John 5:18

18 So the Jewish leaders tried all the harder to find a way to kill him. For he not only broke the Sabbath, he called God his Father, thereby making himself equal with God.

John 5:18 Meaning and Commentary

John 5:18

Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him
They were the more desirous to take away his life, and were more bent and resolute upon it, and studied all ways and means how to bring it about;

because he had not only broken the sabbath;
as they imagined; for he had not really broken it: and if they had known what that means, that God will have mercy, and not sacrifice, they would have been convinced that he had not broke it by this act of mercy to a poor distressed object:

but said also that God was his Father;
his own Father, his proper Father, his Father by nature, and that he was his own Son by nature; and this they gathered from his calling him "my Father", and assuming a co-operation with him in his divine works:

making himself to be equal with God;
to be of the same nature, and have the same perfections, and do the same works; for by saying that God was his Father, and so that he was the Son of God, a phrase, which, with them, signified a divine person, as they might learn from ( Psalms 2:7 Psalms 2:12 ) , and by ascribing the same operations to himself, as to his Father, they rightly understood him, that he asserted his equality with him; for had he intended no more, and had they imagined that he intended no more by calling God his Father, than that he was so by creation, as he is to all men, or by adoption, as he was to the Jews, they would not have been so angry with him; for the phrase, in this sense, they used themselves: but they understood him otherwise, as asserting his proper deity, and perfect equality with the Father; and therefore to the charge of sabbath breaking, add that of blasphemy, and on account of both, sought to put him to death; for according to their canons, both the sabbath breaker, and the blasphemer, were to be stoned ^F4.

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FOOTNOTES:

F4 Misn. Sanhedrin, c. 7. sect. 4.

John 5:18 In-Context

16 So the Jewish leaders began harassing Jesus for breaking the Sabbath rules.

17 But Jesus replied, “My Father is always working, and so am I.”

18 So the Jewish leaders tried all the harder to find a way to kill him. For he not only broke the Sabbath, he called God his Father, thereby making himself equal with God.

19 So Jesus explained, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does.

20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything he is doing. In fact, the Father will show him how to do even greater works than healing this man. Then you will truly be astonished.