John 5:16, commentary and pictures

The Jews persecuted Jesus and sought to kill Him because He had healed the helpless paralytic of thirty-eight years at Bethesda on the Sabbath day. They counted both the healing itself and His command to take up his bed and carry it as violations of the Sabbath law. The charge was a false pretext made despite the evidence of God's power in the miracle, with prejudice and unbelief closing their hearts against Him. He had deliberately chosen the Sabbath for this public act to expose the burdensome human restrictions, to free the day from a curse back into a blessing, and to show that works of healing and relieving suffering are in harmony with its spirit and do not break God's law. His answer that His work must continue without interruption like the Father's unceasing care, in the words My Father worketh hitherto, and I work, openly declared His Sonship and equality with God.

Bethesda Setting

The verse belongs to the account of the pool of Bethesda. There crowds gathered believing that the first person to enter the agitated water would be healed. Helpless sufferers there often could not reach the water in time and so obtained no relief. The man Jesus healed there was a paralytic, impotent invalid who had been afflicted for thirty-eight years.

Sabbath-Breaking Charge

The Jews persecuted Jesus and sought to kill Him because He had healed on the Sabbath day. The Sabbath healing provoked their prejudice and threatened to cut short His work. The conflict arose because they called His work of healing and relieving human suffering a violation of the Sabbath. As Lord of the Sabbath He was brought before the Jewish leaders on the charge of breaking the Sabbath law, but He admitted no wrongdoing and accepted no claimed authority of the Pharisees to question or direct His work of mercy.

They treated both the healing itself and His command to the healed man to take up his bed and carry it as violations of the Sabbath law. They counted the healing itself as breaking the law and the order to bear the burden as sacrilege. They overlooked the miracle and hoped to obtain proof with which to condemn Jesus. They wanted proof that Jesus had done these things so they could condemn Him as a Sabbath-breaker.

They excused the restored man from blame but held Jesus guilty for ordering the act, since He assumed responsibility for it. The man in his joy had forgotten it was the Sabbath and felt no condemnation for obeying One with power from God to work so wonderful a miracle. They were confident from the first that only Jesus could have wrought the cure and pressed the healed man to name who had done it in order to get direct proof to condemn Jesus as a Sabbath-breaker. When in joy at finding his deliverer and in ignorance of their malice he told them it was Jesus, they made a great uproar and sought to slay Him.

The charge gave them a pretext to oppose Him despite the evidence of God's power in the miracle. They knew very well that only Jesus had shown Himself able to do the deed. Prejudice, unbelief, and opposition had firmly closed the door of their hearts against Him, so they turned all the evidence given them against Him, being determined not to receive Him. Their strong prejudice against Him and His work made them look for grounds to accuse Him. The charge that He broke the Sabbath was the false accusation of the Pharisees and not true, and to say Christ broke the Sabbath takes sides with the Pharisees in their accusation which they could not prove, for if the charge of Sabbath-breaking could have been sustained there would have been no need to hire false witnesses to testify against Him.

Sabbath's True Meaning

Jesus deliberately chose the Sabbath for the healing at Bethesda and made it a public act in order to expose the burdensome restrictions that had been added to the day. By healing then and commanding the man to take up his bed and carry it, He raised the question of what Sabbath observance permits and declared human traditions void. His action confronted the treatment of those added restrictions as binding and gave opportunity to vindicate the Sabbath's true purpose.

His purpose was to free the Sabbath from requirements that turned it from a blessing into a burden and a curse. In doing so He upheld the dignity of God's law and magnified and honored it, rather than setting it aside. He showed the day's true claims and vindicated its purpose against the restrictive rules attached to it.

Healing the man fully on the Sabbath did not desecrate the day or break God's law. Other works of healing the sick and relieving human suffering are likewise in harmony with the spirit and sanctity of the law and fulfill the Father's plan. The leaders' hostility over such mercy exposed their own failure to live by the law's principles, since their claim to defend the law stood in conflict with their intent to kill.

Christ's Authority and Defense

The Lord of the Sabbath was brought before the Jewish leaders and virtually summoned before the dignitaries and the Sanhedrin to be tried for His life on the Sabbath-breaking charge. The controversy had risen very high, so that the Lord of the Sabbath was arraigned before an earthly tribunal. They hoped by this trial to condemn His teaching and weaken His growing influence, though Roman rule prevented them from carrying out a death sentence.

He denied the right of the Pharisees to question Him, to catechize Him, or to interfere with His work of mercy. The Jewish system gave them no such authority, and their claims rested on pride and arrogance. He admitted no wrongdoing, offered no apology or explanation for the act, refused to plead guilty to any wrong, and would not submit to their interrogation or to being catechized by them.

His answer was that His healing work, like the Father's unceasing care for creation and provision of daily food, must continue without interruption. He declared, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work, thereby claiming equal rights with God to do a sacred work like the Father's and openly declaring His Sonship and equality with God. That healing, together with His miracles and teaching in Judea, proclaimed His divine identity and Sonship, and after the healing He declared His Sonship to the Sanhedrin.

The Father and the Son are united in the work of redemption, giving courage and hope to the discouraged. Christ has worked for humanity's salvation from the moment of the first transgression, guiding Israel, leading as light toward heaven, and foreshadowed in prophets, sacrifices, and sanctuary worship. He was Saviour before as well as after His incarnation, working with the same tireless activity as God.

The Sabbath healing and the other works the Father gave Him to do were sufficient evidence that He was the world's Redeemer, the Son of God. Those works declared His divinity and bore witness that the Father had sent Him.

When confronted He stood clothed with divine grace, and when He boldly made known His mission and work His judges looked upon Him with mingled astonishment and rage. His words about the Sabbath drawn from the work of God and the unceasing round of nature were unanswerable, while the rulers had only weak customs and traditions. They could not condemn Him, but evaded His points and sought to stir up anger against Him. So the accused became the accuser, and His words pierced them like arrows of truth, thrilling them with condemnation and pressing guilt home upon their consciences.

His perfect obedience showed that the law can be kept, and His works were in harmony with God's law. To say He broke the Sabbath takes sides with the Pharisees in their false accusation, which was not true and which they could not prove. If that charge could have been sustained there would have been no need to hire false witnesses and resort to false testimony to condemn Him, although He declared Himself guiltless and presented evidence of His innocence.

Opposition and Aftermath

The healing on the Sabbath provoked prejudice that threatened to cut short His work. The opposition was driven by desire to preserve their own authority and rabbinical customs, which His works of mercy and teaching about God's love challenged, and they treated opposition to those customs as blasphemy and treason. Fearing the people, they plotted secretly to find grounds to put Him on trial, and spread false claims that He was an impostor who threatened the sacredness of the day and their traditions and influence.

The people were not stirred to violence but listened with candor. Many recognized Jesus as a friend who had healed their infirmities and relieved their sorrows, and they justified His healing of the man afflicted thirty-eight years, putting the rulers to shame. Many were powerfully affected and deeply convicted by His discourse and ready to acknowledge His divine authority.

The rulers' fury knew no bounds and they were only with difficulty kept from seizing Him to kill Him at once. They were restrained by the people, who defended His healing, so the priests and elders had to restrain their hatred and wait for a more favorable time to carry out their designs. At His second visit to Jerusalem fear of the people kept the Sanhedrin dignitaries from carrying out that intent, and Roman rule prevented them from carrying out a death sentence after they brought Him before the Sanhedrin on the Sabbath-breaking charge hoping to condemn His teaching and weaken His growing influence.

Fully determined to take His life after failing to subvert His authority or turn the respect and attention of the people from Him, they sent messengers all over the country to warn the people against Jesus and denounce Him as an impostor, and sent spies to watch Him and report what He said and did. Their claim to defend the law conflicted with their own intent to kill, while His healing the man fully on the Sabbath was in harmony with the law's spirit.

The Sabbath healing at Bethesda stirred the leading Jews to plot against His life so that it was unsafe for Him to remain in Jerusalem, leading Him to withdraw to Galilee. He made Capernaum the center of His work. From this time He stood most surely under the shadow of the cross.

The accusation that He had broken the Sabbath was followed by a discourse of Christ. The persecution of Christ for doing works on the Sabbath is an example of Satan persecuting those he cannot lead into sin.