Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of John 5:17

But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.

17 47. The Discourse on the Son as the Source of Life

17. answered them ] This was how He met their constant persecution. The discourse which follows (see introductory note to chap. 3) may be thus analysed. (S. p. 106.) It has two main divisions I. The prerogatives of the Son of God (Joh 5:17-30). II. The unbelief of the Jews (Joh 5:31-47). These two are subdivided as follows: I. 1. Defence of healing on the Sabbath based on the relation of the Son to the Father (Joh 5:17-18). 2. Intimacy of the Son with the Father further enforced (Joh 5:19-20). 3. This intimacy proved by the twofold power committed to the Son ( a) of communicating spiritual life (Joh 5:21-27), ( b) of raising the dead (Joh 5:28-29). 4. The Son’s qualification for these high powers is the perfect harmony of His Will with that of the Father (Joh 5:30). II. 1. The Son’s claims rest not on His testimony alone, nor on that of John, but on that of the Father (Joh 5:31-35). 2. The Father’s testimony is evident ( a) in the works assigned to the Son (Joh 5:36), ( b) in the revelation which the Jews reject (Joh 5:37-40). 3. Not that the Son needs honour from men, who are too worldly to receive Him (Joh 5:41-44). 4. Their appeal to Moses is vain; his writings condemn them.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

17 30. The Prerogatives and Powers of the Son of God

17, 18. Defence of healing on the Sabbath based on the relation of the Son to the Father.

My Father worketh hitherto, &c.] Or, My Father is working even until now; I am working also. From the Creation up to this moment God has been ceaselessly working for man’s salvation. From such activity there is no rest, no Sabbath: for mere cessation from activity is not of the essence of the Sabbath; and to cease to do good is not to keep the Sabbath but to sin. Sabbaths have never hindered the Father’s work; they must not hinder the Son’s. Elsewhere (Mar 2:27) Christ says that the Sabbath is a blessing not a burden; it was made for man, not man for it. Here He takes far higher ground for Himself. He is equal to the Father, and does what the Father does. Mar 2:28 helps to connect the two positions. If the Sabbath is subject to man, much more to the Son of Man, who is equal to the Father.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

My Father – God.

Worketh hitherto – Worketh until now, or until this time. God has not ceased to work on the Sabbath. He makes the sun to rise; He rolls the stars; He causes the grass, the tree, the flower to grow. He has not suspended His operations on the Sabbath, and the obligation to rest on the Sabbath does not extend to Him. He created the world in six days, and ceased the work of creation; but He has not ceased to govern it, and to carry forward, by His providence, His great plans on the Sabbath.

And I work – As God does good on that day; as he is not bound by the law which requires his creatures to rest on that day, so I do the same. The law on that subject may be dispensed with, also, in my case, for the Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath. In this reply it is implied that he was equal with God from two circumstances:

1. Because he called God his Father, Joh 5:18.
2. Because he claimed the same exemption from law which God did, asserting that the law of the Sabbath did not bind him or his Father, thus showing that he had a right to impose and repeal laws in the same manner as God. He that has a right to do this must be God.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Verse 17. My Father worked hitherto, and I work.] Or, As my Father worketh until now, c., being understood. God created the world in six days: on the seventh he rested from all creating acts, and set it apart to be an everlasting memorial of his work. But, though he rested from creating, he never ceased from preserving and governing that which he had formed: in this respect he can keep no sabbaths for nothing can continue to exist, or answer the end proposed by the Divine wisdom and goodness, without the continual energy of God. So I work – I am constantly employed in the same way, governing and supporting all things, comforting the wretched, and saving the lost; and to me, in this respect, there is no sabbath.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

We read of no objection they made to Christ, as to what he had done, only that they persecuted him, which they might do without speaking to him: but it should seem by what we read in this verse, that some of the Jews had objected to him his violation of the sabbath (as they thought); yet, as we before noted, answered (in the dialect of the gospel) doth often signify no more than the beginning of a discourse upon some proper occasion offered. Our Saviour defends himself from the example of his Father, in the remembrance of whose resting from his work of creation on the seventh day from the beginning of the creation, the Jews kept their sabbath; who, though he rested from his work of creation, yet hitherto

worketh, as well on the sabbath day as any other day, by his preservation of created beings: so (saith he) I, who am the Son of this Father, also work; upholding all things by the word of my power, Heb 1:3. So that works of Divine Providence are lawful on the sabbath day; such was this. I work no other way than my Father still worketh, though he rested on the seventh day from the creation.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

17, 18. My Father worketh hithertoand I workThe “I” is emphatic; “Thecreative and conservative activity of My Father has known nosabbath-cessation from the beginning until now, and that is thelaw of My working.“

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

But Jesus answered them,…. Being convened before them, and charged by them with the violation of the sabbath, he vindicated himself in the following manner, saying;

my Father worketh hitherto: he who is my Father, not by creation, or adoption, but by nature, though he ended all his work on the seventh day, and rested from what he had done; yet he did not cease from working at all, but has continued to work ever since, on sabbath days, as well as on other days; in upholding and governing the world, in continuing the species of beings, and all creatures in their being; in providing for them, and in dispensing the bounties of his providence to them; in causing his sun to shine, and showers of rain to descend on the earth; and in taking care of, and protecting even the meanest of his creatures: and much more men; and still more his own people:

and I work; or “also I work”; as the Syriac and Arabic version reads; i.e. in conjunction with him, as a co-efficient cause in the works of providence, in the government of the world, in upholding all things in it, in bearing up the pillars of the earth, in holding things together, and sustaining all creatures: or I also work in imitation of him, in doing good both to the bodies and souls of men on the sabbath day, being the Lord of it: I do but what my Father does, and therefore, as he is not to be blamed for his works on that day, as none will say he is, no more am I. So Philo the Jew says b,

“God never ceases to work; but as it is the property of fire to burn, and of snow to cool, so of God to work.”

And what most men call fortune, he calls the divine Logos, or word, to whom he ascribes all the affairs of providence c.

b Leg. Ailegor. l. 1. p. 41. c Quod Deus sit Immutab. p. 318.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Christ’s Discourse with the Jews; All Judgment Committed to Christ; The Christian Charter.

      17 But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.   18 Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.   19 Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.   20 For the Father loveth the Son, and showeth him all things that himself doeth: and he will show him greater works than these, that ye may marvel.   21 For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will.   22 For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son:   23 That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him.   24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.   25 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.   26 For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself;   27 And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man.   28 Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice,   29 And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.   30 I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.

      We have here Christ’s discourse upon occasion of his being accused as a sabbath-breaker, and it seems to be his vindication of himself before the sanhedrim, when he was arraigned before them: whether on the same day, or two or three days after, does not appear; probably the same day. Observe,

      I. The doctrine laid down, by which he justified what he did on the sabbath day (v. 17): He answered them. This supposes that he had something laid to his charge: or what they suggested one to another, when they sought to slay him (v. 16), he knew, and gave this reply to, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. At other times, in answer to the like charge, he had pleaded the example of David’s eating the show-bread, of the priests’ slaying the sacrifices, and of the people’s watering their cattle on the sabbath day; but here he goes higher and alleges the example of his Father and his divine authority; waiving all other pleas, he insists upon that which was instar omnium–equivalent to the whole, and abides by it, which he had mentioned, Matt. xii. 8. The Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day; but he here enlarges on it. 1. He pleads that he was the Son of God, plainly intimated in his calling God his Father; and, if so, his holiness was unquestionable and his sovereignty incontestable; and he might make what alterations he pleased of the divine law. Surely they will reverence the Son, the heir of all things. 2. That he was a worker together with God. (1.) My Father worketh hitherto. The example of God’s resting on the seventh day from all his work is, in the fourth commandment, made the ground of our observing it as a sabbath or day of rest. Now God rested only from such work as he had done the six days before; otherwise he worketh hitherto, he is every day working, sabbath days and week-days, upholding and governing all the creatures, and concurring by his common providence to all the motions and operations of nature, to his own glory; therefore, when we are appointed to rest on the sabbath day, yet we are not restrained from doing that which has a direct tendency to the glory of God, as the man’s carrying his bed had. (2.) I work; not only therefore I may work, like him, in doing good on sabbath days as well as other days, but I also work with him. As God created all things by Christ, so he supports and governs all by him, Heb. i. 3. This sets what he does above all exception; he that is so great a worker must needs be an uncontrollable governor; he that does all is Lord of all, and therefore Lord of the sabbath, which particular branch of his authority he would now assert, because he was shortly to show it further, in the change of the day from the seventh to the first.

      II. The offence that was taken at his doctrine (v. 18): The Jews sought the more to kill him. His defence was made his offence, as if by justifying himself he had made bad worse. Note, Those that will not be enlightened by the word of Christ will be enraged and exasperated by it, and nothing more vexes the enemies of Christ than his asserting his authority; see Ps. ii. 3-5. They sought to kill him,

      1. Because he had broken the sabbath; for, let him say what he would in his own justification, they are resolved, right or wrong, to find him guilty of sabbath breaking. When malice and envy sit upon the bench, reason and justice may even be silent at the bar, for whatever they can say will undoubtedly be over-ruled.

      2. Not only so, but he had said also that God was his Father. Now they pretend a jealousy for God’s honour, as before for the sabbath day, and charge Christ with it as a heinous crime that he made himself equal with God; and a heinous crime it had been if he had not really been so. It was the sin of Lucifer, I will be like the Most High. Now, (1.) This was justly inferred from what he said, that he was the Son of God, and that God was his Father, patera idion—his own Father; his, so as he was no one’s else. He had said that he worked with his Father, by the same authority and power, and hereby he made himself equal with God. Ecce intelligunt Judi, quod non intelligunt Ariani–Behold, the Jews understand what the Arians do not. (2.) Yet it was unjustly imputed to him as an offence that he equalled himself with God, for he was and is God, equal with the Father (Phil. ii. 6); and therefore Christ, in answer to this charge, does not except against the innuendo as strained or forced, makes out his claim and proves that he is equal with God in power and glory.

      III. Christ’s discourse upon this occasion, which continues without interruption to the end of the chapter. In these verses he explains, and afterwards confirms, his commission, as Mediator and plenipotentiary in the treaty between God and man. And, as the honours he is hereby entitled to are such as it is not fit for any creature to receive, so the work he is hereby entrusted with is such as it is not possible for any creature to go through with, and therefore he is God, equal with the Father.

      1. In general. He is one with the Father in all he does as Mediator, and there was a perfectly good understanding between them in the whole matter. It is ushered in with a solemn preface (v. 19): Verily, verily, I say unto you; I the Amen, the Amen, say it. This intimates that the things declared are, (1.) Very awful and great, and such as should command the most serious attention. (2.) Very sure, and such as should command an unfeigned assent. (3.) That they are matters purely of divine revelation; things which Christ has told us, and which we could not otherwise have come to the knowledge of. Two things he saith in general concerning the Son’s oneness with the Father in working:–

      [1.] That the Son conforms to the Father (v. 19): The Son can do nothing of himself but what he sees the Father do; for these things does the Son. The Lord Jesus, as Mediator, is First, Obedient to his Father’s will; so entirely obedient that he can do nothing of himself, in the same sense as it is said, God cannot lie, cannot deny himself, which expresses the perfection of his truth, not any imperfection in his strength; so here, Christ was so entirely devoted to his Father’s will that it was impossible for him in any thing to act separately. Secondly, He is observant of his Father’s counsel; he can, he will, do nothing but what he sees the Father do. No man can find out the work of God, but the only-begotten Son, who lay in his bosom, sees what he does, is intimately acquainted with his purposes, and has the plan of them ever before him. What he did as Mediator, throughout his whole undertaking, was the exact transcript or counterpart of what the Father did; that is, what he designed, when he formed the plan of our redemption in his eternal counsels, and settled those measures in every thing which never could be broken, nor ever needed to be altered. It was the copy of that great original; it was Christ’s faithfulness, as it was Moses’s, that he did all according to the pattern shown him in the mount. This is expressed in the present tense, what he sees the Father do, for the same reason that, when he was here upon earth, it was said, He is in heaven (ch. iii. 13), and is in the bosom of the Father (ch. i. 18); as he was even then by his divine nature present in heaven, so the things done in heaven were present to his knowledge. What the Father did in his counsels, the Son had ever in his view, and still he had his eye upon it, as David in spirit spoke of him, I have set the Lord always before me, Ps. xvi. 8. Thirdly, Yet he is equal with the Father in working; for what things soever the Father does these also does the Son likewise; he did the same things, not such things, but tauta, the same things; and he did them in the same manner, homoios, likewise, with the same authority, and liberty, and wisdom, the same energy and efficacy. Does the Father enact, repeal, and alter, positive laws? Does he over-rule the course of nature, know men’s hearts? So does the Son. The power of the Mediator is a divine power.

      [2.] That the Father communicates to the Son, v. 20. Observe,

      First, The inducement to it: The Father loveth the Son; he declared, This is my beloved Son. He had not only a good will to the undertaking, but an infinite complacency in the undertaker. Christ was now hated of men, one whom the nation abhorred (Isa. xlix. 7); but he comforted himself with this, that his Father loved him.

      Secondly, The instances of it. He shows it, 1. In what he does communicate to him: He shows him all things that himself doth. The Father’s measures in making and ruling the world are shown to the Son, that he may take the same measures in framing and governing the church, which work was to be a duplicate of the work of creation and providence, and it is therefore called the world to come. He shows him all things ha autos poiei—which he does, that is, which the Son does, so it might be construed; all that the Son does is by direction from the Father; he shows him. 2. In what he will communicate; he will show him, that is, will appoint and direct him to do greater works than these. (1.) Works of greater power than the curing of the impotent man; for he should raise the dead, and should himself rise from the dead. By the power of nature, with the use of means, a disease may possibly in time be cured; but nature can never, by the use of any means, in any time raise the dead. (2.) Works of greater authority than warranting the man to carry his bed on the sabbath day. They thought this a daring attempt; but what was this to his abrogating the whole ceremonial law, and instituting new ordinances, which he would shortly do, “that you may marvel!” Now they looked upon his works with contempt and indignation, but he will shortly do that which they will look upon with amazement, Luke vii. 16. Many are brought to marvel at Christ’s works, whereby he has the honour of them, who are not brought to believe, by which they would have the benefit of them.

      2. In particular. He proves his equality with the Father, by specifying some of those works which he does that are the peculiar works of God. This is enlarged upon, v. 21-30. He does, and shall do, that which is the peculiar work of God’s sovereign dominion and jurisdiction–judging and executing judgment,Joh 5:22-24; Joh 5:27. These two are interwoven, as being nearly connected; and what is said once is repeated and inculcated; put both together, and they will prove that Christ said not amiss when he made himself equal with God.

      (1.) Observe what is here said concerning the Mediator’s power to raise the dead and give life. See [1.] His authority to do it (v. 21): As the Father raiseth up the dead, so the Son quickeneth whom he will. First, It is God’s prerogative to raise the dead, and give life, even his who first breathed into man the breath of life, and so made him a living soul; see Deu 32:30; 1Sa 2:6; Psa 68:20; Rom 4:17. This God had done by the prophets Elijah and Elisha, and it was a confirmation of their mission. A resurrection from the dead never lay in the common road of nature, nor ever fell within the thought of those that studied only the compass of nature’s power, one of whose received axioms was point blank against it: A privatione ad habitum non datur regressus–Existence, when once extinguished, cannot be rekindled. It was therefore ridiculed at Athens as an absurd thing, Acts xvii. 32. It is purely the work of a divine power, and the knowledge of it purely by divine revelation. This the Jews would own. Secondly, The Mediator is invested with this prerogative: He quickens whom he will; raises to life whom he pleases, and when he pleases. He does not enliven things by natural necessity, as the sun does, whose beams revive of course; but he acts as a free agent, has the dispensing of his power in his own hand, and is never either constrained, or restrained, in the use of it. As he has the power, so he has the wisdom and sovereignty, of a God; has the key of the grave and of death (Rev. i. 18), not as a servant, to open and shut as he is bidden, for he has it as the key of David, which he is master of, Rev. iii. 7. An absolute prince is described by this (Dan. v. 19): Whom he would he slew or kept alive; it is true of Christ without hyperbole.

      [2.] His ability to do it. Therefore he has power to quicken whom he will as the Father does, because he has life in himself, as the Father has, v. 26. First, It is certain that the Father has life in himself. Not only he is a self-existent Being, who does not derive from, or depend upon, any other (Exod. iii. 14), but he is a sovereign giver of life; he has the disposal of life in himself; and of all good (for so life sometimes signifies); it is all derived from him, and dependent on him. He is to his creatures the fountain of life, and all good; author of their being and well-being; the living God, and the God of all living. Secondly, It is as certain that he has given to the Son to have life in himself. As the Father is the original of all natural life and good, being the great Creator, so the Son, as Redeemer, is the original of all spiritual life and good; is that to the church which the Father is to the world; see 1Co 8:6; Col 1:19. The kingdom of grace, and all the life in that kingdom, are as fully and absolutely in the hand of the Redeemer as the kingdom of providence is in the hand of the Creator; and as God, who gives being to all things, has his being of himself, so Christ, who gives life, raised himself to life by his own power, ch. x. 18.

      [3.] His acting according to this authority and ability. Having life in himself, and being authorized to quicken whom he will, by virtue hereof there are, accordingly, two resurrections performed by his powerful word, both which are here spoken of:–

      First, A resurrection that now is (v. 29), a resurrection from the death of sin to the life of righteousness, by the power of Christ’s grace. The hour is coming, and now is. It is a resurrection begun already, and further to be carried on, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God. This is plainly distinguished from that in v. 28, which speaks of the resurrection at the end of time. This says nothing, as that does, of the dead in their graces, and of all of them, and their coming forth. Now, 1. Some think this was fulfilled in those whom he miraculously raised to life, Jairus’s daughter, the widow’s son, and Lazarus; and it is observable that all whom Christ raised were spoken to, as, Damsel, arise; Young man, arise; Lazarus, come forth; whereas those raised under the Old Testament were raised, not by a word, but other applications, 1Ki 17:21; 2Ki 4:34; 2Ki 13:21. Some understand it of those saints that rose with Christ; but we do not read of the voice of the Son of God calling them. But, 2. I rather understand it of the power of the doctrine of Christ, for the recovering and quickening of those that were dead in trespasses and sins, Eph. ii. 1. The hour was coming when dead souls should be made alive by the preaching of the gospel, and a spirit of life from God accompanying it: nay, it then was, while Christ was upon earth. It may refer especially to the calling of the Gentiles, which is said to be as life from the dead, and, some think, was prefigured by Ezekiel’s vision (ch. xxxvii. 1), and foretold, Isa. xxvi. 19. Thy dead men shall live. But it is to be applied to all the wonderful success of the gospel, among both Jews and Gentiles; an hour which still is, and is still coming, till all the elect be effectually called. Note, (1.) Sinners are spiritually dead, destitute of spiritual life, sense, strength, and motion, dead to God, miserable, but neither sensible of their misery nor able to help themselves out of it. (2.) The conversion of a soul to God is its resurrection from death to life; then it begins to live when it begins to live to God, to breathe after him, and move towards him. (3.) It is by the voice of the Son of God that souls are raised to spiritual life; it is wrought by his power, and that power conveyed and communicated by his word: The dead shall hear, shall be made to hear, to understand, receive, and believe, the voice of the Son of God, to hear it as his voice; then the Spirit by it gives life, otherwise the letter kills. (4.) The voice of Christ must be heard by us, that we may live by it. They that hear, and attend to what they hear, shall live. Hear and your soul shall live, Isa. lv. 3.

      Secondly, A resurrection yet to come; this is spoken of, Joh 5:28; Joh 5:29, introduced with, “Marvel not at this, which I have said of the first resurrection, do not reject it as incredible and absurd, for at the end of time you shall all see a more sensible and amazing proof of the power and authority of the Son of man.” As his own resurrection was reserved to be the final and concluding proof of his personal commission, so the resurrection of all men is reserved to be a like proof of his commission to be executed by his spirit. Now observe here,

      a. When this resurrection shall be: The hour is coming; it is fixed to an hour, so very punctual is this great appointment. The judgment is not adjourned sine die–to some time not yet pitched upon; no, he hath appointed a day. The hour is coming. (a.) It is not yet come, it is not the hour spoken of at v. 25, that is coming, and now is. Those erred dangerously who said that the resurrection was past already, 2 Tim. ii. 18, But, (b.) It will certainly come, it is coming on, nearer every day than other; it is at the door. How far off it is we know not; but we know that it is infallibly designed and unalterably determined.

      b. Who shall be raised: All that are in the graves, all that have died from the beginning of time, and all that shall die to the end of time. It was said (Dan. xii. 2), Many shall arise; Christ here tells us that those many shall be all; all must appear before the Judge, and therefore all must be raised; every person, and the whole of every person; every soul shall return to its body, and every bone to its bone. The grave is the prison of dead bodies, where they are detained; their furnace, where they are consumed (Job xxiv. 19); yet, in prospect of their resurrection, we may call it their bed, where they sleep to be awaked again; their treasury, where they are laid up to be used again. Even those that are not put into graves shall arise; but, because most are put into graves, Christ uses this expression, all that are in the graves. The Jews used the word sheol for the grave, which signifies the state of the dead; all that are in that state shall hear.

      c. How they shall be raised. Two things are here told us:– (a.) The efficient of this resurrection: They shall hear his voice; that is, he shall cause them to hear it, as Lazarus was made to hear that word, Come forth; a divine power shall go along with the voice, to put life into them, and enable them to obey it. When Christ rose, there was no voice heard, not a word spoken, because he rose by his own power; but at the resurrection of the children of men we find three voices spoken of, 1 Thess. iv. 16. The Lord shall descend with a shout, the shout of a king, with the voice of the archangel; either Christ himself, the prince of the angels, or the commander-in-chief, under him, of the heavenly hosts; and with the trumpet of God: the soldier’s trumpet sounding the alarm of war, the judge’s trumpet publishing the summons to the court. (b.) The effect of it: They shall come forth out of their graves, as prisoners out of their prison-house; they shall arise out of the dust, and shake themselves from it; see Isa 52:1; Isa 52:2; Isa 52:11. But this is not all; they shall appear before Christ’s tribunal, shall come forth as those that are to be tried, come forth to the bar, publicly to receive their doom.

      d. To what they shall be raised; to a different state of happiness or misery, according to their different character; to a state of retribution, according to what they did in the state of probation.

      (a.) They that have done good shall come forth to the resurrection of life; they shall live again, to live for ever. Note, [a.] Whatever name men are called by, or whatever plausible profession they make, it will be well in the great day with those only that have done good, have done that which is pleasing to God and profitable to others. [b.] The resurrection of the body will be a resurrection of life to all those, and those only, that have been sincere and constant in doing good. They shall not only be publicly acquitted, as a pardoned criminal, we say, has his life, but they shall be admitted into the presence of God, and that is life, it is better than life; they shall be attended with comforts in perfection. To live is to be happy, and they shall be advanced above the fear of death; that is life indeed in which mortality is for ever swallowed up.

      (b.) They that have done evil to the resurrection of damnation; they shall live again, to be for ever dying. The Pharisees thought that the resurrection pertained only to the just, but Christ here rectifies that mistake. Note, [a.] Evil doers, whatever they pretend, will be treated in the day of judgment as evil men. [b.] The resurrection will be to evil doers, who did not by repentance undo what they had done amiss, a resurrection of damnation. They shall come forth to be publicly convicted of rebellion against God, and publicly condemned to everlasting punishment; to be sentenced to it, and immediately sent to it without reprieve. Such will the resurrection be.

      (2.) Observe what is here said concerning the Mediator’s authority to execute judgment,Joh 5:22-24; Joh 5:27. As he has an almighty power, so he has a sovereign jurisdiction; and who so fit to preside in the great affairs of the other life as he who is the Father and fountain of life? Here is,

      [1.] Christ’s commission or delegation to the office of a judge, which is twice spoken of here (v. 22): He hath committed all judgment to the Son; and again (v. 27): he hath given him authority.

      First, The Father judges no man; not that the Father hath resigned the government, but he is pleased to govern by Jesus Christ; so that man is not under the terror of dealing with God immediately, but has the comfort of access to him by a Mediator. Having made us, he may do what he pleases with us, as the potter with the clay; yet he does not take advantage of this, but draws us with the cords of a man. 2. He does not determine our everlasting condition by the covenant of innocency, nor take the advantage he has against us for the violation of that covenant. The Mediator having undertaken to make a vicarious satisfaction, the matter is referred to him, and God is willing to enter upon a new treaty; not under the law of the Creator, but the grace of the Redeemer.

      Secondly, He has committed all judgment to the Son, has constituted him Lord of all (Act 10:36; Rom 14:9), as Joseph in Egypt, Gen. xli. 40. This was prophesied of, Psa 72:1; Isa 11:3; Isa 11:4; Jer 23:5; Mic 5:1-4; Psa 67:4; Psa 96:13; Psa 98:9. All judgment is committed to our Lord Jesus; for 1. He is entrusted with the administration of the providential kingdom, is head over all things (Eph. i. 11), head of every man, 1 Cor. xii. 3. All things consist by him, Col. i. 17. 2. He is empowered to make laws immediately to bind conscience. I say unto you is now the form in which the statues of the kingdom of heaven run. Be it enacted by the Lord Jesus, and by his authority. All the acts now in force are touched with his sceptre. 3. He is authorized to appoint and settle the terms of the new covenant, and to draw up the articles of peace between God and man; it is God in Christ that reconciles the world, and to him he has given power to confer eternal life. The book of life is the Lamb’s book; by his award we must stand or fall. 4. He is commissioned to carry on and complete the war with the powers of darkness; to cast out and give judgment against the prince of this world, ch. xii. 31. He is commissioned not only to judge, but to make war, Rev. xix. 11. All that will fight for God against Satan must enlist themselves under his banner. 5. He is constituted sole manager of the judgment of the great day. The ancients generally understood these words of that crowning act of his judicial power. The final and universal judgment is committed to the Son of man; the tribunal is his, it is the judgment-seat of Christ; the retinue is his, his mighty angels; he will try the causes, and pass the sentence. Acts xvii. 31.

      Thirdly, He has given him authority to execute judgment also, v. 27. Observe, 1. What the authority is which our Redeemer is invested with: An authority to execute judgment; he has not only a legislative and judicial power, but an executive power too. The phrase here is used particularly for the judgment of condemnation, Jude 15. poiesai krisin—to execute judgment upon all; the same with his taking vengeance, 2 Thess. i. 8. The ruin of impenitent sinners comes from the hand of Christ; he that executes judgment upon them is the same that would have wrought salvation for them, which makes the sentence unexceptionable; and there is no relief against the sentence of the Redeemer; salvation itself cannot save those whom the Saviour condemns, which makes the ruin remediless. 2. Whence he has that authority: the Father gave it to him. Christ’s authority as Mediator is delegated and derived; he acts as the Father’s Viceregent, as the Lord’s Anointed, the Lord’s Christ. Now all this redounds very much to the honour of Christ, acquitting him from the guilt of blasphemy, in making himself equal with God; and very much to the comfort of all believers, who may with the greatest assurance venture their all in such hands.

      [2.] Here are the reasons (reasons of state) for which this commission was given him. He has all judgment committed to him for two reasons:–

      First, Because he is the Son of man; which denotes these three things:– 1. His humiliation and gracious condescension. Man is a worm, the son of man a worm; yet this was the nature, this the character, which the Redeemer assumed, in pursuance of the counsels of love; to this low estate he stooped, and submitted to all the mortifications attending it, because it was his Father’s will; in recompence therefore of this wonderful obedience, God did thus dignify him. Because he condescended to be the Son of man, his Father made him Lord of all,Phi 2:8; Phi 2:9. 2. His affinity and alliance to us. The Father has committed the government of the children of men to him, because, being the Son of man, he is of the same nature with those whom he is set over, and therefore the more unexceptionable, and the more acceptable, as a Judge. Their governor shall proceed from the midst of them, Jer. xxx. 21. Of this that law was typical; One of thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee, Deut. xvii. 15. 3. His being the Messiah promised. In that famous vision of his kingdom and glory, Dan 7:13; Dan 7:14, he is called the Son of man; and Ps. viii. 4-6. Thou has made the Son of man have dominion over the works of thy hands. He is the Messiah, and therefore is invested with all this power. The Jews usually called the Christ the Son of David; but Christ usually called himself the Son of man, which was the more humble title, and bespeaks him a prince and Saviour, not the Jewish nation only, but to the whole race of mankind.

      Secondly, That all men should honour the Son, v. 23. The honouring of Jesus Christ is here spoken of as God’s great design (the Son intended to glorify the Father, and therefore the Father intended to glorify the Son, ch. xii. 32); and as man’s great duty, in compliance with that design. If God will have the Son honoured, it is the duty of all to whom he is made known to honour him. Observe here, 1. The respect that is to be paid to our Lord Jesus: We must honour the Son, must look upon him as one that is to be honoured, both on account of his transcendent excellences and perfections in himself, and of the relations he stands in to us, and must study to give him honour accordingly; must confess that he is Lord, and worship him; must honour him who was dishonoured for us. 2. The degree of it: Even as they honour the Father. This supposes it to be our duty to honour the Father; for revealed religion is founded on natural religion, and directs us to honour the Son, to honour him with divine honour; we must honour the Redeemer with the same honour with which we honour the Creator. So far was it from blasphemy for him to make himself equal with God that it is the highest injury that can be for us to make him otherwise. The truths and laws of the Christian religion, so far as they are revealed, are as sacred and honourable as those of natural religion, and to be equally had in estimation; for we lie under the same obligations to Christ, the Author of our being; and have as necessary a dependence upon the Redeemer’s grace as upon the Creator’s providence, which is a sufficient ground for this law–to honour the Son as we honour the Father. To enforce this law, it is added, He that honours not the Son honours not the Father who has sent him. Some pretend a reverence for the Creator, and speak honourably of him, who make light of the Redeemer, and speak contemptibly of him; but let such know that the honours and interests of the Father and Son are so inseparably twisted and interwoven that the Father never reckons himself honoured by any that dishonour the Son. Note, (1.) Indignities done to the Lord Jesus reflect upon God himself, and will so be construed and reckoned for in the court of heaven. The Son having so far espoused the Father’s honour as to take to himself the reproaches cast on him (Rom. xv. 3), the Father does no less espouse the Son’s honour, and counts himself struck at through him. (2.) The reason of this is because the Son is sent and commissioned by the Father; it is the Father who hath sent him. Affronts to an ambassador are justly resented by the prince that sends him. And by this rule those who truly honour the Son honour the Father also; see Phil. ii. 11.

      [3.] Here is the rule by which the Son goes in executing this commission, so those words seem to come in (v. 24): He that heareth and believeth hath everlasting life. Here we have the substance of the whole gospel; the preface commands attention to a thing most weighty, and assent to a thing most certain: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, I, to whom you hear all judgment is committed, I, in whose lips is a divine sentence; take from me the Christian’s character and charter.“

      First, The character of a Christian: He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me. To be a Christian indeed is, 1. To hear the word of Christ. It is not enough to be within hearing of it, but we must attend on it, as scholars on the instructions of their teachers; and attend to it, as servants to the commands of their masters; we must hear and obey it, must abide by the gospel of Christ as the fixed rule of our faith and practice. 2. To believe on him that sent him; for Christ’s design is to bring us to God; and, as he is the first original of all grace, so is he the last object of all faith. Christ is our way; God is our rest. We must believe on God as having sent Jesus Christ, and recommended himself to our faith and love, by manifesting his glory in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. iv. 6), as his Father and our Father.

      Secondly, The charter of a Christian, in which all that are Christians indeed are interested. See what we get by Christ. 1. A charter of pardon: He shall not come into condemnation. The grace of the gospel is a full discharge from the curse of the law. A believer shall not only not lie under condemnation eternally, but shall not come into condemnation now, not come into the danger of it (Rom. viii. 1), not come into judgment, not be so much as arraigned. 2. A charter of privileges: He is passed out of death to life, is invested in a present happiness in spiritual life and entitled to a future happiness in eternal life. The tenour of the first covenant was, Do this and live; the man that doeth them shall live in them. Now this proves Christ equal with the Father that he has power to propose the same benefit to the hearers of his word that had been proposed to the keepers of the old law, that is, life: Hear and live, believe and live, is what we may venture our souls upon, when we are disabled to do and live; see ch. xvii. 2.

      [4.] Here is the righteousness of his proceedings pursuant to this commission, v. 30. All judgment being committed to him, we cannot but ask how he manages it. And here he answers, My judgment is just. All Christ’s acts of government, both legislative and judicial, are exactly agreeable to the rules of equity; see Prov. viii. 8. There can lie no exceptions against any of the determinations of the Redeemer; and therefore, as there shall be no repeal of any of his statutes, so there shall be no appeal from any of his sentences. His judgments are certainly just, for they are directed,

      First, By the Father’s wisdom: I can of my ownself do nothing, nothing without the Father, but as I hear I judge, as he had said before (v. 19), The Son can do nothing but what he sees the Father do; so here, nothing but what he hears the Father say: As I hear, 1. From the secret eternal counsels of the Father, so I judge. Would we know what we may depend upon in our dealing with God? Hear the word of Christ. We need not dive into the divine counsels, those secret things which belong not to us, but attend to the revealed dictates of Christ’s government and judgment, which will furnish us with an unerring guide; for what Christ has adjudged is an exact copy or counterpart of what the Father has decreed. 2. From the published records of the Old Testament. Christ, in all the execution of his undertaking, had an eye to the scripture, and made it his business to conform to this, and fulfil it: As it was written in the volume of the book. Thus he taught us to do nothing of ourselves, but, as we hear from the word of God, so to judge of things, and act accordingly.

      Secondly, By the Father’s will: My judgment is just, and cannot be otherwise, because I seek not my own will, but his who sent me. Not as if the will of Christ were contrary to the will of the Father, as the flesh is contrary to the spirit in us; but, 1. Christ had, as man, the natural and innocent affections of the human nature, sense of pain and pleasure, an inclination to life, an aversion to death: yet he pleased not himself, did not confer with these, nor consult these, when he was to go on his undertaking, but acquiesced entirely in the will of his Father. 2. What he did as Mediator was not the result of any peculiar or particular purpose and design of his own; what he did seek to do was not for his own mind’s sake, but he was therein guided by his Father’s will, and the purpose which he had purposed to himself. This our Saviour did upon all occasions refer himself to and govern himself by.

Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary

Answered (). Regular aorist middle indicative of , in John here only and verse 19, elsewhere as in verse 11.

My Father ( ). Not “our Father,” claim to peculiar relation to the Father.

Worketh even until now ( ). Linear present middle indicative, “keeps on working until now” without a break on the Sabbath. Philo points out this fact of the continuous activity of God. Justin Martyr, Origen and others note this fact about God. He made the Sabbath for man’s blessing, but cannot observe it himself.

And I work ( ). Jesus puts himself on a par with God’s activity and thus justifies his healing on the Sabbath.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

Worketh. The discussion turned on work on the Sabbath. The Father ‘s work in maintaining and redeeming the world has continued from the creation until the present moment [ ] : until now, not interrupted by the Sabbath.

And I work [ ] . Or, I also work. The two clauses are coordinated. The relation, as Meyer observes, is not that of imitation, or example, but of equality of will and procedure. Jesus does not violate the divine ideal of the Sabbath by His holy activity on that day. “Man’s true rest is not a rest from human, earthly labor, but a rest for divine, heavenly labor. Thus the merely negative, traditional observance of the Sabbath is placed in sharp contrast with the positive, final fulfillment of spiritual service, for which it was a preparation” (Westcott).

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) “But Jesus answered them,” (ho de apekrinato autois) “Then Jesus responded to them,” in reply to their charge that He was a sabbath breaker, Joh 5:10, in presenting His defense against their charges of wrong against Him.

2) “My Father worketh hitherto,” (ho pater mou heos arti ergazetzai) “My Father works until this moment,” until right now. He works sustaining His universe, giving blessings, and showing, extending mercy, sending sunshine and showers on the sabbath day for all of you. He who made and sanctified them, distributes His blessings to all of you, on this day, See? Joh 9:4; Joh 14:10; La 3:22,23.

3) “And I work.” (kago ergazomai) “And I work,” of my own will and accord, or of my own volition. I work as His express image, to show His love, mercy, and compassion for the afflicted in body, mind, and soul, See? Joh 17:4. As it is the nature of fire to burn and ice to freeze, so it is the nature of God to work, Heb 1:1-3.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

17. My Father worketh hitherto. We must see what kind of defense Christ employs. He does not reply that the Law about keeping the Sabbath was temporary, and that it ought now to be abolished; but, on the contrary, maintains that he has not violated the Law, because this is a divine work. It is true that the ceremony of the Sabbath was a part of the shadows of the Law, (99) and that Christ put an end to it by his coming, as Paul shows, (Col 2:16😉 but the present question does not turn on that point. For it is only from their own works that men are commanded to abstain; and, accordingly, circumcision — which is a work of God, and not of men — is not at variance with the Sabbath.

What Christ insists upon is this, that the holy rest which was enjoined by the Law of Moses is not disturbed when we are employed in works of God. (100) And for this reason he excuses not only his own action, but also the action of the man who carried his bed; for it was an appendage, and — as we might say — a part of the miracle, for it was nothing else than an approbation of it. Besides, if thanksgiving and the publication of the divine glory be reckoned among the works of God, it was not a profanation of the Sabbath to testify the grace of God by feet and hands. But it is chiefly concerning himself that Christ speaks, to whom the Jews were more hostile. He declares that the soundness of body which he has restored to the diseased man is a demonstration of his divine power. He asserts that he is the Son of God, and that he acts in the same manner as his Father.

What is the use of the Sabbath, and for what reasons it was enjoined, I do not now argue at greater length. It is enough for the present passage, that the keeping of the Sabbath is so far from interrupting or hindering the works of God, that, on the contrary, it gives way to them alone. For why does the Law enjoin men to abstain from their own works, but in order to keep all their senses free and occupied for considering the works of God? Consequently, he who does not, on the Sabbath, allow a free course and reign to the works of God, is not only a false expounder of the Law, but wickedly overturns it.

If it be objected, that the example of God is held out to men, that they may rest on the seventh day, the answer is easy. Men are not conformed to God in this respect, that He ceased to work, but by abstaining from the troublesome actions of this world and aspiring to the heavenly rest. The Sabbath or rest of God, (101) therefore, is not idleness, but true perfection, which brings along with it a calm state of peace. Nor is this inconsistent with what Moses says, that God put an end to his works, (Gen 2:2😉 for he means that, after having completed the formation of the world, God consecrated that day, that men might employ it in meditating on his works. Yet He did not cease to sustain by this power the world which he had made, to govern it by his wisdom, to support it by his goodness, and to regulate all things according to his pleasure, both in heaven and on earth. In six days, therefore, the creation of the world was completed, but the administration of it is still continued, and God incessantly worketh in maintaining and preserving the order of it; as Paul informs us, that in him we live, and move, and are, (Act 17:28😉 and David informs us, that all things stand so long as the Spirit of God upholds them, and that they fail as soon as he withdraws his support, (Psa 104:29.) Nor is it only by a general Providence that the Lord maintains the world which He has created, but He arranges and regulates every part of it, and more especially, by his protection, he keeps and guards believers whom he has received under his care and guardianship.

And I work. Leaving the defense of the present cause, Christ now explains the end and use of the miracle, namely, that by means of it he may be acknowledged to be the Son of God; for the object which he had in view in all his words and actions was, to show that he was the Author of salvation. What he now claims for himself belongs to his Divinity, as the Apostle also says, that

he upholdeth all things by his powerful will, (Heb 1:3.)

But when he testifies that he is God, it is that, being manifested in the flesh, he may perform the office of Christ; and when he affirms that he came from heaven, it is chiefly for the purpose of informing us for what purpose he came down to earth.

(99) “ Il est bien vray que la ceremonie du Sabbath estoit une partie des ombres de la Loy.”

(100) “ Quand on s’employe a oeuvres de Dieu.”

(101) “ Le Repos de Dieu.”

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(17) My Father worketh hitherto (or, up to this moment).They charge Him with breaking the law of God. His answer to this charge is that His action was the result of His Sonship and unity with that God. The very idea of God implied action. This was familiar to the thought of the day. Comp., e.g., in the contemporary Philo, God never ceases working; but as to burn is the property of fire, and to be cold is the property of snow, thus also to work is the property of God, and much the more, inasmuch as He is the origin of action for all others (Legis Allegor. i. 3. See the whole section. The English reader will find it in Bohns Ed., vol i., p. 53). The rest on the seventh day was the completion of the works of creation (see this stated emphatically in Gen. 2:2-3). It was not, it could not be, a cessation in divine work, or in the flow of divine energy. That knew nor day nor night, nor summer nor winter, nor Sabbath nor Jubilee. For man, and animal, and tree, and field, this alternation of a time of production and a time of reception was needed, but God was the ever-constant source of energy and life for all in heaven and earth and sea. The power going forth to heal that sufferer was the same power which sustained them in well-being. The strength which passed through his half-dead frame, and bade it live, was the same which every Sabbath morning awoke them from deaths image, sleep, and would awake from death itself (Joh. 5:21). The sun shone, and fruitful showers fell, and flower burst its bud, and harvest ripened, and they themselves, in energy of life, had grown on every day alike. God ever worketh up to this present moment. That God is also Father. The Son, therefore, worketh in the same way. This poor sufferer, lying helpless, is of the same human nature with the Son of God. He has in faith and hope made himself receptive of the divine energy, and that energy which can know no Sabbath, but is ever going forth to every heart that can receive it, hath made him whole.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

First great discourse, furnished by John, of Jesus to the hostile Jews, Joh 5:17-47.

The best biblical scholars consider this defence, or self-explanation, to have been delivered by Jesus before the Sanhedrim. It bears, hence, some slight resemblance to the Apologia, or defence of Socrates before the Helioea, or popular court, of Athens. The two discourses resemble at least in this, that both refuse to extenuate, but boldly magnify and glory in the matter charged. Hence Luther calls this “a sublime apology, which makes the matter worse.” We have here, doubtless, rather an outline than full report of the discourse. It consists of two parts: The first, 17-30, bases his defence for an apparent act of Sabbath-breaking upon his eternal Sonship of God. The second, 31-47, adduces the threefold witness to his Sonship.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

I. The eternal Sonship of Christ.

17. Worketh hitherto By virtue of his oneness with God, Jesus is truly Lord of the Sabbath; and he no more violates the Sabbath by sending the current of vitality through the limbs of this paralytic, than the Father violates the Sabbath by keeping the stars in their courses, or sustaining the generations of men in the flow of life. God, having indeed closed the work of original creation with the creation of man, rested therefrom through a long Sabbath of time, even until now. God’s creative days were each perhaps an age; and this world’s long age may be his Sabbath. But he breaks neither that Sabbath, nor the Sabbath-day that commemorates that repose, by carrying on the ordinary train of nature or redemption. And as he has hitherto worked even through these Sabbaths, so do I work. I create nothing absolutely; but I control, hasten, or even vary, the processes of ordinary nature.

Hitherto From the close of his creative work until now.

I work My secret power in healing this man worked, just as God’s secret power worked in his generation and birth.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘But Jesus answered them, “My Father works even until now, and I work”.

Jesus’ reply to the charge of breaking the Sabbath is a powerful one. ‘My Father is still at work, and I also am working’. No one will attack God for working on the Sabbath in maintaining the universe, and performing miracles (‘works until now’), why then should they attack the One Who uniquely works on God’s behalf, as the miracle proves? It is interesting to note that when Rabban Gamaliel II, R. Joshua, R. Eleazar ben Azariah, and R. Aquiba were in Rome, around AD 95, they gave as a rebuttal to sectarian arguments evidence that God might do as He willed in the world without breaking the Sabbath because the entire world was his private residence. Thus this may well have been a generally held position in Jesus’ day.

The reply linked His work with God’s work in a very intimate way. He was saying that He had the same authority over the Sabbath as God had. Because God could work, He could work when He was doing the work of God. His use of the phrase ‘my Father’ was also very intimate. He was putting Himself on God’s side of reality. The implication was that they should see Him as having a unique relationship with the Father, which put Him above men’s interpretations of the Law, an implication that they recognise.

In this way Jesus tried to bring them back to considering the miracle. Here was a work of God. Will they not consider its implications? It demonstrated that God was on His side and was pleased with what He was doing. As Nicodemus had said, ‘No man can do these signs that you do except God be with him’ (Joh 3:2).

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

The Relation between the Father and the Son.

Jesus gives the Jews an answer:

v. 17. But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.

v. 18. Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill Him, because He not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God.

v. 19. Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do; for what things soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.

v. 20. For the Father loveth the Son, and showeth Him all things that Himself doeth; and He will show Him greater works than these, that ye may marvel.

The hostile attitude of the Jews and their murderous thoughts were not unknown to Jesus, and He takes occasion to justify Himself, and incidentally to try to convince them of His authority and power. He tells them that His Father is at work, performing the work which He knows is necessary; God never stops working. And even so He, Christ Himself, is working. Jesus here plainly affirms that He is the Son of God, He places Himself on the same level with God. The Son is just as great, just as divine as the Father. And the entire work of the Father is, at the same time, and in the same way, the work of the Son. In this work there is no Sabbath rest. Without ceasing, without rest, the Son preserves and rules the world. Even in the state of humiliation, He is tending to this work. The miracle of healing the sick man was an exhibition of this creative power, it was evidence of the fact that He, with the Father, has the entire world and all its laws in His power and can do and create whatever He desires. “How long would the sun, the moon, and the entire heaven have its course, which had its progress so definitely so many thousand years, also, that the sun at a certain time and in certain places annually rises and sets, if God who created them, would not daily preserve them? God the Father, through His Word, has begun and perfected the creation of all beings, and preserves them to this day through the same, and continues so long in the work which He creates until He no longer wants it to be. Therefore Christ says, Joh 5:17: My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. For just as we, without our assistance and ability, are created by Him, even so we by ourselves cannot be preserved. Therefore, just as heaven, earth, sun, moon, stars, human beings, and everything that lives was created in the beginning through the Word, even so they all are ruled and preserved through it in a miraculous manner. ” The Jews caught the import of Christ’s statement at once: If He was the Son of God, He certainly must be equal to God. Here, in the opinion of the Jews, were two crimes that merited death: breaking the Sabbath and blasphemy. They refused to accept His testimony, though this had been substantiated by the miracle; they hated Him for this plain statement; they were all the more determined to kill Him. Note: The enemies of Christ at all times argue in the same way. The testimony concerning Jesus, the Son of God, the Savior of the world, strikes their conscience and makes them furious. They cannot gainsay the truth, and that is unbearable to them. Their own conscience condemns them. And to drown out these unpleasant influences, they become all the more rabid in their persecution of the Gospel, both in word and deed

But Jesus, upon this occasion, continued His statement, His testimony concerning Himself. Solemnly He declares to the Jews that the Son can do nothing of Himself, except what He sees the Father doing. That is the result of the relation between Father and Son. The essence of the Son is out of the Father; His is not an independent essence. The persons of the God-head are not separate from each other, each doing His own individual work. In that which He does and performs, the Son is joined with the Father. And again: Whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise, at the same time, in the same manner. There is not only perfect sympathy, there is complete oneness between the two. And this relation is made still closer by the fact that the Father loves the Son and shows Him all that He Himself does. The power of either is absolute, and yet their work and will is one. This creative power finds its expression in the work of Jesus on earth. The Father, through the Son, will do greater works than those which have been done up to the present time, to the great surprise and wonder of the Jews. The mere healing of a sick man would seem insignificant in comparison with the miracles which are yet to be revealed.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

Joh 5:17. My Father worketh hitherto, Jesus began his defence with shewing the rulers the unreasonableness of their displeasurewith him, because he had restored the infirm man to health on the sabbath-day. He told them, that, in performing cures on the sabbath-day, he only imitated his Father, who wrought every day of the week in doing good to men by his unwearied Providence; for, on the sabbath, as on other days, through the invisible operation of his power, God supports the whole frame of nature, and carries on the motion of the heavens, upon which the vicissitudes of day and night, and of the seasons, depend; which are so necessary to the production of food, and the other means of life. As the Jews built their observation of the sabbath upon God’s having rested thereon from the works of creation, this argument was decisive. Some render it, My Father worketh even till now.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

DISCOURSE: 1625
CHRISTS EQUALITY WITH THE FATHER

Joh 5:17-18. Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.

THE whole Christian world is much indebted to the zeal of the blind, and bigoted, and persecuting Jews in our Lords day; since they elicited many important truths which might not otherwise have been brought to light. For instance, when they accused our blessed Lord of violating the Sabbath-day, they led him to mention with approbation Davids eating of the shew-bread in a case of extreme necessity (an act which we could not otherwise have ventured to justify); and to expound as a general vindication of such conduct, that declaration of the prophet, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice [Note: Mat 12:2-7.]. Here a similar accusation leads him to vindicate his own conduct on still higher principles; namely, his own equality with God the Father, and his right to dispense with laws instituted only for the benefit of man. True, this brought upon him still severer censure from his opponents, who judged him worthy of death for so arrogant and impious a claim. But they should have seen, from the miracle which he wrought, that he was fully authorized to do what he had done, and that he was no other person than he professed himself to be.

To open this subject to you, I will shew,

I.

How far the Jews were right in their interpretation of our Lords words

The expression which our Lord had used was, doubtless, exceeding strong [Note: Compare Mat 12:8. with the text.]

[He called God his Father, evidently in a more emphatic and appropriate sense than any mere man could presume to do. The Jews at large regarded God as their Father [Note: Joh 8:41.]: but no one had ever dared to arrogate to himself so near and peculiar a relation to God as our Lord did on this occasion. The very argument he used shewed in what sense he intended his words to be taken: My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. My Father continues all his works of providence on the Sabbath-days, as well as on any other day: and I, by reason of my relation to him, possess the same right, and am free therefore from all imputation of blame in exercising it. This, I say, is the force of our Saviours words; and if they be not so understood, they afford no vindication of himself whatever: and]

The Jews were right in their interpretation of them
[They marked the emphatic manner in which Jesus had claimed that high and peculiar relation to the Father [Note: , his own, in the most appropriate sense.]: they marked also the force of the argument founded on that relation: and they justly said, that he did arrogate to himself equality with God.

But they were wrong, exceeding wrong, in so hastily judging him a blasphemer. They, if they could not believe his words, had a vast abundance of works from which to judge, and which bore ample testimony to the truth of his assertions [Note: Joh 10:37-38.]. In their hasty judgment, then, they were wrong; but in their interpretation of his words they were right: for our blessed Lord, instead of correcting their views as erroneous, confirmed them all as just and true. He proceeded to declare, that neither his Father nor himself acted apart from the other: that, on the contrary, there was a perfect unity of mind, and will, and purpose, and operation between them; nothing being done by the Father, but it was done by the Son likewise; that all men might honour the Son even as they honoured the Father; and that, in fact, they who did not thus honour the Son did not truly honour the Father who had sent him [Note: ver. 1923.].]

From hence we may see,

II.

What construction we must put upon them

If the Jews were right in their construction of our Lords assertion, then we must regard his words,

1.

As an avowal of his own proper divinity

[When, on another occasion, our Lord had said, I and my Father are one, the Jews took up stones to stone him; and when our Lord said, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of them do ye stone me? they answered, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God [Note: Joh 10:30-33.]. And truly, if he was not God, they were correct in their judgment. For what should we say if Moses or St. Paul had used such language, and founded on their relation to the Deity a right, a personal right, to supersede the laws which God himself had instituted? should we not have accounted them guilty of blasphemy? Then so was Christ, if he was no more than man. But, in fact, he spoke only what all the prophets had long since declared concerning him. He, though a child born, and a son given, was the Mighty God [Note: Isa 9:6.]; Jehovahs fellow [Note: Zec 13:7.], Jehovah our Righteousness [Note: Jer 23:6.]. And to the same effect all his holy Apostles also testify respecting him. Did the Father create, and does he also uphold, the world? This is true of the Son likewise; as St. Paul expressly asserts: For by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things were created by him, and for him: and he is before all things, and by him all things consist [Note: Col 1:16-17.]. Again it is said, that God hath in these last days spoken to us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things; by whom also he hath made the worlds; who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, upholdeth all things by the word of his power [Note: Heb 1:1; Heb 1:3.]. What a confirmation is here of those words of our Lord, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work! What a confirmation, too, of the construction put upon them by the Jews, that he made himself equal with God [Note: ver. 19. , He doth the same things in the same manner.]! Yes, truly, being in the form of God, even in his incarnate state he thought it not robbery to be equal with God [Note: Php 2:6-7.]: and the very words which were used by him on this occasion must be considered as an open avowal, on his part, that he was God manifest in the flesh [Note: 1Ti 3:16.], even God over all, blessed for evermore [Note: Rom 9:5.].]

2.

As a warrant to us to rely upon him for all that we stand in need of

In him, as we have said, dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily [Note: Col 2:9.]. In him, too, as Mediator, there is all fulness treasured up [Note: Col 1:19.], that out of his fulness all his people should receive [Note: Joh 1:16.]. He is constituted Head over all things to the Church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all [Note: Eph 1:22-23.]. Let us only see what he did, when on earth, to the bodies of men: that he now doeth to their souls Yes, pardon, and peace, and holiness, and glory, would he at this instant confer on us, if we would but seek them at his hands [Note: See Mar 2:5-12. Rev 21:17-18. Luk 23:42-43.]. Was he incessant in his labours, rendering even the Sabbath-day subservient to his great work? So will he now impart to our souls continually, and to the full extent of our necessities: and not only will he not intermit his labours on the Sabbath-day, but he will rather pursue them with redoubled energy on that holy day, sanctifying, rather than profaning, it by that blessed employment. In all this he will shew himself equal with the Father. He has said Ye believe in God; believe also in me [Note: Joh 14:1.]. And every soul that believeth in him shall most assuredly be justified from all things [Note: Act 13:39.], and be saved by him with an everlasting salvation [Note: Isa 45:17.].]

From hence then learn,
1.

To dismiss prejudice from your minds

[The Jews were blinded by prejudice, and therefore could see nothing in the miracles of our Lord to justify their affiance in him. Had they been candid, and open to conviction, what blessings might they not have enjoyed! But they turned his every word and work into an occasion of offence, and augmented their own eternal condemnation by the very means used for their salvation. And thus it is that prejudice works at this day. Multitudes are so offended at something which they account wrong, that they have neither eyes nor ears for those things which are of the greatest possible importance to their souls. A departure from some outward observance, which they venerate, shall swallow up all the best qualities that the holiest of men can possess, all the best actions that he can perform, and all the best instructions he can give. Only think, my beloved brethren, what the Jews lost on this occasion; and how different their condition now is, in the eternal world, from what it might have been if they had obeyed the counsels of our Lord; and you will see, that the advice I now give you is worthy of your deepest attention ]

2.

To exercise a simple faith in Christ

[In the days of his flesh, he inquired of persons who solicited his help, whether they believed him able to confer on them the desired boon: and so he now says to every one amongst you, According to your faith be it unto you. O what would he not do for us, if only we would call upon him? Verily, if every one of us could flock around him, importuning mercy for our souls, virtue at this very instant should go forth from him, to heal us all. Think you, brethren, that he is less able or less willing now to hear us, than he was in the days of his flesh? No, indeed: even a touch of the hem of his garment should be sufficient for the effecting all that our necessities require.]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

17 But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.

Ver. 17. My Father worketh ] Yet without labour or lassitude, in conserving the whole creature. This he doth every day, and yet breaketh not the sabbath; Ergo nec ego, Therefore, neith do I.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

17. ] The true keeping of the rest of the Sabbath was not that otiose and unprofitable cessation from even good deeds, which they would enforce: the Sabbath was made for man; and, in its Jewish form, for man in a mere state of legal discipline (which truth could not yet be brought out to them, but is implied in this verse, because His people are even as He is in the liberty wherewith He hath made them free); whereas He, the only-begotten of the Father, doing the works of God in the world, stands on higher ground , and hallows, instead of breaking the Sabbath, by thus working on it. “He is no more a breaker of the Sabbath than God is, when He upholds with an energy that knows no pause the work of His creation from hour to hour, and from moment to moment; ‘My Father worketh hitherto, and I work;’ My work is but the reflex of His work. Abstinence from outward work belongs not to the idea of a Sabbath, it is only more or less the necessary condition of it for beings so framed as ever to be in danger of losing the true collection and rest of the spirit in the multiplicity of earthly toil and business. Man indeed must cease from his work if a higher work is to find place in him. He scatters himself in his work, and therefore he must collect himself anew, and have seasons for so doing. But with Him who is one with the Father, it is otherwise. In Him the deepest rest is not excluded by the highest activity.” (Trench, Mir. p. 257, edn. 2.)

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Joh 5:17 . In some informal way these accusations were brought to the ears of Jesus, and His defence was: . “My Father until now works, and I work”; as if the work of the Father had not come to an end on the seventh day, but continued until the present hour. Nay, as if the characteristic of the Father were just this, that He works. Philo perceived the same truth; , . God never stops working, for as it is the property of fire to burn and of snow to be cold so of God to work ( De allegor. , ii. See Schoettgen in loc. ). Jesus means them to apprehend that there is no Sabbath, such as they suppose, with God, and that this healing of the impotent was God’s work. The Father does not rest from doing good on the Sabbath day, and I as the Father’s hand also do good on the Sabbath. In charging Him with breaking the Sabbath (Joh 5:18 ), it was God they charged with breaking it. But this exasperated them the more “because He not only was annulling ( , ‘laws, as having binding force, are likened to bonds, hence is to annul, subvert, deprive of authority ,’ Thayer) the Sabbath, but also said that God was His own Father, making Himself equal to God”. The Jews found in (Joh 5:17 ) and the implication in a claim to some peculiar and exclusive ( ) sonship on the part of Jesus; that He claimed to be Son of God not in the sense in which other men are, but in a sense which involved equality with God. Starting from this, Jesus took occasion to unfold His relation to the Father so far as it concerned men to know it.

The passage 19 30 divides itself thus: Joh 5:19-20 exhibit the ground of the Son’s activity in the Father’s activity and love for the Son; Joh 5:21-23 , the works given by the Father to the Son are, generally, life-giving and judging; Joh 5:24-27 , these works in the spiritual sphere; Joh 5:28-29 , in the physical sphere; and Joh 5:30 , reaffirmation of unity with the Father.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

John

THE LIFE-GIVER AND JUDGE

Joh 5:17 – Joh 5:27 .

‘The Jews’ were up in arms because Jesus had delivered a man from thirty-eight years of misery. They had no human sympathies for the sufferer, whom hope deferred had made sick and hopeless, but they shuddered at the breach of the Sabbath. ‘Sacrifice’ was more important in their view than ‘mercy.’ They did not acknowledge that the miracle proved Christ’s Messiahship, but they were quite sure that doing it on the Sabbath proved His wickedness. How formalism twists men’s judgments of the relative magnitude of form and spirit!

Jesus’ vindication of His action roused them still farther, for He put it on a ground which seemed to them nothing short of blasphemy: ‘My Father worketh even until now, and I work.’ They fastened on one point in that great saying, namely, that it claimed Sonship in a special sense, and vindicated His right to disregard the Sabbath law on that ground. God’s rest is not inaction. ‘Preservation is a continual creation.’ All being subsists because God is ever working. The Son co-operates with the Father, and for Him, as for the Father, the Sabbath law does not apply. The charge of breaking the Sabbath fades into insignificance before the sin, in the objectors’ eyes, of making such claims. Therefore our Lord proceeds to expand and justify them.

He makes, first, a general statement in Joh 5:19 – Joh 5:20 , in which He sets forth the relation involved in the very idea of Fatherhood and Sonship. He, as perfect Son of God, is perfectly one with the Father in will and act, and so knit to Him in sympathy that a self-originated action is impossible, not by reason of defect of power, but by reason of unity of being. That perfect unity is expressed negatively ‘can do nothing’ and then positively ‘doeth likewise’. But it is not manifest in actions alone, but has its deep roots in the perfect love which flows ever from each to each, and in the Father’s perfect communication to the Son, and the Son’s perfect reception from the Father. Jesus claimed to stand in such a relation to the Father that He was able to do whatsoever the Father did, and ‘in like manner’ as the Father did it; that He was the unique object of the Father’s love, and capable of receiving complete communications as to ‘all things that Himself doeth’; that He lived in such complete unity with the Father that His every act was the result of it, and that no trace of self-will had ever tinged His perfect spirit. What man has ever made such claims and not been treated as insane? He makes them, and likewise says that He is ‘lowly of heart’; and the world listens, if not believing, at any rate reverent, as in the presence of the best man that ever lived. Strange goodness, to claim such divine prerogatives, unless the claim is valid!

It is expanded in Joh 5:21 – Joh 5:23 into two great classes of works, which Jesus says that He does. Both are distinctively divine works. To give life and to judge the world are equally beyond human power; they are equally His actions. These are the ‘greater works’ which He foretells in Joh 5:20 , and they are greater than the miracle of healing which had originated the whole conversation. To give life at first, and to give it again to the dead, and not only to revivify, but to raise them, are plainly competent to no power short of the divine; and here Jesus calmly claims them.

That tremendous claim is here made in the widest sense, including both the corporeally and the spiritually dead, who are afterwards treated of separately. The Son is the fountain of life in all the aspects of that wide-reaching word; and He ‘quickeneth whom He will,’ as He had spontaneously healed the impotent man. Does that assertion contradict the other, just before it, that He does nothing of Himself? No; for His will, while His, is ever harmonious with the Father’s, just as His love, which is ever coincident with the Father’s. Does that assertion imply His arbitrary pleasure, or make man’s will a cipher? No; for His will is guided by righteous love, and wills to quicken those who comply with His conditions. But the assertion does declare that His will to quicken is omnipotent, and that His voice can pierce ‘the dull, cold ear of death,’ and bring back the soul to the empty house of this tabernacle, or rouse the spirit ‘dead in trespasses.’

The other divine prerogative of judging is inseparable from that of revivifying, and in regard to it Christ’s claim is still higher, for He says that it is wholly vested in Him as Son. The idea of judgment here, like that of quickening, with which it is associated, is to be taken in its more general sense ‘all judgment’ , and therefore as including both the present judgment, for which Jesus said that He was come into the world, and which men pass on themselves by the very fact of their attitude to Him and His Gospel, and also the future final judgment, which manifests character and determines destiny. Both these has the Father given into the hands of the Son.

The purpose, so far as men are concerned, of the Son’s investiture, with these solemn prerogatives, is that He may receive universal divine honour. A narrower purpose was stated in Joh 5:20 , where the persons seeing His works are only His then audience, and the effect sought to be produced is merely ‘marvel.’ But wonder is meant to lead on to recognition of the meaning of His power, and of the mystery of His person, and that, again, to rendering to Him precisely the same honour as is due to the Father. No more unmistakable demand for worship, no more emphatic assertion of divinity, can be made than lie in these words. To worship Christ does not intercept the honour due to God; to worship the Son is to worship the Father; and no man honours the Father who sent Him who does not honour the Son whom He has sent.

In Joh 5:24 – Joh 5:27 the two related prerogatives are presented in their spiritual aspect, while in the later verses of the chapter the resurrection and quickening of the literally dead are dealt with. Mark the significant new term introduced in Joh 5:24 , ‘He that believeth.’ That spiritual resurrection from the death of sin and self is wrought on ‘whom He will,’ but He wills that it shall be wrought on them who believe. Similarly, in Joh 5:25 , it is ‘they that hear’ who ‘shall live.’ It must be so, for there is no other way by which life from Him, who is the Life, can pass into and quicken us than by our opening our hearts by faith for its inflow. The mysteries of the Son’s divinity and of His imparted life are deep, but the condition of receiving that life is plain. If we will trust Jesus, we shall live; if not, we are dead. Trusting Him is trusting the Father that sent Him, and that Father becomes accessible to our trust when we ‘hear’ Christ’s ‘word.’

The effects of faith are immediate, and the poor present may be enriched and clothed in celestial light for each of us, if we will. For Jesus does not point first to the mysteries of the resurrection of the dead, and the tremendous solemnities of the final judgment, but to what we may each enter upon at any moment. The believing man ‘hath eternal life,’ and ‘cometh not into judgment.’ That life is not reserved to be entered on in the blessed future, but is a present possession. True, it will blossom into unexampled nobleness when it is transported into its native country, like some exotic in our colder climates if it were carried back to the tropics. But it is a present possession, and heaven is not different in kind from the Christian life on earth, but differs mainly in degree and in circumstances. And he that has the life here and now is, by its moulding of his outward life, preserved from the sins which would bring him into judgment, and the merciful judgment to which he is still subject is that for which his truest self longs. And that blessed condition carries in it the pledge that, at the last great day, which is to others a ‘day of wrath, a dreadful day,’ he whom Christ has quickened by His own indwelling life shall have ‘boldness before Him.’

Obviously, in these verses the present effects of faith are in view, since Jesus emphatically declares that the ‘hour now is’ when they can be realised. Once more He states in the strongest terms, and as the reason for the assurance that faith secures to us life, His possession of the two divine prerogatives of quickening and judging. What a paradox it is to say that it is ‘given’ to Him to have ‘life in Himself’! And when was that gift given? In the depths of eternity.

He ‘sits on no precarious throne, nor borrows leave to be,’ and hence He can impart life and lose none. Inseparably connected with that given, and yet self-inherent, life, is the capacity for executing judgment which belongs to Him as ‘a Son of man.’ It has been as ‘the Son’ of the Father that it has been considered, in the previous verses, as belonging to Him; but now it is as a true man that He is fitted to bear, and actually is clothed with, that judicial power. No doubt He is Judge of all, because by His incarnation and earthly life He presents to all the offer of eternal life, by their attitude to which offer men are judged. But the connection of thought seems rather to be that Christ’s Manhood, inextricably intertwined with His divinity, is equally needed with the latter to constitute Him our Judge. He ‘knoweth our frame,’ from the inside, as it were, and the participation in our nature which fits Him to ‘be a merciful and faithful High Priest’ also fits Him to be the Judge of mankind.

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

My Father. See note on Joh 2:16.

worketh. Compare Joh 9:4, and see App-176.

hitherto until now; referring to the O.T. Dispensation. Now Jehovah was speaking “by His Son “(Heb 1:2).

and I work = I also am working [now].

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

17.] The true keeping of the rest of the Sabbath was not that otiose and unprofitable cessation from even good deeds, which they would enforce: the Sabbath was made for man;-and, in its Jewish form, for man in a mere state of legal discipline (which truth could not yet be brought out to them, but is implied in this verse, because His people are even as He is-in the liberty wherewith He hath made them free); whereas He, the only-begotten of the Father, doing the works of God in the world, stands on higher ground, and hallows, instead of breaking the Sabbath, by thus working on it. He is no more a breaker of the Sabbath than God is, when He upholds with an energy that knows no pause the work of His creation from hour to hour, and from moment to moment; My Father worketh hitherto, and I work; My work is but the reflex of His work. Abstinence from outward work belongs not to the idea of a Sabbath, it is only more or less the necessary condition of it for beings so framed as ever to be in danger of losing the true collection and rest of the spirit in the multiplicity of earthly toil and business. Man indeed must cease from his work if a higher work is to find place in him. He scatters himself in his work, and therefore he must collect himself anew, and have seasons for so doing. But with Him who is one with the Father, it is otherwise. In Him the deepest rest is not excluded by the highest activity. (Trench, Mir. p. 257, edn. 2.)

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Joh 5:17. , My Father) In what sense Jesus said, My Father, even the Jews themselves understood better than the Photinians: Joh 5:18, The Jews sought to kill Him, because-He said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God. Here is set down the main point of the discourses of Jesus, which John subsequently records: and especially those statements are to be observed, which Jesus sometimes of His own accord has put forth as a kind of text to the fuller discourses which follow; for instance, ch. Joh 6:27, Labour-for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you; Joh 7:37, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink; Joh 8:12, I am the light of the world.- , hitherto) all along from creation, without any Sabbath intermission. For He is not bound by the Sabbath: He lacks not perpetual rest. If He were not to work, where would be the Sabbath itself?-, worketh) An excellent speech as to the Divine works.-, and I) The Father works not without the Son: the Son not without the Father: Joh 5:19, The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do. It is this proposition that is explained from Joh 5:19-30 (whence Joh 5:19 is repeated at Joh 5:30, I can of mine own self do nothing), and is confirmed and vindicated, Joh 5:31, etc.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Joh 5:17

Joh 5:17

But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh even until now, and I work.-Jesus justified his healing the man on the ground that his Father worketh hitherto or unto now, and following his example he works. It seems that on the sabbath is implied as the charge was for working on the Sabbath. In what sense he meant to say that God worked till that time is not clear. It is certain that he did it through all the operations of the natural universe, and it seems probable that Jesus referred to this working. The point of Jesus was that God worked on the Sabbath and that he had the same right to set aside, if need be, the Sabbath law as God had done.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God. Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doeth: and he will shew him greater works than these, that ye may marvel. For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will. For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son: That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.

We have been considering the record of our Lords healing of the impotent man at the pool of Bethesda, and closed by noticing the indignation of the legalistic Jews of that day who were distressed because the Lord did this upon the Sabbath day. They had added a great many of their own laws to those in the books of Moses. They were more concerned about the technicalities of this case than they were in the blessing of the poor man who had waited so long for deliverance. Therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to slay him because he had done these things on the sabbath day (v. 16).

Note our Lords defense. But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work (v. 17). Just what did He mean by this? Why, He would carry their minds back to creation. God created the heavens and the earth at an undetermined period, so far as mans records are concerned. We do not know how far back it may have been. Whenever that beginning was, God created the heavens and the earth. Then the earth fell into a chaotic condition, and God undertook to remake that earth that it might become the abode of man and the stage upon which was to be enacted the great drama of redemption. So we have the six days work in which the world was brought back from chaos to order, and we are told that God rested on the seventh day and that the seventh day was hallowed. It was the Sabbath of God. But, alas, Gods Sabbath was a very brief one, for it was not long until sin came in to that fair creation which but a little while before had been proclaimed as very good And when sin came in, God became a worker once more, and He never found rest again until at last He rested in the work of His own beloved Son of Calvarys cross.

During all the millenniums preceding the cross, God never observed a Sabbath. He gave the Sabbath to man in the law for mans blessing and good. Jesus Himself says, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath (Mar 2:27). But when God gave to man one day in seven, He had no rest Himself. It was unthinkable that He, the loving, holy, compassionate God, could rest as long as the sin question remained unsettled. So Jesus answered these men by saying, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work (Joh 5:17). That is, because He was one with the Father He did what His Father did, and so He was in the world working to undo the results of sin. They found fault with Him because He delivered a man from sins effect on the Sabbath day. It shows how little they comprehended the mind of the Father. My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. They did not understand. Their indignation increased, and they sought the more to kill Him because He not only had broken the Sabbath, but had said that God was His Father. The expression is a rather peculiar one. It implies that He Himself had implied that He had a right to use this name in a way that other men did not. He said that God was His own Father, making Himself equal with God. They understood that when the Lord Jesus spoke of Himself as the Son of the Father that He meant to say that He was one with the Father-one person of the Godhead.

Jew and Gentile are both charged with the murder of the Son of God. The Jews dragged Him into Pilates hall saying, We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God (Joh 19:7). That was their accusation, but Pilate gave sentence that it should be as they desired, so he stands as the representative of the Gentile world accused before the bar of God of the murder of His blessed Son. Yet how gracious God is! He offers to both Jew and Gentile salvation through the One they rejected, although they spurned Him and united in crucifying the Son of God. The Jews would have stoned Him to death, but by driving Him to the Gentiles He was sent to the cross. However, in virtue of His sacrifice of Himself on the cross of shame, salvation can be offered to Jew and Gentile if they turn to God and believe on the Son. We need not be afraid then to admit that we have had a part in murdering the Son of God. But we can come to Him as repentant sinners and trust the One whom we have rejected as our personal Savior. For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him (Rom 10:12).

Legalists of every kind always reject Jesus. Legalists of every type, Jew or Gentile, would crucify Him if He were here again. How can you prove that? Why! They do not want Him now. If they wanted Him they would accept Him and believe in His name, but they refuse to believe, showing that their hearts are just the same today as the hearts of those who sought to slay Him. They sought to slay Him because they denied His Deity. He declared that He was one with the eternal Father. He made Himself equal with God. Then answered Jesus and said unto them (Joh 5:19a). Instead of trying to make things easier for them, He makes them harder. If men turn away and refuse to believe, then He will give them something even more difficult to believe. But if they come to Him in repentance, He will make things plain so that they can easily understand. He said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise (v. 19b). What a tremendous claim was this! Whatsoever the Son sees the Father do, He does. Would ever mere man dare to say that? If he did, would he not be branded as a paranoiac? But Jesus spoke as the Son of the Father.

The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do, He does. What does that really mean? Some people imagine that He is saying, I have less power than the Father. I can only imitate. But it is the very opposite. He is saying, It is impossible for the Son to act apart from the Father. Every person of the Trinity might speak like that. The Father can do nothing without the Son, the Holy Spirit can do nothing without the Son, the Father can do nothing without the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit can do nothing without the Father, the Son can do nothing without the Father, and the Son can do nothing without the Holy Spirit. In other words, the relationship of the three persons in the Godhead is such that none can act apart from the other. Whatever the Spirit does, He does in the fullest fellowship with the Son and the Father, and so with every other person of the Eternal Trinity.

Here we have set forth in a marvelous way the reality of the unity and yet trinity of the Godhead. We sometimes speak of the three persons of the Trinity as the Father, the first person; the Son, the second person; the Holy Spirit, the third person. Scripture makes no such distinction. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are one, coequal and coeternal, and neither can act without the full approval and fellowship of the rest. Here as a Man on the earth, the Lord Jesus could actually face His accusers in that day and say, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do. And then He added, For the Father loveth the Son, and showeth him all things that himself doeth: and he will show him greater works than these, that ye may marvel (v. 20). Oh, how utterly impossible it is for us to understand the love of the Father for the Son as a Man here on the earth. Three times He rent the heavens above His head to declare His love for His Son, saying, This is my beloved Son. The Father loveth the Son, and showeth him all things that he doeth. They are one in counsel and purpose, and he will show him greater works than these, that ye may marvel. He was looking on to His triumphs at the cross and in His resurrection.

Our Lord Jesus claimed that He has exactly the same power to call man back from the dead as the Father has. For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will (v. 21). To quicken is to impart life. The Son gives life to whom He will. When we think of resurrection, we think of the omnipotent power of God put forth to bring the dead back from the grave. This power is attributed to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. This is true in connection with our Lords own resurrection. We read that He was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father. He said, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again (Joh 2:19). He says elsewhere, No man taketh [my life] from me I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again (10:18). And then we are also told that the Spirit of Him that raised up Christ from the dead shall quicken our mortal bodies. God the Father is said to have raised Him from the dead. The entire Trinity acted as one to raise the Lord Jesus, and the entire Trinity will have part in the resurrection of all them that are in Christ at His coming. It is God the Father and God the Holy Spirit and God the Son who will call the dead from their tombs.

Then the Lord Jesus said a tremendous thing: For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son (5:22). What a stupendous claim is this! He who moved about over the hills and through the valleys of Palestine and, to all outward appearances, was just a Galilean artisan, says, The Father hath committed all judgment unto the Son. [He] hath given him authority to execute judgment because he is the Son of man (v. 27). Scripture says that [God] hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead (Act 17:31). In the Bible we read that God is going to judge the world, but here we read that the Judge is He who became Man for our redemption. What a marvelous declaration!

Are you out of Christ today? If you die like that, you will have to stand before the Great White Throne, where you will find yourself looking into the face of a Man. You will see upon that throne the Man Christ Jesus, the One who went to Calvarys cross to die for you. You will give an account of yourself to Him and His lips will proclaim the sentence of judgment. We who believe will not have to come into judgment for our sins, and yet we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. He will go over all our ways down here, since His grace brought us to know God as our Father and Christ as our Savior, and He will examine all our work and judge the deeds done in the body. Our Lord Jesus Christ will do this. He is the One who will call all the nations into judgment eventually: When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory (Mat 25:31). The Father hath committed all judgment unto the Son.

That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him (Joh 5:23). One of the first grave dissensions in the early Christian church was the Arian controversy. Arius taught that it was unreasonable to believe that the Lord Jesus Christ was the eternal, uncreated Son of the Father. He maintained that instead of that He was the first created being, that He was not eternal, that He was not one with the Father from eternal ages. This man was opposed by Athanasius, who maintained the truth that the Lord Jesus, whose goings forth are from everlasting to everlasting, was the eternal Son as God the Father is the eternal Father and as the Holy Spirit is the eternal Spirit. That controversy disrupted the church for many years, but finally at the Council of Nicaea it was definitely declared that the Scriptures taught that the Lord Jesus Christ was one with the Father from all eternity. For a century afterward, however, it was disturbed by the same controversy.

On one occasion, Athanasius, the valiant defender of the truth as to Christs equality with the Father, was summoned before one of the emperors who had given his own royal son the honor of sharing the imperial power and sitting with himself upon the throne. Athanasius bowed low before the emperor but utterly ignored his son. What! exclaimed the angry ruler, do you pretend to honor us while dishonoring and paying no attention to our son, whom we have made the sharer of our authority? Do not you, answered Athanasius, profess to honor God the Father, while refusing to give the same honor His coequal Son? It was a word fitly spoken, but whether the emperor saw the truth or not we do not know.

Now we come to a verse that has been used as much as any other in the gospel of John for winning souls: Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life (v. 24). What a stupendous statement do we have here! Can any believer in the Lord Jesus doubt his eternal salvation with words like these before him, words that come to us directly from the lips of the Son of God Himself? He begins with the divine oath, Verily, verily. We find that double verily only in Johns gospel. Again and again we find it there, and it always introduces a truth of tremendous importance. In the Douay Version the verse reads like this, Amen, amen, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life and comes not into judgment, but is passed out of death into life. Think of it! What a wonderful declaration! Amen, amen! Verily, verily! It means without any possibility of controversy, He that heareth my word Have you heard His word?

There are many people who hear with the outward ear, but do not hear in the heart. He speaks of hearing the word in the sense of receiving it in the heart. He who receives and believes what God has said in His Word-what God has said about our lost condition-about redemption-he who hears the word of the gospel, and believeth on him that sent me-it is not exactly on but he that believeth him. It is God who has spoken. When I stand up and give men something from that Book, I am preaching what God has said. Do you believe God? People say sometimes, Well, I am trying to believe. Trying to believe whom? God has spoken. You either believe Him or you do not believe Him. If you believe what God has said, our Lord declares that you have eternal life.

Now notice, it is not that you may hope to have it, providing that you continue faithful. It is not eternal life at the end of the way. It is the present tense: He that believeth hath. There is a sense, of course, in which eternal life is at the end of the way. The reason is that if I am a believer in Jesus Christ today, I know that some day, when He comes again, my very body will be quickened into eternal life. But every believer, here and now, possesses life, eternal life. The very life of God is communicated to him who trusts the Word of God.

Now look at this: Shall not come into condemnation. The word is really judgment. There is no judgment to those who are in Christ. Why? Because all our judgment was borne by the Lord Jesus Christ when His arms were outstretched on the cross. There all our sins deserved was poured out upon our blessed Substitute, and so we shall never have to go into the judgment for our sins. Our judgment day was at the cross.

Jesus died, and we died with Him,

Buried in His grave we lay.

All our sins were dealt with when He took our place upon the tree, and so we shall not come into judgment, but already we have passed out of death into life.

Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets

My: Joh 9:4, Joh 14:10, Gen 2:1, Gen 2:2, Psa 65:6, Isa 40:26, Mat 10:29, Act 14:17, Act 17:28, 1Co 12:6, Col 1:16, Heb 1:3

Reciprocal: Gen 1:26 – Let us Isa 40:28 – fainteth Zec 13:7 – the man Mat 7:21 – my Mat 9:5 – Arise Mat 12:2 – Behold Mat 12:8 – General Mat 27:43 – I am Mar 2:28 – General Luk 2:49 – my Joh 1:3 – General Joh 1:10 – was in Joh 2:16 – my Joh 8:25 – Even Joh 10:25 – I told Joh 10:30 – General Joh 10:36 – I am Joh 14:23 – make Act 2:22 – which Eph 3:9 – created Col 1:17 – and by Col 2:2 – of the Father

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

7

The Jews were so bitter against Jesus that they accused him of breaking the sabbath. Jesus made his reply by asserting his relation with God as his Father, and his cooperation with Him in the good work. The Jews made great claims of respect for God, and would never admit that He would violate the very day that he had declared to be holy. Now that Jesus claimed his work (even on the sab-bath) to be as a co-worker with God, it was more than they could stand.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.

[My Father worketh hitherto.] Our Saviour being called before the Sanhedrim, 1, asserts the Messiah to be God: and, 2, that he himself is the Messiah. ‘The Son of God’ and ‘the Messiah’ are convertible terms, which the Jews deny not; and yet have very wrong conceptions about ‘filiation,’ or being made a son.

St. Peter confesseth, Mat 16:16; “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” So also Caiaphas in his interrogatory, Mat 26:63; “Tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God?” But they hardly agree in the same sense and notion of sonship. Aben Ezra upon Psa 2:12; Kiss the Son; confesseth that this is properly spoken of the Messiah; but in Midras Tillin there is a vehement dispute against true filiation. The same Aben Ezra likewise confesseth, that in Dan 3:25; one like the Son of God is to be taken in the same sense with that of Pro 31:2; What, my son? and what, the son of my womb? But Saadias and R. Solomon understand it of an angel.

“There is one who hath neither son nor brother; the Holy Blessed; who hath neither brother nor son: he hath no brother, how should he have a son? only that God loved Israel, and so called them his children.”

It is not unknown with what obstinacy the Jews deny the Godhead of the Messiah. Whence the apostle, writing to the Hebrews, lays this down as his first foundation of discourse, That the Messiah is truly God, Hebrews 1. Which they, being ignorant of the great mystery of the Trinity, deny; fearing lest, if they should acknowledge Messiah to be God, they should acknowledge more Gods than one. Hence they every day repeated in the recitals of their phylacteries, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord.” And so, being blind as to the mystery of the Trinity, are the more hardened to deny that.

Our Saviour strenuously asserts here the Godhead of the Son, or Messiah; namely, that he hath the same power with the Father, the same honour due to him as to the Father, that he hath all things in common with the Father. And hence he makes this reply upon them about healing on the sabbath; “My Father worketh on the sabbath day, so do I also.”

Fuente: Lightfoot Commentary Gospels

The Apologists Bible Commentary

John 5

17But He answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I myself am working.”

CommentaryContemporary Jewish thought accepted that God “worked” on the Sabbath, preserving and upholding the Universe with His Power. Four leading Rabbi’s discussed this issue near the end of the first Century (Gamaliel II, R. Joshua, R. Eleazar ben Azariah, and R. Akiba) and concluded that although God works constantly, He cannot rightly be accused of “breaking” the Sabbath, since the Universe is His domain, and He elevates nothing – not even the Law – above Himself (Exodus Rabbah 30:9; Genesis Rabbah 11:10). Thus, God alone can rightly “work” on the Sabbath, as Jesus acknowledges in the first part of his answer. However, to claim that He too was “working” on the Sabbath was to claim a prerogative belonging to God alone. That He should equate his working with that of the Father would have been enough to shock the Jews, but Jesus goes even further, calling the Father “My Father.” Both statements implied an equality with the Father, as the Jews readily recognized. Importantly, Jesus did not defend Himself by saying that the Jewish interpretation of Sabbath law was incorrect (as well He might have – healing can hardly be considered the “work” normally done during the week, from which God decreed all should rest). Instead, He says that whatever allows the Father to “work” on the Sabbath also applies to Him – whether because the Universe is His domain, or because He is above the Law.

Grammatical AnalysisThe verb behind ‘answered’ (apekrinato) is in the aorist middle – in John, found only here and in v. 19 (the aorist deponent passive apekrith, might be expected). Abbott argues that this verbal form has legal overtones: Jesus responds to their charge, he offers his defense. The fact that the middle voice of this verb is so regularly attested in legal documentation (Moulton and Milligan, pp. 64-56) may provide some support for this view (Carson , p. 247).

Fuente: The Apologists Bible Commentary

Joh 5:17. But he answered them, My Father worketh until now: I also work. In three different ways does our Lord rebut the charge which His foes so often brought against Him, that He broke the sabbath. At one time He showed that it was not the law but the vain tradition that He set aside (Mat 12:11; Luk 13:15; Luk 14:5); at another He declared Himself as the Son of man Lord of the sabbath, and taught that the law of the sabbath must be determined from its aim and object (Mar 2:27-28); here only does He take even higher ground. God rested from His works of creation on the seventh day; this day was hallowed and set apart for mans rest from labour,a rest which was the shadow of the rest of God, and which was designed to remove from man everything that might hinder him from entering in spirit into that fellowship with God which is perfect rest. From the creation to this very moment the Father hath been working; in His very rest upholding all things by the word of His power, providing all things for His creatures, working out the purpose of His love in their redemption. My Father worketh until now, with no pause or intermission: I also work. He who can thus call God His Father finds in the works of His Father the law of His own works. No works of the Father can interrupt the sabbath rest: no works of the Son on earth can break the sabbath law. The 19th and 20th verses more fully explain what is expressed in these majestic words.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

From this verse to the end of the chapter, we have our Saviour’s apology for his working the foregoing cure on the impotent man on the sabbath day. And the chief argument he insists upon, is drawn from his unity and eqaulity in nature and operation with his Father; As the Father worketh, says he, so I work. Here he speaks of himself, not as a servant, or instrument in the Father’s hand, but as the fellow-worker with the Father, both in the works of creation, and in the works of providence, and preservation also.

Learn hence, 1. That though Almighty God has long since ceased from the work of creation, yet not from the work of preservation. My father worketh hitherto; not by creating new kinds of creatures but by upholding and preserving what he has already created.

Learn, 2. That Christ the Son of God, is joined with, and undivided from the Father, in working. As the Father created all things by him (not as a man, and as an instrument in his Father’s hand; for then he was not such) but as his fellow-worker, being equal in nature and power with the Father: in like manner as the Father preserveth, sustaineth, governeth, and upholdeth all things, so doth Christ; the Father’s actions and his being the same, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Joh 5:17-20. Jesus answered By the Jews, who in the preceding verses are said to have persecuted Jesus, we are to understand the rulers, as appears from Joh 5:33, where Jesus, speaking to the persons who sought to kill him, (Joh 5:18,) says unto them, Ye sent unto John, and he bare witness unto the truth. But the messengers that were sent to John were priests and Levites, (Joh 1:19,) persons of character who would not have undertaken the office, unless by the appointment of the rulers, called on that occasion, as well as here, the Jews. Hence the apology which Jesus now made for himself is such as was proper to be pronounced before the most capable judges; for it is the most regular defence of his character and mission that is anywhere to be found in the gospels, comprehending the principal arguments in behalf of both, setting them forth with the greatest strength of reason, clearness of method, and conciseness of expression. Macknight. My Father worketh hitherto From the beginning of the creation till now he hath been working without intermission, particularly in doing good to men by his unwearied providence. For on the sabbath day, as well as on other days, through the invisible operation of his almighty power, he supports the whole frame of nature, and carries on the motions of the heavens, upon which the vicissitudes of day and night, and of the seasons depend, so necessary to the production of food, with the other means of life. And I work I imitate my Father, and work also continually. This is the proposition which is explained from Joh 5:19-30, and confirmed and vindicated in the 31st and following verses. As the Jews built their observation of the sabbath upon Gods having rested thereon from the works of creation, this argument was decisive: nevertheless, the apology offended them exceedingly, and they sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath Which they were confident he had done; but said also, that God was his Father Greek, , his own proper Father, as the expression signifies; his Father in so peculiar and appropriating a sense as, in effect, to make himself equal with God; and therefore asserting that he acted like God, and arguing his own right to work on the sabbath day from Gods working upon it. Since the whole nation of the Jews thought God to be their Father, (Joh 8:41,) they would not have accounted it blasphemy in Christ to have called God his Father, had they not interpreted it in so high and appropriating a sense. The conclusion which they drew from his words, our Lord did not deny, but showed that in all things he acted agreeably to the will of God, and that he was equal in power to God, doing whatever he saw the Father do, an honour which flowed to him from the immense love of the Father. The expression, the Son can do nothing of himself, manifests, not his imperfection, but his glory, for it implies his eternal, intimate, indissoluble unity with the Father. Hence it is absolutely impossible that the Son should judge, will, testify, or teach any thing, without the Father, Joh 5:30, &c.; Joh 6:38; Joh 7:16 : or that he should be known or believed on separately from the Father. And he here defends his doing good every day without intermission, by the example of his Father, from which he cannot depart. For the Father loveth the Son Namely, with a peculiar, an infinite love; and showeth him all things that himself doeth A proof of the most intimate unity; his most secret counsels lie open to the Son: and he will show him By doing them; greater works than these Which he has hitherto performed; will enable him to do greater miracles than any he has done hitherto; that ye may marvel Which though they may not convince, will certainly astonish you, and make it impossible for you to gainsay him, at least, with any show of reason. Thus they marvelled, and were astonished, when he raised Lazarus, and when they were compelled to witness the awful prodigies that attended his death.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

II. The Discourse of Jesus: Joh 5:17-47.

In this discourse which is designed to vindicate the act which He has just performed, the three following thoughts are developed:

1. Jesus justifies His work by the perfect subordination which exists between His activity and that of His Father: Joh 5:17-30.

2. The reality of this relation does not rest solely on the personal affirmation of Jesus; it has as its guarantee the testimony of God Himself: Joh 5:31-40.

3. Supported by this testimony of the Father, Jesus passes from defense to attack and unveils to the Jews the moral cause of their unbelief, the absence of the true spirit of the law: Joh 5:41-47.

Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)

5:17 {3} But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.

(3) The work of God was never the breach of the sabbath, and the works of Christ are the works of the Father, both because they are one God, and also because the Father does not work except in the Son.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

Jesus defended Himself by stating that He was doing God’s work. The rabbis regarded God as working on the Sabbath by simply maintaining the universe and continuing to impart life. They did not accuse Him of violating the Sabbath. [Note: Carson, The Gospel . . ., p. 247.] Jesus, too, viewed God as constantly at work. Jesus claimed to be doing what God did. God did not suspend His activities on the Sabbath and neither did Jesus.

This was a virtual claim to deity. Jesus was claiming that His relationship to the law was the same as God’s, not the same as man’s. Moreover by speaking of God as "My Father" Jesus was claiming a relationship with Him that was unique from that of the Jews corporately. The work that Jesus had done was the same kind as the Father’s work. He provided deliverance and a new life for the paralyzed man as the Father provides salvation for those whom sin has bound. Obviously Jesus was arguing differently here than in the instances of Sabbath controversy that the Synoptics record.

"The most notable feature about Jesus in the Fourth Gospel . . . is the control He displayed over all persons and situations." [Note: Tom Thatcher, "Jesus, Judas, and Peter: Character by Contrast in the Fourth Gospel," Bibliotheca Sacra 153:612 (October-December 1996):448.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)