John 5:1Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

It is not difficult to prove this by a careful comparison of the chapters. In one sign the Evangelist showed Him saving the Samaritans. In another, he showed Him bringing great benefit to the royal official in Galilee, and through him, of course, to its inhabitants.

Having thereby testified to the great readiness of the foreigners for obedient faith, he again leads the Wonderworker up to Jerusalem. He shows Him performing a work befitting God, namely, that He wondrously frees the paralytic from a long-standing illness, just as He freed the royal official's dying son.

But the royal official believed with his whole household and confessed Jesus as God. The Jews, instead of marveling, immediately plot death and persecute their Benefactor as an impious transgressor of the law.

They thereby lay judgment upon themselves for the foulness by which, in understanding and reverence toward Christ, they are shown to have fallen behind the foreigners.

This very thing is said of them in the Psalms, as though addressed to the Lord Jesus: "For You will make them turn their back" (Ps 20:13). Although placed first because of the election of the fathers, they will go after and behind the calling of the Gentiles.

For when "the fullness of the Gentiles has come in," then "all Israel will be saved" (Rom 11:25-26). Such is the meaning of the contemplations contained for us in the orderly arrangement of the chapters.

Now let us make a particular and exact investigation of the thoughts verse by verse.

While the Jews were keeping the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when it was their custom to slaughter the lamb, that is, during Passover, Christ withdrew from Jerusalem. He moved among the Samaritans and foreigners and taught among them, being offended by the stubbornness of the Pharisees.

Then, returning at the time of holy Pentecost, for this feast followed soon after Passover in Jerusalem, He healed at the waters of the pool the paralytic who had long remained in sickness. He was in his thirty-eighth year, though he had not yet reached the perfect number under the Law, by which I mean four decades, or forty.

At this point our explanation of the historical sense will stop, and we shall pass again to the spiritual contemplation of the type contained in the letter.

Jesus, offended, withdraws from Jerusalem after the slaughter of the lamb. He comes to the Samaritans and Galileans and preaches among them the saving teaching. What else does this wish to indicate?

It points to His withdrawal from the Jews after His slaughter and death on the precious Cross in Jerusalem. Then He gave Himself to the Gentiles and foreigners, giving His disciples the command to expect that He would appear after being made alive from the dead, because He goes before all into Galilee.

His return to Jerusalem at the end of the week of holy Pentecost again indicates, as in types and riddles, the future return, according to love for mankind, of our Savior to the Jews in the last times of the present age.

This will be when we, saved through faith in Him, celebrate the all-honored feasts in honor of His saving Passion.

He came to the place where a great multitude of sick people lay: the blind, the lame, and the withered. Although He was the Physician of souls and bodies, and had come to heal all the souls of believers, He chose one from among all the sick.

By this He showed the unity of the Church.

If we consider what He did with a simple heart, using human understanding and knowledge, then from the standpoint of His power He did nothing great. From the standpoint of His generosity, He did too little.

So many lay there, and He cared for only one, though by a single word He could have raised them all. What then should we think, except that His power and goodness acted chiefly so that souls might understand eternal salvation through His deeds?

It was not chiefly so that bodies might deserve passing health. For the true health of bodies, which is awaited from the Lord, will come at the end of the ages, at the resurrection of the dead.

Then he who lives will die no more. Then he who is healed will be sick no more. Then he who is nourished will hunger and thirst no more. Then he who is renewed will grow old no more.

But the eyes of the blind, opened then by the works of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, were closed again in death. The limbs of the paralytics, which then received strength, were destroyed in death.

Everything temporarily healed in mortal limbs finally passed away. But the soul that believed prepared its passage to eternal life.

Therefore, to that soul for whose forgiveness of sins He came, and which was ready to acknowledge that He humbled Himself for the healing of its bodily sicknesses, He gave a great sign in the healing of that sick man.

Concerning the deep meaning of this deed and sign, I will speak to you as far as the Lord grants by His generosity and as far as I am able. Listen attentively, and support my weakness by your prayer.

If I cannot interpret something, He will reveal it to you, by whose help I do what I can.

I remember that we have often enough discussed that pool surrounded by five porches, in which lay a great multitude of sick people. I am about to say what many together with me will remember rather than learn as something new.

Yet there is nothing wrong if what is already known is repeated, so that those who did not yet know may be enlightened, and those who already know may be strengthened in this knowledge.

Therefore I must touch briefly on what is already known, rather than examine it slowly.

It seems to me that that pool and that water signify the Jewish people. For "waters" is used as a name for peoples, as the Apocalypse of John shows us most clearly. When many waters were shown to him and he asked what they meant, he received the answer that they are peoples (cf. Rev 17:15).

Thus that water, that is, that people, was enclosed in the Pentateuch of Moses, as though in five porches. Yet those books showed the sick; they did not heal them.

For the Law accused sinners, but did not free them from sin. The letter without grace made men guilty, while grace freed from sins those who confessed them.

The Apostle speaks precisely about this: "For if a law had been given which could make alive, then righteousness would indeed be by the law" (Gal 3:21).

Why, then, was the Law given? He continues and says, "But the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise might be given to believers through faith in Jesus Christ" (Gal 3:22).

What could be clearer? Have these words not explained to us both the five porches and the multitude of the sick? The five porches are the Law.

Why did the five porches not heal the sick? Because "if a law had been given which could make alive, then righteousness would indeed be by the law."

Why did they hold those whom they did not heal? Because "the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise might be given to believers through faith in Jesus Christ."

What happened, then, that those who could not be healed in the porches were healed in the troubled water? The water was seen suddenly to be troubled, but He who troubled it was not seen.

You may think that this happened by the power of an Angel. Yet it was not without a certain mystery containing a sign. After the water was troubled, one man went down into it, and he alone was healed.

Whoever entered after him did so in vain. What does this mean, if not that Christ came alone to the Jewish people? By doing great works and teaching useful things, He troubled sinners.

By His presence He troubled the water and stirred them to violence against Himself. But He troubled them while remaining unknown.

"For if they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory" (1 Cor 2:8). Thus to descend into the troubled water means to believe humbly in the Lord's Passion.

There one man was healed, which pointed to the unity of the Church. Whoever came afterward was not healed, because anyone outside the unity of the Church cannot be healed.

Then, after He raised Lazarus from the dead and the Pharisees began to plot against Him, He withdrew to the city of Ephraim. From there, as it is written, six days before Passover He came to Bethany (Jn 11:54; Jn 12:1). From Bethany He went to Jerusalem, ate the Passover, and suffered on the next day.

Everyone will confirm that these three Passovers did not take place in one year.

It is well known that identifying the day mentioned by John in this passage is one of the most difficult problems of modern criticism. Some modern scholars think the Evangelist has in mind the feast of Purim. Yet, in general, the view expressed here by Irenaeus has always prevailed in the Church.

John Chrysostom, however, thought that this was the feast of Pentecost, as did Ammonius. Thus Christ was present at Passover four times after His baptism (Jn 2:13; Jn 5:1; Jn 6:4; Jn 13:1), which implies at least three years of ministry. We learn of the three-year ministry from John, not from the Synoptics.

“And Jesus went up to Jerusalem.” Pay attention to the word “went up.” Jesus went up, He who in the divine economy guides our progress and ascent to things above.

Since we have sunk into the passions and fallen into sin, Jesus goes up to Jerusalem, caring for our ascent from passions and sin to dispassion and virtue.

When we take thought for the good and practice righteousness, a feast is accomplished in our soul. The Angels gather there with us, and we attain the harbor of peace and salvation.

Therefore the feast mentioned in the verse under consideration must be one of the feasts between December and Passover, in March or April. This was probably Purim, which fell in March, on the fifteenth of Adar; compare Esth 9:21.

Chrysostom, Theophylact, and Euthymius Zigabenus suppose that it was the feast of Pentecost. Others point to other feasts.

Yet it is most probable that this was the feast of Passover, as among the ancients Irenaeus and Eusebius held.

The Orthodox Church recognizes that the Lord’s public ministry lasted three and a half years, basing this chiefly on the chronology of John’s Gospel. This number can result only if the feast mentioned here is understood as Passover.

There was about half a year from Christ’s baptism to the first Passover mentioned in chapter two. Then there was one year to the Passover mentioned in this chapter, a second year to the Passover mentioned in Jn 6:4, and a third year to the Passover at which Christ suffered.

Otherwise only two and a half years result. This opinion is shared by very many modern commentators, not only Catholic but also Protestant, and is defended as the most certain.

“Jesus went up to Jerusalem,” as He had the custom of going there for certain feasts, especially Passover. Here John supplements the accounts of the first three Evangelists, as also in his accounts of the first and third Passovers, which the first Evangelists do not mention at all.

John would all the more have named another feast here, since before this he had called Passover a feast in Jn 4:45; compare Jn 2:23.

Second, it had been said in Jn 4:35, “four months, and then the harvest.” At Passover barley bread was offered to the Lord, and afterward the barley was reaped. Four months earlier, in December, sowing began.

Third, St. Irenaeus, 2.39, firmly says that this feast was Passover, namely the second during Jesus’ ministry.

Fourth, no other feast can be meant here. It cannot be Pentecost, as Chrysostom and Cyril thought, because four months do not pass between Passover and Pentecost, Jn 4:35. Nor could the events described in Jn 2:23 through Jn 5:1 fit between the first Passover and Pentecost.

Nor can it be the feast of Tabernacles, which began on the fourteenth day of Tishri, in October. Although this feast was sometimes called “the feast” in Jn 7:10, 11, 14, 37, and by Josephus “the great feast,” John calls it “the feast” only after he has first named it directly as the feast of Tabernacles in Jn 7:2.

Nor can it be the feast of the Dedication of the temple, which began on the twenty-fifth of Kislev, in December. Nor can it be Purim, which occurred a month before Passover. These were not among the great feasts.