From Death to Life | John 4:46-5:47

INTRODUCTION

Let’s turn our Bibles to John 5. Today, we will look at John 4:35-5:47. Here, we witness the transformative power of Jesus Christ as he performs miraculous signs, demonstrating his authority over sickness, death, and ultimately, our spiritual condition, leading us from death to life.

In these passages, we encounter two remarkable healings that symbolize the power of Jesus over our physical bodies.

In John 4:43-54; we have the second miraculous sign that Jesus performed. He had performed many other signs (2:23), but John only mentions a few.

John 4:46-54

⁴⁶Once more he visited Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. And there was a certain royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum. ⁴⁷When this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death.

⁴⁸“Unless you people see signs and wonders,” Jesus told him, “you will never believe.”

⁴⁹The royal official said, “Sir, come down before my child dies.”

⁵⁰“Go,” Jesus replied, “your son will live.” The man took Jesus at his word and departed. ⁵¹While he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was living. ⁵²When he inquired as to the time when his son got better, they said to him, “Yesterday, at one in the afternoon, the fever left him.”

⁵³Then the father realized that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” So he and his whole household believed.

⁵⁴This was the second sign Jesus performed after coming from Judea to Galilee.

Healing at a distance.

• Here is Jesus healing the royal official’s son at a distance just by his word.
• The official took Jesus at his word; John 4:50.

In John 5:1-9, we have another miracle of Jesus. The third miraculous sign of Jesus in John 5.

John 5:1-6

¹Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. (Jesus is back in Jerusalem. He is at the temple.) ²Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. (This man is lying by the pool of Bethesda. The pool of Bethesda is at the north side of the temple mount. This pool was a large installation of 5 porches. This pool was used for Jewish ritual purity and also for cleaning animals for sacrifice.) ³Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. ⁵One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.

⁶When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

Just think about it. Here is this invalid, lying there, incapacitated. This has been going on for 38 years. Try to think of something in your life that you have been dealing with a long time; 10 years, 20 years, 30 years or even 40 years without progress. Jesus has the guts to ask him, “Do you want to get well?” He is desperate, reduced to begging. He is placed there every day with the help of someone. Jesus asks, “Does he want to get well?”

John 5:7-9

⁷“Sir,” the invalid replied, “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.”

⁸Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” ⁹At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

This man is by a pool where the tradition was that if the water stirred and the one who gets into the pool first will be healed. He is frustrated year after year and time after time others would get into the water first according to their belief. Little did he know that the glory of God was in fact appearing in Jesus. He was just about to breathe on this man not just to stir the water but with the breath of life with a word of command that would give him now restored life and allow him to get up and walk.

Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” ⁹At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

Jesus heals by his word. There is no touch or laying of hands. Jesus just speaks and the man is healed.

Today, Jesus is powerful to heal us. Healing happens as we pray for the sick and healing happens at a distance as we ask for someone at home or far away to be healed in prayer.

Transition: Moving forward:

We must understand that this man by the pool is not only physically disabled outwardly, it has also excluded him from fellowship from God. Where is he? He is at the pool called Bethesda outside the gate. He is outside the temple. In the OT, 2 Samuel 5; it was prohibited for anyone who was lame or blind from entering the temple. So, all the blind and lame and disabled people were outside the temple where they hoped to live on the generosity of the temple worshippers.

This man who is now outside the temple. Will be able to go in the temple? So this is a healing that is beyond physical healing.

Matthew 21 we see Jesus did not lower the standards of entering into the temple. He healed the lame and the blind.

Matthew 21:14

The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them.

All these are symbolic. This man did symbolise in his physical sickness a spiritual sickness, a disqualification that would make him realize the perfection that would be required to be in God’s presence. Jesus does not lower the standard, but he enables people to meet the standard.

Those who are prohibited from the temple back in 2 Samuel 5, now the blind and the lame came to Jesus at the temple and he healed them. This man who has been excluded from the temple, the next time you meet him you find him in the temple.

John 5:14

Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.”

He is now allowed to be in the presence of God. Jesus addresses the spiritual issue and tells this man to stop sinning.

John 5:21

For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it.

John 5:24

Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.

What is the word? Get up, take up your mat and walk. Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.

This man is a visual aid of a greater healing that we need for our soul. We first of all need healing from our sins, we need salvation. Secondly, we need healing from habits, character traits and behavior patterns that have plagued us for 38 years.

We understand that all are sinners and we are destined to die, face the wrath of God. We are separated from the presence of God. Turn to Christ, because if you hear his word, if you believe in his name, you have eternal life. You will not be condemned; you will cross over from death to life. He came to give us abundantly life.

Are you tired of your habit that leads you to addictions, leads you to sin. Do you want to get well? Then come again to Jesus. It is Jesus who will make us like him and transform our lives.

A parallel here: The Pharisees do not want to get well. They are self-satisfied, self-righteous.

John 5:39-40

³⁹You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, ⁴⁰yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

You refuse – You do not want to come. It is the same vocabulary Jesus asked the man, “Do you want to get well?” The Pharisees say, “No thanks, I am well enough. I am really well. I am one of God’s favourites.”

Do you want to get well? The new standard of life is the one who is standing before the invalid man. That is what a healthy life looks like. Do you look like him? If you don’t, then there is some healing that needs to take place in your life to bring you to greater conformity to him.

“So, Do you want to get well?”

The answer most of the time is, “Not really. I can crawl like any invalid.”

We compare ourselves to the other sick people around us, to the other sinners around us, to other spiritual and moral cripples. We are just like this invalid whose fellowship consists of great number of disabled people; the blind, the lame, the paralysed. He is always looking at them, when this paralysed man is looking at them he is doing well. But if you are looking at Jesus, then you realize that there is some healing needed.

Do you want to get well? Look at Christ.

Paul says: Ephesians 4 to become mature

Ephesians 4:13

…..until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

That is the plan for us now. Even now to press on to Christ and to be made like him, to conform our life both in his death and in the new life of resurrection that he has come to give us.

Ephesians 5:1-2

¹Follow God’s example (be imitators of God), therefore, as dearly loved children ²and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

You say, “Pastor I have been dealing with this issue for 38 years. I cannot suddenly change now, I tried everything. This is the way I am.”

Once a person addicted to substance abuse said to me, “I know these things are killing me, but they have become so much a part of my life, I cannot live without them.” The problem is he could not live with them and in a few years, he passed away due to the addiction.

This is a parable of my condition and maybe yours. There are a lot of things that we are putting up with. They are hard to deal with. Following Christ is costly. If anyone comes after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. Following Christ is costly. But the alternative is unaffordable. The alternative is that the wages of sin is death, the way of transgressors is hard.

When we look at our habits and character traits, it is a reminder that we are not well.

Transition: Jesus can heal us physically and spiritually because Jesus is God. Jesus does the things that only God can do.

John 5:16-18

¹⁶So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. ¹⁷In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” ¹⁸For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

Jesus was making himself equal with God; v18 (Relationship to the prologue; 1:18)

• Jesus is working with the Father; v17
• As a Father’s agent, Jesus does nothing on his own.
• Jesus needs to be honored the way the Father is honored, v23

Jesus is equal to God in nature; John 5:17

He is equal to God in works; John 5:19-20

He is equal to God in power; John 5:21

Jesus is equal to God in authority; John 24

John 5:22-30

²²Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, ²³that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.

²⁴“Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. ²⁵Very truly I tell you, 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. ²⁶For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. ²⁷And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.

²⁸“Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice ²⁹and come out—those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned. ³⁰By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.

Father has given the judgement to Jesus; Jn. 5:22, 25, 27.

Jesus is not denying that there will not be a future Judgement, he is affirming that there will be a future judgement but he is saying that judgement has already begun.

When people are coming to faith in Jesus, they are coming out of death into life; Jn. 5:24

They are leaving a life of living death which is separation from God and to a life of fellowship with the living God. v24-25 Jesus says it is already happening.

Judgment is not something that is going to happen in the future, what is happening in the future is not being denied here, but what is going to happen in the future is used as a model for people coming to faith in Jesus or rejecting Jesus. If you reject Jesus, you are condemned already.

It is not future eschatology but realized eschatology or inaugurated eschatology. This is to say that what God will do in the future, he is already showing us in bits and pieces in the present. And what God has already done in calling us out of death into life, calling us into a life of fellowship with him, is a taste of what God will do in the future completely with the world.

The future is already present, people’s eternal destines are set by their response to Jesus. You don’t have to wait until the final judgment to find out where you are heading. Jesus says that is already being determined now by your response to me.

Jesus already spoke that in Samaria: John 4:21, 23

John 5:25

Who bears witness to Jesus as God and equal to the Father?

Jesus is forced to speak about how many witnesses are there to him; John 5:31-47

Multiple Witnesses to Jesus

• Jesus himself: 5:31-32; 3:11, 32; 8:13, 18; 18:37
• John the Baptist: 5:32-35; 1:7, 15, 19, 32, 34; 3:26
• Jesus’ Works: 5:36; 10:25
• Father’s witness; 5:37; 8:18
• Scripture/Moses: 5:39

Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath; Mk. 12:8, Lk. 6:5

Humans were not made to serve the Sabbath, Sabbath was created to help humanity

Jesus incarnates the Father’s words and works.

Jesus does the things that only God can do. Rev. 5 all creation bowing to the throne of Jesus, just like in Ch. 4.

Do You Want To Live Both Spiritually And Physically?

1. Give Your Life Over To Christ.

You can give your live over to Christ. You can change everything about you that doesn’t look like Jesus yet.

2. Take Courage To Change.

Imagine how much courage it took for that man to move his legs after 38 years. He had tried it before but he failed, but now he took courage and moved his leg on the word of Jesus. We hate the pain of failure. We do not try because of the fear of failure. Take courage to change.

Christ sets us free. If he sets us free, we are free indeed. The outcome will be different with Jesus.

3. Be Determined To Follow Christ.

A toughmindedness to obey his command.

Jesus said, “Get up, pick up your mat and walk,” and at once the man was cured.

Do you want to get well?

He was willing to take Jesus at his word just like the official in John 4. He took Jesus at his word and did it with the power that Christ made available for him.

Philippians 2:12-13

¹²Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, ¹³for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.

Colossians 1:29

To this end I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me.

Do you want to get well?

2 Peter 1:3-7

³His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. ⁴Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

⁵For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; ⁶and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; ⁷and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love.

His divine power has given us everything. Because he has given us everything we can do it.

It is a sad reality that the invalid man who was healed took the side of the Pharisees and that led to the opposition and persecution of Jesus; 5:11, 13, 16.

John 5:23b-24

Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him. ²⁴“Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.”