Welcome to Exhale Bible Study with Dr. Paula McDonald. In this episode we study the word of God as found in John, Chapter 5. This in-depth study goes line-by-line and verse-by-verse! In our last lesson, we saw how Jesus ministered to the Samaritan woman and of the faith of the royal servant, for whom Jesus had healed his son. And so this week, we come to the pool of Bethesda and into the next discourse and teaching of Jesus.
To learn more about Exhale Bible Discovery and Dr. Paula McDonald, visit drpaulamcdonald.com.
Transcript
Welcome to Exhale Bible Discovery.
Speaker:Each week, we'll take a deep dive into the Bible, going line by line and chapter by chapter to discover the truth that God has for us in His Word.
Speaker:Well, hello, everyone.
Speaker:It's Dr.
Speaker:Paula McDonald, and I am here studying the word of God with you in our exhale Bible discovery.
Speaker:And we are now in John, chapter five.
Speaker:So in our last lesson, we saw how Jesus ministered to the Samaritan woman and of the faith of the royal servant whom Jesus had healed his son.
Speaker:And so this week, we come to the pool of Bethesda and into the next discourse and teaching of Jesus.
Speaker:So I've divided this into actually three sections.
Speaker:First, Jesus Heals, which is verses one through 15.
Speaker:And then we have Jesus Reveals, which is 16 through 31.
Speaker:And then finally in our third division, Jesus testifies, that will be verses 31 47.
Speaker:Open your Bibles now to John Five.
Speaker:And we know from the Scriptures that the man that is being discussed here at the healing pool of Bethesda, he had been in this condition for 38 years.
Speaker:Can you even imagine? And the scene is just north of the Temple Mount where this pool at the sheep's gate.
Speaker:It was called this because the sheep were brought to the temple for sacrifice in Aramaic, bethesda meant House of Mercy.
Speaker:So this archaeological site that we see today shows evidence of columns and where the pools were actually located.
Speaker:And there was a southern pool that had broad steps that was used as a bath of ritual immersion.
Speaker:And the northern pool was larger and was a reservoir which continuously replenished the water into that lower pool.
Speaker:And this pool was believed to have had healing waters, much like many believe natural springs today.
Speaker:So here it is believed that the first person who stirred that water each day, or when they would see it stirring, if they could get to that water while it was stirring, that they would be the ones that would be healed.
Speaker:Therefore, this poor man, the invalid, he was never able to get to the pool first.
Speaker:Here, he was all alone with no one to help him.
Speaker:So we're going to break this down a little bit, and we're going to look at the invalid and his overall condition.
Speaker:Well, Jesus, of course, knew about this pool, and he knew the reason that people went there.
Speaker:And having just shared with the Samaritan woman about his living water, now he was seeking out those who believed physical water was what healed them.
Speaker:Here, Jesus saw both the man's spiritual and his physical conditions.
Speaker:He saw them both, and he knew that both areas were in need of healing.
Speaker:So Jesus has a conversation with him and he asks them some questions.
Speaker:His first question, do you want to get well? And while this may have seemed like a rhetorical question, jesus specifically aimed at looking deeper into this man's spiritual condition.
Speaker:And the word well referred to a spiritual void within this man's heart.
Speaker:Not everyone who wants to get well physically understands that they need to also, and more importantly, get well spiritually, because this requires a change in attitude, a change in their heart, and a change in choices.
Speaker:And so the man says, Sir, I have no one.
Speaker:He doesn't answer Jesus's question, do you want to get well? He just goes right into his pity party, which, yes, he had been there a long time, and I'm sure he was really in the throes of depression.
Speaker:It's evident in the way he responds here.
Speaker:And so you can imagine 38 years of living as he had.
Speaker:It was not a good situation.
Speaker:And he may have asked many others for help without ever receiving any kindness from another person.
Speaker:Those around him were simply too busy attending to their own needs.
Speaker:They were trying to get into the water first, forget the other man.
Speaker:And now here this man.
Speaker:Jesus approaches him, and he is still full of doubt and with reason.
Speaker:So then Jesus calls him to spiritual wellness.
Speaker:Because Jesus didn't simply come to heal the physical needs of the people, his main reason for coming to Earth was to heal us spiritually.
Speaker:He desires for all of us to have spiritual wholeness and wellness.
Speaker:We can only get that through him.
Speaker:And so to accept Jesus gift of physical healing comes responsibility of receiving the spiritual healing as well.
Speaker:And this means one now must have obedience in Christ and how we live, how we act, and how we grow in our faith.
Speaker:We can't simply ask for healing without accepting the responsibility of what it means to live out a Christian life.
Speaker:And so Jesus gives this man three commands.
Speaker:First, he tells him, Get up.
Speaker:Action and faith are important.
Speaker:Get up.
Speaker:A simple command.
Speaker:So the man could choose to either get up or to continue to stay put.
Speaker:And this, you guys, is our call as well.
Speaker:Will you get up and move in your faith? Are you going to change to remain right where you are? Next he tells him, pick up your match.
Speaker:This now requires action and responsibility.
Speaker:No longer would this man have to rely on someone else to pick up his mat.
Speaker:He had to carry his own load.
Speaker:So the lesson here is so strong.
Speaker:As believers, we too must pick up our own mat and move into responsibility.
Speaker:And are you relying others to carry this work of Christ? Or are you also carrying the responsibility as a believer to share in his work? It's an important task and to also get out of your pity party, wherever you may be.
Speaker:Whatever Matt is holding you down, it is time to pick it up.
Speaker:And then the third part.
Speaker:He says walk.
Speaker:So he told him to get up, pick up his mat, and now to walk, to move forward and again, this requires action and effort.
Speaker:To walk forward in faith towards Christ requires action.
Speaker:To walk away from sin and former self requires a commitment.
Speaker:So are you ready to not just be a person of words, you've got to actually do something and move forward and walk.
Speaker:So because of all of this here, this man's life is now forever changed.
Speaker:After 38 years of living as an invalid, now he's up walking around.
Speaker:And obviously this had a profound effect on his entire rest of his life.
Speaker:Jesus healed his inability to walk.
Speaker:But now, more importantly, he could either accept the complete wholeness and wellness from God by accepting this spiritual healing as well.
Speaker:And so several things had to happen.
Speaker:First he had to have obedience.
Speaker:The man had to first obey the command to get up.
Speaker:As all believers today, we've got to get up and we've got to say yes to Christ.
Speaker:Then we have to realize there's opposition, because right away in this story, this newly healed man, he's met with human opposition.
Speaker:And you guys, all believers, are experiencing opposition as we follow Christ.
Speaker:This was never promised that once you become a Christian and a believer that your life was going to be all roses.
Speaker:And if you've been taught that you are not digging into the scriptures the way you need to be.
Speaker:If you want to dig into this more, go into Acts 1422 or one Peter 220 to 21, because as believers, you better believe we're going to face opposition.
Speaker:But we're also going to obtain new insights, because once we accept Christ, we must now learn all that we can of what it means to be a Christian.
Speaker:And obviously, once someone accepts Christ, we don't immediately know everything there is to know.
Speaker:We're never going to know all there is to know about God, but there is a charge and a responsibility to continue moving forward in learning all that we can.
Speaker:We cannot remain seated on our map.
Speaker:And then we have to openly praise God, because the lesson here is later in this verse, jesus finds the man at the temple and obviously he has gone there to give thanks for the healing he's received.
Speaker:And even though this healing has taken place on the Sabbath, this man inherently knew that he needed to be sharing out and praising this amazing miracle.
Speaker:But then we have to omit sin.
Speaker:Jesus tells the man now to not only be physically well, but also spiritually well.
Speaker:His old sinful nature, his pity party within himself, had to be replaced by desire and action.
Speaker:To be sanctified daily through Christ, believers must be set apart for God in their new life.
Speaker:Go read two thessalonians 213 on this topic.
Speaker:And then finally there was an overflow with Jesus.
Speaker:The man tells them and all the others that it was Jesus who healed him.
Speaker:And we too, y'all, he was bubbling over.
Speaker:Can you imagine his excitement.
Speaker:And so we should have that same excitement.
Speaker:We need to tell others of our reason for our hope and faith in Christ.
Speaker:So who are you telling? Who are you bubbling over to? And I love the scene in the show The Chosen, where Jesus was healing this man at the pool of Bethesda.
Speaker:And after healing, jesus and his disciples are leaving the city, and the scene shows them asking Jesus, why did he heal this man on the Sabbath? And Jesus says, Sometimes you've got to stir the water.
Speaker:And now, of course, this is not in the Bible, but Dallas Jenkins, who is the producer of The Chosen, felt that this was such a great narrative to imagine this conversation that Jesus had after this event that he needed to add it into the movie.
Speaker:And, of course, it was impossible for the disciples to have written every single event and every single word that they experienced with Jesus.
Speaker:And so this sweet scene provides us with a possible encounter of Jesus going against the grain in those days.
Speaker:And when I say against the grain, I'm not meaning Jesus was a sinful rebel.
Speaker:He clearly came to show us how to live and that many had become so immersed in the law that they were forgetting the love from God.
Speaker:And this is what Jesus shows us so beautifully throughout the New Testament, and that it was to love others.
Speaker:Okay, we're going to move into the second part of our narrative today in that Jesus reveals verses 16 to 30.
Speaker:And so, in stark contrast to this amazing miracle, jesus is now in peril as those in authority begin to condemn Him for healing this man on the Sabbath.
Speaker:Because the Jews at that time oh, my gosh, they had become so legalistic regarding the Sabbath that even the act of carrying a tool or carrying your mat on that day was considered wrong.
Speaker:And obviously, the Jews had taken the commandments of God to the extreme.
Speaker:And when God rested after creation, the Sabbath was to be a special day to honor God and to worship Him.
Speaker:It doesn't mean that man has the right to create manmade rules regarding how this day should look.
Speaker:Jesus understood, though, that this law had been taken too far, and he addressed them by explaining who he was and where he came from.
Speaker:He says two specific things.
Speaker:My Father is always at work.
Speaker:He says that he, too, is also working.
Speaker:And so this was clearly defining Jesus as the Son of the Father.
Speaker:He and his Father worked in tandem and in oneness.
Speaker:And you guys, this blew their minds.
Speaker:Whoa.
Speaker:That's why they said, oh, my gosh, he's got to go.
Speaker:He's claiming to be God.
Speaker:And then he says to this very day and so what he's telling them is, God works all the time, even right now.
Speaker:So the work Christ had just done was that of restoration for this man.
Speaker:And he was there to restore much more than the ability to simply walk.
Speaker:Jesus came to restore us to God so that we might experience his wholeness and to receive eternal life.
Speaker:And because of their tunneled focus on the rules, they were missing the ruler, which was Christ.
Speaker:Our third part, jesus testifies.
Speaker:Our final verses 31 47.
Speaker:The Jews wanted to have Jesus killed now because here he was testifying that he was the Son of God.
Speaker:And to them this was blasphemous and preposterous and they would not accept this teaching.
Speaker:And so Jesus responds in the following manner three things.
Speaker:One, he proves his claim by explaining his unique relationship as the Son of God.
Speaker:Two, he describes his oneness with God.
Speaker:And three, his authority to give life, to judge and to receive honor.
Speaker:And so there are these different witnesses that happen in these last few verses of chapter five, and we're going to talk about them.
Speaker:So the first one was the witness of the Father.
Speaker:And you can look at verses 532 and also 37.
Speaker:John was like a lamp, burning and shining, and you were willing for a while to enjoy his light.
Speaker:So John was like a lamp, burning and shining, and you were willing to enjoy his light for a time.
Speaker:But this light that we know was a witness of God, it was a foretelling.
Speaker:Then there was the witness of John the Baptist.
Speaker:And we can see this in verses 33 to 35.
Speaker:John is the one to whom you sent your messengers, and he spoke on behalf of the truth.
Speaker:It is not that I must have a human witness.
Speaker:I say this only in order that you may be saved.
Speaker:So we have the witness of the Father.
Speaker:Now we have the witness of John the Baptist.
Speaker:And next we have the witness of the works of Jesus.
Speaker:Verse 36, it says, but I have a witness on my behalf, which is even greater than the witness that John gave.
Speaker:What I do, that is the deeds my Father gave me to do these speak on my behalf and show that the Father has sent me.
Speaker:So while he was clearly telling them he was the Son of God.
Speaker:And then four, we have witnesses from the Old Testament, verses 38 through 47.
Speaker:And I just took one brief statement out of all of that that says, and these very Scriptures speak about me.
Speaker:You guys, these Pharisees, they were well learned in the Scriptures.
Speaker:They should have known them well enough that they would have recognized Jesus.
Speaker:It has been foretold, as we've talked about many, many times in our studies.
Speaker:So Jesus shows us so perfectly that Christ was who he said he was.
Speaker:And he provides us with the evidence through these witnesses.
Speaker:Chapter five, packed with truths about our healing Lord, how he's been revealed to us and how the Scriptures verify and verify who he was.
Speaker:So how do you apply these truths? Are there any areas within your own life that you need to get rid of or any helplessness or hopelessness that you need to simply rely on Him? And secondly, how is God prompting you to get up and to walk and to pick up your own mat? And three, are you living for Christ obediently and in confidence despite any conflict from nonbelievers? Or are you prepared to stand by your faith even when the world, your family or friends might condemn you for doing so? And then five what is evident in your life that you are living a life as an active Christian? How do other people see it? So, you guys, I hope you enjoyed this lesson of this beautiful story of getting up, taking up your mat, and going confidently towards Christ blessings today, as you live out your life fully and abundantly for Him.
Speaker:Be sure to visit my website, Dr.
Speaker:Paula mcdonald.com.