The Healing at the Pool

51 Soon another Feast came around and Jesus was back in Jerusalem. 2 Near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem there was a pool, in Hebrew called Bethesda, with five alcoves. 3 Hundreds of sick people - blind, crippled, paralyzed - were in these alcoves. 5 One man had been an invalid there for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him stretched out by the pool and knew how long he had been there, he said, "Do you want to get well?" 7 The sick man said, "Sir, when the water is stirred, I don't have anybody to put me in the pool. By the time I get there, somebody else is already in." 8 Jesus said, "Get up, take your bedroll, start walking." 9 The man was healed on the spot. He picked up his bedroll and walked off. 10 The Jews stopped the healed man and said, "It's the Sabbath. You can't carry your bedroll around. It's against the rules." 11 But he told them, "The man who made me well told me to. He said, 'Take your bedroll and start walking.'" 12 They asked, "Who gave you the order to take it up and start walking?" 13 But the healed man didn't know, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd. 14 A little later Jesus found him in the Temple and said, "You look wonderful! You're well! Don't return to a sinning life or something worse might happen." 15 The man went back and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. 16 That is why the Jews were out to get Jesus - because he did this kind of thing on the Sabbath.

17 But Jesus defended himself. "My Father is working straight through, even on the Sabbath. So am I." 18 That really set them off. The Jews were now not only out to expose him; they were out to kill him. Not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was calling God his own Father, putting himself on a level with God.

The Authority of the Son

19 So Jesus explained himself at length. "I'm telling you this straight. The Son can't independently do a thing, only what he sees the Father doing. What the Father does, the Son does. 20 The Father loves the Son and includes him in everything he is doing. 21 for in the same way that the Father raises the dead and creates life, so does the Son. The Son gives life to anyone he chooses. 22 Neither he nor the Father shuts anyone out. The Father handed all authority to judge over to the Son 23 so that the Son will be honored equally with the Father. Anyone who dishonors the Son, dishonors the Father, for it was the Father's decision to put the Son in the place of honor. 24 "It's urgent that you listen carefully to this: Anyone here who believes what I am saying right now and aligns himself with the Father, who has in fact put me in charge, has at this very moment the real, lasting life and is no longer condemned to be an outsider. This person has taken a giant step from the world of the dead to the world of the living. 25 "It's urgent that you get this right: The time has arrived - I mean right now! - when dead men and women will hear the voice of the Son of God and, hearing, will come alive. 26 Just as the Father has life in himself, he has conferred on the Son life in himself. 27 And he has given him the authority, simply because he is the Son of Man, to decide and carry out matters of Judgment. 28 "Don't act so surprised at all this. The time is coming when everyone dead and buried will hear his voice. 29 Those who have lived the right way will walk out into a resurrection Life; those who have lived the wrong way, into a resurrection Judgment.

Witnesses to Jesus

30 "I can't do a solitary thing on my own: I listen, then I decide. You can trust my decision because I'm not out to get my own way but only to carry out orders.

31 If I were simply speaking on my own account, it would be an empty, self-serving witness. 32 But an independent witness confirms me, the most reliable Witness of all. 33 Furthermore, you all saw and heard John, and he gave expert and reliable testimony about me, didn't he? 34 "But my purpose is not to get your vote, and not to appeal to mere human testimony. I'm speaking to you this way so that you will be saved. 35 John was a torch, blazing and bright, and you were glad enough to dance for an hour or so in his bright light. 36 But the witness that really confirms me far exceeds John's witness. It's the work the Father gave me to complete. These very tasks, as I go about completing them, confirm that the Father, in fact, sent me. 37 The Father who sent me, confirmed me. And you missed it. You never heard his voice, you never saw his appearance. 38 There is nothing left in your memory of his Message because you do not take his Messenger seriously. 39 "You have your heads in your Bibles constantly because you think you'll find eternal life there. But you miss the forest for the trees. These Scriptures are all about me! 40 And here I am, standing right before you, and you aren't willing to receive from me the life you say you want. 41 "I'm not interested in crowd approval. 42 And do you know why? Because I know you and your crowds. I know that love, especially God's love, is not on your working agenda. 43 I came with the authority of my Father, and you either dismiss me or avoid me. If another came, acting self-important, you would welcome him with open arms. 44 How do you expect to get anywhere with God when you spend all your time jockeying for position with each other, ranking your rivals and ignoring God? 45 "But don't think I'm going to accuse you before my Father. Moses, in whom you put so much stock, is your accuser. 46 If you believed, really believed, what Moses said, you would believe me. He wrote of me. 47 If you won't take seriously what he wrote, how can I expect you to take seriously what I speak?"

Jesus and Nicodemus

31 There was a man of the Pharisee sect, Nicodemus, a prominent leader among the Jews. 2 Late one night he visited Jesus and said, "Rabbi, we all know you're a teacher straight from God. No one could do all the God-pointing, God-revealing acts you do if God weren't in on it." 3 Jesus said, "You're absolutely right. Take it from me: Unless a person is born from above, it's not possible to see what I'm pointing to - to God's kingdom." 4 "How can anyone," said Nicodemus, "be born who has already been born and grown up? You can't re-enter your mother's womb and be born again. What are you saying with this 'born-from-above' talk?" 5 Jesus said, "You're not listening. Let me say it again. Unless a person submits to this original creation - the 'wind hovering over the water' creation, the invisible moving the visible, a baptism into a new life - it's not possible to enter God's kingdom. 6 When you look at a baby, it's just that: a body you can look at and touch. But the person who takes shape within is formed by something you can't see and touch - the Spirit - and becomes a living spirit. 7 "So don't be so surprised when I tell you that you have to be 'born from above' - out of this world, so to speak. 8 You know well enough how the wind blows this way and that. You hear it rustling through the trees, but you have no idea where it comes from or where it's headed next. That's the way it is with everyone 'born from above' by the wind of God, the Spirit of God." 9 Nicodemus asked, "What do you mean by this? How does this happen?" 10 Jesus said, "You're a respected teacher of Israel and you don't know these basics? 11 Listen carefully. I'm speaking sober truth to you. I speak only of what I know by experience; I give witness only to what I have seen with my own eyes. There is nothing secondhand here, no hearsay. Yet instead of facing the evidence and accepting it, you procrastinate with questions. 12 If I tell you things that are plain as the hand before your face and you don't believe me, what use is there in telling you of things you can't see, the things of God? 13 "No one has ever gone up into the presence of God except the One who came down from that Presence, the Son of Man. 14 In the same way that Moses lifted the serpent in the desert so people could have something to see and then believe, it is necessary for the Son of Man to be lifted up - 15 and everyone who looks up to him, trusting and expectant, will gain a real life, eternal life.

God So Loved the World

16 "This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. 17 God didn't go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. 18 Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person's failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him. 19 "This is the crisis we're in: God-light streamed into the world, but men and women everywhere ran for the darkness. They went for the darkness because they were not really interested in pleasing God. 20 Everyone who makes a practice of doing evil, addicted to denial and illusion, hates God-light and won't come near it, fearing a painful exposure. 21 But anyone working and living in truth and reality welcomes God-light so the work can be seen for the God-work it is."

He Must Increase, but I Must Decrease

22 After this conversation, Jesus went on with his disciples into the Judean countryside and relaxed with them there. He was also baptizing. 23 At the same time, John was baptizing over at Aenon near Salim, where water was abundant. 24 This was before John was thrown into jail. 25 John's disciples got into an argument with the establishment Jews over the nature of baptism. 26 They came to John and said, "Rabbi, you know the one who was with you on the other side of the Jordan? The one you authorized with your witness? Well, he's now competing with us. He's baptizing, too, and everyone's going to him instead of us." 27 John answered, "It's not possible for a person to succeed - I'm talking about eternal success - without heaven's help. 28 You yourselves were there when I made it public that I was not the Messiah but simply the one sent ahead of him to get things ready. 29 The one who gets the bride is, by definition, the bridegroom. And the bridegroom's friend, his 'best man' - that's me - in place at his side where he can hear every word, is genuinely happy. How could he be jealous when he knows that the wedding is finished and the marriage is off to a good start? 30 This is the assigned moment for him to move into the center, while I slip off to the sidelines.

The Testimony from Heaven

31 "The One who comes from above is head and shoulders over other messengers from God. The earthborn is earthbound and speaks earth language; the heavenborn is in a league of his own. 32 He sets out the evidence of what he saw and heard in heaven. No one wants to deal with these facts. 33 But anyone who examines this evidence will come to stake his life on this: that God himself is the truth. 34 "The One that God sent speaks God's words. And don't think he rations out the Spirit in bits and pieces. 35 The Father loves the Son extravagantly. He turned everything over to him so he could give it away - a lavish distribution of gifts. 36 That is why whoever accepts and trusts the Son gets in on everything, life complete and forever! And that is also why the person who avoids and distrusts the Son is in the dark and doesn't see life. All he experiences of God is darkness, and an angry darkness at that."