Biblical Discernment – Part 2

Last time we were introduced to an essential doctrine of the Christian faith called the Deity of Jesus Christ, meaning that Jesus is divine or that He is God.

Today we will continue on that subject as we turn to the Gospel of John, chapter five.

Before we get to chapter five in the Gospel of John we find Jesus in chapter one beginning His public ministry where He begins calling His disciples. In chapter two He does His first recorded miracle by turning water into wine at the marriage in Cana.

When Passover was nearing we find Jesus in the temple cleansing it of all those making merchandise of God’s house of prayer. The Bible says in 2:23 that many people were believing on Jesus because of the miracles He was doing but Jesus didn’t entrust Himself to them because He knew what was in their hearts (vs. 25).

Chapter three of John opens up with a secret, clandestine meeting at night with Jesus and Nicodemus, one of the rulers of the Jews. Jesus challenges Nicodemus to be “born of the Spirit” as He believes in the Son of Man who would be lifted up for the healing of many from their sins ((vs. 14-15). At the end of chapter three we find John the Baptizer testifying of himself saying, “I am not the Christ; I’m just the forerunner sent ahead to announce His coming…He must increase, but I must decrease” (vs. 30) and “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” (vs. 36)

Chapter four begins with Jesus being thirsty and stopping at a well in the forbidden city of Samaria (for the Jew) and getting a drink of water from a Samaritan woman. Jesus “witnesses” to this woman, telling her all about her sinful self. She believes in Him as the Messiah and goes back into her town and brings back all the townsfolk who become followers of Jesus as well!

Before chapter four concludes, Jesus commits another act that was taboo among the Jesus. Thus far He has entered into the Temple, turning over the tables, whipping the merchandisers with a cord and driving them out. He has a secret meeting with one of the Jewish rulers under the cover of darkness; He enters into a town that is not kosher and talks to a woman (Jewish men were not allowed to converse with a woman who wasn’t family). This woman, a Samaritan, was considered a half-breed and unclean.

But now, if that wasn’t enough, at the end of chapter four Jesus heals the son of a Gentile royal official.

Now we are in chapter five. It is on the Sabbath (vs. 9b) and Jesus heals a man who had been ill for 38 years. But again, He did it on the Sabbath. The religious leaders of the Jews were already upset, and this healing did not make things better for Jesus, but worse.

In order to understand what is going on here we need to shed some light on the Sabbath observance as it had become by this time. Remember, the original command given by God in Exodus 20:8-11 was to cease from work and to rest. God exemplified this in Genesis chapter two where after He created the heavens and the earth, the Bible says God, “ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.” Thus the children of Israel were to cease from work.

By the time the Lord Jesus begins His earthly ministry, the concept of Sabbath rest has drastically changed.

Mat 12:1 At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. And His disciples were hungry, and began to pluck heads of grain and to eat.

Mat 12:2 And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to Him, "Look, Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath!"

Again, the Sabbath was to be a day of “not working.” We do not find any more detail than that in the Scripture—just rest, recuperation, restoration and worship. But by the time we get to the days of Jesus, the Pharisees had taken the liberty to interpret this one command into literally thousands of sub-commands.

Historian Alfred Edersheim wrote a classic work called, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. In this book he has researched what is called the Talmud, a Jewish book that was written some time after Jesus Christ that is a collection of rules and laws the Jewish have come over time to lay down and follow.

When it came to the Sabbath, the Talmud contained hundreds of instructions on what the Jew could do and could not do on that day.