"After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesada, having five porches.
In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed waiting for the moving of the water.
For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had.
Now a certain was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years.
When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, "Do you want to be made well?"
The sick man answered Him, "Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me."
Jesus said to him, "Rise, take up your bed and walk."
And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked.
And that day was the Sabbath.
The Jews therefore said to him who was cured, "It is the Sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your bed."
He answered them, "He who made me well said to me, 'Take up your bed and walk.'"
Then they asked him, "Who is the Man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk?’"
But the one who healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, a multitude being in that place.
Afterward Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, "See, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you."
The man departed and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.
FOR THIS REASON THE JEWS PERSECUTED JESUS, AND SOUGHT TO KILL HIM, BECAUSE HE HAD DONE THESE THINGS ON THE SABBATH."

Message:
The ninth verse of this chapter which we are studying has brought us to an ominous note. The story of the healing of the disabled man at the pool of Bethesda has just been told, but at this point we read: THE DAY ON WHICH THIS TOOK PLACE WAS A SABBATH.
A man had been healed from a disease which, humanly speaking, was incurable. We might expect this to be an occasion of universal joy and thanksgiving; but some met the whole business with bleak and black looks!

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The man who had been healed was walking through the streets carrying his bed; the orthodox Jews stopped him and reminded him that he was breaking the law by carrying a burden on the Sabbath. The law of God was a series of great wide principles which men were left to apply and carry out but throughout the years the Jews had made it into thousands of little rules and regulations. The law simply said that the Sabbath day must be different from other days and that on it neither a man nor his servants nor his animals must work; the Jews set out thirty-nine different classifications of work, one of which was that it consisted in carrying a burden.
Example: a man might not go out on the Sabbath wearing one sandal, unless he had a wound in his foot (Shabbath 6:2). The reasoning was that this would give rise to suspicion that he was carrying the other sandal under his cloak (a forbidden "work"). If he was wounded, however, nobody would think he had another sandal with him.
Example: while it was quite in order to borrow wine or oil from a neighbor on the Sabbath, one must not say, "Lend me them" (Shabbath 23:1). To say this would imply that a transaction was being made, and a transaction might involve writing, which was one of the thirty-nine forbidden classes of work!
Example: A man should not search his clothing on the Sabbath looking for fleas, nor should he read by lamplight (Shabbath 1:3). The point of this latter is that he might be engrossed in his reading and, forgetful that it was the Sabbath, might perform the work of tipping the lamp to make the oil flow into the wick so that he would have a better light.
Ah! Here is one! A woman was forbidden to dress her hair or paint her eyelids (Shabbath 10:6), for she would then be engaged in the forbidden work of building or dyeing.
One regulation that I rather like was concerned with toothache: One must not put vinegar on one's teeth in an attempt to soothe the ache (that would be a forbidden act of healing). But it was permitted to take vinegar in the ordinary course of a meal, and the rabbis added philosophically, "If he is healed, he is healed" (Shabbath 14:4).
It is obvious from such regulations that there were many ways in which the unwary might fall into a breach of the Sabbath. But it was also the case that the knowledgeable were able to get around many of the regulations. It was stipulated that one must not carry things in either hand, in one's bosom, or on one's shoulder. These were ordinary methods of carrying things and were clearly "work." But a regulation says: "If [he took it out] on the back of his hand, or with his foot or with his mouth or with his elbow, or in his ear or in his hair or in his wallet [carried] mouth downwards, or between his

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wallet, and his shirt, or in the hem of his skirt, or in his shoe or in his sandal, he is not culpable since he has not taken it out after the fashion of them that take out [a burden]" (Shabbath 10:3)
None of these was a normal way of carrying things, so none was classed as work.
We are reminded of Jesus' castigation of those who put heavy burdens on other people but did not lift them themselves (Matt. 23:4) Clearly anyone with a very good knowledge of the regulations would not only be able to forbid other people from doing many harmless things, but would find ways of doing most things he wanted to do himself.
As I have noted previously, the Jews took the simple command concerning keeping the Sabbath sacred and developed thirty-nine classifications of work. God had said: "Thou shalt not work on the Sabbath." Their whole list of prohibitions about carrying burdens on the Sabbath was founded primarily on two Old Testament passages, namely Jeremiah 17:19-27 and Nehemiah 13:15-19). Jeremiah had said: "Thus saith the Lord: take heed for the sake of your lives, and do not bear a burden on the Sabbath day or bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem. And do not carry a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath or do any work, but keep the Sabbath day holy, as I commanded your fathers" (Jeremiah 17:19-27). Nehemiah had been worried at the work and the trading that went on on the Sabbath day and had stationed servants at the gates of Jerusalem to see that no burdens were carried in or out on the Sabbath (Neh. 13:15-19).
Nehemiah 13:15 makes it perfectly clear that what was in question was trading on the Sabbath as if it had been an ordinary day. But the Rabbis of Jesus' day solemnly argued that a man was sinning if he carried a needle in his robe on the Sabbath. They even argued as to whether he could wear his artificial teeth or his wooden leg. They were quite clear that any kind of brooch could not be worn on the Sabbath. To them all this petty detail was a matter of life and death--and certainly this man was breaking the rabbinic law by carrying his bed on the Sabbath day!
Consider our story. For the first time in thirty-eight years, the paralytic was walking, his bed under his arm. There was a noticeable spring in his step. He might even have been skipping! Then he heard a voice asking, "Hey, what are you doing with that bed? Don't you know that is illegal?"
The healed paralytic stopped to reply, "Well, yes, but you see, I've just been healed! I was down by the Pool of Bethesda--I've been crippled for thirty-eight years. I was lying next to the pool, and a man walked by and asked me if I wanted to get well, and I told him I did. He asked me to stand up. I tried and found my legs

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strengthened--I can't tell you how great that felt--and now I'm walking!"
It was in such an atmosphere that the healed man was interrogated. He was examined by the experts and while, he himself would not have known all the regulations, he knew that all sorts of work were forbidden on the Sabbath. He knew also that his judges were in a position to do him harm if they judged him guilty of a transgression. So he was in a difficult position.
He defended himself by saying that it wasn't his fault. The man who healed him had told him to take up his pallet and walk. What else could he do? One of the regulations provided that if a man was carried on a couch, "he is not culpable by reason of the couch, since the couch is secondary" (Shabbath 10:5). But apparently a couch by itself was quite another matter. It was not secondary, and the man was therefore culpable. Our lame man presumably did not know the regulation, but his judges did. So he was in danger of punishment and judgment.
The Pharisees demanded to know who had healed the paralytic.
"The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there. Latter Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, "See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you." The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him." (verses 13-16)
Jesus was not caught unawares by their attack. In fact, he devastated them with His reply in verse 17: "My Father is always at His work to this very day, and I, too, am working." Jesus was saying that when God created the earth, he rested on the seventh day, but He had to keep on working in order to hold the universe together. God kept working in matters providentially in people's lives as well. And, Jesus said, "I, too, am working." Any scholarly Jew would grasp its full force. Philo had said: "God never ceases doing, but as it is the property of fire to burn and snow to chill, so it is the property of God to do." Another writer said: "The sun shines; the rivers flow, the processes of birth and death go on on the Sabbath as on any other day; and that is the work of God." True, according to the creation story, God rested on the seventh day; but he rested from creation; His higher works of judgment and mercy and compassion and love still went on.
Jesus said: "Even on the Sabbath God's love and mercy and compassion act; and so do mine." It was this last passage which shattered the Jews, for it meant nothing less than that the work of Jesus and the work of God were the same!
The legalist had missed the whole point on the Sabbath!

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A key insight about the Sabbath comes from the second chapter of Genesis, which tells us that God created the earth in six days, but on the seventh he rested. Concerning the first six days Scripture tells us, "And there was evening, and there was morning, and it was the first day," and so on. But there is no mention of evening and morning on the seventh day. God entered into His Sabbath-rest, and He is still in that rest, even while He is upholding the earth by His power. He works and He remains in His Sabbath-rest.
Later when God gave the Law at Sinai He instituted the Sabbath as a reflection of His Sabbath-rest. The Sabbath's purpose was to help God's people elevate their lives. They set aside that time to practice the Sabbath-rest mentioned in Genesis. It also foreshadowed the Sabbath-rest that awaited them. There is a chapter (Ch. 4) in the Book of Hebrews which speaks directly to this matter:
"Therefore, since the promise of entering His rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith. Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said, "So I declared on oath in my anger, they shall never enter my rest." And yet His work has been finished since the creation of the world. For somewhere He has spoken about the seventh day in these words: "And on the seventh day God rested from all His work." And again in the passage above He says, "They shall never enter my rest."
It still remains that some will enter that rest, and those who formerly had the gospel preached to them did not go in, because of their disobedience. Therefore God again set a certain day, calling it Today when a long time later he spoke through David, as was said before: "Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts."
For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from His. Let us therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience."
The Sabbath was a time of celebration! It was marvelously liberating because a man worked six days, but on the seventh he was free to focus upon God, to celebrate His presence and power. So the Sabbath was a time of joy. But when Christ came, the shadow or reflection was no longer needed! When Jesus Christ, our Sabbath-rest, came, that reality did away with the need for the Old Testament Sabbath.
We have just read: "There remains, then a Sabbath-rest for the people of God, for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own

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work, just as God did from His." GOD HAS CEASED FROM HIS WORK, AND SO DO WE. GOD HAS RESTED IN WHAT CHRIST DID, AND SO DO WE. WE HAVE ENTERED THE SABBATH-REST.
Colossians 2:16-17 says:
"Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with respect to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a mere shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ."
THERE IS NO LONGER ANY NEED TO OBSERVE THE OLD TESTAMENT SABBATH.

The need was removed when Christ died on the cross.
In our story that we are studying today we have noted that the Jews had taken the simple instructions from God to celebrate and not work on the Sabbath, and had developed a system of regulations that made the Sabbath a day of rigidity and heavy burden. Jesus said in Mark 2:27: "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath."
Even in our day, there are those who call themselves Christians, but have very rigid regulations concerning the Sabbath. These people have always attempted to equate the Sabbath with the Lord's Day. Their principle method for accomplishing this is to link Mark 2:28 with Revelation 1:10, and thus to undercut one of the strongest arguments against their position, i.e., the Lord's Day as opposed to Sabbath observance.
They reason that since "the Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath"(Mark 2:27), when John says he was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day" (Revelation 1:10), the Sabbath and the Lord's Day must he the same!
The weakness of their position is that they base their argument on an English translation instead of on the Greek original. When one reads the second chapter of Mark and the first chapter of Revelation in Greek, he sees that there is no such interpretation inherent in the grammatical structure. The Greek of Mark 2:28 clearly indicates that Christ did not mean that the Sabbath was His possession; rather, He was saying that as Lord of all He could do as He pleased on the Sabbath. The Greek is most explicit here!
Nothing could be clearer from both the context and the grammar. In Revelation 1:10 the Greek is not the genitive of possession, which it would have to be in order to make te-luriake (the Lord's) agree with hemera (day). John did not mean that the Lord's Day was the Lord's possession, but rather that it was the day dedicated to Him by the early church, not in accordance with Mosaic law, but in obedience to our Lord's commandment of love.
We may certainly assume that if the Sabbath had meant so much to the writers of the New Testament; and if, the Sabbatarians insist, it was

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widely observed during the early centuries of the Christian church, John and the other writers of Scripture would have equated it with the Lord's Day, the first day of the week. Scripture and history testify that they did not.
The Church Fathers provide a mass of evidence that the first day of the week, not the seventh, is the Lord's Day.
Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, in the year 110, wrote: "If, then, those who walk in the ancient practices attain to newness of hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but fashioning their lives after the Lord's Day on which our life also arose through Him, that we may be found disciples of Jesus Christ, our only teacher."
Justin Martyr (100--165): "And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together in one place and memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits...Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness in matter; made the world; and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead."
Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons (about 178): "The mystery of the Lord's resurrection may not be celebrated on any other day than the Lord's Day."
Eusebius (about 315): "The churches throughout the rest of the world observe the practice that has prevailed from the Apostolic tradition until the present time so that it would not be proper to terminate our fast on any other day but the resurrection day of our Saviour. Hence, there were synods and convocations of our bishops on this question and they unanimously drew up an ecclesiastical decree which they communicated to churches in all places--that the mystery of the Lord's resurrection should be celebrated on no other than the Lord's Day."
The he Epistle of Pliny (about 112, addressed to the Emperor Trajan): "They [the Christians] affirmed...that the whole of their crime or error was that they had been wont to meet together on a fixed day before daylight and to repeat among themselves in turn a hymn to Christ as to a god and to bind themselves by an oath (sacramentum) these things duly done, it had been their custom to disperse and to meet again to take food--of an ordinary and harmless kind. Even this they had ceased to do after my edict, by which, in accordance with your instructions, I had forbidden the existence of societies.
Thus it appears that from apostolic and patristic times, the Christian Church observed the Lord's Day or the first day of the week; further the Jewish Sabbath, in the words of Clement of Alexandria (about 194) was "nothing more than a working day."

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Where does Sunday fit into all this?
The Lord's Day, the first day of the week, has no intrinsic relationship to the Jewish Sabbath. God has set aside the seventh day as a day of rest. New Testament history and development reveals that the Holy Spirit set apart a special day, the first day, for God's church. That day was the day of resurrection. On that same day of the week our Lord would ascend into heaven at the end of His earthly life. "Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." (John 20:17).
It was on Sunday that Jesus first appeared to His disciples. On Sunday He first broke bread with His disciples after the Resurrection. On a Sunday Jesus commissioned His disciples to the task of worldwide evangelism. On Sunday Jesus breathed on His disciples so that they received the Holy Spirit.
Further, in the Book of Acts it was on Sunday, seven weeks after the Resurrection, that the Holy Spirit descended on the Church at Pentecost. On Sunday Paul preached to believers gathered together for worship, as was their custom (Acts 20:7)
Sunday was established by Paul as the day each Corinthian believer was to "set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income, saving it up, so that which I come no collection will have to be made"
(1 Corinthians 16:2).
On Sunday, the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to John on the Island of Patmos and gave him that great unveiling of Himself in all His heavenly glory that we know as the Book of Revelation.
I believe that the resurrection of Christ and the celebration of the first day of the week by the earliest Christians is itself one of the great proofs that the resurrection occurred.
Chafer writes: "When Christ arose from the dead, Christianity was born! The new creation was brought into existence. There is nothing in the old order for the believer. He stands on resurrection ground. He belongs only to the new creation. God is faithful to all that He has wrought in Christ and He, according to His Word, will not suffer the child of the new creation to go back and celebrate the beginning of the old and fallen creation from which His child has been saved through infinite riches of grace. If the children of grace persist in relating themselves to the old creation by the observance of the Sabbath, it is evidence of their limitations in the knowledge of the Word and will of God..."
I have taken much time in this study on the subject of the Sabbath because this is what caused the Pharisees in Jesus' day to hate Him for He did not accept all their regulations and man-made restrictions on a day which was meant for celebration and joy. And because in our day, there are those who hold tightly to the Old Testament idea of the Sabbath celebration, I felt it necessary of us to know the history of the early Church on this matter.