""10 So they said to him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” 11 He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed and received my sight.” 12 They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”
13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind.14 Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. 15 So the Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight. And he said to them, “He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.”16 Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” And there was a division among them. 17 So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him, since he has opened your eyes?” He said, “He is a prophet.”
18 The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight, until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight"
10 So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.” 11 But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’”12 They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?” 13 Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place. 14 Afterwards Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.” 15 The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. 16 And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath.17 But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”
18 This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God."
John 5:10-18
We turn now to a consideration of what followed the miracle of healing at Bethesda. This falls into two parts: the debate about the Sabbath, and the spiritualising of the miracle by Jesus. We deal with the first of these now. Consider the situation presented here: A man had been healed, in body and in spirit; a notable miracle had taken place; the man had been thirty-eight years an invalid. The grace of God had come with blessing; goodness and mercy had been made manifest in the renewal of that broken and marred life. Was not this a great thing, a cause for rejoicing, for undivided and unreserved approval? One would have thought so, but instead, it provoked a murderous hatred against Christ. Another of the gospels reminds us that in face of the works of love and mercy He performed and the words He spoke, there was a division among the people. There is something very important for us here. To believe that whenever the grace of God is made manifest in power men will necessarily respond to it without reserve or difficulty is a mistaken optimism. It is often very different. The presence of the Son of God not only does not win general acceptance, but it sifts the hearts of men. Christ came not to send peace but a sword. This is just as true with the proclamation of the gospel. It is a mistake to think that if only a faithful gospel were proclaimed, men would inevitably turn to Christ. Not so. Some will, but some will react in the opposite way. And the more powerful the proclamation, the more violent will be the hostility it provokes. Christ is a divider of men. 'This Child', said old Simeon, 'is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel'. This is the conflict that John recognizes as being basic to the whole concept of the gospel, the conflict between light and darkness referred to in 1:5, 10,11.