In which John and David return to the other half of the healing of the man in John 5. What starts as apparently a "normal" healing by Jesus quickly becomes a tense discussion that helps us deepen our understanding of how we see and make sense of Jesus.
Episode Outline
Episode 33 of the Two Texts Podcast | Meaning of Miracles Series 16
If you want to get in touch about something in the podcast you can reach out on podcast@twotexts.com or by liking and following the Two Texts podcast on Facebook, Instagramand Twitter. We're also on YouTube. If you enjoy the podcast, we’d love it if you left a review or comment where you’re listening from – and if you really enjoyed it, why not share it with a friend?
Music by Woodford Music (c) 2021
In which John and David return to the other half of the healing of the man in John 5. What starts as apparently a "normal" healing by Jesus quickly becomes a tense discussion that helps us deepen our understanding of how we see and make sense of Jesus.
Episode Outline
Episode 33 of the Two Texts Podcast | Meaning of Miracles Series 16
If you want to get in touch about something in the podcast you can reach out on podcast@twotexts.com or by liking and following the Two Texts podcast on Facebook, Instagramand Twitter. We're also on YouTube. If you enjoy the podcast, we’d love it if you left a review or comment where you’re listening from – and if you really enjoyed it, why not share it with a friend?
Music by Woodford Music (c) 2021
Transcript autogenerated by Descript.com
[00:00:00] Hi there. I'm David Harvey and I'm here with John Andrews. And you were listening to the two texts podcast. In this podcast, we're two friends in two different countries here every two weeks talking about two different texts taken from the Bible. This is our second series. And we're talking about miracles in this series, specifically the miracles of Jesus in the gospels.
[00:00:28] Today, this is episode 16 and it's called. Well, that escalated quickly.
[00:00:37] David: So John,
[00:00:38] we are back to John chapter five, having said something in the last episode, we now have more to say in this episode, This this is what it's like reading John's gospel. You start digging. And it's it's like one of those DIY jobs
[00:00:56] In the kitchen where you think I'll just quickly do that.
[00:00:59] And then you realize, wait a minute, there's more work to be done here once I start scraping
[00:01:04] So last episode we talked about. The, the miracle in John chapter five, one through 18. And so, anyone can go and listen to that
[00:01:13] previous episode before you listened to this one, , but just highlight. something that's important that we didn't talk about there, which was that this whole miracle of this man who can't walk happens? on a. so as the man goes from, the healing, Jesus tells him pick up your mat and walk. And so the man does pick up
[00:01:33] his mat and walked, and then he bumps into some of the Jewish leaders who are a little upset. that he is Walking around with his mat on the Sabbath. And they say, well, this is not, this is not right, who told you to pick up your. And the man says, well, it's the person that healed me at the Mount. Definitely wants to
[00:01:52] avoid being implicated in any crime here? And He says, you know what? if somebody can make you walk. I'm going to do what they say. So it's, Don't blame me. It's So so, so he has his mat, the F the Pharisees.
[00:02:07] Find out afterwards that actually It was Jesus told him to pick up his mat And this starts a new conversation. which gives us a sort of layer beneath the questions of the identity of Jesus and the question of what it is that. Doing. And so that second part
[00:02:25] of this miracle story is what we're going to talk about today.
[00:02:27] So you're going to read for us from verse 16 through to verse 30, I believe. Is,
[00:02:37] John: That is
[00:02:37] David: is that right, John?
[00:02:39] John: Yeah. Yeah. And of course, if our listeners want to, they can go all the way to the end of the chapter, but that'll just, this'll give us the sense of what we're about here. So verse 16 says, so because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him in his defense.
[00:02:55] Jesus said to them, my father is always art. His work to this very day on day two. I'm working for this reason, they tried all the more to kill him. Not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own father, making him equal with God. Jesus, give them this answer. Very, truly. I tell you, the son can do nothing by himself.
[00:03:23] Do only what he sees his father doing because whatever the father does, the son also does for the father, loves the son and shows him all he does. Yes. And he will show him even greater works than these so that you will be amazed for just as the father raises the dead and gives life to them even. So the son gives them.
[00:03:50] To whom he is pleased to give it. Moreover, the father judges, no one. He has entrusted all judgment to the son that all may honor the son just as they honor the father, whoever does not honor the. Does not honor the father who sent him very, truly. I tell you whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged, but has crossed over from death to life.
[00:04:19] Very truly I tell you a time is coming and there's no calm when the dead will hear the voice of the son of God. And those who hear will. For us, the father has life in himself. So he has granted the son also to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to judge because he is the son of man do not be amazed that this for a time is coming.
[00:04:44] When all your end, their graves will hear his voice and come out. Those who have done what is good will raise the live. And those who've done. What is evil will raise to be condemned by myself. I can do nothing. I judge only as I here on my judgment is just for, I seek not to please myself, but him who sent me
[00:05:12] David: well, that's a, fetch, a heavy conversation, isn't it
[00:05:17] John: for sure. For sure.
[00:05:19] David: It starts off as a conversation about what gives you the right to tell this man to carry his mat. and Jesus kind of expands this explanation
[00:05:30] of who he is and and really helps us. the reader understand How we're supposed to see and follow what, what Jesus is and what Jesus is. But for me, John, I want to show it begin just with this little comment that we have talked about miracles on The Sabbath before, and somebody who might be forgiven for going, oh no, what's, what's a once more, once again, miracles on the Sabbath, but, but just pay attention that in.
[00:06:00] In the gospels of
[00:06:02] Matthew, mark and Luke, the so-called synoptic gospels when Jesus does miracles on the Sabbath, the conversation around that generally involves Jesus. saying, but this is not against Sabbath law. And he unpacks and explains how Sabbath law allows the doing of good and allows the, the, the doing of righteousness and justice, even on the. but when we get. John's gospel, John
[00:06:30] explores this sense of when, when Jesus is questioned in this miracle about his, his behavior on the Sabbath, John
[00:06:39] puts it way beyond the question about Locky. At some level, you might even. John is not interested in whether or not Jesus keeps the law. He, because he wants to, it's not it's not again, Don't hear what I'm not saying. It's not to say that Jesus does break the law. It's that John has a bigger conversation he wants to have. And you see this constantly in John's gospel that he pushes beyond the conversation that we would naturally lean into. Where, we saw it, we talked about it a few episodes ago in John chapter.
[00:07:11] Seven. Where is Jesus from? Is it Bethlehem? Is it Galilee? Can you have a prophet from there? John's like Jesus comes. from God. Okay. So You're seeing this. pattern that John takes the conversation that people want to have moves it to a different level. And I think this is exactly what's happening here, so I'd encourage anyone to not go oh, It's another miracle on the Sabbath.
[00:07:32] I know how Jesus justifies this because now we're into new conversation from Jesus at a level above that.
[00:07:39] John: It's like Jesus plays a super Trump card here, where as you've observed in other debates around Sabbath, Jesus gets into a little bit of the technicality about Sabbath and sort of lets them know that he knew. Some of this stuff has really to do with oral tradition and interpretation rather than actual Torah.
[00:07:58] I mean, there's nothing in the Torah that says you can't pick your mat up. So, so there is a, there is a sense that Jesus is not breaking Torah here by doing this, what he is, what he is challenging. Is the sort of layers of interpretation. So we've already dealt with that in a lot of other stuff. It's like Jesus and John's sort of narrative is, is just a little bit tired of this type of conversation now.
[00:08:23] And then he just goes into overdrive and, and we have language, which is in a Jewish context. So emotive and so challenging where he says. My father is always at work to this very day and I too am working. No, there's just a collision there. And it's happening that not only is Jesus ratcheting the response up to a super macro level.
[00:08:48] He's taken the conversation around the healing and our own Sabbath to a whole different level, but he's also identifying himself with the father. And in a deeply controversial and troublesome way. And, and even there are response for this reason, they tried all the more to kill him because not only did he heal on the Sabbath, which was waned in them up, but now he's making himself equal with God.
[00:09:17] So, so Jesus, it is. So it's like, it's almost like Jesus here in this, Johanna in context uses this as an opportunity to seize the. He pushes the big red button, as far as the Jewish scholars are concerned and the world that he's now going to treated serious serious conversation with. And he really pushes.
[00:09:41] That hard to, to establish front and center his own agenda when it comes to what he's doing, why he's doing and who he's doing it on behalf. So it's a real, it's a real, it feels in the reading of John, it feels like whoa, we've just hit super drive. It feels like we've hit with a turbo button here and on the tax narrative goes, goes to a whole other level and it doesn't really return from that level.
[00:10:07] It keeps pushing hard beyond this point
[00:10:10] David: There's a little bit of a almost background.
[00:10:13] understanding of what Jesus is doing here as Well, So we'll go back.
[00:10:18] and we've done this a few times in, in various episodes, you go back to the Genesis story and you have, six days that God creates the world. And on the seventh day he rested from all his work.
[00:10:29] So, so somebody might go
[00:10:30] oh, wait a minute. Here. Jesus says that God is always working, but you know, maybe you've been reading Genesis recently heard a sermon on Sabbath recently, or read something and go, wait a minute. Genesis says that God takes a day off. But what you can find is there's a lot of rabbinic discussion that w that seems to harken back to early discussions, I think would be going on, around about the time of Jesus. all the evidence suggests that around this question of, well, how does that work because the certifier sake interpretation would definitely be along the lines. Well, if God was to Stop working. everything would fall apart. So so you actually see the development of an understanding of what it means is that on the Sabbath, that first day of rest, that the Lord takes in Genesis, he rests from his creative work. And well, some rabbis even had gone as far as to say, well, what God does is he creates rest.
[00:11:27] So, so there's a level of which God is always working in his sustaining. And and that was how they sort of blended through an interpretation of the Sabbath from Genesis But our realization that if God were to take a day off, We'd all be
[00:11:44] finished. They sort of blend this in creative, paradoxical, harmony together to say, well, well, God rests and changes, but God must keep working.
[00:11:54] So I think that if this
[00:11:56] conversation is, is known amongst the Pharisees at the time of Jesus, which is, best as I can figure out it was that Jesus's words become even more barbed because, because he's actually, speaking into this sense of. well, you don't have a problem, with God, working on, the Sabbath. So instead of, instead of Jesus saying, well, I didn't really break the Sabbath because it was doing good.
[00:12:20] Jesus says to the Pharisees, well, You don't seem to have any issues with the Lord
[00:12:26] John: it's
[00:12:26] David: keeping us all going on the Sabbath. So why would you have an issue?
[00:12:29] with me? I mean, it's, it's very inflammatory. Isn't it? It's.
[00:12:33] John: Incredibly so incredibly so, and I think it's deliberately inflammatory. I think he is. He is taking the initiative here. He is trying to ensure that whatever argument there about the half over the Sabbath, that he is placing the epicenter of this argument, where he wants it to be that he wants them to be a new.
[00:12:56] Confusion at all about what he thinks about himself. And this is really fascinating contrast when you compare John's insight into Jesus and perhaps. Some of the other gospel writers where Jesus is a little bit kind of use the language coy. Sometimes he's a little bit careful about what he says, where he says it and who he says it to.
[00:13:18] And John Scottsburg he's right out there to the woman at the, well, I am the one who's speaking to you. He I am that one he makes it clear to Nathaniel in chapter one, actually, there's a sense of what you have come to the one who who's, who's going to bring redemption.
[00:13:34] And then here we have, again, he's just not beaten the boat, the Bush. He is getting straight to this correlation about who he is. And of course, back to our understanding of how to reach. That really fits with the prologue. Doesn't it, in the beginning was the word. Okay. So, so John's gone well. Okay.
[00:13:52] So that may introduce you to conversations where Jesus doesn't really beat around the edge of this conversation, but gets straight to it. And here he's using the vehicle of Shabbat and what happens on Shabbat and what they believe God, doesn't Shabbat to, to really pull the argument around his identity and his.
[00:14:12] And what he's here to do. And I think the culmination of that dividends just well, not, not the culmination, but certainly a high, a high point in his argument is verse 19. Very, truly I tell you which repeats beautifully rhythmically throughout this passage. Very, truly I tell you, the son can do nothing by himself.
[00:14:34] He can do only what he sees the father doing because whatever the father does, the son all sorts of. I love this. So if we're leaning back into that Sabbath idea, that first Sabbath idea that God you creates rest and enters into arrest from his creating, but not from his sustaining, then actually.
[00:14:53] Jesus is actually saying, yeah, the, the, the Lord who created Sabbath and entered into himself is still at work on this Sabbath. And I'm, I'm sort of doing what he's doing to what you see me doing with this man is actually what the father's doing. I'm just following the father on their sorta. It's a, it's a radical realignment of his position.
[00:15:15] And argument. And it certainly does ratchet up the, the heat on the debate.
[00:15:21] David: And it's worth, doing this again in John I've got my finger in two pages in my Bible and I'm flipping back and forth. But, Look at John chapter one back to that prologue and verse 18, no one has ever seen God, but the one.
[00:15:36] and only son who is himself God, and is in closest relationship with the father has made him known, then go back to chapter five in verse 19, as you just said, the son can do nothing by himself.
[00:15:47] You can only do what he sees the father doing because whatever the father does, the son also does again, we're back to that
[00:15:54] point. Exactly. As you're saying it just, you're making it really explicit. For you, the reader of John's gospel, none of Jesus he's behavior is overly surprising because you were told from the very start, this is who Jesus is, and this is how he's going to behave.
[00:16:07] And so you're seeing him behaving absolutely to type he is doing What God in the flesh should do. But that, but John is.
[00:16:17] showing you how that raises challenges for other people. In that whole process, but he set up that dualism almost from the very start and that, listen, this is going to be divisive. right. Not everybody's going to be happy.
[00:16:30] with Jesus, working out this particular way.
[00:16:33] John: And of course it, it does become a problematic taxed in, in some ways in a world that we'd struggled to see God in flesh.
[00:16:42] and, and to be, to be fair and sensitive to a Jewish worldview, that would be a very, very difficult idea. So John's gospel represents probably some of the most glorious, theological insights we have about Jesus in flesh, which represent in some ways, some of the most difficult issues.
[00:17:03] And, and of course, I, it seems to me that within John's gospel, you have. Some of the most can I say caustic or aggressive moments of confrontation between Jesus and the religious community? So you get a soft end with Nicodemus. There is clearly a section within this community that want to engage, but, but it feels quite confrontational.
[00:17:28] It feels very combative. Luke's gospel, he tries to show Jesus. At the dinner tables of Pharisees, he's trying to show a softer side, even though there's some hard edges to that. John's gospel feels very combative when it comes to the religious community. And I think that seems to, to be because of this flag that John has put into the, from the very beginning, he is the word he's made flesh.
[00:17:55] We've seen his glory. And let me show you these sayings of his glory and why. Caused such controversy within that. So I think in this miracle that we've been reflecting on because we've been trying to look at not just what Jesus did, but, but the sort of meaning and power behind it, this, this then Sabbath miracle seems to.
[00:18:17] Take the antagonism between Jesus and the religious community to a really powerful level to the point where very early on in John's gospel, which happens much later in the other gospels, very early on in Josh gospels, we're getting conversations like, okay, they're setting out to kill them NY. And yet that feels much litter in the rest of the gospel.
[00:18:38] It's it feels like a climactic. Belding John introduces that sort of level of antagonism right at the beginning. Well, virtually at the beginning, in the first five chapters were introduced to it. Whoa, we're on a collision course in something's going to be pretty nasty at the end of this,
[00:18:54] David: W even John's bringing back of the temple clearing story to tell you that at the very beginning I think is to condition you into seeing there is there is conflict coming here. And in fact, in truth, he says that
[00:19:08] as early into. The prologue doesn't eat. There's there's those who will know him, those who will not know him, there's those who will pursue the law through moseys there's those who pursue grace and truth through Jesus. it's all there in the water. Isn't it? That there's this tension around who Jesus is. A lot of scholars, think this is because John, as the latest gospel in the new Testament is the lived experience of John at that point in history And Christians at that point.
[00:19:40] of history is the tensions with the religious establishment are very high.
[00:19:44] So, So they're telling the story. that helps them understand the tensions that they live in. And we're going to talk about that,
[00:19:52] more when we get to John chapter nine in our next two episodes. But I want to just spot how there's even things that are in this text that where Jesus has pushing us. So, so, verse 19 is you've said, huge tax that's going on there of aligning Jesus with God.
[00:20:12] And then verse 20 for the father loves this. And shows him all he does. So yet more let's step to more unity between Jesus and the father. yes. And he will show him even, and then a new idea gets introduced into.
[00:20:26] the John Henaine story. He will show him even greater works than these, so that you'll be amazed For just as the father raises the dead and gives them life even So the son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. I think John here we've got this.
[00:20:44] development of this, this Jesus trajectory of the gospel that Yes. Yes.
[00:20:51] There's the raising of the dead and this language of raising to me, kind of echoes back to rise, take up your mat and walk. Right. And, and it's, I mean, it's Beautiful writing because it starts with, well, who told you, you could take up your mat.
[00:21:04] It starts with a very superficial, thing, which is then escalated to, well, wait a minute. Jesus you told him, to do this. Well, that's not right. and then Jesus escalates that to, well, I'm equal with God so I can do what I want. And and so, You know what I mean? Look at this, this escalated quickly.
[00:21:22] from, So, so then you've got. You've Got that escalation and then Jesus now wants to push it further to say there's something greater and it's interesting. greater than just raising the dead, but actually. giving life and.
[00:21:38] John: And
[00:21:39] David: I think John does something really, really clever with, this which I want to sort of unpack, a little bit, but I don't want to kind of go off on a spiral unless do you want to jump in on anything there before I spiral. off into
[00:21:51] John: no, go for it. You, you spiral away and we'll see what happens.
[00:21:55] Let's see you spiraling. May it go for it?
[00:21:57] David: Okay. So hold this idea of greater works and ask yourself the question. what does that mean?
[00:22:04] Right? Because if you then leaf over, you need about five bookmarks. Whenever you read John's gospel. Cause you're going to have to have all these different pages open all at the same time, But we jump over.
[00:22:16] to John 14.
[00:22:18] And The question. is still happening at this point. We're still, people are still kind of trying to figure out Jesus and and they're trying to make sense of, of, of who he is and what he's done and, and, and, and all this, all this sort of stuff. Now he, this, this point, he, the question, Well, who actually is Jesus and Jesus is like, like, seriously,
[00:22:41] John: me,
[00:22:42] David: How do you not know that?
[00:22:42] So John 14, verse nine. Jesus answers Philip. Well, actually let's go to verse eight, John 14, verse eight, Phillip said, Lord, show us the,
[00:22:51] father. And that will be enough for us. and Jesus answered. Don't you know, me Philip, even after I have been among you, such a long time.
[00:23:02] anyone who has seen me has seen the father, how can you say, show us the father?
[00:23:07] Don't you believe that I am in the father and the father, is in. the words I say to you, I don't speak on my own authority. Rather. It is the father
[00:23:16] living in me who is doing his work. Believe me, when I say that I am, in the father and the father is in me, or at least, believe on the evidence of the works themselves.
[00:23:28] Very truly. I tell you, whoever believes in. We'll do the works I have been doing and the they will do even greater than these because I'm going to the father. and then he goes on to connect that to that the holy spirit will give the disciples.
[00:23:43] the ability to do greater than these. So now we have this kind of double connection of knowing Jesus is knowing the father, Which is a pathway to greater works. Now the kind of background I grew up in.
[00:23:59] from a Christian point of view, Love talking about greater works. Okay. And and we would Always,
[00:24:06] do the same thing. And I wonder if this would be your experience as well, is that whenever we talked about greater works, we always assumed that meant more. We always assumed that therefore more people raised from the dead, more people healed of their disabilities, more blind people being made to. Jesus, his trajectory in John's gospel is the holy spirit will come. That will show you Jesus. And that will show you the way to greater works. The holy spirit will, he will be that guide to that sort of process. Now, This is not a thought.
[00:24:41] that I found myself. This is one that Glen Belfor, our mutual, a mutual friend, and
[00:24:46] John: Dr.
[00:24:47] David: you know, who has, who is the genius when it comes to all things John's gospel.
[00:24:50] I remember him one day asking me When,
[00:24:52] I was a student of his, this is what would be? greater. Then All the things. And we essentially, as a group students were in classic Western thinking. greater means more. Right. And Glen then asked us the question. What is the one thing in John's gun? Right. What is The one thing that is never done, but always alluded to.
[00:25:13] Right. And, and the one thing that Jesus never does. in John's gospel, and this is going to send people Scurrying
[00:25:19] away to John's gospel to prove us wrong and emailing otherwise. But the one thing in John's gospel that Jesus never does is forgive sins, right. He never forgive sins in all of the gospel. But interestingly in John chapter 20.
[00:25:36] When Jesus now breathes the holy spirit onto the disciples as the father. And I think about this language here is a John chapter, 20 verse 21, the resurrected Jesus appears to his disciples and he says to them, peace, be with you. As the father,
[00:25:50] has sent me, I am sending you now that must feel like very weighty language based on the conversation we're having just now as the father has sent me, I'm sending you.
[00:25:58] And with that, he breathed on them and said,
[00:26:00] receive the holy. and then he says to them, if you forgive anyone sins, their sins are forgiven. Now, now that's a fascinating thought. So look at where this starts. So let's do the, do the math for a second. John chapter five. I am in the father. The father is in me.
[00:26:17] If any, he is going to show us all things and show its greater things. John chapter 14, you're going to actually do the greater things. You're going to do the greater. things through the holy spirit. And then when the holy spirit comes on the disciples in John's gospel, the one thing they're then sent out to do is to is to do with the forgiveness of sins.
[00:26:37] The one thing that hasn't happened in this gospel So far. to
[00:26:43] me, that's really quite clever what John is navigating for us there because when we come all the way back to chapter five, again, the whole question is around the God who raises the dead and gives them a life, gives them eternal life. And Remember what Jesus said to this paralyzed man, he said? to him, Sinning.
[00:27:03] Correct. So, so I think you've got this, this sort of John guiding us as Christians towards this narrative, that if we start to think about greater things in. Kind of Western modern terms. We just assume more, but I think what I'm trying to say here, John.
[00:27:20] is I actually think that what John's gospel does for us is push us into this two level.
[00:27:25] Don't get caught up. simply Wondering about how many miracles you might do. Actually notice that what Jesus has really come to do is show us God. and forgive us our sins. And I think it's, it's a reminder. Big picture that joined paints throughout, but you need to commit to read the whole gospel.
[00:27:45] and remember all of the connected PCs to get there. But I think it's. beautiful when you do get there.
[00:27:52] John: Tremendous Noah. I think that's fantastic. And again, it shows the power of reading gospels in their connectedness. So, better to read something and then not read anything. But of course we do tend to read a nice little segments and of course we can then make.
[00:28:08] These connectors all the way through. And also it's, it's recognizing that sometimes these questions are raised and we default to our own way of answering that. So what's greater. So we default to, well, what's greater in my world. What does that look like for me? What would that look like for us instead of asking what does John mean by greater rather than what we.
[00:28:37] I would want to interpret as greater. And I think that's profoundly helpful as a way of trying to understand John and read John within this and connect these beautiful themes around the alignment of Jesus and the father, the alignment of the disciples and the holy spirit and the alignment to the greater, which is this.
[00:28:58] Bringing a forgiveness and wholeness to humanity, which is the ultimate miracle. It's the ultimate transformational moment where a human that is disconnected from the father through sin can be reconnected through forgiveness, which is just a profound idea. And of course, again, not, not minimally.
[00:29:19] Physical illness in any way. It's wonderful to see people restored in any shape or form from, from physical ailment. But, but of course, if we had, if we had in biblical terms, the choice between. Well body, but a healed soul or a healed heart, then the scriptures lean into that. So it is a very powerful shift in thinking within John's gospel.
[00:29:45] We're we're this miracle seems to be giving Jesus the opportunity to begin or drill into. A different type of gritter at different type of conversation that he wants his disciples to understand. And it's clear, of course, what's, what's gorgeous and very helpful to all of us and, and to our listeners, as well as to us, David, is that his own disciples sort of didn't get some of this stuff.
[00:30:07] So they, they're still trying to pick up the bread crumbs on what this means, but, but it's asking what does John mean by greater and, and helping us to follow that through. So love that. It's just so beautiful. Beautiful.
[00:30:20] David: And of course w what you're saying, about wholeness. Is what the Sabbath
[00:30:24] was always about. Anyway. So, so, so the Sabbath is still there in the conversation about
[00:30:30] this beautiful image of, of relational, wholeness of community wholeness. and even
[00:30:36] and again, keep caveating that, and let's keep caveating tonight is not to minimize the healing, but but there's a level of which, what John is seeing, or John is, Jesus.
[00:30:45] is saying here is, yes, we can raise somebody.
[00:30:49] And the same word is used, yes, we can raise somebody who hasn't walked 38 years, but what we're actually trying to do here is raised the debt while we're actually trying to do is, is deal with a much, much bigger problem that we're, that we're dealing with. And that's a very, a very important point even for today that we can become.
[00:31:11] Quite body obsessed at the exclusion of our, let's just think a little bit in terms of the kind of Western tripartite model for a second.
[00:31:21] we can become, I think, in the contemporary world, very body obsessed at the exclusion of mental and mind health and spirit And soul health. And now, now what some people then see is they go ah, okay, I get what you're saying, David Jesus is interested in.
[00:31:36] Barrett health of the exclusion of body health. and John.
[00:31:39] would say, no, no, no, no, no. That's wrong as well, because actually Jesus is talking about eternal life and the resurrection of dead Jesus is interested in whole health. That's that's your that's your brain, That's your spirit, That's your body,
[00:31:54] And we tend to get so obsessed with one, the exclusion of the other.
[00:32:00] And there's something about the message of resurrection in John's gospel to see that will actually, Jesus is trying to build wholeness, not compartmentalized health. I, I, that's how I kind of tried to think about that.
[00:32:13] John: So good, so helpful. And and again, it's, the image of resurrection itself is, is all of that. Isn't it? There is as Paul talks, litter, what is sewed into the grind? Corruptible is raised incorruptible. There's a sense in which the physicality. Of our brokenness is redeemed.
[00:32:33] Ultimately even the brokenness of physical creation is redeemed. Ultimately there is a physicality to the salvation process. There is a physicality to experience in the wholeness of God. And of course that was all I think. Wrapped into the original Sabbath, which would have had an incredible view of creation as well as an incredible view of humanity and intimacy and relationship with God all wrapped together.
[00:33:04] So you've got, you've got a creation at his own spoilt. You've got humans that are naked and with hem before God, and you've got an intimacy with them walking in that first Sabbath and in Jesus, there is the ultimate redemption of all of those ideas that sooner or later. There will be resurrection to all of this that will redeem the brokenness of the physicality and presented in a new form, which is beyond our imagination.
[00:33:31] Can't even begin to think about what all of that will look like, but of course at the heart of it is forgiveness of sins and the redemption of the human space. And bring in that human spirit, back into alignment with the Lord who created them in our image. And, and, again, John, John begins with these glorious rarefied macro arguments.
[00:33:57] Right from the beginning. And I think he's, he's trained to lead us and keep us above that so that we were understanding something bigger and greater is going on here. Don't just settle for the, for the simple miracle, but, but as glorious as it is, but see where this goes, see where this leads and and see what it can produce and what, and of course, for us what we can be a part of.
[00:34:21] David: Yeah. and if somebody wants to push on further into John chapter five, Jesus. Enhances this conversation even further and further again, where he starts to talk about how John, the Baptist testifies towards him, how the father has given him things to work, but then does this, this is really challenging phrase.
[00:34:40] Which I think helps people even make sense of how Christians read the Bible in verse 39. Jesus says, I mean, it's so offensive at some level you study the scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal.
[00:34:54] John: Yeah.
[00:34:55] David: These are the very scriptures that testify about me. And yet you refuse to come to me to have life And know that the challenge of that echo, I think is even in the church today that the some churches and Christians and movements that can become So biblically. obsessed that they miss Jesus.
[00:35:13] And, and people might say, wait a minute, your podcast is about reading the Bible. Why would you save that? And of course then, but one of the things that long-standing Christian tradition has been to say that you have to read scripture as Christians through the eyes of a, of a Jesus lens, that, that Jesus is going to make sense of some of these texts.
[00:35:33] And That's why
[00:35:34] people like you and me. Place huge weight on the old Testament, the Jewish scriptures, huge way on the new Testament. but if we're not reading them through a Jesus lens, we might not,
[00:35:46] build the picture in a Jesus way. And and I think that's it's interesting how John gives us. some of the keys towards that.
[00:35:54] John: Totally agree with that. And, and of course that's what makes Christian worldview and it's an unused the word Christian, and it's genuinely pure sense. What I mean by that is those who genuinely seek to follow, carry and witness of Jesus on the earth. So not just an institutional sense. And I think that's where a Christian worldview is dynamically, dynamically different and unique because we insect.
[00:36:23] It's not an option. We incest that. If we're going to really understand the heart of the scriptures, you, you must read it through a Jesus lens. It must be seen through him to try and engage with these magnificent scriptures. With her DeJesus lands is to, is to always come to slightly the wrong conclusion.
[00:36:45] And that's from someone who loves. LOBs are all Testament scholarship through the eyes of fun, fantastic Jewish scholars. And I have, my life has been enriched by people who would have a worldview that is other than Jesus. And I totally respect that worldview and I've benefited from the brilliance of their scholarship and their insights and their passion for the tax, and I, I love that, you know what I literally, every day I, recent. For some 19, the law of the Lord is perfect. Reviving the soul. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy making wise the simple and at the end of that Psalm, it says, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart.
[00:37:24] Be pleasing in your sight of Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. So I try to live a very word centric life, but that word centric life is all. Only mixed sense through the word that is, as we understand it, that is Jesus. The son of God,
[00:37:44] made flesh. So, so if, if that's the key to unlocking all, forgive this language, all, all the locks and all the codes it's, it's suddenly when we read it through Jesus, everything changes.
[00:37:58] This of course is at the heart of this controversy in chapter five. He. Reinterpreting Torah he's re-interpreting Sabbath. He's re-interpreting God himself. He's presenting God himself in a completely other.
[00:38:16] David: Hm.
[00:38:16] John: to this religious community and it is understandably, completely melting their brains and, and offending them deeply because he's introducing ideas that they would be at a fundamental level opposed to.
[00:38:31] So this is a big moment for Jesus and the gospel. He's dropping something here. And, and this thing there's once this, once this is out of the box, there's no going back. It is an issue and a series of ideas in him that is really going to be at the center of his conversations and journeys in the gospel of John,
[00:38:50] David: And then one, a little comment, yet. chapter five, verse 28 is something of a trailer Jesus says, do not be amazed at this for a time is coming. When all who are in their graves will hear his voice. And that kind of pushes us to a few episodes from now where we're going to talk about the Lazarus. But it Also has all the signs of Jesus in John's gospel do pushes us towards his resurrection as well.
[00:39:22] Okay. So that's it for this week. If you want to get in touch with either of us about something we said in this episode, Then you can reach out to us on podcast@twotexts.com or by liking and following the two tags podcast on Facebook. Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. If you enjoyed this episode, we'd love it. If you left a review on your podcast app or a comment on one of our social media sites.
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