Testimonia — Early Christian Bible Commentary

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John 5

1After these things, there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

2Now in Jerusalem by the sheep gate, there is a pool, which is called in Hebrew, “Bethesda”, having five porches.

3In these lay a great multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, or paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water;

4for an angel went down at certain times into the pool and stirred up the water. Whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was healed of whatever disease he had.

5A certain man was there who had been sick for thirty-eight years.

6When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had been sick for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to be made well?”

7The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I’m coming, another steps down before me.”

8Jesus said to him, “Arise, take up your mat, and walk.”

9Immediately, the man was made well, and took up his mat and walked. Now that day was a Sabbath.

10So the Jews said to him who was cured, “It is the Sabbath. It is not lawful for you to carry the mat.”

11He answered them, “He who made me well said to me, ‘Take up your mat and walk.’ ”

12Then they asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your mat and walk’?”

13But he who was healed didn’t know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, a crowd being in the place.

14Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “Behold, you are made well. Sin no more, so that nothing worse happens to you.”

15The man went away, and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.

16For this cause the Jews persecuted Jesus and sought to kill him, because he did these things on the Sabbath.

17But Jesus answered them, “My Father is still working, so I am working, too.”

18For this cause therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the Sabbath, but also called God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

19Jesus therefore answered them, “Most certainly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father doing. For whatever things he does, these the Son also does likewise.

20For the Father has affection for the Son, and shows him all things that he himself does. He will show him greater works than these, that you may marvel.

21For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom he desires.

22For the Father judges no one, but he has given all judgment to the Son,

23that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He who doesn’t honor the Son doesn’t honor the Father who sent him.

24“Most certainly I tell you, he who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and doesn’t come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.

25Most certainly I tell you, the hour comes, and now is, when the dead will hear the Son of God’s voice; and those who hear will live.

26For as the Father has life in himself, even so he gave to the Son also to have life in himself.

27He also gave him authority to execute judgment, because he is a son of man.

28Don’t marvel at this, for the hour comes in which all who are in the tombs will hear his voice

29and will come out; those who have done good, to the resurrection of life; and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment.

30I can of myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and my judgment is righteous, because I don’t seek my own will, but the will of my Father who sent me.

31“If I testify about myself, my witness is not valid.

32It is another who testifies about me. I know that the testimony which he testifies about me is true.

33You have sent to John, and he has testified to the truth.

34But the testimony which I receive is not from man. However, I say these things that you may be saved.

35He was the burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light.

36But the testimony which I have is greater than that of John; for the works which the Father gave me to accomplish, the very works that I do, testify about me, that the Father has sent me.

37The Father himself, who sent me, has testified about me. You have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his form.

38You don’t have his word living in you, because you don’t believe him whom he sent.

39“You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and these are they which testify about me.

40Yet you will not come to me, that you may have life.

41I don’t receive glory from men.

42But I know you, that you don’t have God’s love in yourselves.

43I have come in my Father’s name, and you don’t receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him.

44How can you believe, who receive glory from one another, and you don’t seek the glory that comes from the only God?

45“Don’t think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you, even Moses, on whom you have set your hope.

46For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote about me.

47But if you don’t believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”

Early Christian commentary

c. 182–188 AD (historical editorial dating) | Irenaeus of Lyons

1. Let our opponents—that is, they who speak against their own salvation—inform us [as to this point]: The deceased daughter of the high priest; the widow's dead son, who was being carried out [to burial] near the gate [of the city]; and Lazarus, who had lain four days in the tomb,—in what bodies did they rise again? In those same, no doubt, in which they had also died. For if it were not in the very same, then certainly those same individuals who had died did not rise again. For [the Scripture] says, "The Lord took the hand of the dead man, and said to him, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise. And the dead man sat up, and He commanded that something should be given him to eat; and He delivered him to his mother." Again, He called Lazarus "with a loud voice, saying, Lazarus, come forth; and he that was dead came forth bound with bandages, feet and hands." This was symbolical of that man who had been bound in sins. And therefore the Lord said, "Loose him, and let him depart." As, therefore, those who were healed were made whole in those members which had in times past been afflicted; and the dead rose in the identical bodies, their limbs and bodies receiving health, and that life which was granted by the Lord, who prefigures eternal things by temporal, and shows that it is He who is Himself able to extend both healing and life to His handiwork, that His words concerning its [future] resurrection may also be believed; so also at the end, when the Lord utters His voice "by the last trumpet," the dead shall be raised, as He Himself declares: "The hour shall come, in which all the dead which are in the tombs shall hear the voice of the Son of man, and shall come forth; those that have done good to the resurrection of life, and those that have done evil to the resurrection of judgment."

Commentary · Against Heresies, Book V, Chapter 13, Section 1 · Original source · Irenaeus of Lyons; The Writings of Irenaeus, Volume II, Ante-Nicene Christian Library IX; translated by Alexander Roberts and W. H. Rambaut; T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1869. Existing transcription supplied by Wikisource contributors. · Licence · Source revision · Whitespace normalized; source pagination and footnote reference markers removed. English wording unchanged.

c. 182–188 AD (historical editorial dating) | Irenaeus of Lyons

2. And for this reason did the Lord most plainly manifest Himself and the Father to His disciples, lest, forsooth, they might seek after another God besides Him who formed man, and who gave him the breath of life; and that men might not rise to such a pitch of madness as to feign another Father above the Creator. And thus also He healed by a word all the others who were in a weakly condition because of sin; to whom also He said, "Behold, thou art made whole, sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon thee:" pointing out by this, that, because of the sin of disobedience, infirmities have come upon men. To that man, however, who had been blind from his birth. He gave sight, not by means of a word, but by an outward action; doing this not without a purpose, or because it so happened, but that He might show forth the hand of God, that which at the beginning had moulded man. And therefore, when His disciples asked Him for what cause the man had been born blind, whether for his own or his parents' fault. He replied, "Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents, but that the works of God should be made manifest in him." Now the work of God is the fashioning of man. For, as the Scripture says, He made [man] by a kind of process: "And the Lord took clay from the earth, and formed man." Wherefore also the Lord spat on the ground and made clay, and smeared it upon the eyes, pointing out the original fashioning [of man], how it was effected, and manifesting the hand of God to those who can understand by what [hand] man was formed out of the dust. For that which the artificer, the Word, had omitted to form in the womb, [viz. the blind man's eyes], He then supplied in public, that the works of God might be manifested in him, in order that we might not be seeking out another hand by which man was fashioned, nor another Father; knowing that this hand of God which formed us at the beginning, and which does form us in the womb, has in the last times sought us out who were lost, winning back His own, and taking up the lost sheep upon His shoulders, and with joy restoring it to the fold of life.

Commentary · Against Heresies, Book V, Chapter 15, Section 2 · Original source · Irenaeus of Lyons; The Writings of Irenaeus, Volume II, Ante-Nicene Christian Library IX; translated by Alexander Roberts and W. H. Rambaut; T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1869. Existing transcription supplied by Wikisource contributors. · Licence · Source revision · Whitespace normalized; source pagination and footnote reference markers removed. English wording unchanged.