What is a good life (part 2)?

This week, we continue our study into what makes a good life, based on John 5:16-29. While the Jewish leaders at the time defined a good life through power, status and influence, Jesus came to challenge their beliefs and counter the worldly concept of a good life. According to Christ, this is also what a good life looks like.

1. A good life is not about having a good image

So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” 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.

Prior to the events of verses 16-29, Jesus had gone to the Bethesda pool and healed an invalid. This happened on the Sabbath. The history of the Sabbath can be traced back to the Genesis account of Creation. God created the world in six days, declared his creation as good and rested on the seventh day. In turn, his people were asked to keep the Sabbath day holy. In Exodus 20:8-11, it says,

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. or in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

However, over time religious leaders began to use the Sabbath as a means to become legalistic (prioritising following rules over finding true rest in God). And for the Jewish leaders of the time, a good image was everything. They enforced the law, including the law of the Sabbath, as a means to be seen as higher and holier than others. For the religious leaders, a good life meant a “good” image. But, as we learnt last week, a good life doesn’t exist from our own efforts.

To be truly good isn’t about outwardly appearances as Jesus demonstrates in the Parable of the Good Samaritan. In the parable, a Levite and a priest (two people commonly associated with holiness and righteousness) are not truly good to their neighbour who is beaten and bruised. However, it is the Samaritan (someone hated by Jewish people of the time) who is truly good and forever known as the ‘Good Samaritan’.

So, a good life isn’t about being concerned over our image, whether that be crafting a good one or a bad one. Instead, a good life is about eternal life.

2. A good life is to have eternal life

For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed. For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. … Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life,

Jesus clarified that he was (and is) God’s son. For the Jewish leaders, Jesus was spouting blasphemy. In this time, the relationship between a father and son was not as we see it today. Instead of two individuals related by blood, the Jewish nation believed that the son was a direct extension of the father. This meant that Jesus was implying that he was God, a claim which Christians hold true today. But this was unacceptable to the Jewish leaders who would never dare say any human was equal to God. And yet, there staunch belief hindered them from truly appreciating Jesus’ work.

In verses 19-23, Jesus advises that his work is to judge and give life to people who listen to his message. In John 6:29, God’s work is described as “to believe in the one he has sent.” Because the Jewish leaders didn’t believe in Jesus’ work (and in extension God’s work), they couldn’t enjoy the eternal life that Jesus offered.

This eternal life is truly the good life that Jesus worked to bring to all people who would listen. Do you hear Jesus’ call now to eternal life?