The Gospel of John Made Easy
Chapter 5 Verses 1 – 30
Verses 1-15
Jesus goes to Jerusalem. It is feast time again.
He goes to a pool called Bethesda. Around the pool is a flat area of stone. The sick and crippled sit or lay there.
This pool has a special thing that happens from time to time. An angel comes down and makes the water move. The first person who gets into the water after the water moves is made well.
The people have heard about this, so they sit and wait. They hope that they will be the first to see the water move and get into the pool.
Jesus was walking among the people there. He saw a man that had been there a long time—38 years—he had been waiting. Jesus said to him, “Will you be made well?” The man said, “I have no one to put me into the water when it moves. While I am trying to get there, someone else gets in first.”
Jesus said to him, “Get up and be well!” “Take up your ‘bed’ (mat) and walk.” The man was healed! His legs were well and he could walk!
This was done on the Sabbath (holy day).
Some of the Jewish leaders saw him carry his mat. They told him that he was not to carry his mat on the Sabbath, that was “work” and they were not allowed to work on the Sabbath.
The man said, “The man who made me well, told me to pick up my mat and walk.”
When the Jewish leaders heard that someone had healed him, they asked him who healed him. The man said that he did not know his name.
Later Jesus saw him and told him, “You have been made well, but do not sin any more, or maybe a worse thing will happen to you.”
We do not know what made this man sick in a way that he could not walk. We do not know if he sinned in some way that he got a disease that made him so he could not walk, or if he fell and hurt his legs, or if he did some other thing that hurt him in some way that he could not walk.
We do not know if it was the man’s own fault, or not.
Sometimes we do things that brings trouble and sickness to ourselves.
Sometimes it is nothing we do, we just have sickness and our bodies do not work right.
Whatever this man’s problem was, Jesus was telling him that he needed to be living in a right way. He needed to be obeying God. His life needed to change. He was to be a believer in Jesus now and follow the teachings Jesus gave.
Verse 16
The Jewish leaders are more angry than ever at Jesus. They plan to kill him because he healed this man on the Sabbath.
Verse 17
Jesus told the Jewish leaders, “My Fathers works and so I work.”
Verse 18
So now the Jewish leaders plan to kill him because he worked on the Sabbath and now he called God his Father, making himself equal to God.
This verse 18 is a key verse. There are church groups who say Jesus was a good teacher, a good man, but he was not God.
Jesus said he was God. He said that God was his Father. In John 10: 30, Jesus said, “I and my Father are One.”
The Jewish leaders were angry when Jesus healed people, when he healed them on the Sabbath, but the thing that made them the most angry was that Jesus made himself equal with God the Father.
This is what we believe as Christians is that Jesus and God the Father are One. Jesus is God.
Any group that says that Jesus is not God does not truly believe what Jesus said about Himself.
I John 4:1- “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they are of God. There are many false prophets/preachers in the world. This is how you will know the spirit of God, Every spirit that will confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh (body) is of God. Any spirit that will not confess that Jesus is come in the flesh is not of God. That spirit would be of anti-christ…..”
I Corinthians 12:3 “…..no man who is speaking by the spirit of God will curse Jesus, and no man can say that Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit.”
Paul wrote to the Philippians, Chp. 2:6 “Who being in the form of God, did not think it was robbery to be equal with God, but he made no great reputation for himself, but took on the form of a servant, and was made in the image (form, shape, like) of man…..he was obeying even to death on the cross.”
Jesus did not fear saying he was equal to God—-because he was equal. Yet—he was willing to become as a servant to take on a man’s body so he could die on the cross.”
Jesus said, “that the Father is in me, and I in him” John 10:38
Verse 19
Jesus goes on to explain:
That he does what the Father has told him to do.
That he does the same things that the Father does: the Father can raise up the dead, so can the Son.
The Father has given to the Son to judge.
Verse 23
All men should honor the Son as the honor the Father.
If they honor the Son—they are honoring the Father.
Verse 24
He that hears my word and believes on him who sent me, will have everlasting life.
Verse 25
The time is coming when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and will come to life.
Verse 26
Just as the Father has life in himself—-so He has given the Son has life in himself.
This means that God has the power to give himself life. So Jesus has power to give himself life.) No other being has the power to give themselves or another —-life. Life is a power that only God can give. Jesus has that same power as God to give life. When Jesus died on the cross, no one took his life from him. The Romans did not take his life. The Jews did not take his life. The devil did not take his life.
John 19:30 says, “He said, ‘It is finished.’ and he bowed his head, and gave up his spirit.”
John 10:17, 18 ” …I lay down my life, so that I can take it again. No man takes it from me, but I lay it down, and I have the power to take it again.
Verse 28, 29 Jesus said, “Do not be surprised at what I have said. The time is coming when all who are in the grave will hear my voice. They will come out of the grave. Those who have done good, will be raised to life. Those who have done evil will go to be damned.”
Verse 30 “I do nothing of or by myself, I do my Father’s will.”