Lesson for April 7, 2021
The Life of Christ
Lesson 16
Jesus Goes to Jerusalem
John 5:1-18
The next chronological event in the life of Christ was a trip to Jerusalem to observe the Feast of Passover.
Passover memorializes the time in Egypt when the angel of death passed over the house of those who put the blood of a lamb on the doorpost. The story is in Exodus 12 and outlines the command from God to take a lamb without spot or blemish and apply its blood to the doorposts. The death angel had been sent to destroy all first-born male children in response to Pharaoh’s refusal to set the Jews free.
Passover demonstrates the doctrine of Redemption, Jesus Christ being our Redeemer. The lamb was to be without spot or blemish, a type of Christ’s perfection. It was to be roasted and eaten, an illustration of faith. It was to be roasted under fire, signifying God’s judgment of Christ. And it was to be eaten with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, a picture of Christ’s sinless nature and the bitterness of His death. Christ, therefore, becomes the Passover or the perfect sacrifice for the believer. Just as the life of the innocent lamb was sacrificed for each Jew that night, so an innocent Christ was sacrificed for each one of us. Therefore, this feast was fulfilled in Christ. (I Corinthians 5:6-7; I Peter 1:18-19)
It was this feast that Jesus and His disciples were celebrating the night He was betrayed. It is the Last Supper of Scripture and has become the Church Age ritual of Communion. It was Christ Himself Who set the precedence for this transition in the upper room according to I Corinthians 11:23-26.
In Jerusalem, there were two pools by which many of those who were sick, blind or lame were lying. The reason they were at this particular place was due to a legend regarding these two pools. There was a legend that said that an angel would appear and stir up the waters and all who entered at that time would be healed. In the oldest original Greek manuscripts part of John 5:3 (waiting for the movement of the waters) and all of verse four do not appear. Sometime later, around 200 A.D., these words were added to the text. So, like many today, these helpless people placed their hope of healing in an erroneous idea.
Upon His arrival in Jerusalem, Jesus saw a man who had been afflicted with a sickness for thirty-eight years lying near these pools. Jesus was moved with compassion for this man. Apparently, out of all who Jesus saw that day at these pools, this man was the most pitiful. Jesus asked this afflicted man if he wanted to be made “whole” (or completely healed). Of course, the man desired to be made well, but thought he had to follow the tradition of being put into the pool. Jesus simply told this man to take up his bed and walk and immediately the man was healed.
When the Jewish religious leaders finally found out it was Jesus Who had healed this man, they were angry because He had healed him on the Sabbath. Showing no compassion for the one who had been sick for thirty-eight years, they cared only about their rules and regulations regarding the Sabbath.
The word “Sabbath” is from the Aramaic word “sabbaton.” The root meaning of the word is to cease or to desist. The word is used throughout Scripture for rest – physical and spiritual. There were a number of “Sabbaths” that were observed by the nation of Israel. “The Sabbath Day” was always the last day of the week. “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your stranger who stays with you. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” Exodus 20:8-11
Exodus 31:12-18 give us further insight into what God expected from His people on this day. Verse thirteen tells us that the Sabbath was a sign between God and the children of Israel throughout all generations. The sign was given so that all would know that it was God Who “sanctifies” them. The Hebrew word for “sanctify” is quadash, which means to make clean or to purify. God was constantly intervening in the life of Israel to keep them from the pagan nations that would have defiled them. Of course, we know that Israel did not always obey God or heed His warnings.
The Sabbath day was a day of rest from physical labor (your job) for the purpose of refreshing the body and the soul. The Sabbath was never intended to be a day where a person sat at home and did absolutely nothing, as the religious Jew made it to be. It was intended to be a day of spiritual refreshing by getting to know God. The nation of Israel was to get to know God by the observation of rituals, by the spoken Word of God and by the written Word of God.
Questioned by the Pharisees, the man who was healed at the pool did not actually know who Jesus was, only that He had healed him. Jesus found him later in the temple and commanded him to “stop sinning or some worse disease might befall him as a result” (the man was apparently not yet a believer). Jesus often used this technique to share the good news of the Gospel (remember that Jesus said a similar thing to the woman caught in adultery – “…go and sin no more”). In other words, trust Me as your Savior, be freed from the slave-market of sin and receive the power to stop sinning. This man was obviously not grateful for what Christ had done or scared of the Jewish leaders, so he sought out these leaders, knowing now Who Jesus was, in order to tell them that it was Jesus who had healed him (not all who Jesus healed were thankful). The result of this man running to the Jews was more persecution of Jesus. The Greek word for “reported” is anaggelo and means to tell something with a negative connotation. The Greek word for “persecution” is dioko and means to relentlessly pursue someone for the purpose of doing harm. The Jews were upset because Jesus had violated “their Sabbath.”
The answer that Jesus gave regarding these charges further infuriated these religious leaders. Jesus said that His Father and He continue to work until this day. In other words, God does not rest on any day, which showed the Jews that the more important reason for the Sabbath was concentration on God. If the Jewish leadership was not already mad about the Sabbath violation, Jesus now made Himself equal with God. Christ made Himself equal with God by calling God His Father and by making His works equal with God the Father. Now the Jews wanted even more to kill Jesus. The more that Jesus revealed about Himself, the more the Jews wanted to kill Him. Jesus was revealing the plan of God regarding His purpose as Messiah. The closer Jesus came to the Cross, the more intensified Satan’s desire to kill Him became.
Christ’s assertion that He is equal with the Father was the truth. Jesus Christ is co-equal and co-eternal with the Father and the Holy Spirit. At no time did Christ empty Himself of His deity. In the Person of Christ are two natures, inseparably united without mixture or loss of separate identity, without loss or transfer of attributes, the union is both personal and eternal from the moment of the Virgin Birth.
Christ operated under the self-imposed principle of kenosis. Kenosis is the theological term meaning the restriction of something that is rightfully yours. In the case of Christ, He voluntarily restricted the use of His deity while He was in Hypostatic Union. Jesus Christ never exercised His divine right either to perform miracles, to benefit Himself, to provide physically for Himself or to glorify Himself.
Christ still had all the divine attributes, such as omnipresence, omnipotence, omniscience, etc. These were all available for use by Christ, but He chose not to use them in violation of the Father’s plan.