John 5:11 - Printer Friendly

ESV: But he answered them, "The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’"

NIV: But he replied, "The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ "

NASB: But he answered them, 'He who made me well was the one who said to me, ‘Pick up your pallet and walk.’'

CSB: He replied, "The man who made me well told me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’"

NLT: But he replied, 'The man who healed me told me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’'

KJV: He answered them, He that made me whole, the same said unto me, Take up thy bed, and walk.

NKJV: He answered them, “He who made me well said to me, ‘Take up your bed and walk.’ ”

In prior verses, Jesus went to the Pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem (John 5:1–2). This area was near the temple and would have provided ample shade. The Bible describes "a multitude" of disabled people gathered there (John 5:3). Jesus selected one man, crippled for nearly forty years, and asked the man if he wanted to be healed. Somewhat surprisingly, the man offers complaints and excuses rather than saying, "yes" (John 5:5–7).

After Jesus heals him, the man continues this strange pattern of handing off his responsibility to other people. Jesus instructed the man to pick up the bed he was laying on and to walk with it (John 5:8). According to the local religious leaders, this was a violation of the commandment not to work on the Sabbath (John 5:10). In response, the man simply points to Jesus—whose name he does not even know—and says, in essence, "it's not my fault, someone told me to do it!"

The local religious leaders have every right to question this man. As with their investigation of John the Baptist (John 1:19), it is part of their responsibility to safeguard the truth. However, upcoming verses will show that these men are not sincere. Their offense over Jesus breaking their Sabbath tradition overrides any joy they might have had over the miracle itself. Of note is that their response (John 5:12) is not to ask, "who miraculously healed you," but "who told you to take up your bed and walk?" Their focus is entirely on their tradition, not the power of God, or the relief of human suffering!

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.