John 5:3 - Printer Friendly

ESV: In these lay a multitude of invalids — blind, lame, and paralyzed.

NIV: Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed.

NASB: In these porticoes lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, limping, or paralyzed.

CSB: Within these lay a large number of the disabled—blind, lame, and paralyzed.

NLT: Crowds of sick people — blind, lame, or paralyzed — lay on the porches.

KJV: In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water.

NKJV: In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water.

North of the temple, in the northeast corner of Jerusalem, was a two-section pool covered by five roofed porches (John 5:2). This area offered shade and nearness to the temple. There may have been a healing property in the water. For whatever reason, this area was filled with people suffering from various disabilities. Jesus has come to the city to attend one of the required festivals (John 5:1). He is about to perform the third of His seven "signs" recorded in the gospel of John.

Part of Jesus' complaint against Israel during His earthly ministry was their spiritual coldness. Jesus drove greedy merchants out of the temple; these men had replaced ministry with money (John 2:13–22). In this story, we see "a multitude" of people in need of support, close to the temple. This is a sad reflection on Jerusalem's unwillingness to love their neighbors.

John refers to the number of people seeking healing here as "a multitude." Yet Jesus will only heal one of them at this time. This underscores an important truth about the Christian life: it's not primarily about miracles. God uses supernatural events to send a message, or to further His will. True miracles, like the "signs" John records, are not common. They are not expected. This was as true for the people of Jesus' day as it is today. Nor is the gospel about physical health; it is a matter of eternal life.

This verse leads to an interesting textual debate. Older, more reliable manuscripts do not contain the words of John 5:4. The text usually associated with that verse explains the reason for the crowd of invalids: miraculous healing. According to the disputed words, an angel would occasionally stir up the water, and the first person into the water would be healed. Some have raised theological objections to this. For instance, this seems to contradict the normal biblical approach to miracles. It also seems unfair for God to make a contest out of healing.

However, it seems that the words of John 5:4 were not part of the original manuscript. Most likely, a marginal note put in as an explanation of the pool was inadvertently moved into the main body and became part of future copies. Ultimately, this is a theologically minor point. However, it is an excellent example of the typical manuscript "variant:" noncontroversial, relatively unimportant, and well-understood.

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.