Did Jesus Break the Law?

I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to John chapter 5.

Hold your place at verse 1 and as you're turning I have just a few words of introduction.

Recently a very well known pastor up in the Carolinas made sort of an impact on the internet when he announced very loudly from his pulpit that Jesus broke the law for love. That Jesus broke the law for love.

Did Jesus Break the Law and the Issue of Textual Variants in John 5

And so the title of today's message is Did Jesus Break the Law? And just for the sake of the fact that I am not good at holding anything in I'll go ahead and tell you the answer is no. The Bible says that Jesus was tempted in every way as we are yet was without sin.

The Bible says sin is the transgression of the law. Therefore sin is something that Jesus never did. Jesus never broke the law. Somebody just said you could turn my mic up just a little, my lapel. Thank you.

I don't want to be too loud. A few weeks ago I was blowing everybody out of here and I do get a little loud so I want to make sure we stay on the level. So we come now to John chapter 5 and this is a turning point in Jesus' ministry and one of the things that makes this a turning point especially in John's gospel is this is the point where the Pharisees are going to actually accuse him of being a lawbreaker.

They're going to accuse him of violating the Sabbath law of God. And as a result Jesus is going to respond to them and explain to them what he has done actually has not broken the law but he is in fact doing what God does even on the Sabbath.

Acts of necessity and mercy are not against the Sabbath. And so we're going to walk through the text in just a moment. We're going to read this situation where Jesus is engaging with the lame man at the pool of Bethesda.

But before we get to the text and I do want to read the text and we are going to stand in just a moment so you can prepare yourselves for that. But before we get there I have to at least acknowledge the elephant in the text.

You've heard the phrase the elephant in the room. Well this particular text has an elephant in the text. If you have an ESV this morning raise your hand. There are all of the elect.

No.

If you have an NIV raise your hand. Only one is willing to be honest. If you have an ESV or an NIV read verse 4 for me. It's not there. There's not even a number there. It just goes from verse 3 to verse 5.

Now if you have a New American Standard Bible, which I know at least one of you does, Brother Mike and Miss Kelly has her New American Standard Bible. You have number 4 but it is in brackets. Am I correct?

Is there brackets around verse 4? Well starting in the middle of verse 3 and going into verse 4. And if you have a King James Version, which I know my brother Mike here has, and, huh? The authorized, yes.

The king authorized it. That great Anglican translation. That particular version doesn't have brackets at all. But the point of the matter is there is a textual variant here at verse 4. And I have taught on the history of the text of the Bible.

I've taught on textual variation. I've taught this at length in our academy and in other contexts. And so I don't want to spend all of our time this morning on this textual variant. I just want to say if you've never come across this before and if all of your studies of the Bible you've never noticed that there are texts in certain translations that don't show up in other translations, please don't let that be the thing that causes you to call into question the integrity of God's Word.

Because a textual variant is a place in the text where of the over 5 ,000 Greek manuscripts that we have, there is a discrepancy in the transposition of, or rather, not the transposition but the transmission of those manuscripts.

And certain manuscripts have a verse, certain manuscripts do not. And we have manuscripts that go all the way back to the 2nd century. But you know what we do not have? We do not have any of the originals.

No one has an original copy of Mark. No one has an original copy of John. If they did, it would probably be the worst thing in the world because people would be bowing down to it. Because people have a tendency to make idols out of anything.

Can you imagine holding what Paul himself wrote? People would be bowing down. You know they just built the largest statue of Mary in South America just this last week. They had an unveiling. It's almost like the Statue of Liberty, this giant statue of Mary.

And guess everyone surrounding it is bowing down to it. So imagine if we had an original copy of the Gospel of John. It would be right among the relics in the Vatican that people go and bow down to. So we ought not be upset that we do not possess an original copy.

But what we should recognize is because of that, what our Bibles are, is our Bibles are a collection of these texts and what's known as a critical text. The critical text, not being critical like if I were to say something critical, nasty or ugly about someone, but basically critiquing the manuscripts and coming to the best possible reading that we can.

And some of the translations say that verse 4 should not be there and some of the translations say verse 4 should be there. And if you ask me my opinion, I will say this. I will say that I think verse 4 is probably not part of the original of what John wrote.

However, I am going to read it this morning along with the text because I think it deserves at least to be mentioned because it does make some sense of what's going on at the pool. Because these people are surrounding the Pool of Bethesda for a reason.

And it is believed that many of them did believe that an angel would come and would stir the waters and the first person to get in the water would be healed of their maladies. And that's what it tells us in verse 4.

Now did this pool really heal people? Was there really an angel coming down? Well your answer to that would probably come down to whether or not you believe this is part of John's original writing. And if you want to argue about that later, feel free to call one of the other elders.

Just know that I am satisfied with this. When it comes to textual variation, less than 1 of the Greek manuscripts that we possess, less than 1 of the manuscripts as a whole actually contain what we would call meaningful variance.

Meaningful variance means it would change the meaning of the text. And of those, none of them affect any primary Christian doctrine. So we need to understand that even though textual variance do exist, none of these variations affect what we believe about our Lord Jesus Christ.

So whether you believe an angel stirred the waters or whether you believe maybe this was an artisanal well that caused the waters to bubble or whatever you believe about that is not going to affect how you understand the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So with that being said, let's stand and we'll read. And I'm going to, I've included on the screen verse 4, which is actually in the footnotes of the ESV. This is in the footnotes of the ESV. So let's begin with John chapter 5 verse 1.

It says,.

Here is the variant text.

It says,.

Now on to verse 5. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, Do you want to be healed? The sick man answered him, Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I'm going another steps down before me.

Jesus said to him, Get up, take up your bed and walk. And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked. Now that day was the Sabbath. Verse 10. For the Jews said to the man,. 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. But he answered them, The man who healed me, That man said to me, Take up your bed and walk. They asked him, Who is the man who said to you, Take up your bed and walk?

Now the man also,.

Who had,.

Excuse me. Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn as there was a crowd in that place. Afterward, Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, See, you are well.

Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you. The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath.

But Jesus answered them, My father is working until now, and I am working. This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own father, making himself equal with God.

Father in heaven, I thank you for your word. I pray even now that as we have the opportunity to study your word, I pray, Lord, that you would keep me from error, that you would open up the hearts of your people to understand your truth.

And Lord, those who are not yet your people, that you would open up their heart to believe that they may bow the knee to the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. Lord, I thank you for everyone who is here this morning under the sound of the preaching of your word.

Lord, may you bless them. And may you bless me with your spirit. And Lord, may the words that come out of my mouth be in accordance with your word. And Lord, may they go across the ear and not only the ear, but into the mind and down into the heart.

And Lord, may you apply them to our heart today. In Jesus' precious name.

Amen.

John's Gospel as Theology Rather Than Strict Chronology

This particular scene in the life of Jesus reminds us that John is not too terribly concerned with sticking with a strict chronology. As I've said from the beginning of our study, we've been going through the Gospel of John since December of last year.

I said John is more concerned with theology than he is with chronology. He's not concerned with carrying on a specific narrative, but rather he is concerned with telling us things about Jesus that would encourage us to believe in him.

In fact, at the end of John's Gospel, he says, these things have I written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. He wants us to believe. So every one of these events is a testimony to the Lord Jesus Christ and to what Jesus did.

We've already seen two major events in the life of Christ documented by John. And he said, these were signs that were given. The first sign that was given was at the wedding at Cana. When Jesus was there, he turned water into wine.

Then having gone back to Cana after a period of unknown time, because we're not given chronological markers in John, we just know he went back to Cana after a period of time. Having gone through Samaria, we remember the story of the Samaritan woman.

He went back to Cana. And while he was there, he was visited by a nobleman's son. And that nobleman's son said, or excuse me, by a nobleman whose son was sick. And he said, come to my house and heal my son.

And Jesus says, go, your son will live. And of course his son lived. And that was our lesson from last week. Well, now we come to a third miracle in the narrative of John. As Jesus will now be back in Jerusalem, we don't know how much time has passed between his time in Cana and this new trip to Jerusalem that he's taking.

We do know the event that's causing this. The event is the fact that there is a feast in Jerusalem that Jesus is going to attend. It doesn't tell us which feast it is. It doesn't tell us what time of year it is.

So we can't really extrapolate when the feast was. If we knew what time of year it was, maybe we could figure it out. But it doesn't tell us any of those things. All it says in verse one is after this, that being after the man, the nobleman's son was healed.

That was the last story. After this, and we have no idea how much time has passed, there was a feast of the Jews. And again, we don't know what feast it was. It may have been one of the obligatory feasts, which would have been Passover or the Feast of Tabernacles or the Feast of Pentecost, which are ones that Jewish men had to attend.

And of course, this is just a reminder that Jesus did keep the law, even those laws which required him to attend the feasts. It's interesting. If you study Matthew, Mark, and Luke, you really only come up with one year of Jesus's life.

But many of us know Jesus's ministry lasted about three years. How do we know Jesus's ministry lasted about three years? Because of the Gospel of John. Because John takes us through these events and shows us that Jesus attended these various things, which tells us, at least, if not chronologically, at least logically, that Jesus had to have been ministering over a longer period of time than just a single year.

So here we have, in verse 1, it says, After this, there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now we have what I call the situation. It says, Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool, an Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five-roofed colonnades.

In these lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, and paralyzed. Now, again, this is telling us where Jesus was during this event. He came down to, or let me back up. He went up to Jerusalem. You'll notice everywhere you are in the Bible, if you go to Jerusalem, you're always going up.

No matter where.

It's always you go up to Jerusalem. And then again, the text agrees with that. Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And it says, There was in Jerusalem a sheep gate, and by the sheep gate a pool. Now this pool has been found.

Archaeologists have found this pool. It is near the sheep gate, which is indicated here in the text, which is actually called the Lion's Gate today, which is north of the Temple Mount. Archaeologists confirmed its location in 1888.

Some say it was actually called Beth Zatha. And some translations even translate it that way. And some manuscripts even say Beth Zatha. But most manuscripts say Bethsaida or Bethesda rather, excuse me.

It had five porticos, which are covered walkways, which formed rows and columns supporting a roof. And it had this pool, which we now know from archaeology, actually had two sections. And so these roofs were there so that people could stand or sit or walk on this colonnade, protected from the weather and from the heat.

So this was the area that Jesus was in, where there were many people who were sick surrounding this pool. And they were wanting to get into the water. Now this is where verse 4 becomes very important.

Why do they want to get into the water? Well, verse 4 tells us that they wanted to get into the water because the first person into the water would be healed. The first person into the water would be healed.

Now were these real healings? Was this really happening? I like what Brian Bell says in his commentary on this. He said, do people really receive divine healings at places like this? He says, I know of people who swore by the Moretta hot springs when it was open to the public.

And there are spas at Lourdes and the shrine at Guadalupe and the pool of Bethesda. Surely some medicinal value was there. Maybe it was high in minerals. Maybe it was high in iron. Or maybe it did have a specific miraculous ability to heal.

Maybe it was some commentators believe it was actually a holdover of when God was working miracles among the people in the Old Testament, that this was God demonstrating his ability to continue to heal with this pool and with the angel.

And again, we're not sure exactly what was happening there. But what was certain is people believed it. People believed if they got into the water, they would be healed. But guess what? You had to be the first one in.

Had to be the first one in. This is why later when the guy is asked, do you want to be healed? What does he say to Jesus? He said, nobody will put me in. And even if I do get in, I won't be first. So what does it matter?

I can't make it. Now, I do want to mention one other thing before moving on in the text. And that is this. Recently, I did a debate on the subject of baptism with a friend of mine, Matthew Everhard. And Matthew Everhard is a Presbyterian.

And we love each other. We're good friends. And we debated the subject of whether or not baptism should be by immersion or by pouring. He believes that it should be by effusion or by pouring water. And we, of course, as Baptists.

And by the way, if you don't know, you're in a Baptist church this morning.

Just to be clear.

I know it ain't on the sign, but that is what we are. And we believe baptism should be done by immersion. Now, that doesn't mean that we say that if you've been poured or sprinkled, that that invalidates your baptism.

But we do believe the proper method is by immersion. And one of the arguments that I've heard, and even from Matthew, was there just wasn't enough water. You know, on the day of Pentecost, 3 ,000 people got saved.

But there wasn't enough water to immerse 3 ,000 people. Well, here's a place in Jerusalem that could have accommodated many people. This is a pool. And certainly, probably not the only one in the city of Jerusalem where people could have been immersed.

Now, that really doesn't have anything to do with the sermon. That was free. That was extra. Just a little argument for all you good Baptists out there.

The Pool of Bethesda, the Invalid, and the Hope of Healing

All right.

So, we have this pool where there is a lame group or a group of sick people, ill people, hurting people, and one particular lame man who is surrounding the pool. In verse 5, it says, and this is where we begin the story of the restoration.

Verse 5, it says, One man was there who had been an invalid for 38 years. Now, we don't know if he was an invalid from birth. If he was an invalid from birth, that means he's about 38 years old. But I am going to at least make the argument that he may be older.

And this is based on something Jesus says later. And I'll make my point when we get there. But for now, we just know that he has been an invalid for 38 years. Whether he's 38 or whether he's older than 38, we don't know for certain.

But we know he's been sick and invalid for 38 years. Probably some type of paralysis he's experiencing or some type of lameness in his legs. Because he can't get himself into the water. He needs somebody to pick him up and put him in the water.

He doesn't have the strength to do that. So this is the situation the man is in. And if you think about it just for a moment, it's a pretty pitiful situation. To have 38 years of life where he's living most likely the life of absolute poverty.

He can't go and be industrious and go into business. He probably doesn't have anyone to care for him because he's here. And he doesn't even have anyone to put him in the water. He probably lives a hand-to-mouth existence where he's begging for everything that he has.

This man has a miserable life. A miserable existence. He's laying on what is tantamount to a bath mat. Which we're going to see later. That's all the bed was. Was basically like a mat that he's laying on to keep himself out of the dirt.

And so this is this man's life. And it's been going for almost as long as I've been alive. I'm 45 years old. So this is 38 years this man has been in this condition. And again, like I said last week, we need to remember these stories aren't stories.

They're real narratives of real people in real situations. When we read the scriptures, we need to read them existentially. Read them reminding ourselves that this is a real person who existed at a real time in a real place.

And so this man is miserable. And when Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he'd already been there a long time. He said to him, do you want to be healed? Do you want to be healed? Now, I don't know about you, but that seems like the most obvious question ever.

To walk up to a person who's starving. Do you want to eat? Of course, I want to eat. I'm starving. To walk up to a person who's blind. Do you want to see? Of course, I want to see.

I'm blind.

Well, to walk up to a person who is an invalid and say, do you want to be healed? The obvious answer is yes. So why would Jesus even ask? I don't have an answer to say, I know why Jesus asked this question.

Only I can say this. Jesus is giving the man an opportunity to respond. But also, I think Jesus is challenging the idea that he may have given up. Oftentimes, when we are in a situation where we have been struggling for so, so long,.

We lose hope. We lose hope.

We lose the idea that anything's ever going to get better. That anything could ever be better. So Jesus walks up to this man who is in almost a hopeless situation. Would seem like a hopeless situation.

It's been 38 years. Do you want to be healed? And what's his answer? It's not yes. His answer is, sir, I have no one to put me in the pool. And while I'm going down to the steps, someone else gets in before me.

So this man is out of hope. He doesn't have any reason to think that he's going to have another good day. Do you want to be healed? Of course, I want to be healed. But what am I going to do? Nobody's willing to help me.

And I'm not fast enough. I can't do anything. I just think about how life sometimes feels this way. Nothing I do is going to make anything better. Nothing I can do. Nobody can help me. And even if they try, it's not going to work.

And not to jump to application too fast and too far and too quickly. But honestly, this is often the way I feel. Folks will come and they will need help. And I'll ask, do you believe help is available?

Do you believe God can help you? Because that's an important question. Because I think some people feel hopeless. I've got a bad marriage and it's not going to get better. I've got bad health. It's not going to get better.

I've got bad job. It's not going to get better. And that's this, man, what am I going to do? What am I going to do? It's just not going to get better. Verse 8 comes out of nowhere. Jesus doesn't say, He doesn't reach down and touch His legs.

He doesn't make mud and put it in His eyes. I always bring that up because that's one of the strange ones, right? When Jesus literally spits, makes mud and sticks it in the guy's eyes and then washes them.

Go wash your face and you'll be able to see. He doesn't do any of that. He just looks at this man who's been laying on his mat. He's been unable to move well for 38 years. And he says this very simple, get up, take your bed and walk.

Get up, take your bed and walk. And at once, verse 9, and at once the man was healed and he took up his bed and walked. Jesus didn't put him on a regimen of stretching and exercise. Jesus didn't tell him to take vitamins and minerals and he'd come back and check on him in six weeks.

Jesus didn't heal him in stages. Jesus just said, get up, take up your bed and walk. And instantly he went from having crippled body to the legs of a deer that could leap. In an instant. This is an amazing moment.

38 years this man has been waiting for hope. And here comes this Galilean that he probably didn't know. In fact, we know he didn't know him because in a moment they're going to say, who did it?

He's, I don't know.

I just know the guy told me to get up and take my bed and walk. And so the guy got up and did exactly what Jesus said. He said, he reached down. And by the way, when it says pick up your mattress or your mat, whatever your Bible says, this ain't no Sealy perfect sleeper, just so you know.

This is not a mattress. He didn't throw a giant spring, it was just a little mat that rolled up. And you could put it under your arm or over your shoulder and carry it. And so the man does that. He stands up, he sees his legs are working.

You can only imagine the amazement of him and everyone around him. Seeing his legs, seeing his body change. And he reaches down, rolls up his mat and does what Jesus told him to do. He walked. Now that should be the end of the story.

That's not even the end of the verse, but that should be the end of the story. Everyone who saw this, whether they be Pharisee, Sadducee, scribe, invalid, no matter what. Everybody who saw this should have praised the God of Israel for the miracle that just occurred.

Everyone around should have been praising God for a man who'd been 38 years lame,.

Now able to leap like a deer.

But the next words are what change everything. Because the last part of verse 9 says, Now the day was the Sabbath. That changes everything. Because now what we're going to notice is none of the Pharisees are going to give a lick that this guy is healed after 38 years of being sick.

What they are going to care about is this guy's carrying around his mat. They're not going to care at all that this man's legs, which weren't even working 10 minutes ago, are now working better than anyone else's in Jerusalem.

All they're going to care about is that he was carrying around his mat. And therefore we see the interrogation beginning in verse 10.

It says,.

Now 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. Notice again, look at verse 10 with me. The Jews said to the man who what?

Who had been healed.

They absolutely overlooked that part to recognize the part that should not have mattered. And that was the fact that he was carrying his sleeping mat. So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to carry, for you to take up your bed.

The Sabbath, Legalism, and the Difference Between God's Law and Human Tradition

Now, let's talk for a minute about the Sabbath. The Sabbath was instituted by God with certain regulations during the exodus. The first time anyone is commanded in Scripture to keep the Sabbath day is in Exodus chapter 16 when the Israelites were being told about the manna from heaven.

They said manna will fall from heaven and it will fall for six days. Do not collect more than you need for the day. If you collect more than you need for the day, when you wake up the next day, that which you collected is going to be spoiled.

So don't even try. It's not going to work except on the day before the Sabbath you may collect two days worth of food. That way you won't collect on the Sabbath and you'll have two days worth of food and it won't spoil.

That's the only time you're going to have food that's going to last for more than a day. And that's when God through Moses told the people, on the Sabbath day you are to do no labor. You are to do no work.

And by the way, keep in mind this was Saturday, not Sunday. And maybe I'll have to do a whole other sermon on that. But just keep in mind this is that day. It was the seventh day.

It was Saturday.

Sunday is the first day of the week, not the last day. And then a few chapters later, in Exodus chapter 20, when God is giving the Ten Commandments to Moses, He gives in the Ten Commandments, commandment number four, He gives the Sabbath commandment.

He says, therefore you shall keep the Sabbath holy.

And why?

Why keep the Sabbath holy? Because on six days the Lord created the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He what?

He rested.

And therefore as a testimony to the work of God in creation, you too will keep the Sabbath day holy. And then we learn later in the book of Exodus that this day was given as a sign of the covenant that was made with the people of Israel on the mountain, that this practice of keeping the Sabbath was actually the sign that God had given to the people of Israel.

And so the Jews here are saying, it is the Sabbath and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed. Now, the question is, was it truly not lawful for this man to carry around his bed on the Sabbath? And the answer to that is no.

It was not unlawful for this man to carry his bed on the Sabbath, but it was against the regulations that had been set up by the Pharisees who through their rigid attempts to keep the Mosaic legislation had actually added rules to the legislation.

Because when it comes to the Sabbath day, the Bible says basically this, no labor, but then we have to define what labor is. No kindling of a fire. And we know what happened to the guy who kindled the fire.

But you know what? A lot of people bring that up. A lot of people say, you know what? God was unfair to that man. All he did was light a fire on the Sabbath and he got capital punishment. And I always like to remind everybody, listen, that guy didn't get capital punishment for lighting a fire.

That guy got capital punishment for spitting in the face of God. That's why that guy got capital punishment. God's law said, do not do this thing. Do not kindle a fire. And that guy's out there going, you know, he's out there, he is shaking his fist at the God of the universe.

And like Nadab and Abihu who offered up strange fire to the Lord, the Lord said, I'm not having it. There are examples in scripture to us that should remind us that we serve a holy God who should not be trifled with.

We sang a song earlier. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty. All the earth is filled with his glory. That's Isaiah chapter 6. And it reminds us God is not to be trifled with. So it says, do not labor, do not kindle a fire, don't gather manna and don't bear a burden.

And this is where the question comes in. Well, what constitutes bearing a burden? The Pharisees had all of these rules for what constituted bearing a burden. In fact, here's kind of an interesting one.

Let's say you had a scarf and you wanted to carry the scarf on the Sabbath. You couldn't carry the scarf, but you could wrap it around your neck and tie it and wear it. Because if you're wearing it, you're not bearing a burden.

You're, it's an article of clothing. But if you carried it from a place to place, you would then be carrying a burden. And therefore it would be against the law. This is how ridiculous the legislation had become among the Pharisees.

It had become so pedantic and so meticulous that it had gotten away from the spirit of the law and was enforcing a letter of the law that wasn't according to God's intentions. Beloved, that's legalism still goes on today.

Legalism exists, there are two major problems in the modern evangelical church. There's a bunch, but these two regarding this subject is legalism, which is trying to attain righteousness by what you do and what you accomplish.

And then there's licentiousness or antinomianism, which is not concerning yourself at all with what you do. Saying that grace is covering everything, therefore I have a license to sin. That's what, that's called licentiousness.

And both of them go against the word of God. God does not call us to a vain legalism, neither does he call us to selfish licentiousness. But these people see this man carrying his bed and they say, you have broken the law.

And according to their rules he had, just to be clear, I don't believe he had broken the law of God, but he certainly broke their rules. Because they had added to the law of God. You know what Jesus said about the Pharisees?

He said that they had taken the commandments of men and turned them into doctrine. That that was one of the worst things that they had done. They had taught as doctrine the commandments of men. Oh, how that exists today.

And by the way, it's not only in the evangelical church. That is the major problem in Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy as well. Because they have added to the word of God. They have added the veneration of Mary, which we talked about a little while ago with that statue.

The veneration of Mary is one of the most gross additions to the gospel that has been added. And yet it is enforced in Roman Catholicism and in Eastern Orthodoxy. If you do not venerate Mary, you are not part of the church Catholic.