(Tap footnote to read it. Old Testament quotations are underlined. "Love" with a caret ("^love") is agapé.1"agapé" The Greek words ἀγάπη (agapé, noun), and ἀγαπάω (agapaó; verb) are typically translated "love". However, unlike our English word "love" – which primarily speaks of affection and feelings – agapé centers on choice and behavior. It’s the "love" based on will, choice, behavior, and action; not feelings. (Feelings-based love is the Greek word φιλέω (phileó), which properly means "brotherly love/affection".) Thus, you could hate someone passionately and still treat him with "agapé". Agapé "love" is best understood as the pursuit of what is most beneficial to someone or something, regardless of the cost to yourself or the type of response received from the person or thing. It can also indicate a preference for someone or something over other things. )
The Bethesda pool healing
- A feast of the Jews was after these things, and Jesus went up into Jerusalem.
- Now, in Jerusalem near the sheep gate is a pool having five porches, the pool called Bethesda in Hebrew.
- A crowd of the men being sick were lying in these porches – the blind, the lame and the withered – [waiting for the water’s movement.
- For an angel was occasionally descending into the pool and stirring the water. Therefore, the man who entered first after the stirring of the water became well from whatever sickness he was being held by at that time.]
- And a man was there for thirty and eight years, having an infirmity in himself.
- Jesus – having seen him lying there and having known that he had already been there a long time – He says to him: “Do you want to become well?”
- The sick man answered Him: “Sir, I don’t have a man to help so that when the water is stirred, he might put me into the pool. And while I’m going by myself, another descends before me.”
- Jesus tells him: “Rise, pick up your bed mat, and walk.”
- And immediately the man became well, and picked up his bed mat, and was walking. But on that day it was the Sabbath,
- so the Jews were saying to the man who has been healed: “It’s the Sabbath, and it’s not lawful for you to pick up your bed mat.”
- But he answered them: “The man who made me well, that man told me ‘Pick up your bed mat and walk’.”
- So they asked him: “Who is the man who told you: ‘Pick up your bed mat and walk’?”
- But the man who was healed hadn’t known who it is, for Jesus slipped away in a crowd at that place.
- After these things, Jesus finds him in the temple and told him: “Behold, you have become well. Sin no more, so something worse doesn’t happen to you.”
- The man departed and reported to the Jews that Jesus is the man who made him well.
Jesus’ Deity
- And the Jews were persecuting Jesus because of this; because He was doing these things on the Sabbath.
- But Jesus answered them: “My Father works until now, and I work.”
- So the Jews were seeking to kill Him more because of this; because He was not only breaking the Sabbath, but also because He was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal to God.
- So Jesus answered and was telling them: “Amen, amen I tell you: the Son isn’t able to do anything from Himself unless it’s something He sees the Father doing. For whatever He does, likewise the Son also does these things.
- “For the Father loves the Son, and shows all things to Him that He Himself does. And He will show Him greater works than these so you might marvel.
- “For just as the Father raises the dead and gives life, in this way also the Son gives life to whom He wills.
- “For neither does the Father judge anyone, but He has given all judgement to the Son,
- “so they all might honor the Son just as they honor the Father. The man not honoring the Son doesn’t honor the Father, the One who sent Him.
- “Amen, amen I tell you, that the man hearing My message and believing the One who sent Me has the life of ages, and he doesn’t go into judgement but has passed from death into life.
- “Amen, amen I tell you that an hour is coming – and now is – when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and the men who heard it will live.
- “For just as the Father has life in Himself, in this way also He gave life to the Son, to have it in Himself.
- “And He gave Him authority to make judgement because He is the Son of Man.
- “Don’t marvel at this, because an hour is coming in which all the men in the tombs will hear His voice,
- “and they will come out: the men who did good into the resurrection of life, but the men who practiced evil into the resurrection of judgement.
- “I’m able to do nothing from Myself. I judge just as I hear, and My judgement is righteous because I don’t seek My will, but the will of the One who sent Me.
Testimony about Jesus
- “If I testify about Myself, My testimony isn’t considered true.
- “It’s another man testifying about Me, and I *know that the testimony which he testifies about Me is true.
- “You men have sent for John, and he has testified of the truth.
- “And the testimony I receive isn’t from man, but I say these things so you might be saved.
- “That man was the lamp burning and shining, and you wanted to greatly rejoice in his light for a time.
- “But I have testimony greater than John’s. For the works which the Father has given to Me so I might accomplish them; these same works that I do testify about Me that the Father has sent Me.
- “And the One who sent Me, the Father, He has testified about Me, and you haven’t ever heard His voice nor seen His form.
- “And you don’t have His word remaining in you because you don’t believe Him whom He sent.
- “You examine the scriptures because you think you have the life of ages in them; and these scriptures are the ones testifying about Me.
- “And you aren’t willing to come to Me so you might have life.
- “I don’t receive glory from men.
- “But I *know you; that you don’t have the ^love of God in yourselves.
- “I have come in the name of My Father and you don’t receive Me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive that man.
- “How are you able to believe while receiving glory from one another, and you don’t seek the glory that’s from the only God?
- “Don’t think that I will prosecute you to the Father. There is one prosecuting you: Moses, in whom you have hoped.
- “For if you believed Moses you would believe in Me, for he wrote about Me.
- “And if you don’t believe his writings, how will you believe My words?”
Next: John chapter 6
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