John 5:9Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Yet even so you can see the faith of the paralytic. Hearing the word, "Take up your bed and walk," he did not laugh and say, "What does this mean?

An Angel descends and stirs the water, and heals only one. Do you, a man, hope to do more than Angels by a single command and word? This is pride, vainglory, and mockery."

But he said nothing of the kind, nor did he even think it. As soon as he heard, he immediately rose. Having received health, he did not disobey the command given to him: "Rise, take up your bed and walk" (Jn 5:8).

He does not require faith from him before the healing, as He did from some others, because the sick man had not yet seen Him perform a sign.

For when the Lord required faith from others, He did not require it before miracles, but after He had worked miracles before them.

See how he heard at once and believed. He did not think within himself or say, "Is He mocking me, commanding me to rise at once? I have not received healing in thirty-eight years of illness, and now shall I suddenly rise?"

He thought nothing of the kind, but believed and rose.

This is a commandment fitting for God and containing proof of power and authority above man. He does not pray for the end of the illness in the man lying there, lest He appear like one of the holy prophets. Rather, as Lord of hosts, He commands the healing with authority. He tells the healed man to go home rejoicing and to carry the bed on his shoulders, as a sign of the Healer's power for those who saw it.

The sick man immediately obeys the command. Through obedience and faith he obtains the grace most desired. Since in the preceding discussion we presented him as an image and type of the Jewish people, who would receive healing in later times, we must now offer an explanation corresponding in thought to the earlier interpretations.

So what, I ask you, is the meaning of the bed? What else but this: when he was paralyzed, he was carried on the bed, but when he was whole, he carried the bed. What did the Apostle say? "Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ" (Gal 6:2). Therefore the law of Christ is love, and the law of love is not fulfilled unless we bear one another's burdens.

"Supporting one another in love," he says, "endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" (Eph 4:2-3). When you were paralyzed, your neighbor carried you. You have been made whole, so carry your neighbor. "Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ." Thus, O man, you will fulfill what you lacked.

This command, fitting for God, is clear proof of the authority over man and the boundless might of the God-man Jesus. He neither calls upon nor entreats God His Father, as He did at the raising of Lazarus, solely lest those with Him think that He was a mere man, like one of the wonderworking prophets. Rather, He commands as Master of all and God: "Rise!"

At that very hour the sinews received their natural active strength. The vital spirit, according to its natural arrangement, separated from the blood and passed unhindered into all the members. The whole disorder of the bodily constitution was restored to natural harmony and order.

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.

By the pool lay many sick people thirsting for healing. From time to time an Angel of the Lord descended and troubled the water. The sick person who first entered the water afterward received healing.

The paralytic lies by the pool. For long years he waits for healing and does not receive it. Why? "I have no man." He has no man to lower him into the healing water. So the paralytic lies there, and God looks upon him.

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.

Christ meant help that was swifter and more effective. "Rise," He said, "take up your bed, and walk!" This was spoken in a tone that could not but be obeyed.

The gaze of the Speaker, His voice, and the commanding tone passed like an electric current through the exhausted limbs. It ran through the broken body, weakened by the suffering and sin of a whole life.

After thirty-eight years of paralysis, he instantly rose, took up his bed, and walked.

In joyful amazement he looked around to see his unknown benefactor. But the crowd was large, and Christ, seeking to avoid crude excitement among the people, quietly withdrew.

Verses 5-9. The thirty-eight years are the years of the unfortunate man's illness, not the years of his age, as some have thought. Otherwise the text would have read: ἦν δε τις ανθρωπος εν ασθενεια, τριακοντα και οκτω ετη εχων. Even that would not be wholly Greek. The Greeks said εχειν εν ασθενεια, not ειναι εν ὰσθενεία, when speaking of someone's sick condition (Xenophon, Cyrop. 6, 1, 20). In verse 6 the Evangelist says of the long suffering: πολον ηδη χρονον εχει.

"Rise! Take up your bed! Walk!" the Lord commands by creative power. The Lord gives the same three commands to the paralytic lowered through the roof of the house in Capernaum (Mt 9:6; Mk 2:11). In them is contained healing: "Rise." The return of strength: "Take up your bed." The complete restoration of health: "Walk."

It is rightly pointed out that the healing of the man who had been sick for thirty-eight years was manifested by the Lord on the Sabbath not by chance, but intentionally. In the same way, the healing of the man with the withered hand took place on the Sabbath (Mt 12:12-13), as did the healing of the woman "whom Satan had bound for eighteen years" (Lk 13:11-16), and the healing of the man blind from birth (Jn 9:14).