At the Pool of Bethesda
A most dramatic picture unfolds before our eyes as we closely follow the narrative of John. We see a remarkable miracle performed, we observe the significant teaching that is conveyed by the Lord’s action, we learn how the hatred of the rulers rose against Him, and there is shown to us how Christ applied to Himself the five titles of Isaiah 9:6, and demonstrated the truth of His comments by a five-fold witness to its truth.
There is a complete answer to the Seventh Day Adventist teaching in this chapter; a powerful exhortation on the matter of judgment; a severe indictment of those who would destroy the power of Scripture by religious formalism. The chapter deserves the closest of attention, but what chapter of the Bible is not worthy of this remark!
We travel with the Lord to the city of Jerusalem where a feast of the Jews is about to be celebrated. It was most likely the Passover, and if so, John records all four of the Passovers that were celebrated during the ministry of the Lord (see John 2:13; John 5 :1 ; John 6:4; John 13:1).
And Jesus went up to Jerusalem”, because it was necessary that He keep the Law of God. While there, He visited the pool called in the Hebrew, Bethesda. This word signifies the “House of Mercy”. It was adjacent to the sheep gate (not market as given in the Authorized Version) through which the animals destined for sacrifice would be taken. Thus, at the House of Mercy the principle of sacrifice was ever kept in view.
Overshadowing the pool there were five porches. And again, in the number five the principle of mercy is emphasized, for five in the Scriptures is the number of grace and restoration. In these porches there lay a great multitude of impotent folk, waiting for grace and mercy. They were blind, halt and withered, and waited for the moving of the water; for the pool of Bethesda was agitated every now and then, bubbling up from below, and this intermittent disturbance was attributed by superstitious folk to the presence of an angel. There was a legend, that at the moving of the water, the first who stepped into it would be cured.* So strong was the superstition, so urgent the need for cure, that the afflicted lay about year after year awaiting their opportunity. The more desperate among them had assistants who were ready to help them when the water was troubled; and it could have been that some cures were recorded, for the mind is a strange thing ,and able to control the body in some cases. The pool was a pathetic sight at that time, and it is a pathetic sight today. It has been our privilege to visit it and to recall this incident recorded by John as we looked at broken masonry and the ruins of the now dry pool. Grace has departed from the nation of Israel, and has been preached unto the Gentiles.
The Lord makes his Selection
As the Lord visited the pool 1900 years ago, He saw among the pathetic multitude of the sick, blind and maimed one poor wretch stretched out in all his infirmity, poverty and hopelessness. He had been there thirty-eight years, vainly hoping for the day when he might be cured. He was thus a well known figure at the pool of the House of Mercy. But thirty-eight years is not only a long time, it is a most significant time. It was the period of time that Israel wandered in the wilderness after the spies returned with their evil report of the land (Numbers 13:32,33). In that man, therefore, there is the symbol of Israel suffering an infirmity, in need of the healing power of the Lord. The poor wretch, lying by the side of the pool of the House of Mercy, but unable, through very infirmity, to reach its healing waters, was like Jewry in the days of the Lord—like mankind today. But the pompous rulers of Jewry were ignorant of that fact, and would have been indignant if anybody had suggested it, even as are men today.
The Lord had the power to heal all that lay in the five porches around that pool. Yet He did not do that. He made a selection of one. He saw in that individual the qualities He required, and made choice of him to the exclusion of all others, strengthening him in his infirmity. The Lord has done the same for us. The divine selection has called us to the Gospel. God could have revealed His message of salvation to all mankind if He desired to do so. He has not done so. He is “taking out of the Gentiles a people for His name” (Acts 15:14), and in His great mercy, His grace has come to us. This is the first point in the significant sign before us.
What were the qualities that the Lord saw in this man? We are not told, but we can perhaps see some of them in the narrative, as follows:
- The man recognized his need—the Jews did not;
- The man had a desire to be healed —the Jews did not realize they were sick;
- The man recognized his poverty—the Jews thought they were rich;
- The man came to a knowledge of Christ and proclaimed it—the Jews rejected Him.
The Cure
“Wilt thou be made whole?” the Lord asked the man. It is Christ’s appeal to humanity! Imagine the impact upon this man who had waited so long for some help. He did not realize the power of Christ, but he thought the Lord could at least help him to get into the pool. Christ’s question excited in him faith and hope, while it also emphasized the desolate state of the man lying in the porch of the House of Mercy.
“Sir”, came the answer, “I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me.”
He thought, perhaps, that the Lord was offering to assist him in his need, and thus he accepted the offer of help. But the cure was instantaneous.
“Rise, take up thy bed, and walk”, came the dramatic reply.
He was to ‘rise up!” It was like a resurrection from a living death, and it was to provide the foundation for words Christ was afterwards to utter against the Jews (see verses 25-29). But the narrative adds: “the same day was the Sabbath”. The Jews took up this fact as a bone of contention, and later when they pressed their opposition against the Lord, He gave them a complete answer that was irrefutable. The Lord treated the Sabbath as it was designed to be treated, as a day of release. It was a day in Israel when the people were released from the bondage of normal labor, and freed to give their thoughts and time exclusively to Yahweh. It thus was a token of freedom from the slavery of the flesh and a service to the God of Israel (see Matthew 12:10; Luke 13:10-16). The Lord’s action was not contrary to the spirit of the Sabbath law, for it honored God, as He later told the Jews (see Isaiah 58: 13).
And what did the sign teach? It taught that Christ had power to cure the infirmities of the flesh (Romans 7:24,25). It demonstrated that He could raise Israel (identified with the man with the infirmity for thirty-eight years) from the state of living death in which it was then found, and is still found today. Christ could strengthen the nation, cure it of its infirmity, if it would but accept His offer. The nation refused the offer, not realizing its poverty or its need, and thanks be to God we are in the place of the impotent man strengthened and caused to “rise up” by the healing hands of the Lord.
The Angry Onlookers — Verses 10–16
The Jews saw the man carrying his bed with anger. It meant only one thing to them, the breaking of the Sabbath. They did not reflect upon the miracle.
They did not see that this man, who had been recumbent for thirty-eight years in a state of infirmity and impotency could have been made to walk only through the power of Yahweh. They did not bless His holy Name because of the act of mercy they had witnessed. No. All they could see in their hypocritical self-righteousness was that the formalism of their religion had been broken. Angrily they accosted the man.
“It is not lawful for thee to carry thy bed”, they declared.
The man had but one answer: “He that made me whole, the same said unto me, Take up thy bed and walk!”
He did it on the authority of One who had the power to bid him do it. He saw in the miracle an act of God, and accepted the direction as God-given, as indeed it was. In short, he recognized the authority of Christ. But the Jews were not interested in that. Completely ignoring the miracle, they inquired about the One who had commanded him to take up his bed on the Sabbath day. Here was hypocrisy! The miracle came from God, there was no doubt about that! But God was forgotten, and the miracle did not concern them. They would observe the Sabbath in their self-righteousness, but they would forget God.
The man could not tell them who it was that had commanded him thus, for the Lord had conveyed Himself away. But afterwards he went into the temple (verse 14), and in that act he gave us an index to his character, for he went there for the purpose of presenting his thanksgiving. And there he met the Lord. In the midst of his religious exercises, he heard the voice of exhortation:
“Behold, thou are made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.”
He had been made physically whole; it was necessary for him to be morally regenerated. He had been given the ability to walk; he must walk in the pathway of God, otherwise a worse thing would come upon him, condemnation at the judgment seat would be his lot. It is part of the “sign.” Another Scripture states: “To whom much is given, much is expected”. We have received much from God. We are privileged beyond our friends and neighbors. We have been “lifted up” with Christ, resurrected from the living death that was once our lot, enabled to walk in the pathway of life toward the Temple of God. To us the exhortation comes ringing down the corridor of time:
“Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee!”
And we hear Peter’s voice: “For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them” (2nd Peter 2:21).
The man heard the exhortation and went his way. He went his way full of joy that he now knew the name of his Helper, and he was anxious to extend the knowledge to others. He told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him whole. He tried to bring before them a knowledge of the Source of power whose influence was seen in his miraculous cure. But they wanted none of it. Rather they took the opportunity to lay in wait for the Lord and to persecute Him.
* The words “‘waiting for the moving of the water”, to the end of verse 4 are excluded from the text of the Revised Version, although it is included in the margin. It merely records Jewish tradition. If retained, an ellipsis should be included as follows: “For (it was said) an angel went down . . “
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One