John 5:17

In some informal way these accusations were brought to the ears of Jesus, and His defence was: Ὁ πατήρ μου … ἐργάζομαι. “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; παύεται οὐδέποτε ποιῶν ὁ θεὸς ἀλλʼ ὥσπερ ἴδιον τὸ καίειν πυρὸς καὶ χίονος τὸ ψύχειν, οὕτω καὶ Θεοῦ τὸ ποιεῖν. 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 (John 5:18), it was God they charged with breaking it. But this exasperated them the more “because He not only was annulling (ἔλυε, ‘laws, as having binding force, are likened to bonds, hence λύειν 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 ὁ πατήρ μου (John 5:17) and the implication in κἀγὼ ἐργάζομαι a claim to some peculiar and exclusive (ἴδιον) 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: John 5:19-20 exhibit the ground of the Son's activity in the Father's activity and love for the Son; John 5:21-23, the works given by the Father to the Son are, generally, life-giving and judging; John 5:24-27, these works in the spiritual sphere; John 5:28-29, in the physical sphere; and John 5:30, reaffirmation of unity with the Father.