Believe it or not, John 5 should be read in light of John 9. If you take John 5 out of the gospel and read it by itself, you will fail to gain several insights into that story that its brother story in John 9 is meant to provide you.
John 9 provides these insights by replicating the story structure in John 5, but changing the outcome. Both John 5 and John 9 follow identical patterns save for one thing. One man responds to Jesus with faith and commitment and the other betrays Jesus to stay in the good graces of the religious leaders. This is one of John’s favorite themes, found explicitly in statements like the one we find in John 12:42-43 which says, “Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.” The repetition of the story structure from chapter 5 in chapter 9 enhances the question of faith and commitment through the contrast.
Let’s move through the story pointing out the structural details and how they relate to John’s purposes of contrast.
In John 5, it is the Sabbath. We meet a man at the pool of Bethesda, many years in his sickness, casting his last hopes on a pool rumored to be stirred by an angel who gives healing to the one who is strong enough, fast enough, or helped enough to get into the pool first. Seems like a mean trick, but that’s the way the pool is supposed to work. Jesus asks the question, “Do you want to be well?” This is not a given. Health has obligations that a man 38 years in his condition has never had to meet. He gives an indirect answer by way of complaining about the rules of the pool. (You and me both, Dude.) Jesus seems to accept this as a, “Yes.”
In John 9, it is again the Sabbath. If truth be told, all the miracles that Jesus himself instigates save the raising of the widow’s son in Nain in Luke 7, are ALL performed on the Sabbath. Jesus goes out of His way to challenge the way the Jews keep the Sabbath by showing them what a true spiritual Sabbath of God looks like… healing and restoration.
On that Sabbath, we meet a man blind from birth. This time it is Jesus’ disciples who pose a question. Following the wisdom of their day, they assume that the blind man is being punished by God for either his parents’ sin or for his own sins. Prenatal wickedness must have been a big problem in those days. There is no telling the kind of mischief a kid can get up to in the womb. They ask Jesus which it is. Jesus, of course, tells them it was neither. Rather, God has a plan for this man… a plan they are about to watch unfold.
In John 5 and John 9, Jesus heals each man. In each instance, Jesus sets up a Sabbath conflict with the religious leaders so that each man is attacked and threatened over the breach. In John 5, the man is told to carry his bed mat and get going. In John 9, Jesus makes a clay mixture for healing (“working” on the Sabbath) and sends the man off to the pool of Siloam (“traveling” on the Sabbath). So we have another repetition in the stories with the appearance of pools. One a trick, the other a source of divine healing. The pool of Bethesda stands rejected by Jesus. It has a long pagan tradition about it, and is a questionable water source as a cistern like catch for rain water. Then we have the pool of Siloam, renowned as a place of ritual purification for pilgrims before entering the temple enclosure. Its waters are living waters fed by underground springs from David’s tunnel, which he used to break into Jerusalem to make it his own.
In each instance the religious leaders express ire over the supposed Sabbath violations.
In John 5, the man blames the unknown figure who, having healed him, commanded him to carry his bed roll on the Sabbath. He is no help to them in identifying the man, however, for he knows nothing of them.
In John 9, the once blind man, keeps repeating the story of his Sabbath healing to those who are astounded by the affair. Some are calling the healer, whoever he is, a miracle worker from God, others are claiming that he must be a sinner for violating Sabbath. The healed blind man, like the invalid from John 5, has no idea who the man was who healed him, but when the religious leaders denounce him, demanding that he denounce him too, the man calls him a Prophet. Thus, the religious leaders seek to discredit him as a fraud, but the healed man’s parents are brought to give evidence and affirm his lifelong blindness. They, are afraid of the religious leaders, however, for they have threatened to kick people out of the synagogue for siding with the Sabbath breaking healer. They beg to be left of the affair altogether. They turn on the healed man again and say, “Give glory to God; we know that this man is a sinner.” The healed man is having none of it. He declares before them all, “Whether He is a sinner, I do not know; one thing I do know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.” And “We know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is God-fearing, and does His will, He hears him. Since the beginning of time it has never been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, He could do nothing.”
In both stories, Jesus returns to the healed men, but each has a radically different response to this second encounter.
In John 5, Jesus seeks out the healed man and gives him a warning for his soul. He says, “Behold, you have become well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse may befall you.” Knowing now, that it was Jesus who healed him, the man returns to the irate religious leaders and informs on Jesus to them. (That’s some gratitude for you.)
In John 9, Jesus seeks out the healed man and asks him a question. “Do you believe in the son of man?” When the man realizes that this is the man who healed him, declaring Himself Son of Man, he says, “Lord, I believe,” and then worships Him.
In both stories, the second encounter provokes a direct attack against Jesus by the religious leaders and Jesus makes bold declarations about Himself.
In John 5, Jesus defends His Sabbath labors as the righteous work of God, His Father. Thus they seek to kill him for being a Sabbath breaker and for making Himself equal with God.
In John 9, the story opens with these same declarations. Preparing to violate Jewish sensibilities of Sabbath keeping, Jesus says, “We must work the works of Him who sent Me, as long as it is day; night is coming, when no man can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” In the face of final attack, Jesus speaks out against those who judged Him a sinner for healing on the Sabbath. Jesus declares that He has come for judgment into the world to open blind eyes and blind those who only think they can see. He declares the religious leaders the true sinners. So, continuing to work themes of true Sabbath, true faith, and true life, John builds two stories with identical structures wherein one man buckles to the fear of man and betrays His healer and savior and another where a man stands against all opposition, enduring all their punishments to stand in faith with the man sent from God to display His glory in and through him. John asks you, Dear Reader, will you stand in faith with Jesus today, whatever consequences may come? Will you truly believe?
