There will be no more Sabbaths

Who is Jesus? part 57 – John 5:19-30

If you have read the previous three posts on John’s Gospel, you will notice something missing in Jesus’ response to the Judeans. Their main concern is not what Jesus addresses. It’s not a typical “elephant in the room” situation; instead, Jesus highlights the real issue. He continues to teach about doing what the Father does, which consists of three points. This format is convenient for sermon writing, but since this is a blog post, it will be brief. You will need to explore further.

The Bible reading is the same as in the last post.

A. So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. 

B.²⁰ For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel. 

C.²¹ For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. ²² The Father judges no one, but has given all judgement to the Son, ²³ that all may honour the Son, just as they honour the Father. Whoever does not honour the Son does not honour the Father who sent him. 

D.²⁴ Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life.

D’. He does not come into judgement, but has passed from death to life.²⁵ “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. 

C’. ²⁶ For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. ²⁷ And he has given him authority to execute judgement, because he is the Son of Man. 

B’. ²⁸ Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice ²⁹ and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgement.

A’. ³⁰ “I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgement is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.

John 5:19-30 ESVUK with added paragraphs to show the poetic structure.

The Gospel according to John, chapter 5, has similarities to chapter 1 in that it is made up of three passages in the form of chiasms or chiasmus. Chiasm, meaning crossing over, is a form used in nearly all Psalms and is a repetition of similar ideas in the reverse sequence. For this reason, I am referring to these sections as songs, as I did with chapter 1.

The passage you have just read is the second of these chiasms, verse 2 of a song with 3 verses, if you like. Parts A and B of the structure introduced a concept of teaching by apprenticeship or mentoring. See the previous post for this. Part C moves on to show something of what the Father does that Jesus does on Earth. He raises the dead.

Jesus Raises the Dead

It would be handy if we had some evidence here of Jesus raising the dead, but in John’s Gospel, we will have to wait until the raising of Lazarus in Chapter 11, and Jesus’s going through execution and burial in Chapters 19 and 20. What Jesus does is go back to what his audience believed, so I’m assuming they are Pharisees, as Sadducees did not believe in resurrection. This is a preparation for that.

The story so far: Those who believe in Jesus are given the right to become inheritors of God. John 1:12-13 and 3:1-8, and they are filled with the living water of God’s Spirit 4:14. Now, Jesus says he will give them new life, they won’t need to wait until the resurrection, they can have it now. “For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will.” 5:21. When they eventually die, that event will be irrelevant because the gift of life through Jesus is already in them.

These Judeans believed in the resurrection at the end of time, as noted in the Old Testament book of Daniel. Jesus explains that he is the ‘son of man’ (verse 27), referring to the figure in Daniel 7 who is given power to rule the world and deliver God’s justice against tyranny and evil that oppress His people.

There is no mention of the Sabbath

What is missing is any mention of the Sabbath. It’s odd because all this is about the consequences of Jesus healing a disabled man at the pool at Bethesda, the argument being that Jesus did this on the Sabbath. So why doesn’t Jesus teach on the Sabbath here? Looking at the New Testament, whenever the Jewish Law is summarised by Christian writers, the Sabbath regulations are missing. This is because the Sabbath laws look forward to a time of fulfilment at the end of the age. Jesus is saying that he is the fulfilment of the end of the age, a much bigger thing than a mere Sabbath law, but he is doing what the Father does in bringing new life in resurrection, and also he is judging now, not merely at the end of the age.

Later on, in a series of sayings that start with the words, “I am,” Jesus will talk about being the Way, the Truth and the Life and about being the Resurrection and the Life. I will get to them, but here’s what I wrote almost a decade ago: I am the resurrection/the way the truth and the life. There’s no guarantee that I’ll say the same thing when I get to it next time.

We still need a time of rest and recreation. Jesus said that the Sabbath was created for people, not the other way round. There is also a need for meeting together, Sunday is as good a day as any and is the day the early Christians worshipped, but there’s no need to beat yourself up if you miss a week.

Judgement

There will be a judgment at the end of the age, but God’s kingdom is already here in Jesus. It is already in us by the Holy Spirit. The idea of Judgement is Jesus is introduced in Part C of the song, and runs through the central part to the song’s end. The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son. Verse 22 says, “The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son.”

That is what this passage reveals about who Jesus is to the believer. What does it mean to those who oppose him? Well, that’s another subject for another post.

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