John 5

What’s Happening?

In John 5, Jesus heals a man who had been paralyzed for thirty-eight years. The man had been waiting by a pool that many believed could bring healing, but he had never been able to make it into the water. Instead, it’s Jesus’ word—not water—that gives life to his legs. Immediately, the man stands, picks up his mat, and walks (John 5:8–9).

But the healing takes place on the Sabbath, and this sparks controversy. The religious leaders confront Jesus, not because the man was healed, but because he was carrying his mat on a day when no work was supposed to be done. Jesus replies that he is simply doing what he sees his Father doing (John 5:17).

This response shocks them even more. Jesus isn’t just claiming to be a miracle worker; he is claiming to share in the very authority and activity of God himself. God created the world, gave life to everything in it, and then rested on the seventh day. Jesus is saying that he now does the same: he brings life out of dead places, even on the Sabbath, because he is the Son of God who instituted the Sabbath in the first place.

Jesus then expands his claim. He has authority not only to heal bodies but to give eternal life. Just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son gives life to whomever he chooses (John 5:21). His signs point to a greater reality—that those who hear his voice and believe already pass from death to life (John 5:24). And even more astonishing, Jesus says that a time is coming when the dead already in their graves will hear his voice and live (John 5:25, 28).

Where is the Gospel?

Jesus is the Christ, the promised King and Son of God, who has been given the Father’s own authority to bring life. Just as God breathed life into creation in the beginning, Jesus breathes life into paralyzed legs, into broken lives, and even into the dead.

This is why he heals on the Sabbath. He is not breaking God’s command but fulfilling it, because the Sabbath was always about resting in God’s completed work. When Jesus heals, he brings a taste of that rest by restoring people to the life God intended for them.

And the life he gives is not temporary. The paralytic’s legs would eventually weaken again, but the eternal life Jesus offers will never fade. If Jesus has authority to descend into the grave itself and bring life to those trapped in death’s snare, then he has authority to bring life to the whole world. This is humanity’s true destiny—to share in the Father’s eternal life, to bear fully the image in which we were created, and to find rest in the Son who makes that life possible.

See for Yourself

May the Holy Spirit open your eyes to see the God who gives life from the beginning. And may you see Jesus as the Son who shares the Father’s authority to bring life to the world, even to those in their graves.