I will concentrate on three items and explore how they work together.

The first item in my list is the fact that the event described in John 5 took place on a Sabbath, and that the story knows that there is a running debate as to what may be lawfully done on a Sabbath. It would seem that John knows of two controversies that surround the healing of the paralytic. The one more immediately tied to it is found now in John 7:21–24. There Jesus is on the defensive because "on the Sabbath I made a man’s whole body whole." He accounts for his Sabbath activity by appealing to the law of circumcision, which according to most rabbis took precedence over the law of the Sabbath.

In chapter 5, in comparison, one reads that Jesus was accused of having ordered the paralytic to carry his bed home on the Sabbath. The narrator explains, "and this was why the Jews persecuted Jesus, because he did this on the Sabbath." Then comes what I would consider the key text of the chapter: "My Father is working still, and I am working" (v. 17). The Jews immediately understood the implications of what Jesus had said. As the narrator elaborates, "This was why the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the Sabbath but also called God his father, making himself equal with God."

We have arrived where the narrator wished to take his readers. He has put in plain language what the rest of the Gospel of John often implies: Jesus constitutes a challenge to Jewish monotheism (the second item in my list). Before we explore this item, however, I would like to point out how we got here.

Jesus’ defense of his Sabbath activity here is not legal—as in chapter 7—it is theological. Behind Jesus’ answer is the recognition that God works continuously, even on the Sabbath. This is based on the doctrine of Creation, which in the Bible is not at all understood as it is today. For us, creation is something that took place sometime in the past. For all the biblical authors, God is creating the world even at this moment. Whatever he did in the past would be inconsequential if he were not creating now.

If God were to get distracted or become neglectful the world would revert to chaos at that very instant. This means that God must work on the Sabbath, and he does. (The rabbis, as well as the great Jewish philosopher and Jesus’ contemporary, Philo of Alexandria, openly recognized this and speculated as to the kinds of things God does on the Sabbath.) Here Jesus does not appeal to the law of circumcision, but to God’s Sabbath work. He claims to have the right to do what God does.

This poses the problem of a second God. Jesus has touched the most sensitive nerve in the Jewish belief system, which even to this day is not at all elaborate. It has been said that Judaism has only one doctrine, but 613 commandments. The one doctrine is proclaimed in the words, "Hear, Oh Israel, the Lord our God is one" (Deut. 6:4). The Gospel of John, in comparison, is interested in establishing another doctrine: Jesus (the Word incarnate) is God.

No other book of the New Testament makes this its primary proclamation. Contrast, for example, the ending of the Gospel of Mark, where the Roman Centurion confesses, "Truly this man was a Son of God" (Mark 15:39), with the confession of Thomas at the end of the Gospel of John, "My Lord and my God" (20:28). Jesus’ claim to divinity is the Johannine contribution to Christian theology.

John 5 is the first attempt to show how both the Father and the Son can be God. The last word in this endeavor has not yet been said. After four hundred years trying to put this matter into shape, the Church at the Council of Chalcedon (451 C.E.) made an official declaration as to how the divinity of Jesus was to be understood.

The Chalcedonian Creed declares that in Jesus the human and the divine natures exist together "unchanged, unmixed, undivided, and unconfused" in one person. This formula, in turn, is considered by most today as setting the parameters for further dialogue. This unending Christian conversation began with the words "My Father is working still, and I am working," which the Jews understood to mean that he was "making himself equal with God."

To claim that a man is God is just as daring today as it was in the first century. When the Gospel of John insisted on making this claim many understood it to be denying that Jesus was a human being at all, and on that account some early Christians denied the Gospel of John canonical status. Other early Christians insisted on the reality of his death on the cross, which could not have happened to an immortal God. Thus, although affirming Jesus’ divinity, they denied that he was "equal with God."

Of course, the words of the narrator in John describe the conclusion "the Jews" had drawn from Jesus’ words. It is not clear, therefore, whether the narrator agrees to what "the Jews" have understood. After all, becoming "equal with God" are the words used to describe the fall of Lucifer (Isa. 14:14) and the fall of Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:5). It should be noticed in this connection that the Jews had first determined that Jesus was a Sabbath breaker because he healed the paralytic and told him to carry his bed home.

Obviously, the narrator does not agree with the assessment of "the Jews." Now, if the narrator thinks "the Jews" are wrong in considering Jesus a Sabbath breaker, would it not be most likely the case that he thinks they are also wrong in their assessment that Jesus is "making himself equal with God"? Or, is this another case of the masterful irony found throughout this Gospel? (See, for example, John 11:49–50.) The suggestion, it would seem, is latent in the text.

The following discourse of Jesus (John 5:19–47) elaborates two themes. The first is to describe the Son’s work. He has been sent by the Father to give life and to judge. These two activities are understood in Judaism as exclusive prerogatives of God, particularly the activities that God performs on the Sabbath. But the Son claims here to have been sent by the Father specifically to do them, even on the Sabbath.

The question that comes up, then, is this: By claiming to perform what are exclusive prerogatives of God, is the Son "making himself equal with God"? In this connection it may be noticed that interspersed with his claims to have the authority to give life and to judge are found Jesus’ disclaimers. He insists on his lack of independence. Yet there remains some tension, specifically when he makes another rather astonishing claim: "For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he wishes" (John 5:21, italics mine). What about his lack of independence?

The final section of the discourse seeks to give a basis for Jesus’ claims and to take away from "the Jews" the basis for their assessment of Jesus, and gets us to the third item in my list. The section begins, "If I bear witness to myself, my testimony is not true" (5:31). Therefore, to support his claims Jesus presents the testimony of John the Baptist and the testimony of the works that the Father sent him to do. Finally, he appeals to the testimony of the Father as it appears in the Scriptures.

The problem here is that since "they" search the Scriptures thinking that life eternal is found in them, their reading of the Scriptures prevents them from receiving life eternal from the only effective source (the Son). For "them" the witness of the Scriptures is not the witness of God on behalf of the Son, but the witness of Moses. Having placed their hope in Moses (5:45), they do not have the word of the Father abiding in them (5:38). It is only by believing in the Son as the one sent by the Father that faith is possible, and "coming to Jesus" accomplishes the desired goal: The reception of life (5:39), which was paradigmatically demonstrated by the healing of the paralytic.

I leave you with some questions to ponder and an assignment to aid reflection: What are the implications of the fact that the Sabbath healing of the paralytic has two quite different defenses? Do all the New Testament authors affirm equally the divinity of Jesus? If the Son gives life to whom he wishes, can he say that he only does what the Father tells him? By claiming to be doing what God does because the Father sent him to do such works, is Jesus "making himself equal with God"? Make a list of ways in which searching the Scriptures prevents the reception of eternal life.

For further reading, see Herold Weiss, A Day of Gladness: The Sabbath Among Jews and Christians in Antiquity (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2003), chap. 6.

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