Jesus Christ’s third miracle, as recorded in the gospel of John, took place in Jerusalem. This miracle not only freed a crippled man, but began the work of unshackling the Sabbath from the bonds that held it captive. Unlike His first two miracles, which were performed in the small town of Cana in Galilee, the healing of the man at the pool of Bethesda occurred in the nation’s capital during “a feast of the Jews” (John 5:1). Because of the feast, Jerusalem was full of pilgrims from various lands who undoubtedly carried news of the miraculous healing back to their homes. The miracles in Cana were private, intended to bless a single family and increase the faith of the disciples. This miracle, in contrast, publicly announced Christ’s identity as the Messiah, as the Son of God, and as the Judge of the world.
Observing a hopeless man sitting by the pool who had been lame for thirty-eight years, Jesus asked him, “Wilt thou be made whole?” (John 5:6). The question may sound silly at first. Who wouldn’t want to be healed? Wasn’t this why the man was sitting by the pool, waiting for the miraculous stirring of the water? However, many people don’t really want to be set free from the sins that bind them. Weakness can become a crutch, and sin can become a bandage that covers the raw pain of a damaged soul. Even physical maladies can become strangely familiar friends, useful for the defense of fragile identities and the manipulation of caring friends and family members. Christ possesses the power to set us free from every soul sickness, but only when we so choose.
The lame man at Bethesda replied to the Messiah’s strange question by saying, “Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me” (John 5:7). It wasn’t a simple yes, but it was enough for Jesus. “Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk. And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked: and on the same day was the sabbath” (John 5:8, 9).
Jesus performed this miracle on the Sabbath for a reason. The sabbath originated at creation, when God “rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made” (Genesis 2:2). Its importance was later restated in the fourth commandment, which began with the words, “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God” (Exodus 20:8-11). God had always intended this day to be a blessing for all people, not just the Jews. Speaking through the prophet Isaiah, the promise of Sabbath rest clearly extended to all nations of the earth. “Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the LORD, to serve him, and to love the name of the LORD, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant; Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer” (Isaiah 56:6, 7).
The seventh-day Sabbath, properly observed, serves as a safeguard against idolatry. Its weekly celebration, as both a memorial of creation and a promise of God’s power to redeem from sin, reconnects humanity with its Creator. Its injunction to stop working reveals a deeper spiritual imperative to recognize Christ, not our own effort, as the only hope of salvation. As the author of Hebrews wrote, “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his” (Hebrews 4:9, 10). The seventh-day Sabbath is a sign of righteousness by faith. It is a weekly promise and reminder of God’s power to grant victory over sin. It is a sign of righteousness by faith. In short, Sabbath is a symbol of true religious liberty.
However, the Jews had lost sight of the Sabbath’s deep spiritual significance. Instead, its weekly recurrence had become defined by a list of more than 600 rabbinic rules that had been added to the fourth commandment’s simple injunction to rest from common labor. It is true that these rules had been put in place to prevent the nation from repeating the apostasy that had resulted in its captivity in the Old Testament. However, by the time of Christ, these Sabbath regulations had devolved into a legalistic list of rules that obscured the true meaning of Sabbath rest. This can be readily observed by the interrogation that the healed cripple received as he joyfully walked away from the place of his former imprisonment by the pool. “The Jews therefore said unto him that was cured, It is the sabbath day: it is not lawful for thee to carry thy bed” (John 5:10).
The religious leaders’ rigid control of Sabbath as a day of worship gave them a tremendous amount of control over the lives of the people, especially every seventh day. A similar situation was repeated several centuries later within Christendom when the emperor Constantine followed his legalization of Christianity with a Sunday law that required most people to refrain from common labor on the first day of the week. His action gave the increasingly influential church of Rome a powerful tool to make people act as supposed Christians on at least one day of the week. The historian Alonzo T. Jones provides this summary of the effect of Constantine’s Sunday law.
“Constantine did many things to favor the bishops. He made their decisions in disputed cases final, as the decision of Jesus Christ. But in nothing that he did for them did he give them power over those who did not belong to the church, to compel them to act as though they did, except in the one thing of the Sunday law. In the Sunday law, power was given to the church to compel those who did not belong to the church, and who were not subject to the jurisdiction of the church, to obey the commands of the church. In the Sunday law there was given to the church control of the civil power, so that by it she could compel those who did not belong to the church to act as though they did. The history of Constantine’s time may be searched through and through, and it will be found that in nothing did he give to the church any such power, except in this one thing—the Sunday law.”[1]
In first-century Jerusalem as well as in fourth-century Rome, the national day of worship was intimately connected with religious liberty and, unfortunately, represented much of what was wrong in the nation’s religious system. For this reason, Jesus specifically chose to heal the crippled man on the Sabbath, not only to help the individual but also to reveal and denounce the religious liberty abuses taking place in Israel at that time.
“[Jesus] had come to free the Sabbath from those burdensome requirements that had made it a curse instead of a blessing. For this reason He had chosen the Sabbath upon which to perform the act of healing at Bethesda. He could have healed the sick man as well on any other day of the week; or He might simply have cured him, without bidding him bear away his bed. But this would not have given Him the opportunity He desired. A wise purpose underlay every act of Christ’s life on earth. Everything He did was important in itself and in its teaching. Among the afflicted ones at the pool He selected the worst case upon whom to exercise His healing power, and bade the man carry his bed through the city in order to publish the great work that had been wrought upon him. This would raise the question of what it was lawful to do on the Sabbath, and would open the way for Him to denounce the restrictions of the Jews in regard to the Lord’s day, and to declare their traditions void.”[2]
The religious leaders’ reaction to Christ’s miracle at Bethesda was swift and intense. “And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to slay him, because He had done these things on the sabbath day” (John 5:16). The miracles in Cana had increased the disciples’ faith; this one tested their resolve to follow Christ and demonstrated the danger that their association with Him would bring. By unshackling the Sabbath, Jesus opened the door to true religious liberty that is defined by a personal relationship with the Creator rather than blind obedience to human traditions and laws. He also unleashed a flood of hatred and opposition to the truth that culminated in His crucifixion.
Revelation 13 reveals that a government-enforced day of worship will someday again define society’s religious experience. When it does, this mark of the beast will be a dividing line in the sand, separating those who choose to worship and obey God from those who choose to serve and obey man. Genuine religious liberty will once again be replaced by a hollow semblance of freedom, granted only to those who acknowledge the authority of human beings in matters of religion and conscience. Then as in the past, however, true freedom and true healing from sin will be found only in Jesus Christ. The question every person will need to answer is the same one presented to the lame man at Bethesda: “Do you want to be made whole?”
- Ellen White, The Desire of Ages, p. 206.
- A.T. Jones, Great Empires of Prophecy, 491-492.