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John 5:10-18: That’s gratitude for you.

¹⁰ and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, ‘It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.’¹¹ But he replied, ‘The man who made me well said to me, “Pick up your mat and walk.”’¹² So they asked him, ‘Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?’¹³ The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.¹⁴ Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, ‘See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.’ ¹⁵ The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.¹⁶ So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. ¹⁷ In his defence Jesus said to them, ‘My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.’ ¹⁸ 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 himself equal with God. NIV

I still smile at the memory of some words I read in a commentary years ago: ‘The man healed by Jesus appears to have been an unpleasant character!!’ He certainly wanted to avoid any flak coming his way and was happy for them to train their sights on Jesus (10, 11 and 15). He showed them where to aim their fire (15). If he did repent of his sins, we have no clear indication of it. Yet the Lord had been so good to him.

It appears that the healed man’s illness was connected in some way to sinful behaviour (14). Sin is ultimately destructive to the human body. It is not good for your health. It is for our own good that Jesus asks us to leave our sinful burden at the foot of His cross. That’s not the main reason, of course, but it is a reason.

Religion shows its worst face where it just cares about rules and regulations and not the needs and struggles of real people. The key to understanding all this anger towards to Jesus lies in the fact that the Lord performed the miracle on the Sabbath day. It led to the man carrying his bed on the Sabbath, and these clerics interpreted that as work (9b, 10; see also 16). Even worse, Jesus said the man He healed was in fact healed by His Father  in heaven (who was also working on the Sabbath day), and so He was expressing His oneness with God (18). That’s what they took Him to mean, and they were correct to do so:  ‘It was not his own deed, but the Father’s in him and through him. If, then, they condemned it, they were in direct collision with the Infinite One from whom the Sabbath law had originally come.’ F.B. Meyer: ‘Devotional Commentary’, p.461.

This is one of the massive claims made by Jesus about His own identity. He did not think that He was just a man. How about you? What’s your view of Jesus? As C.S. Lewis argued, Jesus is who He says He is, or He is a psychiatric case (on the same level as someone saying he’s a poached egg), or He is the devil from hell. But we must not come out with any patronising nonsense about Him just being a good man. He has not left that option open to us.

John 4:43-54: Lord over space.

⁴³ After the two days he left for Galilee. ⁴⁴ (Now Jesus himself had pointed out that a prophet has no honour in his own country.) ⁴⁵ When he arrived in Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him. They had seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, for they also had been there.⁴⁶ Once more he visited Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. And there was a certain royal official whose son lay ill at Capernaum. ⁴⁷ When this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death.⁴⁸ ‘Unless you people see signs and wonders,’ Jesus told him, ‘you will never believe.’⁴⁹ The royal official said, ‘Sir, come down before my child dies.’⁵⁰ ‘Go,’ Jesus replied, ‘your son will live.’The man took Jesus at his word and departed. ⁵¹ While he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was living. ⁵² When he enquired as to the time when his son got better, they said to him, ‘Yesterday, at one in the afternoon, the fever left him.’⁵³ Then the father realised that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, ‘Your son will live.’ So he and his whole household believed.⁵⁴ This was the second sign Jesus performed after coming from Judea to Galilee. NIV

Sometimes, when we pray we don’t get the wording exactly right. This Royal official ‘begged’ Jesus ‘ to come and heal his son, who was close to death’ (47b). Again he pleaded, ‘Sir, come down before my child dies’ (49). His urgency is understandable, but he thought Jesus had to be in his home; that He had to enter the same room as the child in order to heal him. The wording of the ‘prayer’ wasn’t exactly right. But Jesus saw the man’s heart and did the work of healing anyway (50). This is a miracle of healing at a distance. Jesus is Lord over space.

When we start to pray about a matter, we may well need to persevere through discouragements (48). After the man’s initial plea, it looked like Jesus Himself was putting him off. At least, His words didn’t sound promising. But things were not how they appeared. The nobleman persevered and received the object of his intercession. It is, however, a reality to contend with that faith often has to persevere through discouragements; through seeming barriers and obstacles. Ronald Dunn observed that when we start to pray in earnest about a matter, things regularly ‘drop by worse on the way to better!’

This is a story, then, about praying and persevering. It is also about timing (52, 53). This ‘coincidence’ was really a ‘God-incidence’, and it brought people into the Kingdom.

It is fundamentally, of course, a story about believing.The essence of faith is to take Jesus at His Word (50).You go about your business, trusting that His Word is true, even when you have no evidence. Faith is the evidence (Hebrews 11:1). F.B.Meyer shares an interesting insight on this:

”It would appear…that he went to some inn or caravansary on his way back, because there would have been ample time between the seventh hour (one o’clock in the day) and nightfall to get from Cana down to Capernaum. Why should he hasten! The boy was living, doing well, since the Master had said so. He was sure of it and thanked God for it and gladly took the opportunity of a quiet night’s rest, to sleep off the effects of long watching, intense anxiety, and the swift journey to Cana. When his servants met him with the news that the boy was healed, he inquired at what hour the change had taken place, merely to corroborate his own conclusions.” F.B. Meyer, Devotional Commentary, p.461.

Prayer: ”Give me the faith which can remove, and sink the mountain to a plain.”

Revelation 22:21: Grace.

²¹ The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen. NIV

Throughout these past six months, Tom Wright has helped us again and again with his observations on the book of ‘Revelation’. Here is his comment on the last verse:

‘The letter – it always was a letter, as well as a prophecy and a revelation – ends as it should, with a closing greeting. ‘The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you all’ (verse 21). But, however conventional, this greeting now carries the freight of the entire book. It is dense with a thousand images of ‘grace’, pregnant with the power of the word ‘Lord’ when spoken under the nose of Caesar, sparkling in the still-open invitation to ‘you all,’ and above all delicious with the name, the name that is now exalted high over all, the name of the slaughtered lamb, the name of the one we love and long to see. This book has been a revelation of Jesus, a testimony to Jesus, an act of homage to Jesus. This word. This book. This prophecy…Coming soon. This Jesus.’ ‘Revelation for Everyone’, p.207.

I began to write these Bible notes a number of years ago as a result of an inner ‘prompting’. Just recently, I felt a similar prompting to stop. Such promptings have played a major role in my life and ministry, and I know I cannot afford to ignore them. It’s been a privilege to seek to obey God in putting these thoughts ‘out there’, and I’d like to thank all of you who have made use of them. I also have a special ‘thank you’ for those of you who have communicated with me from time to time, and told me how the notes have helped you. I’m grateful for your encouragement.

As I sign off, let me encourage you to keep reading THE BOOK of books – God’s Book, the Bible. It is mighty; it is life-changing. No notes on Scripture (and there are a lot out there!) can ever replace Scripture itself. As you read it, remember, if you’re a Christian, the Author lives within you. You can ask Him for understanding and He will help you.

I take my leave, echoing John’s prayer that the ‘’grace of the Lord Jesus’’ will be with you.

Stephen.

Revelation 22:17: ‘Come!’

^“17 The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come!’ Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.” NIV

As we have seen, in this final chapter of Revelation, there is a repeated emphasis on the theme that Jesus is coming soon. In response to this, John’s prayer is (and it should be the prayer of the whole church): ‘’Amen. Come, Lord Jesus’’ (20). But there is also, in the seventeenth verse, the gracious, and repeated, invitation to the ‘’thirsty’’ to ‘’come’’ and ‘’take the free gift of the water of life.’’ These words surely draw from the well of Isaiah 55. Verse 1 of that chapter says:

‘’Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.’’

 Words of Jesus are also brought to mind:

‘’If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink’’ (John 7:37).

The invitation stands for all the spiritually thirsty today. Jesus will not fail to deliver on His promise. You and I can prove its truth. Salvation is a free gift. Let the church echo this message, and repeat it throughout the world. As the old hymn says, ‘Now none but Christ can satisfy…’

Revelation 22:16-17: Jesus is.

¹⁶ ‘I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.’¹⁷ The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come!’ Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life. “NIV

Jesus is everything we could ever want or need. He is what our starving souls are hungering for, if we but knew it.  In John’s gospel, 7 ‘’I am’’ statements made by Jesus are recorded. Most commentators would see an implicit claim to divinity in Jesus’ use of this great Old Testament Name for God.

I was reflecting on the fact that John also wrote ‘Revelation’, and there are a number of ‘’I am’’ sayings of Jesus in this last section of the book:

‘’I am coming soon!’’ (7, 12 & 20);

‘’I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End’’ (13; see 21;6. Note that Jesus and God speak the same words, and we know that both share the throne);

‘’I am the Root and Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star’’ (16; see 5:5, 2:28; Romans 13:12).

Richard Bewes writes regarding this last statement:

‘…here is a title of Jesus to make the most pessimistic heart thud with expectation! A new age is going to dawn, and it will be Christ who ushers it in… The bright Morning Star is there before our gaze. And tomorrow belongs to us!’ ‘The Lamb Wins’ pp.149/153.

‘This Morning Star is a sign of the dawning of a new day after a long night of tribulation – a sign of the new day of the kingdom of Jesus Christ.’ Tom Hale: ‘Applied New Testament Commentary’, p.997.

Revelation 22:7-15: ‘Outside’

⁷ ‘Look, I am coming soon! Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy written in this scroll.’⁸ I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I had heard and seen them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had been showing them to me. ⁹ But he said to me, ‘Don’t do that! I am a fellow servant with you and with your fellow prophets and with all who keep the words of this scroll. Worship God!’¹⁰ Then he told me, ‘Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this scroll, because the time is near. ¹¹ Let the one who does wrong continue to do wrong; let the vile person continue to be vile; let the one who does right continue to do right; and let the holy person continue to be holy.’¹² ‘Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done. ¹³ I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.¹⁴ ‘Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. ¹⁵ Outside are the dogs, those who practise magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practises falsehood.NIV

There are people who preach that no-one will be excluded from God’s Kingdom. We might like to think that, but it’s not congruent with what we have read in ‘Revelation’ (and still read in this last chapter), and it doesn’t fit with what we read in the rest of the Bible. In the end, there will be those who find themselves ‘’Outside’’ (15) God’s glorious future. They will be there because of their refusal to repent of their sins and trust in Jesus. Just as in the story of Noah and the ark, there will come a day when God shuts the door (Genesis 6:16). Only those cleansed by Christ’s blood (14) are free from sin and therefore confident to enter. Those truly saved show it in sanctified lives (15). By their fruits they are known.