"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said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?” 13 Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place. 14 Afterwards Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well!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
The Jews' reaction against the violation of the Sabbath was characteristic. On their interpretation of the Sabbath, the man was of course breaking the law; but it is a measure of how very far their understanding of the law had departed from its true spirit and meaning that they should have regarded the wonder of what had happened to the man as nothing by comparison with the infringement that had angered and upset them. It is significant to see what Jesus said to them (17); it forms a bridge between their opposition on the Sabbath question and their opposition on His claim to equality with God. He said, 'My Father worketh hitherto, and I work'. These words express an attitude almost of aggression: Jesus did not try to smooth things over by saying something like 'I may have broken the letter of the law, but fulfilled its spirit in healing the man', although this would have been true. He said what He did, knowing it would add fuel to the flame of their resentment. He carried the war, in fact, into the enemy's camp, deliberately challenging them even more deeply than the miracle itself had, as if to say, 'you are opposing Me on the question of breaking the Sabbath law. But I want you to see that your opposition to Me is deeper than the Sabbath law. It is against the claim that I make. Well, I will make it again: My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.' And the Jews got the message (18): It is as well, is it not, that they should have been made to see the real heart of their opposition against Him. Jesus is not content to let any man labour under false pretences in his attitude to ultimate things.