Genesis 24:17-41 - The Lord has greatly blessed my master

24:17-28

The servant took his opportunity and ran towards her and asked his question. And Rebekah responded with the “right” answer, i.e. she responded as the servant had asked God. She drew water for all his camels. The servant took out two of the gifts, and inquired for more details as to who the young woman was, and her answers pleased him very much. So the woman ran to her mother’s household. It is interesting that the servant is never named. Yet he is a faithful man of God fulfilling an important task. 

24:29-33

We now meet Laban for the first time, he will play a major part when we get to the story of Jacob. Laban shows a keen interest in the ring and bracelets. He then went to the “man” (the servant who shall remain nameless) and invited him in. Laban offers good hospitality. The servant’s camels were also catered for. The servant is mindful of his main task, not allowing himself to be distracted from it.

24:34-41

The servant now recounts the story of Abraham, which is one of great blessings. This included material wealth, but the main point is the gift of a son in his old age. He then describes the task assigned to him by Abraham, and the restrictions placed upon the choice of a wife.

John 6:5-10 - Where shall we buy bread?

6:5-7

Jesus saw the large crowd. Matt 15:32 tells us that Jesus had compassion on the crowds. He asks Philip “where are we to buy bread so that these people may eat?” This is a test question. Jesus already knows that He is going to do, He is seeking to bring out of Philip what he is thinking. Not unreasonably, Philip thinks immediately in practical terms, estimating how much it would cost to feed the crowd. 200 denarii was a typical amount that a family would need to spend to feed themselves for a year. Even this amount would be nowhere near enough to feed the people.

6:8-10

Andrew now introduces the famous boy with his five loaves and two fish. The loaves are specified as barley loaves, which were the sort that the poorer people ate. While it was nice that the boy offered these, on their own they did little to help the situation. In order for anything to happen it needed Jesus to get involved, and this He did. He doesn’t tell the disciples what is going to happen, and the synoptic accounts make it clear that they thought the situation was hopeless. Jesus adopts an orderly approach to things.

Genesis 24:12-16 - The young woman was very attractive

24:12-14

The servant, like his master, was a godly man. He would probably have learnt a lot from his master.  So he prayed to God to grant him success. So we see him taking sensible steps towards having success (see v11) and praying to God. He was obviously concerned about his own success, but also wanted Abraham to be blessed. He then tells God how he intends to proceed, asking a specific question of a young woman, and looking for a specific answer. The required answer would demonstrate that the young woman had a kind heart.

24:15,16

“Before he had finished speaking ...” God knows what we need before we ask Him (Matt 6:8). The wrong conclusion to draw from that is that there is no need to ask! The correct conclusion to draw is twofold. First, we can ask with confidence, our needs nor requests will not take God by surprise! The second is that we can trust God and can be at peace. So Rebekah is already on her way. She was part of Abraham’s wider family, she was attractive, and she was a virgin. So she fulfilled the criteria! 

John 6:1-4 - A great crowd followed Him

6:1

The feeding of the five thousand is the only miracle (excluding the resurrection!) that is recounted in all four gospels. It is not surprising that most of the synoptic gospel miracles are not recorded in John, for the synoptics focused very much on Jesus’ ministry in Galilee, whereas this is the only chapter in John which does so. The name “Sea of Tiberias” was given to it by Herod Antipas in AD 20 after the Roman Emperor of that name.

6:2,3

As we often find in the synoptics, Jesus is followed by large crowds, and He often sought to get away from them. Either to have time alone with the Father, or, as here, to have time alone with His disciples. The crowds followed Him because of the large number of miracles that He did, in particular healing the sick. Jesus went up the mountain with His disciples hoping to teach them. As it turned out He did indeed teach them, but not in the way originally intended.

6:4

It was getting close to the Passover time. The Passover is mentioned three times by John, 2:13,23; 6:4 and 11:55ff. It seems that John saw significance in this. In the first mention Jesus is clearing the temple, and declares Himself to be the true temple. Here we will soon get teaching on His being the bread of life. In the final mention we have the culmination of all things with His offering as the true Passover Lamb. Remember that John focuses on Jesus being the Lamb of God. 

Genesis 24:7-11 - He will send His angel before you

24:7-9

We then get the reasons for Abraham’s instructions. First, God had promised that He would give the present land (Canaan) to Abraham’s offspring. Abraham knew that his destiny lay in the land of Canaan. He then assures the servant that God would send His angel ahead of the servant and so he would be able to fulfil the task. He also tells the servant that if the woman he finds will not return with him, then he is released from having to fulfil the task. He stresses again that he must not take Isaac back to Abraham’s homeland. We then get the hand under thigh confirmation of the oath.

24:10,11

Abraham was a wealthy man. While I have no time for the so-called prosperity gospel, the Bible has nothing against godly rich men. So Abraham gave his servant lots of gifts, these would essentially be used as the bride price. The servant settled his camels outside the city by the well of water at a time when women would go out to draw water. We do not appreciate how much life revolves around getting water in many areas of the world today and in the past.

John 5:46,47 - If you believed Moses you would believe me

5:46

On the road to Emmaus Jesus explained to the two disciples what was said about Himself in Moses and the Prophets (Lk 24:27). We can only properly understand the Old Testament if we look at it as a document pointing towards Jesus. If the Jewish leaders had believed Moses then they would have believed in Jesus, they would have welcomed Him. In summary, the Old Testament makes it clear that we are all sinners. This included the Jews, for it is not pushing things too far to say that the Old Testament is a catalogue of the sins of Israel and her sinfulness. But it also contains numerous promises, including promises of forgiveness and of a change in heart of the Israelites. If they had accepted this then they would have welcomed Jesus.

5:47

But the Jewish leaders did not believe Moses. Instead they treated the Scriptures as a means of self-advancement, and for bashing the people with. They were blind to what they actually said (2 Cor 3:15). So there was no hope of them believing Jesus. As an aside this implies that until someone accepts their own sinfulness they will never appreciate who Jesus is. For if we are not sinners, deserving of the wrath of God, what need do we have of Jesus? 

Genesis 24:1-6 - Abraham was old

24:1

The closure of the Abraham story, before moving on to the next phase, continues with Abraham finding a wife for Isaac through his servant. This is a very long chapter, devoting a lot of space to the matter. We might object to the concept of arranged marriages, which was the common practice throughout the Old Testament. Arranged marriages can be a greatly abused practice leading to all sorts of evils. However, we should reflect on the fact that our own society’s practices in this area also lead to all sorts of evils. The key thing is to trust in God and to love the wife or husband that we have. The narrative we have here demonstrates that God is in control of the situation, and shows the servant putting his trust in God. The story opens with a reminder that Abraham was now very old (he wasn’t exactly young at the beginning of the story!), and that the “the Lord had blessed Abraham in all things”.

24:2-6

Abraham entrusts the matter of finding a suitable wife for Isaac to his oldest servant. The “hand under thigh” method of confirming a promise is used. Abraham’s primary concern is that Isaac should not have a Canaanite wife. Abraham lived among the Canaanites, so he knew what they were like, and it would have been quite easy for Isaac to get a Canaanite wife. The servant is instructed to go to Abraham’s own country to find a wife for Isaac. But Abraham is adamant that the servant must not take Isaac back there. We could draw a parallel with taking people out of the world to come into God’s kingdom, but we must not become part of the world.

John 5:44,45 - Moses will accuse you

5:44

If we are looking for praise from man then we cannot hope to believe. If we seek approval from men we cannot hope to believe. Going with the weight/significance aspect of “glory” the religious leaders sought to please each other. If other men approved of their work then this was their goal. But they did not seek the glory that comes from God, they did not look to see if God thought their work was significant. Now we need to note that seeking approval from others, seeing what others think of our work, is not wrong in itself. Indeed, it is very sensible to see what others think, and if we don’t care at all then that is usually a sign that something is wrong with us, such as arrogance! The problem arises when seeking the praise of men becomes the primary goal. We need to “seek the glory that comes from God” first. “Seek first the kingdom”. If we do this then other things tend to fall into place.

5:45

“But do not think I will accuse you ...Your accuser is Moses”. Jesus knew how to really get to the point. The religious leaders might have argued that they were faithfully following Moses (i.e. following the Law and the Prophets, though just the Law in the case of the Sadducees), how could they be expected to adopt this new teaching. Jesus’ word to them is that they were not actually following Moses at all. Their hopes, and their pride, were set on the Law, but in reality they did not understand the Law at all.

Genesis 23:7-20 - The field and the cave were deeded to Abraham

23:7-16

Abraham asks for a particular tomb, but also insists on paying for it. Ephron, who owned the field and the cave which would be used for burial, wants to give the tomb to Abraham. In the end Abraham pays four hundred shekels of silver for the land. The whole process may be something of a pantomime, just a way of reaching a price in such a way that everyone is happy with the outcome and no one is embarrassed. All cultures have various pantomimes that must be gone through in order to do things “properly”.

23:17-20

The emphasis is that this land was rightfully given over to Abraham “as a possession in the presence of the Hittites”. I.e. it was given over legally and properly. Even today a common accusation against Israel is that they do not have a right to the land of Israel. So Sarah was buried in the land.

John 5:41-43 - I do not receive glory from people

5:41

“I do not receive glory from people.” The root of the Hebrew word for glory has to do with weight, meaning significance. Jesus did not get His significance from people. This was in stark contrast to the religious leaders, especially the Pharisees, who delighted in being honoured by people. The religious leaders applied their own lens when looking at Jesus, and so did not “get Him” at all. This is why Paul said we no longer view Jesus from a human perspective (2 Cor 5:16). If we do so we will never see who He really is.

5:42,43

“I know that you do not have the love of God in you”. Jesus was not afraid to make stark judgments, especially of the religious leaders. They could not see who Jesus was, Jesus could see what they were not. They claimed to love God, Jesus came in the name of the Father, yet they did not receive Him. Once again we see Jesus as being the touchstone. Yet things were even worse. If someone came in their own name, i.e. they were not sent by God but were just coming full of themselves, acting out of their own will, the religious leaders would receive them. Today there are churches that will not receive the word of God, but will accept the teachings of any ungodly person.

Genesis 23:1-6 - Sarah died at Kiriath Arba

23:1,2

The main story of Abraham and Sarah is now over and we come to the tying up of loose ends. However, there are still important matters. The first event that is looked at is the death of Sarah. Abraham mourns the death of his wife. However, the focus of the chapter is on Abraham obtaining a burial site for her. Sarah being buried in the land of Canaan is significant as it is an act of faith, saying that Abraham believed the promises of God would be fulfilled.

23:3-6

The Hittites seemed to be in charge of the land, and Abraham goes through a bargaining process with them. To most of us this seems a very convoluted affair, but it was all part of the way things were done in that time and place. It begins with Abraham asking for some property so that he can bury his wife.  The Hittites held Abraham in great esteem, and they offered one of their tombs for Abraham to use.

John 5:39,40 - Yet you refuse to come to me

5:39

This is a sobering verse. The religious leaders were diligent in reading the Scriptures, and they thought that they contained the words of eternal life. The first of these is good, the second is right, yet they missed it. They had not understood the Scriptures at all. The Scriptures bear witness to Jesus, and this is talking about the Old Testament here. How do they bear witness? They point towards Jesus. In Deut 18:15 Moses had said one would come after him to whom they must listen. They also point to our sinfulness, yet the religious leaders missed this, they saw themselves as righteous for their supposed adherence to the Law. They point to our need for a saviour and God’s provision of a Saviour. We can make the same mistake today if we miss this fundamental point. If we focus on the immorality of society, forgetting our own sinfulness we make the same mistake. If we focus on social justice forgetting everyman’s need to be saved from his own sin we miss the point. If we focus on racial justice neglecting our own need to be saved from sin we miss the point.

5:40

“Yet you refuse to come to me so that you may have life.” People often blame God, or make excuses. This verse puts the blame right where it belongs.The religious leaders were forever demanding a sign. The root of the problem was their own refusal to go to Jesus. We should seek to make our evangelism as effective and clear as possible, but we must not lose sight of the fact that each man is responsible for himself, and within each one of us is a rebellious heart. We need to Holy Spirit to work in a man’s heart, and to continue to work within our own hearts.

Genesis 22:15-24 - Because you have obeyed me

22:15-19

The Lord declares to Abraham. There is a repeat of the promises that Abraham will have innumerable descendants and will take possession of the land, and that all nations on earth will be blessed through his offspring. He is told that this will happen “because you have obeyed me”. Does this mean that Abraham has earned salvation? No. Rather, it is a demonstration of the effectiveness of God’s salvation. The heart of Abraham has been changed from a rebel to a man who trusts and obeys the Lord to the deepest level. Salvation is not a matter of a box being ticked so we go to heaven, it is a matter of our becoming a new creation. The incident has demonstrated that Abraham is a new creation.

22:20-24

We are now told about the fruitfulness of his brother Nahor. Several sons are mentioned. Perhaps the most important mention is that Bethuel became the father of Rebekah. Rebekah would soon marry Isaac. So the little section is establishing the connection.

John 5:37,38 - The Father has borne witness

5:37

“And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me.” This presumably has to be the witness borne on earth, which would then mean that it refers to the voice that was heard at Jesus’ baptism. The religious leaders had never seen the Father, and they had never heard His voice. They needed to recognise who they were in relation to Jesus. Jesus has seen and heard the Father directly, we have not. So if we are wise then we will listen to the One who has, we will listen to Jesus. 

5:38

The religious leaders prided themselves on their religious knowledge, they thought they were the embodiment of righteousness. Nothing could have been further from the truth. If the religious leaders did indeed know the word of God, if His word did abide in them, then they would have recognised Jesus for who He is. But they did not believe in the one that God had sent, so this demonstrated that they did not know God at all. God has “invested” everything in His Son, so if we want to know God, want to please Him, then we need to believe in His Son.

Genesis 22:12-14 - The Lord will provide

22:12

‘Do not lay a hand on the boy,’ he said. ‘Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.’ So God intervened to stop Abraham from actually sacrificing Isaac. We will see in the next verse that God provided the sacrifice, and, of course, He always intended to do this, and we see the obvious parallels with Jesus. However, this still leaves questions unanswered. “Why did God tell Abraham to sacrifice his son”, “what would have been the consequences of Abraham not being prepared to sacrifice his son?” It may be that these are the wrong questions. At the beginning of the chapter it says that “God tested Abraham”. It may be that we read this wrong. Our natural reading of this is that God was seeing what was in Abraham, what was the true state of his heart. Perhaps we should be reading it as God showing what was in Abraham’s heart. So the whole incident demonstrates the changes that have taken place in Abraham. Without God our hearts are far from Him, but it is possible for God to transform us and to enable us to trust in Him and to obey Him. God was also enabling Abraham to appreciate something of what the cross is all about.

22:13,14

“Abraham looked up and there in the thicket he saw a ram”.  So Abraham sacrificed the ram. He named the place “The Lord will provide”, or “Jehovah Jireh”. In Jesus the Lord has provided the sacrifice for our sins. We need to appreciate the forgiveness we receive in Christ, but it is interesting that in this incident Abraham is appreciating things from the Father’s side. There is a fundamental fact that we need to learn, and that is that God will provide, whatever the need.

John 5:33-36 - The Father has sent me

5:33,34

The religious leaders had already sent a delegation to investigate John the Baptist (John 1:19), so they would have known about John calling Jesus the Lamb of God, the Messiah. So they knew that John kad borne witness to the truth. Now Jesus was pointing this out not for His own benefit, but for that of the Jewish leaders. Jesus did not need the testimony of man. He had been with the Father from all eternity, He didn’t need any reassurance as to who He was! But men need the testimony of men, though they will often ignore it even then.

5:35,36

“He was a burning and shining lamp”. The Greek actually suggests that “burning” is “was ignited”, implying that God had set him off. The people had enjoyed John the Baptist, even some of the religious leaders seem to have done so as well. But they had not truly believed. People can “enjoy” the words of a prophet or a preacher without truly taking them in, i.e. believing them and acting upon them. One greater than John was now with them, the Messiah Himself, so they should have rejoiced all the more. The things that Jesus was doing were causing an offence to the religious leaders, when in fact they should have been confirming to them that Jesus was indeed the Son of God.

Genesis 22:6-11 - God Himself will provide the lamb

22:6-8

So Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering on the back of Isaac. We can draw a parallel between this and Jesus carrying the cross. Abraham took the knife with him. On the cross it was the Father who poured out His wrath on His Son.  Isaac is getting worried by this point and calls out to his father. Isaac then asked him where the sacrificial lamb was. “God Himself will provide the lamb”. John 3:16 is apposite here, God did indeed provide the sacrificial lamb. “So the two went on together. This is perhaps the greatest walk of faith a man, or a man and a boy, have ever taken. There is only one thing that makes any sense of it, and that is Abraham’s trust in God, his faith in God’s promises. 

22:9-11

Abraham arrived at the place God had told him to go to. There he built an altar and put the wood on it. He bound Isaac and laid him on the altar. Then he reached out and took the knife ready to slay his son. Abraham was going as close as possible to actually slaying his son without actually doing so. At this point the angel of the Lord called out to Abraham.

John 5:30-32 - I can do nothing on my own

5:30

Jesus echoes His words of 5:19, saying He can do nothing on His own. The Trinity is most definitely not tri-theism, there is one God, three persons. So in Jesus being the judge we have not got a different judge! People sometimes see the God of the Old Testament and Jesus as being opposed to each other, one of them full of wrath, the other full of love and mercy. This is a completely erroneous picture. The judgement that Jesus gives is the judgement that God gives. Jesus is not an unjust judge. He does not see the position as an opportunity to get His own way, but to do the will of “Him who sent me”. 

5:31,32

Jesus has now made a whole bundle of audacious claims about Himself. Why should they be believed? Jesus stresses that He is not alone in bearing witness about Himself. If He was the only such witness then the Jewish leaders would have grounds for rejecting His testimony. The first witness He claims is that of John the Baptist, who had said clearly that Jesus was the lamb of God.

Genesis 22:3-5 - We will come back

22:3,4

“So Abraham rose early in the morning”. Abraham responded quickly. There was no agonising about the decision. He got together all that he needed in order to perform the act. Likewise, everything was in place for the crucifixion of Jesus. Remember that Jesus told His disciples to go ahead and they would find that things were in place for the Passover (Luke 22:1-13). On the third day Abraham could see the place from afar.

22:5

Abraham then tells the two young men that he and Isaac will go on alone. The cross was the work of the Father and the Son. He also says that they would come back to them. Heb 11:19 says that Abraham reasoned that God would raise Isaac from the dead. The promise of God that His promises would be fulfilled through Isaac and the command to sacrifice Isaac seemed to contradict each other, but Abraham had come to the point where he put his trust in God, not on his own understanding (Prov 3:5,6). 

John 5:27-29 - Because He is the Son of Man

5:27

Note how the emphasis now switches to judgement. In the Bible judgement and salvation go together. Jesus is the Saviour, He is also the Judge. Because we like to be nice we shy away from talking about the judgement side. This is a big mistake. Obviously if judgement is all you talk about then you are making an equally big mistake, but the Biblical truth is that judgement and salvation go together. So the Father has granted the Son to have life in Himself, and so be able to give life, at the same time He has given Him authority to execute judgement “because He is the Son of Man”. Carson highlights that there are three strands to the meaning of Son of Man here, the first two are fairly familiar, the third was one I hadn’t thought of before. First, there is the Danile Son of Man (Dan 7:13,14). He is the apocalyptic figure. Then there is the humanity of Jesus. Ezekiel is repeatedly addressed by God as “son of man”, he was a thoroughly human prophet. Jesus is fully human and fully God. The third is that the revelatory aspect of “Son of Man”, Jesus reveals the truth. He is the light that exposes who and what we are, and exposes the nature of our deeds.

5:28,29

Having told the Jewish leaders that He is the giver of life and the Judge, Jesus tells them not to marvel at this! He now talks about the dead coming out of the tombs to either the resurrection of life, or the resurrection of judgement. The strange events in Matt 27:52,53 were perhaps a foretaste of the dead coming out of the tombs, but ultimately this is looking towards the final day. It talks here of those who have done good, and those who have done evil. As good evangelicals this gives us a problem as we fear it is talking about salvation by works! It isn’t. We can get so fearful of “salvation by works” that we miss the truth of what some sections of Scripture are saying. Look at the whole Bible, look at the whole book, we are saved by faith in Christ and by the works of Christ. Those who do good are those who come to the light of Christ (John 3:21). Those who do evil prefer the darkness.

Genesis 22:1,2 - God tested Abraham

22:1,2

We now come to probably the most famous incident in Abraham’s life, the sacrifice of Isaac. There are two key messages from the incident. One involves the parallels with and foreshadowing of the cross. The other is the role and reaction of Abraham. I will be quite blunt and say that on the latter matter a lot of tosh is spoken and written. Most messages focus on how terrible this must have been for Abraham. Now, it must indeed have been a terrible thing, and in verse 2 God lays it on thick. “Take your son Isaac, whom you love ...” However, if we actually look at the text we see that Abraham does not waver in the matter. Contrary to past performance, he obeys quickly and with faith. So by focusing on how terrible it was for Abraham I believe we miss a key point, namely the transformation of Abraham that has occurred over the past twenty five years or so.

Moriah was the site of Solomon’s temple, and was possibly where Jesus was crucified. The chapter begins with it saying “God tested Abraham”. Was God seeing what Abraham was really like? I think it is more accurate to say that God was demonstrating to Abraham and the world what He had achieved in Abraham.

John 5:25,26 - Those who hear will live

5:25

“An hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God”. How can this be both now and future? We are spiritually dead, but the voice of God brings us to life in Christ. That happens now.  When Christ comes back we will be physically and spiritually raised to new life. We will have a new body, and will be utterly transformed. The transformation that has already started in us will be brought to completion. Note that it is the “voice of the Son of God” that brings us to life. Today we need to hear the voice of the Son. 

5:26

How can this be? Because just as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have “life in Himself”. God is self-existent, none of us are. We would not exist at all unless God had brought us into being. We are not self-existent, but are dependent upon God for our existence. The Son also is self-existent. And the one who is self-existent gives life to others.

Genesis 21:23-34 - He called on the name of the Lord

21:23,24

Abimelech wanted Abraham to promise to deal fairly and honestly with him. He knew that God was actively looking after Abraham, and he also knew that Abraham could be a liar! Abimelech had dealt kindly with Abraham, and wanted Abraham to return the favour, not just for now, but for future generations as well. Abraham agrees to this.

21:25-34

While Abimelech had sought reassurances from Abraham, it was Abimelech’s men who caused the first problem by seizing a well of water. Abimelech denied any knowledge of the matter. Abraham seemed to accept this and gave sheep and oxen to Abimelech, presumably as a goodwill gesture of some sort. Seven ewe lambs were set apart and were a sign that the well had been dug by Abraham. The place was called Beersheba, which means “well of seven” or “well of the oath”. This seemed to settle the matter, and Abimelech and his commander returned to the land of the Philistines. Abraham planted a tamarisk tree to mark the occasion and called upon the name of the Lord.

John 5:23,24 - That all may honour the Son

5:23

Jesus does only what He sees the Father doing, but He is not a mere emissary. The Father has not delegated judgement to Him a mere task, it is so that “all may honour the Son, just as they honour the Father”. It is no wonder that the religious leaders accused Jesus of blasphemy, either He is the Son of God and we must believe in Him, or He was a blasphemer. The religious leaders rightly understood the magnitude of the claims that Jesus was making, but instead of believing in Him, they sought to crucify Him. “Whoever does not honour the Son does not honour the Father”. Jesus Christ is not a religious option, it is absolutely essential that we honour Him. If we do not then any claim to be honouring God is bogus.

5:24

We now get another “Truly, truly”. If we hear Christ’s words and believe the One who sent Him then we have eternal life. This isn’t just something future, eternal life starts now, for the whole nature of our life changes. Notice that it says “Believe Him who sent Me”. Believing in Jesus is believing the Father. The Father sent the Son, the Father has declared that the Son is the only way to eternal life. The opinions of mere men count for nothing. Earlier Jesus had said that the Son of Man came not to condemn the world but to save it, yet He is the judge? How can this be? If we believe in the Son then we pass from death to life, and we do not come under judgement, for Christ has taken the judgement upon Himself on the cross. It is vital that we understand that “no condemnation” does not mean “no judgement at all”. There is judgement, the cross was God’s judgement on man’s sin. The wonder of the cross is that instead of the penalty of that judgement coming upon us, it was laid upon Jesus. So we can either believe in Christ  and that He took the judgement in our place, or we trust in our own merits, which means we are under judgement.

John 5:21,22 - The Son gives life to whom He will

5:21

Only God can raise the dead, Jesus says that as the Son He also can give life to whom He will. There are three key elements to this verse. The first is another equality with God claim. What God can do, in this case raise the dead and give life, the Son can also do. The second is that He can give life. Arguments about God often revolve around His existence in an abstract sense. In many ways we should be arguing about our existence! Without God we would not have life. God is the giver of life, the Son is the giver of life. Finally, He gives life to “whom He will”. The Son chooses. Any Christology that sees Jesus as merely a teacher and a good man is hopelessly inadequate and cannot explain the New Testament.

5:22

The claims of the Son do not stop there. The Father has delegated all judgement to the Son. Now He is a merciful judge to those who come in humility and repentance, but He is the judge. One day all of humanity will be judged by Him. Since all judgement has been entrusted to the Son a wise man will pay attention to what the Son says. So often we think that we are judging Jesus, we are deciding who He is. This is completely the wrong way to look at things. Jesus is the one who judges us, not us Him!

Genesis 21:17-22 - God heard the boy crying

21:17-21

God, however, was watching over them and heard the boy crying. The angel of God called out to Hagar, and reassured her that He had heard the boy’s cry, and told her that He would make him into a great nation. It is quite amazing that although Hagar and Ishmael were not part of the covenant promise, there is still a promise over their lives. God’s ways go beyond any nice neat plan we might have “worked out”. God opened Hagar’s eyes and she saw a well. God was with the boy as he grew up. There was a long term commitment from God to the boy. He iced in the desert of Param and got a wife from Egypt.

21:22

Abraham was still in the land of Abimelech. Because of what had happened earlier (see chapter 20) he feared the Lord and feared Abraham. Too often the church seeks to align itself with the world, seeking favour with the world. This is never a good idea. It will rarely actually gain favour with the world, we are far more likely to end up making an enemy of God! (James 4:4). We are far wiser to seek to be friends with God, then the fear of the Lord will come upon us. In view of the world’s reaction, it may either respect or fear us because of the presence of the Lord, or it may persecute us because we honour Christ, or some mixture of the two. Either way, it is far better than being friends with the world and an enemy of the Lord!

John 5:19,20 - The Son can do nothing of His own accord

5:19

Jesus now expands His teaching on who He is and His relationship with the Father, and it is vital that we understand this. When we say of someone “he thinks he’s God!” what we mean is that he considers himself to have the rights and powers of God and acts to get his own way, or to do things his way. This is not the case with Jesus. He does have the rights and powers of God, but He does not act to get His own way, or to do things His way. Rather, “the Son can do nothing of His own accord, but only what He sees the Father doing”. There is complete unity between the Father and the Son. The Son does what the Father does. So God’s purposes are fulfilled in and through Christ.

5:20

But there is much more to this than mere copying or even obedience (though, of course, there is absolute obedience). “The Father loves the Son”, and that is why He shows the Son all that He is doing. The Father doing something and the Son doing something in many ways amount to the same thing, though of course they are also distinct. The Son died on the cross, the Father did not, but on the cross the Son was doing the Father’s work (John 3:16). “And greater works than these will He show Him, so that you may marvel”, or to put it colloquially, “you ain’t seen nothing yet”. To get a little more theological the Father is still working and the Son is still working.

Genesis 21:11-16 - The matter distressed Abraham

21:11-13

Abraham is greatly distressed by the matter. While Ishmael was the product of a lack of trust, he was still Abraham’s son, and there was an emotional attachment. There are two key lessons to learn from this. One is that sexual faithfulness is so valuable, sexual infidelity causes enormous problems and emotional entanglement. We are not in control of what the outcome of sexual immorality will be. The second is that God does not simply dismiss Abraham’s feelings, even though they were the product of disobedience.

At the same time, there is no divergence from God’s plan. Abraham is told to listen to Sarah. Now remember that when Sarah told Abraham to sleep with the servant girl it would have been far better if he had not listened to her! So because someone speaks rubbish on one occasion, does not mean that they will always speak rubbish! The converse also applies! So Abraham does indeed have to send Ishmael away, but God promises to look after him.

21:14-16

Abraham gave Hagar and Ishmael some water and food, though the amounts were not very much and sent them on their way to the Desert of Beersheba. Before too long the water ran out and Hagar thought they were both going to die. She didn’t want to watch her son die, so she hid the boy under a bush and went a distance away, sobbing.

John 5:17,18 - My Father is working

5:17

“But Jesus answered them”. The Pharisees have not actually asked Jesus a direct question here in relation to the healed man, so we have now moved on from the specific incident of the healed man to the general matter of the religious leaders’ antagonism towards Jesus and in relation to His general approach to the Sabbath. “My Father is working until now, and I am working”. Now in Genesis 2:1-3 we read that God had completed His work of creation and rested from all the work He had done in creation. But this does not mean that God had done nothing since! He was continually working, as we read here, and that was the common Jewish understanding. In particular God was sustaining the universe. The Sabbath commandment was given to man, so God’s working did not cause a problem for the Jewish leaders. When Jesus says “and I am working” this is further antagonism to the Jewish leaders, for yet again Jesus is claiming equality with God. He was doing God’s work on the Sabbath. We should also note that healing is part of God’s work.

5:18

Remember that John’s gospel was written primarily (though not exclusively) for a Hellenistic audience, and it may have seemed strange to them that Jesus was a Jew, was God’s saviour, and yet the Jewish leaders persecuted Him, even to death. Indeed this was a very strange and stupid thing to do. So John explains why there was this antagonism. Breaking the Sabbath, in their eyes but not in God’s, was serious enough, but Jesus also claimed equality with God. He was calling God His Father. This made Him equal with God. There are those who claim that the idea of Jesus being God was something that was only added many years after Jesus’ life on earth. There is no Biblical evidence whatsoever for such a notion. We see in these verses that Jesus’ teaching on the Sabbath, and His claim to be the Son of God, have far more force to the Jews than they initially do to us. The Jews were in doubt that Jesus was claiming equality with God, and these were people who knew the Jewish Scriptures, they were not ignorant. Where they went wrong was not in thinking Jesus was claiming equality with God, but in refusing to believe Him. They knew exactly what Jesus was saying, and they rejected it.

Genesis 21:6-10 - Get rid of the slave woman

21:6,7

“God has brought me laughter”. Earlier Sarah had laughed in unbelief, and the name Isaac must have seemed like a rebuke from God. Now Sarah laughs with joy, and the name is a reminder of how God has transformed the situation. What God has done is utterly ridiculous, it should never have happened, it was utterly impossible. Yet, it is what God has done. Note how much of Sarah’s thinking over the twenty five years was wrong. She thought she would never have a child. She thought that Abraham sleeping with the maid was a good idea, when God said they would have a child she thought it laughably impossible. We need to trust in God and not lean on our own understanding (Prov 3:5,6).

21:8-10

The child grew and was weaned, this would be when he was about three year old. On that day Braham held a great feast to celebrate. At this point it became apparent that Ishmael was mocking Isaac. Sarah told Abraham to get rid of Ishmael, seeing that he would never share in the inheritance with Isaac. Great play is made of this in Galatians 4:21-30. Ishmael, or rather Hagar, is seen as representing salvation by human effort. Isaac, or Sarah, represents salvation based on the promise of God and the grace of God. Human effort will always mock and abuse salvation by grace.

John 5:14-16 - Sin no more

5:14

Jesus found the man later on in the temple, it implies that Jesus deliberately sought out the man. The man probably wasn’t bothered as being healed was all he was concerned about. However, Jesus had a very serious message for him. Jesus tells him to take the healing as a sign, a sign of God’s grace, and he is to “sin no more”, otherwise something far worse may happen to him. Some (e.g. Carson) take this as indicating that the condition he had was a direct result of sin, i.e God’s judgement upon him. Now sometimes sickness is a direct result of sin, but most of the time it is not (though all sickness is an indirect result of sin, due to the fall), and I don’t see any strong indication that this is the case here. I think Jesus is telling him that there are far more important things that physical well-being (though that is important).

5:15,16

The man went to tell the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had healed him. He seems to have been more concerned with keeping in with the Jewish leaders, than with God. We see in the synoptic gospels and in John that the Sabbath was a key point of contention between Jesus and the religious leaders, and John states explicitly that this was the case, and was why they persecuted the Lord.

Genesis 21:1-5 - The Lord was gracious to Sarah

21:1

At last Isaac is born. Note that there is little fanfare, just the simple statement that the Lord was gracious to Sarah, and Isaac was born as the Lord had said it would happen. Neither was there any breakthrough incident of faith for Abraham. They had been following God for twenty five years. There were times of faith and triumph, and times of doubt and failure. The key thing was that they kept following God. So it is with us. Sometimes dramatic things do happen, sometimes there are incidents where faith becomes alive in us in a new and deep way, but a lot of the time, most of the time, we are a similar mixture of faith, doubt, triumph and failure. The key thing is that we keep following Christ. You see, it is God who fulfilled His promises. 

We should also note the emphasis on Sarah here. “The Lord was gracious to Sarah”, “the Lord did for Sarah what He had promised”.

21:2,3

So Sarah became pregnant, and gave birth to Isaac “at the very time God had promised”. Abraham had a son in his old age. God fulfills His promises. We can be forever looking for signs, it is a very human thing to be doing, but we need to learn just how faithful our God is. When He has said He will do something, He will do it. Abraham named his son “Isaac”, as he had been commanded by the Lord. Isaac means “laughter”, or “he laughs”.

21:4,5

In line with God’s command, Abraham circumcised the boy on the eighth day (Gen 17:10-12). As we know, there were major disputes over circumcision in the early church, and this episode helps us to appreciate why some thought Gentile Chrisitans should be circumcised. Abraham was one hundred years old when Isaac was born.

John 5:9b-13 - It is the Sabbath

5:9b,10

All this had taken place on the Sabbath. Now the Jewish Law, including one of the ten commandments, said they were not to work on the Sabbath (Ex20:8-11), and this applied to everyone, including servants and foreigners, and the animals. Now the sensible interpretation was that this applied to their normal employment, and was meant to apply to everyone so that no one could be exploited. So it was of benefit to you as an individual, ensuring a proper balance between fulfilling our human responsibilities, and trusting in God. It was meant to bless, and this interpretation seems to be in line with Jesus’ approach to the Sabbath. However, the teachers of the Law had got the wrong end of the stick and all the focus was on “doing no work”. So they produced incredibly detailed rules on what constituted “work” and so ended up making the Sabbath a burden. We still suffer from this today. There are one or two churches that still have very strict sabbath rules. However, the main way we suffer from this today is that we do not appreciate the value of the Sabbath. When we read bits in the Old Testament that attach great importance to the Sabbath our minds shut down thinking “this doesn’t apply now”. This is a great pity. So instead of rejoicing in the man being healed of his thirty eight year old affliction, the Jewish leaders focused on the fact that the man was carrying his mat, and so was “doing work”. They were blinded to the truth, we always need to be on our guard so that we do not fall into a similar trap.

5:11-13

The healed man replies that the man who healed him and told him to take up his mat. The Jewish leaders then wanted to know who this man was. They apparently were not aware at this point that Jesus was around healing people. The healed man himself did not know who had healed him, he just knew he had been healed. He apparently had not had much in the way of faith in Jesus, not knowing who it was, he had simply obeyed what Jesus had said. Jesus had then withdrawn, not wanting to make a spectacle of the situation.

Genesis 20:14-18 - Abraham prayed to God

20:14-16

Abimelech did not take umbrage at Abraham’s words, but gave him sheep, cattle and slaves (no doubt Abraham should be cancelled 😊). Presumably Abimelech’s encounter with God had filled him with the fear of the Lord, so he wanted to treat Abraham well. He then said Abraham could live anywhere he liked in the land. He also told Sarah that he was giving Abraham money to cover any offence that had been caused. Once again the heathen king comes out of things rather better than Abraham does.

20:17,18

However, we do see some good in Abraham. The Lord had shut up the wombs of all the women in the land, so Abraham prayed to God for them and their wombs were opened, so they could all have children again. This implies that Abraham and Sarah must have been in the land for some time, otherwise no one would have noticed they could not have children.

John 5:7-9a - Take up your bed and walk

5:7

The Samaritan woman was concerned only with having to get physical water, the man here is fixated on having to get into the pool. The legend was that when the water was stirred up you would be healed if you managed to get into the water at that time. Because of his condition the man could never get into the water, someone else always managed to get there before him. He was in a Catch 22 situation.

5:8,9a

However, the man’s understanding was greatly mistaken. He thought that in order to be healed he had to get into the water when it was stirred up. We love to have something physical to hold on to, or to put our faith in.We too can get fixated on things. We believe that a certain things have to happen, or things have to be done in a certain way in order for them to happen. So we will pray that God makes that thing happen. Jesus simply commanded the man to “get up, take up your bed and walk”. God was not dependent upon the water being stirred up. Instead of trying to tell God how He has to answer a prayer, we should ask directly for the thing that we need. The man was immediately healed and did indeed take up his bed and walk.

Genesis 20:11-13 - There is no fear of God in this place

20:11

Abraham gives a rather honest answer, though not one likely to endear him to Abimelech. He says he thought there was surely no fear of God in the place. In reality it was Abraham who was not fearing God in the matter. He sought to deceive Abimelech and put Sarah in danger. If Abraham had feared God in the matter he would not have done this. We need to have a general fear of God, and a fear of God in particular situations. And a fear of God shows itself not in a cringing attitude, but in life lived in accordance with the ways of God. It means living as if God is the one with the final say, which the current incident demonstrated that God did have the final say! There times when we all fall down on this matter.

20:12,13

Abraham then continues to show up his failings. We get the old “she really is my sister” routine, see back in Gen 12 for an explanation of this is technically true, but what the message he wanted to convey was that she was not his wife. He also got Sarah embroiled in the subterfuge. Abraham does not come out of this well. Later on we will see that Isaac had the same failing.

John 5:1-6 - Do you want to be healed?

5:1

So far there have been hints at Jewish opposition to Jesus. They investigated John the Baptist, Jesus had left Judea for Galilee. Now the opposition starts to intensify. In the midst of the opposition Jesus continues to do miracles, and His teaching becomes even clearer and more in-depth. There is no retreat, in fact His teaching often antagonies the opponents. There was a feast in Jerusalem and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. There is lots of speculation about which feast it was, as it is simply called the “Feast of the Jews” here. The truth is that no one knows which feast it was. The fact that John does not name the feast, unlike in other cases, indicates that the feast is not relevant to the incident, nor to John’s comments on the incident.

5:2-6

John does name the precise location where the miracle occurred, and there have been archaeological finds related to this. The pool was a place which was associated with healings, and there was a man there who had been an invalid for thirty eight years. This man was just one of many, but for some reason Jesus picked this man out. We are not actually given hint as to why Jesus chose this man. Jesus knew he had been there a long time. He went up to him and asked him if he wanted to be healed.