When the Jewish authorities beheld the man, who had been made whole, carry his bed mat, they reminded him it was the Sabbath day (John 5:10), implying a demanded explanation for his disobedience. The man’s reply is interesting. He didn’t claim ignorance of breaking the Sabbath law; he simply said: “He that made me whole, the same told me: ‘Take up your bed and walk!’” (John 5:11). The reply assumes a man (Jesus) was able to cure something incurable[1] and, therefore, sent by God. In the context of being sent by God, Jesus’ command for the man-made-whole to take up his bed and walk couldn’t have been breaking the Sabbath law. The fact that the man was unable to identify or describe Jesus to the authorities is understandable, since Jesus didn’t remain in that place once the healing had occurred. Moreover, there was also a great multitude there, and the man couldn’t see, where his healer had gone (John 4:13).
The Jewish authorities’[2] interest in the man’s disobedience of the Sabbath law seems to have given place to the greater issue of an opposing authority. Setting aside the matter of Jesus being a man sent by God, proved through his healing ability, they seem more interested in the identity of the one who told the man: “Take up your bed…” The authority of the Jewish overseers had been challenged, through Jesus’ authority over the man’s ailment. Whenever anything like this occurs, it demands one of two possible outcomes. First, the one authority must submit to the higher authority, or, secondly, both authorities must ultimately clash with a view toward the physical destroying the spiritual.
This clash of authority over the Sabbath had occurred about a year earlier in Galilee, and now it had resurfaced, this time in Judea. At the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry, the question of healing (laboring) on the Sabbath had come up, when Jesus expressed a desire to heal another man. Indeed, neither this man nor John’s paralytic had asked to be healed (Luke 6:6-11). Jesus’ reasoning at the time was the Jewish authorities, themselves, allowed for men to do evil on the Sabbath, vis-à-vis defend themselves against an enemy, so how much better would it be to do good on the Sabbath by making a man whole (Luke 6:9)?
A few days earlier in Luke, those same authorities questioned why Jesus permitted his disciples on the Sabbath to harvest by picking the heads of grain and then prepare food on the day of rest by rubbing the heads together and blowing away the chaff, before eating the raw seed (Luke 6:1-2). Instead of challenging their interpretation of ‘harvesting’ and ‘preparing’ food on the Sabbath, Jesus recalled the fact that David, the Lord’s anointed, had taken the shewbread, which was lawful only for the priests to eat, and he gave it to his men to satisfy their hunger (Luke 6:3-4). Matthew adds that the priests, themselves, profane the Sabbath, through their labor of serving the Temple (Matthew 12:5). Therefore, Jesus claimed, the Messiah is Lord of the Sabbath, or, in other words, he could show how the Sabbath law should be interpreted.
The logic is this: the priests profane the Sabbath through their own labor in serving the Temple. Yet, David, by claiming the right to take the shewbread for his personal use, claimed authority over Temple practices. Therefore, if priests could profane the Sabbath and be blameless in their labor in serving the Temple, the Temple must be greater than the Sabbath law. Furthermore, if David could then claim to be the authority or lord over Temple procedures, he was not only Lord of the Temple, but also lord of the Sabbath. Thus, his Son, the Messiah, must also be Lord both of both the Temple the Sabbath (Luke 6:5).
Returning, now, to the first century AD (John 5), the Jewish overseers presumed their authority was being challenged and sought the identity of the man’s healer, who commanded him to carry his bed on the Sabbath day. The fact is, however, Jesus’ healing the man on the Sabbath glorified God. How could giving glory to God break the Law? Life in the Kingdom of God simply isn’t like life in the world. In the world men are governed by law (the law of the land, in Judea that would be the Law of Moses), but in the Kingdom of God men are governed by the Spirit of God. Therefore, Jesus wasn’t challenging the authority of the Jewish leaders. Instead, he was bringing glory to the Father, which should have been understood, even by those not in the Kingdom. Wasn’t the man healed? Wasn’t his healing done through the power of God? Why should anyone object to this or find fault?
In healing the man, the Lord had planted a seed. The seed has power or authority in itself and is governed by the Spirit of God to do the will of God (cp. Isaiah 55:11). It is not dependent upon law or the authority of men to carry out its God-given ability. The Gospel never challenges the law of the land; it simply operates within the Kingdom of God. Nevertheless, men feel challenged by folks in the God’s Kingdom, who don’t act or speak like everyone else. Therefore, Jesus’ authority was challenged by the Jewish authorities, and they continued to challenge his authority as witnessed in how Jesus’ disciples were treated, as they continued to preach the Gospel to the world after Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection.
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[1] I am taking for granted that anyone paralyzed, or suffering from a similar debilitating ailment, for 38 years was incurable.
[2] In the context of one coming to Jesus, one can also identify the authorities as one’s five senses, the gates through which all our information comes. The physical cannot detect the spiritual and will plant doubts in the new believer’s heart.
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