I. We feel interested in hearing that the impotent man was restored to health, and yet, what was the benefit he received? He lived a few years, and then he died. What is life? Holy Scripture saith, "It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away." Therefore, observes St. Augustine, in his comment on this miracle, "In that health was restored to this man's body for a time, some duration was added to a vapour; so then, this is not to be valued much, for vain is the health of man." The health of the soul is the thing to be thought of, for the soul endureth for ever; and the miracles effected by our blessed Lord on the bodies of men were only types of those greater miracles which, throughout the last dispensation, He works by His Spirit on the souls of men, in their regeneration, renovation, and sanctification.
II. What is our exhortation to those who have come to the Lord and are cleansed through the living stream the spiritual Bethesda? We do not tell them to take their ease and be at rest. Our Sabbath is not here; it is an eternal one in the heavens. The threescore and ten short years, which is our appointed time on earth, are our working days. And we would send every one away from our Bethesda with the injunction, "Rise, take up thy bed, and walk." We would say, Go and serve God by doing the duties of your calling, whatever they may be. Dare bravely to be singular in the cause of Him who died to save you. To be singular, in order to attract notice to yourself, is indeed folly, and it may be a sin; but to be singular in rendering obedience to the word of the Lord, as speaking to you through the precepts of Scripture and the injunctions of your Church this is the part of godliness. Let your answers to all gainsayers be the same in principle as his was who replied to the cavilling Jews, "He that made me whole, the same said unto me, Take up thy bed and walk; such a Benefactor I cannot distrust; and such a Benefactor I will, by God's help, in all things strive to obey."
W. F. Hook, Sermons on the Miracles,vol. i., p. 121.
Christian fear of relapse into sin
I. Consider what awful notions our Saviour would here impress on us concerning the future end and sore punishment of sin. Do so no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee. From what we read of the sufferings of him to whom this was said, it is plain with what peculiar force the expression would come home to him. "A worse thing:" worse, that is, than a palsy of eight-and-thirty years. Suppose the man never so thoughtless and ignorant, such a threat would naturally fill him with alarm. Coming as it did from One who had just before clearly shown His almighty power! it would set him upon meditating, more seriously than ever he had done, upon the infinite danger of offending God, and the absolute necessity of amending his ways.
II. Where the caution of our Lord is slighted, and the evil habit of a man, suspended only by the affliction, returns and grows over the man anew, or he falls into fresh transgressions, that man's case is worse in many respects than if he had never been visited at all. (1) First, his wickedness is greatly aggravated by his ingratitute for God's especial mercies. (2) As such a case is very bad in itself, so it has the worst possible effect. It sears and deadens the heart and conscience, rendering it more and more difficult for any good advice, either of God or man, to find its way into our thoughts. The evil spirit knows his advantage, and presses it, of course, more and more earnestly, with sullen thoughts of the hardship of Christian obedience. While the evil spirit is thus gaining strength, the good Spirit of God is gradually so grieved and vexed that He begins entirely to depart from those who will not listen to His gracious admonitions. And when God leaves a sinner to himself, we know too well what must follow. To all, therefore, who have been made whole by baptism, and not to those only who have been favoured with any signal temporal mercy, the Son of God here gives counsel, that they should make it very much their care to keep up a tender sense of the great things which have been done for them, the wretchedness from which they have been redeemed, and the continual danger of a relapse. It is in vain to think of continuing religious and improving in goodness as a matter of course; your heart must be steadfastly set upon that great blessing, and resolved to obey the good rules, by which only the Holy Spirit has taught us to obtain it.
Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times,"vol. i., p. 88.
References: John 5:14. J. M. Charlton, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xviii., p. 19. John 5:15. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. iii., p. 282. Joh 5:16-18. F. D. Maurice, The Gospel of St. John,p. 141.