John 5:17-30

John 5.17-18     The Father’s Work Continues Through Jesus 

17 In answer Jesus said to them,
"My Father is at work right up to now;
and I am at work”.

 The community of the Beloved Disciple, reflecting on both the historical life of Jesus and their experience of the risen Christ, had come to the conclusion that Jesus’ relationship with God was unique, and could make adequate sense only if Jesus was, as the Prologue had spoken of the Word, “with God”. They had no problem in re-constructing a dialogue in which Jesus clearly assumed full knowledge of his being the Father's Son. Jesus’ signs were worked in partnership with his Father. Through his works, particularly his working on the Sabbath, Jesus was re-defining the common consensus that God's creative activity had climaxed on the sixth day of creation.

 Given that children were born and people died on the Sabbath, the common assumption was that God

  • could give life  
  • and pronounce judgment on the Sabbath, 

but only by way of exception from the general rule of Sabbath rest.

 Jesus extended the Father’s freedom to give life to new-born infants to include also his work of making adults well, and, indeed, calling them beyond physical well-being to total human growth and life. Indeed, in Jesus, God was in the process of expanding the possibilities of life beyond all imagination – as had already been hinted in the miracle of the water into wine at Cana, and the promise of living water made to the Samaritan woman. To interpret the Sabbath celebration as marking the completion of God’s creative work, rather than a joyful celebration of all that has already come to be, as well as a hope-filled longing for all that is still to be, would be to misunderstand God and God’s intentions for the world. It would lock people into a static and unduly limited stance towards life and its possibilities. 

Problem – Making Himself Equal to God 

18 Because of this the Jews were seeking even more to kill him –
because he was not only relaxing the Sabbath
but calling God his own Father,
and making himself equal to God. 

Though the text seems to infer otherwise, this was the first time that the author indicated that a group of Jews were seeking to kill Jesus. Their opposition had intensified: the Jews’ determination to persecute [verse 16] had become intent to kill. 

The Jews’ objection was based on their realisation that Jesus was making himself equal to God. This was not self-inflating pretension on Jesus’ part, but flowed from his very identity (as the Prologue had made clear).

When the author would refer to the trial of Jesus later in the narrative, the Jewish leadership would make no initial reference to Torah-based reasons for their handing Jesus over to Pilate. Only when they felt that Jesus might be released did they refer to his claim to be God [19.7]. Their decision was motivated by political interests and questions of authority and power [11.49-50]. Indeed, the present confrontation, and those that would follow, in some ways constituted the equivalent of the Jewish trial of Jesus. 

The accusations levelled against Jesus in this incident may have reflected the discussions between the community of disciples and their mainline Jewish opponents at the time the Gospel was written. By then, the disciples were clearly stating the divine prerogatives of Jesus, and thereby drawing upon themselves the strong criticism of their fellow Jews. 

John 5.19-29      Authority Given to the Son 

The Gospel would proceed to give long and uninterrupted discourses by Jesus. The points raised would reflect, not so much the details of Jesus' discourses with his contemporaries, as the insights developed by the Beloved Disciple (and shared with the members of his Christian community) that represented the fruit of many years of thoughtful meditation under the guidance of the Spirit [14.26; 16.13-14]. 

Jesus had worked on the Sabbath: he had made a crippled man whole and intensified the man's experience of life. Jesus saw his action as a reflection of the life-giving activity of God. In doing so, he had contravened what his opponents had interpreted as the law of God. On their part, they saw his behaviour as justifying their violently persecuting him in order to maintain their religious identity. 

For the Gospel, the real issue revolved around the sense of God. Jesus saw God as the God who gives life, even on the Sabbath. His opponents saw God as a God who sanctions persecution, exclusion and even murder for appropriate reasons. What was ultimately at stake was not morality or legalism, but theology: What is God really like? and Does Jesus truly reveal God? 

In seeking to lead his fellow believers to a deeper faith in Jesus as the Son of God, the Beloved Disciple needed, at the same time, to clarify their sense of God. Their sense of God, like their sense of Jesus, would, in turn, profoundly affect the ways they related to each other and to their world. In face of the bitter criticisms levelled at them by their adversaries, could they respond with respectful firmness and concern for the truth? 

19 So in answer Jesus said to them,
“I assure you, of himself the Son can do nothing
except what he has seen his Father doing.  
Whatever he does, the Son does similarly. 

Jesus' response would be consistently theological – though the literary mode would remain conversational. In the static economy of peasant life, sons followed the trades of their fathers, learning their skills by observation and imitation. As was the case in life generally, so, also, with Jesus. When he made an invalid well, even on the Sabbath, he did so in imitation of his Father. (The translation used capital letters for both Son and Father, but Jesus may simply have been quoting a popular proverb with general application.) 

Giving Life 

20 For the Father loves the Son
and shows him everything he does.  
Indeed, he will show him greater works than these, to amaze you.
21 For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life,
similarly the Son gives life to whomever he wishes.  

The relationship between Jesus and his Father was particularly intimate. Jesus shared the same vision, dreams and hopes of his Father. Like his Father, he loved life.

Among the greater works than these would be Jesus’ universal salvific activity, to be achieved through the faithful love clearly expressed in his eventual death and resurrection. Salvation would reach beyond the mere restoration of physical and psychological wellness to eternal life in communion with God. Like Pharisees in general, the Christian disciples looked forward to the resurrection of the dead. God would, indeed, raise the dead and give them life – but, in the minds of most, that resurrection lay in the undefined and distant future. For Christian disciples, eternal life had already begun. 

Sadly, the ones pleasantly amazed by that offer of life would prove to be only the small handful of disciples, and not the larger group of continuing-Jews.

Judgment 

22 Nor does the Father pass judgment on anyone
but has given all judgment to the Son ... 

Along with giving life to the new-born, judging all who died on the Sabbath was another of the Sabbath activities of God. As Jesus shared with the Father in giving life, so, too, Jesus would share in the work of judgment. 

23 … so that everyone might honour the Son
as they honour the Father.  
Whoever does not honour the Son
does not honour the Father who sent him. 

The motivation for the Jewish emphasis on ritual purity practices and Sabbath observance was based on their sense of the holiness of God and the honour due to God. Given the unique relationship between Father and Son, the honour that the mainline-Jews gave to God should consistently have been extended to Jesus. 

24 Believe me, whoever listens to my word
and believes in the one who sent me
has eternal life and does not come under condemnation
but passes from death to life. 

Jesus would exercise his role as judge by his being the criterion by which people would determine their own ultimate destiny. For those who have already heard and accepted Jesus’ word, and accepted him as the one sent by the Father to reveal the Father’s heart, eternal life has become a present reality. By their dying to their own egos and living according to the values exemplified by Jesus, they would have no need of further judgment after death. 

25I tell you clearly, the time is coming,
indeed it is already here,
when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God,
and those who listen to it will live.  

The discourse awkwardly telescoped the time of the historical Jesus and of the risen Jesus. For the historical Jesus, the time was coming; for the risen Jesus, and for the disciples, the time is already here. 

26 Just as the Father has life in himself,
similarly he has given the son to have life in himself. 
27 And because he is the Son of Man,
he has given him authority to pass judgment. 

From consideration of the Father as exemplar of the activity of Jesus, the discourse proceeded to the thought of the Father as Jesus’ source of life and identity. 

The issue of judgment, not immediately pertinent to the healing of the invalid at the pool of Beth-zatha, had been introduced because of its connection to the Sabbath activities of God. It assumed importance in the minds of the disciples because of the opposition they experienced from continuing Judaism. Judgment was an outcome that would be pertinent to those who withheld the honour due to Jesus. 

Jesus had already applied the title Son of Man to himself (when conversing with Nathanael in 1.51, and with Nicodemus in 3.13-14) as a helpful illustration, familiar to the tradition, of his role as Universal Judge. People's fate would be determined by their openness to him and to the Father whom he revealed.

28 Do not be amazed at this,
the time is coming when all in their graves will hear his voice. 
29 Those who have acted well will go into the resurrection of life;
those who have acted evilly to the resurrection of condemnation. 

The warning became clearer. Resurrection was not an outcome that could be left to the distant end-times: the time is coming. As Son of Man, Jesus' role as criterion of judgment would be universal, extending even to those already dead. His judgment would not be arbitrary; it would simply reflect the choices that people themselves had made in the course of their day-to-day lives that reflected the values embodied in the life and eventual death of Jesus.   

In line with what had been stated immediately beforehand, good and evil would be factors of hearing or not hearing the word of Jesus and believing or not believing in the Father as the one who sent Jesus to the world [verse 14]. Judgment would be made more on theological than on ethical grounds.   

For the Beloved Disciple, however, the warning was a veiled reminder to the other disciples in his community who would read his narrative. They were the ones called to recognise and truly accept the word of Jesus and the eternal life to which it led, and to see in Jesus and in the values that guided his life the human revelation of the mystery of God. 

For contemporary readers, the issue is similar. Do they accept Jesus as the one sent by the Father? Does Jesus, in fact, reveal the heart of God? Do believers allow their sense of Jesus to redefine their accepted and unquestioned sense of God? And does their sense of God determine the way they live their lives? 


Resurrection

The language of resurrection is due to the fact that Jews, unlike many Greeks, thought in concrete, rather than abstract, terms; they considered the human person as a single entity. Greek philosophy made the distinction between material body and spiritual soul, seeing the soul as the key constituent of the person, and the body as material and secondary. Some of them believed that, after death, the body would go to the grave, but that the spiritual soul was naturally immortal and would continue in existence of itself. For Jews, at least for those who accepted resurrection, resurrection was the work of God; and the whole person, body and soul, would be raised.


30Of myself I can do nothing.  
I pass judgment according to what I hear,
and my judgment is just,
because I do not seek my own will
but the will of the one who sent me.

The comment recapitulated the points made already, and was basically a restatement of the beginning of the discourse: of himself the Son can do nothing except what he has seen his Father doing. Whatever he does, the Son does similarly [verse 19].


Judgment and Responsibility 

The judgment of Jesus, the Son of Man, the one who had known suffering and had endured it for the sake of the world, would be quite clear. His judgment of everyone would be simply: “Guilty, but forgiven; sinful, but loved.” Already Jesus had indicated to the healed invalid his knowledge of previous sinfulness – yet he had made him well, and had done so, without any previous request, simply because he loved. 

The unfolding narrative would refer frequently to judgment. The word can carry a negative connotation, but, in fact, it is grounded in something wonderful. The reality of judgment supposes the reality of personal responsibility; and personal responsibility speaks of personal meaning and dignity.  

The fact of judgment confirms that people’s lives and destinies are not playthings of fate, but are shaped by their deliberate and personal choices. Nor are their lives under the influence of inexorable “karma”. Even sinful decisions remain ever open to the possibility of divine forgiveness, and “all things (even sin) work together for good for those who love God” [as St Paul wrote in Romans 8.28]. 

The variable outcomes of judgment – life or condemnation – are factors of people’s own life-choices. The experience of the outcome will be neither surprising nor unfamiliar. People would simply continue as they had always been: open to life, to truth and to love; or locked in to illusion and lovelessness for eternity. In the mind of the Beloved Disciple, that choice was expressed in people’s option for or against Jesus. 

Jesus’ judgment would simply ratify people’s already personally chosen life orientation. 


Next >> John 5:30-39