John 5:1-18

With the beginning of this chapter we enter upon the fourth and leading division of the Gospel, extending to the close of chap. 12. Its object is to set Jesus forth in the height of His conflict with ignorance and error and sin. More particularly, the Redeemer appears throughout it in the light in which He had already been presented in the Prologue, as the culminating-point and fulfilment of all previous revelations of God, whether in the Old Testament or in nature. In chap. 5 He is the fulfilment of the Sabbath, the greatest of all the institutions given through Moses. The subordinate parts of the first section of the chap. are (1) John 5:1-9, the account of the miracle at the pool of Bethesda; (2) John 5:10-18, the opposition of the Jews, leading to the proclamation of the great truths contained in the second section.