rabbis of Jesus's day solemnly argued that a man was sinning if:

   - he carried a needle in his robe

   - if he wore artificial teeth or his wooden leg

   - if a woman wore a broach

   They were matters of spiritual life and death!

   The presentation of the Jewish authorities in connection with this miracle was unflattering.  Their concern was not for the man, but the Sabbath.  They were a perfect example of unspiritual heartlessness which results from barren institutionalism.

   The law was "holy and righteous and good" (Rom. 7:12), and its requirements of the observance of the Sabbath was intended to provide men with a pause in the week's exhausting toil. They were more concerned about days, than men!

A man had been healed from a disease which, humanly speaking, was incurable.  We might expect this to be an occasion of universal joy and thanksgiving; but some met the whole business with bleak and black looks.  The man who had been healed was walking through the streets carrying his bed; the orthodox Jews stopped him and reminded him that he was breaking the law by carrying a burden on the Sabbath day.

We have already seen what the Jews did with the law of God.  It was a series of great wide principles which men were left to apply and carry out but throughout the years the Jews had made it into thousands of little rules and regulations.  The law simply said that the Sabbath day must be different from other days and that on it neither a man nor his servants nor his animals must work; the Jews set out thirty-nine different classifications of work, one of which was that it consisted in carrying a burden.

His defence was that the man who had healed him had told him to do it, but he did not know his identity.  Later Jesus met him in the Temple; at once the man hastened to tell the authorities that Jesus was the one in question.  He was not seeking to get Jesus into trouble, but the actual words of the law were:  "If anyone carries anything from a public place to a private house on the Sabbath intentionally he is punishable by death by stoning."  He was simply trying to explain that it was not his fault that he had broken the law.

So the authorities levelled their accusations against Jesus.  The verbs in verse 18 are imperfect tense, which describes repeated action in past time.  Clearly this story is only a sample of what Jesus habitually did.

His defence was shattering.  God did not stop working on the Sabbath day and neither did he.  Any scholarly Jew would grasp its full force.  Philo had said:  "God never ceases doing, but as it is the property of fire to burn and snow to chill, so it is the property of God to do."  Another writer said:  "The sun shines; the rivers flow; the processes of birth and death go on on the Sabbath as on any other day; and that is the work of God." True, according to the creation story, God rested on the seventh day; but he rested from creation; his higher works of judgment and mercy and compassion and love still went on.

Jesus said:  "Even on the Sabbath God's love and mercy and compassion act; and so do mine."  It was this last passage which shattered the Jews, for it meant nothing less than that the work of Jesus and the work of God were the same.  It seemed that Jesus was putting himself on an equality with God.  What Jesus really was saying we shall see in our next section; but at the moment we must note this-Jesus teaches that human need must always be helped; that there is no greater task than to relieve someone's pain and distress and that the Christian's compassion must be like God's-unceasing.  Other work may be laid aside but the work of compassion never.

Another Jewish belief enters into this passage.  When Jesus met the man in the Temple he told him to sin no more in case something worse might happen to him.  To the Jew sin and suffering were inextricably connected.  If a man suffered, necessarily he had sinned; nor could he ever be cured until his sin was forgiven. 

The Rabbis said:  "The sick arises not from sickness, until his sins be forgiven."  The man might argue that he had sinned and been forgiven and had, so to speak, got away with it; and he might go on to argue that, since he had found someone who could release him from the consequences of sin, he could very well go on sinning and escaping.  There were those in the church who used their liberty as an excuse for the flesh (Galatians 5:13).  There were those who sinned in the confidence that grace would abound (Romans 6:1-18).  There have always been those who have used the love and the forgiveness and the grace of God as an excuse to sin.  But we have only to think what God's forgiveness cost, we have only to look at the Cross of Calvary, to know that we must ever hate sin because every sin breaks again the heart of God.

    “But he replied, "The man who made me well said to me, 'Pick up your mat and walk.'" {12} So they asked him, "Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?" {13} The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there. {14} Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, "See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you." {15} The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. {16} So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him. {17} Jesus said to them, "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working."

   The Pharisees took this occasion (vs. 16) as one excuse to persecute Him. They disliked Jesus when here the first time (2:18) and were suspicious of His popularity (4:1).

   Now they have cause for an open breach. They would watch His conduct on the Sabbath from now on (Mark 2:23; 3:2, 6).

   Of course, the penalty for blasphemy was death. It is here that the "official persecution" of Jesus began!

   In the days that followed, our Lord often confronted His enemies with their evil desire to kill Him (John 7:19, 25; 8:37, 59). They hated Him without cause (15:18-25).

   Verse 17 presents a profound idea: the Father never rests or ceases in His provision of love, judgment, compassion and mercy. In Genesis, as it records the creation, it's true that God rested on the 7th day...but He rested from creation, not His other "higher works." He, then, must meet the needs of men on the Sabbath. 

   And note the "I" is emphatic in the original language! Philo said: "God never ceases doing, but as it is the property of fire to burn and snow to chill, so it is the property of God to do."

   Another writer: "The sun shines, the river flows; the processes of birth and death go on the Sabbath just as any other day; that is the work of God."

* THE REACTION (5:18)

   “For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.”

   The reply of Jesus to these accusations contained not only a new ethical concept of the Sabbath, but also a new theology. Jesus indicated that He made the Father His pattern, and that He felt that the Father's work constituted sufficient precedent and reason for Him. They understood what He meant, because they sought to kill Him.

   Essentially, the indictments of the legalists were two fold:

   1. Jesus broke the Sabbath (vs. 16, 18)

   2. Jesus claimed equality with God by claiming Him as His Father (vs. 17-18).

   Ironically, the Pharisees were the guilty ones: they judged Jesus, refused to rejoice or give praise at the healing, and even went so far as to plot Christ's assassination.