John 5:4Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

We see that much in the Old Testament was also performed by means of water for this purpose. But let us return to our subject.

As I said, God first established purification by water for bodily impurities, and afterward for various diseases as well. Wishing to bring us nearer and nearer to the grace of baptism, He now heals not only impurities, but also diseases.

Indeed, images nearer to the truth, that is, nearer in time to the New Testament, were generally clearer than the more ancient types. This is true regarding baptism, the Passion, and other matters.

As the shield-bearers nearest the king shine more brightly than those standing far away from him, so it was also with the foreshadowings.

An angel descended and troubled the water, giving it healing power, in order to teach the Jews that the Lord of angels can all the more heal every disease of the soul.

Here, it was not simply the natural power of water that healed. Otherwise this would have happened always. Rather, it healed through the action of the angel.

So also with us, the water does not act by itself. When it receives the grace of the Spirit, then it cleanses all sins.

Around this pool lay a great multitude of the sick, the blind, the lame, and the withered, waiting for the movement of the water.

Then weakness hindered the one who wished to receive healing. Now everyone may approach freely.

It is not an angel who troubles the water, but the Lord of angels who accomplishes all this. No sick man can now say, “I have no man, and when I am coming, another steps down before me” (Jn 5:7).

Even if the whole world were to gather, grace is not diminished and its power is not exhausted. It remains always the same as before.

As the rays of the sun shine every day and are not exhausted, so even more the power of the Spirit is not diminished at all by the multitude of those who receive it.

This was done so that those who saw bodily diseases healed by water, and experienced this for a long time, might more readily believe that diseases of the soul can also be healed.

He also gives the miracle of this pool, which guides them toward the reception of baptism.

The Angel, descending at certain times, troubled the water and gave it healing power. It was not from the nature of the water that it healed by itself, for then this would have happened always. Everything depended on the action of the Angel.

So also among us the water of baptism is simple water. Yet through the divine descent, having received the grace of the Spirit, it destroys the diseases of the soul.

If someone is blind, that is, if the eyes of his soul are damaged and he cannot distinguish good from evil, this water heals him.

If someone is lame, that is, unmoved toward doing good and progressing in good, it heals him. If someone is completely withered, that is, in a state of despair and having nothing good in himself, this water heals them all.

At that time weakness prevented some from receiving healing. Now we have no obstacle to baptism.

For when one is healed, the others are not left without healing. Even if the whole world came together, grace would not be diminished.

The troubling of the water in the pool signifies that the spirits of evil are troubled in it, crushed and trampled down by the grace of the Holy Spirit.

O that we too might receive health! We have become paralyzed and immobile toward every good work, and we have no man, that is, no human understanding, having become like irrational beasts.

May He cast us into the pool of tearful repentance. Whoever enters it first receives healing.

The one who hopes for a later time, delays repentance, and does not hasten to repent here, but comes late, does not receive healing.

Therefore strive to enter first, lest death overtake you.

The Angel troubles this pool of repentance. Which Angel? The Angel of the Father’s great counsel, Christ and Savior.

Unless the divine teaching touches our heart and troubles it by remembrance of the torments in the age to come, this pool will not be effective. Then health does not come to the paralyzed soul.

From Dan to Beersheba the ordinances were proclaimed through Moses, while Angels ministered on Mount Sinai on the day later established as holy Pentecost. For this reason the water of the pool was troubled at no other time, showing through this the descent of the holy Angels into it.

The water was stirred for those of little faith. To them it was a sign, to you it is faith. To them an angel descended, to you the Holy Spirit descends. For them the created thing was stirred, in you Christ acts, the Lord of creation Himself.

There one was healed, now all are healed. [...]

Therefore that pool also is a type, so that you may believe, for divine power descends upon this font as well.

What did the angel announce in this type, if not the descent of the Holy Spirit? In our time, invoked by priestly prayers, He sanctifies the waters.

Therefore that angel was the herald of the Holy Spirit, since through spiritual grace a remedy was to be given for our spiritual and psychic infirmities.

Therefore the Spirit has the same ministers as God the Father and Christ. Thus He fills all, thus He possesses all, thus He works in every way and in all, as God the Father works and as the Son works.

The former healed only at a fixed time, but this one heals always. The former healed at the descent of an Angel, but this one heals at the coming of the Holy Spirit, for the new sacred rites are greater than the old.

The Angel descended into the pool so that the Jews would not think that the water had healing power by nature. Rather, they were to believe that the grace of God heals the infirm.

He troubled the water in order to let those present know of his descent, so that they might cast the sick into the pool.

Why then did the Angel, every time he descended into the pool, heal only one person? The power of God is boundless, grace overabundant, mercy inexhaustible.

Why, I ask, was not everyone healed at the angelic troubling, but only one? Truly this is difficult to interpret unless we touch with reflection the mystical meaning of this action.

The pool at the Sheep Gate signified in the Church the mystical pool of holy baptism. The sheep washed and cleansed in that pool signified those baptized in the mystical font and washed from their sins.

The Angel’s descent into the pool signified the descent of the grace of the Holy Spirit into the water of baptism. The troubling of the water in it signified the crushing of the heads of invisible serpents, accomplished by the power of the Holy Spirit.

It was not the water of the Sheep Pool, but divine power, that healed bodily infirmities. Likewise, it is not simple water, but the grace of God in the water of baptism, that heals the wounds of the soul.

Because of the coming of the Angel, the pool’s water became healing. Because of the coming of the Holy Spirit, the water of baptism receives the grace of washing.

In the Sheep Pool the Angel was the minister of bodily healing. In the spiritual font the Master of all grants the grace of adoption.

The Sheep Pool healed only one person, because the law was given only for one Jewish race. The pool of baptism heals a countless multitude, because “their proclamation has gone out into all nations.”

“Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved, but he who does not believe will be condemned” (Mk 16:15-16).

But let us look further.

Thus, recognizing that it is impossible to explain the healings that occurred from time to time by the natural properties of this pool’s water, one must agree with the Evangelist. He has conveyed to us his own conviction, and that of his contemporaries, that the troubling of the water was produced by an angel, certainly by God’s command.

The sacred writers, and Jews generally, attributed special visible benefactions of God, shown in certain powers and actions of nature, to the special ministry and action of Angels. God appointed them to govern particular elements of nature.

What for others were actions of the elements of nature were, for their enlightened gaze, actions of Angels set over particular elements of nature.

So here also, the action of the Angel upon the water was invisible, external, and mysterious, perceived by faith. To appearance, however, it was accomplished by the action of the elements of nature themselves.

The spring, like many mineral springs, healed various diseases that did not yield to other ordinary remedies. Like some such springs, it acted with special force at certain times, periodically.

It seems that in this spring the water from time to time burst forth with special force and abundance. As a result it was troubled and became muddy, or red and bloody, as Eusebius says. At that time it became especially strong for healing various diseases.

This bursting forth in special abundance was the invisible action of God’s Angel. The seer of mysteries, the Apostle, interpreted it in this way. For others, however, it was the usual action of the elements of nature, as it seems also to have appeared to the sick man whom Christ healed there; see verse 7, “when the water is troubled.”

“Whoever first entered.” It seems the expression does not indicate that precisely only one person, the first who entered the water after it was troubled, received recovery.

Rather, it means generally that only immediately after the troubling did the water manifest a special and extraordinary healing property.

Then it lost its vigorous action, and only those who managed to enter it immediately after the troubling recovered. Afterward the water lost such power and did not show such extraordinary action.

“He was made well.” From the narrator’s words it is not clear that recovery occurred suddenly, at once, as an immediate miracle, as in the Savior’s healings of the sick.

Perhaps it was gradual, and the healing spring only gave it the first impulse. In this latter case, the instantaneous healing by the Savior of the sick man who lay there was all the more striking.

Therefore the Russian translation correctly expresses the thought of the original: “There is a pool by the Sheep Gate.” Bethesda, beth chisda, means house of beneficence.

Eusebius wrote of the pool: “The pool is shown even now in the same two basins, each of which is filled by the yearly rains. Each contains water of a strangely colored kind” (Onomasticon).

The words of verse 4 are absent from some manuscripts, according to Origen. Some remark: “It is not characteristic of John to introduce information that has no connection with his main thought” (Tholuck).

But this remark is incorrect. The information about the special character of the reservoir is connected with the miracle.

The Syriac translation, the Vulgate, Chrysostom, Cyril, Augustine, and an ancient scholion on Matthew read the fourth verse.

Whether the angel descended into the reservoir at a fixed time, at Passover, as Cyril of Alexandria thought, or at an undefined time, according to God’s will, as Zigabenus held, St. John gives no information.

He speaks indefinitely: “An angel at certain times,” κατὰ καιρόν, “went down into the pool.” In any case, the healing action of the water depended not on the water, but on the angel. This means that it was miraculous, as Tertullian and Chrysostom say.