John 5:11Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

as though he were saying: you are talking nonsense and are out of your minds when you forbid me to regard as Teacher the One who healed me from such a long and serious illness, and to obey Him in whatever He commands me.

If he had wished to act deceitfully, he could have spoken otherwise. For example, he could have said, "I am not doing this of my own will, but by another's command. If this is a sin, accuse the one who commanded me, and I will leave my bed." He could also have hidden the miracle of the healing. He saw clearly that they were vexed not so much by the violation of the Sabbath as by the healing of the illness. Yet he neither hid the miracle nor spoke such words, nor did he ask their pardon. With a loud voice he acknowledged and proclaimed the benefit shown to him.

One must marvel at this man's boldness before the Jews. They insistently say to him, "It is not lawful for you to take up your bed on the Sabbath." But he boldly preaches his benefactor to them: "He who healed me said this to me."

It is as though he says, "You are out of your minds when you command me not to obey the One Who healed me from an illness so long and so difficult."

These words contain a wise meaning and expose the stubbornness of the Jews. Since it is not lawful, they say, to take up the bed and go home, they invent against the healed man an accusation of transgressing the law. Of necessity he sets against them a stronger defense, pointing out that the One who commanded him to walk had also proved to be the Giver of health.

In his defense, the man named to those reproaching him the Cause of his healing: "He who healed me said to me, Take up your bed and walk" (Jn 5:11).

"Was I not obliged to carry out the command of the One from Whom I received health?"

And they said to him, "Who is the Man who said to you, Take up your bed and walk?" (Jn 5:12).

Notice his boldness. He not only refused to obey them, but also proclaimed his benefactor and preferred Him to all, saying, "He said it to me; I obey Him." Having received healing, he was already ready to regard Him as greater than all.

I did not dare to do this of myself, he says, but my Physician told me, "Take up your bed and walk."

This served as the greatest rebuke to the Jews when he answered them in this way. The One Who has such authority that by one word alone He healed my long-standing and incurable illness also rightly has authority to set aside the Sabbath.

Such a divine and most almighty man would never have commanded me to take up my bed if He knew that such an action was a sin.

For this occasion in Jerusalem itself, the Lord chose the healing of a certain sick man who had already suffered for thirty-eight years (Jn 5), and He performed it deliberately on the Sabbath. Having freed him from illness, the Lord Himself commanded him to take up his bed and walk.

When the strict guardians of the external demands of the law and the traditions of the elders learned of this, they did not turn their attention to the divine healing. Instead, they took up the violation of the Sabbath rest. In their eyes this was a crime worthy of death, all the more because it was done before a multitude, at the feast.

Among the other sick people who lay by the pool awaiting the miraculous movement of the water, there was a man who had already been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus Christ saw him and addressed him with a word of warm concern, the sick man said regretfully that he had no man to put him into the pool when the water was troubled.

Then the Lord said to the paralytic, "Rise, take up your bed, and walk." Suddenly the sick man felt himself completely well. Immediately he rose, took up his bed, and walked.

The Jews, as the Evangelist John calls the Pharisees, Sadducees, elders, members of the Sanhedrin, and in general the Jews in authority who formed the party hostile to Jesus, had seen the paralytic many times as he suffered for thirty-eight years. Yet they did not marvel or rejoice when they saw him healthy. They did not ask, "How did this happen?" They were indignant that he had dared to break the Sabbath rest by carrying his bed, and they immediately rebuked him.

The healed man put them to shame, saying: "He who healed me, He said to me, 'Take up your bed and walk.' He who had authority to free me from a thirty-eight-year infirmity undoubtedly could also command me to carry my bed on the Sabbath. If this is a sin in your opinion, then ask Him who told me this."

But the happy man had no time for these petty casuists, and he answered them boldly: "He who healed me said to me, Take up your bed and walk."

"He who healed me," and so forth: the healed man answers boldly and soundly, appealing to the authority of the One Who healed him.

If He had the power to perform so great a miracle, instantly healing one who had been sick for thirty-eight years, then He is a great and extraordinary messenger of God. He knows what must and must not be done on the Sabbath according to the law.

If He commanded him to take up the bed on the Sabbath, then He must be obeyed without contradiction. This is what the healed man did.

It was a strong rebuke of the folly of those who forbade the recovered man to leave the place of his sufferings.

Verse 11. Strange upon strange are the ways of the clever Jewish teachers. "If a prophet tells you, transgress a commandment, listen to him, except in idolatry," say the rabbis (Sanhedrin f. 90).

But blasphemy against God, bloodthirsty hatred, and plundering the nations are not excepted?

In accordance with the rule of the teachers of the people, the healed man regarded his healing as the work of a prophet. He said, "He who healed me said, Take up your bed and walk."

A prophet restored health to a man who had been sick for thirty-eight years. This is a Prophet unseen in the line of prophets. How could one not listen to such a Prophet, if He commanded him, even on the Sabbath, to take up his bed? So thought the man who had been sick.

Here the oppressive influence of the ruling class over each individual member of the Jewish community clearly comes to the fore. It governed all his actions, even the smallest details of his private life. Necessarily joined to this dreadful system was constant spying on all the actions of the "despised am ha-aretz," as the learned called the people, that is, Jews who had not been in the corrupting schools.