Stop Sinning or Something Worse May Happen To You

This is a verse I have struggled with in the past - John 5:14. Jesus had healed an invalid earlier in the day, and later when he saw him, this is what Jesus said to him:

“See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.”

For a long time, I thought that meant a certain thing. And what I thought that meant, was something I didn’t like the way it sounded, but I always sort of just shrugged my shoulders about it. I used to think that what Jesus was essentially saying to the man was, listen, I just healed you, so you better shape up or I’m gonna let something even worse happen to you. And man, there are a TON of people out there who think this is exactly how God works! Either we toe the line, or He’ll strike us down with a trip to the hospital for pancreatitis or something. “Yeah, I saved you, but you better….or else…”

I always thought that was the message to the man that day, even though I didn’t really think Jesus operated like that. But I couldn’t make sense of it, so I never really paid much attention to it. I think the problem I had in my understanding was that I put limitations on the way that verse could be meant that Jesus didn’t himself put on it.

The “something worse” I always thought meant another physical malady. Something worse than being crippled or an “invalid.” Man, that Jesus is threatening that guy! No. I only assumed that it meant something physical. Throughout all of Jesus’ teachings, he constantly pointed out that the spiritual maladies that can happen to you are much worse than the physical ones. See these verses:

“Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.” (Matthew 10:28)

“What goes into your mouth does not defile you, but what comes out of your mouth, that is what defiles you.” (Matthew 15:11)

“If your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.” (Matthew 18:9)

These are all direct words Jesus spoke, so clearly he sees the dangers to your spiritual self as more threatening and serious than the dangers to your physical self. **He was NOT recommending you actually gouge your eye out in that last one - just talking about how much damage it can do.**

So, when he told the man “stop sinning or something worse may happen to you,” I think he was saying, your sins can cause something far worse then physical pain and suffering - and THAT is what you need to worry about the most. The sin in your life is going to put you at greater risk than anything.

How does that reconcile with grace? Jesus did say “stop sinning” - but that is SO hard, no, it’s impossible for us to do! Why would he give an impossible command to this guy? Matthew Henry said something that helped me in this passage. He said that lying as an invalid for 38 years as the man had, he had not had much opportunity to sin. The telling of this statement to him at this particular moment in his life was a way to encourage him in his time of greatest temptation. He had the capacity to go out and commit many sins he had previously be unable to do. Jesus was warning him that he should guard his heart and be careful at this time, lest something worse than his previous illness (something of spiritual gravity) befall him.

Jesus not only knew the physical problems this man was struggling with and attended to those needs, he also knew his spiritual struggles and attended to those. Jesus was never satisfied with just healing a physical body - he was always also attentive to the spiritual, for he knew those matters were greater in importance than the physical.

Interesting little verse to think about this morning…