Sir Isaac Newton’s third law of motion says that for every ACTION there is an equal and opposite REACTION. Of course I’m not a physicist but I think the basic principle of Newton’s 3rd law can be seen, not just in physics but in day to day life because every idea has an “opposing force”—an “opposite reaction.”
For example: There is democracy and there is communism. There is loyalty and there is betrayal. There is faith and there is fear. There are the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Redskins. For every action—there is indeed an equal and opposite reaction. I bring this up because our text for this morning provides us with another example…one that is seen in the struggle between grace and legalism. Take your Bible’s and turn to John 5. We’ll be reading from verses 1-18.
1 – Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews.
2 – Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades.
3 – Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed.
5 – One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.
6 – When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, He asked him, “Do you want to get well?”
7 – “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”
8 – Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”
9 – At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath,
10 – and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”
11 – But he replied, “The Man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’”
12 – So they asked him, “Who is this Fellow Who told you to pick it up and walk?”
13 – The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.
14 – Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.”
15 – The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus Who had made him well.
16 – So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted Him.
17 – Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at His work to this very day, and I, too, am working.”
18 – For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill Him; not only was He breaking the Sabbath, but He was even calling God his own Father, making Himself equal with God.
You’ll note that in verse 1 John says this incident happened “some time later”—and by reading the other Gospel accounts we can “guesstimate” that this referred to about six months of Galilean ministry. John skips these six months in order to tell us that the incident here in chapter 5 marks a new phase in Jesus’ earthly ministry—a time when the legalistic reaction to His teaching—the attacks on Him and His ministry of grace began in earnest.
Now—in the first phase—in the beginning—Jesus encountered little or no organized opposition. Swindoll writes,
“He taught Nicodemus, performed signs in Jerusalem, redeemed a Samaritan town, and healed that nobleman’s son all of which resulted in multitudes from every quarter of Israel trusting Jesus as Savior. Then, like the first chill of winter on an autumn breeze, something began to change. Suddenly not everyone believed right away. A few began to oppose Him openly, followed by more. The Son of God came to the world to shine the light of truth, yet some minds remained darkened. Instead of uniting Israel, the Word began to create sharp divisions.”
This change in the way Jesus was received shouldn’t surprise us because this is a fallen world full of sinful fallen people. Hebrews 4:12 says, the Word of God is like a “…sharp, two-edged sword able to judge the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” So it makes sense that when the Word of Truth became flesh the world would begin to divide before Him. We see examples of this in the polarization truth causes in our own culture.
Well, John says the division that characterized this new phase of His ministry BEGAN as Jesus left Galilee and headed south to go to Jerusalem for a religious feast. He infers that Our Lord entered the city through the gate in the northeastern section of the wall—a gate known as the SHEEP GATE. It was called that because this was the gate that was used to bring sheep into Jerusalem that were destined for sacrifice at the temple and I’m sure Jesus chose this gate on purpose. After all, He was the Lamb of God slain for the sins of the world.
Once inside the city walls Jesus made His way to a famous pool that was not far from the Sheep gate. I love this detail because for many years scholars argued about the existence of this pool. Many said it never existed and that John’s words here were proof that his gospel was not reliable.
But in 1888 archeologists found the ruins of this pool and it was right where John said it was. In fact, further excavations show it to be exactly as John describes it in our text. I visited the ruins in 1994. Here’s a picture—and here’s one of a model showing us how it would have looked in Jesus day. There were two pools—one for men and one for women—with 4 porticoes as walls and one in the middle separating the 2 pools. By the way, a rock from the ruins of the pool at Bethesda is in the lobby of Suburban Hospital. Perhaps you’ve seen it. In any case, this discovery is important because it furnishes powerful evidence that the writer of John’s gospel was a Palestinian Jew familiar with Jerusalem prior to its destruction in A.D. 70.
Beneath the pool there was a subterranean stream or artesian well and every now and the stream bubbled up and disturbed the waters. This gave birth to a legend that said this periodic disturbing of the waters was caused by an angel. The legend also said that the first sick person to get into the pool after this happened would be healed. Verse 4 tells us all about this but it is omitted from most Bibles because it was not in the earliest manuscripts and was apparently added later by a scribe—to explain this story. And if you doubt that this is a legend—ask yourself—does this sound like our God? Would He make sick people race each other in order to be made well? I don’t think so.
Well, this legend drew huge crowds—hundreds even thousands—so many that the Romans had these porticoes built to provide shelter for all the invalids waiting for the water to be disturbed. They dedicated the pool and their porticoes to the worship of the Roman god of healing, Asclepias. But don’t get it in your mind that this was a nice place like some Roman bath spa.
No—it was full of very sick people: blind people, crippled people, people with paralyzed and withered up parts of their bodies. There were hundreds of pitiful human beings lying round these pools in various states of physical and mental and emotional despair. Hour after hour. Day after day. Then the water would ripple or bubble and when that happened, out of their desperate hope, this mass of sick humanity would come to life and race each other to get to the water first.
Can you imagine that pitiful race of invalids dragging themselves…hobbling any way they could? And while you’re imagining. Think of the “emotional atmosphere” under these porticoes. I mean, every one of those invalids had the same hope for a cure—a hope that was based on getting in that water before their neighbor. So each invalid spent hours and days fuming about how they could beat out the rest of the invalids. Everybody was focused on me and my needs.
John tells us that lying among this throng of people was a man who had been a cripple for 38 years, which was longer than the average life span at the time. Can you imagine how many “races” to the bubbling pool he had lost over the decades?! He was probably born with deformed legs…or perhaps as an infant he was the victim of an accident…but his condition…and this pitiful competition…was all he knew. This was his life. When Jesus learned how long this man had laid there He went up to him and asked him an odd question, one that I doubt he had ever been asked before. Jesus said, “Do you want to get well?”
Now—you and I might think, “Why ask THAT question? The answer is obvious—of course he wants to get well. Why else would he be in this horrible place? Why else would he lay here at the ‘starting line’ of this pitiful race day after day?”
But we must understand—Jesus never asked questions because He didn’t know the answer. He asked them to make people think. And by making them think, He revealed their true heart. For proof of this principle we need only look at the man’s reply. I mean, this invalid didn’t say, “Yes! I do—want to be healed—more than anything!” No—instead he said—I think while pointing his finger at his neighbors, “THOSE people keep pushing me out of the way. It’s THEIR fault that I’m not already healed.” The bitterness that had built up over 38 years spilled out in his response.
So, like a guided missile, Jesus’ question scored a direct hit on this guy’s heart. And—the way I read it, Jesus rebuked this man’s self-centered response. Our Lord didn’t say, “Well, you poor man! I can’t believe those people treated you this way!” No—Jesus basically ignored the man’s finger that was pointed at his peers and pointed one back at him saying, “YOU rise! YOU take up YOUR bed. YOU walk!” I think He said it like that as a way of saying, “This isn’t about blaming things on other people. This is about YOU doing what I command.”
Well, John says that right after Jesus issued His command—even before the man responded, Jesus healed him—POWERFULLY! Think about that for a minute—our Lord—God incarnate—instantly re-created this man’s body. I mean, after 38 years there were no more muscles and tendons and ligaments. Everything would have atrophied long ago. Nothing was capable of working. His lower body was essentially dead. But Jesus completely recreated it: new muscles, new tendons, new ligaments, new joints, new bones…and it wasn’t done partially or gradually. No—Jesus spoke and there was a new creation. And not only did Jesus recreate his BODY. He redirected his WILL. Jesus told him to do something he was completely incapable of doing. His mind hadn’t commanded those legs in four decades. I mean this was obviously a MIRACLE on every level!
And before we go any further, let’s stop and talk about miracles a bit. I mean, what would you say a miracle is? Herschel Hobbs defines a miracle as, “…an act of God, contrary to natural law as human beings understand it…but not contrary to natural law as God understands it, and which He performs in accord with His benevolent will and redemptive purpose.” Hobbs also says that mankind knows—science has discovered—SOME of God’s natural laws but not ALL of them. And he makes a very good point. Think of it this way: the 20th century was one of the greatest periods of scientific-discovery-fueled change in all of history. Things that are common place today would have been called miracles a hundred years ago. Did you know that in the late 1880’s the head of the patent office in Washington D.C. resigned because he felt that there was no future in his job? He said that everything that could be invented had already been invented. What a fool! He stood on the threshold of history’s greatest period of invention and he didn’t even know it! The fact is we speak of “research” but we should more accurately speak of “revelation…” laws known to God from the beginning that He reveals to us as He chooses. Who can say what laws of higher dimension are still known to God and unknown to us? I mean science is discovering miracle cures all the time. Don’t misunderstand me. I am not denying that miracles happen. In fact, I’m saying there is no logical ground to question them. If humans can do what they can do in medicine today….how silly it is to question that God could heal this man?! If God can create this universe…which He did…He can do anything….heal anyone!
British writer George MacDonald pointed out that John 5:17 gives us a profound insight into our Lord’s miracles…because it tells us that Jesus did INSTANTLY what the Father is always doing slowly. For example, in nature according to the laws that God set up, He slowly turns water into wine; but Jesus did it instantly. In nature, the Father slowly heals broken bodies; but Jesus healed them immediately. Nature is repeatedly multiplying bread, from sowing to harvest; but Jesus multiplied it instantly in His own hands. As He said in our text, the Father is indeed ALWAYS at work—always doing the miraculous. Jesus just sped up the process.
In any case Jesus did an AMAZING, JAW-DROPPING miracle under this portico! I imagine the people lying near this man who saw what happened would have been absolutely stunned. For the first time in their lives they would have forgotten completely about the pools and the legend. Listen to verse 9 again, “At once the man was cured! He picked up his mat and walked!”…but I think the man did more than walk. I think he skipped, ran—and perhaps did cartwheels around that pool! I hate to mention a movie—but I think it was like this scene from AVATAR where the paraplegic guy first sat up in his fully-functional 8-ft tall blue AVATAR body. Remember? He got up and nearly wrecked the lab running and jumping!
I think this invalid must have done something like this. I mean, this was an AMAZING MIRACLE!!!! But, before anyone could say an “AMEN” or cheer—John said something that dropped a wet-blanket on it all. He said, “The day on which this MIRACLE took place was a Sabbath.” He says this as if he expects the reader to say, “UH-OH” because anyone who knew anything about the Pharisees understood the significance of that simple statement…a statement that foreshadows a bizarre twist in the story. You see, in verse 10 there’s a scene change. The man was carrying his bedroll home and he was scolded by the Jews. They rebuked him for carrying something on the Sabbath. This kind of thing was strictly forbidden by their tradition—but perfectly acceptable by the law of Moses, given the situation.
And his response shows that the miracle he experienced was only skin deep. I mean, his body might be different but on the inside this man was still a self-focused blamer. He said, “Hey—It’s not my fault. The Man Who made me well, said, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’” So there was no change of heart for this former invalid—the kind of change that comes from the INNER HEALING we experience when we decide to follow Jesus as Savior and Lord. In a very real sense, inside this guy was still a cripple…albeit a SPIRITUAL one. But he wasn’t alone in this ailment. These Pharisees were just as bad. They were so focused on their interpretation of the law that they were BLIND to the miracle God had done. I mean, their words would be comical if they weren’t so appalling: “Who is this man who said to you, ‘Pick up your mat and walk?’ Who is this healer who told you to break the Sabbath!?” I think that any normal person would have felt at least a little intrigued by the man’s instant healing but the Pharisees bypassed an opportunity to celebrate the grace of God…in order to ferret out a potential threat to their authority.
It would be as if you had a neighbor who had been paralyzed from the neck down by an accident more than thirty years ago and one Sunday morning, just after 6am the sound of a lawnmower jolts you from a deep, satisfying sleep. Annoyed, you bolt to the front door to see who would be so insensitive as to rattle every window on the block with that infernal noise so early on a day of rest. Upon seeing your formerly paralyzed friend gleefully mowing his lawn in perfect health, what do you think you would say? If you’re a Pharisee, you’d scream, “Hank! It’s Sunday morning! Turn that thing off!”
So, John tells us that instead of looking for a Wonder-worker to praise, the Pharisees went in search of a troublemaker to censure. Verse 14 says that later Jesus found this former invalid and confronted him once more on his self-focus saying, “YOU are made whole. YOU sin no more lest a worse thing come to YOU.” In other words Jesus told him, “No more finger pointing. No more blaming. You can’t blame your parents. You can’t blame your culture. You can’t blame your job. You can’t blame your school. You are responsible. If you continue to sin in your life—if you keep on blaming—you will be far worse off than a mere physical sickness.”
Now, at this point the man should have thanked Jesus for his external healing and asked Him to heal his insides as well. He should have got down on his brand new knees and asked Jesus to forgive him for his self-centeredness. He should have asked Jesus to cleanse his deformed sinful heart, as He had his deformed legs but he didn’t. Instead verse 15 says he immediately went and tattled on Jesus with the Jews…a finger-pointing blamer to the end.
Well, as I said, this miracle marks the beginning of the opposition that would increase over the next two years and lead to the cross. This is where I see Newton’s law. From now on Jesus, Who was and is FULL of grace would fight an ongoing battle with the opposite of grace—LEGALISM. In the rest of our time I want to talk about this OPPOSITE REACTION to grace. After all, we are called to be a GRACE-DRIVEN church which means we fight this battle as well. So, “What is LEGALISM?”
Now, you may be thinking, “Mark, this doesn’t really apply to us because we may lust or envy or tell a white lie every once in a while but we aren’t legalists. We don’t sin like those Pharisees did.” But we do. The list of regulations we impose on others is long—and not always obvious. We are legalistic about the version of Bible people carry, or the way they wear their hair, or by the clothes they choose, or by whether or not they wear tattoos, or anything else that doesn’t fit into our boundaries of acceptability. We are legalistic about whether people like praise choruses rather than hymns or how they choose to educate their children. We are legalistic about whether people raise their hands in worship or don’t raise them. We are legalistic about what political party people affiliate with or what news network they watch. I could go on and on…because the list of things we use to judge people’s spirituality is almost endless.
I mean legalism is a big problem for us even in our day and age. So—if we let GRACE drive us—there will be times when we find ourselves opposed by its opposite: legalism which means we need to understand it to be the church Jesus calls us to be. With that in mind—here are some basic facts about LEGALISM and the first basic fact is foundational.
(1) Legalism is not HOLDING people accountable to a Biblical standard.
It’s not refusing to call sin what it is: SIN. Jesus never shied away from doing this. As I already pointed out, He told this invalid to turn from his sin of bitterness and blaming. He told the woman caught in adultery to go and sin no more. He drove sinners out of the temple and charged them with the sin of turning God’s house of prayer into a marketplace. Well, we must follow Jesus’ example because when we don’t hold to a Biblical standard grace morphs into a license to sin. Plus—if we truly understand the grace God has bestowed on us—we will take sin seriously.
Besides—legalism tends to embrace man-made rules instead of the standards God has given us in His Word. We’ll talk more about that in a moment.
(2) But here’s a second fact about this force that opposes God’s grace. LEGALISM leads to HARASSMENT.
There’s an old saying, “Misery loves company” and that is certainly true when it comes to legalism. Like these pharisees who harassed this healed invalid for carrying his bedroll, legalists tend to become joy-stealers—who take pleasure in burdening people with endless lists of their laws.
In his book Grace Awakening, Charles Swindoll tells the story of a missionary couple who encountered this aspect of legalism in of all places, the mission field—from fellow missionaries. The criticism they got from their peers was so petty and unbelievably small-minded that they returned to the states and gave up on being career missionaries. Believe it or not, it was all over a jar of this “sinful substance:” peanut butter. You see, the particular place they were sent to serve the Lord didn’t have access to peanut butter, but this particular family happened to enjoy peanut butter a great deal. And, rather creatively, they made arrangements with some of their friends in the States to send them peanut butter every now and then so they could enjoy it with their meals. The problem is they didn’t know that the other missionaries considered it a mark of spirituality that you NOT have peanut butter with your meals. I suppose the line went something like this: “We believe since we can’t get peanut butter here, we should give it up for the cause of Christ.” A basis of spirituality was “bearing the cross” of living without peanut butter.
Well, the young family didn’t buy into that line of thinking. They kept getting regular shipments of peanut butter. They didn’t flaunt it, they just enjoyed it in the privacy of their own home. But pressure began to intensify. You would expect adult missionaries to be big enough to let others eat what they please, right? Wrong. The legalism was so petty, the pressure got so intense…
…and the exclusive treatment became so unfair, it finished them off. They had enough. Unable to continue against the mounting pressure, they packed it in and left, disillusioned and a bit cynical.
We think—how could someone be so petty—but, be honest—have you ever been as petty about something else? Have you ever harassed a fellow Christ-follower because they didn’t measure up to YOUR standard of something or other? Have you ever criticized someone over a non-essential? We must remember, that it’s impossible to be GRACE-DRIVEN—and be driven by legalism at the same time. Harassment and grace don’t go together.
(3) Here’s a third fact about legalism. It leads to HYPOCRISY.
You see, legalism lifts up a standard no one can follow—so legalists do the next best thing. They PRETEND to. A great example is the Apostle Peter. Paul talks about this in the 2nd chapter of Galatians. Paul said that Peter came to Antioch and embraced the Gentile Christians there, enjoying meals with them. Listen to what Paul says in verses 12ff:
“Before certain men came from James, Peter used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles…because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray. When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, ‘You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs? We who are Jews by birth and not ‘Gentile sinners’ know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.”
In essence Paul was saying, “Peter you are criticizing Gentiles for the ‘unkosher’ food they eat but I smell ham on YOUR breath! Cut the act! You know we are saved by grace—not man-made law!”
Now—if legalists can’t get away with PRETENDING to follow their laws—they take another hypocritical tactic. They look for a loophole. For example, the Jewish law said that traveling was forbidden on the Sabbath and the Pharisees built up all these laws that specifically defined what it meant to travel. They came up with a law that said you could only walk up to around half a mile on the Sabbath. That was the limit of a “legal” Sabbath’s day journey. But they built in a loophole. On Friday afternoon, before the Sabbath started, they would mark off a Sabbath’s day journey and place a plate of food there and built a little shelter. If their food was in that place, they could technically consider that place to be their home. And if it was their home, they weren’t traveling—no matter how far away it was. If they set out enough plates of food at enough places a Sabbath’s day journey apart, they could have walked all over the Roman Empire on the Sabbath. They did this kind of thing because legalists have no concept of the INTENT of the law. They are only interested in the LETTER of the law. And when you are only interested in the letter of the law, then you are really only interested in how you can find a loophole in it.
This issue always comes up when youth pastors talk to teens about dating. Young people always want to ask the question: “How far is too far? Is this too far? Is that too far? Give me specifics! What can I touch and what can’t I touch?” That is adolescent legalism—legalism that is looking for a loophole. Well, what is the biblical standard? Holiness. Purity. Honoring God with our lives and bodies— purposely, intentionally fleeing temptation. Not hypocritically looking for a loophole.
(4) Here’s one more very important fact we must understand if we are to remain grace-driven. Legalism is HERESY.
That may sound extreme but, as I inferred a moment ago, legalism places a man-made standard of conduct upon people that does not exist in Scripture. I mean, these guys criticized Jesus for saying He was equal to God but when they made laws that they said were equal to God’s written Word that’s exactly what they were doing. Legalism does this. It equates man’s rules with God’s….made preferences with God’s standards, whether it be clothing or hair styles or music preferences—even what you do or don’t do on Sunday.
I’m reminded of a story I came across about a pastor who woke up one Sunday morning to find that a horrible snow storm had hit the night before. It would have been impossible for him to shovel his long drive-way in time to get to church but fortunately his house was on a creek that was frozen solid…and the church was just a few miles upstream. I would probably have just cancelled services but this pastor wouldn’t give up. He put on his ice skates and skated to church.
But, when he arrived the elders of the church ignored his commitment to worship and were instead horrified that their preacher had skated on the Lord’s Day. After the service they held a special meeting where the pastor explained that it was either skate to church or not go at all. Finally one elder asked, “Did you enjoy it?” When the preacher answered, “NO,” the board decided it was all right…as long as he did not enjoy it
We laugh—but whenever we elevate our own rules and preferences such that they are equal to God’s written word—this is sin. It’s playing God. Let me put it another way. Whenever we say our standards of behavior get us closer to God…we are denying the need for His grace. Paul confronted the heresy of legalism in the church in Galatia. He wrote to them and said,
“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the One Who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned! Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.” (Galatians 1:6-10)
Listen: righteousness doesn’t come from the law. No amount of legalism can produce the kind of holiness and righteousness and perfection that God requires. If anyone could have done it, the Pharisees could have. By all outside observation, they lived perfect lives according to the law. But Jesus called them white-washed tombs. They looked good on the outside but they were dead on the inside because living as a perfect legalist can do nothing to change your insides—your heart. You can be the very best person you know. You can unselfishly give your time and money and effort to help other people. You can be the best mom or dad in the world. You can be raising perfect little angels. You might never have a harsh word to say about anybody. But those things will never save you. They might make you a great legalist. But like the rest of us great legalists aren’t perfect. And people who aren’t perfect will suffer the eternal wrath of our holy God.
Would you bow and pray with me?
Father God,
It is so easy for us to become side-tracked. In our attempts to live righteous lives—it’s so easy to allow ourselves to be driven by legalism instead of grace…so speak to each of us this morning. Humble us Father. Use Your law as a schoolmaster to teach us that even on our best days we are far from Your standard. Use Your written Word to show each of us how much we need Your grace—and help us to relate to fellow sinners in light of that understanding. Empower us to live Godly lives Father—lives that please You. Help us to do good works that glorify You and not us. Now, as we sing—enable each of us to understand the public and private decisions we need to make for that to happen. I ask this in the name of JESUS…AMEN.
As we stand we invite you to respond. Come and speak to me or one of the other pastors.