The miracles of Jesus - Classical Christian Literature by Athleo.net

REPEATED SIN AND INTENSIVE
PUNISHMENT
Healing the Impotent Man at
Bethesda
"Behold thou art made whole; sin no more lest a worse
thing come unto thee." John v. 16.
A CAREFUL reading of the narrative will show us
that in the character of this unhappy man there
were traits of weakness which explain his past
history and threaten his unshaped future. The
admonitory words with which Jesus closes His mission
to the forlorn paralytic, introduce a double comparison
; a comparison between an early sin and
a later sin towards which the man seems to be
setting his footsteps ;
and also a comparison between
a self-induced affliction, the shadow of which has
only just dispersed, and afflictions of unknown bitterness
in which the lack of high religious principle is
not unlikely to plunge him. For some vice of his
youth, or of his early manhood, he has suffered a lifelong
disability. This is not a canon we must apply in
judging all those who were the subjects of Christ's
miraculous healing. Indeed, two years later, within
a few yards of this very spot, Jesus told the disciples
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