Walking in the Power of God (continued)
Now we come to our particular chapter, John 5. Here, as on a number of occasions in John, it is a Feast of the Jews which brings Him to Jerusalem, or is the occasion of His being there. What Feast this one is is quite uncertain. Other Feasts are mentioned, some by name such as the Passover and some are marked by such definite features as to leave us in no doubt as to what they are. In this instance the article is not present. It does not say THE Feast of the Jews, although some translations have included the article. If it were present we should know that it refers to the Passover. We are left very largely to conjecture, but, as far as it is possible to trace the date of this incident, it would seem that it is the Feast of Purim. This Feast was originated in the days of the captivity, and we have the account of it in the book of Esther. It related to the marvelous overruling by God of the counsels of the evil Haman, and the deliverance of the Jews from the awful death, under sentence of which they were living until the Lord turned their death to life.
If this is the Feast of chapter 5, then verses 24-27 take on a wonderful significance: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; and hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man." Carry these words back into the book of Esther and see how wonderfully they fit in. Condemnation and death exchanged for life, and the Lord Jesus taking the place of Mordecai, to whom at length the authority to execute judgment is given, even to Him Who has been set aside, humiliated and rejected by men.
But there is another historical feature in the background of this chapter. The immediate foreground is occupied by the impotent man at the pool, and we are told that he had been there in that state for thirty-eight years. Now that was exactly the period of Israel's wanderings in the wilderness, from the giving of the law at Sinai to the death of Moses. Note these two things: 1. the law given, 2. a subsequent life in impotence, weakness and failure as under the law. What a lot of light is thrown upon this for us by the subsequent writings of the New Testament. The apostle Paul says a good deal about it in his letter to the Romans. He points out that, while man was weak, the weakness of man was not made manifest and brought to light until the law was given; and then, when the law came, the great fact, the universal fact that man is utterly impotent in the presence of the requirements of a holy God is made all too apparent. Not that the law is evil in itself. Nay, but good, and if only it could be lived up to, it would be a great blessing to man. God never imposes upon man anything that is not for his good, but then, because of sin and man's fallen state, there is an inherent weakness, which renders him totally incapable of standing up to God's demands; and so, what should be for his good and benefit, becomes the very instrument of his conscious weakness and helplessness.
That is exactly what we have in John 5. Here is a man on his bed for thirty-eight years. A bed is intended to be a good thing, a blessing, but in the case of this man the bed has become the symbol of his weakness and bondage, and had really become a tyrant rather than a friend. So, right in the heart of Jerusalem, we have this long stretch of Israel's helplessness illustrated in the life of a single man lying in the bondage of his own weakness for thirty-eight years. What is the hope for Israel? What was the hope for this man? Hope lay only in one direction. That direction is indicated right at the commencement of John's gospel: "The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." Hope, then, lies in the direction of grace and truth, coming in the Person of the Lord Jesus. Thus we find Him coming on the scene when all other hope had faded and disappeared, and well-nigh, if not altogether, settled down in the heart of this poor, helpless victim.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 23)
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