# John 05 📖: Healing at the Pool of Bethesda [[📚 Explore the Bible Books]] [[-John Overview]] | [[John 04]] | [[John 06]] > [!info] Table of Contents > [[#📜 Scripture Text (NET)]] > [[#📖 Verse-by-Verse Commentary]] > [[#🤔 Interesting Facts / Historical and Cultural Insights]] > [[#🧠 Chapter Summary]] > [[#✝️ Christ in This Chapter]] > [[#🔎 Key Observations / 🛟 Life Application]] > [[#💬 Discussion Questions]] > [[#✍️ Key Verses to Remember]] > [[#🔗 Related Passages]] > [[#🙏 Devotional Reflection]] > [[#📂 Internal Notes]] ## 📜 Scripture Text (NET) (The NET Bible: New English Translation. Biblical Studies Press, 2005) #### Healing a Paralytic at the Pool of Bethesda **Principle**: Jesus doesn't use your surroundings to judge you. [[#Verse 01.]] After this there was a Jewish feast, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.  [[#Verse 02.]] Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool called _Bethzatha_in Aramaic, which has five covered walkways.  [[#Verse 03.]] A great number of sick, blind, lame, and paralyzed people were lying in these walkways.  [[#Verse 05.]] Now a man was there who had been disabled for thirty-eight years.  [[#Verse 06.]] When Jesus saw him lying there and when he realized that the man had been disabled a long time already, he said to him, “Do you want to become well?”  [[#Verse 07.]] The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up. While I am trying to get into the water, someone else goes down there before me.”  [[#Verse 08.]] Jesus said to him, “Stand up! Pick up your mat and walk.”  [[#Verse 09.]] Immediately the man was healed, and he picked up his mat and started walking. (Now that day was a Sabbath.) [[John 05- SOAP]] [[#Verse 10.]] So the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and you are not permitted to carry your mat.”  [[#Verse 11.]] But he answered them, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’”  [[#Verse 12.]] They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Pick up your mat and walk’?”  [[#Verse 13.]] But the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped out, since there was a crowd in that place. [[#Verse 14.]] After this Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “Look, you have become well. Don’t sin any more, lest anything worse happen to you.”  [[#Verse 15.]] The man went away and informed the Jewish leaders that Jesus was the one who had made him well. ### Responding to Jewish Leaders **Principle**: Legalism misses Jesus. [[#Verse 16.]] Now because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began persecuting him.  [[#Verse 17.]] So he told them, “My Father is working until now, and I too am working.”  [[#Verse 18.]] For this reason the Jewish leaders were trying even harder to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was also calling God his own Father, thus making himself equal with God. [[#Verse 19.]] So Jesus answered them, “I tell you the solemn truth, the Son can do nothing on his own initiative, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise.  [[#Verse 20.]] For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything he does, and will show him greater deeds than these, so that you will be amazed. [[#Verse 21.]] For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whomever he wishes.  [[#Verse 22.]] Furthermore, the Father does not judgeanyone, but has assigned all judgment to the Son,  [[#Verse 23.]] so that all people will honor the Son just as they honor the Father. The one who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. [[#Verse 24.]] “I tell you the solemn truth, the one who hears my message and believes the one who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned, but has crossed over from death to life.  [[#Verse 25.]] I tell you the solemn truth, a time is coming—and is now here—when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.  [[#Verse 26.]] For just as the Father has life in himself, thus he has granted the Son to have life in himself,  [[#Verse 27.]] and he has granted the Son authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. [[#Verse 28.]] “Do not be amazed at this, because a time is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice  [[#Verse 29.]] and will come out—the ones who have done what is good to the resurrection resulting in life, and the ones who have done what is evil to the resurrection resulting in condemnation.  [[#Verse 30.]] I can do nothing on my own initiative. Just as I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I do not seek my own will, but the will of the one who sent me. ### More Testimony About Jesus **Principle**: We should always point to Jesus. [[#Verse 31.]] “If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true.  [[#Verse 32.]] There is anotherwho testifies about me, and I know the testimony he testifies about me is true.  [[#Verse 33.]] You have sent to John, and he has testified to the truth.  [[#Verse 34.]] (I do not accept human testimony, but I say this so that you may be saved.)  [[#Verse 35.]] He was a lamp that was burning and shining, and you wanted to rejoice greatly for a short time in his light. [[#Verse 36.]] “But I have a testimony greater than that from John. For the deedsthat the Father has assigned me to complete—the deeds I am now doing—testify about me that the Father has sent me.  [[#Verse 37.]] And the Father who sent me has himself testified about me. You people have never heard his voice nor seen his form at any time,  [[#Verse 38.]] nor do you have his word residing in you, because you do not believe the one whom he sent.  [[#Verse 39.]] You study the scriptures thoroughly because you think in them you possess eternal life, and it is these same scriptures that testify about me,  [[#Verse 40.]] but you are not willing to come to me so that you may have life. [[#Verse 41.]] “I do not accept praise from people,  [[#Verse 42.]] but I know you, that you do not have the love of God within you.  [[#Verse 43.]] I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me. If someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him.  [[#Verse 44.]] How can you believe, if you accept praisefrom one another and don’t seek the praise that comes from the only God? [[#Verse 45.]] “Do not suppose that I will accuse you before the Father. The one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have placed your hope.  [[#Verse 46.]] If you believed Moses, you would believe me, because he wrote about me.  [[#Verse 47.]] But if you do not believe what Moses wrote, how will you believe my words?” ## 📖 Verse-by-Verse Commentary ###### Overall. ###### Verse 01. ###### Verse 02. ###### Verse 03. ###### Verse 04. ###### Verse 05. ###### Verse 06. ###### Verse 07. ###### Verse 08. ###### Verse 09. ###### Verse 10. ###### Verse 11. ###### Verse 12. ###### Verse 13. ###### Verse 14. ###### Verse 15. ###### Verse 16. ###### Verse 17. ###### Verse 18. ###### Verse 19. ###### Verse 20. ###### Verse 21. ###### Verse 22. ###### Verse 23. ###### Verse 24. ###### Verse 25. ###### Verse 26. ###### Verse 27. ###### Verse 28. ###### Verse 29. ###### Verse 30. ###### Verse 31. ###### Verse 32. ###### Verse 33. ###### Verse 34. ###### Verse 35. ###### Verse 36. ###### Verse 37. ###### Verse 38. ###### Verse 39. ###### Verse 40. ###### Verse 41. ###### Verse 42. ###### Verse 43. ###### Verse 44. ###### Verse 45. ###### Verse 46. ###### Verse 47. ## 🤔 Interesting Facts / Historical and Cultural Insights 1. Archaeologists have uncovered the pool of Bethesda near the Church of St. Anne in Jerusalem. It had two basins, which fits John's description of five covered walkways (5:2). 2. The meaning of the name Bethesda is debated. It is often explained as "house of mercy." 3. The note about an angel stirring the water (5:3b-4) is missing from the earliest manuscripts, so most modern translations, including the NET, leave it out of the main text. 4. The man had been disabled for 38 years (5:5), the same number of years Israel spent wandering after Kadesh Barnea (Deuteronomy 2:14). 5. Later Jewish tradition listed 39 categories of work forbidden on the Sabbath, including carrying an object from one place to another. 6. Jeremiah 17:21 had warned against carrying loads on the Sabbath, which is the rule the leaders applied to the healed man's mat (5:10). 7. Jewish teachers agreed that God keeps working on the Sabbath by sustaining the world. Jesus' claim to share that work (5:17) was heard as making Himself equal with God (5:18). 8. Jesus calls on several witnesses: John the Baptist, His works, the Father, and the Scriptures (5:33-39). The Law required two or three witnesses (Deuteronomy 19:15). 9. The title "Son of Man" in 5:27 recalls Daniel 7:13-14, where one like a son of man receives authority from the Ancient of Days. 10. John does not name the Jewish feast in 5:1, so scholars still debate which festival it was. ## 🧠 Chapter Summary > [!note] 🌱 Still growing. This section is on its way. ## ✝️ Christ in This Chapter Christ is equal with the Father, who has given Him authority to give life and to judge (5:21-22). Those who hear His word and believe have already crossed over from death to life (5:24; Romans 8:1). ## 🔎 Key Observations / 🛟 Life Application > [!note] 🌱 Still growing. This section is on its way. ## 💬 Discussion Questions 1. Jesus asked the man, "Do you want to become well?" (5:6). Why might Jesus ask that question, and how would you answer it today? 2. The leaders cared more about a rule being broken than about a man being healed (5:10-16). How can religion lose sight of compassion? 3. Jesus said the Scriptures testify about Him (5:39-40). How does that change the way you read the Bible? ## ✍️ Key Verses to Remember - 📖 verse 17: The Father is always working, and so is the Son. - 📖 verse 24: Whoever hears Jesus' word and believes has eternal life and has crossed over from death to life. - 📖 verses 28-29: All who are in the tombs will hear His voice and come out. - 📖 verses 39-40: The Scriptures testify about Jesus, yet many refuse to come to Him for life. ## 🔗 Related Passages - 🔗 [[Genesis 02#Verse 02.|Genesis 2:2-3]] - God's Sabbath rest after creation. - 🔗 [[Daniel 07#Verse 13.|Daniel 7:13-14]] - The Son of Man given authority. - 🔗 [[Daniel 12#Verse 02.|Daniel 12:2]] - Some will rise to everlasting life, others to shame. - 🔗 [[Luke 24#Verse 27.|Luke 24:27]] - All the Scriptures speak about Him. - 🔗 [[Romans 08#Verse 01.|Romans 8:1]] - No condemnation for those in Christ. ## 🙏 Devotional Reflection 📝 SOAP: [[John 05 - SOAP|The Purpose of Reading the Bible]] 📝 SOAP: [[John 05- SOAP|No Victims Allowed]] --- ## 📂 Internal Notes