Is It Okay to Heal on the Sabbath?

Tom:

We’re going through the gospel of John with a particular emphasis on the gospel and the salvation we have in Christ.And Dave we are now—

Dave:

That’s really confusing Tom.

Tom:

Two gospels?

Dave:

Yes, the Gospel of John, well that’s the title of it, it’s the Gospel of Matthew, in other words, it’s the story told by the apostles and disciples of the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus and so forth.The “gospel” is—

Tom:

Good news.

Dave:

The good news that Christ came and died for our sins.So John’s gospel is all about the gospel but anyway Tom, I just trying to help people out, out there.

Tom:

You straightened me out!So that’s a good start.We’re in John:5:9And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked: and on the same day was the sabbath.
See All..., but the first eight verses deal with this invalid who was next to a pool, the pool of Bethesda, and he was there for his healing.Jesus is there with him.He had trouble, this man had trouble.He was supposed to step into the pool, or have somebody help him into the pool when the angel stirred the water.

Dave:

He’s been there for 38 years, or at least he had this illness for 38 years.

Tom:

Right, but now Jesus says to him and I’ll pick up with verse 8: “Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk. 9) And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked: and on the same day was the Sabbath.”So for those watching it was both good news and bad news.The Pharisees were about to step in with an objection.

Dave:

For carrying a bed on the Sabbath.Tom, before we get to that—

Tom:

Also the healing.Not just the carrying of the bed, it was the healing.Jesus.

Dave:

Right.Oh Tom that’s right.They accused Jesus even of healing was doing a work on the Sabbath.Exactly, so now you’ve straightened me out as well, okay?

Tom:

See folks, this is Search the Scriptures Daily.We’re taking you through this, but we want you to (as Dave said earlier) go along with us and hopefully you’ll be edified by what you’re dealing with, but the bottom line is YOU search the scriptures daily, YOU understand what God’s Word says.

Dave:

At least it was carrying the bed that caught the Pharisee’s attention, but Tom before we carry on with that, let’s go back to something because we are doing a series now on In Defense of the Faith, and it’s a book filled with questions that have been asked.I am sure one of the questions that immediately comes to someone’s mind when we see Jesus—he can heal anybody.He just says it, “Rise, take up thy bed and walk,” and wow!He says to Lazarus, we’ll get to that in chapter 11 if we ever get that far—

Tom:

Before the Lord comes, because we are pushing that way, Dave.

Dave:

That’s right, hopefully the Lord will take us out of here first, but anyway, he says, “Lazarus come forth.”Lazarus comes out of the grave.Well Jesus could heal everybody, he could call everybody out of the grave, he could keep people from dying, and why doesn’t he do that?Why doesn’t God do that for us?Why did God cast Adam and Eve out of the Garden?Why did he bring death upon the human race?Because we’re rebels and if God healed everybody—

Tom:

Dave do you mean why did he bring death, or why did he allow death?

Dave:

No, he pronounced death, he brought death.He said the soul that sinneth must die.The day you eat thereof you will die.So this was God’s judgment upon the—

Tom:

Oh, okay.

Dave:

—Upon man.Why doesn’t he just heal everybody and do away with all sickness and so forth?Well sickness is a result of sin and it gets worse you know, the pool of evil gets worse, and the pool of sin gets worse.If God healed everyone then he would be perpetuating man in his fallen, rebellious state.

Tom:

Sinful state, right.

Dave:

He would be perpetuating hell on earth really.In fact he would be encouraging us. Well it doesn’t matter what I do, I’m going to be healed, I am not going to die, so sin really has to be dealt with.

Tom:

And it’s more serious than our physical situation.

Dave:

Absolutely, it has to be dealt with.One day the Lord is going to resurrect those who believe in him or take us to heaven without dying in the Rapture.We will have new bodies—I like the old hymn that says “these earthen vessels break; the world itself grows old, but Christ the Lord our dust will take and freshly mold.He’ll give these bodies vile, a fashion like his own; he’ll make the whole creation smile and hush its groan.”So this universe has to be done away with; these bodies have to be done away with.He’s not going to perpetuate us in bodies of suffering and pain and weakness and propensity to evil and so forth.But when it pleases him, when it is to his purpose or to his glory, he does intervene.I have laid my hands on people and seen them instantly healed on very few occasions.I have been instantly healed myself on several occasions.But that doesn’t mean that we can demand this of God every time.Some people say for example, that healing is in the atonement. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that because we don’t have time to get into it.Everything we have is in the atonement, but we are not promised through the atonement of Christ that we will never be sick, that we will never physically die in this life.And you cannot show that Christians live longer than non-Christians.If healing were really in the atonement there ought to be some Christians that live to be at least 150, maybe some of them 200 or whatever.No, that’s not God’s purpose and plan.But we are going to have new bodies and a new universe and so forth.So I just thought you know, well someone may think of that.Well Jesus could heal this man, why didn’t he heal everyone?Because that wouldn’t be the best way.Really that would just encourage us in our evil and it would not ultimately solve the problem.Christ himself had to die because the penalty for sin is death and he had to take that penalty for us.

Tom:

Right.Now Dave earlier in another segment you talked about religion.Well here comes religion in verse 10: “The Jews therefore said unto him—

Dave:

When it says Jews, it means the leaders of the Jews, the rabbis—

Tom:

Right, the religious leaders, “therefore said unto him that was cured, It is the Sabbath day: it is not lawful for thee to carry [thy] bed.” And he answered them in verse 11, “He answered them, He that made me whole, the same said unto me, Take up thy bed, and walk.”

Dave:

Yes, you are not going to argue with a man that has cured you of a 38 year disease.Suddenly in the 38 years for the first time you have strength to walk and to carry a bed yet.Probably it didn’t weigh much.

Tom:

Verse 12: “Then asked they him, What man is that which said unto thee, Take up thy bed, and walk?”

Dave:

Tom they’ve got a criminal in their sights now.What do you mean somebody told you to— I think they knew who it was actually.Nobody else is living in Israel that could do that sort of thing.Anyway, they want to know who this was and verse 13, “And he that was healed wist not who it was: for Jesus had conveyed himself away, a multitude being in [that] place.”He couldn’t point him out and he didn’t know the identity of this man.He had never seen Jesus before.

Tom:

He was still excited about what happened.Now here’s an interesting aspect.So where was this man’s faith?I mean he did stand up, but—

Dave:

Tom, that’s interesting because some people will say, for example some of the so-called faith healers, some people seem to be healed of a psychosomatic problem.They are under the excitement of this large gathering and people are getting healed, throwing away their crutches and so forth and then they lose their healing and they say well you didn’t hold onto it with your faith.You need to hold onto your healing, or it’s your fault, you don’t have enough faith and so forth.Well here we have an instance where there was no faith.This man didn’t even know who Jesus was.Jesus was a total stranger.It was simply the power of God demonstrating who Jesus is and what he can do.For example you have another one that I often think of.You remember when Peter was in prison and the angel came and took him out?

Tom:

Right.

Dave:

And he knocks on the door of a prayer meeting.They are praying for his release and they don’t believe that he is there.So obviously Peter was not delivered by the angel from prison in response to the great faith of these early Christians.No—

Tom:

Now there’s a modicum here, because the man did do what Jesus said.

Dave:

He did, well he had to.

Tom:

Well why did he have to?He could have just said oh no you don’t understand I have been here for 38 years and—

Dave:

No, it was the power of God that operated in his body.He had no choice in this particular instance.On other occasions Jesus says your faith has made you whole.When the centurion hears about him or the woman comes to him—they know who he is and they come trusting him.But in this case there was no faith; the man didn’t even know who he was.So the man that was healed doesn’t know where Jesus, he doesn’t know who Jesus is, but they have a good idea.“Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple (well he has to go for cleansing now, he’s following the law) and said unto him ‘Behold thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.’”

Tom:

Whoa, Dave that’s a difficult scripture there.I am sure there are people out there thinking and maybe some have promoted the idea that anyone who is sick is because of sin in their life.We’ll deal with that next week.