Context No. 2484 of 4322 · John
Context · Reflection
John 5:12-17: in context
12Then they asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your mat and walk’?” 13But he who was healed didn’t know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, a crowd being in the place. 14Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “Behold, you are made well. Sin no more, so that nothing worse happens to you.” 15The man went away, and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. 16For this cause the Jews persecuted Jesus and sought to kill him, because he did these things on the Sabbath. 17But Jesus answered them, “My Father is still working, so I am working, too.”
A man who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years has just been healed at the pool, told by Jesus to pick up his mat and walk. Later Jesus finds him in the temple and adds something to the miracle: see, you are well again; sin no more, so that nothing worse happens to you. The healing was a gift, freely given; and now, having given it, Jesus calls the man to leave his sin behind.
Grace and a summons come together. Jesus did not make the man's healing conditional on his behavior, but neither does he leave him where he was morally, as if the gift had no claim on his life. Made well, the man is now called to live differently, sin no more. This is the shape of God's mercy throughout: it comes first, unearned, and then it calls. To take the healing and go back to the very thing is to treat grace as a permission slip rather than a rescue. The gift is real, and so is the call that follows it.
Have I received God's mercy and quietly returned to the very thing he healed me from, when he says, sin no more?
Sources
- John 5:14: Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, Behold, you are made well. Sin no more, so that nothing worse happens to you.
- John 5:8: Jesus said to him, Arise, take up your mat, and walk.
- Romans 6:1: What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? May it never be!