Was Jesus A Magician?

Introduction

Was Jesus a magician? I know this sounds like a crazy question to us. To us, it’s an obvious “no,” maybe followed by an obvious “duh.” But that’s because we are 21^st century Christians, in the 21^stcentury Christian mindset. Put your mind in the 1^st century context. Magicians were everywhere. There was probably at least two in every village and town, and maybe even more in the cities. They could commonly be seen walking down the streets and in the marketplaces. All of them claimed to have power (from gods or demons), and all of them could perform magic. From the view of a 1^st century person Jesus could have easily looked like just another magician. This post will look how made sure he never seemed like just another magician when he performed a miracle. In fact, he made sure to portray himself as quite the opposite.

The Cultural Account

First, let me carefully define a 1^st century magician. A 1^st century magician is nothing like a 21^stcentury magician. A 1^st century magician does not perform magic for entertainment, as a 21^st century magician would. He’s not pulling rabbits out of hats, he’s not sawing women in half, he’s not escaping from straitjackets. A better term to describe a 1^st century magician would be a witch or a witch doctor. A better 21^st equivalent would be a psychic. Like I said above, there’s usually two in a village or two: one a witch, and the other one a witch doctor. You went to the witch if you to put a curse on someone or something. You went to the witch doctor if you wanted the curse taken off of yourself, or you wanted a blessing placed on yourself.

For what specific reasons would a person go to a witch or witch doctor to harness magical powers? Ancient writings provide about 7 main reasons. They are as follows:

1.      Protection, from both the natural and the supernatural

2.      Healing, both physical and mental
3.      To have someone fall in love with you
4.      Harming someone or something
5.      Knowing the future
6.      Changing the future
7.      Victory in sport or battle

Let’s take a deeper look at these ancient writings to see how magicians performed their magic arts, looking carefully at the words spoken and the actions performed.

To have someone fall in love with you

I adjure you, demon of death, cause to pine away Sarapion out of love for Dioskorus, whom

Tikoi bore: burn his heart, let it melt and let his blood dry up through love, longing, and pain
over me until Sarapion, whom Pasametra bore, comes to Dioskours, whom Tikoi bore, and
fulfills all my wishes and loves me ceaselessly until he descends into Hades. I adjure you,
demon of death, by Adonai, by Sabaoth. (magical papyri 16)

I adjure all ghosts [demonas] in this place to come to the assistance of this ghost. Raise yourself

up for me from the repose that keeps you and go out into every district and every quarter and
every house and every shop, and drive, spellbind Matrona…that she may not (have intercourse
vaginal, anal, or oral with anyone else, nor) be able to go with any other man than Theodorus…and never let Matrona…be able to endure or be healthy or find sleep night or day without Theodorus. (“A Love Charm with Verses,”)

The irony with these spells is that while the end goal is for a certain person to fall in love with the user of the spell, these spells relay the feeling that the magic user really doesn’t love that person. After all, what loving person would pray that the person they hold closest in their heart would not be able to sleep or be healthy until they admit their love? These spells do not show the interest of the other person, but rather, only the interest of the user, even at the cost of the wellbeing of the other person.

Protection, from both the natural and the supernatural

Onto lime wood write with vermilion this name “[50 Greek letters] Guard me from every

demon of the air on the earth and under the earth, and from every angel and phantom and ghostly visitation and enchantment, me [enter name].” Enclose it in a purple skin, hang it around your neck and wear it. (magical papyri)

Knowing the Future

To Sokonnokonneus, the twice-great god. Reveal to me whether I should remain in Bachias.

Should I make a request? Reveal this to me! To the most great, powerful god, Soknopaias,
by Asklepiades, son of Aneios, Is it not prohibited to me to marry Tapetheus, daughter of Marre
and will she not marry another? Show me this and complete [the answer] to this written
. To Soknopaios and Sokanpeios, great, great gods: from Statoetis, son of Apynchis,
son of Tesenuphis. Will I be saved from illness? Give me information about this! To the
great gods Soknopaias and Sokonupis. Is it granted to me to start a business for gladiators?
Give me information about this! (magical papyri 30)

I call upon you, inhabitants of Chaos and Erebos [the underworld], of the depth, of earth, watchers of heaven, of darkness, masters of things not to be seen, guardians of secrets, leaders of those beneath the earth, administrators of things which are infinite, those who wield power over earth, servants in the chasm, shudderful fighters, fearful ministers, inhabitants of dark Erebos,

coercive watchers, rulers of cliffs, grievers of the heart, adverse daimons, iron-hearted ones
[seven magical names are given]…Reveal concerning the matter which I am considering.
(magical papyri 7.348–58)

Victory in sport or battle

I conjure you up, holy beings and holy names; join in aiding this spell, and bind, enchant, thwart,strike, overturn, conspire against, destroy, kill, break Eucherius the charioteer, and all his horses tomorrow in the circus at Rome. May he not leave the barriers well; may he not be quick in the contest; may he not outstrip anyone; may he not make the turns well; may he not win any prizes…may he be broken; may he be dragged along by your power, in the morning and afternoon races. Now! Now! Quickly! Quickly!

Listen to how harsh this incantation is! The person praying is wants to win so bad, he prays that his rival will be hurt or killed! Once again, this incantation has no intention of showing love to the other. I think it rather shows hate in order to get his selfish desires.

Harming someone or something

WHAT TO DO: “Take a lead lamella [thin, metal plate] and inscribe with a bronze stylus the following names and the figure [depicted in the papyrus text], and after smearing it with blood from a bat, roll up the lamella in the ususal fashion. Cut open a frog and put it into its stomach. After stitching it up with Anubian thread and a bronze needle, hang it up on a reed from your property by means of hairs from the tip of the tail of a black ox, at the east of the property near the rising of the sun.”

WHAT TO SAY:“Supreme angels, just as the frog drips with blood and dries up, so also will

the body of him [a space to insert the name of the victim] whom [a space to insert the name
of the victim’s mother] bore, because I conjure you, who are in command of fire…” (magical
papyri 36.231–55)

Other Magical Objects and Actions

“A woman is guaranteed never to miscarry if, tied round her neck in gazelle leather, she wears

white flesh from a hyaena’s breast, seven hyaena’s hairs, and the genital organ of a stag.”
(Pliny, Natural History, 28.27.98–99)

 This would have been in a 1^st century fertility book! Aren’t you glad it didn’t make it to a 21^st century fertility book?

“It acts as a charm for a man to spit on the urine he has [discharged]; similarly to spit into

the right shoe before putting it on.” (Pliny, Natural History, 28.7.38)

So if you want good luck, men, either spit in your right shoe or spit in your urine every time you pee. This seems like a lose-lose or choosing the less of two evils.

“Hailstorms and whirlwinds are driven away if menstrual fluid is exposed to the very flashes

of lightning.” (Pliny, Natural History, 28.23.77)

Thunders and lightning fear a woman having her period just as much as men do 😛 haha

“The extreme end of the [hyaena’s] intestine prevails against the injustices of leaders and

potentates, bringing success to petitions and a happy issue to trials and lawsuits if it is merely
kept on the person;…the anus [of a hyaena], worn as an amulet on the left arm, is so powerful
a love-charm that, if a man but [sees] a woman, she at once follows him.” (Pliny, Natural History, 28.27.106)

Men, how many times have you seen an ugly woman, but once you see her put on a hyaena butt, she becomes instantly beautiful?

“If door-posts are merely touched by the menstrual discharge, the tricks are rendered vain of

the Magi, a lying crowd, as is easily ascertained.” (Pliny, Natural History, 28.23.88)

And all other magical problems can be negated by spreading your menstrual blood on the doorposts likes it’s Passover.

I know all these magical words and performances sound crazy, but put it in a more recent context. Think about all the crazy superstitions people practice in modern times that have little to no scientific backing. Kids in the 1990s wore placed a rabbit’s foot or two on their backpacks and key chains. Before then, people had horseshoes, and some still do. I go could on mentioning throwing salt over the shoulder, knocking on wood and avoiding stepping on cracks. Now to be fair, maybe some of these superstitions arose from safety precautions. For example, people learned not to walk under ladders because walking under ladders was unsafe. Eventually, it became unlucky. Also to be fair, remember that 1^st century people did not know of a distinction between magic and science. Sometimes they 1^st century people were doing science, but they did not know it, so they called it magic. Most cases, however, as the cases seen above, did not come from safety precautions or early attempts at science. They were merely superstitions that arose from the pagan polytheism.

Let’s also review some of the discussion about demon exorcism, since demon exorcisms are miracles, and since demon exorcisms have commonalities with miracles. Already, we have seen that magic depends on some amulet, talisman or device, just like in exorcisms. Also, notice the necessity to call on gods or higher powers. The people of the 1^st century believed that even the gods had to submit to the powers of magic. So in theory, a human well versed in magic could overcome the will of a god. So just like in exorcisms, magicians, witches and witch doctors sought to call out a god by name in order to control his power. These gods had very little sovereignty; their will constantly fought the will of man.

The Biblical Account

The Bible records Jesus performing 37 miracles, but John 20:30,31 hints that Jesus probably performed more. As a case study, let’s look at when Jesus cured the blind. The New Testament records Jesus healing the blind 4 times. They are as follows:

1.      Jesus heals 2 blind men (Matthew 9:27-31)
2.      Jesus heals Bartimaeus (Matthew 20:29-34, Mark 10:46-52, Luke 18:35-43)
3.      Jesus heals the blind man at Bethesda (Mark 8:22-26)
4.      Jesus heals the man born blind (John 9:1-41)

Pause here. Open up your Bible and read all 4 stories. Yes, this includes reading all 3 accounts of healing blind Bartimaeus. As you read each story, take notice of how Jesus heals them. Write it down if you have to. When you are done, come back here and compare answers with me. This is what I got:

1.      Jesus healing 2 blind men – Touching the eyes
2.      Jesus healing blind Bartimaeus – speaking and touching
3.      Jesus healing the blind man at Bethesda – spitting, then touching
4.      Jesus healing the man born blind – made mud with spit, placed mud on eyes, wash in the pool of Siloam

Compare it to how the culture would say a witch doctor would cure blindness. Jesus never calls upon a god or a higher power. What a testimony to his own deity! Jesus never prays a prayer or speaks a special incantation. In fact, Jesus never addresses the blindness directly. He just states the healing has happened. Jesus never needs any kind amulet, talisman or device. In fact, the four blindness healings really don’t have anything in common; they are all different. The closest commonality is that Jesus touches them, but this touching is most likely to be intimate or personal in the healing.

This is very important that Jesus does not have a formula or procedure to curing the blind. Suppose Jesus healed every blind person that same way he healed the man born blind: making mud from spit, spreading the mud on the eyes, and washing the eyes in water. Then pastors would hold blindness healing services in their churches, which the whole service would consist of spitting, making mud, spreading the mud on blind people’s eyes, and then washing them off. Problems would really occur if a blind person still couldn’t see after undergoing the spit, mud and washing ceremony. Talk about having doubts!

From the start, Jesus de-emphasizes any kind of method. If the method is de-emphasized, then what is emphasized? Jesus is. Every miracle points back to Jesus. At the most, someone could say that faith is a commonality with every miracle, and therefore faith is emphasized, but even there, the faith points back to Jesus, emphasizing him.

Conclusion

So was Jesus a magician? Some of the Sanhedrin of the 1^stcentury claimed Jesus was a magician, in hope that a truly religious Jew would not follow someone like a witch doctor. But if anyone living in the 1^stcentury knew their culture, they would know how far from the truth that claim is. Jesus did not perform his miracles like magicians or witches performed magic. He did not call upon gods for higher power, he did not speak any prayer or incantations, and did use any use any object, like the magicians and witches. Jesus also never performed his miracles to get the upper hand on his personal life or other people. Rather, Jesus performed miracles to help lift up people in unfortunate circumstances. So Jesus was not a magician, he was much better than that. He was the Messiah, saving people from unfortunate situations. He was God, depending on his own power instead of manipulating a higher up power. Therefore, the miracles of Jesus should encourage us to not seek other supernatural solutions, like psychics, but instead to seek Jesus for the solution to all our problems.

Acknowledgements
I am eternally grateful to Dr. Doug Buckwalter, New Testament professor at Evangelical Seminary, for the original texts and the original resources.

John: A Story About The Son of God

Sometimes when Christians zoom in and focus on one verse, they lose the context of the chapter, or even the paragraph the verse is in. Sometimes when Christians zoom in and focus on one chapter, they lose the context of the whole book. I know through my studies of John that when we focused on one chapter of John, it might be easy only think about what that chapter is saying and not even consider the context of the whole book of John. It would be a shame if we did that because most likely that chapter contributes the book’s overall message, and if we don’t think about the book’s overall message, we might very well miss the true meaning of the chapter. I close my devotional commentary on John by stepping back, zooming out, and looking at the whole picture of John. I’ll start by reviewing the introductory material to John, then we’ll outline John, and from that we’ll pull out theological pictures, themes and messages.

Before we go any further, I will put a disclaimer by saying that this will be nothing like my devotional commentary on Mark. Mark is not like John. Mark is an epic story; John is not. Let me be clear on what I am saying. Yes, John is a story, in the sense it is written in narrative form. I believe John does this in order to demonstrate what he is writing is historical truth (history in the 1st century was written like a story). But as I will remind you in the introductory review, John is a supplemental Gospel. And just like the supplemental appendixes to any book, both fictional and non-fictional books, the supplemental appendixes are not meant to tell a good story, but are meant to give extra information to help the reader understand the book’s concepts further. That is what John is trying to do. He’s not trying to tell a good story to get the reader to come to faith. Instead, John is trying to give extra information about the history of Jesus to persuade the reader to come to faith (or continue faith). So think of John less as a story, and more like a persuasive essay. That will also help with the introductory material.

Speaking of introductory material, let’s move on to the introductory material. Now I’m not going to spend time defending all of it. If you want a defense of all these, go back to “John 0: An Introduction” where we talked about this. If you don’t want to read it [again], just accept what I have said as truth. Remember, the introductory information is what reporters seek when asking questions. This is the who, whom, what, where, when, why, and how. To be more specific, the answers to these question will be the author, the audience, the historical occasion, the location, the date, the purpose and the structure.

THE AUTHOR (WHO): John
THE AUDIENCE (WHOM): Christians
THE LOCATION (WHERE): Written in Ephesus, Takes Place Mostly in Judea
THE DATE (WHEN): 85-95 AD
THE HISTORICAL OCCASION (WHAT): Gnosticism and other pseudo-Christianity cults were preaching that Jesus was only a man, and wasn’t God.
THE PURPOSE (WHY): John wrote the book of John to persuade Christians to continue believing Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.
THE STRUCTURE (HOW): A Supplemental Gospel

Now if you remember my explanation on the structure (how), I told you that it could both/either the writing style and/or method, or it can be an outline. In my review of the introductory material, I simply told you the writing style. The Gospel of John is a supplemental Gospel. But I do also want to outline the book for you. At Bible College, I was taught that a good start to outlining a Bible Book is to first write sentence summaries on the paragraphs, and then group the similar paragraphs together. But I don’t have the time to write paragraph summaries, and you probably don’t have the time to read paragraph summaries. So for simplicity’s sake, I am going to write a sentence summary for each chapter. Then we will combine similar chapter summaries together to draw up an outline. Below are the sentence summaries. The bullet number is the chapter number. Also, I will sometimes “cheat” on the sentence summaries. If I cannot write a one-sentence summary without making a ridiculously long run-on, I will make it two or three sentences.

1. Jesus is God because He was with God at the beginning, He created the universe and He gives life. Then 5 men testify Jesus is God: John the Baptist, John the Disciple, Andrew, Philip and Nathanael
2. Christ’s disciples believe Jesus is the Christ and Son of God through His first miracle of turning water to wine and through the cleansing of the temple.
3. Nicodemus moves from the darkness of sin to the True Light, Jesus Christ, because Nicodemus believes in Jesus as the Son of God.
4. Jesus evangelizes the Gospel as Living Water to the Samaritan Woman at the well, and she believes that Jesus is the Christ and the Son of God.
5. Jesus points out 4 testimonies that demonstrate Jesus is God the Son: God the Father, John the Baptist, Old Testament Scriptures, miracles/miraculous signs
6. Jesus demonstrates that He is the Bread of Life, an “I AM” statement, by Feeding over 5,000 people. Many followers turn away from Jesus because they cannot accept his hard teachings, but the disciples stick with Jesus because they believe Jesus is the Holy God.
7. The people are skeptic about Jesus, split between either “a good teacher” or “a deceiver,” but few will commit to Jesus as the Son of God. Jesus calls the people to a stronger faith, one that recognizes Jesus as the Christ and/or the Son of God.
8. Jesus demonstrates He is God because uses 2 “I AM” statements, which link back to God’s name, Yahweh, or “I AM WHO I AM.”
9. Jesus demonstrates that He is the Light of the World, an “I AM” statement, by giving light to a blind man. The miracle shows that those who are in sin are in darkness because they do not have the Light of the World.
10. Jesus teaches that He is the good shepherd, an “I AM” statement, and a biblical allusion to God that all the Jewish people will recognize, thanks to Psalm 23.
11. Jesus demonstrates that He is the Resurrection and the Life, an “I AM” statement, by raising Lazarus from the dead.
12. As Jesus enters Jerusalem, the Jewish form a parade and declare that Jesus is the Son of David and the King of Israel, titles only for the Messiah. John shows the reader Scripture foretelling of this event, further proof that Jesus is the Christ.
13. Christ’s betrayer is identified, and this further proves Jesus is the Messiah because Old Testament Scriptures, such as Psalm 41:9, foretell of the Messiah having a betrayer.
14. Jesus demonstrates He is God by teaching He is the only way to the father, as well as the only way to even see the Father, using an “I AM” statement. Jesus also displays Himself as the God the Son by depicting the Trinity, with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
15. Jesus demonstrates that He is God by teaching that He is the Vine (an “I AM” statement), the Father is the Gardener, and the Christians are the branches.
16. Jesus is shown as God the Son because He sends God the Holy Spirit from God the Father.
17. Jesus is displayed as the Son of God because He calls God His Father in an intimate way.
18. Jesus shows that He is in control of the Jewish trials because God is the one who gives the Jewish leaders the authority they are in.
19. Jesus shows that He is in control because He explains to Pilate that the only reason why Pilate is in charge is because God gave him authority. Jesus also is seen as the Christ because He fulfills prophecy and serves as Penal Substitution for sin.
20. Jesus rises from the dead, and His disciples and followers go from calling Jesus “Rabbi” and “Teacher” to “Lord” and “God.” For the disciples, the resurrection was the ultimate sign Jesus was the Messiah and Son of God.
21. The large catch of large fish is a post-resurrection miracle that further proves to the disciples that Jesus is the Lord God.

Alright, the next step is to group them together into similar themes or similar messages. Now I was taught a good outlines has neither too many points nor too few points, or a good outline has neither too many section or too few sections. This became a problem for because of the latter. Every time I tried to outline it, I ended up shoving a bunch of chapters into a single section. But I tried to look past this. I didn’t want a hermeneutical rule to be stronger than good theology. Maybe if the theology is good, it doesn’t matter if the hermeneutical rule is broken. So the first one I tried was to group was by Christ’s “life stages,” or by time. Once again, the bullet numbers are the chapter numbers.

Outlined by the Life of Christ
1-10. The Ministry of the Christ (3-4 years)
11. Transition from the Ministry to the Passion (1-2 days)
12-21. The Passion of the Christ (1 week)

This outline has many strengths, of because of the many strengths, this one is the one I like the most, despite its shortcomings. One of its biggest strengths is that it cuts the Gospel of John in half, and the halfway point is the perfect transition. Another good sign of an outline is that it is no lop-sided, and this outline definitely does not lop-side the Gospel of John. The Ministry of the Christ is 10 chapters long. The Passion of the Christ is 10 chapters longs. That one chapter that serves as the halfway marker is the Resurrection of Lazarus. The Resurrection of Lazarus is part of The Ministry of Christ because He is serving people to bring them to believe in Him. The Resurrection of Lazarus also is part of The Passion of the Christ because it foreshows that Jesus will die and be raised up. Another reason I like this outline is because you could rename the section titles, and they would still contain the same chapters. For example, you could name the outline “Outlined by Location.” Chapters 1-10 would be labeled “Israel” because Jesus ministers in Judea, Samaria and Galilee. Chapter 11 would be labeled “Perea” because the Resurrection of Lazarus takes place in Perea. Chapters 12-21 would be labeled “Jerusalem” because all 10 chapters (for the most part) take place in Jerusalem only. Another example would be renaming the outline “Outlined by Time” Chapters 1-10 is “The Years,” Chapter 11 is “Day,” Chapter 12-21 is “week.” A third reason I like this outline is that all the sections are consistant with John’s purpose. All the sections portray Jesus as the Christ and the Son of God. What are the problems with this outline? Like I said above, it bunches too many chapters into one section. 10 chapters for one section is a lot, especially for a book with 21 chapters. On a similar note, 1 chapter is too small for a section, especially if the other 2 sections have ten chapters. Speaking of an unbalance, another fault is the time is unbalanced. There’s not a good balance if you go from years, to days, to weeks. If you were to go back the “location outline,” the balance within “Israel” and “Jerusalem” is not good either. Only once does Jesus go to Samaria in “Israel.” And a couple times in “Jerusalem” Jesus is outside of Jerusalem, like in Bethany or by the Sea of Galilee. But I still feel like this is nit-picky, and next to the pros of the outline, the cons seem like nothing.

Still, I tried to think up of a way outline this Gospel in another way. On one hand, if my biggest problem with the first outline was that the sections were too big, I had to figure out a way to make the sections smaller. On the other hand, if one of the things I liked about the previous outline was the transition in chapter 11, so I had to figure out a way to keep it. The best way I could think of keeping the transition was to think up another transition similar to the one in chapter 11. In order to do this, I looked at different interpretations and different lessons learned from John 11. By doing so, I came up with an outline that outlines the Gospel Book by the numbers of followers Jesus had. I came up with this.

Outline by Number of Followers
1-5. Thousands of followers (5,000+)
6. Transition from thousands of followers (5,000+) to tens of followers (70-90)
7-10. Tens of followers (70-90)
11. Transition from tens of followers (70-90) to hundreds of followers (100-600)
12-21. Hundreds of followers (100-600)

This outline does need a bit more explaining. As you can guess, one way I looked at story of the Resurrection of Lazarus was at the great increase of followers. That immediately reminded me of another great change of numbers when it came to Christ’s followers. It wasn’t an increase, but a decrease. In chapter 6, many followers leave because they cannot accept Christ’s hard teachings. So I tried to see this as 2 transitions. While the generic titles of sections, such as “tens,” hundreds,” and “thousands” do not need great explaining, maybe the more specific numbers do. But before I explain them, let me say these are rough estimates, which means they were rounded. The “thousands” number of “5,000+” I got from the Feeding of the 5,000, obviously. I chose “70-90” for the tens because we know at this point in the Life of Christ Jesus sends out 72 disciples to minister to the people (see Luke 10) but it can’t be in the hundreds. For the “hundreds” I chose “100-600” because we know Jesus appeared to over 500 believers after the resurrection (see 1 Corinthians 15) but we also know there are only 120 in Jerusalem during Pentecost (see Acts 2). This outline has strengths. First, it gives us more sections. We went from 3 sections to 5 sections. Second, it gives us a better spread of chapters…well, at least better than the last outline. Yet each strength of this outlines has weaknesses, and then some more. First, while it gives us more sections, it doesn’t give us too many more sections. 3 sections to 5 sections is not a big change. On that note, the sections don’t exactly divide the material better. For starters, it only gets rid of one of the big sections of 10 chapters, but it also leaves the other big section of 10 chapters. Next, the chapter divisions are far from even. If written out, the chapter divisions would be 5-1-4-1-10. Even without the transition chapters, it’s 5-4-10. These are far from even. At least the last outline was closer to even. As I argued with chapter 11 above, chapter 6 alone is not good enough to be its own section, even if it is 70 verses long. As I stated with one of the negatives with the last outline, these titles don’t fully do a good. In chapter 1, Jesus only has 5-6 followers. In the first half of chapter 2, Jesus has 5-13 followers. Chapter 1 and half of chapter 2 is far from thousands of followers. My last argument against it would be the theology behind it. Did Jesus ever measure His ministry’s success by number of followers? Far from it. It would seem like more often Jesus called His followers to be more sincere and serious about their faith, even if it mean losing several followers. If Jesus didn’t measure His ministry by His followers, then neither shall we.

Running out of ideas, I “cheated” and I turned to commentaries. And I do use the term “cheated” loosely. Whether that was “cheating” or not in Bible College varied among your professors. Some professors did call it cheating because they claimed that you should be able to outline it yourself by just reading it, and you shouldn’t need any help, especially from commentaries. Other professors say that it’s not cheating, but proper research. In fact, you should check commentaries to see if you are right or not. Coincidentally, these professors were the professors who would cut and paste the commentaries’ outlines in their PowerPoint when teaching. Well, I am going to side with the other professors and look at what a couple commentaries say.

The first commentary I want to look at is The Bible Reader’s Companion. The reason I am showing you this is not because it’s a good outline, or at least it’s not the best outline, but because it does kind of verify my first outline. Now because it is very similar to my outline, it’s going to have the same weaknesses as my first outline, the biggest one would being the sections are too big (also note that I am only going to show you the main points, not the subpoints). But at the same time, it has the same strengths. So let’s take a look at it.

The Bible Reader’s Companion Outline
1-12. Public Ministry
13-21. Private Ministry

From the start you can see the problems I had with this outline. There’s not enough sections. Because there is not enough sections, there are too many chapters within a section. Yet it works. The first 12 chapters of John all show the Public Ministry of Jesus. In those chapters, Jesus is seen multiple times teaching to large crowds. All his teachings and miracles are done in a public place where everyone can see, like a synagogue or a temple (see John 18:20,21). The last 9 chapters, chapters 13 to 21, show the Private Ministry of Christ. Remember that John 13-17 is all behind the close doors of the Upper Room where the Last Supper takes place. Most of John 18 and John 19 is Jesus privately talking to his accusers, both the Jewish accusers and the Roman accusers. In the last 2 chapters of John, John 20 and 21, Jesus only appears to the followers, which are only a few hundred. Once again, this is not the best outline because of too few and too big section breakdowns. But it does show it is possible to have a working outline with few sections breakdowns.

The next outline comes from Willmington’s Bible Handbook. This outline is better than the last outline, but it’s still lacking that good quality I am looking for. It’s better because it’s more specific than the last outline. It has more sections. At the same time, it’s still lacking in places, such as even splits between sections. Once again, I’m only going to show you the main points, not the whole outline. Now you’re going to notice a few different things about this outline. This commentary is not as concerned about chapter barriers. Most Bible scholars say this is good. So it will divide by verses. You are also going to notice that this commentary will use a more theological approach to outlining it. I think this is a plus, and I’ll explain it once you see it.

Willmington’s Bible Handbook Outline
1:1-1:18. Jesus the Eternal Son of God.
1:19-18:11. Jesus the Earthly Son of God
18:12-19:42. Jesus the Executed Son of God
20:1-21:25. Jesus the Exalted Son of God.

The first thing I like about this outline (and this is the reason I am showing it) is that the outline keeps in mind the purpose John is writing and the picture of Jesus John is painting. This outline remembers that John is trying to show us Jesus is the Son of God. So in outlining the book, it wants the outline to also show Jesus is the Son of God. So the commentary went into outlining John by asking, “How does John show Jesus as the Son of God?” And the outline shows the answer. The first 18 verses of John shows Jesus as the Son of God eternal with God the Father Himself. The commentary believes John 1:19 to John 18:11 shows Jesus as the Son of Man just as much as the Son of God. To them, this section shows the duality between Christ’s deity and Christ’s humanity. And I can partially see it too. The next thing the commentary notices is that half of chapter 18 and all of chapter 19 is the Son of God being put on trial, which leads to his execution. Then, the last 2 chapters show Jesus exalted through his resurrection. Of course, my biggest beef with this outline is the lack of balance in the sections. The first section is 18 verses, roughly one half of the first chapter of John. The next section is 16 whole chapters and 2 half chapters, totaling 17 chapters. The third section is half of chapter 18 and all of chapter 19, totaling 1 ½ chapters. The last section is 2 chapters, the only section with whole chapters. If you’re following and keeping score, the chapter splits are ½ – 17 – 1 ½ – 2. There’s the lack of even chapter divisions. Also, there’s too much weight on the “earthly son of God.” I don’t think it really tells what all happens within those chapters.

The outline I liked best is from the Bible Exposition Commentary. Just take a look.

Bible Exposition Commentary Outline
I. OPPORTUNITY for Jesus to present Himself (ch. 1-6)
A. Jesus presents Himself to the disciples (ch. 1-2)
B. Jesus presents Himself to Nicodemus (ch. 3)
C. Jesus presents Himself to the Samaritans (ch. 4)
D. Jesus presents Himself to the Jewish leaders (ch. 5)
E. Jesus presents Himself to the Jewish people (ch. 6)
II. OPPOSITION over conflicts between Jesus and the Jewish leaders (ch. 7-12)
A. Conflicts over Moses (ch. 7)
B. Conflicts over Abraham (ch. 8)
C. Conflicts over the Messiah (ch. 9-10)
D. Conflicts over miracles and signs (ch. 11-12)
III. OUTCOME of Jesus and the people (ch. 13-21)
A. The disciples believe and accept Jesus (ch. 13-17)
B. The Jewish leaders do not believe and reject Jesus (ch. 18-19)
C. Jesus is victorious (ch. 20-21)

Let me first explain the reason I put the sub-points in this time. First, the sub-points help better explain why the commentary used these section divisions. Second, this outline needs the sub-points, for the outline would make no sense without them. Immediately I like this outline because it gets rid of all the weaknesses of the past outlines. First of all, it seems like it has the right amount of section divisions. The most we’ve been able to divide the book into is 5 sections, and the least amount of divisions is 2 divisions. We’ve gotten 3 section divisions before, so 3 seems to be the right amount. Second, I like how these sections fairly even divide the chapters. The first section, the “opportunity” section, is 6 chapters long. The second section, the “opposition” chapter, is also 6 chapters long. Sections 1 are 2 are equal. I really like how the public ministry of Jesus is evenly divided. The last section, the “outcome” section is the only big section, with 9 chapters. But considering that most outlines insist on putting chapters 13-21 (even 12-21!) together, it’s best to just leave it like that. But the sub-points help make sense of that.

Speaking of sub-points, the strengths listed above are also true for the sub-points. There is not too many or too few sub-points. Each section has no more than 5 sub-points, and no fewer than 3 sub-points. Each sub-section does not have too many chapters in them. Most sub-points either have 1 or 2 chapters. The one sub-point that has 5 chapters I don’t see as a problem because most commentaries do group all those chapters together. What I’m trying to say is this outline is well balanced outline, and that’s why I like it so much.

Another reason this outline works is because it also carries all the strengths of the other outlines. The “opportunity” section and the “opposition” section are the Ministry of Christ, more specifically the Public Ministry of Christ. The “outcome” section is the Passion of the Christ, or the Private Ministry of the Christ. The “opportunity” section and the “opposition” section focus on Christ’s journeys through Galilee, Samaria and Judea, while the “outcome” section focuses on Jerusalem. The last section also accurately reflects how many followers are with Jesus at the time. Finally, the beauty of this outline is that is does go back to how John is viewing Jesus in his Gospel account. This outline does focus on Jesus as the Son of God. The “opportunity” section is Jesus presenting Himself as the Son of God. In the “opposition” section, all the arguments roughly trace back to the fact that Jesus is the Son of God. The outcomes also go back to Jesus as God the Son. The disciples believe and accept Jesus as the Son of God. The Jewish leaders do not believe and reject Jesus as the Son of God. Jesus is victorious because He is God.

So in conclusion to the outlines, I am going to adapt The Bible Exposition Commentary’s outline as the best outline of John. If we need to pick an original outline, or a shorter outline, it would be the first outline I showed you.

So let’s quickly use the outline to tell the story of John. Ever since Jesus began his ministry at the age of 30, he presented Himself to people as the Son of God, such as the disciples, Nicodemus and the Samaritan Woman at the well. Through His presentation as the Son of God, most people believe and come to faith, while others simply listen to Him and ask Him questions out of curiosity. The climax of Jesus presenting Himself comes in chapter 6, when Jesus starts teaching harder teachings. Many of His followers cannot accept these harder teachings. So his number of followers greatly drops, and now there are 3 views of Jesus. There are the believers, there are the skeptics and there are the adversaries. The believes accept Christ’s teachings and follow Him. The skeptics are unsure about Jesus and question Him. The adversaries oppose Jesus and doubt Him. So Jesus has to go from presenting Himself to defending Himself, as the opposition increases. Jesus defends Himself with Abraham, Moses, the prophets and miracles. The results are the same. Some people believe and come to faith, others do not believe and reject, and yet others are skeptics who are 50/50. But near the end of Christ’s earthly life, that last week, there is no middle ground for the skeptics to stand on. They either have to follow the decision of the disciples by believing and receiving Jesus, or they have to follow the path of the Jewish leaders by not believing and rejecting Jesus. Some come to faith, after seeing the resurrection of Lazarus, but others do not in fear of being excommunicated from the Jewish faith. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the sign that choosing believing faith in Jesus was the right answer, for it is the one that comes with eternal life.

The perfect transition from outline to theology is talking about other structural details. Why is the perfect transition? A lot of people have attempted to outline John by using common themes found in John’s Gospel. The only problem is these outlines tend to either be topical (as opposed to chronological), messy or confusing. So instead of showing you the outlines that are made, I’m just going to list where the structures appear.

The first and foremost common theme would be the “I AM” statements. I made sure we followed the 7 “I AM” statements carefully. The “I AM” statements are probably the most explicit proof in the Gospel of John that Jesus is God. First and foremost, the term, in the Jewish and Christian mindset, immediately goes back to the name God gave Moses to give to the Israelites in Exodus 3:14- “I AM WHO I AM.” But second, each “I AM” statement would finish with a quality or characteristic that both Jews and Christians would relate to God. Thus, in every “I AM” statement, Jesus twice declares He is God. The 1st century Jews recognized this, and every Christian of every century recognizes this. I hope you were able to follow all the “I AM” statement, but just in case you were unable, here they are-

The 7 “I AM” Statements
1. I AM the Bread of Life (6:35)
2. I AM the Light of the World (8:12)
3. Before Abraham was born, I AM (8:58)
4. I AM the Good Shepherd/Door (10:11,14/10:7,9)
5. I AM the Resurrection and the Life (11:25)
6. I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life (14:6)
7. I AM the Vine (15:1,5)

Going along with the theme of 7s, there is another 7 in Gospel of John. (Some scholars have suggested John likes the number 7, for when he writes Revelation, there are 7 churches, 7 seals, 7 trumpets and 7 bowls.) The other 7 is the seven miracles, the 7 signs or the 7 miraculous signs. Obviously, I have to start out by defining the term. The Greek term is semeion. Some translations translate it “miracle,” while others translate it as “sign.” The NIV compromises and translates it “miraculous sign.” On the surface level, this may seem redundant, but maybe this redundancy reveals a great theology behind John. Of all the miracles Jesus has done, he picks seven, and he picks his seven very carefully. All 7 miracles serve as signs to the message Jesus is preaching. For example, Jesus uses the Feeding of the 5,000 to preach that He is the Bread of Life. Another good example is John retells Jesus healing a blind man to put in light Christ’s teaching the He is the Light of the World. All 7 Miracles serve as a sign that Jesus is the Son of God. Even the miracles are central to this message.

The 7 Miraculous Signs Jesus Performed in John
1. Water to wine at the wedding in Cana (2:1-11)
2. Healing the Royal Official’s son of a fever (4:43-54)
3. The Invalid Man walks at the Pool of Bethesda (5:1-15)
4. Feeding the 5,000 (6:1-15)
5. Walking on Water (6:16-24)
6. The Blind Man sees at the Pool of Siloam (9:1-7)
7. Lazarus is raised from the dead (11:1-44)

Both the 7 “I AM” Statements the 7 Miraculous Signs demonstrate Jesus is the Son of God, but what else displays Jesus as the Son of God? If John truly is trying to get across the message that Jesus is the Son of God, what else would John include? Indeed, John does insert a lot of evidence that Jesus is the Son of God, so much that if I were to cover it all, it would at least double what I have already written now. So I will quickly cover a few quick topics. Just as we saw early God Sightings in John 1, I will once again bring you to John 1 to look closer at the titles given to Jesus: “the Word” and “the True Light”. In Bible Quizzing, quizmasters made the quizzers say “Word” or “True Light” in the appropriate places and not simply “God” or “Jesus.” I think they made the right decision, both for quizzing and for theology.

The Word. John chooses to call Jesus the Word in order to use familiar terminology with both the Jews and the Greeks. By the 1st century AD, many Jews were now using the Aramaic term for word, memra, in place of God’s holy name, Yahweh, in order to prevent themselves from using God’s name in vein. Because they were doing so, a philosophy developed that the Word of God was equivalent to God Himself, or even that the Word of God is interchangeable with God. On the Gentile side of the coin, Greek philosophers were believed that the Word (Greek term logos) was in eternal, impersonal force that created everything, sustained everything, and ruled over everything. When John uses the term “Word,” John is using the best of both worlds to teach about Jesus. Jesus is the Word like the Greeks say because Jesus created everything, sustains everything, and rules over everything. Unlike the Greeks, Jesus is like the Word like the Jews say because He is the same personal God found in the Old Testament. The only correction John needs to make to the Jews is that Jesus is not interchangeable with God, or equivalent to God, but rather Jesus is His own entity. This is why John says that was with God AND the Word was God in John 1:1,2.

The True Light. Quickly go back and read John 1:5-8. Now read John 1:9-13. Does it look like “the light” John is talking about in both sections are the same light? I say it is not. In John 1:5-8, the light simply refers to moral goodness, and John 1:5-8 shows a spiritual battle between moral goodness and the darkness of sin and evil. The fate of this spiritual battle? The darkness of sin and evil does not understand it. In John 3, Jesus says that the light is rejected because men love the darkness so they can keep on with their evil deeds. By John 1:9-13, the light is now called the True Light because it no longer is talking about the moral goodness, but it is talking about a person, and that person is Jesus Christ. John 1:9-13 pretty much tells the reader that the light in John 1:5-8 was personified and took on a body. Not only is Jesus the Word Incarnate, but Jesus is also the Light Incarnate. Jesus is full of goodness (or sinless), just as much as God the Father is. Remember how John 1:5-8 tells a story of the light entering the world, but being rejected? John 1:9-13 parallels the story to foreshadow the fate of Jesus. Jesus will walk the same path as light. Jesus will enter the world, and then He will be rejected by the world, mainly because the people do not understand Him. Now, unlike the Word, John is more consistent in keeping up with this terminology for Jesus. Jesus refers to light in John 3, John 8 and John 9.

Of course there is more proof that Jesus is the Son of God in John 1, and if you want to look at that again, go back to my writings on John 1. But for those who just want a quick reminder, I will post the 8 God Sightings found in John 1-

God Sightings in John 1
1. Jesus explicitly stated as God, and is seen with God in the beginning (vs. 1-2)
2. Jesus is the creator of the universe, and Jesus gives life (vs. 3-4)
3. John the Baptist’s testimony: Lamb of God and Son of God (vs. 15-35)
4. Andrew and John’s testimony: Rabbi (vs.35-39)
5. Andrew’s testimony: Messiah (vs. 40-42)
6. Philip’s testimony: The One Moses and the Prophets foretold (vs. 43-46)
7. Nathanael’s testimony: Rabbi, Son of God, King of Israel (vs. 46-49)
8. Jesus gives a self-testimony: Son of Man (vs. 50-51)

Now, if we’re sticking with John 20:31 to look for theological themes that John is trying to draw out, remember that John wants to prove that Jesus is the Christ just as much as Jesus is the Son of God. So to accurately look at the theology of the Gospel of John, a examination of the Christ as found in the Gospel of John is necessary.

But first, we must look at the Jewish understanding of the Messiah by the time of Jesus. Obviously, the best way to start this would be to look at the Old Testament. The Old Testament promises a Messiah. This promise is made every time God makes a covenant with someone. In every Old Testament covenant, God promises land, seed and blessing. The ultimate fulfillment of the seed is the promised Messiah. This can be most explicitly seen in the Davidic Covenant, for God promises that the Messiah would be a kingly descendant from the line of David. After God makes this promise with David, that’s all the Old Testament can talk about. The most prevalent fact about the Messiah in the Old Testament is that the Messiah will come from David and would be a king like David. This becomes a problem when Israel and Judah are sent into exile. From the Assyrian captivity of Israel in 722 BC and the Babylonian captivity of Judah in 586 BC, there would always be someone over the Jews, whether it be the Persians, the Greek or the Romans. So how could the Messiah be a sovereign king over a sovereign nation if Israel and Judah were in exile? The Jews concluded that the Messiah had to be a political and militant Messiah. If the Messiah were to be a sovereign king over a sovereign nation, he would have to overthrow the reigning empire. But I will be clear that not every Jew believed the Messiah was to be political and militant. Some Jews watered down this messiah, simply making the Messiah the greatest Rabbi and the greatest Prophet that ever existed. Now this wasn’t the only debate the Jews had about the Messiah. The Messiah was a popular debate topic up to the time of Jesus. Many Jews would come to debate everything about the Messiah, from the origin to Messiah to the destiny of the Messiah.

Therefore, when John writes his Gospel, he adds to the debates and the discussions. John recalls Jesus correcting all these misconceptions about the Messiah. In John 7, the Jews debate whether or not the Messiah’s location origin will be known or not. Jesus answers that his true origin, heaven, is unknown because no one has been to heave. In John 12, when the Jewish leaders ask if the Son of Man will die or live eternally, Jesus replies that the Son of Man must die then be raised to eternal life. These are just a few examples, but I hope you see that not only does Jesus correct the understandings of the Messiah, but also proves how He is fulfilling them. If the teachings and corrections from Jesus aren’t enough, then just look at the testimonies. Andrew, Philip, Nathanael, the Samaritan Woman at the Well and Martha all declare that Jesus is the Messiah. And that’s even before Jesus rose from the dead! All 5 of these people knew Jesus was the Messiah just by being around Jesus.

I will draw you back to the testimonies in John 5. Once again, I will not repeat an explanation for all of them. If you want the explanation, go back to my writings on John 5. I will simply give a list of the 4 Testimonies found in John 5. These testimonies demonstrate that Jesus is both the Christ and the Son of God.

4 Testimonies about Jesus as found in John 5
1. God the Father’s testimony (vs. 31,32,37,38)
2. John the Baptist’s testimony (vs.33-35)
3. Self-testimony through miracles and miraculous signs (vs. 36)
4. Old Testament Scripture’s testimony (vs.39-47)

Now I know my professors and classmates from LBC would be asking, “Where’s the application?” John does give an application right in his theme verse. It’s the most repeated verb in John 20:31. The application is simply to believe. In the Greek, John uses the Greek verb for believe, pisteuō, 98 times. Now, if you’re reading the NIV, you’re not going to be able to count 98t times the word “believe” because half the time the NIV will translate it “put their faith into” just to mix it up. But interesting enough, the Greek noun for faith, pistis, is never used in the Gospel account. Perhaps John does not want us to see belief as something we have, but something we do. If you recall, throughout the book of John, John shows the contrast between belief and unbelief, or the contrast between believers and unbelievers. In the end of John 2, Jesus performs miracles, but the people still do not believe that He is the Christ or the Son of God. They just like watching him do the miracles. In John 6, thousands claim to be followers of Jesus, but when Jesus cranks up the teachings to harder teachings, many stop following Jesus. In John 7-11, John shows that a person cannot simply pick and choose what believe in Jesus. A true believers has to believe that Jesus is both the Christ and the Son of God. Those who don’t believe both, like the skeptics in John 7-11 who believe Jesus is only a rabbi or a prophet, aren’t real followers. John continues to up the ante by insisting that truly believing doesn’t just believe that Jesus existed in history, but is also following the teachings of Jesus. What a perfect application for today. If you were to ask people in my generation and the next youngest generation what being a believing Christian is, they will pretty much tell you it’s adopting the Christian church’s faith statement as their own. This means that they will believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and they will believe that He is sinless, but they won’t love their neighbor, they won’t love their enemies, they won’t do anything Jesus taught them to do. It’s just like Jesus said: people are presented with the light, but they turn it down for the darkness so they can keep with their deeds. If anything becomes more directly applicable to you, I hope it’s the word “believe.” Read this Gospel and ask yourself, “Do I truly believe?” Don’t just believe what you want to believe about Jesus, but believe what Jesus said and what Jesus did, and do likewise.

I better wrap this up before it gets any longer. I will close my conclusion to the Gospel of John the same way I closed my introduction to the Gospel of John. Before I began looking at each chapter individually, I asked you to ask yourself 3 questions reading through John. First, “Who does Jesus claim He is?” Second, “Who does those pro-Jesus, or for Jesus, claim He is?” Third, “Who does those anti-Jesus, or against Jesus, claim Jesus was?” If you sought after these questions, you would have found every time the answer was “Son of God.” Throughout the book, Jesus claimed to be the Son of God, using miraculous signs, using “I AM” statements and even by calling God “the Father.” Those pro-Jesus claimed Jesus was God. The Twelve Disciples (Judas Iscariot is debatable), Nathanael, Nicodemus, the Samaritans (including the Samaritan Woman), Martha and Mary Magdalene all claimed Jesus was the Son of God. Even those anti-Jesus, those against Jesus, knew Jesus claimed to be the Son of God. And John reveals they knew it, too, and that’s why they wanted him dead! Jesus, Son of God or not, was a threat to them and their way of life. They were losing disciples to Jesus, and they became jealous. Thus, they went after him, using the claims to be the Son of God against him. Without a doubt, everyone in this book knew Jesus was the Son of God, and I hope you now know it, too.

Scholars have debated whether or not the Book of John is to be used for evangelistic purpose (to convert non-believers to Christianity) or for discipleship purposes (to help grow and strengthen a Christian’s faith). I believe it can be used for both. Anyone who does not believe in Jesus will believe in Jesus as the Christ and Son of God from the evidence of the signs. Those who already do believe in Jesus will receive strong and persuasive proof that they are correct in their beliefs and they should stay strong in continuing to believe Jesus is the Christ and the Son of God. And for both, as John says, both will receive eternal life. I hope that you have enjoyed this walk through the Gospel of John, I hope you learned something, and most importantly, I hope that you have either gained a new faith or continued to believer more than ever that Jesus is God.

John 6: The Real, True Story of the Feeding of the 5,000

Nothing like a controversial title to get your attention. Don’t get me wrong, I do fully believe in the inspiration, infallibility, inerrancy, authority and revelation of the Scriptures. But remember we agreed that John is writing his book to an audience that he assumes has read and understood the synoptic Gospels. Thus, John writes about the new, unique stories of the life of Jesus. Yet John decides to include the Feeding of the 5,000, which all 3 synoptic Gospel writers also include. Yes, this is the only miracle (and possibly the only story period) that all 4 Gospel writers include in their Gospel. Broadly speaking, why would all 4 Gospel writers include the story of this miracle? More specifically speaking, why would John include the miraculous story, and how does it add to his purpose?

Well, let’s do some pre-thinking brainstorming here. Let’s do so by answering this question: How has movies, television (both TV shows and movies made for TV), music, books, magazines and other forms of media depict this story? This was the answer I came up with: “Unless the source of media is sticking to staying true to a certain Gospel account, most of the time, the media will combine all 4 Gospel accounts to get a full picture.” Notice the preamble I used: “Unless the source of media is sticking to staying true to a certain Gospel account…” Well, we are sticking to staying true to a Gospel account, more specifically, John. So we’re going to want to pick out the unique points that John mentions. After all, he wants to give the readers a fresh look at Jesus. The biggest difference I see in the book is the length of the story. While the synoptic Gospel writers take 12-15 verses to tell the story, John takes 70 verses! You might be thinking to yourself, “Well, that’s because you are including every verse of the chapter for John’s account, while for the synoptic accounts, you’re only taking the verses from the actual story.” I do that because I believe while the synoptic Gospel writers simply summarize the events of the pericope (a story from the life of Jesus) and then move onto the next pericope, John connects the rest of the events (mainly the teaching in 6:22-71) back to the Feeding of the 5,000. Like I said in the introduction, if John repeats a story from the synoptic Gospels, he’s going to bring new information with it, like a teaching. So once again, I’m just going to highlight a couple differences in the actual story, but mainly focus on the preaching afterward.

The first difference I want everyone to notice is that Christ’s response to the hunger of the people. John’s Gospel doesn’t mention this, but all 3 synoptic Gospels say that the disciples said to Jesus that the people were probably getting hungry from listening to Jesus in a remote area for so long. Their idea is to send them away to get their own food. In the 3 synoptic Gospels, Jesus says to the disciples, “You give them something to eat,” but John records Jesus saying in John 6:5, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” Does this mean that John got it wrong, and there is an error in the Bible? By no means! All you have to do is look at the next verse, John 6:6. Jesus is saying this to test the disciples. So what Jesus said, according to John, could be summarized, “You give them something to eat” because whatever Jesus said, he meant to bring to light the severity of the need. Actually, I believe that John’s different wording brings to light the disciples’ response. Mark is the only author to record that the disciples objected by claiming they didn’t have enough money. This objection and claim doesn’t make sense how they made the jump from Christ’s suggestion to feed them to the disciples’ claim that they didn’t have enough money. John clarifies that. John records Jesus suggesting they pay for this. Once again, this is Jesus bringing to light the severity of the situation. In order to give each person (the Bible records 5,000 men, but if there was at least 1 woman and 1 child for every man, that’s at least 15,000 people) at least 1 bite, it would take 200 denarii, or 8 months worth of pay, and even that would not fill the people. Things were dire.

The second difference I want to point out is the use of the disciples’ names. In Matthew, Mark and Luke, it simply says, “the disciples.” Jesus tells the disciples to give the people something to eat. The disciples tell Jesus there is not enough money. The disciples find a boy with 2 fish and 5 loaves of bread. John picks out specific disciples. Jesus speaks to Philip when he asks how to feed the people. Philip tells Jesus there is not enough money. Andrew finds a boy with 2 fish and 5 loaves of bread. This is not meant to be seen as John picking on people. Instead, this is to be seen as good character development to make the story telling have more of a real feeling. Instead of giving the generic group “the disciples” John picks out specific people, like Philip and Andrew to show the real-life interaction between Jesus and His disciples. And once again, if John has to re-tell a story, he’s going to do it in a new way, even if it is adding some details.

The third difference I see is the reaction of the crowd. As a matter of fact, neither Matthew, nor Mark, nor Luke records the reaction of the people in the crowd. But John does. John says that the people believed Jesus was The Prophet the Scriptures foretold about. John also tells the reader that they were planning to make Jesus king by force. Why would they do that? Imagine a politician running for president claiming that if he is elected president, he would feed everyone, whether it be handing out government-grown food, reimbursing everyone’s food bills, or simply giving everyone food stamps. I bet he would win the presidential race if he could prove his claim. Well, that’s what the crowd of 5,000 men saw. They saw a man feed them with very little food. It got them thinking, “If this man were our king, we would never go hungry ever again because he could feed the whole nation with whatever little food we had!” They loved this thought so much, they were willing to start a revolution to overthrow the Romans and make Jesus king, even if Jesus didn’t want it! But John also records Jesus knew about their intents, so he high-tailed it out of there!

Now the next story seems to “interrupt” the story of the Feeding of the 5,000, between the miracle and the teaching. It’s a famous story. It’s the story of Jesus walking on the water during a storm on the sea. This one isn’t in all 4 Gospel narratives, but it is in 3 of the 4: Matthew, Mark and John. Yet John seems to talk about the miracle the least. Once again, we ask ourselves, “Why would John include this story?” Well, first of all, it’s just the natural progression of events. After the Feeding of 5,000, the crowd is pressing on Jesus and His disciples. I can almost imagine Jesus shoving the disciples on the boat, yelling, “I’ll fend them off. Go on ahead without me. I’ll catch up!” And I bet the storm came up the minute a disciple said out loud, “How do you think Jesus is going to catch up with us?” Most likely, they thought he would go around the lake or take a different boat later on, but I’m sure the least likely response would be “Walk on water.” I would even more say this story is here for progression of events because Mark tells us that despite Jesus walking on water and calming the storm, they still don’t understand the miracle of the Feeding of the 5,000. This is the perfect segway into John 6:22-71, even if John doesn’t record it. But the second and just as important reason is for the disciples’ reaction because it fulfills John’s purpose. It’s interesting to see that although it answers John’s purpose, John does not record it, but Matthew does. So you don’t have to leave your place in John 6, I’ll put it up right here.

Matthew 14:33-
Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

Bam! There it is. When the disciples saw Jesus walking on water, they knew Jesus was the Son of God, or God the Son. Although John does not explicitly state it, John believes that through seeing this miracle, the reader will also see Jesus as God. Remember, John only puts 7 miracles in his book, and all of these miracles are to point to Jesus as the Son of God and God the Son. So we understand why the miracle of Jesus walking on water shows Jesus as God, but we still need to see how the Feeding of the 5,000 reveals Jesus to be God. So let’s begin in verse 22.

Meanwhile, while the disciples were sailing across the Sea of Galilee, and Jesus was walking across it (I always wondered if Jesus started walking while the crowd was pressing on him, and if so, I wonder what the crowd’s reaction was…), the crowd has been going to every town on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, looking for Jesus. They still have the intent of forcing him to be king so he can continue making lots of food out of very little food. I love their reaction when they finally find Jesus in the synagogue at Capernaum. It’s like they are saying, “Jesus! It just so happens all 5,000 of us men just so happened to be visiting Capernaum, and lo and behold, you are here! What a coincidence!” Jesus, instead of continuing to try to run away, confronts the people. Jesus basically says in John 6:26, “You’re not here to truly listen to my teaching and follow me. You’re only here to eat more food.” It would be like a youth leader confronting his youth group by saying, “You’re not here for Bible study. You’re just here to eat my snacks and play my games.”

Now the youth accused of such things might try to prove this wrong by playing along in Bible study, even fully participating in answering questions. So the crowd also plays along. They pretty much ask Jesus in John 6:28, “What are teaching, and how do we follow it?” Maybe they are truly playing along, too, hoping that if they do follow Christ’s teaching, He will truly give them more food. Jesus plays along, too, giving a simple answer: Believe in the One Sent. Obviously, the one sent is Jesus. Are you seeing a reoccurring theme of believing in Jesus as the Christ and the Son of God? John in 6 chapters has already driven home his purpose. But he’s not done yet, neither in this book nor in this chapter. He’s got a stronger statement to reveal Jesus is God in John 6. Let’s keep reading.

The crowd is sick of playing games by verse 30, but they don’t want to come out and say it, either. So, being the good Jews they are, they ask Jesus for a sign. You’d think they are completely forgetting the Feeding of the 5,000 that happened just a few verses earlier, but in fact, the opposite is true. They remember the Feeding of the 5,000 quite well, and they are trying to coax Jesus into doing it again. They even use the manna from heaven story in the Old Testament as an example. It’s like the crowd is saying, “Sure, we’ll believe in you, Jesus, but first give us a sign to prove you’re the One. Let’s see, Moses provided manna/bread from heaven as his sign, how about you provide more bread too?” 😀

Jesus isn’t falling for it. First, Jesus corrects the crowd by explaining it was not Moses who gave them bread, but rather God providing bread. Such an attitude reflects the Jews clinging on to the Law and the Lawgiver Moses, instead of God, the true author of the Law. Second, Jesus talks about a bread that gives life. Uh-oh. Another Samaritan Woman at the well incident is about to happen. The people believe that Jesus can provide a literal bread from heaven that can literally give eternal life. Just like the Samaritan Woman, they then demand of this bread. Jesus has the perfect response for that, and I’m going to record it right here.

John 6:35-
Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.”

There it is. There is our first occurrence of the 7 “I AM” statements in John, and what a better statement to start it with. This statement is rich with Jewish typology. First and foremost, when Jesus starts off this statement with I AM, the Jews are immediately linking it back to the Great I AM Yahweh. Second, as the Jews earlier in this chapter mention, Jesus is probably linking this back to the manna from heaven. Just as God provided physical bread for the people in the desert, so God provided spiritual bread for the people, who is Jesus Christ. Third, there is a connection to the table of showbread. The table of showbread was inside the tabernacle, on the north side of the Holy Place. On the showbread table was placed twelve loaves of unleavened, fine flour bread. A fresh batch of bread was placed on the table at the beginning of the week, and it would remain there until the end of the week. At the end of the week, the priests would come together to eat the bread together, and a new batch of bread would be put in its place. Jewish tradition says that God kept the bread fresh at all times, as fresh as it was right out of the oven. Another Jewish tradition says that all it takes is a piece of this bread the size of a bean to fill you up completely. The table of showbread had much symbolism to it. There were 12 loaves of bread for the 12 tribes of Israel. The table had a special reason for its location. It was in front of the Holy of Holies, in front of the presence of God. It symbolized that the 12 tribes of Israel were always in the presence of God. God would never forget Israel, and He was keeping a watchful eye over them. This image is further shown with the priests eating the bread together, because it shows God fellowshipping with the people. The bread was a reminder that God was the provider of Israel. All this symbolism transferred to Jesus when Jesus declared Himself “the Bread of Life.” Jesus is always in the presence of God. Jesus is always in the presence of His people, the church. Jesus never forgets His people, the church, and He always keeps a watchful, protective eye over them. Jesus always provides for them, too. Fourth, many times the prophets would mention the Messiah providing for the people food and drink. All these added up together give us strong evidence that Jesus was clearly declaring Himself as God.

Furthermore, in John 6:36-50, Jesus continues to demonstrate that He is God by once again talking about Himself as the Son and talking about God as the Father. Also, Jesus displays He is God because He shows the interlinking between God the Father, Yahweh, and God the Son, Jesus. The Son has everything and everyone the Father gives Him. The Father’s Will and the Son’s Will are one and the same. The Father’s Will is that the Son will raise up everyone who the Father gives the Son. The Father’s Will is that everyone who believes in the Son will have eternal life, which will be given by the Son (and if you remember chapter 5, that power has been given to the Son by the Father). Everyone who listens to the Father and obeys the Father listens to the Son and obeys the Son, and vice versa. No one has seen the Father except the Son, and the only way to see the Father is to see the Son. The interchangeability between the Father and Son makes the reader conclude the Father and the Son are one and the same, so Yahweh and Jesus are one and the same. Once again, the reader sees Jesus is not only the Son of God, but also God the Son!

Now we have a “fun” passage we need to deal with: John 6:51-59. Indeed passages like this are what the Catholics use to support transubstantiation, which is the belief that the bread and wine/grape juice literally becomes Christ’s body and blood respectively. Yet there a lot of holes to expose on using this passage to support transubstantiation. First, the Last Supper has not happened yet, so it can’t be a reference to communion (in fact, the Last Supper will not happen for another year). Second, the Law strictly forbid drinking literal blood, whether it be from man or animal (see Leviticus 3:17, 17:10-14). Third, if Jesus was to talk about the Lord’s Supper, it would only be among the disciples (as he did with the Last Supper) and not unbelievers, like the crowd he is facing now. Fourth, what Jesus is talking about in John 6:51-59 seems to be a requirement. If this were true, then anyone who has not taken communion is not saved and is in hell. Once again, I will bring up that one criminal crucified next to Jesus. He probably never took communion, yet Jesus acknowledged he would be in heaven. So the Last Supper can’t be a requirement. On that same note, this would be hinting that practicing a religious sacrament is what saves you, not believing in Jesus Christ. Last, this passage as a whole makes more sense figuratively than literally. It seems like Jesus rebukes the ones who take what he says literally (see John 6:60-64).

Unfortunately, while we have a strong defense against transubstantiation, we, however, only have a weak stance on any other point of view. The Bible Knowledge Commentary tries to parallel this passage with John 6:35, claiming “eating Christ’s body” means coming to Jesus, and “drinking Christ’s blood” means believing in Him. The New Bible Commentary believes “the body of Christ” refers to Christ’s human nature and “the blood of Christ” refers to Christ’s divine nature. The Bible Exposition Commentary and The Pulpit Commentary: St. John (Vol. 1) both sum up the metaphor along the lines of, “Just as food and drink gets absorbed into your body for your physical well-being, so you must absorb Jesus in your life for your spiritual well-being” (my paraphrase). There’s a just a few to name. Whatever the right interpretation may be, overall, most schools of thought believe that “eating Christ’s body” and “drinking Christ’s blood” in John 6:51-59 is simply a metaphor for Christ’s atoning death on the cross.

Don’t worry if either the John 6:36-50 or John 6:51-59 got you hung up in confusion. It did the same to the Jewish crowd following Jesus. One minute, the Jewish crowd thinks Jesus is talking about cannibalism. The next minute, the Jews are whining that Jesus is claiming to be all that, while he is simply the son of a carpenter. After both passages, it leaves Christ’s followers to say, “This is a hard teaching. Who can understand it?” (I must note that indeed most Bible translations use the word “disciples” in John 6:60 and 6:66, but in most of our minds, when we think of the disciples of Jesus, we automatically think of the Twelve Disciples Jesus chose. This cannot be the case, for in verse 67, Jesus turns to the Twelve Disciples. Remember that on top of the Twelve, Jesus had a great number of people who followed Jesus wherever Jesus went, even if these people weren’t specifically called by Jesus. To prevent confusion, I will call these people “followers” instead of “disciples.”) What did Christ’s followers mean in verse 60 when they said it was a hard teaching they didn’t understand? Perhaps it could have been they still didn’t comprehend or understand Christ’s teaching. In the parable of the sower, Jesus calls these people “the seed sown along the path” (see Matthew 13, Mark 4 & Luke 8). Maybe the followers meant it was hard to apply to their lives. Either way, they could no longer accept the teachings of Jesus. They were almost unbearable to the Jews to follow. Jesus explains in verse 65 that the reason they do not comprehend or the reason they cannot apply is that the Father has not enabled them. The result? John 6:66. I will put this verse up since this is going to be a climatic event that will totally change the ministry of Jesus, or at least those receiving the ministry.

John 6:66-
From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

The joke about this verse is that a verse that talks about people falling away from Jesus or people who aren’t Christian is a verse prescribed the verse number 666, the number given to the followers of the Antichrist during the Great Tribulation (who would also be non-Christians). Whether this was intentional or not, this verse does show an epic turning point. Before this verse, or even this chapter, Jesus indeed had a large following. Why did Jesus have to feed 5,000 men, and possibly 15,000-20,000 people? Because that’s how many people were following Jesus up to this point. Jesus had followers in the thousands. After this, Christ’s followers would only be in the hundreds, and maybe not even that (Acts 1:15 tells us that after the ascension, there was only 120). Before this point, it’s very possible people were just following Jesus because it was the popular thing to do. Jesus clearly states that following Him isn’t merely a fad. Jesus called for people to truly follow Him, or don’t follow Him it all. Most public relations experts would tell a public figure this is a bad move to make, for if you want to be popular, you need to appease to your fans. Jesus did not come to this earth to become a popular icon, so in no way was He going to appease to followers just to be liked. Jesus set out His life on earth to glorify the Father, and anyone who wanted to come along was more than welcome, but those who were not on the same path had no part in the ministry of Jesus.

Today celebrities are well aware that a majority of Americans are Christians, so they will appeal to their fans or “followers” by “practicing” Christianity. Politicians will go to church. Rappers will wear crosses around their neck. Athletes will take a knee in prayer after scoring a goal or points, such as a homerun or touchdown. Actors and actresses of both the small television screen and the big silver screen will throw somewhere in their speech accepting an award that they want to thank God or Jesus. Don’t get me wrong, I do believe some politicians, rappers, athletes, actors and actresses legitimately are believers giving God the glory. But at other times I can’t help but wonder if they are just jumping on the popularity bandwagon, knowing that they can earn fans or followers from the Christian faith by doing such things. Sure they might believe in the Jesus who fed 5,000 men, but do they believe in the Jesus that preached hard teachings, not just eating his body and drinking his blood, but also giving up your life, giving up riches of the world, and giving up a sinful lifestyle? Just like the people in John 6:66, when they faced with these teachings, they too might turn their backs and no longer follow Jesus. But the ones who stayed are the true believers.

That’s what we see in John 6:67-71. Jesus turns to the Twelve Disciples, and He pretty much asks them, “Are you going to leave me too?” It’s almost as if Jesus is saying, “Now’s your chance to leave if you want to.” I really love Simon Peter’s answer. Even though Simon Peter says it, you can tell all Twelve are behind him on this. To sum it all up, Peter says, “Yeah, your teaching is hard, but it’s still the truth, and we know it’s the truth because You are the Holy God. So we’re committed to being your disciples.” I will say it again, I really love Peter’s answer. It’s a great application for Christians today in the 21st century. Indeed, the teachings of Jesus are hard. They call us to be holy not in our actions alone, and not just words and actions, but in actions, words and thought. They call us to constantly confess and repent of sins in our life. They call us not to lift up ourselves, but to lift up God in glory. They teach us to love God and others before ourselves. They call us to reject riches if it puts someone in poverty. None of this is easy, and they are especially hard with a sinful nature which wants all of them. Our world tries to live by this philosophy: “If it’s too hard to do, all we have to simply do is stop believing, and then we can stop following them and take the easy path.” But as Simon Peter revealed, when we entertain such thinking, we are really fooling ourselves. Simply choosing not to believe in something does not mean it ceases to exist. I can stop believing gravity exists, but that doesn’t mean I’ll start floating away because I stopped believing gravity. Gravity is still there, whether I believe it or not. The same is true for God. God still exists, whether people choose to believe it or not, and choosing not to believe in God does not lead to escape of God’s Law. But many people, as the people in John 6:66, believe that when God’s teaching gets too tough, we can walk away so we can take the easy path. On the contrary, it makes us guiltier because we are consciously aware of the Law, yet refuse to follow it.

I must also point out that Simon Peter calls Jesus “The Holy One of God.” Once again, Peter’s testimony is the proof that Jesus is God because you can’t get any more straight forward than the Holy One of God. To be the Holy One of God, you must be God. It fits John’s purpose perfectly. Speaking of John’s purpose, let’s conclude John 6 by going back to my introduction to the chapter and answering the broad and specifics of why John, as well as the other Gospel writers, decided it was necessary to mention the Feeding of the 5,000.

Broadly speaking, why did all 4 Gospel writers decide their accounts of the life of Jesus needed the Feeding of the 5,000? Think about the other miracles Jesus performed. Jesus healed the blind. The only people who can really relate to this are blind or visually impaired people who desire to see with 20/20 vision. Jesus healed the deaf, but the only people who could relate to this or the blind or those who need a hearing aid, both who wish to hear on their own. Jesus healed the mute, but the only ones who could relate are the mute, or possibly those who stutter, has a lisp or some other speech impediment. Jesus healed the paralyzed, but the only people who can relate are those who need the help of a wheelchair, crutches or a walk to move around. Well what about those who see, hear, talk and move perfectly? How can they relate? All people need food. Most people can’t go more than a month without food. There are roughly 800 million people around the world who are starving, but even if you’re not one of those 800 million, you’ve probably felt hunger before, when you’ve gone a long time without food and your stomach starts growling. Everybody can relate to needing food, so everyone can relate to needing to be fed. Thus, everyone can relate to the Feeding of the 5,000. Therefore, all the Gospel writers including the Feeding the 5,000 narrative because it doesn’t matter if you are Jew, Roman, Greek or Christian, everyone needs food and everyone Jesus to be that ultimate provider.

Specifically speaking, why did John decide to include the Feeding of the 5,000, especially after Matthew, Mark and Luke did it before him? We’ve already discussed the broad reasons, but to get to specific reasons, we got to look at John’s purpose and portrayal of Jesus. What’s John’s purpose? John wrote the book of John to persuade Christians [to continue] to believe Jesus is the Son of God and Christ. How is John portraying Jesus? Jesus is the Son of God, or God the Son. So how does the Feeding of 5,000 demonstrate to the reader Jesus is the Son of God, or God Himself. We can go with the obvious answer of “Only God could manipulate nature to fully feed all those people with such little food,” but let’s look deeper than that. How does John add to the story what the synoptic Gospel writers did not? Giving names and revealing Christ’s intent as well as the crowd’s intent seems kind of petty. The best answer is that John demonstrates that the Feeding of the 5,000 was a small part of a bigger picture. Since the pericope of the miracle is only about 1/5 of the chapter, it almost seems as if the miracle is only the introduction, or the attention-getter, of the bigger message Jesus wants to preach. It is like the miracle is only the visual aid to His teaching. So to look into how it reveals Jesus as Christ and God the Son, we have to look into the message. What does it say? It makes Jesus and God one and the same. It makes salvation and eternal life only possible through Jesus. All these add to up to Jesus being portrayed as the Son of God. But suppose we wanted to narrow it down to one verse. If the miraculous Feeding of the 5,000 was the introduction, then the thesis of the chapter would be John 6:35, where Jesus declares “I AM the Bread of Life.” Everything before the verse points forward to this verse, and everything after points back to the verse.

After 6 chapters of John, we’ve already gone through 5 miracles, and only have 2 remaining. But in John 6, we reached our first “I AM” statement and have 6 more to go. So as we continue through John, let’s focus less on miracles and more around the teachings that surround the “I AM” statements about Jesus.

John 5: Not Just A Guitarist

The title for this chapter is probably going to take some explaining. The only ones who will probably get it is from my generation, and even then, not everyone in my generation will know what I’m talking about. “John 5” is the stage name for John Williams Lowery, who was the lead guitarist for David Lee Roth, Marilyn Manson, and Rob Zombie. I did not know about John 5 until Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock put on their game “Black Widow of La Porte” by John 5 (featuring rhythm guitarist Jim Root). Every time I heard or I played this song, I would always think of John 5 as in the book of John chapter 5. But now every time I read the book of John chapter 5, I think of John 5 the guitarist and the song “Black Widow of La Porte.” Let’s talk less about the guitarist and more about the book and chapter.

John 5:1 is proof I’m pretty sure this supplemental Gospel was written topically and not chronologically. If you read to the end of John 4, the last place you leave Jesus is Cana in Galilee. At the beginning of John 5, Jesus is in Jerusalem in Judea. The best transition we get is “some time later.” But let’s talk less about time and more about location. More specifically than Jerusalem, Jesus is at out pool by the Sheep Gate, which has the name Bethesda (or Bethzatha or Bethsaida, depending on what manuscript your translation used). The name literally means, “House of Healing,” so you know where this story is going. The setting is a sad story, as the place is crawling with the ill, the injured and the disabled. Why?

Now’s the perfect time to point out John 5 is missing verse 4. Why is it missing? Verse 4 can only be founded in the later manuscripts. All the discovered early manuscripts don’t have it. Most likely, John never wrote verse 4. Later on, an editor put in it to explain the significance of the pool because people forgot the importance. So let’s look at verse 4.

John 5:4-
“From time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease he had.”

So legend had that every now and then (and it was a rare every now and then), an angel would come down and stir up the waters. When the angel stirred the waters, the waters had healing powers, but only enough power to heal one person. The first one in the water would be healed. You might be thinking, “Then why don’t you just sit the pool the whole time?” It didn’t work like that. It would have to be the first one in the pool after the water was stirred, not during or while the pool was being stirred. Besides, if you sat in the pool waiting for a rare occurrence, you’d have more wrinkles than a raisin and a prune combined. Now this legend isn’t as pure as you think. First, I will note that this was a local legend, local meaning only the people of the city believed it. You probably couldn’t find any other believers in the rest of Judea, Samaria, Galilee or anywhere else in the world. Second, the legend was brought about by the Greeks while they were in the land, not the Jews. You will find nowhere in the Old Testament, New Testament, or even the Jewish Talmud (commentary on the Torah) that would support this legend. The Bible Knowledge Commentary points out that this is unbiblical because it’s so cruel to make disabled people compete for healing. So it’s not a Jewish legend, but rather a Greek legend. It has to be a Greek legend, because when the Greeks were in the land, they worshipped snakes there. As a matter of fact, a lot of them worshipped snakes on poles, just like the Bronze snake on the pole Moses made while the Israelites were wandering in the desert. In the Greek legend, it probably wasn’t an angel that stirred the waters, but their god of healing, which is also symbolized by a snake on a pole. (And that is why hospitals and ambulances use a snake on a pole as their symbol. It is the Greek god for healing.) When the Jews took back the land, the local Jews fixed the legend, replacing the Greek god with an angel of the Lord. It really doesn’t matter where the legend came from. The point to be to made is that the disabled people were willing to anything to be healed, even if it is hoping in a silly superstition.

John 5:5 picks out one of these men, but it’s only descriptive to a point. The NLT and NCV calls him “sick.” The RSV, NRSV, and NASB calls him “ill.” The NET calls him “disabled.” The NIV, ESV and Message call him an “invalid.” The KJV and NKJV says he has an “infirmity.” Very generic. I looked at the original Greek. The word they used is asthenia, which can be translated “weakness” or “frailty.” It still doesn’t help clear things up. A lot of commentaries will simply say he’s paralyzed because context clues says he has problems getting off his mat. The text does tell us this man has been invalid for 38 years, and he’s possibly been waiting at the pool for 38 years. The text doesn’t tell how many ill people are at the pool at this point, but Jesus chooses this invalid man to pick out.

When Jesus asks the invalid man in John 5:6, “Do you want to get well?” we may find it a stupid question. Of course a man disabled for 38 years wants to get well! Many scholars have given many interpretations for why Jesus asked a question that seemed so obvious. Perhaps the man made his living off begging for money out of the people’s pity for him. Healing him would take away his source of income (compare to Acts 16:16-21). Maybe the man got so use to a lifestyle of being invalid he had accepted it and no longer desired to change his lifestyle. It would be like asking a man in a wheelchair, “Would you like to walk?” and the wheel chaired man replying in anger, “What? Am I not good enough because I am in a wheelchair?! Does it make me less of a human because I am in a wheelchair?!” On that note, perhaps Jesus didn’t want to offend the man by making him look weak and pathetic being invalid. Sometimes disabled people do get offended if you baby them too much. Maybe Jesus asked the question because, as we’ll see later on the story, both He and the invalid man knew that they would be breaking the man-made “Sabbath laws” by being healed and carrying a mat. Jesus didn’t want to throw that kind attention on the invalid man if he didn’t want it. Perhaps Jesus said to get the man excited about the real possibility of getting healed. Also remember that Jesus many times connected physical ailment to spiritual ailment and physical healing to spiritual healing. Many people, back then and today, don’t recognize they have sin, and even if they do, both those who do and do not may enjoy their sin and not see as wrong. As much as God hates, he will still honor their free will and allow them to stay in their sin (see Romans 1:24,26,28). On last possibility is that Jesus is calling the man out on his superstition, and calling him to real faith in Christ. It’s like Jesus is saying, “Do you [really] want to get well? [Because this superstition isn’t working. Believe in Me instead. I can really heal you.]”

What may seem weirder than Christ’s question is the invalid man’s answer. The invalid man’s answer is somewhere along the lines of, “Yeah, but it’s not going to happen because I’m too weak and too slow to get in the water when it is stirred, so someone always beats me to it.” It’s like the invalid man doesn’t even answer Christ’s question. The man is so hooked on this superstition, he believes it’s his only way to get cured.

As expected, the miraculous healing takes place in John 5:8,9, but pay close attention to what’s happening. Jesus doesn’t say, “I’ll help you next time the angel stirs the water!” then precedents to wait until the next stirring, when Jesus throws him in the pool. Jesus doesn’t say, “Well, I’m God, so I’ll stir the water for you so you don’t have to wait for the silly angel” and then waits for the man to get so He can stir the water. In fact, notice Jesus doesn’t use the water at all. He just says the word, and the man is healed! Once again, Jesus is drawing the man away from believing in superstitions and towards believing in Jesus Christ. Actually, in light of John 5:14, maybe his superstitious beliefs caused him to sin, which led to his disability.

May I pause him here to say “Amen?” You won’t believe the number of Christians I know who are superstitious is some way, shape or form. Well, ok, I don’t know too many, but that number should be zero, but it isn’t! You might think “I’m not a superstitious Christian” but you might just be. Do you believe in good luck and bad luck? If you do, then you are! The idea of “luck” really denies God of His Will and His sovereign control. It states God cannot destine or predestine anything. But we all know God does control everything with His sovereign hand, and He can destine and predestine events in people’s lives. Thus, anything that happens in our lives, whether good or bad, shouldn’t be credited to luck because that’s crediting it to a non-existing force. Instead of “good luck” we have “blessings;” instead of “bad luck” we have “curses.” None of that is out of God’s control, for it is God who blesses and God who curses (although I will note that some bad things are the consequences of sin, which is the absence of God, but that’s another long post for another time). So Christians, stop believing in “luck” and stop involving yourself in those superstitious things that are suppose to give you good luck, for you are messing with forces that are not meant to be missed with. You too can be invalid by sinning, or something worse!

(Alright, that last paragraph reminded me of a funny saying I had during quizzing. I went into quizzing believing in good luck and bad luck. I even had a lucky t-shirt for quizzing. When I started quizzing for Spring City, my coaches Dave and Vicki Deitrick taught me there was no such thing as good luck and bad luck, but only God’s blessings and God’s curses. So I would teach my quizzing teammates the same, saying to them, “I don’t believe in luck. I only believe in God’s blessing. So remember that next time you see me turn my quizzing opponents and say, ‘Good luck!’.” 🙂 haha).

What might be crazier than Christ’s question in verse 6 or the invalid man’s answer in verse 7 is the Jewish leaders’ response in verse 10 when they see the man walking. Most people would be happy to see a lame man walking. Even in today’s day and age, we’d be glad to see a man who use to need a wheelchair, crutches or a walker walking on his own. Not the Jewish leaders, though. What is their reaction? They call him out for breaking the Law! The only problem is this “law” is not written in the Torah, not is it even written in the Talmud (Moses’s commentary on the Torah). It’s a law the Sanhedrin wrote out of their interpretation of the Law. Still, in their eyes, this man is in trouble, and he probably would have gotten into trouble, too. But then he mentions someone made him well. In their minds, they could be thinking, “Well, whoever this man is who made you well is in bigger trouble because he did a bigger work on the Sabbath: healing!” At least it got the healed man out of trouble. The Jewish leaders ask the man who healed him because they want to interrogate this healer, but all the man can do is shrug his shoulders. He doesn’t know either, but what does he care, he’s healed! Later on, though, the man finds out the healer was Jesus, and once he does, he reports back to the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus, possibly to keep himself out of hot water.

Before we go any further, we got to ask ourselves the question, “Why does Jesus perform this miracle?” or even “Why did John decide to include this miracle in his book?” Remember, John only put 7 miracles in books. We’re already up to the 3rd miracle (yes, I did skip the 2nd miracle in John 4, but that’s because the post on John 4 was already long enough and it was off topic). So why is this one so important? We could just stick with generic answers. It shows Christ’s power over nature. Jesus came to defeat the Fall, and Jesus defeated all aspects of the Fall, including sickness and disease. Christ’s power to defeat a physical ailment that everyone can see demonstrates His power to defeat the unseen spiritual ailment known as sin. All of those do work, all of those do show Jesus as God, but it would be better if we could have a reason that’s less generic and more specific to the story in this chapter. I’m not going to read the verse, but let’s just say the next verse, John 5:16, shows a dramatic transition in the chapter’s text. It’s almost like a cause-and-effect transition. Many commentaries agree on why Jesus performed this miracle, but they don’t really word it correctly, so it sounds harsh. If I were to paraphrase their belief on why Jesus performed the miracle, it would be, “Jesus healed the man to start a debate with the religious leaders.” Doesn’t that sound harsh, that Jesus would only heal a person to start an argument? It would totally reword Christ’s question in John 5:6 to “Can I make you well so I can pick a fight with the Jewish leaders?” But if you think about it, it does make sense. Jesus never healed people just for the sake of healing people. To borrow the title of an ApologetiX song, Jesus did not want to become the “Temple Physician.” Jesus performed His miracle to demonstrate His authority and verify His message. In short, Jesus performed miracles to demonstrate who He is and verify what He did. Once again, notice how this miracle smoothly transits into Christ’s preaching. So the commentaries did have it right; they just needed to word it better. They could say that the miracle was an attention-getting introduction to His preaching, or say that the healed invalid man was the “visual aid” his teaching.

Now it’s time for the great transition from miracle to teaching. John 5:16 says that because Jesus was preaching work on the Sabbath (or so it seemed) and even working himself on the Sabbath (miracles constituted as work), the Jewish leaders begin persecuting Jesus. Let’s quickly compare the Jews from Jerusalem’s reaction toward John the Baptist to their reaction toward Jesus. When it came to John the Baptist, it was just a close, watchful eye. Yeah, John the Baptist was calling out the Pharisees and Sadducees to hypocrites and sinners, but beside that He was doing nothing wrong. Baptism has its roots in Jewish cleansing rituals, so there was nothing really wrong with John baptizing (although the Jews didn’t think it was necessary to baptize yet). Both John the Baptist and the Jews believed the Messiah was coming, even though John thought he was coming sooner than the rest of the Jews thought. And as matter of fact, John the Baptist’s preaching called for the people to repent of their sins, which was very similar to the Jewish leaders teaching the people to follow the Law. So while the Jews from Jerusalem kept a close eye on John the Baptist to make sure he didn’t start a revolution, the Jews really didn’t see him as a threat. Now when the disciples transfer from John the Baptist to Jesus Christ, so the Jewish leader’s watchful eye also transfer from John to Jesus. At first, their reaction is skeptical. Their questions are merely to get a better understanding of what Jesus is preaching. But by now, by John 5:16, it goes from curiosity to persecution. Their questions go from curiosity and understanding to criticizing and doubting. Why? Jesus is not only working on the Sabbath, but telling others it’s alright to work on the Sabbath. Although healing and carrying a mat are not declared work in the Torah or Talmud, the Jewish leaders saw it as work, therefore they saw as a man breaking the Law and teaching others to break the Law, and the religious leaders would not put up with that. Any man who broke the Law and taught of breaking the Law, even if it was just their interpretation of the Law, was deemed a sinner, a blasphemer and a heretic. To them, the situation called for persecution.

We’re going to skip over John 5:18 for now, but we’ll come back to it. Right now, we’re going to jump right into Christ’s teaching, starting in John 5:19. Now I’ll point out some specifics, but I want to more show the overall message and how it reveals Jesus as God the Son because it will stick to the overall message of John’s Gospel. And you’ll see the number one way John shows Jesus is the Son of God is by teaching trinity.

To fully understand John 5:19-30, we have to get out of our Western mindset of thinking and go into an Eastern mindset of thinking. What’s the difference? The Western mindset of thinking is all about dissecting, breaking down and analyzing. When it comes to trinity, it will break the trinity into 3 parts, break it into 3 categories, and then try to nicely and neatly put categorize all the acts of God into these 3 categorize, by what entity performs what task. The reasons we want to get out of this mindset is because, as we’ll find out, it will create a big mess. Instead, the better thinking is the Eastern mindset, which sees the trinity as 3 persons, and then tries to see how these 3 persons relate to one another. You’ll see John 5:19-30 does not try to categorize the actions of the Father and the actions of the Son, but instead shows how the Father and the Son relate, and how they work together.

So first, starting with John 5:19, we learn that God the Son cannot act independently from God the Father, nor can the Son act in opposition to the Father. There is only love in this relationship, and they come to work together in unity. Just an earthly father mentors his earthly son, so the Heavenly Father mentors His Son and shows the Son the Father’s Will and the Father’s works. In John 5:21, Jesus gives the specific example of life and resurrection. Both the Father and the Son have the power of life. The Son offers eternal life (salvation), and the Father will raise from the dead whoever took up on Christ’s offer for eternal life. In John 5:22, Jesus provides judgment as another specific example. The Father has handed over His power to judge to the Son in order that the Son may be treated like the Father. After all, the Jews in the Old Testament feared God the Father because they knew of the power He had to judge them. Now the Jews in the New Testament were in a whole lot of trouble because the Jew in the New Testament were not treating the Son of God, Jesus, with that same honorable fear. Because Jesus warns the people that to not fear or honor Jesus is like not fearing or honoring God.

Since Jesus is on the subject of judgment, he will talk about the present state of judgment. This talk is going to be very similar to Christ’s talk with Nicodemus in John 3. Whoever hear Christ’s words and believes in Him will receive eternal life. If anyone does not, that person will remain in his or her state of condemnation. That is what is mean when Jesus mentions crossing over from death to life. Before a person has Jesus, the person stands condemned in his or her sin, condemned to death. When a person receives Jesus, the person goes from condemned to forgiven, the person goes from hell to heaven, the person goes from life to death. How can Jesus do this? Jesus is God the Son. God the Father has given the power of life to God the Son. So Jesus, God the Son, can give life to whomever He pleases. And while Jesus is on the subject of judgment, he will talk about the future state of judgment. To demonstrate that the Son has the power of life, the Son of God will resurrect everyone on the Last Day, both the good and the evil. Those who are evil will be condemned to eternal damnation, while the good will be raised to eternal life. Once again, how is this possible for Jesus? Only by the Father.

Before we transit into the next section, let’s once again summarize the teaching of Jesus here, as well as summarize the theology that goes along with it. God the Father loves God the Son, and God the Son loves God the Father. Therefore, they work in unity with one another. Their thoughts, words, and actions are always working together. They will never be in opposition, nor will they ever contradict. Since there is love and unity between the Father and the Son, the Father can entrust the Son will power, such as the power to judge and the power to give life. The Father does not have to worry about the Son abusing these powers because the Father knows the Son loves Him and wants to work to please Him. Everything the Son does is done just the way the Father wants it done because the Son wants to please the Father. Therefore, it doesn’t make sense to categorize the trinity into 3 parts because the Father, Son and Holy Spirit all have the same powers, such as the powers to judge, condemn, forgive, heal and give life. It all comes down to how the 3 persons relate to one another and work together for unity.

Let’s make one quick application pause before we move on. I’ve always believe the relationship between the persons of the trinity, or the community of the trinity, can demonstrate how humans should develop relationships, both with God and with other humans. Since this passage more talk about divine things, let’s look at what humans can learn about their relation to God the Father from God the Son. If we as Christians truly love God, we should seek unity with him. What does it mean to have unity with God? Our thinking should be the same as God. Our feelings should be godly. Our wants and desires should be the same wants and desires our Lord as. If it’s God’s Will, then it should be our will as well. When we do something, whatever it is, it should be done the way God wants it done, in order to give God praise, honor and glory. I believe when we do that, and when we get to that point, God will give us more power because He know and entrusts us to use it continue give him the glory and the praise. I believe that’s what all the authors of the Bible books had in common. They were able to get to the point where their wants, their needs, their desires and their will was the same as God’s. So God entrusted them to write His words.

Just as Jesus makes a smooth transition into another topic (or maybe it’s a sub-topic), so shall we make the same smooth transition. I want you to notice something very important about the transition. The last few paragraphs, John 5:19-30, Jesus talks about God the Father and God the Son. In the next few paragraphs, John 5:31-45, Jesus talks about God the Father and Himself in the first person (I, me, my, mine, etc.). I’ll put it into a simple sentence to show the transition more easily. It goes from God the Father and God the Son to God the Father and Himself. God the Father & God the Son –> God the Father & Himself. Notice the parallel in the transition. It’s almost like Jesus is talking about Himself interchangeably with God the Son. That’s because He is. This is another piece of evidence, another proof, another sign, another sighting that Jesus is God the Son. He declares by talking about Himself as God the Son.

The NIV calls the next section “Testimonies about Jesus.” The ESV calls the section “Witnesses to Jesus.” Both would be accurate descriptions of the section. As a matter of fact the Greek word martyreo, used throughout the section, is most accurately translated “testify” or “bear witness” (it is also where we get the word “martyr” from). Jesus is being nice to Jewish leader by offering the sign of authority that the Jewish leaders have been asking for. So Jesus lies down 4 pieces of evidence, 4 proofs, 4 reasons or 4 signs of Christ’s authorities. This would be similar to the God Sightings we did in John 1 because all 4 do reveal Jesus to be God the Son. So just like John 1, let me list the 4 witnesses that give testimony that Jesus is the Son of God.

4 Testimonies that Jesus is God the Son as found in John 5
1. God the Father’s testimony (vs. 31,32,37,38)
2. John the Baptist’s testimony (vs.33-35)
3. Self-testimony through miracles and miraculous signs (vs. 36)
4. Old Testament Scripture’s testimony (vs.39-47)

Once again, through 4 different testimonies, the evidence clearly proves Jesus is God the Son. I could go through each testimony explaining the proof, but most of these have already been covered, either in this chapter or the chapter before. The last one, however, hasn’t been discussed too deeply, and it’s the one that really hits home, back then and today. Let’s look at the testimony the Old Testament Scriptures gave.

First, let’s look at the testimony of the Old Testament Scriptures in light of 1st century context. Jesus was making no understatement in John 5:39 when he said the Jewish leaders had diligently studied the Scriptures. Any well-educated Jew had the whole Torah memorized. Imagine having Genesis to Deuteronomy memorized by heart! Most Jews did. The highly educated Jews that were rabbis, teachers of the law and Sanhedrin went further and memorized the whole Tanak (Hebrew Bible). Imagine having Genesis to Malachi memorized. Some went even further and memorized the Talmud, which is Moses’s commentary on the Torah. They knew the Scriptures and every possible interpretation. Why were they so dedicated? They truly believed that the Law would bring them salvation, so they made sure they knew it in and out, and they obeyed every word. Jesus says the only way the Scriptures bring salvation is that they point out salvation through Christ Jesus. The problem was the Jewish leaders did not recognize this, so they refused to recognize Jesus as Messiah, or even sent from God. Jesus really gets gutsy when He tells the Jewish leaders that they do not believe Moses and Moses is their accuser, condemning them. In the Jewish mindset, Moses is the hero because he is the lawgiver who gave the Law that brings salvation. Jesus corrects the Jewish mindset, remind them that the Law condemns them because it reveals they can never truly follow the Law, even if they declare they do. Moses also accuses and condemns them because Moses warned the Jews that a prophet like him was coming, and if they did not believe in the prophet, they would be cut off from God’s people (see Deuteronomy 18:15). The Sanhedrin refused to believe in Jesus, so as Moses foretold, they are condemned to be apart from God.

Now bring it up today. Today Christians use the term “Bible-based” like it is the ultimate safety net. For example, if a church is Bible-based, it’s a good church and nothing can wrong. Christians must be careful to use this term as a safety net, for if they are not, they will fall into the same problem the Pharisees and the Sadducees fell into. It will quickly lead to legalism, and before you know it, we’ll be worshipping the Bible, believing the Bible gives us salvation. The Bible can show us the way of salvation, but it does not give us salvation, as it has the Law in it, which condemns us. This is why I am Cristocentric, or Christ-centered, instead of Bibliocentric, or Bible-centered. It is Jesus Christ who created me, loved me and saved me, not the Bible. The Scriptures can only point me in the way to Jesus. Now it is true that there is a strong link between the Word of God and Jesus. After all, it was just in John 1:1 where we read the Word was God and was with God in the beginning. But the saving Word is the Word Incarnate, Jesus Christ. The Bible is just the words on paper. Scriptures are not to be treated like a 4th person of the trinity, for that would be a paradox.

And because I wrote this for the quizzers studying John, I believe this is a helpful reminder that our knowledge of the Bible does not save us. Your rank on the standings does not show how good of a Christian you are. The Top 50 Bible Quizzers List is not a list of the 50 most spiritual people in Bible Quizzing. It’s very possible that the most spiritual quizzer (if it’s possible to measure spirituality like that) may only score 10 points all year. Quizzers, don’t make the same mistakes as the Pharisees and Sadducees and know the Scriptures more than you know God. For that alone is proof that being Christ-centered and Bible-centered are not the same thing. Because it is possible to know the Bible, yet not know God. So quizzers, don’t get too stuck in the technicalities in knowing the material. Actually read the Bible as God’s Word, and get to know God through it.

Before we close, let’s go back to John 5:18, for I think it sums up the chapter, as well as connects back to John’s overall message for his gospel.

John 5:18-
“For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.”

Remember how in the introduction to John I told you to look out for who Jesus claimed He was, as well as the claims about Jesus from those “pro-Jesus” and those “anti-Jesus”? Throughout John 1-4, we’ve seen the claims from Jesus and the “pro-Jesus” about who Jesus is, but not really from the “anti-Jesus” people. Here, in John 5, the religious leaders, who are clearly against Jesus, weigh in on their opinion. Why are they trying to kill Jesus? They knew he was calling God his Father, and they knew calling God your Father meant you were calling yourself equal to God. The only way to be equal to God is to be God. So what’s the testimony of the Jewish religious leaders? Jesus is the Son of God. Now with all 3 groups of people weighing on Jesus, we’re now starting to see a fuller picture of who Jesus is, more specifically the Son of God. As we move on in John 5, we’ll see how these 3 people groups will continue to weigh in on the subject. We’ll also see how the teaching of Jesus becomes bolder, how the proponents of Jesus continue to support Jesus, and the opponents of Jesus sharply oppose Him.