King of Authority
Notes
Transcript
Warren Brosi
March 3, 2024
Dominant Thought: Our heavenly Father has given Jesus the authority to heal and judge humanity.
Objectives:
I want my listeners to identify popular opinions that contradict the Bible.
I want my listeners to feel gratitude for the compassion of Jesus.
I want my listeners to live with confidence under the authority of Jesus.
This Wednesday evening during our youth group and God Squad, I was leading our missionary story. My daughter, Hope, and Jude Bliss were assisting me. As part of the mission story, we read the Scripture that they will learn when they have their Bible lesson. We value the Bible as God’s Word at all ages. The children are very eager to read the Bible. I pray that they will always remain eager and it will permeate through our adults. One girl, a fourth grader, volunteered to read a Bible verse. After she read the verse, she struck a muscle flexing pose and then went to her seat. We all smiled. That simple response to the word of God spoke to me. We believe God’s Word is powerful and authoritative. We should not be surprised at reading God’s Word that we may want to strike a muscle flexing pose.
In our journey through the signs in John’s gospel, we encounter Jesus as the King of Authority in John 5. Let’s read John 5.1-8. As we look at John 5, we identify two challenges from Jesus and his twofold method of meeting those challenges.
Jesus challenges popular opinions (John 5.1-8).
John begins the story with, “Some time later...” (John 5.1). Jesus attends a festival in Jerusalem. It may be the Passover. Some think it is Pentecost. John is not interested in the specific feast, but we will learn about the specific day this event occured. Jesus comes to a pool called Bethesda. Other translations may call it Bethzatha or something similar. I could mean “house of mercy.” At this pool, a great number of disabled people would lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed (John 5.3).
At the end of John 5.3 and John 5.4, your Bible may have a footnote. For example, the NIV does not include John 5.4 in the text, but has it only as a footnote with a comment, “Some manuscripts include here, wholly or in part, ‘paralyzed—and they waited for the moving of the waters. From time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease they had.’” These verses are called textual variants. It simply means some of the earlier copies of our New Testaments do not include these verses. There are a handful of these variants in the Bible. There’s a longer textual variant between John 7-8. At the end of Mark’s gospel there’s a few options of how the gospel concludes.
It’s helpful to acknowledge that there’s some differing opinions. But, let me give a three governing thoughts when you encounter these textual variants. 1) The shorter reading is generally preferred. 2) The earlier reading is generally preferred. 3) Textual variants do not alter the overall message of the Bible. The logic is that stories usually get longer as they are passed down, not shorter. So, the earlier copies are generally shorter and closer to the origin of the events. With those guidelines, the last part of John 5.3 and all of John 5.4 were probably not written by John. It’s possible a scribe may have put a comment in the margin that eventually found its way into the text of some copies. In addition, the content of these verses seem to differ from how God heals people.
While John did not write these words, they may have accurately reflected the thinking of the people of the day. The thinking of the day is reflected by the following conversation Jesus has with a man who has been lame for 38 years. Jesus finds out about the man’s condition and asks him a pointed question, “Do you want to get well?” (John 5.6). I think we will all do well to lean into Jesus’ question to the man. Can you picture Jesus asking you this same question, “Do you want to get well?”
The man replies with the popular opinions of the day, “Sir, I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me” (John 5.7). The man may have bought into the popular belief of an angel stirring the waters and the first one in gets healed.
Jesus plainly and directly tells the man, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk” (John 5.8). At once the man was cured or made whole or healthy. He picked up his mat and walked.
Jesus heals this man who had been weak or ill for 38 years. Jesus challenges the popular opinions of the day. You don’t have to wait for the waters to stir to be healed. I will heal you.
In 2016, Barna Research Group published a study, “The End of Absolutes: America’s New Moral Code.” (See study here: https://www.barna.com/research/the-end-of-absolutes-americas-new-moral-code/). Two responses were quite telling. First, “The best way to find yourself is by looking within yourself.” 91% of the U.S. population agreed with that statement. 76% of practicing Christians agreed with that statement. Second, “People can believe whatever they want, as long as those beliefs don’t affect society.” 79% of the U.S. population agreed with that statement and 61% of practicing Christians agreed. My friends, we live in world full of popular opinions that are not centered on truth, reason, and the goodness of God.
Would you be able to identify the popular opinions of today that contradict the truth of Scripture. Are people speaking with truth and love? Are people treating one another as divine image bearers? Are people living generously or hoarding possessions? Is marriage and family life honored? Do people honor their commitments?
When Jesus healed that man at the house of mercy, Pool of Bethesda, He was challenging the popular opinions and superstitions of the day. Jesus knew what He was doing. He healed that man and commanded him to take up His mat to confront the popular opinions of the day. Those opinions or beliefs will direct a person’s behavior. When the beliefs are misplaced, the people miss the mark on their behavior which becomes the next challenge Jesus addresses.
Jesus challenges sinful behavior (John 5.9-18).
As we keep reading, John tells us an important detail in John 5.9, “The day on which this took place was a Sabbath.” Day, diet, and dress were the three visible reminders of God’s people. The Jewish leaders had chapters of commentary on how to honor the Sabbath.
The Sabbath is a gift from God when He stopped His work of creation in Genesis 2.2-3. God blessed the Sabbath and made it holy. In Exodus 20.8, the ten commandments instruct God’s people to remember the Sabbath by keeping it holy. Work six days, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. Follow your creator who stopped and blessed the seventh day. In Deuteronomy 5.12, a second account of the ten commandments instructs, “Observe the Sabbath by keeping it holy.” The instructions continue, “Remember that you were slaves in Egypt” (Deuteronomy 5.15). You are no longer slaves. God has rescued you. So, honor the Sabbath. All of us could benefit from Sabbath rhythms of rest. If we could find healthier rhythms of sabbath rest, we would be more productive the other six days of the week.
However, the religious leaders had made keeping the Sabbath a very complex matter. You could only walk 2,000 cubits or just over half a mile on the Sabbath. But, if before Sabbath you went out the 2,000 cubits and place two meals, then you could walk that distance to your food stash which would then constitute your dwelling and you could walk another 2,000 cubits or another half of a mile (Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah).
The Jewish leaders had many chapters of commentary describing what was lawful on the Sabbath. One interesting debate was throwing and catching an object on the Sabbath. Alfred Edersheim summarizes as follows:
Similar difficulties were discussed as to the guilt in case an object were thrown from a private into a public place, or the reverse. Whether, if an object was thrown into the air with the left, and caught again in the right hand, this involved sin, was a nice question, though there could be no doubt a man incurred guilt if he caught it with the same hand with which it had been thrown, but he was not guilty if he caught it in his mouth, since, after being eaten, the object no longer existed, and hence catching with the mouth was as if it had been done by a second person. (Edersheim, A. (1896). The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (Vol. 2, p. 779). Longmans, Green, and Co.).
They leaders missed the miracle of healing because they were focused on the Sabbath controversy. They didn’t ask, “How did you get well?” They didn’t celebrate with him, “Amazing! For decades, we’ve seen you laying around ill. Now look at you healthy and well! Praise God.” Their response was, “It is the Sabbath; and the law forbids you to carry your mat....Who told you to pick up your mat?” (John 5.10, 12).
The man didn’t even know who Jesus was. It’s interesting that Jesus initiates this miracle. Last week, the royal official comes to Jesus pleading for help for his dying son. Jesus heals this lame man and slips away into the crowd. The man finds Jesus and Jesus celebrates with him and gives him a warning, “Behold, you are well! Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you” (John 5.14). No only does Jesus have compassion toward the man, but He calls him to truth. Stop sinning.
The word for sinning in John 5.14 carries the idea of “offences against morals, laws, men or gods” (W. Gunther, “Sin,” New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, 3:573). Another way to describe sin is to “miss the mark.” The Greeks could use this word to describe anything from “stupidity to law-breaking, anything that offends against the orthon, the right” (W. Gunther, p. 577).
The cousin of Jesus, John, introduces Jesus in John 1.29, “Behold, the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” The same one who wrote this gospel, John, the beloved disciple, wrote some letters at the end of our New Testaments. Listen to these words in 1 John.
But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
I wonder if John had in mind the paralytic whom Jesus healed who was able to walk when he wrote these words.
He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Jesus is the one who takes away our sins.
Did you hear Jesus asking you earlier, “Do you want to get well?” Can you hear His words, again? “Stop sinning or something worse may happen.” What’s something you need to stop today? Maybe there’s someone here you need to confess or ask for prayer to overcome a sinful habit.
You may find it helpful to pray this prayer from Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). He prayed this simple prayer each day of his life:
Grant me, O Lord my God,
a mind to know you,
a heart to seek you,
a wisdom to find you,
conduct pleasing to you,
faithful perseverance in waiting for you,
and a hope of finally embracing you.
(Quoted by Chad Ragsdale and Daniel McCoy, The Disciples’ Mind, OCC Press, 2024, in referencing Pope Benedict XVI, Holy Men and Women: Of the Middle Ages and Beyond, 2012, p. 78).
Once the healed man identifies Jesus, he goes to tell the leaders who it was that healed him. The Jewish leaders begin to persecute Jesus and sought to kill Jesus (John 5.16-18). We are only in John 5, and the pressure between Jesus and the Jewish leaders has begun to grow.
Jesus addresses these foes with the compassion and the authority of His Father (John 5.19-30).
Jesus affirms how His Father is working and Jesus is simply following His Father’s lead. My Father is a healer and I am a healer. My Father loves me and shows me all He does. Trust me you will be amazed. Just as the Father gives life, so the Son gives life to whom He is pleased to give it (John 5.21).
The Father has entrusted all judgment to the Son. If you don’t honor the Father, then you don’t honor the Father who sent Him.
Jesus continues His message to the leaders, “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my words and believes Him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life” (John 5.24). For those who are with Jesus, eternal life has begun. It happens now and will carry on throughout eternity. Jesus gives some of the clearest and often neglected teaching of life after the grave in the following verses.
He says, “A time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in himself. And He has granted Him authority to judge because He is the Son of Man” (John 5.25-27).
With these words, Jesus is drawing from a powerful vision from Daniel 7. Daniel has a vision of four beasts. Smart, scary, hungry beasts with horns and terrifying power. The fourth beast had ten horns, symbolizing power. Then, another horn grew up and spoke boastfully. Let’s pick up the story in Daniel 7.10-14.
Before leaving Daniel’s vision, Daniel closes with imagery that Jesus will use in John 5.28-29.
Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.
John 5.28-29, Jesus describes a time in the future when all who are in their graves will hear His voice and come out…Can you picture that?
Those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned.
Scripture is clear that we are saved by grace through faith (Ephesians 2.8-10). And yet, the judgment scenes in the Bible do evaluate how we have lived out our faith in Jesus. Jesus concludes that His judgment is just and seeks to please His Father who sent Him.
In 2 Corinthians 5.1-10, the Apostle Paul describes the longing for our eternal dwelling with God. He closes in 2 Corinthians 5.10, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.”
As we look back over this story, I want us to listen to the words of Jesus.
Do you want to get well? (John 5.6)
Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you. (John 5.14)
Whoever hears and believes Him who sent me has eternal life. (John 5.24).
Our heavenly Father has given Jesus the authority to heal and judge humanity.