John 5:10 - Printer Friendly

ESV: So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, "It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed."

NIV: and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, "It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat."

NASB: So the Jews were saying to the man who was cured, 'It is a Sabbath, and it is not permissible for you to carry your pallet.'

CSB: and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, "This is the Sabbath. The law prohibits you from picking up your mat."

NLT: so the Jewish leaders objected. They said to the man who was cured, 'You can’t work on the Sabbath! The law doesn’t allow you to carry that sleeping mat!'

KJV: The Jews therefore said unto him that was cured, It is the sabbath day: it is not lawful for thee to carry thy bed.

NKJV: The Jews therefore said to him who was cured, “It is the Sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your bed.”

John often refers to "the Jews" in this book. This uses the Greek term Ioudaioi, and John uses it in reference to the religious leadership of Jerusalem. The Pharisees dominated this mindset. They took a legalistic, strict approach to the law of Moses. This involved adding layer upon layer of tradition beyond the laws themselves. In the case of the Sabbath (Exodus 20:10), these laws included restrictions as specific as how many steps a man could walk on the Sabbath, where he could spit, and how much weight he could pick up.

Jesus, however, has just healed a man, and ordered him to carry his bed and walk. According to the Pharisees, this violated the commandment to honor the Sabbath by not working (Leviticus 23:3). At first, it would make sense for them to question the man. What makes less sense is their reaction to his answer (John 5:11). Rather than being amazed at the miracle, these men are upset at Jesus for healing on the Sabbath!

Throughout the Gospels, Jesus deliberately provokes the hard hearts of His critics. In the case of the Pharisees, this is often done by performing healing or other works on the Sabbath (Luke 4:31–37; 13:10–17; 14:1–6). Jesus seems to do this to highlight the hypocrisy and shallowness of their approach to God (Matthew 15:3–9).

John 5:1–15 contains the third of John's seven ''signs'' of Christ. A man crippled for decades expresses no prior knowledge of Jesus, nor an immediate desire to be healed. Jesus heals the man and tells him to walk. For carrying his mat—working—local religious leaders then confront the man. Yet he still doesn't know who Jesus is. Jesus meets the man in the temple and warns him about the dangers of sin. Once the city's leaders find out that Jesus was responsible for the healing, they will confront Him for violating the Sabbath, and for claiming to be equal with God.

Jesus again returns to Jerusalem, as required for the various feast days. While there, He heals a man who had been crippled for nearly forty years. Since this occurred on the Sabbath, local religious leaders are angry. In fact, they are more upset with Jesus for working on the Sabbath than amazed at His miracle. In response, Jesus offers an important perspective on evidence. Jesus refers to human testimony, scriptural testimony, and miracles as reasons to believe His declarations. Christ also lays claim to many of the attributes of God, making a clear claim to divinity.

Chapters 1 through 4 showed Jesus avoiding major publicity. Here, in chapter 5, He will begin to openly challenge the local religious leaders. This chapter is Jesus' first major answer to His critics in this gospel. The fact that Jesus is willing to heal on the Sabbath sets up a theme of His upcoming disagreements with the Pharisees. Jesus also provides an important perspective on the relationship between evidence and faith, which He will expand on in later chapters. This chapter also establishes a key point made by Jesus' critics: His claims to be God.

The disciple John wrote the gospel of John decades after the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke were written. The author assumes that a reader is already familiar with the content of these other works. So, John presents a different perspective, with a greater emphasis on meaning. John uses seven miracles—which he calls "signs"— to prove that Jesus is, in fact, God incarnate. Some of the most well-known verses in the Bible are found here. None is more famous than the one-sentence summary of the gospel found in John 3:16.