IT is one of the peculiarities of our Gospel that in it we see the Lord frequently in Jerusalem while the synoptic Gospels are occupied with His Galilean ministry. The miracle at the pool of Bethesda is an instance—only John records it. Both the fact and the discourse which follows eminently bring out His person. This alone abides, and it is all to the believer, with the infinite work which owes its infiniteness to it. In the other Gospels the process of probation is viewed as still going on; in John all is seen from the first to be closed before God. Hence His moral judgment of Jerusalem is shown us at the beginning in John, as its rejection of Him also. This, to my mind, accounts for the record of the Lord's work there as well as in Galilee in the Gospel of John. If all be regarded as a scene of wreck and ruin morally, it was of no consequence where He wrought. As to trial, all was over grace could and would work equally anywhere: Galilee and Jerusalem were thus alike. Sin levels all: life from God in the Son was needed by one as much as another. This our Gospel developer.
“After these things was the feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.” (Verse 1.) Mere authority is pretty equally divided for and against the insertion of the article. Ten uncials (à C E F H I L M Δ Π) insert it, ten (A B D G K S U r Λ) omit it. About fifty cursives and the Sahidic and Coptic versions are with the former, still more with the latter. If the article be received, it can scarcely be any other feast than the passover, the first and foundation feast of the Jewish holy year. Some have thought that it might be the feast of Purim, but this, would not account for Jesus going up to Jerusalem. It had no divine claim.
“Now there is in Jerusalem at the sheep-gate a pool that is called, in Hebrew Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a multitude of the sick, blind, lame, withered [awaiting the moving of the water. For an angel descended from time to time in the pool and troubled the water. He therefore that first wont in after the troubling of the water, became well, whatever disease he was affected by] But a certain man was there, for thirty and eight years suffering under his infirmity. Jesus seeing him lying down, and knowing that he was [so] now a long time, saith to him, Desirest thou to become well? The infirm [man] answered, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool; but whilst I am coming, another goeth down before me. Jesus Rah to him, Arise, take up thy couch, and walk. And immediately the man became well and took up his couch and walked. And on that day was sabbath.” (Ver. 2-9.)
A striking picture that scene was of man—the Jews under law. There they lay without strength, and though the grace of God might interfere at intervals, the greater the need, the less could souls take advantage of His mercy. It was what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh. The impotent man was himself the witness of it till Jesus came, and, unsought, sought him. No angel's moving of the water could avail a man unable to step down and without help to plunge him into the pool. He that was stronger could always anticipate the helpless. But now grace in Jesus the Son of God looks at him who had been suffering so long; grace speaks to him; grace works for him in a word without further delay; for the word was with power. “And immediately the man became well, and took up his couch and walked. And on that day was sabbath.”
But how could sabbath be kept or enjoined on that day of man's misery? Jesus had come to work, not to rest; whatever Pharisees might urge, He would not seal up man in a rest broken before God by sin and ruin.
Thus the sign wrought on that sabbath carries out further what the Lord is seen doing throughout these chapters of the Gospel—substituting Himself for every object of trust or means of blessing, of old or in that day, without Israel and within. Even angels bow to the Son; yet was He incarnate, working in humiliation, going on straight to the cross. The law could not deliver from the guilt or power or effects of sin; no extraordinary intervention of God by the highest of creatures could adequately meet the need: nothing and no one but Jesus the Son of God. Yet hate we also the clearest proof that the Jews were so self-satisfied in their misery by a misuse of the law which blinded them to their sin as well as to the Son, that they were content to go on with such a sabbath, incensed with Him who wrought a sign that proclaimed not more surely His grace than their ruin. Hopeless too it was because of their rejection of the remedy and their self-complacency in their own righteousness.
Observe however that the Lord made the infirm feel his powerlessness more than over before He spoke the word that raised him up. He did awaken the desire to be made whole, as He looked with infinite compassion and knew the case in all its fullness; but the desire he felt expressed itself in the conviction of his own wretchedness. It was like the soul's saying in Rom. 7, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me,” &c. How little he knew Who had deigned to be his “neighbor,” and do the part of the good Samaritan, yea, incomparably more here where need is sounded more deeply. The Quickener of the dead is here. “He spake and it was done,” sabbath as it might be; but what sabbath acceptable to God can sin and misery keep? Thank God! Jesus wrought; but they felt that if He was right, it was all over with them. Hence they judged Him, not themselves, as we shall see, to God's dishonor and their own perdition.