ris3n's Apologetics Codex

Passage

John 5.17

Book: John · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Verse

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ASV:

"17. But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh even until now, and I work." (John 5:17, ASV)

WEB:

"17. But Jesus answered them, “My Father is still working, so I am working, too.”" (John 5:17, WEB)

KJV:

"17. But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." (John 5:17, KJV)

YLT:

"17. And Jesus answered them, 'My Father till now doth work, and I work;'" (John 5:17, YLT)

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV:

"15. The man went away, and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him whole. 16. And for this cause the Jews persecuted Jesus, because he did these things on the sabbath. 17. But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh even until now, and I work. 18. For this cause therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only brake the sabbath, but also called God his own Father, making himself equal with God. 19. Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father doing: for what things soever he doeth, these the Son also doeth in like manner." (John 5:15-19, ASV)

WEB:

"15. The man went away, and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. 16. For this cause the Jews persecuted Jesus, and sought to kill him, because he did these things on the Sabbath. 17. But Jesus answered them, “My Father is still working, so I am working, too.” 18. For this cause therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the Sabbath, but also called God his own Father, making himself equal with God. 19. Jesus therefore answered them, “Most certainly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father doing. For whatever things he does, these the Son also does likewise." (John 5:15-19, WEB)

KJV:

"15. The man departed, and told the Jews that it was Jesus, which had made him whole. 16. And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to slay him, because he had done these things on the sabbath day. 17. But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. 18. Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God. 19. Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise." (John 5:15-19, KJV)

YLT:

"15. The man went away, and told the Jews that it is Jesus who made him whole, 16. and because of this were the Jews persecuting Jesus, and seeking to kill him, because these things he was doing on a sabbath. 17. And Jesus answered them, 'My Father till now doth work, and I work;' 18. because of this, then, were the Jews seeking the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the sabbath, but he also called God his own Father, making himself equal to God. 19. Jesus therefore responded and said to them, 'Verily, verily, I say to you, The Son is not able to do anything of himself, if he may not see the Father doing anything; for whatever things He may do, these also the Son in like manner doth;" (John 5:15-19, YLT)

Setting

  • Speaker: Jesus, responding to the Jewish leaders' Sabbath-violation challenge after the Bethesda paralytic-healing (John 5:1-15)
  • Audience: Jewish leaders (Pharisees and temple authorities) who had just confronted Jesus over Sabbath-breaking, about to escalate to deliberate murder-plot in v. 18
  • Location: Jerusalem, near the pool of Bethesda or in the temple precincts, c. AD 28
  • Time period: events c. AD 28 at "a feast of the Jews" (John 5:1; possibly Passover); composed c. AD 85-95 by John the Apostle (Ephesus)
  • Narrative context: Jesus healed a 38-year paralytic on the Sabbath. The Jewish leaders confront Him for Sabbath-breaking. Jesus's defense, "My Father worketh until now, and I work", does two things at once: (a) justifies the Sabbath-healing on the ground that God Himself works on the Sabbath (sustaining creation, granting life), and (b) claims a divine-prerogative cooperative-working with the Father that the Jewish leaders immediately recognize as a Christological-deity claim (v. 18, "making himself equal with God"). The John 5:19-47 discourse develops the Christological case.

Theological reading

John 5:17 is the trigger verse for the deliberate murder-plot against Jesus, the verse the Jewish leaders identify as "making himself equal with God" (v. 18). The Christological claim is implicit but unmistakable: Jesus places His own working parallel to the Father's working in a way that no observant Jew would dare to do.

The Jewish-context Christological force

In second-temple Judaism the Sabbath was the day God "rested" (Gen 2:2-3; Ex 20:11). But the rabbis acknowledged a problem: God clearly does sustain creation, give life, judge, and bring rain on the Sabbath, otherwise the cosmos would collapse. Their resolution: God's cosmic-sustenance work continues on the Sabbath, but the unique divine prerogative means this is not Sabbath-violation for God Himself.

Jesus's claim, "My Father worketh until now, and I work", exactly parallels this divine-prerogative cosmic-working. The leaders recognize the implicit claim: Jesus is asserting the trans-Sabbath divine working that only YHWH can claim. This is not a claim to be a lesser worker subordinate to God; it is a claim to share the divine prerogative the Sabbath itself acknowledges. Hence v. 18's immediate escalation to murder-intent, the leaders perceive it as blasphemy.

The cascade that follows (5:19-47)

Jesus's response in vv. 19-47 does not retract the v. 17 claim. Instead He develops it across six Christological assertions: (a) the Son does only what He sees the Father doing, perfect imitation requires equal-knowledge (v. 19); (b) the Son raises the dead and gives life, divine prerogative (v. 21); (c) the Father has committed all judgment to the Son, divine prerogative (v. 22); (d) all should honor the Son as they honor the Father, divine worship-mandate (v. 23; see John 5.23); (e) the Son's voice will raise the dead at the last day, eschatological divine power (vv. 25-29); (f) Moses, the Scriptures, and the Father all witness to the Son (vv. 30-47). The cascade is one of the highest sustained Christological self-disclosures in the Gospels.

Patristic and Reformed readings

Augustine (Tractates 17): the parallel "My Father worketh, and I work" is a grammatical-equality claim, the same verb, the same prerogative, the same divine-sustaining-activity. The patristic tradition reads the verse as a foundational text for the Nicene homoousios doctrine.

Cyril of Alexandria (Commentary on John 2): the Father-Son cooperative-working on the Sabbath is one of the prerogatives that establishes the Son's full divinity within the 5th-c. Christological controversies.

John Calvin (Commentary on John ad loc.): the verse is "a defense by which He proved Himself to be God." The Reformed-confessional tradition cites this verse alongside John 1:1 and John 20:28 as proof of Christ's full divinity.

Apologetic deployment

The verse defeats two opposed readings:

  1. The "Jesus never claimed to be God" liberal-Protestant reading (Bart Ehrman in popular mode; Reza Aslan, Zealot). The argument runs: the Synoptics don't show Jesus directly claiming divinity; that's a later Johannine / Pauline development. Counter: John 5:17 is Johannine, but the audience response (v. 18: "making himself equal with God") is the contemporary first-century Jewish recognition of the divine-claim, exactly what the early-high-Christology view (Hurtado, Bauckham, Wright) predicts.

  2. The Arian / JW reading (Jesus as a lesser created being subordinate to God). Counter: the verse establishes the Father-Son cooperative-working in the divine-prerogative Sabbath domain; a lesser being cannot share the unique divine cosmic-sustenance work.

Oneness Pentecostal reading

In the Oneness Pentecostal framework, John 5:17 is the one God's self-disclosure of His Son-manifestation as continuing the divine Sabbath work. The Father-source and the Son-manifestation are not two divine workers but the one divine worker in two relational modes (the Father being the eternal source, the Son being the incarnational expression). See Trinity vs Oneness vs Modalism vs Arianism.

Canonical-theological connections

  • John 1:1, 14, the Logos-as-God prologue and incarnation
  • John 5:18, the explicit "making himself equal with God" interpretation by the audience
  • John 5:19-30, the immediate Christological cascade
  • John 8:58, the absolute ego eimi I AM claim
  • John 10:30, "I and my Father are one"
  • John 14:9, "he that hath seen me hath seen the Father"
  • Hebrews 1:3, "upholding all things by the word of his power", Christ's continuing cosmic-sustenance work
  • Colossians 1:17, "by him all things consist", Christ as the cosmic sustainer

Key words

See also

Quoted in