John 5:14

μετὰ ταῦτα. see on John 3:22; John 9:35. Probably the same day; we may suppose that one of his first acts after his cure would be to offer his thanks in the Temple. On John 5:13-14 S. Augustine writes, “It is difficult in a crowd to see Christ; a certain solitude is necessary for our mind; it is by a certain solitude of contemplation that God is seen.… He did not see Jesus in the crowd, he saw Him in the Temple. The Lord Jesus indeed saw him both in the crowd and in the Temple. The impotent man, however, does not know Jesus in the crowd; but he knows Him in the Temple.” For ἴδε see on John 1:29.

μηκέτι ἁμάρτανε. Present imperative; continue no longer in sin. Comp. [John 8:11,] John 20:17; 1 John 3:6 The man’s conscience would tell him what sin. Comp. [John 8:7]. What follows shews plainly not merely that physical suffering in the aggregate is the result of sin in the aggregate, but that this man’s 38 years of sickness were the result of his own sin. This was known to Christ’s heart-searching eye (John 2:24-25), but it is a conclusion which we may not draw without the clearest evidence in any given case. Suffering serves other ends than punishment: ‘whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth;’ and comp. John 9:3.

χεῖρον. Not necessarily hell: even in this life there might be a worse thing than the sickness which had consumed more than half man’s threescore and ten. So terrible are God’s judgments; so awful is our responsibility. Comp. Matthew 12:45; 2 Peter 2:20.